348 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[June 8, 1880. 



have knnwii all about it ; but if Chicago and New York 

 had both been burned, we should be still in blissful jg» 

 noranee of the fact, 



Bonfield bus mtroducd a new method of catching 



trout— with an axo, The pr as is simple. Hewandera 



along the river bank, casting tor another flvo-poiinder, 

 and .mi the I ■ !. ••■ landB his fiy in the top of a good 

 Bized birch, and th ire ... tens it securely. With a down- 

 cast air he slips ba l; to i amp, and has one of the guides 

 come down veil h an a>.<- and cm him out; 



Sunday wa- a very 'Mi.;.' day. We moved three or 

 tour miles down the river, ahd then all the circulating 

 library of the party, which bad hitherto lain in the most 

 neglected reoesses o£ the oarpetsacks, wasbroughf out, 

 toilets were made, partly in camp, partly belore the 



mirror which i id so unfortunate tor Narcissus, and 



the only episode was a Little excursion to a point which 

 commanded a fine view of th" falls below the camp. We 

 comment'-- ing Prati on the approach of the 



storm w] ■ . atly predioting, but un- 



fortunately a Bne, double rainbow appeared on the bill 

 opposite, and thai was all there was of the storm. 



We are waiting for some one to fall out of a canoe, or 

 slide olT from some slippery stone. Tims far, not enougli 

 of an acrid, -at has befallen anyone to Cornish chaffing 

 stock for the others, though we have a reasonable supply 

 in tin- |.. thai architectural ou riosity sold 



as a troul ro I fiding King. 



Thus far the discipline of the party, as to using the fly 

 of the artist and abjuring the bait of tho pot-fishcr, has 

 been well maintained : but King, advancing the theory 

 that, on the home trail some allowance should bo 

 made, threatens to drop t. frog into a deep hole which 

 he has discovered, and extract a six-pound trout. His 

 only fear : wandering pike or pickerel will 



take-hold— he w despises all ess aristocratic Bsh than 



t:-. ui- -or lest High, as a true representative of lly-lish- 

 ing. shall frown his disapproval on any method less 

 artistic. 



Il is equally extraordinary in repose and in action. It 

 gives way a( every conceivable point, and of course at 

 the most critical i nent, and finally ii became a seri- 

 ous qui :i.': • ■■ ■ t be attempted to make a cast how 

 many sections would follow tho fly into the water. His 

 unruffled good nature, through so many trials, so worked 

 upon the admiration of his comrades that he was soon 

 equipped with a good rod, and now is happy. 



INDIAN LIFE. 



BonBcld having declin 

 hag's lecture on "The II 

 camp-fire gravitated to 1 

 William was a Idressed, 

 whose Scotch father, an 

 BudsonBaj 



d to repeat his last Sunday nven- 



n.' the conversation around the 



■ard the Indians, and our guide 



intelligent half-breed, 



. i,iiy-tive years in the 

 ire, and now retired Onapen- 



Altho 

 had tan 

 of them 

 known 

 them ea 

 on's Po 



' sion, still lives near Red Rock. 11, 

 of old Indians by saying that most of the men, as soon as 

 they passed middle life, became consumptive and died, 

 and that the women, having nearly as much exposure, 

 lived little longer. 



"Do you know, William," asked one of the party, 

 "what that family of Indians we met at tho portage are 

 going- to do at Lake Nepigon?" 



"They are going to the Hudson Bay Company's port 

 there, and as soon as cold* weather conies are going trap- 

 ping, and will sell the furs to the company in the spring." 



"But how will they live in the meantime ?' 



" The man is an old hunter, and probably the company 

 will let him gel in debt for a little Hour, arid he can gen- 

 erally catch sona . 



" But won't in' have pork, or bacon, orsalfc?' 



"Oh, no. Except sail ; but he will set three or four 

 stands of snares, and bis wife will tend them, and if they 

 have good luck they will catch rabbits enougli to live on J 

 and when they begin to get scarce at one place they will 

 move to another." 



"But if they don't .happen to catch any rabbits what 

 Will they live on then ;'' 



••Then they will have to go hungry, unless .the man 

 oatches some fish in the net, which he probably has with 

 htm to set under the ice. Sometimes in a storm these 

 people can't get anything for three or four days, and i 

 till you these: trapping Indians have a pretty hard time 

 of it. In Bummer they can always get along, but the 

 hard time is in winter." 



