850 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
Devoted to Feuldand Aquatic Sports, Practtoai. Natural 
Histoby, Fish Culture, the Protection op Game, preserva¬ 
tion of forests, and the Inculcation in Men and Women op 
a Healthy Interest in Out-Door Kecheation and Study : 
PUBLISHED BY 
FOREST AN1) STREAM PUBLISHING COMTANT, 
—AT— 
No. 1U FULTON STREET, NEW YORK. 
[Post Office Box 2833.1 
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brief editorial notice calling attention thereto,and sending marked 
copy to us, will receive the Forest and Stream for one year. 
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1879, 
To Correspondents. 
All communications whatever, Intended forpnblication, must be 
accompanied with real name of the writer as asuaranty of good 
faith and bo addressed to Forest and Stream Publishing Com- 
pany. Names will not be published If objection be made. Anony 
mous communications will not be regarded. 
We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 
Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us wtih 
brief notes of their movements and transactions. 
Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 
may not be read with propriety in the home circle. 
•We cannotbe responsible for dereliction of mail service if money 
remited to us is lost. _ 
¥£T Trade BuppUed by American News Company. 
Thanksgiving. 
T HE most brilliant politician never conceived the 
idea of making the Annual Thanksgiving Proclama¬ 
tion a party issue; for it was never urged against the 
most sordid and morose candidate for the gubernatorial 
chair, that having no good cheer in his own heart he 
might refuse to set apart this day of kindly sentiment, 
when chill November should have succeeded the rich 
October days. And what eternal obloquy would follow 
His Excellency who should forget to call upon the people 
to give thanks ! For in New England, particularly, this 
Thursday in November is the one season of the year for 
the gathering of the sons and daughters and grandsons 
and grand-daughterB, cousins and uncles and brothers-in- 
law, and the whole family tribe, hack to the old homestead. 
The day is one of tender memories. As one Thanksgiving 
succeeds another, some old places about the family board 
become vacant, or are filled by new faces ; and with the 
joy and merriment of the day mingles oft-times the tender 
regret and the longing for one look from the dear eyes 
now closed forever. The Thanksgiving Day festival is 
like a wayside inn, where the travellers pause in their 
pilgrimages, rehearse the incidents of the way, and take 
heart for the toil before them. 
We have already spoken of the change in the mode of 
celebrating our holiday festivals. They are losing, in 
large measure, their religious character, and are being 
merged into seasons of sport. This day especially is 
looked forward to by sportsmen as a field holiday, and 
to-day the fields are resounding with the report of shot 
gun and rifle. Its plaoe in the calendar gives to this 
November anniversary advantages as a field-day over all 
the others which are recognized in our American year. 
There is a sensible invigoration in the air ; it quickens 
the step and expands the soul. The man who takes this 
one day from his business to get a sniff of fresh air, a 
look at the country, and mayhap, a bird for his bag is a 
better man ten times over when he comes homes tired 
and hungry, but thankful. 
Sometimes people express a natural surprise at the 
large circulation of the Forest and Stream, a “sports¬ 
men's" paper; they did not known there were so 
many sportsmen. Ask them what they mean by that 
term, and they are at a loss. Sportsmen is to them 
vaguely an idle fellow, who shoots and fishes and lounges 
around the village tavern, smokes a huge pipe incessantly, 
and drinks between times. Did these people only see the 
letter-heads which come to us, under which are written 
correspondence for every part of the paper, they would 
soon alter their notions about the American Sportsman. 
They would find here a busy lawyer, snatching a moment 
from his briefs to put in a rejoinder to that fellow who 
wrote about penetration last week, a clergymen leaving 
his sermon to dabble in a game law controversy, a phy¬ 
sician scribbling a game note on the way to his patient, 
merchants who stick to their counter fifty-one and one- 
half weeks in the year, and go off shooting the rest of the 
time, and the busy, hard-working men of every trade and 
profession who accomplish the work of the world. These 
are the American sportsmen, to whom a holiday in the 
fields means respite from toil and care. Would it not be 
an excellent plan for one of our political parties to nom¬ 
inate a'govemor who will give two Thanksgivings ? Every 
sportsman without distinction of other political belief, 
will “scratch ’’ the regular ticket in favor of that man, 
DURATION OF LIFE IN ANIMALS. 
