FOREST AND STREAM. 



87 



and the water begins to get clear, the run stops until the next 

 storm, when the eels move again. By holding the lantern 

 cloBe to the surface of the water you can occasionally see one 

 pass tail first. In the same water wc haw. helped to take 

 several barrels full in a night, and for many nights in the 

 season. We have caught them in early Epriug " with hook, in 

 the same stream, as plenty as if an eel had not left thorc the 

 previous fall. The net will have to be visited, at least every 

 twenty or thirty minutes, as wc have known nets carried 

 away from side stakes by weight of fish and leaves. Many 

 eels will be found drowned in the net, while others arc fidl of 

 life and vigor. Thob. Chalmeiis. 

 ■ %. ■ 



iX Loss OH WniTK Frsn. — Madison, Win., August 28.—Juditor 

 Forest and Stream : All the white fish in the hatchery at 

 Milwaukee, died during one night last week. There were a 

 large number of them, many from six to nine inches long. 

 They had been in the hatchery eighteen months, and were all 

 alive and well in the evening and dead on the following morn- 

 ing. No cause is assigned for this loss. " i\. 



tnml jgisforg. 



For Forest and Stream and Mod and (Jim. 

 CERVUS COLUMBIANUS, 



SINCE this animal is hut little known, and since there is a 

 lack of information as to its habits and characteristics in 

 the eastern part of this continent, I have thought that per- 

 haps a few remarks made by a person who has been conver- 

 sant with it for the past sixteen years might prove to be in- 

 teresting. 



The article concerning this species in Hnlloek's "Sports- 

 man's Gazetteer " is a fuir account of tbis type of deer, with 

 this exception-, that in the statement regarding the flesh being 

 inferior in favor and quality to other species, the writer has 

 certainly made a grave mistake. The contrary is the case, the 

 flesh being quite equal if not in some respects superior to 

 that of his white-tailed brother, Uervus Yirginianvs, and un- 

 doubtedly much belter than that of the wapiti or elk, Cer- 

 vus canadensis. That of the moose, Oervus alces, is thought by 

 some to be better, but others differ from them in this opinion. 

 The black-tailed deer of the Pacific coast differs in appearance 

 and size but little from the Virginian deer, and, to ordinary 

 observers, both animals, if placed side by side, would he 

 thought to be of the same variety, the only distinguishing 

 characteristic being, as indicated by its local name, the black 

 tail; and this appendage differs only in being black on its 

 upper side from the root to the tip, being white underneath 

 as in the Virginian deer. The coat is a blue one from about 

 September till March or April, the rest of the year it is red. 

 The white on belly and stern never changes. The fawns arc 

 spotted at birth with very distinctly marked spots of white, 

 extending iu parallel rows from the shoulders to the buttocks. 

 These gradually decrease iu distinctness until autumn, when 

 they totally disappear. Occasionally an albino is seen pure 

 white, while others are marked with white spots or patches, 

 and may better be described by the Spanish word pinto than 

 any other that occurs to me. These cases are very rare. The 

 islands lying in Fuget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia produce 

 more of these deer than any other locality, but this ireak of 

 nature occurs sometimes on the mainland. 



The range of this deer in British Territory is from the 49th 

 Parallel of latitude on the south to Alaska on the north, and 

 from Vancouver Island on the west it extends a long distance 

 eastward to tbe interior of the mainland. Its food consists 

 almost altogether of browse, the boughs of the various conif- 

 erous trees, maples, etc, and the shoots of various sorts of 

 berry and other bushes forming its chief diet. I tlo not think 

 it is a grass feeder to any extent from the fact that I have 

 never seen it feeding on any of the native grasses, blue joint, 

 red top and Timothy— to which it has access in many places; 

 neither have I ever seen any of the said grasses showing signs 

 of having been cropped by deer. Along hanging moss grow- 

 ing pendant from the Douglas fir (Abies Douglasa) and other 

 trees, as also a wild vetch commonly known as pea vine are 

 -a favorite food. Perhaps under some circumstances it may 

 Ice (I on grasses, but it certainly does not as a rule nor to any 

 great extent. The size varies considerably in different places, 

 and in none more so than on the Islands before referred to, 

 the average weight being very much more in some places than 

 in others. The* largest bucks are a trifle over 200 pounds, 

 enlrailB removed, but in August and September, when in 

 their finest condition, a buck 150 to 170 lbs. is considered a very 

 good one. A fat doe in January, their best month, goes from 

 100 to 120 pounds. The rutting season occurs in different 

 placesfrom September to November, beingentirely over in some 

 localities before it has commenced in others, and the period of 

 gestation is supposed to be about or in the neighborhood of 

 six months. No positive authority exists on tbis point, how- 

 ever, as there are no deer parks here, and with wild deer it 

 can, of course, be only a matter of approximation. During 

 and subsequent to tbe rutting the necks of the bucks swell to 

 nearly twice their ordinary size. Two fawns are produced 

 at a birth : instances of more are related, but this is perhaps 

 of as rare occurrence as twins in cows. The fawns are se- 

 creted for a time after their birth until they gain the requisite 

 strength to follow their dam. They remain with her till late 

 in autumn, when they separate and commence life "on their 

 own hook." 



