with tlie following statistics:—Tlie population of New¬ 
foundland is 175,000, out of which number 35,000 are fish¬ 
ermen. The average catch of fish each j r ear is 1,250,000 
quintals (112 pounds to the quintal), and the yield of cod 
oil three quarters of an imperial gallon for each quintal. 
The French send out 12,000 fishermen every spring to pros¬ 
ecute cod fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. All the 
fishing vessels arrive at St. Peters before commencing the 
fishing trips. The resident population of St. Peters is 
about 3,000. The French fishermen return, after their fish¬ 
ing voyage, to France about the 1st of October. The 
French also prosecute their cod fishing on the north and 
west parts of the island from Cape John to Cape Pay. No 
French are allowed to reside on that part of the island of 
Newfoundland known as the French shore. This spring 
of 1874 twenty-five large steamships and 214 sailing vessels 
intend prosecuting the seal fishing business, and their crews 
will number no less than 12,000 men. The average catch 
will be about 550,000 old and young seals, and the value of 
the seal oil and skins may be estimated at £600,000. The 
voyage for sailing vessels commences about the 5th of this 
month, steamships starting some five days later. Messrs. 
John Munn & Co., Harbor Grace, send out the largest fleet, 
and have the credit of manufacturing .the purest seal oil in 
the country. 
Mr. Carroll is the author of a most practical and compre¬ 
hensive treatise on the seal fishery, which contains many 
facts unknown to naturalists, a notice of which we trust 
shortly to present to our readers. 
-- 
MEN WITH TAILS. 
Fully thirty years ago, before Mr. Darwin had completed 
his theory of evolution and development, there came to 
Europe the story of a race of negroes, called Niam-Niams, 
who rejoiced in caudal appendages. Certain ludicrous facts 
were added to the descriptions of these people, who unable 
to sit down on account of their tails, were in the habit of 
carrying with them stools with small holes cut in them, 
through which the prolongation of their spines might pass. 
As the sources from whence the information was derived 
were of doubtful character, though sometimes advanced by 
the supporters of the Darwinian theory, anthropologists 
were inclined to ridicule the story. We are by no means 
prepared to state whether, when such cases aie found, such 
as of human beings having tails, it should be considered as 
indicative of a peculiar race, or to be due to an incidental 
cause or freak of nature, or whether it is a return to some 
old natural type. When, however, such caudal individuals 
are seen, since even their accidental presence is doubted, it 
is well worth recording. The interesting facts which fol¬ 
low in regard to two human beings, furnished us by our 
most trustworthy contributor, “Piseco,” we must accept as 
the most positive proof that individuals are found having 
prolong tions of the spinal column, for his evidence is be¬ 
yond cavil, and supported by truthful witnesses. We 
quote our correspondent: 
Washington, D. C. 
Editor Forest and Stream:— 
At the risk of injuring ray reputation for veracity, I propose to furnish 
the Forest and Stream with an account which, however strange, is ac¬ 
tually true, of some people I have met with. 
Fortunately I have among my friends, and you have among your read¬ 
ers, some of the most learned men in the land, who are at the same time 
—possibly because they are so learned—firm believers in, and supporters 
of the Darwinian theory of evolution and development, and 1 trust to 
them to come to my rescue with' argument, if my facts seem a little too 
strong. Briefly, I have in my knocking about-the world, met two persons 
with tails. 
One of said tails I saw distinctly, the other, as distinctly, I did not. 
The one I saw was in Africa. A party of four of us started early one 
bright forenocn to drive from Widdow’s Hotel in Cape Town, to a sunny 
little English town at YVynberg, where we proposed to enjoy an out-of- 
door dinner and return in the evening. About three or four miles from 
Cape Town we passed—as we had several others--a little collection of 
Hottentot huts, located under a cocoanut grove on the left side of the 
road. A number of little children, all naked, were playing between the 
road and the huts, and as we approached and passed, scuttled off rap¬ 
idly for the huts. One little fellow—boy or girl I don’t know which— 
about six or eight years of age, was not twenty feet from us, running, 
and we saw plainly that it had a prolongation of the spinal column, about 
two or tnree inches in length. This prolongation was pointed, some¬ 
thing in size and shape like a very taper finger and pointed nearly straight 
down. 
