The Portland daily press., 1896-05-02

admitted that New Workers do not lie
awake at night to devise new schemes
for advertising and booming the town.
Nor do they arrogantly ostracize one who
oritizes features of the city and its life.
But they rejected the Helne monument
So, too, people are proud of the schools,
from the Column bia College down to the
lowest grade of the primary school, but
this does not prevent their seeing that
the schools are inadequate in number,
space and facilities. And then there are
the private colleges and sohoola The
people Of Spanish America send their
sons to New York, aud especially to the
schools OF theology, medicine and law.
1t is reasonably certain also that as a
school in politics the Greater New York
under Profs. Platt and Croker can give
points to any other school of the kind on
earth.
AS Summer resort and az place for
an outing, curiously enough, the second
city OF the globe surpasses all other cities
of any size whatever. Other cities have
bathing beaches within easy reach of
course. New York has Coney Island and
Rockaway Beach within its borders. Nor
should the resorts elsewhere-Bowery
Bay on the Sound, and South Beach on
Staten Island-be ignored. To these
places the people resort by tens of thou
sands every day in the season. Very
likely more than $4,000 people go to
them on hot day in August. while the
quiet hooks and gardens throughout the
wide suburban belt that extends from
Spuyten Duyvil around to the east and
south and west aud across Grayesend
Bay to Staten Island furnish rest and
recreation and beer to tens-perhaps to
hundreds of thousands more.
One laughs at the Englishmen who
have now and again landed in New
York with rifles loaded ready for buffalo.
deer and grizzlies. But the cockneys were
mistaken only in the choice Of weapons.
A good Birmingham shotgun was the
weapon they needed. 1t is curious fact
that out of 500 and odd birds found
within the limits of the whole nation
nearly half are set down as residents or
migrants within the limits Of this the
city where the population averages s. 1893
to the square mile. In the lagoons back
of Rockaway Beach may be found in
The season ducks in great variety-some-
times in great thunderstorm redheads
and canvasbacks. More interesting STILL
the Canada goose honks low above those
meadows, and the brant comes to the
decoys. There are shore birds that nest
among the frozen deserts OF the far north
and pass their winters south of the tor
rid zone that call by the way to give
spors to the hunter who lies in wait
within the limits of the greater New
York. There are quails, too, and Eng
lish sn1pe and woodcock-a whirring
host for the upland shooter who knows
where and how 10 look for them. There
Rro owls in the common varieties-the
screeoh and the barn owl and the short
horned owls, of course but moro inter
esting still is the great moot or great
horned owl, who, with his silent flight,
comes when the shadows of night deepen,
and carries off the unwary fowl. More
remarkable still, the great snowy owl
be who lives ordinarily beyond the Mo
hawk and delights in nothing more than
snatching speokled trout through a hole
in the ice over an Adirondack stream-he
has been known to come within the lin
its of the American metropolis.
Thsre are hawks, too-the sparrow
hawk and the coopers, aud the sharp
skinned and the duck hawk-ferce-
winged robbers, that grow fat on metro
politan birds of weaker mould, and even
the bald eagle is sometimes seen. That
the fishhawk comes is matter of course.
And then there are the wild beasts
The buffalo. the elk, the deers and the
antelope are, of course, seen only in the
msnagerie, but of small mammals there
are not a few. An observer of long ex-
perience has seen four kinds of bats two
kinds of moles, and the red, the gray,
the black, and the striped squirrels run
ming wild. The kangaroo mouse may
be found; 80 can the woodohuok; so can
the skunk and the muskrat. The fox
has not yet been exterminated nor has
the weasel. More remarkable still the
sly mink still peers with his black bead
eyes from the haunts along the streams
as he searches for metropolitan wild fowl
and fish, while the hair seal has been
seen rearing his head from metropoli-
tan brine within recent years.
For fishing let the angler try the
waters back of Rockaway Beach, when
the sheepshead run or the bluefish are
coming in, or he can cast his hook over
the grass into the lagoons when the bass
are biting, or ne may go for the bass 10
HellgGte or to other resolts in the head
Of the Sound. He can try for blaokfish
in a variety of places in the bay-try
with success, and there are men of exper-
fence who will recommend personal
friends to try a day at Princes Bay. In
spite OF market fishing there is no eud to
the sport that may be had with book and
live within the limits of New York. But
one who knows the trout of the Adiron-
dacks cannot recommend the fat and
lazy, if beautiful, speckled fellows that
lnnaflt the too warm streams of the
second city of the world.
M fpnT Tafl H. Il