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where the two regions are in the close proximity of fifteen miles.

His descriptions of the orang-utan, the python, and the beautiful birds of paradise, are calculated to captivate the young, while the educated naturalist will resort to this work for practical instruction. We thank Mr. Wallace for this contribution to the world's literature, at once so delightful and in

structive.

FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. By Genio C. Scott. New York: Harper & Brothers. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 12mo. pp. 478.

We have here a very agreeable book to read during the odd intervals of a fishing excursion, and such intervals do occur in camp or at an indifferent country hotel, when the piscator, during the mid-day heat, is content to stretch himself on his mattress and pore over just such a book as this. The illustrations, one hundred and seventy in number, are good, with this exception: that all the men represented in the act of fishing are as primly dressed as though they were just turned out of Mr. Scott's fashionable furnishing store on Broadway, and their attitudes are as stiff as in a fashion plate. Our ideas of a fisherman's costume are a slouched hat, a baggy coat, much the worse for wear, and any thing but French boots; and the individual thus accoutred, and plying the "gentle art," assumes few of the attitudes of the dancing-master. But this is a minor defect. This book is just learned enough to satisfy one who, without being an ichthyologist, would like to know the generic and specific names of our fishes, and the illustrations afford him the means of comparison. It is minute in every thing relating to rods, lines, snells, artificial flies, gaffs and landing-nets. In fact it embodies the experience of one who has practiced fishing as a high art for more than a quarter of a century; and

yet, with all these refinements, Mr. Scott himself confesses that the native anglers on Pine Creek, Pennsylvania, with a hickory pole and a bit of whalebone at the end, and a line with a clumsily-tied fly, bring out the "prismatic beauties" when the gentlemen amateurs fail to get a rise to their gorgeous baits; and in the rapids of the St. Marie's, at the outlet of Lake Superior, the Chippewayan, with a peeled alder and a common hempen twine, does not fear to compete with the amateurs from the States, equipped with all their elaborate contrivances. While it is pleasant to read and to recall the excitement incident to successful salmon or trout fishing, yet to all this there is a terrible drawback-the omnipresent black-fly by day and the musquito by night, whose assaults, even with the contrivances of veils and nets, and the unguents of tar and camphor and ammonia and oil, it is almost impossible to resist. To the sonnet of the good Bishop of Quebec we can feelingly respond:

"Among the plagues on earth which God has sent, Of lighter torment is the plague of flies; Not as of Egypt, once the punishment,

Yet such sometimes as feeble patience tries, Where wild America's vastness lies. These diverse hordes the swamps and woods infest, Banded or singly these make men their prize; Quick by their subtle dart is blood expressed Or tumor raised. By tiny foe distressed

Travelers in forest rude, with veil, are fain
To arm the face; men there whose dwellings rest
Crouch in thick smoke, like help their cattle
gain.

Oh wise, in trials great, in troubles small,
Who know to find mementoes of the Fall!"

HAWTHORNE DALE and Miscellaneous Sketches, Chiefly Masonic. By Mrs. Wm. H. Tucker. Chicago: Printers' Coöperative Association. 12mo. pp. 394.

Whatever, might be the defects of this book we should be disposed to treat them tenderly; for it is written by one whose husband gave up his life to his country in the Great Struggle, and the

wife resorts to the pen to sustain herself and educate her children. We bespeak for her, therefore, a good word, and assure the reader that he will here find an interesting story, and told with considerable graphic power. For sale by all booksellers.

ASPASIA. By C. Holland. Philadel phia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

This is the title of a neatly-printed little volume by a citizen of Chicago, who, amid the pursuits of an active business, has found time to write and send it to the press. The story is rather didactic. There is no intricacy of plot, no startling adventures, no delineation of the more powerful passions of our nature. It purports to be the autobiography of a woman born and brought up in one of the villages of New England, and subject to the strong religious influences which there prevail; and these are illustrated in her subsequent career as a wife and mother. The descriptions of every-day life are good, and some of the scenes, such as the death of the mother, the pecuniary ruin of the father, and the fall and subsequent reclamation of her own husband, possess genuine pathos. It is a good book to put in the hands of the young, and should be placed in every Sabbath. school library.

THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS, and VANITY FAIR. By Wm. M. Thackeray. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. Chicago: Western News Co.

It is hardly necessary to inform the reader who Thackeray was. No English writer, not excepting Dickens, had such abounding humor, or could delineate those delicate lights and shades which go to make up the individual character so admirably as he. Such a writer could well afford to dispense with those intricate plots, hair-breadth escapes and startling incidents on which most novelists rely for success.

These volumes are in a compact form, and are afforded at a price which place them within the reach of every reader.

