814 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



I J AS. 84, 1884. 



disabled for life, With "horse" flics, gnats 'and mosquitoes, 

 aud everything that can bile except mad dogs and "uuiiko" 

 steerers, the Yukon Valley is not held up as a paradise for 

 future tourists. 



The almost constant southern winds which had been 

 blowing since we left Lake Lindcninn. and which had been 

 our salvation, we could see were constant companions of 

 this country In the way the small spruce and pine trees in- 

 variably leaned to the north, especially where their isolated 

 condition and exposure on Bat, level tracts gave the wind full 

 play to influence their upright positions. Near Lake Linde- 

 man a dwarfed contorted pine was noticed that was uot only 

 twisted around its axis two or three times in its ascent o"f 

 fifteen or twenty feet, but also its axis was twisted in a spiral 

 i hat made two or three turns in its length, and then as if to 

 add confusion to disorder, it was bent in a graceful sweep to 

 the north to conform to the general leaning of all the trees 

 similarly exposed. There was a general brash condition of 

 all the wood which was very apparent when w T e started to 

 make pins for binding the raft, while it was seldom that a 

 log was found large enough to have been available for cutting 

 for timber. 



The little cove into which we put on the 19th of June, 

 chased by a gale, by a singular streak of good fortune had 

 just the logs we wanted, both in length and size, to repair 

 our raft, and I do not think we saw such a good chance 

 again on the upper waters of the Yukon. Further down 

 every island— and the Yukon has probably nearly as many 

 islands as any dozen of rivers of the same size In the world 

 put together — has its upper end covered with enough timber 

 to build all the rafts that a lively party could construct in a 

 year. Lake Marsh also had a few terraces showing on the 

 hillsides, but not near so well marked as further back on 

 Home of the other lakes noticed. Along these, however, were 

 pretty open prairies, csvered with the dried yellow grass 

 from last year, this summer's growth having evidently not 

 yet forced its way through the dense mass, and more'than 

 one compared them, irregular as they seemed, with the stub- 

 ble fields of oats ot wheat, in more civilized climes. 1 doubt 

 not but that they furnish good grazing lo mountain goats, 

 caribou aud moose, and would be sufficient for cattle could 

 tbey keep on friendly terms will the mosquitoes. Accord- 

 ing to the general terms of the survival of the fittest and the 

 growth of muscles the most used to the detriment of others, 

 a baud of cattle in the far future in this district would be all 

 tail and no body, or the present status of mosquitoes would 

 have to cease. 



| TO BE CONTINUED.] 



^afttiiitl jjjigtorg. 



WINTER'S TALES. 



'"INHERE are goings cu about us under cover of night, 

 JL which are unknown to us and unsuspected when the 

 ground is bare, but fully revealed when the earth is asleep 

 under its white blanket, upon which the record is written so 

 plainly that he who runs thereon may read it. 



Who ever thought that, wild shy Reynard came so near us 

 of his own free will, till the prints in the snow informed us 

 of his nightly visits! Now we see that he has been within 

 gunshot of the house while we were asleep, and we can 

 (race every step of his devious course, and almost rend his 

 thoughts in his tracks. Here he came to the footpath which 

 leads to the barn, and made a full stop to take a suspicious 

 sniff at it before he ventured to cross the tainted trail of his 

 arch enemy. Then he tried the flavor of a fallen frozen 

 apple, and found it not to his taste, for one small bite satis- 

 fied him. Then he heard the squeak of a field mouse aud 

 turned aside to unearth or unsnow a morse) more to Ids lik- 

 ing. A waft of the hen-roost came to his nostrils here, and 

 he" reconnoitred that paradise at a safe distance. Wo can 

 almost see his sharp, wistful nose turned toward it, itching 

 with the tempting fragrance. But discretion got the better 

 of his valor, and bis stomach and he veered off. Perhaps 

 the baying of the house dog cpiickened his pace, for he made 

 gome flying leaps before, he again fell to priuting leisurely 

 footsteps, tending toward the hills. Doubtless he made the 

 same rounds in spring, summer and fall nights, but in the 

 morning there was no sign of his recent presence perceptible 

 to any but the hound. 



