FOREST V AND > STREAM. 
805 
comes a very painful duty at times for your humble servant 
to pass the old “ Stevens House ” on Broadway opposite the 
Bowling-Green when 1 recollect its history, for it was in this 
old dwelling that Henry William Herbert passed his last 
hours of pain and anguish on that fatal May morning, the 19th, 
1858 ; and I venture to say that the numberless readers of this 
journal would be compelled to shed the sympathetic tear had 
they the privilege of reading his last farewell to the Press of 
America. “ A pilgrim in a foreign land, with no home or 
country for six and twenty years, subjected to treatment and 
circumstances far below his merit by education." “ You will 
miss me when I am gone ” is a phrase in his doleful epistle 
which has indeed proved only too true. 
There seemed to be an air about “ Old Herbert” which 
gave him rather an eccentric appearance, and he was classed 
among the “ curious;’’ but so did they abuse the great Audu- 
bon, and that most illustrious gentleman, Alexander Wilson, 
whose zeal for the advancement of that most interesting of all 
branches of science, Ornithology, that ho had written seven 
(small) volumes of his “American Ornithology" before he 
received a single cent from the publishers as a recompense for 
his laoors. Summing up : Henry William Herbert was one of 
the most interesting writers in this country, and the wild-fow- 
ler at Currituck or on the Chesapeake, the moose hunter in 
snow-clad wilds of Canada, or the salmon angler on the Resti- 
gouche may follow the fascinating pleasures of the Forest 
and Stream and Rod and Gun, but never more can he find 
through his careless rambles such a brilliant mind as the 
“Lord of the Cedars ” possessed, hereditary by the best blood 
of Old England. Gellert. 
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER. 
Foeest and Stream as an Advertising Medium — Taxing 
and Protecting Dogs — A Bad Season foe Jack Snipe 
— Glabs Ball Shooting— Piscatorial, etc. 
[FKOM OUR REGULAR CORRESPONDENT.] 
Washington, D. C., May 18, 1878. 
Looking over the columns «of Forest and Stream, and 
especially those containing the advertisements, by no means 
the least interesting part of this valuable journal, an incident 
was brought to mind which shows its popularity and the ex- 
tensive circulation it enjoys. Several months ago a few 
friends and myself had some delightful shootiDg in one of the 
lower cfcunties of Maryland, where the true sportsman can 
find every comfort and a hearty welcome. In one or two of 
my letters I gave a description of this country, the pleasure 
to be found there, abundance of game, etc., and the result 
was to unexpectedly flood me with letters from various parts 
of the country inquiring as to routes by which the section 
mentioned could be reached, terms, accommodations, and 
other details. The proprietor of the hotel there, himself a 
sportsman and capital fellow, has since informed me that he 
has had many guests drawn thither by the brief mention of its 
advantages which appeared in Forest and Stream, besides 
haviDg received scores of inquiring letters. I mention this 
fact for the benefit of hotel proprietors and others having 
summer resorts, especially those in the neighborhood of good 
shooting and fishing localities, that they may send forward 
their advertisements, for every dollar invested in advertising 
In Forest and Stream will be repaid tenfold. Many are jU9t 
now selecting places to pass their summer vacation, and a 
judicious advertisement is sure to attract attention, especially 
in a paper where those columns are read as carefully and with 
a9 much interest as any other part of the journal. 
OUR NEW DOG LAW. 
After maiiy trials and disappointments we at last have a 
prospect for a dog law which will protect valuable dogs aud 
rid the city of many worthless curs now infesting our streets, 
the House of Representatives having recently passed a bill 
levying a tax on dogs, and there seems to be no doubt that it 
will be passed by the Senate. Under our old muucipal regime 
dogs were taxed, but they were not recognized as property, 
and therefore the owner was not protected. When this 
question came to be tested in the courts it was decided that 
the city had no power to levy and collect a tax on any thing 
not recognized aB property by its laws. The owner of every 
dog of any value is willing to pay a reasonable tax thereon, 
but at the same time he is entitled to protection against any 
miscreant who may injure the dog, or thief who may steal it. 