We were driving four-in-hand and at a gallop, and shot by rapidly. I 
shouted to the driver to stop, but we had got so far by, that the proposi¬ 
tion was voted down, and to my regret ever since we did not stop to in¬ 
vestigate. One other than myself saw what I saw, the others did not. 
In the other case, I was the guest of Mr. John Mitchell, a prominent 
resident of Pulo Penang, an island in the Straits of Malacca. A servant 
of the family was a woman of perhaps forty years of age, called Mary 
Andaman. She was a native of the Andaman Islands, and had been 
brought to Penang when but a little child. At that time Mary had a 
penchant for doing without clothing, and it was a well known fact that, 
she had so much of a prolongation of the spinal column that it was pop¬ 
ularly said ihat she had a tail. 
I heard of this from several and asked Mr, Mitchell about it. He said 
that it was true, but said that it was a subject seldom spoken of; that 
the woman, who was a respectable woman and member of the church, 
was very sensitive in regard to the matter, and for years had refused to 
submit to any examination, and was annoyed and angered by reference 
to it. I saw the woman, and I have perfect confidence in Mr. Mitchell. 
Piseco. 
—In a three-ball carom game of billiards at Tammany 
Hall on Wednesday night, betweeu Daly and Dion, Daly 
made the unprecedented run of 212 points in one inning. 
The game was 600 points, for $1,000 a side, on a Collender 
table. Daly won. In the 66tli inning, Dion was 547 to 
Daly’s 591, when Daly went out in the next inning. Daly’s 
best runs were 91, 43, 212; Dion’s, 26, 65, 39, 81; winner’s 
average, 9; time of game, four hours and ten minutes. 
--- 
—The “Duchess of Geneva,” the famous $40,000 cow, 
died at the farm, of Hon, Samuel Campbell, at New York 
Mills, on Friday, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
THE INTERNATIONAL MATCH—QUES¬ 
TION OF MEN AND ARMS. 
N OW that the challenge from the Irish eight to Ameri¬ 
can riflemen has taken definite shape (see details in 
another portion of the paper), it devolves upon our leading 
gun manufacturers to see that the experts in whose hands 
their arms are placed, who are to represent America in the 
contest, shall lack nothing which mechanical or scientific 
skill can furnish, so that their representatives shall find 
themselves possessed of such arms as to place them on a 
perfect equality with their foreign competitors. 
From present appearances, the contest will go further 
than the mere trial of personal skill between expert rifle¬ 
men of different nationalities. It must resolve itself into 
an absolute trial, which must decide at least for a while the 
merits of muzzle and breech loading rifles. It is the Rem¬ 
ington, the Sharpe, the Ward-Burton, or any other rifle, 
all breech loaders, against the very excellent Irish Rigby 
muzzle loader. Our best shots at Creedmoor are yet di¬ 
vided upon the relative merits of their arms, as they all 
present certain points of excellence. It is quite evident 
from the scores published by us that our breech loaders are 
quite equal to the best muzzle loaders at short ranges, and 
that they already approach very closely the performance of 
the latter, even at long ranges, taking into consideration 
the very short practice our own men have had at distances 
of eight hundred yards and upwards. As far as our mili¬ 
tary arms have been tested as target rifles, they have been 
found to be quite as good as the best muzzle loaders, but no 
better opportunity will ever be afforded to settle this ques¬ 
tion than the coming match, which will, in addition to its 
national character, tend very much to settle, at least as far 
as public opinion goes, which is the best of our own pecu¬ 
liar systems. 
