On this page
-
Text (6)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
SALMON CASTS AND STRAY SHOTS . Salmon Casts and Stray Shots . Being Fly-Leaves from the Note-Book of Jotu Colquhoan . Blackwood and Sons . Mb . Cokmjhoun is a well-known sportsman ; and we are well pleased to receive this his new contribution to the literature of the Rod and Gun . It is no mere dry handbook to the ' * how" and " wliere" to take the salmon or " drop" the deer , but a modest combination of practical hints of the old pattern in quaint new dresses , 'with a little adventure by moor and loch , and a good deal of sound observation upon sporting natural history . Apropos of the fabulous weight of the lost fish , which is the consolation of the angler ' s empty basket and the standing joke of such as adopt the " fly and fool" theory , Mr . Colquhoun tells the following story : —
And here I would caution all good fishers never to brag « f hooking " the largest fish they ever had on , " unless they bring him home . They may safely leave that boast to the unsuccessful , who are really apt to fancy every salmon they lose a monster . I was much amused one morning to hear that a sedulous brother of the rod had hooked a tremendous salmon the evening before , and lost him after some hours ' play . The story was simply this : —A short time before dusk he fixed his fish , which creeped down to a heavy pool below , and sulked . No doubt it succeeded in rubbing the hook out of its jaw into a sunk root or tree . The careful angler remained with his rod on full bend , till some of his anxious family found him near midnight in this interesting position : he then broke , not his fish , but his fast , which he ought to have done hours before . Again , of deliberation , he says : —
When a boy , trolling Loch Lomond for yellow trout , I hooked a large olean salmon with materials as slender . He quietly followed my lead when I wound him up to the very stern of the boat , wondering-what kind of accommodating creatuTe I had got hold of . Under my very rod ' s point there was a sullen plunge on the top of the water , and that >\ as all 1 saw of the first salmon I ever hooked . The practical lesson was worth far more than the fish- —namely , never to come to such close quarters , at jirst ) with so formidable a customer , especially when he seems much inclined to humour you : you are sure to have the worst of it . The" following must take its place henceforth in all collections of dog anecdotes : —
"When the days were , like the old Aberdeen sermons , " short and cauld and clear , " my son went down to Mull for some winter shooting . He had only a knowing quiettempered old pointer , who had never either retrieved or taken the water in his life . One of the first-killed shots , a fine Merganser drake , was being rapidly floated away by . the tides : disdaining to imitate the discreet retriever , he instantly plunged into the sea—no uncommon winter exploit—and brought the bird to land . The pointer , whose aid he thought it useless to invoke , watched the whole proceeding from the rocks , and thoroughly comprehended it . Soon afterwards , on his master firing into a flock of turhstones as they flitted past , and dropping three in the water , he volunteered his unsought services , and . brought them one by one to the shore . Since then , although he never attempts to mouth game on land , he . duly recovers what falls into the water , and in approaching wildfowl is quite as careful not to 6 poil the shot as most " thorough-broke" retrievers .
Our author so distinctly , when deprecating all imputation of Munchausenism , pledges his word that whatever others have done- he has never exaggerated one single sporting fact , that we ¦ -are , as it were , precluded from expressing any violent doubts of the truth of the following deer-stalking anecdote : — In . so clear a wood as Garmony , a rough wind , or the foot-prints of a beater , will make them burst out anywhere . They viill track a man by the foot long after he is gone . Two stalkers , at the close of an unsuccessful day , were resting behind a knoll close by a brook . Three harts came down from the hills to drink . Immediately detecting human footsteps , the three antiered heads lowered on the scent in a direct line from the men . One of them raised his ride , fired at the nearest bead , which was the only part of the deer he -could see , and , to his utter amazement , found he had killed the three , shooting them all fair through the head ! When I doubted the strength of th « ball to penetrate three hard skulls , my informant assured me there was no doubt about the matter , and that it was easily proved if I w ished .
Though it be true that Mr . Whitworth ' s rifles " persuade" balls through two or three successive planks , we are still disposed to receive the above , even after the author ' s quasi endorsement , with the same cautious reserve he seems to have expressed in the first instance .