We seldom see the weasel, for he has bargained with the 

 seasons to hide him, yet these footprints, in regular pairs 

 alongside the wall, only distinguishable by their smaller size 

 from those of his larger cousin, the mink, show that he is 

 one of our near neighbors. He ought hardly to be an un- 

 welcome one, though he sometimes makes sad havoc among 

 the poultry, for ho wages constant warfare upon the hordes 

 of meadow mice, and is an unrelenting foe of the rat, more 

 terrible than the cat. He is braver than puss, and so slender 

 that no rat hole is inaccessible to him; the Hthest of our 

 four-footed things. 



In February aud March we may read the record of the 

 mink's journeys along the streams, and learn what a traveler 

 he becomes when his heart is set a-burning. No matter what 

 the weather is, frost cannot cool its ardor nor rain quench its 

 fire when he goes a- wooing, miles and miles away from his 

 home burrow. 



After a thawy night we see how new to our door the 

 skunk has walked or cantered, deliberate in either pace. 

 Taking his back track, we may find that he has been all 

 winter so near us as the barn, keeping house under the hay- 

 mow. We would have trod gingerly had we known that 

 we were delving down toward such a'Chiuese bomb, when 

 we were pitching out the fodder. He seems bent on no evil 

 now. but walking out more to get a breath of fresher air and 

 to see something of the world again by starlight. He takes 

 a lunch of the offal left from the butchering, or the carcass 

 of a wiatei-killed sheep, but he does not visit the hen-roost. 



We knew that Grimalkin was a night-walker, but now we 

 have kuowkdge of where he has been and something of his 

 doings while lie was abroad, though it is hard to tell what 

 took him to the woods at this season, when birds arv scarce 

 and their nests imply. He is nothing but a diminutive, 

 half-tamed panther at best, and it is likely that the wild part 

 of him took the tamer half away for rebaplism in the forest 

 shadows. On his way through the orchard he turned aside 

 to make a sprhg at a low-hung vireo's nest, aud its torn 

 bottom shows that his leap was true. We think he was 

 fooled jumping at a bird's nest, in winter, till our friend, I he 

 liee-hiuitei, a cunning reader of the book of Nature, after 

 looking a little, says: "Perhaps pussy wasn't, so foolish 

 after all. You see by the scattered fitter of the nest that the 

 wind was blowing right to him where be turned out of his 



course io come, here, and it carried to hinri the scent of some- 

 thing, probably a deer mouse, curled up for a nap in the old 

 nest," He has been to the barn in the meadow to look after 

 his stock of mice there; aud if we come upon him in this 

 cranio preserve of his, his old wilduess will show itself in his 

 skulking, stealthy motions, and will glare at us out of his 

 green eyes as he erouohesrin a dim corner, half at bay, half 

 ready to turn tail, enough to send a shiver down one's back. 

 Can this savage be the same mild-looking fellow that was 

 purring so gently under the kitcnen stove last eveuiug? 



These tracks, near the grannary, beginning and ending so 

 abruptly, arc uot those of some' small plantigrade, as one 

 might think, but the footprints of the handsomest as well as 

 the most unpopular of our winter birds, the bhiejav. He 

 will steal when he can and his voice is discordant', but his 

 beauty and his presence here in winter should atone for 

 many tricks aud shortcomings. Now, he has only been 

 picking up the scattered kernels that, have fallen through 

 the floor, and perhaps varying his scant fare with a few 

 shreds of fat torn from the pig's plucks hanging against, the 

 crib. 



Further afield where the tall weeds overtop the snow, it 

 is printed thick with the tracks of snow huntings, true birds 

 of winter, wearing its livery of sere leaf and snow, with 

 voices like the creaking and tinkling of ice. They bring the 

 far North down to us, and make us neighbors to the Esqui- 

 maux and Laps, whose nets and springes they have escaped. 

 How lately have they seen those wild people and how were 

 they getting on when last they flurried past their igloos and 

 reindeer-skin tents? 