A T the recent meeting of the British Sanitary Con¬ 
gress, held at Croydon, an interesting address was 
delivered by the President, Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., 
who, under the title “ Salutland,” sketched an ideal coun¬ 
try, polity, and people. This fancy sketch reminds one 
in its general plan somewhat of the “Frankville ” of Dr. 
Sarrasen, one of the most recent of the many absurdities 
from the pen of Jules Verne, but, while of course wholly 
imaginary, it points out what improvements the race may 
reasonably hope to make during the next two or three 
centuries, and draws a pleasant picture of the possible 
condition of things at the end of that time. 
In the introduction to his sketch, Dr. Richardson re¬ 
ferred to the ordinary age to which man attained, and 
mentioned in this connection a number of facts respect¬ 
ing the duration of life in some animals, which have been 
brought to light mainly by Flourens and Owens. The 
latter has shown in a recent paper in the Geological Mag¬ 
azine that the average life of the hippotamus is thirty 
years. This fact was arrived at by taking into considera¬ 
tion the dentition of the animal, the age at which the 
teeth are renewed, and their natural wearing out, the 
period of gestation, the development of the skeleton, par¬ 
ticularly with reference to the age at which the epiphyses 
become firmly united to the shafts of the bones; and 
lastly, the pathological condition of an animal that has 
reached full longevity, to discover whether death was at¬ 
tributable to disease in any particular organ, or merely to 
a general decay and breaking down of the system from old 
age alone. In the hippopotamus which died not very long 
ago in the Zoological Gardens in London, and which was 
known to have passed the age of thirty, Prof. Owen found 
that the teeth were much worn down, that all the hones 
of the skeleton were consolidated, and that all the organs 
of the body were equally degenerated, so that death oc¬ 
curred not from the weakness or disease of anyparticular 
organ, but from the general giving way of all the parts. 
He therefore concluded that the term of life of this spe¬ 
cies was to be set at thirty yearn, a conclusion which 
agrees with all the facts known in respect to this animal. 
An animal may be considered as fully mature when 
the skeleton is perfected ; that is,'when the epiphyses, 
or loose terminal portions of the bones, are firmly united 
with their shafts; and Flourens has laid down the law 
that the natural term of life of any animal is five times 
the period which precedes perfected maturity. So that, 
when we know the age at which any mammal becomes 
mature, it is easy;to calculate the age to which it may at¬ 
tain. On this basis the elephant, which becomes mature 
at a little past thirty, should live to be more than one 
hundred one fifty years old ; the camel, mature at eight, 
has reached full life at forty ; the horse, mature at five, 
reaches full life at twenty five; the lion and the ox 
should live twenty years ; the dog at least ten ; the cat, 
seven and a half ; the rabbit, five. 
Now, on this basis, it is evident that man, who is ma¬ 
ture at twenty, or soon after, should live one hundred 
years; and Dr.fRichardson, in view of the facts briefly 
summarised above, is led to conclude “ that man, even 
in this stage of his probation on the planet, is naturally 
destined to walk upon .it, endowed with sensibilities of 
life and intelligence, for a period of one hundred years, 
and that until he realizes this destiny practioally, he is in 
value of physical life actually degraded far below his 
earth-mates, whom he designates as the brute creation, 
and over whom lie presumes to exercise his, to them, 
almighty will.” 
It appears then, if these calculations are to be trusted, 
that man dies when he has lived only to the beginning o 
the second third of the natural term of his life. It is as 
if the elephant were to die at sixty, the camel at sixteen, 
the horse at ten, the dog at four, and the rabbit at two. 
It iB true that we sometimes see a case where a man 
really does live out his full life ; but how rare it is, and 
how we wonder at it 1 Man is, in truth, reckless of life, 
and gives it up early and easily. 
Anri what is the remedy for this brevity of life ? Must 
man continue to perish just as he has reached his full 
powers, and has succeeded in storing his mind with knowl- | 
edge and experience of the highest value to his fellows ? 
Is there no remedy for the state of things to which we 
have called attention ? These are questions for the sani¬ 
tarians to answer ; but as yet we look in vain for a reply. 
