204 
FOREST • AND _ STREAM. 
March 14, 1903.] 
Fun! 
It was in the restaurant at the Sportsmen's Show in 
New York. Smoke from three post-prandial cigars curled 
above the small coffees. Archer, the still-life and wild 
game artist; Brown, who writes about angling, and Bris- 
tol, the insurance man who has fished from Idaho to 
Labrador, were swapping yarns. 
"Slept in the snow at Jackson's Hole. Wyoming : like it 
better than British Columbia." drawled the artist. 
"Slept in the water on a "mesh' beside Bottom Brook 
ill Newfoundland," added Brown. 
"That's nothin'!" chirped Bristol. "Listen. When I 
lived at St. Paul, I went a-fishing with three members 
of the Minnesota Four Hundred. It was after sundown 
when we arrived at a railroad station sixty miles in the 
woods; but the smart member of our party 'knew the 
way' to the lake and our camp, which had already been 
established by a guide, who waited there. We hired the 
one two-seated wagon in all that region, and started. 
The smart fellow chose the wrong fork iii the road, four 
miles out. We drove until eleven o'clock, flushed a log 
'shack,' pounded on the door, and asked for beds. 
" 'Been a cleanin' up an' no beds fixed,' growled the 
frowsy owner of the house. 'Keep on this road an' you'll 
strike the county poorhouse. Only three miles !' 
"We reached the poorhouse after midnight. The over- 
seer swore at us for waking him. 
"'This ain't no hotel: paupers live here, an' we're just 
a runnin' over! But if ye wauter stay in our ole bam, 
mebbe ye kin lose ther muskeeters !' 
"We unharnessed and hitched the horses to a tree, and 
'went to bed.' Found two bins of oats and laid down 
on them. The smart driver removed his shoes, and the 
mosquitoes held a mass meeting around his feet. Finally 
a foraging rat nipped him and he 'sat up.' It was pitch 
dark; he could hear the rats running about, and the 
snores of two of our party. Then he remarked : 
'"And they call this fun!'" B. 
' Royal Hunting* 
Brussels Correspondence New York Tribune. 
Hunting, which from time immemorial has been the 
favorite pastime of royalty, is to-day even more per- 
haps than in bygone ages the distinctive sport of kings. 
Nor is this surprising. When the monotonous routine 
of their daily life is taken into consideration — the end- 
less chain of court functions, receptions, banquets and 
visits — what more natural than that crowned heads 
should seek relaxation in the noble sport which has 
been the special prerogative of their forefathers for 
centuries? The keenest of royal sportsmen at present 
are Emperor Francis Joseph, Emperor William, King 
Carlos of Portugal, King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, 
and Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. 
Emperor Francis Joseph is passionately fond of 
chamois hunting, the dangers of which have always 
fascinated him from the days of his early youth. The 
Emperor generally indulges in his favorite sport in the 
neighborhood of Ischl, the heart of the Austrian Tyrol. 
The Hapsburg sovereign is accompanied on his expedi- 
tions bj'^ only two or three princes of the imperial fam- 
ily. Intent on hunting only for the pleasure it affords 
in itself, Francis Joseph's shooting parties take place 
in the simplest manner possible, and are divested of all 
outward show and mise-en-scene. With an alpenstock 
in hand and a gun over his shoulder, the Emperor 
leaves his shooting box at Gansgebirge, where he has 
spent the night, at 4 A. M., and often spends the entire 
day in the mountains, only returning late at night. 
Francis Joseph is a capital shot, and rarely misses the 
chamois springing from rock to rock. When the Em- 
peror gives a shooting party in honor of a brother 
sovereign, it is either in the preserves of Karapanesa 
or in the forests neighboring to the shooting box: at 
Korisserdo. On such occasions the Emperor and his 
guests each goes his own way, starting at daybreak, 
and hunts the whole day quite alone. As a rule, the 
Austrian Emperor's shooting parties last three or four 
days! The Emperor is never present at hunting parties 
given in honor of official persons and diplomats, it be- 
ing the master of the hounds who presides on such 
occasions in the Emperor's name. 
