!, 1880. j 



FOREST ANT) STREAM. 



265 



^nhimJ gjisforg. 



— AOTJBESS all coin im.ni ion lions 

 Publishing Company, New York." 



'Forest and Stream 



AfiGYLE YEEStTS AUDUBON. 



THE Duke of Arsylc in Frazcr's Magazine- gives Lis 

 •'First Impressions of the Now World,"— and very 

 pleasant reading they an-, particulai<ly the concluding 

 chapter, which treats of American ornithology, which we 

 learn is the favorite study of the writer. A charming pas- 

 sage is the description of big first and only sight of a hum- 

 ming bird. Eow an ornithologist could pass months 

 in Hi.' forests ami fields of Canada ami the Btates and see 

 Only ■■> single specimen, it is dinienlt to understand, un- 

 less iii- Duke, as we suspect, is a short-sighted man. 



Like most other Britons, however, he sees what he 

 came to gee. So, as in a tew weeks spent in the Canadian 



w I>, he taei with few song-birds, he is confirmed in his 



previous opinion that the feathered songsters of America 

 areinferiortothoseof Europe. The only song-bird heap- 

 peara to have rnetwith was the migratory thrush (robin i, 

 ami " near Niagara one very broken and interrupted song 

 of tin,' tone "^-perhaps the bob-o-link. lie never heard 

 Such vocalists as the brown thrush, hermit-thrush, soug- 

 Bpairow, grosbeak, or oriole ; and of course in Canada or 

 New V. uk lie never heard the " wood notes wild " of the 

 mocking-bird. So the link,' can hardly he culled a com- 

 petent witness. His Grace seems to have arrived at 

 equally hasty conclusions, when he generalizes about the 

 strange absence offish-eating birds on American waters, 

 asserting thai the belted kingfisher is from the Delaware 

 to Hudson's Bay the one solitary species specially adapted 

 to the capture of fish. He might, on the Eesiagouche, 

 i the mergansers, the grebes, the divers and the 

 loon— all fish-eaters. In New York watere the herons' and 

 the bitterns also, and everywhere the osprey. rndeed. be 

 mentions the loon and ospreyas birds whioh lie rhel 

 with. All these on fresh water can be seen in any north- 

 ern wilderness, while on i he sea coast the species of fish- 

 eating hirrls wliich this observer failed to observe may be 

 c lied by scores. 



Where the Duke did observe he is unfortunate in his 

 Conclusions, Ho thinks himself qualified to criticise 

 Wilson and Audubon, as well as Ur. Franklin, as to their 

 accounts of the predatory habits of the white-headed 

 eagle, and proceeds to vindicate the character of the Bird 

 <>' Freedom bj relating an incident of the capture of a 

 salmon on the Resligouuho by the eagle, It it was really 

 the eagle that he saw perform the feat, and not the 

 osprey, all observers bv lake or river in America would 

 tell h'iiu that it was an exceptional case. It mighi easily 

 happen thai a spectator unused to the sight of these birds 

 might, tit the distance of a thousand yards, even with the 

 aid of a -lass, mistake one species for the, other. 

 I ,lf not, we roust believe thattho eagle in Canada, like 

 the Indian there, has been reclaimed by the inlluencea of 

 royally and British institutions from his original savage 

 and predatory habits, and turned to industrious pursuits. 



Outheeastc last of Florida tbo eagle and the Osprey 

 are so abundant that wehave seen more uf each Bpecies 

 in one dav there than in the Northern and Western 

 States, or in Canada, in a season. Christopher North, in 

 a charming paper on the Ornithology of Scotland, pub- 

 lished in Blacknoood-'s Magazine, remarked that it would 

 be an absurd thing to see half a dozen eagles togecher. 

 This absurdity may be seen any dav almost ou the Hali- 

 fax River, in Florida— and doubled at that— and all en- 

 gaged in pursuing and nibbing the fish-hawks. The 

 accounts of the matter by Wilson and Audubon may bo 

 verified al any time, we have never seen an eagle 

 capture a fish for herself, though we have seen her pick 

 up a dead cat-fish which was floating on the water. We 

 have seen the osprey catch a fish wliich an eagle obliged 

 Win to drop. The eagle caught it before it reached the 

 Water, aad was bearing it away, when a second eagle at- 

 tacked eagle \'o. Land robbed her. Old fishermen on 

 thiscoasl say thai the eagle, asiar as they know, never 

 takes fish for herself, but lives entirely bv robbery, 

 usually of the osprey ; but sometimes she will rob them 

 of their fish, when exposed on theshore, always selecting 

 the best kinds and the fattest specimens. fci.C.C. 



JBfclifax Inlet, Fia,, April M It. 



As Invitation' to '• pEiiKcitLNK.*'— Our friend, H. H. 

