Jan. 2, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
33 
We thank our Ballistite and Empire friends for 
their generous patronage during 1908, and wish them 
Happy and Prosperous New Year” 
Send 12 cents for 1909 Calendar, “How Would 
You Like To Be In the Blind?” 
J. H. LAU & COMPANY, Agents 
75 Chambers Street - - - New York City 
indfi 
22 CaliberRepeatingRifle 
You can use in the same rifle,^ without change of parts, .22 short, long 
and long-rifle cartridges. This is an excellent arm for target work as 
well as rabbits, squirrels, hawks and all small game up to 200 yards. 
The ammunition is cheap, giving much enjoyment at little expense. 
■ In our four distinct models—the solid top is always a protection and 
keeps powder and gases from blowing back; the side ejection allows in¬ 
stant repeat shots, without the possibility of throwing an ejected shell 
into your face or eyes; the removable sideplate or take-down construction 
makes them the easiest of all .22s to keep clean. 
Tj^e2b2ac/in/erearms Co., 
21 Willow St. NEW HAVEN. CONN. 
Get acquainted with the TTlar/zn line before 
ordering your new gun. Send 3 stamps postage 
and get our complete 136.pagc catalog. 
J 
where in the world. At Verkhoyansk, Siberia, 
■90.4 degrees below zero was observed in Janu¬ 
ary, 1888, which goes below anything ever 
known in the world before or since. At that 
point the average temperature for January is 
nearly 64 degrees below zero. This town is 330 
feet above the level of the sea, and during the 
entire winter the weather is calm and clear. 
The year 1816 has a remarkable cold weather 
record, and is known as ‘‘the year without a 
summer.” In that year there was a sharp frost 
in every month, and the people all over the 
world began to believe that some great and 
definite change in the earth was taking place.- 
The farmers used to refer to it as “eighteen- 
hundred-and-starve-to-death.” Frost, ice, and 
snow were common in June. Almost every 
green thing was killed, and the fruit was nearly 
all destroyed. During the month snow fell to 
the depth of three inches in New York and 
Massachusetts, and ten inches in Maine. There 
was frost and ice in July in New York, New 
England and Pennsylvania, and corn was nearly 
all destroyed in certain sections. Ice half an 
inch thick formed in August. A cold north 
wind prevailed all summer.—Kansas City Star. 
IN PATAGONIA. 
When Darwin returned from his voyage in 
the Beagle one of the things he commented upon' 
as most strange at the close of his wanderings 
was the fact that, of all he had seen, one of the 
things which had most strongly impressed him 
was the plains of Patagonia. This he was 
puzzled to acount for, since, as he remarked, 
they were in one sense arid and uninteresting 
in the extreme, and yet so it was; and he ex-, 
plained it to himself by remarking that prob¬ 
ably the fact was owing to a sense of their 
unchangeableness, since they were not, and 
never could be, known. Yet this is not so now, 
for they have been traversed in every direction; 
but the same effect remains, and anyone who 
has spent some time there will agree in the 
deep impression they make upon the wanderer. 
Perhaps the cause is partly the intense silence 
and stillness of Patagonia; for wandering day 
after day upon those stony wastes, where no 
man lives except a few wandering Indians, 
whom one may occasionally meet with their 
faces painted black and red, the stillness is 
seldom broken except now and then when a 
hare scuttles away in the thorny scrub, or 
a bird note sounds, a short, low note as a rule, 
almost as if the owner of the bird voice were 
afraid of breaking the stillness. 
Of course, all Patagonia is not the same, says 
W. L. Puxley in the London Field, in the valleys 
where the rivers wander the soil is fertile 
enough, and sheep farmers have found that a 
good living may be made out of the pasture to 
be found there. But as the valley is left behind, 
and the low heights are reached where only the 
thorny bushes are left and a few tufts of dry, 
wiry grass, one realizes that this country can 
never be “opened up” or made productive, but 
must be left as Nature made it. This is part of 
the profound impression it leaves upon one, the 
fact that it is as it has always been and must be. 
And yet, even these uplands bear a great 
quantity of. bird life; huge flocks of geese come 
here to breed, and are in such numbers that they 
often do great harm to the crops in the valleys, 
while wild ducks and pigeons are daily to be 
seen in countless numbers. In the lagoons, too, 
near the coast, the bird life is teeming, and the 
coots are so numerous that they are a dreaded 
foe to the farmer in the lowlands, or along the 
river bank, coming out to feed upon his wheat 
in flocks. 
Yet in many parts Patagonia is a pleasant 
country to live in. For months of the year the 
climate is bright and clear all day long, and the 
sky a perfect blue; later on in the summer hot 
winds blow from the north at all times the up¬ 
lands are dry and healthy. In parts the ancient, 
slow-growing grasses of the surface have been 
destroyed, and fresh ones, such as lucerne, 
planted for the cattle and sheep. These have 
not taken the place of the older kinds in every 
way, for they fail to hold the poor top soil 
Field, Cover e^ivd Trap Shooting. 
By Captain Adam H Bagardus, Champion Wing Shot 
of the World, Embracing Hints for Skilled Marks¬ 
men; Instruction for Young Sportsmen; Haunts and 
Habits of Game Birds; Flight and Resort of Water- 
fowl; Breeding and Breaking of Dogs. Cloth, 444 
pages. Price, $2.00. 
“Field, Cover and Trap Shooting” is a book of in¬ 
struction, and of that best of all instruction, where the 
teacher draws from his own rich experience, incident, 
anecdote and moral to illustrate and emphasize this 
teaching. The scope of the book—a work of nearly 500 
pages—IS shown by this list of chapters: 
Guns and Their Proper Charges. Pinnated Grouse 
Shooting. Late Pinnated Grouse Shooting. Quail Shoot¬ 
ing. Shooting the Woodcock. The Snipe and Snipe 
Shooting. Golden Plover. Curlew and Gray Plover. 
Wild Ducks and Western Duck Shooting, Wild Geese, 
Cranes and Swans, Wild Turkey and Deer Shooting. 
The Art of Shooting on the Wing. Shooting Dogs— 
Breeding and Breaking. Pigeon Shooting—Trapshooting. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
FETCH AND CARRY. 
A Treatise on Retrieving. By B. Waters. 124 pages. 
Illustrated. Price, $1.00. 
Treats minutely of the methods by which a dog, old or 
young, willing or unwilling, may be taught to retrievej 
either by the force system or the “natural method.’ 
Both the theory and practice of training are exhaus¬ 
tively explained, and the manner of teaching many 
related accomplishments of the pointer and setter in their 
work to the gun is treated according to the modem 
manner of dog training. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
Uncle Lisha's Shop. 
Life in a Corner of Yankeeland. By Rowland E. Robin¬ 
son. Cloth. 187 pages. Price, $1.25. 
The shop itself, the place of business of Uncle Lisha 
Peggs, bootmaker and repairer, was a sort of sportsman’s 
exchange, where, as one of the fraternity expressed it, 
the hunters and fishermen of the widely scattered neigh¬ 
borhood used to meet of evenings and dull outdoor days 
“to swap lies.” 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
