1875 - 
119 
We finally cross the ciiannel and are in the ground 
and the fun commences. Flip, flop, one after another 
the finny beauties writhe in the planks of our boat, 
vomiting in their agony the red billed gars on which 
they had been feeding a short time previous. We skirt 
down the shoal which bears to the eastward and south, 
ward of Fort Macon. “Ready about," sings Boyd and 
we all dodge, expecting thej boom to strike us, an 
event which adds so much to the excitement of blue- 
fishing, but which does not happen as we have no boom. 
Backwards and forwards we go, hauling in our game as 
fast as our tired muscles will let us, every now and 
then gattinu in the face t wash of delicious briny spray, 
which invigorates and refreshes us. “What is de sci- 
entific name of dese fi^h. Doctor?” says Alfred, who 
from long association with Moore, Packard, and Coues 
in their different trips on th'S coast, has learned to ap- 
preciate the heaulies of bi-nomial nomenclature. The 
Doctor draws in bis line and assuming his most learned 
expression, says; “It was formerly called Temnodon 
taltator but Gill, whom Heaven confound now. calls it 
PomatomuB — ” “Give us a lest, or else write it down 
on a pisce of paper and we will read it Sunday,” says 
P. and the Doctor scowling resumes his line. Uncle 
Steve scratches his wool, “Now for my part, I can see 
no reason for gibing dese fish such owdacious names, 
seems like tailor or snapper mackerel is much simpler 
and a heap purtier — I wuddent rememt>er ’em if I wi s 
to try till doomsday.” “It is not expected jyou should 
Uncle Stephen,” says Medicus, and he is about once 
more to commence a lecture, when getting a quick, hard 
strike, he is interrupted by the appearance of a fine 
Spanish mackerel. We fish, until worn out, and having 
captured a fair boatload, bear away for Beaufort, ready 
for dinner, every muscle aching wdth the continued 
strain, and our fingers so stiff that we are willing to let 
Boyd and Steve do all the work back. 
A word more, and I have finished. If j'ou go to 
Beaufort and want boats for blue-fishing, any of the 
following men will be available and do your work well, 
they are all good sailors and know where the game 
"uses.” At tne head of the list I place the names of 
Alfred and Henry Boyd, Stephen Turner, Joseph 
Fisher. But almost any of the colored boatmen will 
give you good sport. 
LISBABY TABLE. 
'• Bibds or THE Northwest ” by Dr. Cones. A notice of 
this work on page 17 of the present volume has called forth 
some comment. We give the following letter. 
Caubbiooe, Mass., May 2. — Your editorial notice of Dr. 
Coues' new book on the “Birds of the Northwest,” published 
in your issue of April 17th, is in the main justly appreciative 
of the work of this distinguished auihor, but there still r ins 
through the article in question a singularly discourteous 
spirit, directed, not against the author, but against the aus- 
pices un ier which his work U given to the pubhe. The work 
of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, as 
carried on under Dr. Hayden’s direction, needs no defeu.c 
from me, but as the attack made upon it in the article in 
question .trikes at an importaut principle, a word may b> 
said in reply. After a short notice of the work you are 
pleased to refer to it as follows: “ In short, it was intended, 
apart from its scientific use, to extend still further a notoriety 
to an expedition already sufiiciently heralded by an issue of 
simiUr works of this character.” You further refer to the 
work as based primarily upon Dr. Coues’ “ own field sketches 
and desk work, both conducted entirely independent of Dr. 
Hayden's survey," and add that “ like a great many works 
issued under the same auspices, it really has nothing in par- 
ticular to do with this siu vey, beyond a record of the eompar- 
itively few specimens collected under Dr. Hayden's direction, 
and occasional allusions to the same gentleman’s observalions 
in the West when such were found available fur use.” Now 
what are the “ similar work, of this character ” and the 
great many works issued under the same auspices,” “ to 
extend still furthers notoriety,” etc., that are embraced in 
this sweeping criticism, and which are published with such a 
questionable object? 'I’hey cannot be the Annual Reports of 
Progress, for these are made up of the details of the field- 
work and the special reports upon the collections actually 
made by the different members of the Expedition. They 
cannot be the detailed map. and profiles, the photographs, 
nor the meteorological observations. They musi be then the 
quarto series of monographs, which, if nut based wholly on 
the matsrials collected by Hayden's survey, can include but 
little material that he has nut directly collected himself in 
former year., and of whose former work the survey is but an 
organized continuation. Not a naturalist who has wurkerl 
upon the grand collections contained i . the museum of the 
Smithsonian Institution (now the National Museum), of what- 
ever class almost, but has been more deeply indebted to Dr. 
