AN EPITOME OF SPORTS.*
IT is to be regretted that Lord Suffolk did not live to see the completion of The Encyclopedia of Sport. The second volume is even better than the first. This is partly due to the accident by which the index letter of many attractive subjects falls into the second half of the alphabet, bat mainly to the increased experience of the surviving editors, Mr. Heclley Peek and Mr, Aflalo, It is well arranged, The Encyclorxelia of Spoil. ltdited by the Earl Suff )1k, Healey Peek, and B. G. Atlado. Loudon: Lawrcoce and Batten. [25a. per ►o1.J beautifully and practically illustrated, and not too condensed. It is an epitome not only of sport, but of "sports." It says the latest word on every animal which man makes an object of the chase, from lions to the last imported trout, and while full of first-hand, modern, and new data about birds, beasts, and fish, has all the practical good sense of the columns of the Field, or of Brehm's Thierltbcn. This is largely because the contributors are the men who have devoted their brains and leisure to the pursuits they write of,—have bunted in the bush, the desert, tbe Rocky Mountains, or the barren grounds of the far North ; fished in every country, and for every flab, from sharks to grayling; played all the games of England and America, from rackets to baseball; and sailed, swum, ridden races, or owned trotters, with such credit as to make other people who wish to do the like listen with respect to what they have to say. The articles are among the exceptions to the rule that experts are dull. These are not dull, even when, as sometimes happens, we have two or three hands working on different " departments " of the same sub. ject. In spite of the rush to athletics, we still have mighty hunters as of old, though they go farther for their sport. Mr. Selma, for instance, not only writes an admirable treatise on lions, but gives facts never before recorded as to their habits. We may take this as an example of the treat- ment of the animal subjects. There are two places only where lions are now accessible to Europeans (while the tributaries of the Euphrates are too dangerous for hunters to visit), Somaliland and South Central Africa. Mr. Selous writes on the latter, Mr. Swayne on the former. Among Mr. Selous's observations are the following. The lion, as be is now found, never has the large mane seen on lions in captivity, which often have a mane not only over the shoulders but ort the chest and belly. In all his African experience he only saw such a skin once ; and this proved to be that of a lion killed fifty years ago, far south, where en the high plateaux the cold is often severe. As in all early sculp- ture of lions they have very little mane—in the lion of St. Mark, for instance, or the very early lions of Mycena3, or the Nineveh sculptures—it is clear that the type of lion adopted in medimval and modern painting is not that of tbe wild lion, but of the lion as made in tuena4eries in cold climates. The following is, we believe, quite new. Lions prepare their food before eating it. When they have killed game they begin by opening the carcase just in front of the point where the thighs join the belly, where the skin is thinnest, eating the skin and the flesh attached to it. They then drag out all the offal through the opening so made. " This operation is performed with extraordinary neatness and cleanliness, and what has thus been removed from the carcase is dragged away to a little distance. and covered with earth and grass, which is scratched up over it, often so pro- fusely that it is quite hidden from sight."
Mr. Selons's description of the lion at bay also differs from that of less practised observers, and is not only drawn from the life, but from long and frequent experience. We cannot refrain from quoting (the italics are ours):- " When a lion stands at bay, he holds his head low down between his shoulders, and with his eyes fixed on his adver- sary, utters a quick succession of deep grunting roars, twitch- ing his tail all the time from aide to side with little nervous jerks. Should he suddenly throw his tail into the air straight and stiff as a bar of iron, then look out, for he means coming. It is worthy of remark that a lion at bay does not snarl like a leopard, but holds his mouth slightly open, the great canine tooth of the upper jaw being nearly hidden by the heavy jowl. But his eyes scintillate like living fire, and altogether his appearance is most deter- mined and businesslike. When he charges he does not come with great bounds, but at a heavy gallop, and rather rushes on than springs on his prey." One wonders how often the writer faced this fine foe to be able to write such a description. The range of sport seems to increase. Old forms are revived, and new activities added. Quarterstaff (wrongly indexed) is advocated by Major Huth ; Colonel Pollak writes on quoits and stilt-walking ; and readers of the Wide World Magazine will be interested to discover a treatise on turtle-coursing, a sport pursued off the Laccadive Islands of the Arabian Sea.
