FOREST AND STREAM 



521 



As tbis park is rather far from any other wood, Mr. Kelbe 

 tocked it with wild pheasants, which have increased 

 ■ nireds notwithstanding thy Inroads made by 

 foxes, martens, weasels aid cats from the village, of which 

 he caught this year not, less than twenty-six in his traps. lie 

 formerly kept roes tn the park, but finding that the young 

 ones did not thrive and the bucks killed them, he got tired 

 of them and shot them off. 



Last Sunday morning Mr, Kelbe called on me. lie was 

 quite excited, for his head Gardner had reported that a fox 

 bad invaded his park. Some laborers saw him kill a bare 



and took it from him, but very soon afterward pi 



notes from a pbessnt proved clearly that lie bad found a 

 substitute lor bis lost hare. Mr. Kelbe invited me to drive- 

 over with him to hi pari n St morning and try to shoot^tbe 

 bold robber, together with a few pheasant. "cocks. [ of 

 i itll pleasure, for since many years I had 



nut had an opportunity of shooting a wild pheasant. There 

 are plenty in Bohemia, but in Germany you lind them but 

 rarely, as they can be kept only ra isolated parks and woods 

 where the adjoining fields belong to the same proprietor, 

 else kind neighbors will shoot them as they go in summer 

 out in the fields to feed. 



Two other gentlemen whom Mr. K. had invited were pre- 

 vented from coming, and we two had it all to qui 

 About a dozen garden laborers ami the coaelnnau and 

 garduer were ordered to act as Treibers, and Mr. Kelbe and 

 i placed ourselves where we thought it most likely that the 

 rod robber would pass. I took my stand behind an elm 

 tree on a narrow dry ditch, from whence I could overlook 

 an angle-point of a copse before me and the adjoining 

 meadows. Mr. Kelbe told me that he bad kUled at Hint 

 place two foxes, and that he would probaTjly take a foot- 

 path to my left or remain in the ditch, in order to reach the 

 tldcket. 



The Treilier formed a line and advanced without making 

 much noise, as it is not required to start a fox. Some bares 

 and iabbits they met on their way took alarm and came out 

 of the copse, and two Volker of partridges passed my slaud. 

 I resisted, however, the temptation. About eighty paces 

 before me was a little bridge over the ditch, and looking 



sharp along the latter rny whole attention Was al 



reeled to something moving underneath the bridge. I stood 

 as still as if 1 were made of stone and my eyes opened to 

 double their size. No wild here or noble stag would have 



i me so much as did this red rascal whose pointed 



nose 1 recognized in the uncertain light under the bridge. 

 It was amusing to observe him. The noise behind him did 

 not alarm him miiL'li. (mi more atieulion was paid by him 

 to the space which separated him from the opposite copse, 

 The wind did not teach him anything of my presence, for it 

 came front him toward me. The hares and partridges, 

 which passed unmolested, seemed at last to satisfy him that 

 all was safe, lie cautiously, and. dragging one foot after 

 the other, crept to the brim of the ditch and had a peep 

 at the meadow. I might have bred at him then ; but, as be 

 was partly concealed behind a little shrub, 1 waited for his 

 further movements. The result of bis reconnoitering seemed 

 ;.i isfaeiorv, for he returned to tbe ditch, and, making 

 himself as small as possible, be came along ihe ditch toward 

 me. When be saw me he was not more than three paces 

 from my feet, and he was so surprised that he lost bis head. 

 Instead of turning round aud running back toward the 

 ti i i he ditch, he suddenly jumped out of it and 



. as fast as he could over the meadows, lie did not go 

 far. At about twenty-five paces 1 fired, and, struck right in 

 the head, be remained on the spot. In the same m 

 the Treibers emerged from the wood, and, taught, by ex- 

 perience, one of the laborers gave him still some blows with 

 his stick. 



The object of our expedition being fulfilled we might 

 have gone home; but Mr. Kelbe wanted some plica 

 and the Treibers re-entered the same copse which they had 

 just left, knowing very well that plenty of pheasants had re- 

 mained. A few of them bad passed me, but 1 had Dot taken 

 any notice of them. 



The birds must have been alarmed, however, lor when 

 the Treibers commenced their noise they rose ai ouce, one 

 after tbe other, above the trees and filed offwith the velocity 



of a rock* 



certain tl 

 hen. Mr. 