Hayden for bis material than to any other single man or expe- 
dition. For twenty years Dr. Hayden has devoted himself al- 
most unremittingly to the extension of our knowledge of the 
zoology, botany, palseoutologv, geography, and geoiogy 
of the great northwest, and upon his collectious, especi- 
ally in pal»onlology, is grounded a large part of our pres- 
ent kno vltdgo or the great region of the upper Missouri. 
The present work of Meek and Eoidy in the fossil fauna, and 
of Lesqnereux and Newberry 'on the' fossil flora, which has 
done so much to advance our knowledge of the palteoululugy 
of the country between the Mlgsouri and the Rocky Mountains 
and vrliioh hM not only added fahte to Hayden’a fmrvcT, but 
bk. contributed emiuunUy Ui the euiehlific credit of Uur oouD- 
tff, trould ootbur* been possibl# but for Raydeo’e long yean 
of patient labor in the West. A no more fitting medium or 
one more worthy of credit, could be found for the publi- 
cation of monographic works, bated primarily upon collections 
made either by Hayden’s survey or upon these and those col- 
lected by Hayden before bis work assumed the proportions of 
an organized survey, the resnlts of which are collected and 
combined with results from other sources, forming thorough 
and systematic expositions of the subjects treated. 
The director of a survey, can in no bett.r way show hi. fit- 
ness for the position than in bis choics of hie colaborators, or 
of the specialist in whose hands he places what may be 
termed tb* raw matnrial of the survey. In this respect Dr. 
Hayden has shown praiseworthy discretion, the “great many 
works issued under these [his] auspices,’' being by the best au- 
thorities the country affords. They are men of acknowledged 
scientific attainments and bringing to their work matured ex- 
perience and special familiarity with the subjects they are 
called upon to treat Indeed, the chief fault you notice in re- 
spect to the ornithological report is that it is done too well, 
and contributes too much information respecting the subject 
treated. Instead of presenting a monographic treatise upon 
the birds of the Upper Missouri Region, which has been the 
scene of so much of Dr. Hayden’s ornithological field-work-— 
the ornithological specimens collected by him or through his 
instrumentality, probably outnumbering all those received 
from this region from every other source, — the inference 
from your criticism is that the’report should have been a mere 
list of names of the speciss with a statement of the number 
of specimens of each collected. Even for the insertion of the 
monographs of several families of the water-birds, there is 
not only a precedent in the history of similar surveys the 
world over, but I know that the principle meets with the 
approval of m’ n eminent in different departments of science. 
It would indeed be the most shortsighted and inefficient pol- 
icy conceiva le to restrict any survey in such a way that its 
reports should be based exclusively on not only the exact ma- 
terial collected by the survey, but also that they should be 
made by the actual attaches of the survey, whose sole expe- 
rience and training for the work must be gained during their 
connection with the survey. Work done in this way would 
of course be very imperfectly done, and in many cases would 
be of too little value to warrant the cost of publication Yet 
the inference from your critique is that this is the kind of work 
to which the publications of the United States Geological Sur- 
vey of the territories should be confini d. Hence 1 cannot be- 
lieve that your notice of the “ Birds of the Northwest” was 
written with quite the deliberation that such notices require, 
or that usually characterizes the editorial notices of the Ron 
AND Gun. J. a. Allxk. 
We think that Mr. Allen somewhat mistakes the tenor of 
the original article and gees dejireciatiou when only criticism 
was meant. The gravamen of the charge against the Rod 
AND Gun is that while praising Dr. Cones’ book we have not 
given credit to Professor Hayden lor his work in the same 
field. The article complained of is from the pen of a writer 
of no mean repute, and we are persuaded that after due 
allowance is made for the temper of men’s minds and the dif- 
ference resulting from a contemplation of the same subject at 
a different stand point, our writer could have had no desire to 
dispraise one gentleman or to overpraise another. Professor 
Hayden as a man of science and a public officer stands second 
to none in his chosen walk: it would be absurd to depreciate 
him intentionally. “The Birds of the Northwest,’’ is published 
by its able author under the authority of the department 
of which Professor Hayden is chief. It is in fact, a report 
formally addressed to Professor Hayden himself, and had the 
form lu which it is Dublished been objectionable to that gen- 
tleman he had the right to interpose his v.to. The critic as- 
sumes that Dr. Coues did the chief work of the book, whether 
literary compiler or scientific collector is not material, nor 
would this detract from Professor Hayden’s great abilities and 
illustrious services. Possibly the critic overlooked that part 
of Dr. Coues’ preface in which he briefly recognizes Dr. Hay- 
den’s previous labors, when he says, “the basis of the pres- 
ent volume is mainly an unpublished report which I prepared 
at Washington in the year 1862 upon the ornithological collec- 
tions made by yourselt,” (Dr. Hayden) and again “You (Dr. 