Emperor William is a perfect fanatic in the matter 
of sport, and is an excellent shot, notwithstanding the 
fact that he cannot use his left arm. He shoots, as a 
rule, with very light guns, which he can easily hold in 
one hand. The Emperor's favorite hunting grounds 
are in the royal forests of Konig's Wusterhauscn, near 
Berlin, in the GritnAvald and Springe. William II. is 
generally accompanied on his expeditions by his aides- 
de-camp, by the grand marshal of the court and by 
the grand master of hunts. The Emperor always wears 
a short shooting jacket of gray material, _ this being 
one of the few occasions when he dons civilian attire. 
According to official statistics, the Kaiser has shot 
33,976 head of game during the last twenty-five years, 
the following being the itemized list of his victims: 
Two buffaloes, 7 elk, 3 reindeer. 3 bears. 1,022 wild 
animals of various kinds. 2,189 deer, I2T chamois, 
16,188 hares, 674 rabbits, 9,643 pheasants, 54 heathcocks, 
4 woodcocks, 95 grouse, 20 foxes. 56 wild ducks, 694 
cormorants, 680 roe deer and 581 head of game not 
classified. 
Notwithstanding his poor physique. King Victor Em- 
manuel, like his father. King Humbert, is an enthusias- 
tic sportsman, and is particularly fond of hunting in the 
Valley of Aosta. The King's other favorite shooting 
haunts are at Ceresole and the southern Alpine dis- 
tricts, where game is very abiindant. On one occasion, 
while chamois hunting with his father, Victor Emman- 
uel, then Prince of Naples, and the Duke of the 
Abruzzi nearly lost their lives in the Valley of Gesso; 
in November, 1897, they were overtaken by a snow- 
storm and almost frozen to death, being obliged to 
spend the night in a small chalet exposed to the blast 
of the storm. But neither this nor other dangerous 
experiences have lessend the King's love for sport. In 
winter time, whenever he finds the opportunity and 
leisure, he leaves Rome to shoot boar in the Abruzzi. 
At CastelporciaC'Ti, gome twelve miles from Rome, as 
many as two hundred boars have been shot in one day 
by the King and his party. 
The present Czars favorite shooting grounds are at 
Gatschina and at Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg. 
Nicholas II. also shoots in the wild districts of the 
Blalowiege forests, near Minsk; on such occasions the 
imperial sportsman and his guests make an early start, 
generally at 8 A. M., and take luncheon in the forest, 
to return only late at night. Rolling kitchens, similar 
to those used in the French Army, are taken on these 
expeditions; in this manner a sumptuous meal can be 
provided for the royal party at a few minutes' notice; 
for, unlike the German and Austrian Emperors, Nicho- 
las II. does not like to "rough it." A table is set in 
the open air, the Czarina being seated next to her 
husband, while the guests take their seats according 
to the strictest rules of etiquette. Buffalo hunting is 
the best sport afforded in the imperial Russian pre- 
serves, but as the race is almost extinct these animals 
are hunted only every third year. Last year over a 
hundred were shot; of these, the finest weighed twelve 
hundred pounds, and was brought down by the Czar 
himself. The female buffaloes are never shot, and in 
winter are driven into large parks, where they breed. 
Next to these buffaloes the finest big game in Russia 
is the Blalowiege deer; the Czar and his party shot 
four hundred of these animals within a week last 
autumn. 
King Carlos's achievements as a sportsman have 
been too recently commented upon to be repeated. 
While visiting President Loubet a few weeks ago at 
R.ambouillet, the Portuguese sovereign easily proved 
himself the best shot among reigning royalties of to- 
day. The King has shot over every royal preserve in 
Europe, but he is particularly partial to Rambouillet, 
where he first made a reputation for himself as a skill- 
ful marksman in Octobsr, 189S, at a shooting party 
given in his honor by President Faure. The King took 
three thousand cartridges with him on that occasion, 
and during the course of the day brought down 750 
head of game, among them being 13 deer and 633 
pheasants. 
M. Emile Loubet "may be likened to his royal con- 
temporaries in his love for sport. Although left- 
handed, he is a capital shot. He prefers, as a rule, to 
go out shooting with his favorite dog. But at times 
the President gives official shooting parties, either at 
Rambouillet or Marly; as, for instance, during the visit 
of the Russian grand dukes in 1900, when 748 head of 
game were shot at Rambouillet during a day. 