Untitled Article
TWO PRACTICAL GUIDES . Tlw Practical Mine Guide . Longman and Co . Paris : Galignani . A handy little manual , or we might say annotated slice of Bradahaw , professing to teach all that positively must and ought to bo seen ; how to manage this in the shortest period ; and , more important still to the traveller of modest circumstances or short vacation , how to see it at the least possible expense . The compiler may honestly claim to have done his work in the most laconic manner . A greater number of valuable hints to travellers—especially young ones—could hardly have been wedged in with the various time-tables , vocabularies , and list of indispensable sights on the grand route , vid Paris and Strasburg , as well as on those by way of Holland and Belgium , from London to the Rhine and the leading German Spaa . The following pithy prelude heads the usual appendix of hotel notices : —" These advertisements are inserted with the object of letting each house sneak for
itself , ana be reterrea to on its own pretensions . If these are not fustitied , their notice will be excluded from future editions . Thus a safeguard is nddeel to the traveller , and an encouragement to the proprietor . " As this is a fair invitation to critical trnvoilers , we leave the render to imagine the inundation Messrs . Longman may look for from the unsatisfiablo Brown , Jones , and Kobmson who , wo presume , have not yet censed to travel , to blunder to complain , and to invoke the Times upon Gurcon , Kellner , and Mnttro d'llotel in all the « Beles Vues , '' « KaworlicherB , " " Victorias , " "Alliances » "White Howea , " nnd "Golden Laiglo . s" throughout Europe . From the care which Has been bestowed upon tiut > guide-book it would uppenr that the publishers anticipate the usual , or more tluin the usual , autumnal exodus of Great Britons ; and should our inends B ., J ., and It . be of the number , we are disposed to warn them , in the manner of modern advertisers , that there is " no knapsack without a Practical ltliino Guide . ' "
The Practical Paris Guide—of the same series—will be an equal bon 7 excursionists . The following audacious programme of " One Day in P * ' » will certainly , sooner or later , be converted by the excursion crimns ^ 2 ? take droves of Jean Boule to the gay capital , into a receipt for « dn 5 « ° Paris in one day : "— n S One day in Paris—active , but quite feasible—for a general view of the remarkable objects and the City itself . Commence at 9 o ' clock n . m . at the Cha if Expiatoire , devote to its interior . 15 min . ( thence 5 min . drive to the ) MadefeSn 15 min . ( 1 hr . drive through Champs Elysees to Arc de I'Etoile , and back \ o \ T i ries Gardens walk 20 m . ( 10 m . dr . to ) Louvre 1 hr . ( 20 m . dr . past Palais T icrtci , ~ * and Champ de Mars to = 12 £ o'clock ) Napoleon ' s Tomb 30 m . ( 15 m . dr f Church St . Sulpice , stop 5 rn ., to ) Luxembourg Palace 1 Vir . ( 5 ni dr to ") Panth 15 m ., and St . Etienne 10 m . ( 5 m . dr . to = 2 £ o'clock p . m . ) Hotel CW 30 m " ( 5 m . dr . to ) Palais de Justice 20 m ., and Sainte Cnapelle 20 m . ( 5 m . dr past th " Morgue ,, stop 5 m ., to ) Notre-Dame 15 no . ( 40 m . dr . past Tour de St Jacmie ? Hotel de Ville , Church of St . Gervais , stop 5 m ., Abelard and Heloise ' s house to—5 o ' clock ) Jardin des Plantcs 30 m . ( 1 hr . dr . Place de la Bastille , along the Boule yards , and down to ) the Palais Royal , see it , and dine , at 6 i o ' clock .
