378 
- FOREST AND STREAM. 

Lorillard, of New York; Mr. Renwick, of Iowa; Mr. 
Brooks, of Philadelphia; Mr. Alpha Phillips, of Bergen 
Point: Mr. O: H. Lombard, of Connecticut; Mr. J. H. 
Gautier, of New York; Mr. Frank Palmer, of New York; 
Mr. Roche, of Phila.; Mr. Bernard Hoopes, of Phila.; Mr. 
Raymontl, of New Jersey; Mr. Scott Rodman, of New 
Jersey, Col. Knight, of Wisconsin; Mr, 8. Lawrence, 
of New York; Mr. C. Banks, of New York; Mr. W. C. 
Root, of Wisconsin; John Delchisier, of New York; Mr. 
adelphia. 

- <0 
= et 
Tne AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SociEty.—The annual 
meeting of this most excellent Society was held 
on the 18th inst., Judge Daly presiding. The Pres- 
ident gave a most thorough reyiew of the main geo- 
graphical results of the past year, and stated that, of the 
unexplored regions of the world in the Antarctic were 7,- 
000,000 square miles, in the Arctic 3,000,000, and that in 
Africa at least 1,000,000 of square miles had been yet un- 
visited by the civilized white man. Judge Daly drew at- 
tention to the unexplored regions of Australia, of the Ice- 
lands, of the Eastern Archipelago, and especially of Borneo 
Sumatra,of Papana, stating that in the best known of these 
latter islands, save a narrow strip on the shore, we were 
ignorant of the geographical characteristics of the interior. 
Making special reference to our researches at home, the 
speaker paid special attention to the geological and gec- 
graphical surveys of Professor Hayden, Marsh. Capt. 
Jones, Lieut. Wheeler. Of archelogical discoveries the 
olden history of Rome, as traced by the massive founda- 
tions recently exhumed were brought before the notice of 
the Society, and Dr. Schlieman’s excavations on the sup- 
posed site of Troy were mentioned. In Asia, Judge 
Daly gave particular mention of Mr. Halevy’s explorations 
into the unknown regions of Arabia, and of Capt. Warner’s 
Palestine labors; also of Prof. Palmer’s and Dr. Drake’s 
surveys of the peninsula of Sinai, and of the admirable 
work now being performed by Lieut. Steever in the country 
of the Jordan. In Africa, now the favorite exploration 
grounds of the adventurous traveler, Judge Daly dwelt on 
the negotiations of Sir Bartle Frere, the explorations of Sir 
Samuel and Lady Baker, and of Mr. Stanley. The Gaboon 
country is now to be explored by Messrs. Compiegne and 
Marche, and Dr. Gandy is now penetrating the African 
continent from the east. Judge Daly concluded his most 
excellent review of modern explorations, by referring to 
the telegraphic communications which had been carried 
through theisland continent of Australia a distance of 2,012 
miles, on which occasion th2 telegraphic engineers were 
the explorers. 
Deas pe 
Turknys.—In an English exchange we find the weight 
of various prize turkeys for different years in her Majes- 
ty’s dominions. The conquering gobbler of 1873 weighed 
37 pounds 4 ounces; but the year 1872 must forever remain 
celebrated in England as having produced a bird weighing 
88 pounds 5 ounces. These weights are those of live birds. 
Fired perhaps witha keen spirit of national rivalry, we 
sought Fulton market and its greatest of purveyors, the 
Messrs. Robbins, and dispassionately stated the English 
fignres. ‘‘Our biggest turkey this year, dressed, weighed 
385 pounds; in the feather he must have weighed two 
pounds more,” was the reply; ‘‘but I knew a turkey,” con- 
tinued our informant— 
“On speaking or eating terms?” we asked. 
‘Well, he weighed, when dressed, 39 pounds, and on the 
leg must have ranged in the forties. He was the pride of 
Long Island, and was a Goliah in size and a David in ten- 
derness.” 
‘And were his mortal ‘remains attended,” we inquired, 
““‘by a numerous cortege of admiring and loving friends?”’ 
“Just so,” went on our greatest of turkey merchants. 