 The. T re: 



Very sot 

 not make i 

 ish-brown, 1 tc 



, as 1 did not recognize for 

 ks, aud was much afraid of killing perhaps a 

 be, however, shot a cock and two hares. 

 * placed themselves now at the border of that 

 h the fox hail longed to reach, aud I took my 

 ■ner close to the same ditch mentioned before. 

 id about sixty paces to the right of me. 

 saw something moving in the ditch. I could 

 vliat it was, and, seeing only something gray- 

 cat, but. it was a reconnoitering 

 pheasant lien. She ran quickly back and I just saw the 

 oast of a cock coming toward me in the ditch, 

 when Mr. Kelbe called out to me to change my stand for 

 one he thought better. The cock turned round and all was 

 Still for a few minutes. Then I heard the noise of some 



f! ■;,■ ,..ii., rising to my right. Mr. Kelbe. fired and a splen- 

 id cock fell beavily'on the grass. I was rather envious 

 and anxiously hoped my turn would- come next. It came. 

 lettol oheasants rose in the thicket before me, and 

 T brought down another cock. I might have, made a doublet 

 if [ had not been so much afraid of a mistake. 

 noise before me. It was a beautiful bird, and I shot him be- 

 fore be was above the trees. When a third '■■■-): : - . 



,. ■! ■, i lired, but be went off, aud Mr. Kelbe believed 

 that 1 bad missed him. 1 did not think so, and I was right. 

 The cock was found dead on the meadow about two lime 

 b from me. Mr. Kelbe fired again. The bird fell 

 down, but after a few seconds he got up and ran toward the 

 thicket- He had only been winged. Whether the gardener 

 fouud him afterward I do not know. 



We had now one fox, three hares and five pheasant cocks. 

 The whole affair lasted about an hour. My friend thought 

 this enough for the moment. We returned to the villa and 

 he fetched from his cellar a choice bottle of Ehenish. After 

 having finished it. we returned to Leipsic and were home, at 

 hall-past twelve, much satisfied with our little expedition. 



4p$h £ultuw 



Uoi'.vrM. 



Ckntuai, Short Line.— The new route, to Florida via the 

 r md and Danville Railroad offers many ad van !..■■ 

 pleasant scenery, the privilege of extended stays along ihe 

 route and the" best of traveling facilitiea and convem 

 The route is via Richmond, Charlotte, Columbia and Augusta. 



|J3" Palmer & Sons, of Boscobel, Wis., write that they will 

 be able to furnish trout eggs to customers up to April. This 

 would be remarkable— November being their spawning month 

 —only that trout, like other animals, when long domesticated 

 extend their breeding season. 



Tue South Sinn Clue as Pish Cultukists. — Through the 

 elTorts of two or three of its members who are well versed in 

 fish culture, the South Side Club has beeu most successful in 

 the propagation of brook trout ; so much so that it has beeu 

 able to contribute largo lots to a neighboring club on Long 

 Island and to tbe Blooming Grove Park Association of 

 Pike Couuty, Pa. It has also supplied the Messrs. Thompson, 

 the fish breeders of New Hope, Pa., with several thousand 

 fine fish. 



• son Cclture.— Thirty years ago what now ap- 

 pears upon our maps as the State of Kansas was a howling 

 wilderness, the bowling being furnished by the ferm naturm 

 and the ftsriorcs huirwni. The hardy adventurer who should 

 have braved scalping knife and tomahawk to penetrate, its 

 trackless wilds and returning thence should have, prophesied 

 that before the lapse of the third decade the intelligent 

 citizens of that land should be giving their attention to the 

 restocking of the streams with edible lish — this man would 

 have saved his head from the Indians only to have it safely 

 immured in an insane asylum. He would have been no mud- 

 roan however had he predicted this: for here is the "First 

 Biennial Report of the Commissioner, of Fisheries of the State 

 of Kansas, for the years 1877-8." It is not the subject mat- 

 ter of the report that we wish here to insist upon, for Kansas 

 fish culture is yet in its infancy, so much as this fact: that 

 here is a State comprising an area greater than all Maine, 

 New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and 

 Rhode Island, whose organized history does not antedate the 

 life of the average reader of these columns, displaying a de- 

 gree of enterprise in one Of the advanced economic interests 

 of the day that may well serve as an incentive to many older 

 States. 