Never was there a time when so keen an interest was taken in all outdoor sports and wild life as at present; and this
volume is a mine of useful and exact information of the scope, possibilities,_ and present condition of these "interests," regarded from the view of the practical sportsman or the intelligent inquirer. Mr. J. J. Arjnitstead's careful account of modern pisciculture in England is, for example, supple- mented by a valuable record of the far larger enterprises of this kind undertaken in the United States, from the pen of Mr. A. Nelson Cheney. The " antiquities " of the subject might have been omitted, for the story of the present is too interesting to curtail. The United States Fish Commission was created by a Resolution of Congress in February, 1871. In two years the eggs of that valuable food fish, the shad, were transported from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the fish established in another ocean, where they have become so numerous that they actually sell for less at San Francisco than at New York. They have spread so fast that they are expected ultimately to reach the sea of Japan. The propa- gation of Pacific salmon has become a vast business. Twenty- five million eggs were taken up in 1896. On the Atlantic Coast cod have been made to pay commercially at seasons when they were formerly not procurable. Subordinate Fish Commissions have been planted in most of the States, and immense numbers of eggs and young fish placed in the rivers and lakes. One quarter of a continent, with its adjacent seas, is annually restocked by this immense organisation ; the number of species propagated is too long to quote; and in a single State, that of New York, there were hatched and " planted." in the year 1897 more than two hundred millions of fish I Among other articles of first - class merit are those on "Obsolete Sports" (such as "Tilting," by Lord Dillon, illustrated by examples of the armour used); "Racing," by Mr. A. E. T. Watson; "Trotting," by Mr. E. A. Abercrombie; and "The Moose," by Mr. A. Trevor-Battye. The figures as to American trotting matches are striking. In fifty-two years the trotting record has been lowered from 2 min. 29i sec. to 2 min. 3t sec., and as the best judges place the possible limit at 2 min. for the mile, "perfection" is within sight. Bicycle-wheeled " sulkies " have somewhat improved the pace, but there, too, the limit is reached. Prices of trotters compete with those of thoroughbreds; £25,000 was paid for the two-year colt 'Arlon,' after he had made the champion record for that age. Axtell,' a three-year-old champion, made £21,000, but the financial depression of 1S93 caused a heavy fall in the price of trotters. Mr. Abercrombie omits to notice that the origin of this sport was the Dutch Hardriverij, that these are still immensely popular in Holland, and that the Americans learnt their taste from the original Dutch settlers. The Orloff trotters of Russia perform on the ice, and though originally they drew sledges, they now use the bicycle-wheeled "sulky," which is faster even on ice. " Pacing," which is trotting by moving both legs on one side at the same time, is less trying to the feet than trotting, and slightly faster. The " pacing" record is 1 min. 391t sec. as against the trotting record of 2 min. n sec. Among the less satisfactory papers are those on the puma, by Mr. Theodore Rooseveldt, who is clearly without personal experience of this animal, though an authority on the deer and much other game of North America ; and an article on poachers, which might have been written forty years ago. What is needed is some account of the means by which the great hauls of ground game, amounting to many hundreds of rabbits in a night, are now made, how it is disposed of, and what are the present inducements to such outrages as have during the last two months caused the shooting of six keepers and the murder of two, when penalties for poaching are reduced to a minimum.
The articles dealing with American games are worth studying by those who believe that international competitions in rowing, yachting, or football will promote good feeling and a good understanding between the public of England and thatef the United States. In field sports, in all matters like hunting, shooting, and fishing, the sentiment of the two great. Anglo-Saxon races is the same. But in what should more properly be called pastimes, the games or activities, such as yachting or rowing, in which competition and victory are an essential element, the feeling across the Atlantic differs from ours. Americans look upon victory as the essential object for which the sport is pursued. The English "amateur " rows, plays football, or sails a yacht first for the plea- sure inherent in what he is doing, and only secondly. for the win. Next to winning he likes losing, and next to lOsing he likes looking on. American feeling about these contests may be gathered from Mr. T. A. Cooke's article on sports at American Universities, explaining "the point of view" of Yonng America, which be maintains to be the outcome of nationality, not of training. "If the contest be one of tale against Harvard these eight devoted boys would have expended their entire nervous energy, for a considerable period, not on rowing merely, but on the mental problem of how most decisively to beat their rivals. The prospect of defeat has filled them with the bitter conviction that their whole after life will be a disgusting. dreary desert. The vision of success has brought with it plans for extended journeying round a sympathetically joyful universe. The intense mental pre- occupation is caused more than all by a conviction that nothing—absolutely nothing—will atone for the bitterness of defeat." Transferred from a race at Henley, to a contest for the America Cup at Sandy Hook, this mental attitude suggests reflection. Success is scarcely probable if in the contest already foreshadowed the "mild ambition of the chair. man of a limited liability company, who has never owned or sailed a yacht, is set against this intense earnestness of American sportsmen, while a victory by the Lipton boat would cause infinite mortification and chagrin.
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