102 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
DEVOTED TO FIELD AND AQUATIC SPORTS, PRACTICAL NATURAL UlSTORV, 
Pish Culture, thb Protection op Gams, Preservation op Forests, 
and the Inculcation in Men and Wombn op a Healthy Interest 
in Out-Door Ebcrbation and Study: 
PUBLISHED BY 
Rarest and §treaig Publishing <$onwatiy. 
— AT— 
No. Ill (old No. 103) FULTON STREET, NEW YORK. 
[Post Oppiob Box SS32.) 
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NEW YORK, THURSDAY', MARCH 14, 1878. 
To Correspondents. 
All communications whatever, Intended for publication, most be ac- 
companied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good faith 
and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 
Names will not be published If objection be made. No anonymous con- 
tributions will be regarded. 
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undersigned. We have no Philadelphia agent. 
tw Trade supplied by American News Company. 
CHARLES IIALLOCK, Editor. 
T. C. BANKS, 8. H. TURRILL, Chicago, 
BnBlness Manager. Western Manager 
OMELETTE A LA VlOUVELLE HOL- 
LANDE. 
I F he who makes two blades of grass to grow where but one 
-*■ grew before has deserved well of mankind, surely he who 
has discovered a new dish has performed for the race a far 
greater service. In the rush and hurry of American lite, too 
little attention is paid to the pleasures of the table, and to ap- 
preciate the comforts of good living one must travel eastward 
8,000 miles. We, ourselves, confess to a vast delight in things 
gastronomically excellent ; we like to have our dishes well 
cooked and delicately served, our wines of proper vintage and 
at just the right temperature, our coffee black and strong, with 
all its delicious aroma preserved, yet with none of the bitter- 
ness which comes of our cooking. We experience most extrav- 
agant feelings of pleasure in the discovery of a new comesti- 
ble, and have devoted no little time to making experiments in 
gastronomy. We are familiar with the roast beef of old 
England, the frogs of France, and the national dish of the 
Italians ; have eaten pates at Strasbourg, sturgeon with the 
Cossacks of the Don, black bread with the Magyar peasants 
of Hungary, and locusts and wild honey on the banks of the 
Jordan. We have dined at the Trois Freres, enjoyed ices at 
Tortonis, chops at Tavistock’s, by old St. Paul's, and have 
eaten marina and sipped modere at the Cascade, in the Bois, 
and picked the bones of peliios cailles on the piazza San 
Marco, in beautiful Venice. 
In the course of a long and not uneventful experience we 
have been introduced to more than one Dovelty of the table; 
have partaken of jerked meat on the plains, grizzly bear meat 
in the mountains, tomales and chile Colorado in the land of 
Montezuma, cowees with the Pawnees, and, to our sorrow, 
have been obliged to break our fast on sand rats, and to dine 
. on a tough old dog badger. 
In striking contrast to these last meals was a delicious 
breakfast which we receutly enjoyed, and which consisted in 
part of a dish which was wholly new to us. Our friend, 
Mr. F. H. Thompson, was kind enough to send us, some 
days since, a fresh emu’s egg, which had been laid iu the Gar- 
dens of the Cincinnati Zoological Society hut a sljort time 
before. The specimen was most beautiful, but aside from its 
attractive appearance, thoughts of its economic vuluc occupied 
our mind. The contents, when extracted, filled to the brim 
a large soup plate, and furnished us with one of the most de- 
licious omelets we have ever eaten. Having discovered this 
new dish, we. with all modesty, lay claim to a position among 
the ranks of the world’s philanthropists. 
And this is but another instance of the comprehensive scope 
of this journal. Here, 10,000 miles from his native jungles, 
we announce in clarion tones to the lean and huugry bush- 
ranger, that his companion of the forest, the Dromaius Notm- 
JIollanduB will afford him the means of a fat and easy sub- 
sistence. 
To the farmer, the inference from the above remarks is 
obvious ; invest your unemployed capital in the importation 
of a herd of emus. Do away with your hens, which grow 
tougher day by day, and never lay except on the stomach of 
the eater. Save the expense of supplying Q alius domeslious 
with hot food twice a day, whole corn and scrap cake ad libi- 
tum. The emu needs none of this— give him a trough filled 
with a good assortment of pebbles and broken bottles, and he 
will ask for no more ; naj", he will grow fat on such a diet, for 
this is his natural food. 
We are not yet prepared to furnish an exhaustive treatise on 
emu culture, but we wish to suggest that if an emu lays at a 
single session an omelet for eight, while It takes a hen a fort- 
night to accomplish the same feat, then we f il to see why the 
emu is not destined at no distant day to play an important 
part in the commerce of the world. 
