208 



& 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Ootobee 13, 1881 



PKOCEED1NGS OP TOE PHILADELPHIA ACADEMY. 



THE publications of (bin scientific association are always 

 interesting, and have a very high standing among 

 scientific people both in this country and Europe. In 

 Part I, January to Stay, 1881, Dr. Ltidy's paper, on Rhizo- 

 pots, *a> Food for Young Fishes, opens up a new source of 

 food supply EOI fi?UeS during the eaflj stages of their exist- 

 ence, and should certainly prove of interest to fishculturists 

 as "well as to naturalists The discovery that these minute 

 organisms form the fond Of some of our interior fishes while 

 they are young, is due to Mr. 8. A. Forbes, of the Illinois 

 State Laboiutory of Natural History, a gentleman whose in. 

 vesications into the food of our birds and fishes have been 

 of gre-.l practical value. 



lu A Note on Treeless Prairies, Mr. Thos. Meehan ascribes 

 tie lack of arbou;e vegetation on the high, dry plains of the 

 TV cm (" I he a-mujA hres kindled by the Indians for the purpose 

 of burning off 1 he grass and tftecfting the progress of the 

 ji-rcxts, which might be expected in time to extend themselves 

 from various cenl res over any tract of country, however wide. 

 That the fires may have much to do with ttie treeless Charac- 

 ter of the prairies we are unite prepared to admit, but that 

 they are or ever were started by the Indians for the purpose 

 of preventing tl i nests seems extreme'y unlikely. 



This is giv-n the red man credit for far more intelligence 

 and foresight than he deserves. Mr. Kalael Arango con- 

 tributes to this part a short paper entitled, New Species of 

 Terrestrial MoBusea of Cuba, in which five species are 

 noticed. Perhaps the most important contribution to the 

 part before us is the Rev. H. C. McCooks' article on the 

 Honey Ants of the Garden of the Gods, which is illustrated 

 with ten beautiful plates. Mr. .McCooks' studies on ants 

 have, shown that he is the first authority on the subject in 

 this couniry. taking the rank here I hat is held -by Sir John 

 Lubbock in'Eughnd'. His paper referred to is of the highest 

 interest. Mr. John A. Ryder has an article on the Structure. 

 Affinities and Species of Scolopcndrella, a genus usually 

 placed with the Mvriupods, but about the systematic posi- 

 tion of which there is some dispute. A paper on The Vari- 

 ations of Aamwa jmlta, by Mr. Henry Hemphill, discusses 

 the diverse forms which this Pacific coast limpet takes, 

 according to the station it occupies. Other papers are 

 Motility in Plants, by Mr, Thos.. Meehan; Observations on 

 Pkmorbis. by Mr. H. E. C. Stearns, and Sexual Characters 

 in 1'rii'- ',/iurca, Null, by Mr. Thos. Meehan. 



IS THE TURTLE FISH OR GAME? 



