386 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Joins 16, 1881- 



JDg forth, or you may give them a treat of whistling that 

 may fall to excite Iheir risibles. 



I am at a loss to give more hints now, except this : Aim 

 well forward, and make no noise even after you have deliv- 

 ered your shot, hut reload as quietly as possible, and then lie 

 low and watch if yon have missed ; approach cautiously if 

 you have tumbled your game. 



If following single trails be not vour idea of still-hunting, 

 take to the crown of the hills on "the south side, and if the 

 country is as favorable as some I have visited, you may 

 come upon the doe, buck and fawn either browsing or re- 

 posing side by side ; and if you can, unseen and unsmellpd, 

 approach within shooting distance, the three will be yours 

 so long as you remuin so. Deer will not run even when the 

 shot whistles round them so long as their eves, ears or nose 

 refuse to tell them of the point whence danger lies. 



But I drefld to wear out my welcome to the cheerful col- 

 umns of Forest and Stream, so 1 shall now say good-bye, 

 Mends, and may some one take up the trail where I have 

 left it. T. F F. 



Aylmer, QueS 



See Adv. ot Moose, Elk, Caribou and Deer Horns Tor Bale.— Adv. 



Natural §i?torg 



A TAME CHIPPY. 



ElUTOR FOBEST AND STREAM : 



Among our feathered favorites, whose return from their 

 winter migrations is always so heartily welcomed by all who 

 live iu the country, the chippy or chipping sparrow, Spizella 

 domestica (Bartr.) Coues, occupies the first place. His plu- 

 mage is very modest and his song monotonous, and yet uono 

 of our wild birds is as feailess as he or shows a greater par- 

 tiality for building his nest and rearing his young close by 

 the bouse, andnoteven that, noisy and quarrelsome foreigner, 

 tin- English sparrow, enjoys more being fed with crumbs or 

 seedB. For yeara at our place in Flushing, L, I., my father 

 has led some half-dozen of these chipping sparrows and the 

 young birds have taken bread or seed from his hand when it, 

 was held ue.r the ground, but the old birds would never al- 

 low any such familiarity. One of the adult, bin's, however, 

 seemed more inclined to do so than his companion-, and at 

 last, in the summer of 187!), mustered courage enough to fol- 

 low the example of the young hirds and, finding do ill ef- 

 fects, jumped on to my father's finger and, sitting there, ate 

 his breakfast. The ice once broken, "Dick," as 'we christ- 

 ened liini, seetaed to lose all fear, and from that time always 

 ate his breakfast from my father's baud. As he became 

 tamer he would come to the other members of the family if 

 my father was not present, but: he always showed a strong 

 preference for his first friend. This com inued all the surn- 

 nif r, but when fall came, with the first cold blasts Dick took 

 his departure for the summer regions of the South. The 

 next April, however, he returned and without any hesitation 

 came i me morning to my father's call and in his old accus- 

 tomed way ate his breakfast fr m my father's hand. Dick 

 and his mate built their nest in the vines which clambered 

 oyer our piazza and spent the summer with us. The young 

 bird?, however, were as wild as their mother, and Dick alone 

 came when called. The others would eat at our feet, but 

 nothing more. Dick became a prime favorite and wheu again 

 be took his departure, we wondered if he would again return. 

 Sure enough, on April 27 ho came at my father's call and, 

 fluttering before him, lit as before upon his hand. This year 

 he has gone further, as he lias several times, while sitting on 

 my father's hand, ceased eating and poured forth his song of 

 thanks. He has never favored any of the rest of us in ihJB 

 way and only remains on our hands long enough to satisfy 

 his appetite. It has long been known that birds would re- 

 turn to the same locality year after year, but that a wild bird 

 should remember a person's voice and come back after his 

 long wandering as tune aud confiding as when he went away 

 is. 1 think, very remarkable. Dick has lost one of the sec- 

 ondaries of his right wing and can easily be recognized. He 

 is a great pet and we should be sorry to'lose him. The only 

 precautionary measure I have taken is to make a target of 

 every cat, I have seen near the house. 