Hayden) intimated to me yo.ir desire to publish a treatise on 
the ornithology ot the Western Territories, you had then ex- 
plored,” etc. This, and other allusions by Dr. Coues himself, 
clearly testify to Dr. Hayden s extended early labor in the 
same field. In the face of such assertions it cannot bo sup- 
posed that the critic meant to undervalue Dr. Hayden’s act- 
ual work done, although that he did not give it due em- 
phasis may possibly be Inferred from the view taken by Mr. 
Allen. 
The British Qdabtf.bi.v for April gives us a list of unus- 
ually pithy articles. “Gaspard de Coligny” is a rapid life 
sketch of that famous hero of French Protestantism, with 
a philosophical criticism of the merits of the contending par- 
ties and proving that if the Huguenots were not faultless nor 
their leaders ssints, yet that Romanism was flagrantly unscru- 
pulous and stayed at no means that might achieve success. 
“ The higher Pantheism’ is an article on the newest religious 
sentiment of the day. “Bjoriistjorue Bjornson” introduces 
the reader to acquaintance with an eminent Norwegian novel- 
ist whose very name is scarcely known in this country. “Liv- 
ingston’s last Journals” receives its share of attention. 
’Kiuglake’s History of the Crimean war:” “Ultramontauism 
and Civil Allegiance” deals wlih a question that agitates some 
.Vniericau minds in reference to the recent ceremonial of tho 
.•tmericaii Catholic Church in this country. This article shows 
that whatever pretensions the Vatican may put forth the Eug- 
lish Catholics have always kept their civil allegiauce free from 
subserviency to Romo. The number also contains the usual 
literary and scientific miscellany. 
The O.vlaxy for Juno contains “The Murats of Flonda,’ 
a neat biographical sketch of a family who reyersed the Miss 
Patterson, of Baltimore, experience. Tho Mnrats carqe to 
Ainerifla tlio dowiifitli nf Utti Great Napoleon, and inatead 
ot Bthyian rMogaitioa at ti>a TwiiMiaa deoliaed to rotuni ^ to 
Paris, and preferred their Southern home. “ The ilerchants 
of New York” is a piece of old society revival. “ A Complaint 
of Printing” gives, as its name implies, an insight into the 
hasty work, the wrong teachings, and the spread of discontent 
which ba lances the blessings of a free press. “ A West of 
England sfory, ’ a trip in Somersetshire with some memoirs 
of the famous Abbey of Glastonbury. “ The Classic Flora” 
gives us some idea of flowers in their emblematic charac- 
ter. “ Landlord Fay’s Guest,” a bit of Centennial romance. 
Richard Grant White gives ns “ The Science and the 
Philosophy of Music,” from which the reader may glean a 
notion of the complex mathematical system involved in an art 
which to common ears seems all sweetness and simplicity. 
The continuations are “ Dear Lady Disdain.” and Mrs. Ed- 
wards’ capital story “ Leah.” A bit of poetry, “ If My Love,” 
is very Shakspearian in its tender conceits. The Scientific 
Miscellany has two or three paragraphs of interest to onr 
readers, among them “ The Pine Snake of New Jersey.” 
A Cat-aloque of the birds ascertained to ocenr inSonthern 
Michigan, together with tho game and fish laws of Michigan 
has been compiled by A. H. Boies, an accomplished natu- 
ralist and sportsman. It was ordered by the State Legisla- 
ture and is now inpress. 
WESTEB5^ ITEMS. 
[bt our own correspondents.] 
Chicago.— I am glad to say birds arc getting plenty, and there 
is a prospect for lots of fun ahead. No prospect, however, for a 
match between the city clubs; it looks as if “one was afraid and 
t’other darsen't;” even the June contsst in the State tournament 
seems to have fallen through, tournament and all, through want of 
exertion, or life or activity, or perhaps all three combined, upon 
part of the executive committee of the State Association, a com- 
mittee, hy the way, a tower ol strength on paper, but oh, so hard 
to get any work out of, or even to get together, though there are 
one or two live members, who if they only constituted a quorum, 
would straighten things out and set them agoing in short order. 