If in the fall w r e saw no signs of meadow mice, and hoped 

 that adverse seasons had cut off their tribe, the snow now 

 shows so many of their shafts, bored from below, rouud as 

 auger holes, and so many little tracks radiating from them 

 that we know how busily they are tunneling next the earth, 

 and that young apple trees are not likely to go unscathed by 

 them, nof fox, owl, hawk or weasel to go hungry for lack of 

 them. Yet, when the snow is very deep, they rarely come 

 to the surface, but carry on their work unsuspected, till 

 spring or a great thaw brings it to light. 



Once in many wiuUrs, not in the depths of the ice season, 

 but near the beginning or end, we see a puzzling track lead- 

 ing up some little brook, disappearing here and there, as he 

 who made it found a way under the shell ice, always walking 

 or rather waddling with broad webbed footprints, wide apart, 

 and between them the narrow trail of something dragged 

 behind. What was it, beast or bird? Any trapper will 

 tell us that it was only a muskrat who, impelled by lack of 

 food and water, persecution of enemies, hatred of his kind 

 or desire to see something of upland life, had forsaken the 

 huts of the marshes and the adjacent, burrows, and come ex- 

 ploring this world unknown to his people. Doubtless he 

 saw much that was new to bim, and suffered the hardships of 

 cold, hunger and thirst, like many another explorer. The 

 rudder that steered him so well in his accustomed waters 

 was only a drag in this dry wintry waste, aud doubtless be- 

 fore we'saw his track some fox or great owl had made an end 

 of it and him. 



If we find no more tracks to read in the woods than in the 

 fields, there are some we do not sec in the meadows and pi 

 tures. Hero the ruffed grouse has rayed the snow with his 

 well-defined and unmistakable footprints, and left the mark 

 of his pinions when he took flight to a tree. We know the 

 verv branch whereon he alighted by the clods of snow be- 

 neath it, let, fall when it exchanged burdens. Little be cares 

 for being snowed under. Here is the mould of his piump 

 body where, by the signs left, be must Lave lain for days, 

 warming himself under the snow quilt that the last snowfall 

 iprend over him. When he had become warm enough and 

 hungry enough, he rent, it asunder and went hurtling to the 

 nearest birch to fill his crop with buds. He never leaves his 

 couch on foot, but bursts from it as if he had suddenly fell 

 _ ard gnawing — or the danger of an outward one if Rey- 

 nard's nose should sniff the secret of his hiding. 



Here is the broad trail of our northern hare sunk but little 

 below the surface of the lightest snow, for he has his snow 

 shoes always with him. What has he been so busy about in 

 the long winter nights to make so many tracks? 'One hare 

 will make you think that a hundred bad been here, if you 

 will believe what he has set down; yet be is not. a voter nor 

 has the census taker anything to do with him. Winter a: 

 well as autumn befriends him and powders his brown eon 

 till he looks like a fluffy snow ball its he sits in his form 

 under a snow-laden evergreen. Such faith has he in his d: 

 guise that he will let you almost lay your hand on him before 

 he takes to his heels. But try to touch him and a little ava- 

 lanche goes shooting over the snow, its course more to be 

 seen than itself, by the sway and jar and sudden unlading 

 of low branches. 



A fox has made his bed on a rock and slept with care and 

 nose alert if not with an eye open, ready to start at the first 

 sound or seent of danger. He has left some threads of his 

 longest fur on his cola mattress to tantalize the hound who 

 has worked his slow way hither on the old trail. And here ' 

 the track of the hunter following both these others, aud easily 

 enough known from that of the wood chopper, who has gone 

 straight to his work, only stopping to light his pipe, as we 

 may see by the half burned match and the stamp of his axe 

 and dinner pail close by the halted boot prints. 



The gray squirrel has been out digging for food, and by 

 the fragments he has left— here chips of a pine cone, there 

 the empty shell of a nut — we sec that in every place whi 

 he went down to the mold he found some morsel to help 

 him in the stress of winter. What tine sense directed 1' 