"What do the women do?' 



"They do as much as the men, and some of them are 

 just aB good hunters and fishers. They make the clothes 

 and moccasins, and a chance one is just as strong as her 

 husband." 



•' Were those traps wo saw all that that family have ?" 



(The blankets I could easily have earned on one arm 

 and all (he rest of the household articles on the other.) 



"Tpbesure. That is as much as most Indians have. 

 Of course he has a skein of twine to make rabbit snares 

 with." 



••Do all the Indians about here trap for the Hudson 

 Bay Company?" 



"That's the only way they have of making anything. 

 except when they go out with anglers in the summer 

 The best fixed and the healthiest Indians are tho Esqui- 

 maux, win here sometimes to trade. You 

 could not get.oneof them to go into a house to stay if 

 ypu were to give it to him. He would rather go down 

 mto the river and make a snow hutonthi ice. They 

 are dressed all in furs, warm and fine, and make then- 

 boots on: . , with the fur inside. They are 

 short, stout and fat, and don't make their canoes as we 

 do; but make them longer and narrow, and then cover 

 them all up exoepl a hole in the middle large enough to 

 sit in. Then his family crawls into the boat and" lies 

 down underneath, while he draws a cloth around his 

 body and ties it tight so that not a drop of water can get 

 into bis canoe, and goes out inti dthe waves 



wash ovei ■ ii: but c I ■" I can't hurt him. He has 



a long paddle, broad at "both ends, so that he can use it 

 either way, and is not afraid ol anything," 



" But suppose he gets capsized orrunsagainst the ice?" 

 suggests Pratt. 



"Nod: mswered William. "lie is very 



expert with hi: 



•■ But suppose i In- waves swamp him, or anything hap- 

 pens to his boat, then the whole family would be 

 drowned?" insists Pratt, wl)0 has read about these abor- 

 igines, and saw one of their canoes at the Centennial, and 

 js bound to di truly, 



" No danger at all !" still insists William, in his confi- 



dence in the skill of his more Northern brother. "The Es 

 (piiinau is very expert with his paddle." 



■ I h'ree or four methods of communicating with 

 ■ me Indians. English will do very well with William, 

 and will answerwith one or two 'others to the limited 

 cxten l necessary for camp life, French does rather bet- 

 ter, as this country was originally settled by that nation, 

 whose language is still rmite generally spoken. The In- 

 dian dialect none of us are very proficient in, and the 

 ,, nly new phrase thus far mastered is rendered phonet- 

 ically. "Ow-Wow, Way- Webb:" or, freely translated. 

 "Go-ahead, hurry up," AVhen everything else fails we 

 fall back on pantomime, perhaps the most successful of 

 all methods, as it certainly is the most vivid and enter- 

 taining. 



tgh our guides knew every foot of the river, and 

 eled it all their lives, we could not get any two 

 to agree as to the names of any of the well- 

 ' a sept Hamilton's Pool, and that two of 

 led Cameron's Pool at first. Which was Catner- 

 il none of them seemed to know positively, 

 though we finally satisfied ourselves in other ways ; nor 

 have they any idea of distance as measured by miles. 

 Their only standard seems to be for short distances, at What 

 time they must start to get there by dinner-time, or be- 

 fore night ; and for long distances, how many days it 

 takes to make the trip. In that way they can give accu- 

 rate statements, five miles of bad river and two or three 

 ] lortages standing as the equivalent of twenty or thirt}- 

 miles of good river, as the case may be, Whenever 

 pressed to give distances in miles, their answers were 

 always evidently, and sometimes absurdly, inaccurate. 

 Their ideas of time are also extremely vague and uncer- 

 tain. 



Along the north shore of Lake Superior there remain 

 now probably less than 2,000 Indians, mostly Chippowas, 

 and many of these travel 150 or S00 miles every year to 

 draw the -$4 a year which the Government pays* them on 

 account of the cession of their lands. This money is, of 

 course, mostly- captured at once by the traders who fol- 

 low the Government agent, but who are not allowed to 

 supply them with liquor. 



Some of the Indian legends are very amusing and in- 

 teresting, as their account of the creation of the world, 

 the deluge, of the formation of Isle Royal hy their God, 

 Nana-Bijoo, out of a pebble which he threw*behind him 

 when the Chippewas were fleeing across Lake Superior 

 in their canoes before the warlike Mohawks, though then- 

 belief in them seems now to have been much shaken. 