These deer are not gregarious. Although occasionally a 

 group of three or more are seen together, they are as a rule 

 solitary. By this I mean that they do not congregate in 

 bands like elk and deer of other kinds, and nothing has 

 transpired to show or prove that they are migratory in the 

 sense applicable to other species. Of course, as the snow 

 comes lower on the mountains in winter they descend to the 

 valleys, and the advent of favorite food in different places 

 has the effect of making some move from their settled haunts, 

 but nothing of the character of a general movement over oc- 

 curs. They are nocturnal in their habits, feeding chiefly early 

 in the morning and late in the evening, and during the night 

 about, the period of full moon, and are rarely seen (luring the 

 middle of the day, except when startled from their lairs, save 

 at two seasons — namely : during rutting, when they appear 

 to be continually on the travel, and at another period, when 

 the "bucks' horns are approaching maturity. They repair then 

 to open spots with a southerly aspect and bask in the sun, 

 and this feature is termed by hunters "hardening of the 



horns." The does are hornless. An occasional doe has been 

 killed bearing horns, but these cases are very rare indeed. 



Whatever index or guide in other species the hot ns may 

 be to the age of tbe animal, in this species they are not to be 

 depended on to any degree in this respect. Spike bucks are 

 often obtained certainly more than tbe second summer old, 

 and others with old grizzled heads and molars worn down 

 to the gums, together with other positive signs of old age, 

 'ins of not nearly the number of tines that others of 

 far less age bear ; and the common idea or opinion of an addi- 

 tional tine for each successive year is wholly inapplicable to 

 this species. The bonis sprout from the head in the form of 

 a knob, about March or April, and mature in August and Sep- 

 tember ; they are dropped in December and January. They 

 form quite a formidable weapon of offence and defence, and, 

 although severe, fights occur between the bucks during their 

 amours, still they do not appear to be as pugnacious and de- 

 termined as other sorts of deer, as no instances are on record 

 of interlocked horns and consequent death of both com- 

 batants. They rarely come to bay, nor do limy make any- 

 thing of a fight when caught in the water. The. horns are 

 cylindrical in form (slightly ovate), and the tines, with the 

 exception of tbe brow au tiers, proceed from the posterior 

 part of the main horns, and they (the tines) but seldom ex- 

 ceed five or six in number. These deer are very numerous 

 and do not recede before civilization to any great extent, as 

 long as their cover is not destroyed, and apparently their 

 numbers are not affected to any great degree bv near prox- 

 imity to settlements. As an example of this "they abound 

 within three to four miles of Victoria, the capital of British 

 Columbia, a city of four to five thousand inhabitants, and in 

 any direction within a radius of a mile and a half or this city 

 —one of a thousand inhabitants— a deer can be started by a 

 good hound within fifteen or twenty minutes from the time 

 he is turned loose, auy day in the year. Their sense of smell 

 and, hearing are very acute, and thev appear to be more 

 alarmed by an unusual noise, or getting tbe wind of, than by 

 seeing a person, although they pay but little attention to the 

 report of a gun, And sometimes as many as three or four are 

 killed with a muzzle-loading rifle without tbe hunter stirring 

 from his tracks. Why they should be SO numerous may ap- 

 pear strauge, taken in connection with the fact that tbe gray 

 and black wolf (Cam's lupus), their natural enemy and inces- 

 sant persecutor, is plentiful, is an object of veneration, and is 

 never molested by tbe Indians of this vicinity; while also 

 the gray and bay lynx (Lynx amadensix and Lijnx rufus) de- 

 pend on the deer to a great extent for stocking their' larder, 

 while the panther (Ftfh concolor) depends on the same almost 

 altogether. But their numbers may be accounted for in this 

 way: No epidemic such as is spoken or in other places oc- 

 curs here. 