 If you think it only chance, try how many times you will 

 have to probe the" unmarked, 'even whiteness before you 

 strike either cone or nut. His tracks and those of his saucy 

 little red cousin lead from one tree to another, under foot, 

 and then are lost, for tbey have gone homeward or a wan- 

 dering by the air line of the branches. We seldom see the 

 bigger of the two in our winter walks, for though we may- 

 hear him barking not a furlong away, if we attempt to ap- 

 proach him Ihe crunching of our footsteps alarms him, and 

 he puts a whole great tree trunk or the wall of a hollow One 

 between himself and us. But iu any pleasant day, and in 

 some rather bitter ones, the little red scapegrace jeers at us 

 and all the world in plain sight, or unconcernedly rasps hii 

 nut, sitting at ease on a near branch under shelter of his tail 

 There are but lew tracks of birds to be seen in the woods, 

 for except I lie grouse they mostly keep aloft, where their 

 food is. What hewer of wood has been here working wholly 

 aloft and leaving no sign but his chips? He was a sturdy 

 wielder of tools whoever he was, for the snow is covered for 

 a yard about the bole of a dead tree with slabs of bark as 

 big as one's hand and chips of wood as big as one's thumb. 

 That loud, quickly ixneated tall, culling the air as sharply 

 as his beak the wood, is his, and he is the pikated wood- 



pecker, the greatest of his tribe who inhabit or visit, these 

 parts. 

 A thaw has awakened the raccoon aud he has turned out 

 fhifl winter quarters to go waddling tmuv in search of old 

 friends or of a sweetheart, perhirps, but certainly ool of 

 food; for he steers for the nearest 'coon tree or den. Fie 

 had the forethought to eat enough lasl summer and fall 

 when corn was green, and frogs were leaping, to last him oil 

 winter; and there is fat on his ribs yet. ' Often a whole 

 family of raccoons go forth together oh these visits. Woe 

 betide the one or the many, if the trail leads to a hollow 

 tree, and the hunter finds it and follows it then- His nxc 

 lays low the tree, and the unhappy brutes bite the white 

 dust of winter; and next day their' skins arc nailed to the 

 side of a barn. 



The decrmouse can have come abroad Eoi nothing hvrl 

 pleasure, for he has a bountiful store of food laid up at home. 

 But poor fellow! There has bcon a little tiasrady en- 

 acted here in the silent woods under the stai light 

 There were no witnesses, but, the Story is written for us, 

 simply and plainlv enough in blue and white. On either 

 side of the sudden termination of his little trail ale the light 

 marks of a small owl's pinions. Not one tiny drop of blood 

 nor tuft of fine fur is here, but we know that poor mousy is 

 dead and gone, and never will his great eyes see that, 

 home again. 

 Some strange and rare visitors come aud go across this 

 ill-tale wasle, leaving uo token of their brief pnssag 

 their tracks in the. snow. Few of pur hunters hayi 

 nearer Hum Unit lo seeing a fisher, an Otter 01 a fyi \, A 

 panther, which I never saw, showed me by the prints of his 

 tremendous leaps what prodigious power he poss ased 

 for, perhaps, than if I had seen him. For a favored few 

 his yells added a shiver to the winter midnight air. 

 Cold following a thaw makes a crust whereon the wnndcr- 

 s leave no record of their journevs, but over it come scur- 

 rying the last leaves from trees miles :iway, and seeds vov- 

 ge far across it to colonize distant fields with their kind. 

 'The days lengthen and grow warmer, and as the earth gets 

 bare the snow shrinks to the fences and hollows. We ran 

 see the bounds of distant hillside farms traced in lines of 

 shining silver, and we wonder if our far-off neighbors know 

 how royally their fields are fenced. Sim mid rain Wet I In- 

 page of winter, and the south wind tears it away and pres- 

 ently the wondrous story of the world's renewed life is 

 spread before us, Rowland E. Romkson. 



FERBISBCRaH, Vt. 



re of th 



- differ* 



ut speeius, but 



f all datf 



that in 



iv aid in deter- 



uence tli 



-- progn 



ss of migration 



example 

 unusual! 



-""hiuii" 



-cnn-. -ales of 

 -r law tern;,,,, - 



re of yeai 





miig the atmos- 



BIRD MIGRATION. 