 V., Urns pleasantly writes to " Peregrine," saying :— 



If" Peregrine," who chatted so everlastingly in your 

 la -i issue about owls, "or anv other man," will call tit 

 ry Department of the N. Y. L. E. and W. R. R. 



,,„ T 

 Co., 1 



,vill I'll 



the 



finest [specimen of the American 



t this city— " Le Grand Due "in person. 

 New Jersey ''Bob Whites," that the .-ub- 

 crseen theequal Of in size, plumage and 

 set work of John Akburst, Brooklyn. Also 

 iting, by A. Rockwell, Buffalo, of a string 

 ui li i I aught in 18a!-), in the south inlet of 

 . The v\ liter mentions these possessions 

 their daily sight has done his eyes a heap of good, 



ie would like to share his enjoyment with "'Pure- 

 arid others, 



10 Fori!;, April nth. 



a very line p, 

 Of speckled 1 



Kaipielt ' 



A. Pet Squirrel, — Hayt's Corners, N. F.— One year 

 ago 1 caught a squirrel, and in a few days 1 discovered 

 lour v.. uug ones in the nest. Within a week or there- 

 abouts two got smothered in the nest, but the other two 

 grew finely, and when thirty-live days old their eyes 

 ■ ■ and they grew nicely. Strange to say, I could 



not lind anyone abietotel] how old a s.piine'l must be 



ere he could see. 1 accustomed them to be handled almost 



fftoy day, and would take one al a time some three oj 



efour rods from the we, and the little ones would run 



to me as fasl astheirlegs would peinut. luck, when. 

 ibbut three months old, was caught and killed by a cat, 

 while out o! hi-, cae.e. playing on the ground. Dilly IB 

 Vet living., and has been allowed liberty to go out each 

 I has never been known to leave the place, onlj 

 Efaras theroad, until Wednesday last, when she disap- 

 peared, and was gone until this morning, when bhe was 



[j i eig i.. rods or more distant, I took her to her cage, 



and she is iiuw sai'e uutl well, L, L, \V,' 



Pahasitrs in a Duck's Flush.— LoiMille, W Y-, 

 Maroll 29th— Editor Forest and. Stream.:—! rend with 

 much interest the letters Of " Mic-Mac" andyOr. Hagen, 

 giving an accQun! ol the parasites found in wild ducks' 

 flesh. I met Willi a similar instance during a trip to the 

 Adirondack* a fowyearaagO, My companion and my- 

 self in our light; boat were exploring the unfrequented 

 I. i of a cluster ofppnds, so remote in the deep wilder- 

 ness that not even Verplanck (Jolviu himself has ever 

 visited them. T was silently paddling the boat through the 

 narrow channel between the ponds, when just as we 

 came into the second one, a large black or dusky duck 

 fluttered along the surface of' the water ahead of the 

 boat, My companion quickly raising his rifle, fired, and 

 put a ball through its neck. ' Picking it' up, we thought 



we would vary our venison diet with slewed duck. On 

 returning to camp I. thought that skinning it would be 

 the quickest method of preparing it. When 1 did 1 found 



the breast completely filled with parasites of about the 

 size of grains of wheat, or resembling in size and appear- 

 ance ants' eggs, Seeing this, we concluded that, after 

 all. venison was better than duck, and did not change 

 our mind that season. H. W, IIavi. 



Swallows and BEr)-BD«s.— Recently, while looking 

 over some notes made in Fayette County, Iowa, during 

 1876, I came across some interesting items in regard to 

 the barn-swallow (Birundb hdrreorum). 



I was told that the swallows had been driven away in 

 tlieearlj part of the season by a pair of purple martins 

 {Proge pitrpurea), which refused to let them build. 



Abniil the middle, of Junes however, the swallows re- 

 turned, and, unmolested by the martins, plastered be- 

 tween lift v and sixty of their mud nests under the eaves 

 of the barn. 



July lib l secured several specimens, together with the 

 eggs.' The birds were, .d' course, in wretched plumage. 

 They were, however, iviiiai kahl v clean and five from 

 parasites. Some days later, bed-bugs (( 'Hex lecturmrius) 

 were found on ail the swallows taken : and the insides of 

 the nests, and sides of barn down to the ground, literally 



I was told that the bugs never appedt until the. young 

 birds ore hatched. The bugs are found in the basBWOod 

 tries of that locnlitv, and 1 have often seen them in n.-w 

 boards, in fact, it is next, to impossible to keep a newly 

 built house free from the pests. 



'i he question is, do the swallows get the bugs from the 

 basswoods ; and. if so, how does it happen that they are 

 seen only after the young birds tire hatched? 



I can answer this only by supposing that the swallows 

 repair to woods for insects to feed their young, and that 

 while there they become infested with the parasite, I fio 

 not believe the bed-bugs are used by the swallows for 

 food. 



