362 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



(JUNE 5, 1884. 



fyt M^ or ^ n l m W om i$t. 



UNCLE LISHA'S SHOP. 



i. 



AFTER his adventures with the hear, which some of the 

 readers of Forest and Stream may remember, Uncle 

 Lisha Pegg's shop became a sort of sportsman's exchange, 

 where, as one of the fraternity expressed it, the hunters and 

 fishermen of the widely scattered neighborhood met of even- 

 ings and dull out-door days "to swap lies." Almost every- 

 one had a story to tell, but a few only listened and laughed, 

 grunted, or commented as the tale told was good, bad or of 

 doubtful authenticity. And so one October evening, as the 

 rising hunter's moon was streaking the western slopes with 

 shadows of evergreen spires and long paths of white moon- 

 light, Uncle LishVs callers began to drop in by ones and twos. 

 The first comer got (he best seat, the broken-backed chair, 

 the next the second best, so accounted, the chair with three 

 legs, though the occupant had to give so much thought to the 

 keeping of his balance, that he sometimes tumbled to the floor 

 when the laugh came in. The later comers had the choice 

 of seats on a roll of sole leather, the cold box-stove, or a 

 board laid across the tub in which Lisha soaked his leather, 

 and the latest the floor with the privilege of lying at length 

 upon it or setting their backs against the plastered wall. So 

 were disposed a half score of the old cordwainer's neighbors, 

 thus far doing little but smoke, chew and silently watch 

 Lisha as he hammered out, shaped and pegged on the tap of 

 a travel-worn boot as intently as if they were taking lessons 

 in the craft, when Antoine Bassete entered with a polite 

 "Goodeveliu, Oncle Lashajgood evelin, all de ghoutemans." 

 Then as he looked about he drew forth from one pocket his 

 short black pipe, from another his knife with which he 

 scraped out the pipe and emptied it on the stove hearth, 

 then he got out from another a twist of greenish-black 

 tobacco, and whittling off a charge and grinding it between 

 his palms, filled and lighted his pipe at Lisha's candle with 

 such sturdy pulls that the little dip seemed likelier to be 

 quenched than to longer "shine like a good deed in a 

 naughty worid " 



"Git aout! ye dummed peasouper," Lisha shouted, after 

 pounding his fingers instead of a peg in the uncertain light, 

 "you'll hev us all in total moonlight fust ye know ! Take a 

 match er a splinter an' light yer pipe like white folks, stiddy 

 suckin my candle aout. Don't ye know what the feller said 

 at was goin' f be hung in ten minutes, when they gin him 

 a candle t' light his pipe with? He says, sez he, 'gimme a 

 match if ye please, 'taint healthy t' light a pipe with a can- 

 dle' sez he. Take keer "f yer health, Ann Twine, f that 'ere 

 Canady G-ov'ner '11 want ye t' be wuth hangin' when he gits 

 a holt on ye." 



"Hah, naow, Oncle Lasha," said Antoine, "dat wus too 

 bad faw you talk so to me. Who help you w'en dat bear 

 keel you, hein?" 



" Wal, yes," Lisha rejoined, "ye did help, sartin; the bear 

 an' I done the fightin' an' yeou done the runnin'. Yeou larnt 

 how to dew that in the Pap'neau war, an' ye larnt it well, 

 Ann Twine; ye don't need no more lessons." 



"Wal ah do seh! Ah wan' some bodee show me haow ah 

 run wid dem boot you mek me 'f ah don' cah heem in mah 

 ban' an' den he pooty heavy. But, gosh ! wa' heem on may 

 foots? Ah, jus' leave wa' two store like dat. He be jus' so 

 sof, jus' so not heavy." 



"Haow d' ye 'spose any body could fit yer dummed Canuck 

 feet arter ye'd wore souyaas ever sen' ye w^s weaned, ker- 

 splash, ker-spotter, till yer feet 'as wider'n they was long? 