AT the first congress of the American Oruith 

 hold in New York eilv, S-pt. -.-.'.-■> '"■ , 

 on the. Migration of Birds was appointed. It, is 

 this committee to hxvestigate m all its beari 

 fullest extent possible, the subject of the tiiigr; 

 the. United States and British North Ameri 

 will not he limited to the accumulation of 

 times of arrival and departu 

 will embrace the collection r 

 mining the causes which infl 

 from season to season. For 

 wind, protracted periods of 

 ture (for the locality and tin 

 phorie conditions that are known to 

 effects upon the movements of birds.. The 

 leaves and the flowering of certain plants, wi 

 live appearance of a multitude of insects, ore 

 actors that have to do with the abundance o 

 Hence the careful registration of certain un-t 

 nomena, and of the state of advau. i : 

 day, will constitute prominent items in the tee 

 observer. 



For the. purpose of render! r i 



ns full and valuable as possible, the committee 

 its the co-operation of every ornithologist, 

 sportsman, and observer of uature in North 

 a large corps of observers is ftbeoful i . ssei] 

 of the undertaking, and the eoinmii fee hopes 

 stromal aid from many who profess uo fcnt 

 thology. Efficient service can be rendered b; 

 with only our commonest birds, and (he comm 

 accept data concerning any of the following * 



ists' Union. 

 Committee 

 purpose of 



oroiogicfli t lo- 

 in from day to 

 rd books of the 



receive nib- 

 . ledge Of on,;. 

 those familiar 

 tee will gladly 

 ill-known spc- 



Robin, mocking bird, catbird, brown thrasher, bluebird, 

 house wren, yellow-rumped warbler (myrtle bird), yellow- 

 breasted chat" redstart, Maryland yellow-throat, cedar bird 

 (wax wing, cherry bird), purple martin, barn swallow it 

 tailed), viblet-green Swallow, scar ' r 

 (bullfincb), purple finch, red-pol 

 bird), sm 

 colored 

 indigo hi 

 bh-d, 



rial 



eh. 



j bird 



,- bin 



blackbird, 



ink <t( 

 bird, rose- 

 bird, v 



ivhc 



rd (thi=tlf 



rd 



aging the enormous 

 minted by the joint 



edartv 



thirh 



(bee martin), pewee (ph 

 chimney swift, whippooiwur*, rugntuawi 

 hawk, wild pigeon; also, any of thi w& 

 and ducks. 



rLAS OK IBS WORK. 



For convenience hi collecting and a 

 mass of material winch will be aei 

 laborsof this army of held workers, it has ber 

 able to divide the' vast expanse of u 

 United States and British North Ait . . 

 triets, each of which will be placed under the immediate di- 

 rection of a competent superintendent. The districts, with 

 their respective i are: , „ , 



Alaska— Supt. , John Murdoch, Smithsonian lust., Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



Northwest Territories— Sept., Ernest E. T. Seton, Assin- 

 aboia, via Carberrv, Manitoba. 



Newfoundland— Supt., James P. Howley, So. Johns New- 

 foundland. 



British Columbia— Supt.. mot yet determined). 



Manitoba-Strpt , Prof. W. \V. Cooke, Caddo, Indian Terri- 



C'anada— Supt., Montague Chamberlain, St. John, New 

 Brunswick. 



Atlantic Seaboard— (Lighthouses and lightships from 

 Canada, to the Cull of Mexico)— Supt,, (not yet detei'Li o, 



John H, Sage, Poiih 



New England— Supt, 



Atlantic District (N 

 Delaware, Maryland, Virgin 

 linn) -Supt., Dr. A. K. Fishe , 



Middle-Eastern District (Southern M*chJ 

 West Virginia, Kentucky and Te 

 River, Alabama, Georgia, Florid; 

 Columbus, Ohio. 



Mississippi Valley (Dakota, Minnesota, 

 Iow-a, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Indiai 

 the small portions of Kentucky and T 

 Tennessee .River, Texas, Louisiana, Mis 

 W. W. Cooke, Caddo, Indian Territory. 



, Conn. 



. , New Jersey, 

 , North Carolina, South Coro- 

 BingSing, New fori 



, In 



I St I. 



theTc 



, O! 



i -Supt., Dr. J. M. Wire 



mnessee ' west of the 

 issippi)— Supt,, Prof. 



Rockv Mountain District (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, 

 Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico)— Supt., Dr. Edgar A. 

 Mearns. 



» When first heard, t W hen first seen. 