THIS question, which seems to be on the point of causing 

 ! itive war in Virginia, having been referred to 

 thcP >t Luck Club, the very head and centre of gastronomic, 

 ichthyulogic, /oologic, and all other kinds of knowledge, 

 will 1)2 answered BO clearly that he who has ears, though 

 be long, may understand. That a turtle is game your 

 pointer or Better— aud verily a legislator even, ought to know 

 as much as. it dog — will tell yon when he comes across one 

 in the field, end stands him as finely and staunchly as if he 

 were a *a>hpnx or vo'ilix that you were searching 

 for. But there be turtles and turtles. Tl;e turtle 

 that PontO finds when he is ranging the stubbles or 

 worming his way through the swamps, and upon which lie 

 makeBaehow of game Lbat tlMUs the nerves in your body, 

 '8 but the box turtle, the land turtle, the despised gentle- 

 n>..n who crawls about carrying his house on his back and 

 ■ ■ ,: I house often lying figures as to his age. Then there 

 is thv anuppiug turtle, the. terrible taurup, who is game to 

 his Late- s |,ell, who never says die though he be beheaded and 

 disembogued, who, when be has once got his crip of an ad- 

 versary wit a ]iow himself to be dismembered before he will 

 let go. We ,][, Q f ,i ie g ame qualities of the bull dog, but 

 let him and th&jpspper have a "turn up" together and see 

 who will ki vi fijM Then we have the sea turtle, the glo- 

 rious i a eiisin mid-OCeaD in the amplitude of 

 his tl. - r excellence. The London alderman 

 after p;, 1 . ,. ■: -. - ' ! -\his favorite luxury, after enjoyiDg 

 the lovel.v cfiupa -h a&i i ne charming calipee, after luxu- 

 riating in the sicut 1 it mi tne , c ,]low fat, would indeed be 

 outraged lo have a o u bt cast on (he gameness of 

 his pet. Ask pur o\„ T urt ) e club, whose mem- 

 bers yearly stuleit in fli honor, and each of whom 

 shortens life and Buffer* mU( , h indigestion in the 

 holy ClWJSe, what they worn- say |0 sucll a question. 

 And terrapin— utter the sacred -, mc wi|h iif|efJ j, flt mA 

 bowed head— when the box turtle, , K , eliar ,p in g turtle, the 

 rea turtle are chimed as game, snail i. t ,i h , jr kijJ „ th( . lr in . 

 finite Hnperinr. their lord and master rat m j^f ...,.. ir . ipia 

 wh;.t recollections e usler jTOiind *^.» l 'oric name in the 

 heart of every man who has used his Umc . j 0(lfJ „ rlIul j iieg 

 aright. Wnal memories of suppers, dinner- r , ,,,,, .,,.,. 

 companies and brilliant parties, and perhaps i.e., ■ «> 

 are linked with the name of the most Superlative 1 . „ 



Why, however, should not a turtle be a fish ? Is there any 

 disgrace in that suggestion ? The man who has caught 

 sixty pound taump when fishing for trout in one of our 

 Long Islaud ponds will admit that he has hooked fast to 

 something as strong as a fisb, as brave as a fish and as good 

 as a fish. What is a fish after all, and how does he differ 

 from his watery brother? He swims, he bites at bait, he is 

 caught with hook and line, be is scaled and eaten. Does not 

 a turtle be, do and suffer likewise ? Is it not therefore clear 

 that a turtle is a fish, but by being more fish does he be- 

 come less game ? Not at all. And this is -the verdict of the 

 Pol Luck Club I hat terrapin is both fish and game, in very 

 truth the finest of game fish. 



RomcnT B. Roosevelt. 



President Pot Luck Club. 



are jinu^u >vou. ww .■.....- - . . - , U )at a 



kind Providence has given lo poor mortals.. And J 



iamiite BUre when he is eating terrain., precisely what 

 eating? ard it he were to at* the gaofAwm of a tit ith-lel « 

 aSmfl kingdom which knows no gaile, and were the antrm. 

 kingdom able to follow Esop's teaching and reply, would not 

 everv harmless lit»e mtld turtle answer " 1 am here," and 

 the box MjtO" join in saying, " If I am not a ' box stew/ at 

 innt,* you may lake me home in a box." 



BO turtles are game, from lite slumbering giant of the 

 Southern seas to lite liny "speckled beauty '* of our duck 

 ponds, aud he who questions this must be an outer barbar- 

 ian who has never lusted of turtle soup and steak, nor boiled 

 down the bellicose taurup into mundane ambrosia, nor eaten 

 mud and land turtles under the deified name oi terrapin. 

 Let terrapin, it nd all that the name implies, come to the 

 table with the game, whose i.eer if is no matter how com- 



THE " CONCHOLOGIST." 