37 Pine St., M. 7. Rob't B. Lawrence. 



BEAVER TRAPPING IN THE NORTHWEST. 



Bozeman, Montana Ter., May 21. 



IN the Forest and Stream of April 2S, I noticed an article 

 from H. C. W., Wellsville, N. Y., describing different, 

 methods of trapping heaver. Ab I am an old trapper myself 

 it interested me in some respects. As your correspondent's 

 methods are different from most used here in this part of the 

 country by most old trappers I concluded to give you some 

 notes about beaver trapping as practiced in Montana, Idaho, 

 Wyoming and the far Northwest. 



Trappers generally start out trapping in September, pro- 

 vided with the necessary supplies, camp outfit, pack and 

 saddle horses. After finding a stream with plenty of beaver 

 on it, they pitch their camp and commence their operations. 

 One man generally takes care of from nine to fifteen beaver 

 traps, which he strings out, eilher up or down stream from 

 camp. After catching most, of the beaver in a neighborhood 

 of from two to live miles above aud below camp, they move 

 their camp to some other place, and so on. Most, trappers 

 prefer setting traps from six to eight inches under water 

 near the bank of the creek or dam, fastening the end of the 

 chain to a long, dry pole, the lower end of Which is under 

 water out of sight, the upper end being tied to some willows 

 or stake up stream to allow it to swing either way. As soon 

 as the beaver gets into the trap he plunges into the water 

 trying to escape. In his efforts to extricate himself he soon 

 tires himself out, and drowns, providing the water is deep 

 enough. In some localities, where poles are scarce and the 

 water deep, stakes are sometimes used. Stakes are objection- 

 able, however, as the beaver will wind around it, and some- 

 limes succeeds in either breaking the chain, gnawing off the 

 stake, or twisting his leg off, and a good many beaver and 

 traps are lost in this way, Where stakes are used, however, 

 an, itheT slake about two or three inches distant from (he first 

 stake ought to be driven into the ground to facilitate the 

 winding up of the beaver, and to prevent him from gnawing 

 off the stake the trap is fastened to. As good and as sure a way 

 as any (in beaver dams) to set a trap is to fasten the chain of 

 the trap to a large boulder or rock, and put bot h trap and boul- 

 der under water out of sight. To the boulder attach some 

 willow bunch so, in case the beaver drags the trap and 

 boulder into deep water, the willow hunch which floats on 



top of the water will indicate the place where the beaver lies. 

 For all my trapping I never caught a beaver in a trap on dry 

 bind, and I never saw a trapper who followed this method. 

 Once in a while a man may be successful and catch a beaver 

 in a trail on dry land, or near a tree stump on dry land, but I 

 think if lie earns his salt at it he is lucky. Beaver are very 

 shy, and have a very fine scent, especially where they have 

 been trapped to any extent— for that reason trappers splash 

 water over the place on the bank where they have fixed the 

 place for the trap. 



Now, suppose a trapper finds a large beaver dam with sev- 

 eral smaller ones above or below it, as is generally the case, 

 he carefully ascertains where the beavers' stop, which they 

 generally do in the largest aud deepest dam. The first night 

 he sets no traps in the large dam at, all, but as far as practi- 

 cable away from it up and" down stream in the smaller dams 

 or near trails or mud piles. As soon as a beaver gets into a 

 trap he gives a splash with his tail, as a warniug signal, which 

 can lie heard at a distance of from fifty to three hundred 

 yards. All the other beavers which may happen to hear this 

 signal will strike for their respective holes or houses, and 

 may uot come out again for the rest of the night. By having 

 traps far enough away from their houses at the start, so that 

 they cannot hear the signal, the trapper stands a chance of 

 catching several beaver that, night, out of one family, while 

 if the traps were set close to the holes or houses one beaver 

 would be about all he would be likely to catch, and the rest, 

 of the beaver family would bo scared so badly that they 

 might not come out again the next night at all, or might, 

 leave that dam and abandon their houses altogether. Besides, 

 the old beavers generally reconnoitre up or down stream in 

 advance of the younger ones, and the tr ipper, by setting his 

 traps some distance below the houses, generally catches the 

 largest and smartest, ones first, but by setting near the houses 

 or holes the chances are that one of the smaller beavers is 

 caught first, instead of the lnrgest ones. Setting on beaver 

 slides between dams or near houses is practiced at last. Most 

 trappers use "medicine." especially in the spring of the year. 