Since that decision miserable curs have increased and multi- 
plied throughout the city until there are more worthless dogs 
in Washington now than in any other city of the Union. 
The District Board of Health issues its proclamation annually, 
about the middle of May, declaring that all dogs found on the 
street unmuzzled between that time and the first of October 
shall be impounded, but may be redeemed within twenty-four 
hours by the payment of one dollar. The dog catchers, as a 
matter of course, always keep a sharp lookout for dogs which 
they know will be redeemed while the uncared for cur9 are 
unmolested. The owner of a valuable dog dare not take him 
out for a walk even with a muzzle on, ns the street curs, al- 
ways unmuzzled, are sure to attack a dog encumbered with 
one. They seem to know he is powerless to defend himself 
against their cowardly attacks. There are many valuable 
dogs owned in this District. Among them Mr. F. B. Farns- 
worth’s Livy, a field trial setter imported from a celebrated 
English kennel : Mr. E. L. Mills’ black and tun Gordon setter 
Ben, Willie Clark's Rose, Col. Kinney’s Tramp, Col. Bum- 
sides’ celebrated setter whose name 1 cannot now recall, Col. 
Rives’ Duke, Maj. Harry Clarke’s Rover and Pink, besides 
many other dogs of wide reputation and pure blood. The new 
law provides for a tax of $3 per annum upon all dogs owned 
or kept in the District. The authorities are to furnish a suitable 
metallic tag, stamped with the year, to be attached to the 
collar of the dog, showing that the tax has been paid. Dogs 
found at large without suoh tax tag are to be impounded and 
sold or destroyed after forty eight hours, unless redeemed by 
the owners upon payment of two dollars. Dogs wearing such 
tax tags are to be regarded as personal property, and any per- 
son injuring or destroying such animal shall be liable to a 
civil action for damages, and also be deemed to have commit- 
ted a misdemeanor, aud upon conviction thereof be liable to a 
fine of not less than $20 uor more than $30, or in default of 
payment, be imprisoned not less than ten nor more than thirty 
days. The owner of any dog shall abo be liable iu a civil 
action for any damage done by his dog. All dogs are to wear 
a collar, bearing inscribed thereon the name of the owner, to 
which collar the tax tag shall be attached. The hill further 
provides for the muzzling of dogs during a period to be dc- 
fiued by the District Commissioners, and prescribes a penalty 
of not less than five nor more than twenty dollars for remov- 
ing or causing to be removed the collar or tax tag from any 
dog. Fierce and dangerous dogs are not permitted to go at 
large. 
snipe shooting. 
Snipe shooting this spring has been a failure, for the reason 
that the weather of the past winter -and especially since Jan- 
uary — has been so exceedingly mild that the birds have been 
gradually migrating north since the latter part of that month, 
instead of reaching our latitude in largo numbers late in March 
and early in April, as they usually do. During the past win- 
ter it was not often that tho thermometer here fell to the 
freezing point. About the 15th of January a Bnipe was killed 
upon a meadow near the city, but I then thought it was a be- 
lated bird of last year on his way south. Now 1 am con- 
vinced that it was just the reverse (i. e., an early bird of this 
year on his way north), the mild weather having started them 
north from their winter quarters in the south thus early in 
the season. The marshes and lowlands bordering on the Pa- 
tuxent River in Maryland are generally filled with snipe about 
the 1st of April, and a number of sportsmen from this city 
and Baltimore usually have some delightful shoollug there 
about that time, a good shot often buggiug as many as fifty or 
seventy-five birds in a day’s tramp over the meadows and 
marshes, from which the reeds and grass are always burned 
in February, preparatory to snipe shootiug. This year the 
birds made their appearance even before the grass was burned, 
and their migration northward was kept up until the close of 
the season. So, instead of having a point on a bird behiud 
nearly every tussock, as had been the case in former years, 
we were glad to put up a dozen birds in meadows where we 
had put up fifty or more in a few hourB heretofore. 
glass ball shooting. 