Their gaits arc three— a walk, a trot, but little faster than 

 the walk, and a run, the latter better expressed by buck 

 jumps, high bounds being made in the air at each leap. They 

 are splendid high jumpers ; a seven rail snnke fence appears 

 to offer no obstacle, while a five feet picket fence is rarely at- 

 tempted, and affords security to the settlers from depreda- 

 tions on their crops. The modes of capture praeticsd here 

 are still-hunting, driving with hounds, fire-hunting, and float- 

 ing to a limited extent. Bleating for the bucks and crying 

 like fawns to call the does are practiced by the Indians, who, 

 here as in other countries, take the easiest, method of securing 

 food. A buck on the run can usually be stopped for an in- 

 stant by bleating or whistling, but if not killed he is off the 

 next moment, like a shot. MowrroH. 



New Westminster, J3ritiA Columbia, May 16. 1878. 



SWORD-FISH. 



f Bridgeport, Conn., August 22, 1S7S. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have just returned from a sword-fishing excursion off 

 Block Islaud, and have become very much interested in the 

 habits of this fish, and especially its manner of breeding, con- 

 cerning which I am unable to find out anything. The fisher- 

 men know absolutely nothing about tbe habits of the sword- 

 fish except that he comes up to the surface periodically for the 

 purpose of sunning himself. They also know that he is a 

 migratory Ash, because "he's here in summer and he ain't 

 here in winter." 



I have never^seen a fisherman who ever saw a female, or who 

 has ever seen anything which evinced anv difference in sex. 

 The smallest one which ] over heard of being caught weighed 

 46 pounds, the commonest size caught in Block Island waters 

 ranging from 80 to 225 pounds, fish being occasionally caught 

 as high as 450 to 500. These, however, are rare. I wish you 

 would publish something concerning this curious fish in the 

 columns of your valuable paper, as I am sure they would be 

 appreciated by such of your readers as have ever seen one. 

 The " Encyclopedia. Britfanica (1860), Eighth Edition," gives 

 a somewhat measre description of the fish itself and the 

 methods employed in its capture in the Mediterranean, but 

 says nothing of the habits of the fish, and does not even men- 

 tion that it is found in American waters. Any information 

 which you can give regarding their habits and method of re- 

 produclion will bo very gratefully received by myself and 

 several others. We had very good luck fishing, and in twelve 

 and one-half days' fishing captured 13, varying from 94 to 326 

 pounds in weight. 8. H. Hubbard. 



Wc may state to our correspondent that the sword-fish 

 probably never spawns on our coast. The only known spawn- 

 ing grounds are in the Mediterranean, and especially about 

 the Straits of Messina. In the Mediterranean quantities of 

 young sword-fish are seen from half a pound upward. None 

 less than three or four feet long have ever been seen in the 

 Western Atlantic, and these have lost the distinguishing 

 character of the young fish, which have a high, sail-like fin 

 the whole length of the back and a prominent spine on the 

 operculum. The Pish Commission recently had a sword-fish 

 from the coast of Maiue, which weighed nearly COO pounds, 

 one of the largest with authenticated weight. The Cape Ann 

 fishermen have of late caught many of these fish on their 

 trawl-lincB when fishing for halibut on the Nova Scotia Banks 

 at a depth of 150 to 200 fathoms, an entirely new phase in 

 tbe history of this species. 



The sword-fish make their appearance on our coast off 

 Block Island and Montauk from May 15 to June 1, and re- 

 main in tbe New England waters till early winter when 

 the snow falls. Their presence seems to depend on that of 

 their favorite food, the mackerel and menhaden, which they 

 follow industriously. When the schools of summer fish dis- 



appear the sword-fish also goes. It is impossible to say how 

 far they are influenced by temperature, though it does not at 

 present appear as if they were sensitive to cold. They kil 

 their prey by striking it sideways with their sword. Tbey 

 must needs do this, because their toothless mouths are not 

 adapted to seize and hold living struggling fishes. Mackerel 

 and menhaden taken from their stomachs are usually marked 

 with a stray gash in their sides, the effect of the blow of the 

 sword. Wo may add that Professor G. Brown Goode is col- 

 Icoing material on the sword-fish, which will shortly appear 

 in the " United States Report of Fish and Fisheries." 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



