FOREST AND STREAM, 
33fi 
hunted on these grounds. Since 1875 my hunting has 
only beeu when 1 could spare, a day or so from my work, 
and the bag has not been as large as it was in that year, 
although I manage to get two or three deer and fifteen or 
twenty turkeys a season, with sufficient quantities of ruffed 
grouse and smaller game to keep me in fresh meat. This 
year there will be more turkeys aDd ruffed grouse than 
there lias been for years; the last winter was unusually 
mild and free from snow, and the early spring was very 
favorable for hatching, and I now hear three old cook 
quail whistling, as 1 write this, within the corporate limits 
of the village. Our seasons lor hunting are squirrels now, 
woodcock after the 4th of July, and all oilier game alter 
tin 15 t It of August. Last year, in the month of October, 
Mr Hamilton Easter, of Baltimore, with his son in law, 
Mr Waters, spem three or four days near here hunting. 
They killed nine deer, and some pheasants and turkeys, 
and, nit hough lie is well advanced in years, 1 understand he 
intends to spend several weeks every year hunting in this 
country. 
La-l August I was on the survey for the extension of 
the Chesapeake and Ohio Caual, and, having a day of lei¬ 
sure, Col. Sedgwick, Mr. Rawlins, aud uryself started for 
a turkey hunt. After keeping with them for some lime, i 
found they made too much noise for me, so 1 left them and 
started to the top of Hobley Mountain. When I got to 
the top I saw fresh scratching made by the lurkeys, and 
anticipated flue sport. I fixed myself comloriably, and 
took our my caller to see if 1 could get any of the young 
ones to answer—a difficult thing to do unless you have first 
scattered them. 1 suppose I had been calling for some 
ten or fifteen minutes when my attention was attracted by 
a rustling in the leaves just below me. Looking in that 
direction, I saw some large animal slowly approaching me 
through the weeds, and supposed it was a wild cat, but on 
its coining closer 1 found it was a panther with a chicken 
in its mouth. It came within thirty or forty yards of me 
and stopped, having got wind of my tracks, as it was then 
where 1 had gone along. It stopped and looked in every 
direction, not knowing which way to turn, but at last 
started towards me aud came within twenty yards, when 1 
determined to see it I could kill her with No. 5 Bhot. 1 
fired, aiming just behind the ear. She dropped, sinking 
her teeth through the back of the chicken. 1 immediately 
started towards her, to give her the other barrel if she 
should recover. As she saw me she commenced to growl, 
which caused me to give her the other barrel at ten steps, 
which finished her. On examining her, I found site was a 
two year old panther, measuring five and a half feet in 
length, and some sixty pounds iu weight. She was taking 
the chicken to her young ones, l judged, from the appear¬ 
ance of her teats having weaned them. She waB very thin 
I have I he skin, and it will make a beautiful rug—a beauti¬ 
ful brown, with black spots. 
The deer, turkey, and ruffed grouse hunting will be fine 
here this tall, in October and until the 15lh of January, 
and I anticipate fine sport. If any of your readers wish to 
try this country let them rent two or three wall tents, buy 
what stores they wish, and come here to Bpend a month or 
six weeks, and 1 will predict Ihey will go back with more 
health and game, and with less that is disagreeable, than 
from any other hunting country I ever hunteU in. 
P. Clayton. 
Berkley Springs, W. Va., June 8 th, 1876. 
NOTES OF THE WHEELER EXPEDI¬ 
TION. 
A DAY IN TliK FOREST. NO. 1. 
“Now, my co-malea and uio*u«.rs in exile, 
Hath not old cuatotn made this life more oweet 
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods 
More free from peril than the envious court 
—As Tou Like It. 