I have never found any explanation of this curious 

 freal;, if it can be so called, either in books, or from natu- 

 ralists with whom I have talked. 



Dr. Packard, in his "Guide to the Study of Insects," 

 speaks of a letter from, a gentleman, in which be states 

 '• that he found a nest of swallows on a court-housa in 

 Iowa swarming with bed-bugs." 



The bugs seem bv appearance, color, bite and odor, to 

 be identical with ( '. leohdarius. 



|)i. Packard speaks of a variety in Europe, C. hirm- 

 dinus, which lives on swallows: but does not mention 

 anv variety peculiar to our birds. W. P.M. 



Boston, Mass., April 18th. 



Spruce Partridges.— The following appears in a ro- 

 ceiit issue of the Glens Palls (N. Y.) Republican:— 



"'Did you ever kill a black partridge?' inquired a gen- 

 tleman whose post-office address is' Indian Lake. Wo 

 plead guilty io having killed a few black squirrels, crows, 

 and similar inseots : but had never murdered, or seen, or 

 even heard of a black partridge. ' They exist, neverthe- 

 less, ' said he: •hut in onlv one section or the woods 

 that I know of. While hunting in the Moose River coun- 

 try, last fall, I shot two, and young Dur.int bagged a 

 whole covey, They arc a royal "bird, black and glossy as 

 a raven, with si ripes of bright crimson feat hers over each 

 eve. and a narrow strip of pure white down the breast, 

 Their si/.e is that of a common partridge, and they are 

 less wild. 1 have heard of them in the Moose River coun- 

 try for the past hall a dozen years.' Can the FOKEST tND 

 STREAK, or any other sporting authority, give us infor- 

 mation concerning these ebony-colored strangers?" 



Oh. give ns a. hard one ! They were spruce grouse (Can- 

 ace canadensis). 



When do Bears have Yoo.no?— Bethel. Maine, April 

 5th.— J notice m FOREST and Stream, of 4th March last. 

 an account of a bear killed the 18th January, and that 

 the cubs were found in the den, three of them with eves 

 closed, and verv young. I account for this as a prema- 

 ture birth by ccriainh two months, or nearly that. The 

 old bear being disturbed loli the den, but not until she 

 had cast her culiH. 1 have never heard an instance yet, 

 where a bear was taken from the den. dead or alive, 

 without first easting her cubs. The natural time for cub 

 bmg is the month of .March, in Ibis State. The time may 

 differ in differenl latitudes. 1 have killed seventy-three 

 black bears. I'r<'i:< americanus, under varied circum- 

 stances, and at all times of the \ear. A voung Homo, at 

 seven months, is likely to live, if leiiderlv cared for, and 

 why not young Uf&v&l Find a bear's den in any month 

 of tin' winter containing a she bear with cub. and you 

 cannot take her from the. den quick enough, but i hat she 

 will have her voung ones in the den. After cubbing 

 naturally in hoi den, she will not go so far away from 

 the den without them hut that she can hear them: and 

 the moment she haves them, forwhatever reason, they 

 will set up such a squalling as to make the woods ring. 



J. G. Rl< ii. 



DoGRATSoAniuuis Lav i p \ Winter Store op Food? 

 FiiirloiKl.hi't Apnl\->lli. John Burroughs, in his "Notes 

 of a Walker"— Seribner's Monthly for February— Beems to 

 convey, incidentally, the idea that our common gray 

 souirrcl lavs ii|. a. store of nuts ioi wnitoi u.-e. [s be cor- 

 rect in ii. i- or not? 1 knou .Mr. Burroughs to be a care- 

 ful observer, and I have always found Ins contributions 

 io SriiOnrr's. when treating on subjects in natural history 

 J which have opnio under uiy oljDcrvaliou, to bo remarka- 



bly accurate, but is it true that the gray squirrel lays up 

 a. store of nuts for winter use, or does he trust to chance 

 and his usual shrewdness in robbing the ground-squirrel 

 or chipmunk for his food? The writer has always been 

 led to believe the latter true, and years ago. when a boy, 

 wandering in among the maple " sugar camps "on the 

 banks of the beautiful Ohio river in Southern Indiana, he 

 thought be had solved the question by cutting down the 

 old stubs ami trees that were known to be the winter den 

 of a pair of gray squirrels, in none of which did he ever 

 hud so much as a single nut, that was edible, although an 

 abundance of shells and other refuse. Sharpeyes. 



We have always supposed that the gray squirrels laid 

 up some provision for the winter. Perhaps some of our 

 readers can give us some facts bearing on this question. 



Taxiokrmv Without a Teach r.tt.— Under this title Mr. 