 Yeou git ye some babeesh an' I'll give ye ten sides o' sole 

 luther, an' then ye can make ye some souyaas, 'n' then put 

 on yer ole trouses '1 ye could carry a week's p' vision in the 

 seat on, an' be a Canuck; ye can't be a 'Merican, no ways." 



"Ah, Oncle Lasha! You pooty bad hole man. Haow 

 you feel dat time you tink you dead? Wha' yo tink you 

 go? A'nt you sorry you don't was been mo' gooder? Wha' 

 you tink you go, hein? 



"I do' know," Uncle Lisha slowly responded; "but I 

 hoped I'd go where the' w r a'n't no Canucks!" 



"Dah! dah! Oncle Lasha; you so weeked no use talk to 

 you," cried Antoine, when the laugh in which he joined had 

 subsided ; " 'f you tole dat leet' story you beegin dat night, 

 ah won't said|jno mo' ; you leave off rat in meedle w'en de bear 



"Oh, sartin, Oncle Lasha; ah don' b'leeve you tole lie no 

 more as ah do; no, sah." 



'•Humph!" Lisha grunted, "I never knowed but one 

 Cauuck but what 'ould lie." 



"An' dat was me. Oncle Lasha?" 



"No sir] He was a dead one! Wal, the' was a shoemaker 



Julv to go t' Colonel Leavenworth great shearin'. He kep 



more 'n tew strawb'ries a piece, 'n' they was dried apples. 

 Wal the shoemaker come with his knife keener 'n ever, an 

 the ban's and comp'uy bed all got washed up for dinner with 

 the' clean clo's on, an' stood 'raound watchiu' on him cut 

 the bread, ker slice, ker slice, faster 'n a gal could pick up 

 the slices, off 'm a loaf 't he hel' agin his breast. He done it 

 so neat 't they cheered him, which he got kinder 'xcited an 

 tried t' cut fa'ster 'n ever, an' the next lick he gin the loaf lie 

 cut hisself clean intew, an' the man 'at stood behind him 

 clean intew, an' badly wounded the next one. They sot 

 tew an' stuck 'em together so 't they lived, but it spilte the 

 shoemaker's bread cuttiu' business, an' he hed to go back to 

 shoemakin' an' starvin', julluck me." 



"Wal sah, Oncle Lasha," cried Antoine, emphasizing every 

 word with a gesture, "ahb'hevedat story, cause ah promise, 

 baht ah tink t'vvas 'cause you goiti' tole it dat bear scrape 

 you so bad. You see, sah, bear is send for punish bad 

 folkses. An't you hear haow bear keel fawty leetly boy 

 'cause dey call hole man he don' got no hair on top heeshead 

 of it—what you call heem— ball? Ah spec' dey be nudder 



bear long 'fore soon for ketch hole man what tole such story, 

 an' den tell Frenchman he don' lie honly w'en he dead!" 



"Good airth an' seas!" Lisha roared, "I dew beleeve one 

 on 'em would hev the last word 'f he was deader 'n a door 

 nail. Wal," he coutinued, as he put his tools in their places 

 and took off his apron, "it's 'baout time '1 honest folks was 

 abed an' rogues locked aout, but you needn't hurry none 

 'baout goin' t' bed, Ann Twine." 



Ten minutes later the shop was dark but for the patch of 

 moonlight that shone in through the little window set long- 

 wise of the room, and the visitors scattered to their homes. 

 Awahsoose. 



ADIRONDACK FISH AND GAME. 



THE snow and ice are now all out of the Adirondack 

 woods south of this place, excepting in some few of the 

 deepest and most shaded ravines or valleys, and the trout 

 are now biting freely in all the streams and ponds. A fine 

 string of about thirty pounds in weight was taken this week 

 out of the Twin Pouds by two young men of this place. 

 The largest was seventeen inches in length and weighed two 

 pounds thirteen ounces. A number of fine lots have been 

 taken out of the St. Regis River near Blue Mountain during 

 the past week. 