W ITH all of their grandeur aud majesty the mountains 
of California are sadly detieient in one regard— 
thev lack those minute dots of ted aDd black coloring 
Which are given by the wild plum aud grape, the service- 
berry, and wild eta rry. which Mature is wont to bide in 
out of-lhe way places lor the delectation of Iter favorites, 
tlie foresters. To ue sure, lit. re is scenery to look at, Imt 
one grows dazed or the-vivid stripes of the broken ledge, 
aud indifferent to the contrast .oelween the gaudy sand¬ 
stones ami the hi..ck-green of the pinery, aud longs again 
t<>see& meadow with buttercups and bull's-eyes. 1 re¬ 
member a ten acre field oa the old homestead, with rasp¬ 
berry bushes in me lenee corners and huckleberries on the 
ridges, which I would rather see to-day than a Yosemite or 
Niagara of natural scenery, Besides, there is but one 
time iu a man’s life when he is a fit sutrject to be impressed 
by ilie. beauties of nature, aud that is when be has a ticket, 
excursion rates, for himself and sweetheart down the Jake. 
V s e tail to musing. 
“ vv hippie, when did we see our last womanf" 
“Bueh events ate epochs net to be forgotten,” replies 
Whipple, who is a tamous ladles' man. “it was the pretty 
luuiuu girl to whom 1 gave my old hoots. They struck us 
annul three wetks ago. Bite was with the lellow who 
dionk up all our whiskey. Perhaps you remember the oc¬ 
currence now." 
•• vV e shall never forget it," is replied in grim chorus, 
it is the chief amenity of the tvoouman's lile, this hospi¬ 
tably of the wood, which places in Itis path an occasional 
paich, crimson with fruit ot hrowu with nuts, hut these 
Infests are inhospitable to the meaue-t degree, and never 
yet have we touuU within their holders a single nut, berry, 
fruit, or oilier thing which might afford us nourishment 
i r refreshment except the piilone. or pine nuts, the lime 
of whose ripening is a heyday in the lDdtau’s life. 
Of game, however, mere is abuuoauce, md hunting, 
either lor sporl or profit, is very successful. There are. 
birds in the air tor the shot gun, beasts in the bush for the 
rills, aud trout in the pool for the line. Of bears there ate 
the grizzly, cionamou aud black. Here Ihe renowned 
grizzly, fiiiding in his range no berries ou which to feed, 
becomes strictly carnivorous and kills the settlers’ cows, 
and, oy way ot tnbil, once in a whiie a man. His track, 
strangely human in shape, with heel, toes, and instep all 
j 1*1 nly marked iu ue dust, is everywhere, and it is no 
io follow such iresli signs down into a wooded rocky 
cuflou. Once we saw his trail on the highway, which was 
a turnpike accurately engineered and nicely graded, over 
whieu lauulies were returning from church, and ladles 
were riding horseback aud aloue. To such novelties and 
Vicissitudes are our pioneers exposed. 
, The mountain lion, or cougar, is vicious, but not strong, 
and be is capable of no more serious mischief than to 
carry off sueli important prey as colts, calves, and small 
children. His cry is heard on every hand from dusk to 
idawn. In a nole that is half yelp and half mew these 
creatures give calls and answers to each other like so many 
watchmen walking the walls of a city, or sentinels s'ationed 
aloDg the valley. As the flame of the Are crackles up 
these grow fainter in the distance, and as it dies away the 
beast’s curiosity gets the better of his fear, and his bark 
sounds startlingly near. Then some timorous member of 
the parly observes that the night is very chilly, and shying 
up to the embers he provokes them into a blaze with an 
additional branch; for it has been noticed that a good fire 
is the best security against thu mountain lion, as against 
many other wild aDimals. 
The mountain ram, with white buttocks and spiral horns, 
leads liis convoy along paths which would turn the head of 
a chamois. Then there are deer in the cbaparal, antelopes 
on the plains, squirrels in (he trees, and hares on the 
desirt. How, Ihe hare is divided into two species, the 
cotloo-tail and the jack. As an article of food, however, 
the latter is not worih the labor of chewing, for his mus¬ 
cles are tough and stringy, and on account of the long 
and vigorous jumps lor which he is celebrated, the flesh of 
Ins legs, and he is little else but legs, becomes very grisly 
and hard to masticate. 