WE have hesitated to again open in these columns the 

 long-vexed and very unsatisfactory discussion of the 

 English sparrow question. Little real value attaches to a con- 

 troversy where the] recorded observations are often not of 

 sufficient extent and thoroughness to bo of practical bearing, 

 and where the observers are themselves unintelligent in orni- 

 thological and scientific subjects. It would seem, however, 

 that the sparrow has now been among us so long that a prop- 

 erly conducted investigation by competent experts would defi- 

 nitely and finally determine whether he is a useful ally against 

 insects and worms, a merely harmless and neutral member of 

 tbe feathered tribe, or a pest and a nuisance. To this end we 

 most heartily endorse the plan proposed by Dr. Elliott Coues 

 in the August number of the American Naturalist, in a vigor- 

 ous artidfc upon " The Ineligibility of the European House 

 Sparrow in America." This proposition is: That "at the 

 height of the insect season, at the time when the sparrows 

 should be eating the bugs, if they ever do, in some places fair- 

 ly infested with the bugs, a sufficient number of sparrows be 

 killed and examined as to the contents of their crops. Let 

 the authorities of auy of our large cities — preferably Boston, 

 where the birds are said to have done so much good, and 

 where the sparrow combination talks loudest — furnish to 

 proper persons, say five hundred sparrows, whose stomachs 

 shall be examined by some competent botanist and entomolo- 

 gist together. If noxious insects should be found to form 

 the greater portion or even any considerable portion of the 

 food of these birds, I would yield the case as far as this par- 

 ticular count is concerned." 



Such an investigation, repeated in different sections of the 

 country, would soon settle the question and determine before 

 it be too late what kind of a creature this is which we have so 

 cordially received and now so jealously foster. 



Dr. Coues has studied this question very thoroughly, and is 

 outspoken in the indictment he brings against the sparrows. 

 The charges of that indictment are substantially these : That 

 the birds entirely neglect or insufficiently execute the work for 

 which they were imported : that they harass and drive away 

 more valuable native and insectivorous birds ; that they al- 

 ready commit great depredations upon the kitchen, garden, 

 orchard and grain field, and that, as their unlimited increase 

 goes on, these depredations will assume more serious propor- 

 tions ; that they are, by reason of " their perpetual anticsj in 

 spring and summer" and their constant defiling of porch and 

 window-sill, especially obnoxious and aggravating ; and that, 

 again, the condition of their life and increase being essentially 

 different in America from that in Europe, they are out of 

 their place here and have no part in the natural economy of 

 the country ; and, finally, that they threaten before long to 

 become as serious a plague as are the grasshoppers and the 

 potato bugs. While not prepared to advise extermination, 

 Dr. Coues would recommend for checking their increase that 

 the birds be left to shift for themselves, that the legal penal- 

 ties for their destruction be removed, and that they be used as 

 targets for the boys with shot-guns, and trapped for sparrow 

 matches as pigeons are now employed by sportsmen. 



Below we publish two communications upon this subject, 

 the first from a correspondent in Milford, Mass,, the second 

 from Dr. E. C. Sterling, of Lake City, Minn.: 



In, I think, the current number oC the Eclectic Is an article on Oie 

 English sparrow, the tenor of the article being against thiB bird, and 

 ol'.ing the Nnttall Ornithological Olub as authority tor many statements 

 there made, one of them being that the bird does not eat worm?, or 

 bugs, etc. 



As a friend of the English sparrow I would state an Incident I wit- 

 nessed to-day. In company with a Irlend, as I was leaviug the office 

 this noon, we saw one of a numerous flock ol the sparrows fly to the 

 butt of a large Mack walnut tree, some fifteen feet from where we 

 stood, and begin to peck into a crevice of the rough baric, and start off 

 with the bog I send you to-day in his beak. We started toward quickly, 

 causing the bird to drop it, and as It fell In a clear place near the side- 

 walk, we easily found It, and, it being something never before seen, 

 send It to you for name. 



This is tbe second time I have seen sparrows taking bugs from the 

 same tree. Ouce before this, last year, as I was passing along on the 

 sidewalk, I noticed one of the birds in the street, say twenty feet, from 

 the tree, fly direct to the butt of the tree, and begin pecking at what I, 

 after frightening off the bird, found to be a small insect, say as large 

 as a deer fly, which was closely hidden iu a crack in the batk. 



If this Is not good proof of the insect-eating propensity I could furnish 

 more. I have also seen them picking up canker-worms on the side- 

 walk, and apparently eating them ; and, passing two flocks four time* 

 daily for some three years at all times of the year, I have never yet seen 

 a light between tbo sparrows and other buds, although there were 

 plenty of small birds of other kinds near by. A pair of the sparrow* 

 midyear tmltt a nest and reared a brood of young directly over my 

 olilce in a ventilator hole in the brick wall, and never have I seen or 

 heard any disturbance with other birds. 



Several years since, before the sparrow was introduced into this 

 town, we were overmu with canker-worms, so. much ao that houses 

 uear trees were black with the worms ; and it was not au unusual thing 

 for one, lu calling at a house, to have the ring at the door answered by 

 » (servant with a broom in hand, to sweep away tbe wormB before enter- 

 ing. This season it was a rare exception to see a tree eaten by the 

 worms. 



