THE SEMINOLE INDIANS. 29 



ground remains damp for a week at a time even professional 

 hunters will sometimes be at fault. 



The Indians burn the country every spring in a most reckless 

 manner, destroying great quantities of timber. They set the dry 

 grass on fire, so that, by destroying the old grass, the new, fresh 

 shoots coming up attract the deer and turkeys which are generally 

 found on such places. Besides this, the ground being burned off 

 renders still-hunting much more easy, for the game can then be so 

 much more readily seen. The Indians are splendid hunters, but few 

 of them can beat a white man shooting at a mark. 



I have seen Osceola kill a deer while running at full speed, nearly 

 a hundred yards distant ; I have also seen him drop two deer, one 

 after the other, before the second one had time to run, and on 

 another occasion I saw him miss a fox-squirrel on the top of a tree 

 three times in succession. 



Wolves are not uncommon in the southwestern portion of Florida, 

 from the Big Cypress Swamp southward. Osceola (Gart-sum-a-tel- 

 e-kee) told me that last year he found an old female wolf with two 

 cubs a little way south of his camp on the Big Cypress. Both 

 cubs, as well as the old one, were black. He shot the mother, 

 which he claimed growled and acted very much as a dog would do. 

 He caught the young cubs alive and carried them to camp, but they 

 would eat nothing, and after two or three days he killed them ;. as 

 he described it, " Me bang um heads against a tree." 



Old Charlie, whose name is Barfotartso, told me that he had 

 heard of large bears beyond the Big Cypress. He said, "One 

 white man he tell me see big bear, white on breast," but that he had 

 never seen one himself, and he did not know if the story were true. 

 He also told me of a large bat which occurs in Florida, and which, 

 judging from his description, was a species not yet recorded from 

 the State, and which would probably spread two feet or more. He 

 also told me of a black panther which had been killed by the Indians 

 some years ago. In all probability this was nothing more than a 

 melanistic example of the common form. 



Old Charlie spoke of some very large alligators which he had seen, 