Vioksburgh, Miss., Sept. 24. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



While on a surveying expedition a few years ago I discov- 

 ered a very curious insect, and would be gratified if some of 

 your readers could enb'ghteu me as to its"name or classifica- 

 tion. I was reclining on the ground after my mid-day lunch 

 in the woods when my attention was attracted by the little 

 bug crawling on a leaf near me. He was about one-quarter 

 of an inch in length, and his appearance reminded me of a 

 baggage wagon with a mountain load of trunks. I exam- 

 ined him with a lense which I carried in my pocket, and as- 

 certained that his trunks were a collection of minute shells, 

 which he carried on his back. The shells were each about 

 the size of a small pin bead. He had seven or eight. Some 

 of them were mioaturc snail shells in shape being flat spirals. 

 Others were elongated spirals. I was much puzzled toknow 

 where he had found them. 



1 worried the beast until he unloaded his baggage. When 

 he had remained undisturbed a little while he stirred around 

 and collected his load again, which he accomplished in this 

 manner: His head being supplied with a pair of forceps he 

 would pick up a shell and pass it over bis shoulder. There 

 were three pahs of arms on his back terminating in hands. 

 With these he took hold of the baggage, passed it back and 

 arranged it to suit himself. In this way he reloaded his 

 baggage with the exception of one piece, which appeared to 

 be a fragment of a scalefrom some insect with a protuberance 

 on it like an "eye." He worked at this for some time ap- 

 parently trying to detach the "eye" from it, and after sev- 

 eral unsuccessful attempts he tossed it aside with an apppear- 

 anee of irritation. T captured this interesting little bug and 

 secured him in a bottle, but he died in a day or two. Being 

 in camp for several months 1 had no means of preserving 

 him. I dubbed him "conchologisl." Maroonek. 



P. S. I will mention en passant that I bagged nine squir- 

 rels and a large raccoon last Saturday afternoon within three 

 or four miles of A^ieksburg. I was shooting about two hours. 

 The woods are still very thick with foliage here, and the 

 squirrels disposed to be quiet, but I hey are feeding on acorns 

 and pecans, which betrays their whereabouts. 



In emulation of the Iehlhio Club (I haven't the full 



name by me) I determinedto devour the said raccoon (having 

 served an apprenticeship on rats during the seigc of Port 

 SudsOn in 1863) consequently the 'coon furnished Ihe princi- 

 pal dish of the Sunday dinner partaken of by wife, five 

 children aud two guests (who would eat anything I suggested) 

 and myself. The- 'coon was young and fat and cooked by a 

 "culled woman." It was, therefore, excellent eating and en- 

 joyed by all. 



_. — .»r— . 



REMARKABLE CASE OP RETARDED DEVELOP- 

 MENT. 



IN a recent number of the A merican Naturalist is an ac- 

 count of the retarded development of the eggs of Oalop. 

 Unus spretus, the locust which has done so much damage in 

 the West as to have become a terror to the farmers of the 

 region where it occurs. The length of time which elapsed 

 between the date of deposition of the eggs and their hatch- 

 ing is something we believe quite uuparalleled. How much 

 longer would the eggs have retained their vitality if the 

 sidewalk had not been' removed? The account, with Prof. 

 Riley's comments, is as follows : 



Mr. J. D. Graham, of the Kansas State Agricultural Col- 

 lege at Manhattan, has sent us for identification the eggs and 

 newly-hatched young of a locust which, on examination, 

 proved to be of Galoptenus spretus. The facts connected 

 with these eggs and their hatching are so re- 

 markable, that ' few persons would be willing to 

 credit them were the circumstances not given with 

 care and by a competent observer. He writes : ' ' Those 

 eggs were buried in the fall of 1870, and a sidewalk was laid 

 immediately above them. This walk has not been moved 

 since that time, until the eggs were found. The earth which 

 covered the eggs was, principally clay, old mortar and bits of 

 stone, though there was some black earth immediately sur- 

 rounding the eggs." 