 As a general rule, every trapper has his own way of fixing 

 his " medicine." The musk of the beaver, sometimes mixed 

 with the oil (castors) of the beaver, oil of rhodium, oil of 

 annis, or balm of Qilead buds are used to draw the attention 

 of the beaver to a certain place. Most trappers set their 

 traps to catch the beaver by the hind legs, thus securing the 

 best hold and the surest way to drown them. By setting 

 traps deep enough under water only large beavers will be 

 caught, and the kittens saved for future trapping. Trapping 

 in winter under the ice is practiced but very little in this part 

 of the country. As a rule, trappers are very cautious, and 

 take great pains not to disturb any heaver unnecessarily. 

 Beaver feed here principally on the bark of alder, willow, 

 Cottonwood and balm of Oilead. 



Pine or spruce poleB or stakes are far preferable to any 

 other kind of wood here, although some times they will cut 

 them off. The only place where I found beavers using spruce 

 aud pine for building and repairing their dams was at the 

 headwaters of the Yellowstone and Snake rivers, where they 

 could not procure any other wood except dwarf willows, the 

 altitude being too high for quaking asp, alder or cottonwood. 

 An Old Htjntbr and Trapper. 



SOMETHING ABOUT WOODCHUCKB. 



SINCE the publication in Forest and Stream some time 

 ago of the inquiry of a correspondent for a good dog to 

 kill woodchucks, Arctiimys mouax has bad a good deal of 

 attention directed to him. Now the woodchuck, if we read 

 his nature aright, is by no meaus an ambitious animal. He 

 is far from seeking newspaper notoriety, and asks nothing 

 better than to be left, in his quiet' obscurity to cat the far- 

 mer's cabbages aud young clover, and to trample down his 

 grass. There is no doubt, however, that the devastations of 

 this animal are, in many localities, very serious, and in the 

 aggregate cost the farmers no little loss. 



We tbiuk, therefore, that in bringing this subject before 

 our readers, a large proportion of whom are residents of the 

 country, wc are performing for them a real service. There 

 is variety enough in the different methods recommended for 

 destroying these vermin to suit all tastes, and that some of 

 our agricultural readers will put one or another of them in 

 practice we have no doubt. 



We print below several letters recently received which bear 

 on the habits of this, the largest of the rodents of our thickly 

 settled districts. 



Lynn, Mass., June 5. — Editor Fwcstand Stream: I notice 

 Kio's article of May 23. He doubts if any reader of Forest 

 and Stream oversaw a tree-climbing woodchuck. If Rio 

 bad been with me one bright, May morning in 1871, about 

 three miles from Minneapolis, Minn., on the St. Anthony 

 side of the river, where I went to shoot wild pigeons which 

 were reported to be very plentiful in the oak woods there, he 

 would have learned that the woodchuck knew the art of 

 climbing trees at least ten years ago 



I was sitting under a large oak, and bad just raised my gun 

 to shoot into a flock of pigeons as they were about to alight 

 within range. While glancing along my gun barrels, and 

 just; before pressing the trigger, I caught a glimpse of some 

 animal up in a small oak tree, and about twelve feet from the 

 ground. After giving the pigeons the contents of both bar- 

 rels, I slipped a shell into the left chamber and let loose at 

 what I supposed was a cat, but judge of my surprise to see a 

 woodchuck tumble headlong to the ground. What our fes- 

 tive friend was doing up there I couldn't possibly guess ; 

 but one thing is certain he was there. — II. L. M. 