In several letters I have referred to the fact that the respect- 
able class of gentlemen to be found aniODg our Washington 
sportsmen is gratifying to every true lover of the pleas- 
ure derived from rod and gun. As a general thing they are 
men who use every honorable means to encourage legitimate 
field sports, and the skill displayed by some of them in the 
field is much to their credit. Upon a recent Saturday after- 
noon I witnessed the glass ball shooting at Kalorama, a short 
distance north of the city, where mauy of our sportsmen as- 
semble once a week at this season for practice at glass halls, 
using the Bogardus trap and the Paine feather-filled ball. I 
could not help noticing the gentlemanly bearing and appear- 
ance of all engaged in the sport. There was an entire absence 
of any loud or boisterous language, no arguments or disputes 
over shots, but the whole thing was conducted by gentlemen 
and in a manner to please gentlemen. Mr. E. L. Mills, of 
the Treasury Department, was the champion. He is an excel- 
lent marksman, shoots very quick, and rarely misses a ball. 
Messrs. McLeod, Lauritson, Henderson, Alexander, Derrick, 
Williams, Daw, Clark and others shot well and won applause 
from many visitors. 
BLAOK BASS AND PEROH FISHING. 
The white perch fishing of the Upper Potomac in the vi- 
cinity of the chaiu bridge and Little Falls has been a failure 
this season. Many small ones, but very few large ones have 
been taken. They usually ascend the liver witli the shad, aud 
from the first to tho fifteenth or twentieth of April 
they bite ravenously at common angling worms. I have 
frequently caught them from ten to twelve inches in length 
and weighing a pound, which we believe is about the greatest 
weight this fish ever attain in our waters. Genio C. Scott, 
in hia admirable work on “Fishing in American Waters,” says: 
“ It is a little fish at best, ranging all the way from three 
ounces to three pounds,” but I have never heard of one so 
large being caught in this river. They remain in the deep 
holes of the Upper Potomac, where the bottom is rocky, until 
about the first of May and then return to salt water, but are 
caught at all times lower down the river, their favorite haunts 
being in the neighborhood of Aquia Creek, where the water 
bcgiu9 to get brackish, and between this point and Blackis- 
ton s Island they arc always plentiful. 
We have no law here to protect black bass, and the result is 
they are caught in their spawning season just us at aDy other 
time. I have heard of many being captured at the foot of the 
Great Falls this spr'mg and others below the Little Falls and 
at other points along the river. Bass are game fish in every 
sense of the word, and it is an outrage to take them during 
the spawning period, which commences about the middle or 
April and continues until June. The proper season to catch 
them is from the middle of July to the first of December, 
when they are in prime condition and bite ravenously, but 
now they are poor, and, in my judgment, not fit to eat. 
The carp ponds, of which I gave a description a few weeks 
ago, are nearly finished, and already some of the carp have 
been brought over from Baltimore and placed in one of them. 
Prof. Baird has takeu every precaution to have the ponds 
guarded, and a watchman is always on duty to prevent persons 
from throwing anything in the water and to keep out dogs, as 
all such disturbances are injurious to the fish. 
OBITUARY. 
Black Prince, a valuable black and tan setter owned by Dr 
D. W. Prentiss, of this city, died a few days ago after suffer-, 
ing two months from cerebro spinal meuingilis, the worst 
form of English distemper, producing paralysis of the hind 
extremetics anil 8t. Vitus dance. He was a remarkably in- 
telligent animal, aud this disease, always so futal in blooded 
dogs, was more than he could bear, although he received the 
best medical attention. He was a combination of the Gor- 
don blood with the Laverack, his grandmother being Ruby by 
Mystery ont of Cora, bred by Mr. Laverack, and imported by 
Dr. J. H. Gautier, and his grandfather, Dan, by Dandy out 
of Di, also imported by that gentlemau. Well truined and 
obedient, Prince gave promise of a useful career. “Afterlife's 
fitful fever he sleeps well ” in his new-made grave in the 
stable yard, where he so often impatiently scampered in early 
morn while waiting for the horses to be harnessed to take us 
to some neighboring county of Maryland or Virginia for a 
day's shooting. The well worn gun-casts and the satchels 
containing Bhells and other paraphernalia were familiar sights 
to Prince, and with that intelligence which amounted to rea- 
son, he well knew that these implements meant sport for him 
as well as his master that day. R. F. B. 