The cotton tails are better, being sweet and juicy, and, 
what is of importance also, are numerous an l easy to kill. 
Every clump of sage bush has its cotton-tailed denizen, 
ami it is no trouble and no glory to go out. and kill a dozen. 
But the funniest and tiniest of all animal kind is the cotton¬ 
tail squirrel, too small for a mouthful, which, furling his 
ornamental tuft over his head’s antipodes, scampers fussily 
across the road, looking very much like a miniature 
blockade runner with a bale of cotton on his quarter deck, 
it is no matter how cross and disagreeable you may feel, 
the apparition of one of these quadrupedal minims is sure 
to put you in good humor, for when it crosses your path il 
is as if a ludicrous thought flitted through your brain. 
There are quails in myriads clucking on the ground and 
whirring through the air. Some are bare-headed and 
small. Once we camped under oak trees, where they came 
regularly at night to lodge in flocks of thousands, as pigeons 
come to their roosting place. Then the branches above us 
were us full and as noisy as a Chinese lodging house. A 
discharge of shot at random would have certainly brought 
(lows its pot-luck victims, but that were inglorious hunting, 
and so we refrained. Not that all our hunting has been 
glorious, for there stands against us the case of Smith, the 
packer, who brought in the first game of the season. This 
he bugged, not iu a fair and above ground manner, but by 
sitting at the mouth of its burrow tor three mortal hours, 
unswerving as fate, patient as a box-trap. Then the 
cotton tail appeared aud Bmiih gathered it in. Though we 
rejoiced and applauded at the time, for we were hungry, 
aud coiton tails’inake very good eating, yet in the bottom 
of our hearts we have never ceased to deplore this action, 
which was nothing less than bloody murder. 
Still, the deer on the hills are of little more us%to us gas- 
tronomically than those in the park are to the hungry 
gamin who stones them through the fence. The members 
of these parlies are not hunters, but scientists and survey¬ 
ors. They do not travel by stealth and alone, but together 
and with all of the dust and turmoil of a pack'train. 
They are too much laden down with instruments and ap¬ 
paratus to carry much of a sporting outfit. He who comes 
here with intentions of great slaughter, and shot gun of 
double barrel, soon discards the toy as ao Incumbrance 
anil a bother. Besides, it is noticeable that they who 
move constamiy within range of game which is too ut¬ 
terly natural and fearless to fly, soon lose in a great measure 
me instinct of the hunter, and are moved no more by a 
herd of antelopes than by a drove of cattle. 
Except by au occasional naturalist and collector there is 
little venison brought in. It seems to come so easy for 
those gentlemen of the natural history corps to do good 
liUDtiug. When they see a fat buck they only say, “Ah, a 
very fine specimen! I must secure it!” and so they do. 
You see the spirit of the collector is always with them, 
and what ot iheir collections is not good for science is often 
very good to eat. And then they are so acquainted with 
woodland life, and the likes and dislikes, habits and fears 
of the animals, and ate so deep in the confidence of nature 
io general that they seem to belong to the forest, and to 
be fellows wilh its denizens, like the capriped satyrs, 
aud the creature which is one moment their companion, 
the next becomes their victim. 
Among all of the ranges and professions of men no 
other mifkes so good a companion as a naturalist. It is a 
fallacy fbat this is a dry and uninteresting class of people. 
The lawyer, the merchant, and, once in a while, the cler¬ 
gyman, may be dry, but never the naturalist and medical 
man. They deal too much with life and flesh and tissue, 
and with organic matter iu all of its shapes to ever become 
reduce 1 to that parehmeut-and skeleton existence which 
characierizea those who vamp up the shapeless thoughts of 
Aristotle and Blackstone. They may use big words in 
lecture, book, and report, but it is perforce and unwillingly. 