» » ♦>» 
THE SPORTSMAN’S YEAR BOOK. 
“ Away, away to the forest glades, 
Fly, ily with me the hannts of men. 
1 would not give my sunlit glades, 
My talklDg stream and tangoing glen, 
For all the pageantry of staves. 
Their fettered lives and trampled graves.”— Anon. 
T O the true sportsman— he who is filled with an intense love 
for the innocent and health-giving pursuits of land and 
water, and to whom familiarity with nature and her bounties 
yields that pure delight and lusty strength worth millions to 
a man — every season of the year, in this our own America, 
yields tribute. 
When March, with lengthened days, raw winds and pelting 
rains, ushers in the spring, the wild duck’s fancy lightly turns 
to Labrador, on whose rocks she last season built her nest 
and reared her young, aod all over the drowned lands and 
lagoons of Florida and the Gulf States may be heard the quack 
of gathering squadrons massing for the northern flight. 
Headed by some old drake who knows the route, these dusky 
divisions wheel and circle in momentary indecision, and are 
off for the north. But our friend, the sportsman, heard 
that quack, and knew well its import. And now we find him 
lying perdu in the rustling sedge beside each water course 
from Maine to Florida. For the ducks stop occasionally to 
fe?d and rest, and then the boom, boom of the heavy ducking 
guns carry terror to their hearts and decimation to their ranks. 
It is a bright page in the sportsman's year-book, when the 
“spring flight” comes. There is a freshness in the surround- 
ings. The face of nature that but a short time since was 
wrapped in an icy covering' seemingly impenetrable, has re- 
laxed to the gentle seductions of the sun’s rays. The 
ice has gone out. The notes of the blackbird are 
heard from the dead trees m the marsh, and as the 
sportsman, lying in his blind with breech-loader ready, 
drinks in the beauties of the surroundings, and feels 
the soft southern breeze on his check, he is happy. But the 
spring duck shooter must not give way too much to fancy. 
Listen ! That “ soft, southern breeze ” brings on its wings a 
subdued murmur, which soon becomes a confused gabble, and, 
peering through the blind, our friend sees a large troop of mal- 
lards making direct for his decoys. With bated breath and re- 
triever at “ down charge,” he waits, trembling lest the ducks, 
discovering the deception, wheel and destroy the chance for a 
shot. No! They are coming head on now. They circle, the 
leader plumps into the midst of the stools, discovers the cheat, 
and flutters to rise. Now is the time, and the number fours 
hurtle in their midst, dealing death. 
When the ducks are gone, comes the snipe, that little 
autocrat of the marshes, who springs from his little tussock 
of bog grass with a shrill “Skeap, skeap,” and with an 
erratic zig-zag flight, tests the quickness of the shooter’s eye 
and finger to the utmost. Barring the bad walking, spring 
snipe shooting is glorious. The birds lie well to the clog, and 
require a slashing snap-shot to bring to bag, and are, withal, 
a toothsome morsel when properly cooked. 
About the middle of April the pigeons begin to fly, and 
although this bird is not strictly game, yet show me the 
sportsman who can find no delight in bagging this liltle fel- 
low, and I will show, you an anomaly. There are but few 
sections of the Eastern and Middle States where the pigeon is 
now found abundant. In some portions of Pennsylvania, in 
those vast wooded tracts, an uninhabited wilderness, because 
it can be nothing else, there are still some few nesting- 
places where the pigeon breeds undisturbed. From these 
haunts in the spring they come forth in quest of food, extend- 
ing their flights more or less as necessity requires. The 
supply of last year’s acorns failing, down they swoop on the 
farmers’ fresh sowu grain, and here, snugly ensconced behiud 
some friendly stone wall or stump fence, we find our friend, 
Ihe sportsman, popping away at the rushing plunderers, and 
demeaning himself not a whit; for behold ! his game pockets 
ure full. But summer has come, and with the heat, our sports- 
mau, excepting an occasional excursion to the beach for shore 
birds, ceases shooting. The gun is cleaned, oiled, and hung 
upon its accustomed rack, while from its case is drawn the 
pliant fishing-rod. 'Cackle is overhauled, llies are tied, and 
the exact condition of each trout, salmon and buss rod deter- 
mined. For June is here, and our friend is somewhat be- 
wildered with the multitude of vistas opening before him, 
each one leading to some happy angling ground where he 
knows the ‘ ‘finny denizens” are hut waiting for a dexterous cast 
of the gaudy fly to be lured to their destruction. The sports- 
man angler is now ubiquitous. Upon the salmon rivers of 
Canada and the provinces you find him with his long, double- 
handed rod hard at work killing the heavy, but lively, Salmo 
salar. Iu the Adirondacks he is content with smaller fish, but 
more of Ihem, and his creel is filled with that finest of all 
game fish, the Salmo fontinalis , or brook trout. 