AN INTERESTING CABINET AND CU- 
RIOSITIES OF A NATURALIST. 
D R. W. WOOD, of East Windsor Hill, Conn., ho9 one of 
if not, the best and niC9t extensive private collections of 
ornithological, archaaolocical, historical and oological speci- 
mens iu New Englaud. The Doctor is a practicing physician 
with a wide country practice, still lie finds time to bringdown 
with hut unerring shot-gun many rare specimens of our feath- 
erecl and other visitants and residents, and to set them tin 
with lus own hands In lus own inimitable manner. Visitors 
who have examined larger collections in our own aud other 
lands, uniformly award tho Doctor the praise of seoinir no 
specimens set up with greater taste and scientific nicotv In 
the indulgence of his taste he makes a specialty of ornithology 
oology and archeology : historical, etc., specimens come in 
as incidental, being collected as occasion offers, presented hv 
friends, aud sent iu by his collectors of other specimens Ilm 
collection, in tho ornithological line, includes over 230 eneciei 
and of each lie has specimens or both sexes, ns well as in th« 
different stages of maturity. Where they vary as is the c-iZ 
with niauy of tho rapacious birds, such as an- several years in' 
acquiring udult plumage, he has them In all the intermedium 
stages, swelling the number of specimens to about O H) 
Among the thirteen or more varieties and species of hawks I 
noticed tho duck hawk (Faleo anntum, Bon.,) which it lina 
heeu claimed does not neat in Conn. ; but the Doctor dls 
proves this by showing six eggs taken from two nests not far 
away from liis residence. His collection includes all of tin- 
different species known in his vicinity, from tho largest to 
the smallest. Ten species of owls here stand peering at vou 
through their glassy eyes, and all, except the hnwk owl 
(winch was taken in Vermont), were taken in Connecticut 
That noble bird, the bald caglo (J/almtua leucocephalwt S \ 
stands looking as if he were watching some lesser bird catch 
ing a flail, which lie Is prepared to relievo it of us soon as thn 
bird rises in the air with it. Twenty-five varieties of hum 
mmg birds, mounted and In skins, aro included, most of 
which were taken in South America. Tho belted kingfisher's 
nests are quite common on tho banks of the Hcautic Rivor 
near the Doctor's residence, nud lie lias made a study of it’s 
nesting and other habits. The wild turkey (MeUugrU gallo- 
pavo, Linn ), tho loou ( Colymbm torquaton), the latter shot 
by N. Jone9 in the Connecticut Rivor in South Windsor are 
observed iu all their majestic beauty. Splendid specimens of 
the wood duck (Mia> epoma, Bon. ), the most beautiful bird 
that Hies, together with all other kinds which visit our Now 
England waters, It would lie impossible to even name all 
the difforeut species and varieties in an ordiuary letter which 
adorn his collection, so I will pass them to sco his Albinos 
Here are Albino robins (red breast), A. bobo link or reet j'. 