“We have sold many birds this year of 33 pounds. <A pair 
of birds, a cock and hen, weighing over fifty pounds are 
not uncommon, but when you get over 33 pounds your bird 
looks like a prize sheep or pig. I should say forty pounds 
for a turkey when dressed is the amount of weight attain- 
able in the United States.” We went home satisfied, feel- 
ing that the reputation of cur country, at least for turkeys, 
was saved. Will not some material Tennyson write a 
‘vision of fat turkeys?” 
ete 
—The annual winter dinner of the Blooming Grove Park 
Association was eaten at Hotel Monico, Seventeenth street, 
on Saturday last, and was avery enjoyable occasion. A 
very satisfactory statement of the present condition of the 
Association and its enterprise was given by the President, 
F. S. Giles, Esq. A Jarge increase has been made to its 
stock of breeding deer, some eight or ten having been 
‘caught by a contrivance similar to a wire mouse trap, which 
admits them into the enclosure but prevents their escape. 
This enclesure is one mile square, and it is believed now 
contains some fifty deer. These facts are most encourag- 
ing to the gentlemen who are associated to prevent the ex- 
tinction of the deer, the more especially that some seventy 
of these animals have been killed in the vicinity of the 
Park the past season. The Club House, it is announced, 
will have xccommodation for one hundred guests in the 
spring. 




te _________— 
“Tre Amarante.” —Brooklyn has a pet amateur dra- 
matic society of this name, whose monthly receptions al- 
ways crowd the Academy of Music with the elite of the 
city, and are regarded as among the most attractive and 
enjoyable entertainments of the winter. Last week the 
third reception of the season was given with the comedies 
“Who Killed Cock Robin” and ‘“‘A Bachelor of Arts.” It 
is scarcely within our province to criticise either the cast 
or the performance. Those newspapers that have done so 
have bestowed encomiums quite unqualified. The affairs 
are certainly most gratifying to all who participate in them, 
and the artists display a high order of histrionic talent, 
which can ouly be excelled by professionals. After the 
conclusion of the plays dancing is indulged in, and such is 
the select character of the assemblage, and such the home- 
like appointments of the elegant parlors, that the social 
seems altogether like a private affair. ‘‘The Amaranth” 
should be congratulated upon the success it has earned. 
21 sae ela oe Sts BPA ll 
Barnum HimseL¥r Acary.—For T. P. B. to go the An- 
tipodes for a dragon, or to Siberia for a mastodon, might 
be expected at any time. The exigencies of a New York 
audience require the impossible. Certainly our great im- 
pressario is like Alexander, und must be supposed to sigh 
because there are no new show-worlds to conquer. But 
Barnum is after something unique and original. If we 
can’t have Tallyho here in the United States in the legiti- 
mate way, we are at least to have the semblance of it, for 
so reads an adqertisement in a leading English paper, 
*‘Hounds—W hipper-in wanted for Baraum’s Hippodrome, 
New York, ten couples hounds, a sober, competent whip- 
per-in, and ten sober jockeys,” &c.” We are then to have 
a fox hunt on the boards or in the saw dust. Will Bar- 
num have a real imported fox hunt, or use a Jersey one, or 
will be take toa drag? It is a capital idea. We trnst we 
have not taken off the edge of the thing, Great is Barnum 
and may this novel venture be successful. 
oe 
CORRESPONDENCE.—The following accepted contribu- 
tions have been necessarily deferred:—Window Gardening 
Nos. 5 and 6—Sorrento Work—Cupid on Skates—Eagle 
River Country—White-tailed Ptarmigan—May Shooting at 
Atlantic City—Driving a Buck—How we Found our way 
in New Brunswick—Our Pet Swallows—Our Winter Birds 
—Summer Sports in Canada, No. 8—Indians and a Hard 
Tramp—Big Tupper, Adirondacks—Moaning of the Tied— 
The Butcher Bird—Game in Minnesota—Hunting Resorts 
of North Georgia—English and American Field Dogs—A 
Day on the Roquette—Snow-shoeing in Maine—A Summer 
Tramp—Foxes Withholding their Scent—Porcupines— 
Hunt on Seneca River—Albinoes—The Evergreens—Trap- 
ping the Fisher. 


ot 
—The elegant and life-like portraits of ‘‘Belle,” the cham- 
pion pointer of England, were enlarged by the celebrated 
photographers, Messrs. Fredericks, of Broadway. Mr. 