There was our professor at college, for instance. Out of 
words as long as Alexandrine verses he wrote treatises 
over which Btudents grew pale and died. Yet he had his 
litile humor, and it would out—that is when was not 
ou his guard. Standing, one day, before a chart of those 
marvellous creatures restored by Waterhouse Hawkins, be 
forgot himself and inadvertently composed this little qua¬ 
train, which has never before appeared in print;— 
“How doth thu martial bracblopod 
Ascend Ins anvry ear, 
And flare the long-heeled maeropod 
Te show himself his peer!" 
It is quite needless to say that this display of human 
weakness by the professor lowered him in his self-esteem 
as much asit lilted him in the estimation of his pupils. 
In spile of certain little technical!lies of speech which 
may seem like pedantry, the naturalist is still a Jolly and 
sociable companion, who very seldom mouuts the pedestal 
ot liis dignity, who can begude the camp fire coterie with 
a good story when his turn comes, and who can make the 
march interesting by opening the thousand and one little 
mysteries of nature which seem so wonderful to the Out¬ 
side:. If you are about to take a tramp in the woods, my 
city friend, choose cme of these for companion and guide. 
A week wilh him will do you more good that) a term at 
college, He will show you tue wonderful masonry of the 
swallow’s nest, the tunnel of the mole, and the labyrinthine 
crypts of the ant-hill, and, observing the regular shaft of 
the honey-cell and the concentric circles of the spider’s 
webs, he will prove that “Nature geometrizeth, and ob- 
serveth order in all things." 
So goes the day in the forest. At evening, after dinner, 
there is contention in camp, and a strife for the only bit of 
reading matter in our outfit. It i3 a badly banged pam¬ 
phlet copy of “Middlemarch,” pilfered by our literary- 
pirate from the dusty mantel of a stage station which once 
lay iu our route, at which it had beeu forgotten by some 
passenger of more esthetic tastes than the ordinary rider 
on these roads. It was manna to our hungry minds, 
for it came to ns when a stray leaf from the Book of 
Chronicles would have been a luxury. When tired of the 
conversation of our own narrow camaraderie , whose jokes 
have grown a trifle stale alter six months of repetition, we 
can now turn to “Middlemarch” and open the book where 
Mrs. Cadwallader is speaking, and we seem to bear the 
pat remarks of that exceedingly sharp woman. Or we 
listen to the rounded flights of that uneasy genius, Will 
Ladislaw; or the genial humor of Borthrop Trumbull, 
auctioneer; or the precise priggisbness of Mr. Casaubou; 
or the sparkle of plain little Alary Garth. Or, wishing for 
sublimer ihouglits, we con and learn by heart those "head 
lines which the auihor has prefixed to her chapters, and 
which Jit to the coming events as appropriately as a pro¬ 
logue to a play. Where did George Eliot flml all of these 
wisdom bits of literature, we wonder, and did she scour 
her memory for them purposely to introduce her chapters, 
or oid she adapt her own writing to them, as Sermons to 
texts, as Longfellow used to do iu some of his earlier prose? 
We trust aud believe not the latter, for it is the charlatanry 
of literature, by which writers would fain make readers 
believe that they have the world’s wisdom at tongue’s end. 
It is a very nice thing to be able to steal away from the 
circle of rude men and feel at home in the halls of the 
Chettam8 and the Brookes, and in the cottage of the 
Garths. Out here in the Wickedness of this new country 
we wonder if ever unfledged angel was us good as Dorothea, 
or whether the novelist is imposing on our credulity. 