I . hi ; ioner D. B. Long calls attention to a very import- 

 ant and icmarkable change iu the character of the streams 

 of Kansas, as noticeable as the alterations which have already 

 beeu noticed in her plains. Lands which not so long ago 

 were considered fit ouly for tbe savage and the wild beast 

 have beeu developed into great broad fields of magnificent 

 wheat aud corn. Many creek beds which were once trickling 

 alkali brooks are now full-flowing with pure water ; springs 

 and streams have gushed forth from the earth where formerly 

 there were only barren wastes. All these manifestations may 

 be accepted as auguring well for the efforts of man to intio- 

 ducc into the waters the valuable species of fish especial 1 " 

 adapted to them, and we are confident that the liberc > mindea 

 people of the Stale will through the Legislature give to their 

 energetic Commissioners the pecuniary endorsement to ad- 

 vance, the work. 



\X _ * ' • • * 



Pkopaoation of Land-looked Salmon.— Pish breeders 

 who are interested in the cultivation of land-locked salmon 

 will feel much encouraged by the following report which 

 Com. Atkins has been kind enough to furnish. The commu- 

 nication also answers several questions which have lately 

 been propounded to us. Increasing interest is deservedly 

 felt in the cultivation of this fish, aud we hope its presence 

 will some day not distant ennoble our inland lakes. It pos- 

 sesses equal game qualities with its step-brother salmo salar, 

 which has access to salt water, and its flesh is almost as tooth- 

 some. "With our clean inland waters populated with land- 

 locked salmon, we could boast such angling in America as no 

 country has ever heard of. The persistent efforts of the U. S. 

 Fishery Commission aud the managers of the hatching estab- 

 lishment in Maine are most commendable. They will be 

 watched with solicitude until the full result is accomplished 

 aud epicures and anglers are made happy all over the United 

 States : 



Gband Lake Stream, Me., Jan. 21, 1879. 

 Editor Forest and Stream: 

 The crop of eggs of land-locked salmon obtained here, this 

 i rater than usual instead of less, as indicated by an 

 item in your columns of January 16; Luring the four sea- 

 sons of our operations here we have taken the following num- 

 bers of , gL's. viz.: 1,077,500 eggs in 1875, 513,000 eggs in 

 1870, 2,1 5',), 000 in 1877, and 1,723,000 in 1878. From which 

 it appears that this season's work has been more successful 

 than that of any other except one (1877). 



Schoodic land-locked salmon are less prolific than sea- 

 salmon, and in proportion to the quantity of spawn obtained 

 the work involved is far greater. It took 1,617 females, all 

 fertile, to produce 1,723,000 eggs— an average of 1,065 eggs 

 per fish. This was a much higher rate than usual, the fish 

 being this year larger than usual. Last year (1877) they 

 yielded onlv 985 per fish, and some years it has been less than 

 that. The'avcrage weight of the breeding fish is a trifle less 

 than two pounds, average length about seventeen inches. The 

 r exceeded these measurements. 

 The parties controliug these works this year are the United 

 States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries and the Commis- 

 sioners of the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 

 Hampshire. Cn aiu.es G. Atkins, 



Ass't to the U, S. Com. Fisheries. 



—The mighty brain of an astute Virginia editor evolves 



— In all the shots fired in the Brooklyn and Philadelphia (hl . .,,-,,„,,,, ,, rh a | .,, , , s should not be stocked with lish, 



Gun Chili's match hist, week, ".^^^e^^f'^i 9 i because, forsooth, that would encourage idleness among the 



soil, the pursuits of agriculture would languish, and the idl . 

 fish-fed population would degenerate into effeminacy an I 

 semi-barbarism. We commend this sapient reasoning to our 

 fish culturists. Let them reflect whether they are not heapin >• 

 up an accountability of sins, which no change of occupatio t 

 or diet will ever atone for. 



Pennsylvania.— A large number of California salmon have 

 just been placed in the small streams about Trout Run. It is 

 hoped thuB to replenish the streams which have become de- 

 pleted of their once abundant trout. 



Potomac Fisuways. — Gov. Hunton is giving his attention 

 to the subject of properly supplying the Potomac with fish- 

 ways, and it is probable that at an early date that stream will 

 be 80 furnished that there will be an open passage to the Vir- 

 ginia counties of Clarke, Loudoun, Shenandoah, Fairfax and 

 Warren, and the Potomac counties of Maryland. 