The Messrs. Remingtons, the Sharpes Manufacturing 
Company, and Mr. Ward Burton, or whatever leading rifle 
makers may bring their weapons into the contest, must 
bestir themselves. The existing sights on our rifles will 
not bear a comparison with those used on the Rigby or Med¬ 
ford arms. No matter how admirable may be the other 
mechanical details of our arm, the want of a carefully con¬ 
structed sight must put our most skilled men to a disad¬ 
vantage. We have every reason to believe that all our cel¬ 
ebrated rifle manufacturers will have ready very shortly 
carefully made sights. This is, however, not even yet en¬ 
tirely sufficient. While in England the mild winter and the 
long twilight allow practice much longer than with us, giv¬ 
ing their riflemen time to adjust their sights and to rectify 
the slightest errors, we in the United States have a much 
more limited period for rifle exercise. Our own arm mak¬ 
ers should, just as soon as the opportunity presents itself, 
take their rifles in hand and experiment with them. Our 
American sights should he divided with uniform scales, 
presenting minutes and seconds, or subdivisions of an inch, 
the former being preferable as affording a means of com¬ 
parison with the table of elevations, and with allowances 
made for wind at different ranges, as found in the'various 
standard works on rifle practice. From this scale a table 
should be made, deduced from actual experiment by an ex¬ 
pert, which would give the exact elevations required at 
different ranges, with barrels of a given length, and with, 
certain calibres, or with specific charges; also the allow¬ 
ances to be made for differences in temperature or effects 
caused by cloudy or clear weather, or by the wind, all of 
which should be furnished to each rifleman. If this is 
done, the practice of our riflemen resolves itself into the 
study of the idiosyncracies of their particular rifles, for 
every rifle shoots a little differently, and as we have no 
time to spare, if our rifle makers would work out these 
points for us, such as the English and Irish rifle manufac¬ 
turers have done, we should save much work and he much 
more certain of success. Measures of this character would 
give, too, to our riflemen who may enter into this interna¬ 
tional contest a chance of making comparisons. How often 
it happens at Creedmoor that A hits a centre while B makes 
but an outer. B then asks A where he has his sight to? 
and receives this reply from A:—“About an eighth of an 
inch from the top.” This, in delicate long range shooting, 
gives no assistance at all, as who can judge exactly what 
“about an eighth of an inch” really is. Very probably, 
however, B fires again, having changed liis sight to about 
the eighth of an inch, and never gets on the target at all. 
We believe that if what we suggest to our rifle manufac¬ 
turers is carried out, that carefully constructed sights be 
made for their arms, sights which allow the slightest varia¬ 
tions to he recorded, and these rifles be thoroughly tested 
by the manufacturers at long range, and then given to our 
men for use, if defeated we are we will be beaten but by 
very little. If we examine the best scores published in the 
last report of the English National Rifle Association, they 
will be found to be really no better than those of our own 
Amateur Club. All that is required is a good weapon and 
a good amount of practice. As the match will take place 
in September there is plenty of time for us to get to work. 
We sing then, truly, "arma mrumque The experts 
we have, but who has the best rifle? Who will send a rifle 
fully equal to the Rigby as to carefully constructed sights? 
In the construction of our breech loading barrels, their 
mechanism, and the projectiles themselves, nothing ; s want¬ 
ing. The gist of the whole matter lies with the sights and 
the adjustments. Get these sights, then, up to what is per¬ 
fectly possible as to accuracy, and when September comes 
perhaps our Irish friends mav find a stubborn foe. 
- ———-— 
—Honest clucks dip their heads under water to liquidate 
their title tills, 
57 
PROFESSOR BAIRD’S PANTHER FEAST. 
W E have a taxidermist friend of not only an inquisi¬ 
tive but most daring frame of mind. Some years ago 
we received a letter from him, which was as follows: 
“Pray dine with me. Such a lucky chance. The menag¬ 
erie has burnt up. You have long wanted to taste tiger, 
now is your chance. I have even a bit of lion lliftik; and a 
rib of giraffe. Yes, sir, and an elephant foot! Dinner at 
six, sharp.” We came and dined. The tiger was fearful, 
fearful, the lion was disgusting, the camel-leopard was 
passible, but the elephant was delicious. We picked the 
bones, and wanted to put the strange articulations in our 
pocket, but this our amphytrion sternly forbade. “You 
can eat all you want,” he said, “but must take noth¬ 
ing away in your pocket.” Professor Baird, it seems, has 
been giving his friends a panther dinner, and the Tribune 
correspondent gives an amusing account of it, and how the 
learned Professor proposes “to propagate panthers, so that 
every family in Washington might keep a few, or as many 
as he wanted.” 4 ‘‘Be gustibus non dispatandum ,” and though 
Mr. Batty tells us that gizzly “is just as nice a thing as you 
can eat,” and a travelled friend assures us “that a milk-fed 
puppy, in the celestial country or even among the Crees, is 
nice,” still for the present and for the future, having had 
quite a nauseating experience as to the flavor and savor of 
strange animals, we shall remain contented with the more 
common and hum-drum beef, mutton and turkey. Though 
we can eat crow, we don’t hanker after it. 