Monday morning we made the long Pine Tree Portage, 

 and it was astonishing to see how heavy a weight each 

 Indian would carry on his back and shoulders, the pack 

 being so arranged that the greatest strain would fall upon 

 the forehead, which is covered by the broad part of the 

 canvas strap. Louis once complained that this made ids 

 head hurt him, so he kicked up his heels and stood on his 

 head for awhile, and then went on apparently satisfied 

 and relieved. 



PORCUPINE STEW. 



While making a short portage the .'guides treed a por- 

 cupine. Down went canoes and packs in an instant, and 

 there was shouting and whooping, and a loud cry pecu- 

 liar to the Indians, while the river bank furnished stores 

 for a regular bombardment of the poor rodent. After 

 carrying on their sport until all were satisfied, they cut 

 down the tree, and quickly dispatched poor porcupine 

 with a club. Then John the Baptist, who, being unable 

 to speak a word of English, had been expressing his de- 

 sires, ids hopes and his feelings, in the most excited mo- 

 tions and the most vigorous pantomime, was commis- 

 sioned to prepare the stew. First he scorched it over the 

 camp-fire, then took it to the river and cleaned it, then 

 cut it. head, skin and all, into small pieces, which with- 

 out delay were consigned to the kettle, for which the 

 supply of rabbits happened to be short that day. We 

 watched the proceedings with interest, but did not mani- 

 fest a strong desire to partake of "pot-luck." 



Toward evening the trout rose steadily to the fly and 

 encouraged us to delay putting up the rods, with using 

 which our hands and wrists were tired and sore. 



VALE BENEDICTTE. 



Tuesday evening our last camp was made, and the 

 guides entertained us for along time around the fire with 

 accounts of their hunting and trapping life, of encoun- 

 ters with various wild animals, and ot their labors and 

 duties when in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company. 

 The black bear and the lynx, here called link, naturally 

 played a prominent part in these recitals. Directly they 

 resumed their Indian dialect, and Michel, their leader, 

 gave a vivid description, accompanied by most expres- 

 sive gestures and action, of what High rightly divined to 

 to be the running of a dangerous rapid. 



Wednesday morning King, who had delayed the execu- 

 tion of his threat of drawing out leviathan with a hook, se- 

 cured the desired frog, and launched him into the foam- 

 ing waters at Camp Alexander. He will never cease to 

 regret that it was a pike which he secured, and not the 

 handsome trout which first rose to the imported batrach- 

 ian, Bonfield and myself, fishing along the bank with 

 hard work and corresponding success, put up our rods 

 without a regret, and at the last waterfall on the river 

 joined the others, to find that High and Pratt had en- 

 cased the rods which had served them so well. 



The wind, which heretofore with its well-known per- 

 versity had blown down stream when we were going up, 

 and up stream as we came down, now changed to the 

 west, and our Indians, rigging their blankets on their 

 setting pedes, spread them to the now favoring breeze, 

 and borne onward by wind and current along the widen- 



g river, through Lake Helen, and down the last rapids, 

 ed our frail flotilla to its journey's end. The 

 vaiting to receive us, and no steamer ever car- 

 idrt a party more happy and contented. 

 JOSIAH H. BlSSELL, 



On Lake Superior, September 4th, 1870. 



they si 



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PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT. 



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'■' , ul'.ms cures new heme- effected in diseases such as 



UritflH sin,-. , , ;l i„ .,,., i v (House of Warner's WiU'e Kid- 

 ney aud Liver Cur. .."_[. uj l ,. 

 — The Fish Bait Co.. of Galveston, i. ■: ! advertise a new fish 

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 .. , pa 



: desiring a c-ood shirt nt a moderate price 

 should consult tin. adv. of The Keep MamuueturUiif Co.— [AdV, 



littwiil jffatotg* 



— Address all eoviminileations lo 

 Publishing Company, New Toil:" 



Forest and Slreatu 



A Bone of Contention. — A somewhat amusing inci- 

 dent took place at one of our clubs in the city a short 

 time ago, which illustrates the fact that cvan a " bone 

 sharp," or to speak more by the card, an osteologist, may- 

 be of some practical use in the affairs of exevy clay life. 