Berwick, Pa., June 4.— in Fohkst asd Stream of June 

 2 I see that. W. B. L. says he cannot get a turtle to go into a 

 woodchuck's hole. If he will drill a small hole through 

 the back part of a turlle's shell and fasten a wire about four 

 inches long to the turtle and tic a small ball of lamp cotton 

 to the other end of the wire, wet the cotton with turpentine, 

 put his turtle at the mouth of the hole and set fire to the cot- 

 ton, he will sec whether a turtle will go in or not. Let W. 

 B. L. try it and report. I think he will find the turtle is as 

 afraid of fire as the woodchuck is, and he will see some tall 

 traveling done. — Siui^oiubrr, 



Near Springfield, Mass., JunefS— Fditer Forest and Stream. 

 — Quite an amusing occurrence in the shape of a wood- 

 chuck hunt took place here this forenoon. I have been an- 

 noyed for some time by a woodchuck that has harbored near 

 my garden the past two years, and this morniDg one of my 

 boys chased him into his hole, and having stopped it up, 

 cam* home for a shovel to dig him out. Having read in the 

 Forest and Stream of catching them by means of a turtle, 

 I tooK a dip uet and went to the river and caught a small 

 snapping-turtle, so-called, and we went to the hole. In the 

 absence of spirits of turpentine I took a match, and placing 



the turtle at the mouth of the hole, applied the match to his 

 tail, and away went the turtle down the hole. Before we 

 were at all ready for him, out came the woodchuck with a 

 rush, over went my bravest boy backward, and the rest for- 

 got their stones and clubs. I made a dip for him with my 

 net, but before we could either kill or capture him he darted 

 into another hole near by. While we were recovering from 

 our surprise one of the boys said: "There goes another," 

 and we saw a big fellow going across the garden for a heap of 

 stones. We all went for him, but in spite of our best efforts 

 he got into his. hole under the pile of stones. Our turtle was 

 gone, and we plugged up the holes and gave up the hunt.— 

 C. A, 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A SCHOOL- 

 GIRL 



June 3. The eave-swallows are getting the mud for their 

 nesls. They skim round aud round, close to the ground, 

 and finally light in the mud. They hold their wings nearly 

 perpendicular aud quiver them almost continually as to keep 

 themselves up. 



June 7. The red-winged blackbird flies in a straight line 

 with three flaps of the wings, then a pause, then three flaps 

 more, andpoon with an occasional "chuck." 



June 8. The tilt-ups build their nests a stone's throw from 

 the river which they frequent. When disturbed they fly up 

 silently aud skim swiMy away over the tops of the clovers. 



A discovery I As we neared the pasture fence the black- 

 birds spied us afar off and began to be alarmed at once. We 

 walked down to a marshy place, overgrown with tufts of 

 grass and low bushes, where we thought to find a nest. 

 Sure enough there was an empty nest down iu the middle of 

 a clump of grass, and as the old birds were still scolding and 

 flying excitedly around just over our heads, we concluded 

 that the young birds were near by. I had just stepped from 

 one bunch of grass to another when 1 heard a great squeak- 

 ing and peeping from the clump I had just left. I turned 

 back and searched through it, but no birds could I find, 

 though the noise still came, from the same spot. I put my 

 ear down and listened. The sounds came from the ground. 

 1 pulled up some dry grass and found— ten little mice. The 

 old blackbirds continued to scold till we were out of sight. 

 Perhaps they were interested iu their little neighbors. 



June 17. The tilt-up's flight somewhat resembles that of 

 the chimney-swallow. He, however, keeps close to the 

 water and is apt, to fly in a curve. 



The catbird hops along the ground with his head up so as 

 to resemble the robin iu everything but color. 



June 28, It is stated by a reliable witness that the best in- 

 dication of rain is shown by the eave-swallows. Before 

 there iB to us a sign of rain the birds light on the ridge-pole 

 of the barn. If there is going to be a heavy shower large 

 numbers light, if not much rain only a few. 