VAN NOSTRAND'S ECLECTIC ENGINEERING MAGAZINE. Conducted by Alexander L. Holley, New York.

We have before us the August number of this standard magazine, and the ninety-six pages are replete with articles of the highest scientific merit. Every engineer and architect and every worker in metals should possess this work, that he may inform himself of the new inventions and discoveries in the practical arts of life. The editor, Mr. Holley, is pains-taking, and shows by his work that he has access to the highest sources of information, both at home and abroad.

CHIT-CHAT.

M. D-G-s, the able and efficient

J. one

portant railroads, in early life hung out his shingle in Galena, a place which has since proved so prolific in public men. Among his first clients was a well-to-do farmer, whose land contained a valuable "lead of mineral," on which a miner had "squatted." While the rights of the proprietor were clear and unquestionable, the sentiments of the miners in those "diggings" were with the trespasser, and the farmer found it necessary to resort to the law to reinstate him in his property. Suit was instituted, and the trial came off. The court-house was filled by an audience of miners, whose sympathies for the defendant were so emphatically expressed that the jury were overawed, and brought in a verdict in accordance with the popular sentiment. But the court, on application, regarded the verdict as so contrary to law and equity, that it at once granted a new trial. After these proceedings were had, 'Squire B-k s—e, who still lives in the neighborhood in the enjoyment of a green old ageand "long may he wave"-stepped up to D-g-s and remarked:

"Young man, I have a fellow-feeling for you. In this trial you haven't had a fair shake. When it comes off again, I will see that you are righted."

At the next term the court-house was filled with spectators as usual; but, just before this case was called, they were observed to issue in a steady stream out of doors, until no one but the officers of court, the jury, lawyers, clients and witnesses were left. The case was tried, and the jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff. D-g-s was at a loss to account for this sudden exodus; but

when he came to go out, he found that 'Squire B-ks-e had opened a faro bank near the court-house steps! This attraction was too powerful to be resisted.

SPEAKING of Galena, and the strong passion for gambling among the miners: Thirty years ago or more Father K—t was sent there as a home missionary. The miners extended to the good man a cordial welcome. They not only gave him a handsome support, but responded to every extra levy that he made for charitable purposes. But the miners did like to assemble of a summer Sunday afternoon, beneath the shade of an oak grove, and indulge in a quiet game of "old sledge." On one occasion the good Father suddenly presented himself in their midst, and remonstrated with them on their conduct, reminding them that it was the Sabbath. The miners were, of course, very much abashed; but one of them, in an apologetic way, remarked: "Why, Parson, we didn't know that Sunday had yet got above the mouth of Catfish Creek!"

THE Galena miners had not the fastidious taste of that Surveyor General of Western New York, who there reproduced the names of cities and of men famous in Grecian and Roman history; so that the modern traveler on a railroad train, in the course of a few hours, whisks through Syracuse, Rome and Pharsalia, and other places which are supposed to be abodes worthy of such men of renown as Homer, Virgil and Ovid, Solon, Tully, Marcellus and Manlius. The Galena miners, in christening places, used common but expressive

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in the miners' vocabulary as a generic term, while it bears such descriptive prefixes as these: "Blackleg," "Fair Play," "Swindler's Ridge," "Nip-andTuck," "Beetown," "Dutch Hollow," "Hell's Point," "Dry Bone," "Pin Hook," "Red Dog," etc. "To prospect" and "to gopher" are verbs of exact meaning, but which to an Eastern judge would be in an unknown tongue.

A FEW weeks ago we were sitting with our knees under "the mahogany" of a legal friend, and had arrived at that stage of the feast when come on "the walnuts and the wine." The conversation had turned from the discussion of the particular wines before us to other drinks, when the "julep" was mentioned as an American invention, and one which the Englishmen, and among them Dickens we believe, regarded as our most highly-prized contribution to gratify the palate of mankind. "No," replied our legal friend, "it is not so. Milton, more than two hundred years ago, sang of the julep;" and sending for a copy of the bard, he turned to the "Comus" and thus read:

"And first behold this cordial julep here,
That flames and dances in his crystal bounds,

(That describes the ice.)

With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mix'd. (Here we have the liquor, the sugar, and the mint.)

Not that Nepenthes, which the wife of Thone
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena,
Is of such pow'r to stir up joy as this,
To life so friendly, so cool to thirst."

And lastly we have described the refreshing and joy-inspiring sensations produced by the imbibition.

But its origin goes still further back; for Sylvester, one of the oldest of Eng lish poets, in his translation of Du Bartas, exclaims:

"I'll fetch a julep for to cool your blood."

Alas! we must now renounce our claims to the paternity of this most delectable of compounds.