A group of gentlemen were gathered in a club, which 

 is situate something less then ten miles from the corner 

 Fifth avenue and Twenty-third street, and had been dis- 

 cussing the affairs of the world in general and of this Re- 

 public in particular. These trifles having been exhausted, 

 and a pause ensuing, one of the party drew from his 

 pocket a somewhat cylindrical bone about two and a half 

 inches long and placed it on the table, remarking, as he 

 did ao, that it had passed through his month in eating, 

 and that he believed that no one present could tell what 

 it was. A careful examination of the specimen (which 

 had been somewhat obscured by having one end sawed 

 off) ensued, and many conjectures as to its nature were 

 hazarded by those present. Several guessed duck, one 

 rabbit, two or three pigeon, others curlew and partridge. 

 At last, emboldened by the many failures, the owner of 

 the bone offered to wager a dinner for those present that 

 no one could tell what it was, and for a while it seemed 

 that no one would accept his offer. At last, however, a 

 well known banker bethought him of a friend of his 

 whose knowledge of bones is not small, and accepted 

 the wager, stipulating, howover, that he should hare 

 three days' time for consideration. This having been 

 agreed to, he at once wroto to his osteological friend, in- 

 closing the specimen, relating the circumstances and 

 begging his assistance in the ma Iter. 



The letter was mailed in the evening, and the next 

 morning the banker was made happy by the receipt of 

 the following dispatch : — 



"Letter received. Your specimen is right Bhin bone 

 of big bullfrog. Hoxeshakp." 



So he won his dinner. 



A Kind Foster Mother,— Littleton, N, II., May IBIH, 

 Mr. H. D. Bishop felled a free about the 1st of May that 

 had four young; red squirrels in it. two of which he took 

 to his house and put them into a half-barrel with three 

 kittens that were ten days old. Old puss soon came in, 

 and Mr. Bishop expected" to see his pets devoured in- 

 stanter, but, to his surprise, the old cat kindly acted as 

 foster-mother, and has up to this day. I have just been 

 to see them ; they were talcing their nourishment and 

 seemed to be experts, for when removed would again 

 take their position at once. They are neatly half grown, 

 and are as frolicsome as the kittens, often seizing them 

 by the paw. and holding it as they would a nut. 



Joseph Ide. 



We once tried an experiment somewhat, similar to this, 

 which was successful up to a certain point. We caught 

 two young leverets (young of the common brown rahhit) 

 and put them in a box with a cat t] al fciad b er deprived 

 of all her kittens except one. The old cat nursed them 

 kindly, but the kitten was too old when they were added 

 to the family. For a week all went well, but at the end 

 of that time one of the rabbits disappeared, and the next 

 day we caught the kitten iu the very act of running off 

 with his remaining foster-brother in his mouth. 



Habits of Quail, — In Maryland in dry fall weather 

 these birds, during the day,' generally remain in the. 

 w r oods or underbrush instead of being found, as might 

 be expected, on the stubble fields and along the hedge- 

 rows. An inquiry into the cause of this by our corres- 

 pondent, Mr. Joseph K. Bramble, leads him to believe 

 that the birds resort to the woods for shelter from the 

 hot sun, and as evidence of this, he cites the fact that, as 

 soon as the weather becomes clear and cold, the I trds 

 are found, some distance from the brush, in the open 

 fields. 



Nesting of Icterus Spdriub ds a Strtjce Tree.— A few 

 days ago my attention was Called to a. nest which was 

 situated in a. spruce tree, and Upon ascending the tree I 

 found it to be the nest of the orchard oriole. The nest 

 was built about ten or fifteen feet up from the ground, 

 and was composed chiefly of grass, and was just finished. 



Do these birds often build in a spruce 



We have never met with a similar case, and should be 

 glad to learn if any of our readers have done so. 



Spring Notes fuu A pr < ■■>. Ohio, May 11th. 



— April 1st. — Noticed a wood [ 



April 3d.— Saw first cliff swallows to-day. Robins be- 

 ginning to build. 



April 4th.— First chipping sparrows around. 



April 10th. — Saw ba.ru swallc- n id brown 



creepers to-day, for tho first tune this spring. 



April 14th.— Wood thrush and house wrens have ar- 

 rived. 



April 22d. — Noticed chimney swifts to-day; snowbirdB 

 still around 



April 36th, — Saw the following birds for the first time 

 this spring : Baltimore orioles, catbirds, yellow 

 brown thrush, Maryland yellow-throats "and kingbirds. 



April 37th. — Saw a scarlet tanager to-day, 



April 30th.— Saw first purple martin. 



SBXM, K, [ROEBBOWj, 