Recent Facts About Anesthetics.— The third report 
on the action of anaesthetics to the Scientific Grants Com¬ 
mittee of the British Medical Association has been made 
recently, the report embracing the results of investigat¬ 
ing the condition of the blood pressure in animals under 
the influence of chloroform, ethidine and ether. The ex¬ 
periments, which were made upon rabbits and dogs, 
seem to have been performed with great care, and give 
rise to the following conclusions : Ether, when adminis¬ 
tered to animals, has no appreciable effect in reducing 
blood pressure ; chloroform and ethidine have a decided 
effect in that direction. Chloroform has sometimes an 
unexpected and apparently capricious effect on the heart’s 
action. The occurrence of these; sudden and unlooked- 
for effects is a source of serious danger, because the blood 
pressure is with great rapidity reduced to almost zero, 
while the pulsations are greatly retarded or even stopped. 
Bv ethidine the reduction of blood pressure is not, so far 
as has been observed, through sudden and unexpected 
depressions. Chloroform may cause death by primarily 
paralyzing either the heart or the respiration. Although 
not free from danger on the side of the heart and the 
respiration, ethidine is in a very high degree safer than 
chloroform, inasmuch as the former does not compro¬ 
mise the heart as does the latter. A legitimate deduction 
from the facts given is that ether is by far the safest of 
the three anaesthetics used, and that ethidine is much 
safer than chloroform and equally efficient. 
A Millionaire's Aviary.— Peter Goeiet died lari week. 
Peter Goeiet was worth all the way from $12,000,000 to 
$20,000,000—we would be satisfied ourselves with the 
lower estimate. He thought a great deal of his money ; 
so much that he never spent a cent when he could save 
it. We couldn’t begin to tell how much real estate in 
New York belonged to him; it was a principle of his life 
never to sell an inch of land once in the possession of the 
Goeiet family. He lived alone in a house on Broadway, 
just above Madison Square. The dwelling stood apart in 
a large yard in the midst of stores and business houses, 
and the Broadway passers used to Stop to peep through 
the iron railing at Peter Goelet’s companions. Tlieee 
were pheasants from India, storks from Egypt, Guinea 
fowds and rare birds from all over the world. A magnifi¬ 
cent milch cow contentedly chewed her cud and reigned 
over the enclosure. In winter the cow was housed in a 
barn back of the house, and the birds were safely shel¬ 
tered in the upper chambers of the house and fed from 
the hand of Peter Goeiet, late millionaire poultry fancier, 
now gathered to his fathers. N. B.—When a man is 
gathered to his fathers, his money is gathered to his 
children. _ M | 
Guns and Telephones.— The sportsman is always ahead. 
He is the man who puts into best uses the latest invention 
of the age. Here is an incident Bhowing this. Mr. 
Robert A. Packer, the Superintendent of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad, has been hunting with a party of friends in 
far-away Nebraska. A few days ago he sat in the tele¬ 
graph office at North Bend in that State, and talked for 
two hours with his wife and friends at Saye, Pa., two 
thousand miles distant. The telephone connection was 
made by the railroad and Western Union wires— 
North Bend to Chicago, thence to Perth Amboy, N. J., to 
Easton, Bethlehem and Sayre, Pa. We are living in a 
wonderful age. 
Springfield Rod and Gun Club.— Enclosing us a bill 
of fare of their sixth annual dinner, E. H. Lathrop, Esq., 
the President of the Rod and Gun Club of Springfield, 
Mass., says ; “ Yonsee, we still keep it up.” If by that 
is meant that at the date of the letter (Nov. 21st), the 
club were still making merry around the hoard, which, 
according to the bill, was spread Nov. 18th, we are of the 
opinion that they are still keeping it up, and our advice 
to them is to let it down again. 
By the way, the Japanese style of illustration now so 
much in vogue serves admirably for sportsmen’s bills of 
fare. The one now before ns has numerous designs, all 
as apropos as if engraved specially for the occasion. 
New Year’s Presents for Sportsmen.— Any new 
subscribers sending ns $4 by January 1st will receive the 
Forest and Stream for the thirteen months from date 
to January, 1881. Parents cannot give their sons (and 
daughters, too ; see our Women’s Column) a more useful 
and entertaining holiday present than a year’s subscrip¬ 
tion to this journal. It teaches the young idea how to 
shoot and gives general information on all subjects relat¬ 
ing to field sports and natural history. 
—Six hundred years ago in England a pheasant cost 
about as much in the market as did a fat lamb. Now the 
market quotations show a great difference, but we have 
known men to spend as much money to secure one poor 
bird as would buy a half dozen sheep. 