In a former communication to the Forest and Stream 

 I stated that a railroad was being built from this place to 

 some point in the Adirondacks south from here. This road 

 is now completed from here to Spring Cove, on the middle 

 branch of the St. Regis River, distant from here twenty 

 miles, and is within four miles of Blue Mountain, and six of 

 the foot of the sixteen-mile level. Passenger trains are run- 

 ning to St. Regis Falls, eleven miles from here, which con- 

 nect with passenger trains on the Ogdensburg and Lake 

 Champlain road at this junction. Lumber trains run over 

 the remainder of the road from the Falls to Spring Cove, on 

 which parties visiting this region can get themselves and 

 baggage carried after arriving at the Falls. During the 

 coming summer the road will be extended to River Pond on 

 the sixteen-mile level, which place is about ten miles west 

 of Paul Smith's Hotel at St. Regis Lake. 



The building of this road makes the region about the 

 headwaters of the St. Regis River the easiest of access of 

 any portion of the Adirondacks where game and trout are 

 still to be found at all plentiful. Spring Cove, the present 

 terminus of the road, is itself in the heart of a good hunting 

 and fishing locality, where scores of deer have been killed 

 and many fine creels of trout caught during the past three or 

 four years, and the sixteen-mile level, only six miles above, 

 is one of the best waters for trout fishing I know of that 

 does not require a tramp of several miles on foot to reach it; 

 and is also a noted place for deer hunting, the great extent 

 of unbroken wilderness on both sides of it making it a great 

 resort for those animals. There are also several other 

 streams and a number of ponds in this region which are not 

 so easy of access — all of which contain trout — and hereto- 

 fore have been but little frequented by sportsmen or anglers. 



For the last five years the sixteen-mile level has been my 

 camping ground through the greater portion of each season. 

 Last season I found as~good trout fishing there during July 

 and August as I ever found before at any time or at any 

 place. I found no better twenty-five and thirty years ago 

 when I first began to frequent the Adirondacks. I caught 

 ten trout that all together weighed thirteen and three quarter 

 pounds, and I must have caught fifty to sixty weighing 

 half a pound or over. The most of these I caught fly-fish- 

 ing mornings and evenings out of a pool in front of my 

 camp. I could have caught ten times the number had I 

 wished. I camped alone most of the time and did not want 

 to catch more than I wished for my own use and occasion- 

 ally a mess for a party who fished only with bait and could 

 not catch any at that time in the season. There is only now 

 and then a day during the last half of July and through 

 August that sunken bait can be used with any chance of suc- 

 cess in these waters. 



Sportsmen and anglers will for one or two seasons at 

 least, find better hunting and fishing, I believe, in this region, 

 than in any other part of the Adirondacks that will not re- 

 quire a ride in a wagon of filteen or twenty miles over a 

 rough road to reach. At Spring Cove is a boarding house, 

 where meals and a bed can be procured if wanted. But at 

 Blue Mt, Hotel, four miles further south, good accommoda- 

 tions can be had by the week or day, and Mr. Henry Phelps, 

 the proprietor, keeps boats and will furnish guides at a 

 moderate charge. The greatest objection is that it is three 

 miles from the foot of the sixteen-mile level, the nearest 

 water navigable for boats. The river is but half a mile 

 below the house, but here are rapids, and although it affords 

 good fishing from the banks, it is not so favorite a resort for 

 anglers as the sixteen-mile level and the nine-mile at Spring- 

 Cove, where boats can be used. Mr. Phelps also keeps boats 

 at McCavauaugh, Long and Wolf ponds, which are distant 

 three to eight miles from the house. If the angler is willing 

 to take a tramp through the woods four or fivemileson foot, 

 he can find as good trout fishing in a number of waters in 

 this region, where the trout are as plenty in them to-day as 

 they were fifty yeats ago, or as plenty as they were in the 

 Bigosh in its palmiest days. But if the tramp is not taken 

 soon, he will find them like all other localities that are easy 

 of access— a thing of the past— as far as trout fishing is con- 

 cerned. 