At the Rangeley Lakes, in Maine, the more ambitious mem- 
bers of the guild are whipping the bright waters of that won- 
derful chain of lakes, angling for and procuring those giants 
of the race, the Rangeley speckled trout, which, although 
identical with the ordinary Salmo fonliruilia, often reach the 
extraordinary weight of seven pounds. 
Ah! the sportsman is in clover now. Y'ou can hear the 
musical “click ” of his reel and the “swish ” of his skillfully 
cast leaders wherever the trout and his peer in point of gami- 
ness, the bass, abound. His loud, cheery laugh wakes the 
echoes of the Pennsylvania pineries, and you hear the plash 
of his wading boots in the crystal streams that come leaping 
down the Blue Ridge. June and July are halcyon days for 
the true sportsman. At no time of the year is he happier 
than now. His appetite is enormous. His lungs are strength- 
ened by the invigorating air. The outside world is forgotten ; 
he cares not a straw for business or politics. All these seem 
folly in his sight. He loses himself in the following of his 
favorite pastime. The ecstacy attendant upon the capture of 
his legitimate prey is enough of joy for him, and he would 
willingly stay in the sweet spot forever. 
But August has come, and our true sportsman bids adieu to 
rod and line, and, taking up- the gun again, makes ready for 
woodcock shooting. This delicious little gume bird is now 
well grown and found in low, swampy undergrowths, where 
the soft, slimy ooze is easily penetrated by his long, sensitive 
bill as he bores for succulent worms, which form his diet. 
The discomforts of summer woodcock shooting are many, 
but heat and mosquitoes predominate. Nevertheless it is 
good sport following the yelping cockers as they dart hither 
and thither, flushing the birds, who rise with a nerve-tingling 
flip-flap, showing their graceful forms but an instant as they 
top the underbrush and stretch away. A suap-shot through 
the brush is all the shooter can hope for. He must cover the 
game instinctively, and oftentimes by taking the line of flight 
he will drop his bird, even after it has passed from sight. 
Woodcock shooting also continues through September and 
October, when, with the first hard frost, he migrates. 
With the 15th of August comes pinnated grouse shooting, 
and our Western sportsmen take the field and find splendid 
sport among the young, unbroken packs. So plenty are these 
birds that a couple of crack shots, over staunch dogs, can 
easily bag, in one day’s faggiDg, fifty brace. But on the dry, 
treeless, waterless prairies, both men and dogs suffer from 
heat and thirst, and it is oftentimes necessary to take a supply 
of water for the dogs, or the creatures would give out before 
the day was half done. Grouse shooting has the name of be- 
ing the finest aad most thoroughly enjoyable of all the sports 
in which the gun and dog figure ; and well may it be so con- 
sidered, for in August the birds are comparatively tame and 
easily knocked down. Later they grow more shy, stronger of 
wing, and by the middle of October, large bags of pinnated 
grouse are the exception. 
Having now taken our sportsman through the spring and 
summer, we come to that season dear to every lover of le- 
gitimate sport— autumn. The foliage, now ripe and touched 
by an occasional light frost, has taken on those lovely tints 
peculiar to the American forests in the fall. A mellow haze 
fills the atmosphere, softening the landscape and giviDg an 
air of indescribable beauty to the face of nature. There is a 
“vague, indefinable something” pervading all things that 
speaks of decay, although the sun still shines with undimin- 
ished fervor, and the frondage, though Blightly tinged with 
color, is ju9t as thick as in midsummer. Glorious Autiunn 1 
he must indeed be a misanthrope who cannot see in thee the 
embodiment of all that is bright and beautiful in nature. 
Thy very decay, which we know is the harbinger of nipping 
winter, but tends to enhance thy beauty, and so we hail thee, 
loveliest season of the year ! 
September offers to the sportsman ruffed grouse, woodcock, 
wood-duck, blue-wing teal and general duck shooting, al- 
though the two last-mentioned varieties of duck are the only 
one9 of the great family Anatina which have begun their fall 
migrations. 
Probably the ruffed grouse of all American game birds 
is the hardest to bring to bag, owing, first, to the impenetra- 
ble nature of the cover he frequents, and second, to the fact 
that it is almost impossible to make him lie to a dog. When 
flushed within shot, the ruffed grouse offers a large, fair mar 