President Loubet thus follows the tradition set by 
preceding heads of State in France. Nearly all the 
French kings were keen sportsmen, beginning with 
Charlemagne, Francis I., Henri II., Henri IV., Louis 
XIII., Louis XIV., Louis XV., Napoleon I., Charles 
X. and Napoleon III. While M. Thiers was a poor 
shot, Marshal MacMahon, M. Grevy, M. Carnot, M. 
Casimir-Perier and M. Faure worthily continued the 
example set by their royal predecessors. 
♦ 
Some Queer Notions, 
Our respected ancestors had some queer notions in 
regard to natural history. Old Sir Thomas Browne, 
in his "Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors," 
discusses many of these. "That a brock or badger 
hath the legs on one side shorter than on the other," 
he says, "though an opinion perhaps not very ancient, 
is yet very general." This belief was received not 
only by theorists, but by most of those who had daily 
opportunity to behold and hunt them; yet Sir Thomas 
could not accept this belief, because it seemed "no 
easy affront into reason, and generally repugnant unto 
the course of nature.' Wherever he looked he saw 
that the limbs of animals on the opposite sides of their 
bodies were of the same length and number, and that 
none of them had an odd leg. One would think that 
the question might have been put beyond cavil by sim- 
ply measuring the limbs of the animal; but perhaps 
they never thought of that. 
The worthy knight, however, could accept the basil- 
isK, though it does not seem that he ever saw one, and 
did not question its power to kill by "inflicting its 
eye," as old Dr. Parr would have expressed it, upon 
its enemy. And why not? "For if plagues or pestilen- 
tial atoms have been conveyed in the air from different 
regions, if men at a distance have infected each other, 
if the shadows of some trees be noxious, if torpedoes 
deliver their opium at a distance and stupefj'' beyond 
themselves, we cannot reasonably deny," he says, "that 
there may proceed from subtler seeds more agile 
emanations, which contemn those laws and invade at 
distance unexpected." But there was a limit to the 
credulity of Sir Thomas; and as for the generation of 
the basilisk, that "it proceedeth from a cock's egg 
hatched under a toad or a serpent," he thought it a 
conceit as monstrous as the brood itself. 
As to the salamander, there was great difference of 
opinion. Sir Thomas cites a number of high authori- 
ties, among them Aristotle, Nicauder, and Pliny, who 
expressed their belief that the animal was able to live 
in flames; but these were offset by the opinion of 
Sextius, Dioscorides and Galen, "that it endureth the 
fire awhile, but in continuance is consumed therein," 
while Matthiolus affirmed that "he saw a salamander 
burned in a very short time." This belief, the good 
old Norwich physician remarks, had been much pro- 
moted by stories of incombustible napkins and tex- 
tures which endureth fire, whose materials, he says, 
are called by the name of salamanders' wool. To 
the simple apprehension of the common people of 
those days, the one fact seemed no more improbable 
than the other; but Sir Thomas points out that this 
substance cannot be salamanders' wool, because this 
animal, "which is a kind of Hzard, a quadruped corti- 
cated and depilous," was not furnishec} with wool, fur, 
or hair. A very satisfactory argument, one would 
think. He goes on to say that it was a mineral sub- 
stance; "metaphoricall}' so called"; and that as the 
heart of Germanicus and the great toe of Pyrrhus 
would not burn with the rest of their bodies, so "The're 
are in the number of minerals some bodies incombus- 
tible." The material in question was no doubt asbes- 
tos. To those who were not familiar with it, it seemed 
something very remarkable, on a footing with the 
flame-enduring salamander. We recall that the young 
printer, Benjamin Franklin, when he went over to Eng- 
land, took with him a purse made of asbestos, which 
purifies by fire. "Sir Hans Sloane heard of it," says 
Franklin, in his autobiography, "came to see me and 
invited me to his house in Bioonisbury Square, shovted 
me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to add that 
to the number, for which he paid me handsomely." 