SPEAKING of juleps reminds us, as the late President used to say, "of a little story." Many years ago we joined a party for a grand fish in a lake in one of the interior counties of Ohio, which was almost alive with sun-fish and black and yellow bass. Tom K, a rollicking fellow, was appointed commissariat. He laid in, among other things, a plentiful supply of whisky, warranted to be not over a week old, lemons, and

brown sugar. These he compounded into a drink which he appropriately called "tomahawk punch." We had for a guide and boatman a long cadaverous individual, who had lived so long in the miasmatic region, and had been so saturated with the spirit of fever and ague, that his countenance had about the color of new-tanned sole-leather. Whenever the punch-bowl was presented to the aforesaid individual, he would take a long and generous swig, smack his lips, and deliberately wipe his mouth with his shirt-sleeve. After spending three or four days in the region, and with glorious success, the time for our departure arrived, when the lanternjawed and saffron-colored guide beckoned my friend Tom aside, and thus addressed him: "Stranger, I want to ask of you a favor. Tell me the secret of making 'tomahawk punch!'" Tom told him, and he departed a happy

man.

BUT such sport is tame compared with what we have enjoyed under other conditions of sky and climate. Reader, did you ever find yourself in a mountain region, remote from the haunts of men, where the pure waters, and of almost icy coldness, came tumbling down over rocks, now crested with foam, then rushing on in eddying ripples, and again expanding into quiet pools, as if paus

ing to take breath before starting again on their headlong career? Around is the sombre forest, through whose dense canopy of foliage hardly a stray sunbeam is allowed to penetrate. Here is the home of the brook-trout; not such Lilliputians as are caught in the region of civilization, but real Brobdignags. Put aside the brakes carefully and peer down into the water. Heavens! what a sight! See those noble fellows resting motionless upon the pebbly bottom. The crystal water hardly interposes an obstruction to the vision. With circumspect caution you withdraw, and examine your rod and reel; and selecting a large and gaudy fly, it is cast. The moment it strikes the surface of the water, half a score of these veterans dart at it; but one more rapid than the rest secures the bait, and as he does so, you catch a glimpse of his variously. spotted side, and observe a great whirl in the water when he settles down on the bottom. Soon the line becomes taut, and begins to move steadily up the stream; and the very steadiness with which he moves convinces you that there is to be no child's play. You pull gently on the line, when the victim, feeling for the first time the prick of the hook, darts off, and the line spins out from the reel with a whiz. Let it run; for if you check it, it will snap like pack-thread or gossamer. Ere long he pauses, and you begin to reel in, when, again feeling the hook, he starts off; and thus we have it nip and tuck for an hour, when he gives up exhausted. We tow him gently to the shelving shore, but dare not attempt to lift him out of the water. Trembling in every limb with excitement, holding the rod in one hand, with the other we gently but firmly grasp him behind the gills; and even in the act, the thought flashes through the mind, "What if he were to give a sudden flop and break away!" But we have got him fast, and bear him to terra firma. With our knife-handle

we give him a sharp tap or two on the back of the head. A convulsive shiver runs through his frame, and life is extinct. The prize is secure. We gather a handful of fern leaves, spread them out, and tenderly place him upon them, and then set ourselves down to enjoy our triumph. He is a five-pounder. There he lies, "life's fitful fever o'er." How symmetrical his form! How smooth and glossy his skin! How brilliant those hues of orange and crimson and gold ranged along his side; how dark and deep those upon his back! They are beyond the painter's art to imitate; and, as we gaze and moralize upon that form so faultless and beautiful, we feel a pang of regret that, through our instrumentality, it has been deprived of life and animation.

Such is trout-fishing in the fastnesses of nature.

THE enforcement of the Massachusetts liquor law, while it has stirred up a vast amount of bickering and strife, has certainly produced one good thing, and that is the following Breitmannish ballad, which first appeared in a Boston newspaper. So good is it, that it deserves to be placed in a more durable casket:

"Dere was mourning in der Boston town
Vor dwo whole days und more,
Und all der Deutschers schimpft and flucht
About der bierhaus door.

"Der Turners in der Turne Halle sit

Und dank deir loocky stars Dat Chones don't dake der dumblers oop Und close der barrelhell pars.

"So sad dey look a stranger asks

Is dere a funeral here?' 'Dere's mourners, blenty,' dey replied, 'But we hofn't got der bier.' "Deir troats ash any lime-kiln purnt

Mit awful pangs of tirst,
But all der bier halles had to sell

Vas Switzer kase und wurst.

"Und still der summer vedder den
Kept getting hot und hotter,
Und seffral Deutschmen riskt deir lives
Py trinking of cold vater.

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