-- 
“Pol Smith,” of St. Regis. —A correspondent at Ma¬ 
lone, New York, encloses us some leaves from a copy of 
Dickens “All the Year Round,” for 1860, which contains 
an interesting article on the then primitive hunting grounds 
of the Adirondack region, in which the now famous find 
popular landlord of St. Regis appears in the role of guide, 
cook, etc. It refers kindly to his initial efforts in keeping 
a hotel, the many trials and difficulties which he met and 
overcome, the funny experiences of the writer in company 
with “mine host,” and gives most truthful pen portraits of 
localities and persons whose names have since become 
household words. Wc should be glad to reproduce the enti re 
article, and would do so but for lack of space and the fact that 
it would be but a repetition of oft-told descriptions which 
all know by heart, either from their own or others’ experi¬ 
ence. We print merely that introductory portion which, 
refers to Paul’s early beginning, and this the thousands of 
guests who have enjoyed his hospitality will read with 
pleasure, and with the perusal learn to respect their genial 
and indomitable host the more. We quote:— 
Apollos Smith was our guide on ray first tramp among 
the Adirondack Mountains in New York. He is a famous 
fellow, Polios, or Paul, as he is called. A tall athletic Yan¬ 
kee, with no superfluous flesh about him, raw-boned, with a 
good-natured twinkle in his blue eye, brimful of genuine 
Yankee humour; he has no bad habits, and is, witlia’, 
the best rifle-shot, paddler, and compounder of forest stews 
in the whole region. Let me tell his last exploit. In Yan¬ 
kee parlance, he was “courting a gal,” and in a strait to 
get married, so he resolved to build him a hotel, and settle. 
He knew a little lake, or rather pond, on the middle branch 
of the St. Regis River suited to liis purpose. There was a 
Jog shanty on it, with two springs close by; it was in a part 
of the forest little hunted, and abounding in deer and trout, 
and it communicated directly with the great St. Regis 
Lake, and other ponds. The winter in those elevated 
regions is almost Arctic. In the month of January, 1859, 
lie plunged into the forest with two lumbermen, took pos¬ 
session of the shanty, and began his clearing. The snow 
was five or six feet deep, and the cold intense. They felled 
the gigantic trees, pines, hemlocks, firs, and cedars, cut 
out beams, split shingles, and laid the foundation of a 
large house on the bank of the lake. The boards' were 
sawn at a mill down the river. They cut out a road 
through the wilderness to the nearest point of a neglected 
military road, which traverses the St. Regis country from 
Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence. During this time 
Smith, as he has told me, went a courting every Sunday, a 
trifle of thirty miles, sometimes on snow-shoes. He also 
went to New York and selected his furniture, besides visit¬ 
ing Boston. The house, a large frame building, was com¬ 
pleted and furnished, and Paul was married and settled, 
before June. 
- «*»-•*>- -- 
V Large Antlers. —Last summer, in tlie large hall of the 
Rossin House, at Toronto, stood a pair of elk horns of 
wonderful symmetry and size, but which now decorate one 
of the elegant private mansions of that city. These mea¬ 
sured, in extreme height, four feet nine inches; extreme 
width, five feet two inches; thickness of horn at the butt 
near the skull, four and three quarter inches in diameter, 
and weighed fifty-six pounds ! By their bleached and 
weather-Avorn appearance, they must have lain exposed to 
the elements for many years before they were found, so 
that their original weight was probably much greater, and 
their length must have been fully five feet. Curiosity led 
us to enquire their history, and we learned from Mr. 
Shears, the proprietor of the Rossin, who is one of the most 
thorough and indefatigable sportsmen in Canada, that in 
the month of August of last year, while at Prince Arthur’s 
Landing, on* the north shore of Lake Superior, he came 
upon a group of Indians with these antlers in their posses¬ 
sion, which they offered for sale. This single fact of tlieir 
being valued by the Indians as a curiosity, indicated that 
the size was remarkable, and so the antlers were purchased, 
(for a mere song,) and transferred to the grand hall of the 
“Rossin House,” Avliere they were admired, wondered at, 
and commented upon, and the general opinion seemed to 
coincide with that of a long lean Yankee, who said: “I 
guess them ere horns be as big as they git!” The Indians 
said they found the antlers early in the spring in the “Big 
Woods,” far to the north of Lake Superior. 