 Walter P. Manton has given us an interesting and practi- 

 cal little book of forty pages, which we can recommend 

 to beginners. It is a cheap, and, we think, reliable hand- 

 book, treating of the preservation of birds, mammals, 

 fishes and insects. This little volume does not aim to 

 take the place of the larger and more expensivo works in 

 this line, but is intended for the beginner in taxidermy — 

 it is intended as a primer, rather than a reader. Beside 

 the chapters on taxidermy, is one devoted to hunting 

 and hygiene. On the whole, the work is one which we 

 can recommend with satisfaction. 



gm und §ivef[ qgisJung. 



- Address all communications "Forest and Stream 

 Publishing Company, New York." 



FISH IN SEASON IN MAT. 



Trout, Balvclinwi OnitinaUs. S.ilmon Trout, Salmo confinia. 



Siiliimii, Milium xtilm: BllOd, dinna. 



QrayUng, Xhymmalius tricolor. Land-locked Salmon.Sofmo oluwrt. 



GAME AND FISH DIRECTORY. 



In senaing reports for the Fouest and Stream Directory ot 

 Game and Fish Keaorts, our correspondents are requested to give 

 the following particulars, witli such other information as they 

 may deem of value: Suite, Town, County. Moans of access ; Hotel 

 and Other accommodations; Game and its Season ; Fish and its 

 Season; lloats, Guides, etc.: Namo of person to address. 



York dailies, and 

 cation, to say son 

 ority of the fish o 

 pecimens someti 



l'.\.\''-v Fly-Rods to, Whittusd Poles.— Some one has 

 been writing front the Adirondacks to one of the New 

 images, in the course of his communi- 

 very sensible things about the superi- 

 ght and eaten there, over the mushy 

 ■s palmed off on city purchasers. We 

 have a faint suspicion that tbo article was written in the 

 wilds of that self-same daily's editorial rooms, and one 

 thing inducing this belief is the following bit of wisdom 

 about fly-rods : — 



Tho elaborate Jointed rods which the city sportsmen brinp into 

 the wilderness wiih them had lienor he hit. al homo. Asarulc 

 mils el a much hello,- < j li m I i t .c can ho procured here for about, 

 .mo-halt of the money. The ffnidea themselves uso a tamarack' 

 polo, whioh may be Oiil almost anywhere, and some verv skillful 

 fly-castinn is done wilh those home-made rods. They have one 

 Strong point tn their favor, and Hurt Is, when broken in 

 atcur hands, it dees not require $25 to replace them. But 

 bly be forgotten, a -well- 

 rtment of lines should al- 

 ley Ihe visiting: fisherman. 

 1 and dolightiuHy gumy, 



while the fancy rods may 

 sleeked fly book and goi 



ways bo brought info the 



iot\ 



ids guide, who 

 sity. He saved 

 I rout, weighed 

 ky as that my- 

 k, weigliiug tu 

 rice for which 



Of course he did, and \ 

 rod in our outfit thai he 



..'II wager the finest "fancy" 

 ■vim- took trout with anything 



else than tliis silver or shinplaster bait. 



An Ai -Kxowi.r.i'.i iment. — />Y/< lyeport, Conn., April 27th. 

 -1 inclose copy of all acknowledgment received yester- 

 day from a friend to whom 1 sent a few trout. I think it 

 worthy of your notice— do you ? ALP. J, HOBBS. 



Youi'iril't- these bounties of tho stream— 



Are the ideal of my dream ; 



When as the gentle spring days come, 



And by dark Kate I'm kept at home, 



1 picture nil the angler feels, 



As mountain brook its darlings yields, 



In «. ight and markings, tint and size, 



They please my fancy, charm my eyes. 



But how rlmll the delighted tongue, 



Tell how their savors to it olung— 



Refined, exulting, dolii 



ate. 



Sense-thrilling, lusoio 



s. exquisite, 



As. mown and fragran 



t (rem the pan, 



They vivified the innci 



man? 



1).., rl:, end, sweet tha 



ik8 1 you send me moi 



Than if you gave ago! 



den store. 



The Solds, the skies, il 



o woods. Hie streams, 



(the hopes oi youth an 



[1 childhood's dreams 



Are in the gift-here, 



00, 1 find 



Your heart, largo, loyal, true and kind, H. N. T. 



Adiuondacks.— Moira. near the Adirondacks, May 1st. 

 -The ioe isoiil of the lakes and ponds in this portionof 

 the Adirondacks, and trout Ashing has commenced. A 

 ,„an living near Branch Pond broughta Hue lot down to 

 Malone (he tirst part of the week, that he caught In that 



pond. Thirty of them weighed something ovai twenty 

 pounds, Branch Pond is only sia or seven miles south of 



Malone. Several line lots have also been caught in the 

 brooks about hero during the past two weeks. The pros- 