bird, A. bluebird, A. muskrat, A. mink, A. swallow A red 
squirrel, and A. rats, mice, rabbits, etc. Common minks 
muskrats, rabbits, foxes, skunks (young and old), star and 
other moles; rats and mice of all kinds found iu this section - 
black rats, wharf rots, spotted mouse, red weusel, mnkf 
snakes from the boa constrictor down to hair snake, ' lizards 
and insects in variety. An India hat spreading Us wiiira 
three feet ; snupping-turtlo (taken in Scautic River after be- 
ing watched for four y- are) weighing twenty-four pounds 
In dark cases are exhibited a deformed calf, from a common 
cow, with a head aud nose resembling a bull-dog, foot sot on 
rudimentary legs only two or three Inches long ; ft pig (from 
the town farm) with on 3 head aud body, with eight legs four 
ears— two natural, aud the rudiments of two ou 1L ’rs- a 
chicken with four legs; a porcupine, etc., with duplicates’ of 
before-mentioned specimens. In one corner is a sort of non 
descript or What-is-it, named, by tho Doctor, “ Short- toiled* 
Ho ax to he appreciated it must be seen and examined 
Turning to another apartment we were shown a compressed 
burbot or eelpout, taken m Bcantlc River four or five miles 
from its junction with the Connecticut, May 22, 1808, and by 
the Doctor, described in tho American Nuturali.it, Vo I III 
No. 1. Of eggs there are shown some 5,000 to 0,000 sni-ci- 
mcn8 of 300 to 400 varieties, ranging from that of the ostrich 
to that of the humming-bird , also oggs of the different 
varieties of turtles, etc., found in Connecticut. Iu blowing 
the eggs the Doctor ubcs an instrument iuvented and patented 
by his brother in-law, Mr. E. W. Ellsworth, whereby the 
work i9 expeditiously performed with the thumb and two 
fingers, the egg being held in tho other hand ; no blowing 
with the mouth through a blower, straining the eyes out of tho 
head, hut all done with a little instrument with a barrel no 
larger than a spool of No. 40 or 00 sewing cotton, and much 
better than in uuy other way. Among the Doctor's speci- 
mens is a splendid otter, captured in the woods of Wnpping 
Pariah, South Windsor, by F. Tryon, boh and dog, after u 
long chase and worry by the dog, with which tho dog could 
not have done auythmg hud not hiB master conio to his as- 
sistance. It measures three feet ten inches from tip of noHe 
to end of tail. This, so far os I aui informed, is the only 
specimen of the kind ever captured in that vicinity, certainly 
the first and only one within the memory of the present in- 
habitants, and how this one «hould have strayed to the vicin- 
ity is a wonder not easily accounted for. A wild cat (red 
lynx) captured in East Hartlnnd, which bud first killed 
twenty sheep thi winter taken— a most ferocious-looking ani- 
mal, with limbs and muscle of immense strength for uu ani- 
mal of its size. A raccoon, captured in the woods of South 
Windsor lately, being the first seen In that locality for some 
thirty-live or more years. What gives peculiar interest to 
such specimens is that they were captured in his own town 
and near locality. A jet bluck woodchuck also stands guard 
on his native understanding; this also was killed in the near 
vicinity. A splendid specimen leopard from Africa, measur- 
ing about eight feet from tip of nose to end of tail is also, 
here shown — truly a splendid looking uuinial, for ull ht& 
savage appearance or general reputation. Having gono 
through with the main specimens on this floor (the Doctor 
does not keep all his collection on one lloor of his office or 
even in the same buildiDg), let us ascend to the floor above 
and see what of interest he may show us. We pass, first 
several large boxes nailed fast, hut filled with muffed 'birds* 
kept here for convenience and safety. Next we come tu 
three others filled with birds' nests of various kinds and des- 
cription. The first to attract our attention ia a humming- 
bird's nest, a nature! curiosity, if you please, or whatever 
you muy please to term it— it is stUl a curiosity, showing 
what can he accomplished by the smallest specimen of the 
feathered tribe. Build them wlu*ro they may, they are very 
inconspicuous, scarcely discernible from Uiu object on which 
they ore built ; a soft nest made from spider’s webs, scarcely 
largo enough to admit the end of your Unger. On the top at 
a limb it looks like a small knot covered with litchens, as the 
outside is of that inateriuL Some years since u friend of the 
writer told him of finding one of these nests fasteued to an 
apple on an apple tree. A nest of the blue yellow-back 
