CORRESPONDENCE AND INFORMATION. 



295 



cows renders them useless for the re- 

 mainder of the season. In fact, it often 

 happens that they have to he fatted 

 and killed for heef as their milk pro- 

 ducing qualities are destroyed perman- 

 ently. 



I relate the above as the introduction 

 to a remarkable bear capture that took 

 place in this section not long ago. 



Colonel Willard Kittle, who lives 

 some distance back in the mountains. 

 has the reputation of being the best bear 

 hunter in the Catskills. Many a black 

 fellow has fallen before the Colonel's 

 gun or has been caught in his big traps 

 during the past twenty years. He says 

 that he thinks no more of killing a bear 

 than most hunters do of bagging a por- 

 cupine or a woodchuck. He does not 

 kill them for the sport but because he 

 may secure some revenue from their 

 pelts and from their meat, which he sells 

 to his neighbors when they will buy it 

 from him. The Colonel says there is 

 nothing exciting in the ordinary capture 

 of a bear, for the "Varmits are such a 

 tormented nuisance." 



But the veteran bear hunter had an 

 experience this fall that was novel and 

 far out of the ordinary. 



In his yard there are a number of 

 apple trees which were well laden this 

 season ,but from which the Colonel neg- 

 lected to gather the apples. 



He was awakened from his sleep one 

 night by a series of grunts in his yard, 

 but thought nothing of the matter until 

 morning, when he was surprised, on 

 going out of doors, to behold a big black 

 bear under one of the apple trees, as the 

 Colonel says, "Stone drunk." 



Bruin had been attracted by the apples 

 and like the fox in the fable he had eaten 

 more than his fill. The apples had fer- 

 mented in his stomach as they do in the 

 stomachs of the cattle and he had been 

 unable to get away. He made a few 

 feeble growls at the Colonel but could 

 not rise to his feet and was at the mercy 

 of the bear hunter. 



The Colonel is not sentimental, and 

 did not care to waste good powder on 

 the drunken bear, so he went to the house 

 and secured the big butcher knife that 

 he kills hogs with in the fall and cut the 

 bear's throat as though Bruin had been 



a common fat pig in the pen. 



Ci.akkxck A. Sanford. 

 Editor "The Catskill Mountain News.'* 



THE LITTLE WIDOW. 



To THE Editor : 



She is not an object of beauty. She 

 displays none of those radiant tints 

 changing with each motion ; reflecting it 

 would seem both rainbow and sun. She 

 belongs to a most respectable family in 

 Figeondom — the Homers. No more 

 stately birds step or wing anywhere in 

 the States than her progenitors. No 

 more iridescent plumage ever shone on 

 any of the race than that displayed by 

 the pair that brooded over her. 



As though nature intended to invent 

 something new and uncanny, and so 

 failed to conform to general rule but 

 one bird occupied the nest ; occupied at- 

 tention that house-keeping time. 



What intention of utility, or of im- 



ff 





"SHE IS NOT AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY." 



provement on old-time specimens in 

 bird-life actuated nature in creating a 

 new model, the present does not reveal. 

 That there was an intention seems to be 

 proven by the fact that, shortly after the 

 advent of this youngster, new we believe 

 to ornithologists, another iridescent 