^uinml ]§iBtorg< 



BIRDS OF THE COLORADO VALLEY. 



GOOD wine needs no bush, nor does any work done by 

 Dr. Elliott Cones require a single word of commenda- 

 tion to the practical student of science. .Nevertheless, as 

 FoiaisT and Stbbam visits each week a very considerable 

 number of ornithological readers, many of whom depend upon 

 it for their news of current scientific events, it becomes our 

 duty to mention, however briefly, the appearance of the first 

 part of one of the most important works on ornithology 

 which has ever appeared iu this country. 



The present volume, Part I., treats of ouly a small portion 

 of the subject as slated in the title, for in the 800 pages be- 

 tween its covers only tbe Pnsseres to Lariiidm are included. 

 As far as it goes, however, it is so complete iu its jsynooomy 

 and its descriptions, and so altogether delightful iu its account 

 of the habits of the various species considered, as really to 

 leave almost, nothing to be desired. 



The ornithologist who examines " The Birds of the Colora- 

 do Valley" will be especially impressed by the completeness 

 of the synonomatic lists, which preface the account of each 

 Species, and by the " Bibliography of North American Orni- 

 thology, 8 which constitutes the last 200 pages of the work. 

 Although to the untcchuical reader these portions of the vol- 

 ume will perhaps appear dry and of slight importance, they 

 are in reality its most valuable features, and the amount of 

 labor which has been expended in compiling them is simply 

 enormous. It must be reinembeied that, except in a few 

 specified cases, no title or reference in the book has been taken 

 at second hand, but that in each case the author has gone to 

 the original work, and taken his material from that. 



The "Bibliography of North American Ornithology" is in- 

 tended to be a complete list of every work, article, or paper 

 ever published on the birds of North America. It is, as Dr. 

 Coues remarks, only that very small portion of the great work 

 which ho has in course of preparation— his " Bibliography of 

 Ornithology" — which relates to North American birds as sueft. 

 He therefore excludes all titles which refer to any group of 

 birds which are treated of as component parts of a genus or 

 family, as such works will appear in the final " Bibliography" 

 under their proper family or generic headings. The titles 

 which Dr. Coues gives us, in the volume under consideration, 

 are nearly 1,500 in number, and represent, he says, only about 

 three or four per cent, of the whole literature of ornithology. 

 He tells us that he has now in hand for his final work 18,000 

 titles 



The present list is published at this time mainly for the pur- 

 pose of bringing the subject to the notice of " those interest- 

 ed," so that any writers, whose works, or papers, may have 

 been omitted, can communicate the fact to the author and the 

 error may be rectified in the final work. We observe that Dr. 

 Coues has quoted mauy titles from the columns of Forest and 

 Stream and we call the attention of our correspondents and 

 contributors to his note on this subject which we publish to- 

 day. We feel sure that any writers whose articles have been 

 quoted will gladly furnish the information which Dr. Ooucs 

 desires. 



While to the ornithologist the " Birds of the Colorado Val- 

 ley" will prove of the utmost value in all respects, the biogra- 

 phies of the'various species will present to the unscientific 

 reader the greatest attraction of the volume. Written in Dr. 

 Coues' own inimitable style, they are simply gems of hirtl lit- 

 erature. There is a charm about (hern that can scarcely be 

 characterised, but we venture to predict that no bird lover 

 who peruses one of these delightful sketches will care to re 

 linquish the volume until he has read it quite through. There 

 is a pathos about some of these life-histories that is strangely 

 moving, while others are mirth-provoking to a degree. Dr. 

 Coues so cunningly blends realism and poetry in his descrip- 

 tions of bird habits "that we seem to be able to thoroughly ap- 

 preciate all their characteristics and to enter, to a certain ex- 

 tent at least, into the secrets of their every-day life. 



Our author goes very deeply into a number of curious points 

 touching on various phases of bird life. He never hesitates 

 to attack beliefs that he thinks are founded on error, and never 

 takes anything for grunted. His remarks on swallows are ex- 

 tremely iuteresting,nnd we know of uo account of these charm- 

 ing jilles tie lair that is hall so full. 



Altogether the present work more nearly approaches the 

 ideal ornithology than anything that, we know of. Between 

 its covers can be found almost everything that one wishes to 