Oelia also would have been a mos,. lovable character if she 
had not made such a fool of herself over her baby; that 
is a great fault in woman. Rosamond Yincv, loo, had her 
charming spelts, but we Ihink that if we had been her 
husband, Lydgate, wo would have handcuffed her in one 
of those fils of her obstinacy. But Dorothea, dear, de¬ 
voted Dodo; she was Ihe gill altogether lovely; of such 
are they who smell tobacco smoke iu their husband’s 
moustaches and never complain. Perhaps there are Doro¬ 
theas yet remaining in real life and spinsttrhood, to be had 
for the finding and wooing, who knows? But Ihen there 
are Rosamonds, also, and marriage is the only means of 
divination whereby a fellow can discover which is which. 
On the whole it is perhaps well for a young man to avoid 
these games of chance. 
Thus we reason, perhaps crudely, os we read "Middle- 
march," stealing the book, beggiQg it, buying, gambling 
for it one with another. By the flicker of the fire or the 
restless spark of the unsheltered candle we follow the 
thread of the story, and in the morning, before the march, 
we glance at random between the covers to find one of 
George Eliot’s great thoughts, upon which to ruminate 
through the day. Such is the distant empire of this lady 
author, who, the subject of a queen, is yet a greater sove¬ 
reign than she. Prank Carpenter. 
The Wheeler Exploring Expedition, California, 1875. 
rgislj §nitur L e. 
ABSTRACT OF THE REPORT OF THE 
NEW HAMPSHIRE FISH COMMIS¬ 
SIONERS. 
The Commissioners in presenting their annual report 
congratulate themselves and the people generally upon the 
increasing popularity of scientific fish culture, and upon 
the fact of its being of recognized advantage anil import¬ 
ance, the result of which is to open still wider the road to 
success. They say 
“Thousands of dollars now going out of the Btate could 
be kept at home, food now a luxury be placed wilhia the 
reach of all, and numerous oilier advantages secured, in re¬ 
storing, partially at least, the abundant snpply of fish our 
lakes and streams formerly afforded. The tales of the 
abundance and variety of the fish that frequented the Mer¬ 
rimack and its tributaries, in the early history of our State, 
sound like mythsome legends in this present time of scar¬ 
city; and should science in the future in some degree suc¬ 
ceed in restoring the past abundance, it will be a eousuma- 
tion well worthy beiog proud of. To accomplish Ibis end 
the hearty co operation of all is necessary, both iu further¬ 
ing the progress of restocking, and in seeing to it, if once 
restocked, that the abuses which have destroyed our fb-li- 
eries iu the past shall not be repealed in Ihe future. By 
the trunsfer of mature fish, and the artificial propagation 
from the spawn, we may succeed in so stocking our waters 
that a return of the old time abundance is possible and 
probable; but without the protection which every man 
should feel bound to exercise toward an object so clearly 
lending to universal advantage, it is only loo likely that 
the labors of the commission will be rendered unavailing." 
Of the various fish native to and Introduced in the waters 
of New Hampshire, the Commissioners speak as follows:— 
Wall-eyed Pike.— This fish spawns in April or May, 
and when it fiuds a satisfactory home multiplies even more 
rapidly than black bass. The Commissioners ere pleased 
to be able to report that in the past year they have achieved 
an entire success in introducing wall-eyed pike into New 
Hampshire waters. In Aiay, fish were produced from Al- 
burg, Lake Champlain, and Sunapee lake, probably the 
waters most suitable to successful fish propagation in our 
State, slocked therewith. Later in the season, Lake Alas- 
sabesic was stocked with mature fish from the same place. 
Several other waters of the Stale should be stocked with 
this excellent fish, and, with proper protection and ordinary 
good fortune, iu a few years the stocking of New Hamp¬ 
shire waters with wall-eyed pike will be au accomplished 
fact. 
Black Bass —Excellent progress lias been made in slock¬ 
ing our waters with black bass Couiinued trial proves 
them well worthy their reputation of beiog the best or one 
of the best fish with which to re-slock depleted waters 
They thrive and multiply wonderfully, and iu waters whose 
close time has expired, good bass fishing is bow easily 
lers 
hose 
> 