But not less remarkable was their belief in the 
amphisbjEua, a small serpent, which had two heads, 
one at each extreme, and which moved equally well in 
either direction; that the ostrich "digesteth iron"; 
that "there is but on phcenix in the world which, after 
many hundred j'ears, burneth itself, and from the 
ashes thereof ariseth up another"; that the griffin "is 
a mixed and dubious animal, in the forepart resembling 
an eagle, and behind the shape of a lion, with erected 
ears, four feet, and a long tail"; that a kingfisher 
"hanged by the bill sheweth in what quarter the wind 
is by an occult and secret property, converting the 
breast to that point of the horizon from whence the 
wind doth blow"; that the age of the deer exceeds the 
average age of man, "in some the days of Nestor, and in 
others surmounting the years of Artephius or Methuse- 
lah"; that a bear "brings forth her young informous 
and unshapen, which she fashioneth after by licking 
them over"; that men weigh heavier dead than alive; 
that lampreys have nine eyes; and that only man 
"hath an erect figure, and for to behold and look up 
toward heaven," whereas. Sir Thomas asserts that of 
all creatures, man is among the least able to look up, 
and that the contrary "is a conceit only fit for those 
that never saw the fish uranoscopus, which hath its 
eyes so placed that it looks up directly to heaven, 
which man doth not, except he recline, or bend his 
head backward." 
Sir Thomas Browne died in the year 1682, but long 
after his time popular beliefs not less preposterous 
than those he discussed were common. Gilbert White, 
the genial old naturalist of Selborne, relates that in 
his village in his day were living several persons who 
had been healed of rupture in their infancy by being 
passed through an ash tree that had been cleft for 
that purpose. He believed that the deer -is furnished 
with two spiracula, or breathing places, besides the 
nostrils. When deer, he says, are thirsty they plunge 
their noses, like some horses, very deep under the 
water while in the act of drinking, and continue them 
in that situation for a considerable time; but to obviate 
any inconveniency, they can open two vents, one at 
the inner corner of each eye, having a communication 
with the nose. Modern science has showm this to be 
incorrect. In W^hite's day many people believed that 
swallows, instead of migrating to southern climates in 
the autumn, clustered in round masses and threw 
themselves into ponds and rivers and hibernated in the 
mud at the bottom; and even so great a man as Dr. 
Johnson accepted this notion, and told Boswell that 
"a number of them conglomerate together, by flying 
round and round, and then all in a heap throw them- 
selves under water, and lie in the bed of a river." In 
those days it was believed that the hand of a dead man 
would reduce swellings, and that the touch of the king 
would cure scrofula. 
All this is bad enough; but are we ever so much 
wiser, since it is still a wide-spread belief among us 
that a rabbit's foot will bring good luck: that a hazel 
twig will point out underground fountains of water; 
that a horse chestnut carried in the pocket will keep 
awAy rheumatism; and that a dog's howling in the 
street is a sure precursor of a speedy death? And so 
it ought to be, but it ought to be that of the dog. 
T. J. Chapman. 
[Does any one seriously believe that a horse chest- 
nut carried in the pocket will keep away rheumatism?] 
The Sparrow Hawk. 
(Falco sparverius.) 
The animal world around us has its thoughts, its 
cares, its sorrows and its joys, the same as we of the 
"higher" grade. 
If we would know of these things as they relate to 
the humble forms we meet, we must carefully and hon- 
estly study their ways and mode of life. In doing this 
there is sure to be revealed to us another, a broader 
and more beautiful view of life, and a debt of sympa- 
thy will be evoked we had not before experienced, and 
in proportion as we get in tune and in harmony with 
these conditions, will the beautiful time spoken of be 
hastened, when "the lion and the lamb shall lie down 
together and a little child shall lead them." 
An interesting instance which throws some light 
upon these facts and helps bear us out in the state- 
ments made, was observed by me one beautiful after- 
noon on the 31st of last July. 
I was reclining under a magnificent old elm on the 
banks of the Cedar River, near Charles City. Iowa, 
when my attention was attracted by the peculiar but 
well recognized cry of a sparrow hawk (Falco sparz'er- 
ius) in the tree overhead. On glancing up I perceived 
a male and female of this species in the extreme top of 
the tree. The male had a small green snake, and the 
female wanted it. They both mounted into the air a 
little ways, both apparently uttering sharp screeching 
cries, and came together, the female taking the snake 
in her claws, and then circling around a little, dove 
quickly into the hollow end of a broken limb a foot 
in diameter and perhaps forty or fifty feet above the 
ground, that had been hollowed out and used by wood- 
peckers. . 