O'Neil, one of the firm, personally overlooked the artist, 
and gave many valuable suggestions. 
Sporting Glews from Abroad. 
HE tiger question seems at present to exereise the 
English sportsman. True lovers of the exciting 
amusement of tiger hunting take up the cudgels for this 
gentle beast. It is entirely a mistake most of us have 
labored under, in supposing for a moment that the tiger 
was a ferocious animal; quite on the contrary, numbers of 
gentlemen in the Indian service are willing to declare—(in- 
voking, like French hunting enthusiasts, their patron Saint 
Hubert)—that the poor tiger is a very much villified crea- 
ture, in fact that heis in the same distiessing position as the 
dog who had a bad name. If not exactly a lamb, at least 
he is innocent, we are assured, of the many murderous 
charges brought up against him. A correspondent to our 
most worthy contemporary, the Field, states, and with great 
good reason, doubtless, that many writers have evidently 
no other acquaintance with the animal—(the tiger)—than 
what they have acquired from books or sensational] letters 
regarding the loss of human life, caused by wild animals 
in India, and oddly enough it is taken for granted that al- 
most the whole of such loss is occasioned by tigers, though 
it is well known that there are other animals far less formi- 
dable than the tiger, who really cause a greater Joss of life. 
The poor tiger is made the scape-goat. The writer in the 
Field, who is familiar with the subject, states, when a tiger 
habitually takes to man-slaying, he is a wholesale destroyer 
of human life. If the animal lives in a country where 
cattle are plenty, he rarely attacks man, but should he find 
food scarce, he goes in forhuman flesh. This defence of the 
tiger, the palliation of his offences, at times strikes us, who 
are far removed from the scene of action, as at least amusing. 
Of course we decry anything like indiscriminate slaughter, 
even of the most noxious beasts, for they all play an im- 
portant part in nature’s functions, but we are inclined to 
think little mercy should be shown a man-eating tiger. As 
we have no creature similar to Old Stripes in America, the 
Puma being but a poor substitute for the most ferocious of 
brutes, we do not know exactly how to treat the subject. 
A philosophical enquiry into such a matter as the entire 
extripation of a certain species of animal is not easily dis- 
cussed. Perhaps if the Forest AnD STREAM ventured to- 
day to put in a plea of mercy for the grizzy bear, we might 
be laughed at. What is certain about the grizzly is, that 
he is by no means the blood thirsty murderous animal as 
depicted twenty years ago, and we find out that he rather 
shuns than courts man. To-day he is of course shot on 
every occasion, and we look at the grizzly bear at present 
as a point de mire, for experiments with bullets explosive 
or otherwise. When one philosophises on this kind of 
thing, the constant destruction of animals, of course it is 
utopian to imagine that we ever could bring back again 
any long departed species. We were talking this over with 
a friend the other day, one of, those with true naturalistic 

tendencies, who had killed his elephants in Africa, and 
speaking of the cave bears, the mastodons and other ani- 
mals of former periods, the hunting instincts of our friend 
surpassed the naturalistic ones. 
‘“‘what a time that would be. Think of the sport of hunt- 
ing them. Those old pachyderms must have had hides 
half a foot thick. You might as well have tried to fire a 
Remington through an iron-clad. I wonder how we shall 
manage them some of these days!’ Our sporting friend 
had absolutely not only recreated an impossible animal in 
his imagination, but was even hunting it! 
‘“By George !” he said, 
—One of our English contemporaries has a graceful 
article in regard to Melton as it was, andasitis. Railroads 
easy mcthods of conveyance, have shorn many spots of their 
former exclusiveness. The post chaise and four which 
took the high bred sporting man from London to Melton 
some thirty years ago, has passed away; you can doit now, 
even if you are a cad, for afewshillings. Thirty-five years 
ago, the Quorn, a grand old hunting name, counted Earls 
and Lords by the score, and occasional Dukes; these times 
have somewhat passed away. Perhaps there is a half re- 
gret expressed in 1874, that Melton is not what it was once. 