Deer are still very plenty all through this region, although 

 hundreds of them have been shamefully slaughtered during 

 the five years that I have made it my camping ground. The 

 majority of them were killed by night-hunters and during 

 the early summer months. I am not prejudiced against, or 

 interested in, any one method of hunting deer more than an- 

 other, any more than wishing to have game preserved as 

 long as possible within the Adirondacks; and I do not think 

 auy disinterested person who has spent the whole or nearly 

 of each season in camp in them, as I have for the past five 

 years will contradict me when I say that more deer are de- 

 stroyed by night-hunting than by all other methods com- 

 bined. 1 would be pleased to have night-hunting and hound- 

 ing both prohibited entirely, and still-hunting coufined to 

 November, with no extra time allowed to dispose of the 

 venison. As we now have a game protector appointed, lor 

 this county, I hone the slaughter here out of season will be 

 stopped. " Adirox Ondaok. 



Moira, Franklin County, N. Y., May, 1884. 



Just returned from a flying trip to the Adirondacks, and 

 although the season has as yet not opened there, the inhab- 

 itants are busv preparing for the expected visitors, and it 

 bids more than fair that the coming one wdl be a lively 



C I spent two days at the upper Ausable Pond in company 



with Frank C. Parker, the well-known guide of Keene Val- 

 ley, and Joe Parker, of Brooklyn, who had with him his red 

 Irish setter Victoria. We tried the trout in trolling and 

 hooked three beauties, averaging 35 ounces. The trout in 

 this pond arc all speckled ones, and have been caught weigh- 

 ing ii pounds. 



Early in the season, or up to the 4th of July, the trout 

 fishing in Keene Valley is very good, in John's and Roaring 

 brooks, also in Orbed Brook* a tributary of John's Brook. 

 The writer caught 36 pounds in two days' fishing on Orbed 

 two years since, and 30 pounds last August in two days with 

 the fly, and the fishing there is royal sport. Keene Valley is 

 the place for health and pleasure, "and cannot he excelledfor 

 scenery and advantages for camping out. 



W. L. Howard. 



Brooklyn, June 1, 1884. 



tn\<tl ]§i$torg. 



THE COUESIAN PERIOD. 



[By E. W. Shufeldt, Capt. Medical Corps, TJ. S. A., Chairman Section 

 of Avian Anatomy, A. O. U. Conclusion of the Histor- 

 ical Preface from advance sheets of Coues's "Key."] 



The Audtjbonian Epoch: 1824-1853. 



(1824-1831.) 



THE Bonapartkcn Period.— A princely person, destined to 

 die one of the most famous of modern naturalists — 

 Charles Lucius Bonaparte, early conceived and executed the 

 plan of continuing Wilson's work in similar style, if not in 

 the same spirit. He began by publishing a series of "Obser- 

 vations on the Nomenclature of Wilson's Ornithology," in 

 the "Journal" of the Philadelphia Academy, 1824-25, repub- 

 lished in an octavo volume, 1826. This "valuable critical 

 commentary introduced a new feature— decided changes in 

 nomenclature resulting from the sifting and rectification of 

 synonymy. It is here that questions of synonymy — to-day the 

 bane aud drudgery of the working naturalist — first acquire 

 prominence in the history of our special subject. There had 

 been very little of it before, and Wilson himself, the least 

 "bookish" of men, gave it scarcely any attention. Bona- 

 parte also in 1825 added several species to our fauna upon 

 material collected in Florida by the now venerable Titian R. 