Chicago will be well represented in the Cleveland tonmament, 
a large delegation having already made np their minds to be 
present, partly because of the respect they have for Mr. S. H. Tur- 
rill, the manager of it. and partly because the grand aaccess of his 
Chicago tournament last fall, gnaraatcea an at leaat eqnal sncceas in 
Cleveland this summer. The Messrs. Price. Milligan, Wilcox, Ed- 
wards, Kleinman, Orris, Waller and Johnson are a few among the 
many who are talking ot going, one of whom said if he did get dead 
broke before it was over he thought Sam would trust him for his 
board until he could borrow money to come home with, and that 
was one advantage anyhow . 
Hannibal, Mo., Mat 7.— The apring shooting bars has been 
pretty good, some large bags of dneka being made. Canvas-back 
and red-head were here a thing unknown or unremarked before; 
they certaialy have not been here for some yeara past, althongh I 
saw a few on the Chariton last fall. I suppose that the cold weath- 
er and scarcity ol food east may have caused their flight here. Why 
they do not follow the Mississippi in their regular^spring and fall 
flights I am at a lost to nnderstand; they may follow tome portiona 
of the river, hut are seldom seen in this vicinity. Snipe have been 
more than usually plentv, and have remained longer than nsnal, the 
cold weather retarding their northern flight. Bags of from 50 to 90 
have been made in an evening. Snipe shooting is scarce in this vi- 
cinity, and the above bags are considered good; much better ones 
have been made down at Cap an Gris and Clarksville, those points 
furnishing excellent sport. Y’onr correspondent has not yet bad an 
opportunity to draw a bead on Scolopax this season, but “errors and 
omissions excepted" before another sun goes down, be hopes to be 
in at the death of some of the long bills, if they have not like the 
Arab, “folded their tents and stole silently away.” Fall snipe 
shooting we seldom have, there being no feeding grounds here- 
abouts. All old dnek shooters know how uncertain is the flight of 
ducks; a cireumstanee comes to mind. The next week after the 
enceeeeful party returned from their hunt at Mundy’s Landing, two 
of onr veteran duck huntere started out for there, well supplied with 
all the needful for a week’s camp out, taking along a porter to carry 
tbs bag and keep camp, so that no time might be lost and so that 
they might be able to beat the individual scores made the prerioua 
week. They were both crack ahots; one of them is a prominent 
offleerof the club. They were attended to the boat and given a 
good send-off by several sportsmen, and as the boat shoved off they 
expressed their determination "to return with the banner bag of the 
season or leave their hones to bleach on the battle Held.” The day 
appointed for their return found several shooters at the landing in 
waiting. Tent, camp utensils, etc., wpie unloaded under charge of 
the supe who was asked where were the ducks and the banters? but 
he would not be interviewed. At last when search for the Nimrods 
was nearly given up, a couple of forms were seen hastily disappear- 
ing around the corner of tlie T. W. & W. freight honse carrying be- 
tween them one solitary duck. Not a whitewash, but oh I so nearl 
They neither of them like ducks; the other party crow over that. 
"That poor duck was a crippled one that was caught ia the grass." 
Missouri sportsmen think they liave a State organization, bat one 
of the ofllcers elect recently stated to the writer that he “had not 
been ofllcially notified of his election." I trust that we are not going 
to let itdie a nstiinil death. St. Louis has a large clnb in members, 
but they have not even a club room, or hold regular meetings and a 
quorum is almost impossible to get. So states an old otBccr of the 
club. They are now trying to organize a club inside of the other 
one, lor the purpose of having some trap shoots. Quail have a hard 
winter here and many have died, although I have seen eonie good- 
sized coveys Ihie spring. Summer ducks are quite nlenty uow, but 
a few warm days will close out our season's shootiug, and the 
breech-loaders will be oiled and laid away to await the 15th of An- 
gqet, except perhaps for a day or two of summer cock sliootlng; (I 
I mssn DP offonr-p tp our uuiilern frieufis wtiP wRh to PUYe tbeir btrflp 
by iiboli.shuig It) lot berk we have llillt or uu fall ebuutlug, and R li 
July or jsut at all. 