Untitled Article
HANDBOOK OF BRITISH FLORA . Handbook of British Flora , By George Bentham , F . L . S . Lovell Reeve . Mr . Bkntham has devoted some five years of hard work to the composition of the interesting work before us iu the hope of producing a "Flora" which may enable persons , having no previous knowledge of botany , to name the wild flowers they might meet with in their country rambles . He had long been embarrassed by the inquiries of novices for some such handbook as De Candolle composed in France , and at length determined in some measure to take the " Flore" of that author as his model , and attempt to catalogue th < j wild plants of Britain in a simple , untechnical , intelligible style , with " analytical keys , " by whose aid— -and we speak from experience—the reader may master that preliminary stud y of the handbook itself , which is indispensable to all novices who would avail themselves of its assistance . In proof of the impossibility of avoiding puzzling technicalities , even in natural systems , we exti'act the Handbook ' s description of the watercress :-
—Glabrous perennials or annuals , with the leaves often pinnate , or pinnately lobed , and small white or yellow flowers . Calyx rather loose . Stigma capitate , " nearly sessile . Pod linear or oblong , and usually curved , or in some species short like a silicule , the valves very conveXj with the midrib scarcely visible . Seeds more or less distinctly arranged in two rows in each cell , and not winged . Radicle accttmbent on the edge of the cotyledons . A small genus , but \ vid « ly , spread over the whole area of the family . It differs from Sist / mbrium only in tlie position of the radicle in the embryo ; and the whiteflowered species are only to be distinguished from Bittercress by the seeds forming two more distinct rows in each cell of the pod .
But so laborious and valuable a work should not be flippantly dismissed without a little word of encouragement . We could hardly in conscience recommend a handbook of 650 pages to all pedestrians and excursionists ; but , after a careful study of the admirable introduction in which the system is set out , we can understand that Mr . Bentham ' s labours will be warmly welcomed by the educated amateurs in the country whose number has b « en so rapidly increasing of late years .
Untitled Article
THE STEREOSCOPIC MAGAZINE . The Stereoscopic Magazine . Lovell Reeve . Photography is working all sorts of wonders , and its complement , the storeoscope , is making ; those wonders even more marvellous . We have here a magazine on a new plan , with veritable photographic illustrations adapted to the application of tlie stereoscope , and affording materials for endless amusement in the parlour and drawing-room . But amusement is no < - the only object of this serial ; it aims at a loftier purpose—that of imparting scientific instruction ; and , judging from the execution of the whole work , it is not unlikely to find a large audience willing to give it a hearty welcome monthly .
Untitled Article
THE LADIES' TREASURY . The Ladies' Treasury ; an . Illustrated Magazine . Ward and Co . The illustrations for July are better than the literary matter , but even , the illustrations are open to criticism , especially on account of the selection of subjects , some of which appear not to be in character in a special Miscellany . For instance , the first woodcut of the "Museum Architecture of the Sixteenth Century" seems somewhat out of place here , but of course the caterers for the lady readers ought to know best what will be most acceptable to feminine tastes . The most pleasing of the illustrations is "Summer , " where the pose of the illustrative figure is easy and graceful . The " Song of Calvary " is a failure , the tableau not telling Ha story intelligibly , and the whole scene being redolent of French or Frenchified German sentimentality . With respect to the literary department we confess to a difficulty in divining the feminine tastes to which such a paragraphic Minerva-press production ns " Unmeaning Attentions" appeals . Here is a specimen , of its quality , premising that Ernestine , the heroine , ia a model of beauty , purity , and / taut ton propriety :
The Indian dining-rooms were arranged and dusted under Mrs . Do Helton ' s own superintendence . Tlio splendid plate , the exquisite cut glass , the costly dinner and dessert service , were takon out of the closets in tho second dining-room , and , as Mrs . Do Bulton hud to trim a cap wherein to appear at dinner , she requested Ernestine , whose taste -was remarkable , to set out the dessert . When Mrs . De Helton lnutletlus somewhat inconvenient request Ernestine had just bugim her toilat . Sho had let down her profusion of rich glossy hair , and in u short scarlet petticoat , and a little whito dressing-jacket , vaa looking lovelier porhayB than sho ever did in full dress , sinco hor beautiful bust , hor lino arms , and her perfect little foot ami ankles were exposed . Then , too , tliero waa tho lovo-light in her lnrgo glorious eyes , and n tluah from the heart on her dolicatel y moulded clieok . 11
You 11 just havo time , Tiny , to put out tlio dessert before tho men come to wait , if you . 11 go down directly—hero are the keys—all tho fruit and confectionary is i » tlio closet . I cannot spare Bobbin ; I havo not a cap ready . Do , thoru ' u a dear girl , put the dessert out as you did last time . "
Untitled Article
668 THE LEADER . [ No . 433 , July 10 , 1858 .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1858, page 668, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2250/page/20/
-