It is curious to note a few of the fatal accidents which have © 
occurred to some of the leading huntsmen. There was Sir 
David Baird, the boldest and best rider in a whole field of 
gallant ones. He did impossible things on his hunter’s 
back, skimming over obstacles, jymping rivers, when most 
men broke their necks. 
of his horse, as he was dismounted, opening a gate. 
opening years of this century His Grace of Dorset, alter 
jumping over a series of stiff Irish field walls, Ossa on 
Pelion affairs. came to his death in clearing alow wall that 
a donkey could have straddled over. Lord Waterford, the 
crack-brained, who was more eccentric on horseback than 
anywhere else, who would have ridden a horse and wager- 
ed to jump him through a loop hole in the second story of 
a house, broke his neck over a fence he could himself have 
sprang over. A man may have the shaft of a gig—(so it is 
recorded)—run through and through his body and get well 
of it, improve in health after it, and eventually break his 
neck by falling out of bed. 
—A heavy contest is going on at present in regard to 
battue shooting, and in Land and Water, a most able cor- 
respondent, Mr. F. O. Morris, leads the charge in depreca- 
ting this most stupid butchery of animals and birds, and he 
writes hoping “‘that the voice of publie feeling may be. 
raised against the wretched system of battue.” Sometime 
ago we had occasion to notice how the Prince of Wales 
with his equerries and others on a single day slaughtered 
a hecatomb of game, and we expatiated on the brutality of. 
Of course it is impossible for any ten men to. 
have killed in a few hours the number of pheasants, over a - 
The-only way- 
the sport. 
thousand, with guns loaded by themselves. 
He was killed ingloriously by akick _ 
In the: 
to do it, and we suppose it is the approved method, is to 
have expert flunkies in attendance with spare arms, who 
with all the celerity that can be obtained with breech 
loading arms, hand guns to their principals ready charged, 
as soon as the arostocratic battueists have discharged their 
pieces. Why not get our own Gatlin to invent an arm fitted 
for this kind of wholesale murder! English epistolary cor- 
respondence, particularly of a sporting character, when pub- 
lished, we regret to say is rarely expressed in elegant or 
polished language, though it may ring with true vehement 
English, and this controversy is not exactly couched in a 
style we should like to see imitated in our columns. 
In the present controvery, however, if Mr. Movris does write 
in a rather acrimonious tone, he has been driven to it— 
(as we have carefully read the whole matter from the com- 
mencement, as it appeared)—and as he is undoubtedly in 
the right, and public opinion and humanity will sooner or 
later be on his side, we rather admire than otherwise the 
vigor of his language, and assure him that he has the sym- 
pathy of all true American sportsmen. Battues are brutal. 
—The great Grace team have not yet carried off the - 
Australian laurel, which was supposed to be growing on 
that island continent as the prize for cricket. Veni—(some 
15,000 miles)—vidi, and not vinci. The consolation is, .hat 
it was the great English cricketing team, only eleven 
against eighteen Australians. In the game at Melbourne, 
the Victorians in the first innings made 267 against 110 of 
the Leviathan team. The Australians won the whole match ~ 
by 20 runs. 
all the Australians being Englishmen after all. 
second time the Victorians have beaten the crack English 
teams. The odds, however, of 18 to11, are very heavy. 
The following is the somewhat meagre account of the play 
which took place on Dec. 27th. We trust to give fuller 
details hereafter :— 
“The Victorians went first to the wickets, and play closed 
with the wickets down for 244 runs. 
Dec. 29, the Victorians in the first innings scoring 267 runs 
against the English total of 110. Mr. W. G. Grace being 
not out for 51 runs. The English team went again to the 
wickets, Mr. Grace being bowled for 33. The Victorians 
won the match in one inning by 20 runs.’ 
—An occasional correspondent from Liotta) England, 
Of course it was after all Greek against Greek, 
writes us, that the recent dense fogs in England actually © 
killed numbers of the prize animals at the cattle show in 
London. One magnificent bull, valued at £2,000, owned | 
by a celebrated agriculturalist, was saved by the owner 
giving him large quartities of beer, which the beast dranic:) 
heartily and with gusto, 
—The Paris Sport says that Marshal MacMahon shoots — 
and rides as if he were only twenty-five years of age, and | 
Play was resumed on — 
This isthe | 
AG 
en 
EOsA 
mK 
> pelle 
r prehanty the active life which he leads has protonged his ir ; 
5 gor beyond the ordinary limits. LNA 
oe 