The red-start is a lively little fellow. When he is excited 

 he spreads bis tail so that the end is almost a half-circle. 



Ilatfiekl, Mass. Margaret Miller. 



Another Drumming Woodpkoker— Waxahaehie, Texas, 

 May 25. — Fditnr Forest and Stream : I noticed a communi- 

 cation in a recent number of Forest and Stream where the 

 writer describes the performance of a woodpecker in the rale 

 of a drummer. This article had a peculiar interest to me, as 

 I once had a similar puzzling experience with a bloody creat- 

 ed picas. About four years ago four or five young gentle- 

 men besides myself were rooming in the second story of a 

 building which had an iron roof, and early every morning, 

 after taking up our abode there, wewoukfbe awakened by 

 the most unearthly tattoo seemingly directly over our heads. 



Investigation only increased the mystery, as nothing could 

 be discovered to account for the noise. After enduring this 

 ear-splitting rat-tat-tat ins foi some t'nm, and loosing three or 

 four hours' sleep every day, I slipped quietly out of bed one 

 morning just, at daybreak, and taking up a position where I 

 could overlook the whole roof of the building, 1 quietly 

 awaited events. Nor was I kept long in suspense, for just 

 as the sun was gilding the top of a oeighbi dug church steeple 

 a common red and black woodpecker, Or, as it is often called, 

 "white-tailed" woodpecker, lit on the very apex of the roof, 

 and after gazing about for a few minutes, slowly dipped his 

 head until his bill touched the iron, and the mystery was 

 solved. 1 could see no motion of the bird's head or body 

 while he was drumming, he would merely incline Ids head 

 and body as if drinking, until his bill reached the iron, and 

 then the noise begun. And he was not hunting for a wife 

 either, as he already had as many as the law allows in this 

 State, and was also provided with a comfortable homo on a 

 telegraph pole, a few yards from the building. My story has 

 a bloody sequel, for "Bachelor Bob" becoming exasperated at 

 the noise one morning arose, and in his wrath, procured a shot- 

 gun and dealt death and destruction to that once happy fa- 

 mily, and somehow we could not find it in our hearts to cen- 

 sure him for the act. — S. W. 



Note on the Woodoook.— A writer in the Chicago 

 Tribune gives an account of some curious observations mad o 

 by him on the woodcock. Something similar to this account 

 we have heard before, but never with any detail. If it has 

 any basis of fact upon which to rest, further observations are 

 required before the habit can be explained or accounted for. 

 The writer says : 



" On a number of occasions I have closely observed the 

 woodcock's system of telegraphy. The bird's maudibles are 

 furnished with extremely sensitive nerves, so arranged that 

 when the point of the bill rests upon the ground the slightest 

 sounds are conveyed to its brain. Standing upon the water- 

 saturated tarth of a spouty bog, our bird utters a faint, keen 

 cry, scarcely audible at two rods' distance, then immediately 

 lets fall his head till the tip of his bill touches tl e ground, 

 and listens attentively. If his mate hears him she replies, 

 puts her bill on the ground, and listens in turn. So 

 the love messages go back and forth as long as the 

 birds have anything to say. This sort of thing usu- 

 ally happens in the soft twilights from May till the mid- 

 dle of August, though occasionally I have seen and heard it 

 in the broad light of a summer day. In June, 1863, I made 

 the following note i ' To-day sketched a woodcock in the 

 listening attitude. Shall try to get further studies.' 



"Five years later I succeeded In getting three more 

 sketches, and last year (1880) I got four more. Many of 

 these and kindred sketches have been obtained at the end of 

 indescribable care aud la'ior. The woodcock is so shy, so 

 attentive, so sensitive, that the lean sound will cause it to 

 skulk and hide — a thing it does with even greater cunning 

 and success than the quail. The only way in which I have 

 beeu able to get near enough to the bird to sketch its natural 