 Peale, whose honored name is thus the first of those of men 

 still living to appear in these annals. Bonaparte's ' American 

 Ornithology," uniform with "Wilson," and generally incor- 

 porated therewith in subsequent editions as a continuation of 

 Wilson's work, was originally published in four large quarto 

 volumes, running 1825-33. The year 1827, in the midst of 

 this work of Bonaparte's, was a notable one in several par- 

 ticulars. Bonaparte himself was very busy, producing a 

 "Catalogue of the Birds of the United States," which, with a 

 "Supplement," raised the number of species to 366, and of 

 genera to 83; nearly a hundred species having been thus 

 become know since Ord laid aside the pen that Wilson had 

 dropped. William Swainson the same year described a 

 number of new Mexican species and genera, many of which 

 come also into the "North American" fauna. But the most 

 notable event of the year was the appearance of the first five 

 parts of Audubon's elephant folio plates. In 1828-29, as 

 may also be noted, Ord brought out his third volume 8vo 

 edition of Wilson. In 1828 Bonaparte returned to the charge 

 of systematically cataloguing the birds of North America, 

 giving now 382 species; and about this time he also pro- 

 duced a comparative list of the birds of Rome and Philadel- 

 phia. His main work having been completed in 1833. as 

 just said, Bonaparte continued his labors with a "Geo- 

 graphical and Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and 

 North America," published in London in 1838. This 

 brochure gives 503 European and 47i American species. 

 The celebrated zoologist wrote until 1857, but his connection 

 with North American birds was only incidental after 1838. 

 The period here assigned him, 1824-1831, may seem too 

 short; but this was the opening of the Audubonian epoch — a 

 period of brilliant inception, and one in which events that 

 were soon to mature their splendid fruit came crowding fast ; 

 so that room must be made for others who were early in the 

 present epoch. 



(1831-1833.) 



The Swainsomo-BicJtardso/iian Period.— The "Fauna 

 Boreali- Americana," the ornithological volume of which was 

 published in 1831, made an impression so indelible that a 

 period, albeit a brief one, must be put here. The technic of 

 this celebrated treatise, more valuable for its descriptions (if 

 new species and genera than for its methods of classification, 

 was by William Swainson, as were the elegant and accurate 

 colored plates; the biographical matter, by Dr. (later Sir) 

 John Richardson, increased our knowledge of the life-his- 

 tory of the northerly birds so largely, that it became a foun- 

 tain of facts to be drawn upon by nearly every writer of 

 prominence from that day to this. Each of the distinguished 

 authors had previously appeared in connection with our 

 birds— Swainson as above said, Richardson in 1825, in the 

 appendix to Captain Parry's "Journal," The influence of 

 the work on the whole cannot be well overstated. 



Two events, beside the appearance of the "Fauna," mark 

 the year 1831. One of these is the publication of the first 

 volume of Audubon's "Ornithological Biography," being 

 the beginning of the text belonging to his great folio plates. 

 The other is the completion of the bird-volumes of Peter 

 Palias's famous "Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica , " one of the 

 most important contributions ever made to our subject, 

 treating so largely as it does of the birds of the region now 

 called Alaska. The same year saw also the Jameson edition 

 of "Wilson and Bonaparte." 



(183S-1S34 :..) 



The NuttoMan Period— Thomas Nuttall (*1786-fl859) was 

 rather botanist than ornithologist; but the travels of this dis- 

 tinguished English-American naturalist made him the per- 

 sonal acquaintance of many of our birds, his love for which 

 bore fruit in his "Manual of the Ornithology of the United 

 States aud Canada," of which the first volume appeared in 

 1832, the second in 1834. The work is notable as the first 

 "hand-book" of the subject; it possesses an agreeable flavor, 

 and 1 think was the first formal treatise, excepting Wilson's, 

 to pass to a second edition, as it did in 1840. Nut tail's name 

 is permanent in our annals ; and many years after he wrote, 

 the honored title was chosen to be borne by the first distill -t- 

 ivelv ornithological association of this country— the "Nut- 

 tall Ornithological Club"— founded at Cambridge in 1873, and 

 still flourishing. 



(1834-1853.) 



The Aniiibonian Period.— Meanwhile, the incomparable 

 work of Audubon— "the greatest monument erected by art 