The eggs were found, it seems, while the men were clean- 

 jj: away an accumulation of spalls, mortar and clay, and 

 w e : dewalk above referred to, in the rear of the laboratory. 

 n . -n that the wgs were about ten inches below the side- 

 intluenee CPrlilinl y " ol deE P mmil '^ t0 be entirely out of the 

 intr i'resh"- ttje c '"" ''? in S temperature of the year. Appear- 

 under favorafi" du & •* the >" wc ' re P laced »? m - Graham 

 lively swarm ol%^<>* f .' r '"'tching, and in due time a 



kno^n h of rcA'nlea T^^ ^ r ™ inseots ' oftea 



sntii nsucs ennj iuv.li iwu^ "« ....... ....^~ , ----- ----- 



do tiie Indies cany Iheir shells unless en their hel 

 well, making lhem doubly fishes. It has heen claimed that 

 ,,,.:,,. ,, ....■.-..-.■ lopr-.l on theDnrvinian theory, fuat 



aveVy, ■ '---I' eilled simto, feeling sensitively 



the unnrotecied moiire of a tail that dragged its slow length 

 an anueces at distance behind, by taking much thought 

 added a shell to his body and converted tte loagefll and 

 slimmest of figures into the stoutest and roundest. I hat a 

 turtle, and ab .ve .ill » snapping turl-K is but n snake in dlB- 

 guise. Now, while no man dares limit the intellectual ca- 

 pacity of the betrayer OI the mother ed nmuktml, ami at' 



thpugl i -, of the human family have oh 



snakes in Strang i ad ai unexpected limes i wnan 



wcieiMt equally fortunate or observant. 1, tor my 

 Dar i r a „,„, ,.o l V i ;> aerptuit when I ask for a turtle. 1 re- 

 pudiate the "smiix" even under the head of terrapin. 



of 



i thi 



'"« 



istance we 

 unhatched 



have a well authent. 



fw-^clO'o ou, knT. f r ? c 5 ttwfST^SilS Caloptenuo 

 hattan in the fall of we ^'Se, »o abounded around Man- 

 coltege was absolutely fml of'e r tuc - ground all around the 

 Statement of Ml 1 . Graham, because ibis confirmatory of the 

 there nor in that part of the counlryicies did not occur 

 during any year since 1877; The eggs aboveoi.ll, nor in fact 

 be a retarded remnant f those which were fio-ed to must 

 there in the fall of 1876 and which gave bu-UMy laid 

 destructive multitudes of young locusts the ensuing spn..,h e 



as well as I ever saw her. I ordered them on, and a female 

 woodcock got up and fluttered like a hen hawk for a few sec- | 

 onds, and then settled down only a short way from where she 

 arose. I ordered my dogs to down, charged and took a look < 

 around, and I found two young ones just about two weeks 

 old. I left them, and came away very much surprised to i 

 find them at this Eeasou of the year. Did you ever hear of 

 the like before ? That was Ihc only bird 1 found that day. I 

 —Austin Pass. 



[The occurrence was certainly a most unusual one, and is I 

 to be explained, we presume, on the supposition that a nest I 

 built at the usual time had been destroyed, and the bird had j 

 hatched again very late. We have seen young quail just out I 

 of the egg the 1st of November, and have supposed the late- 

 ness of the hatching to be due to the breaking up of the neBt 

 containing the second laying of eggs.] 



Copperheads in New England — New York, Oct. 6. — In J 

 your issue of bept. 29 in a note following the communcation j 

 of J. Wilcox, p. 167, you say, "probably the only dangerous 

 snake in New England is the rattlesnake." The copperhead 

 snake, or as the inhabitants call it, the "chunekhcad," is 

 nearly as poisonous as the rattleknake, and is frequently I 

 found in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In the summer 

 season tbey come down from the rocky hills to the low 

 grounds, and are crude often captured by farmers in gather- 

 ing the late hay crop. Rattlesnaks eare numerous in Massa- 

 chusetts upon Mount Tom and vicinity. "Chunkheads" 

 are found within four miles of Yale College in low meadows 

 bordering the stream (West River) which runs on the west 

 side of West Rock. I speak by the card, for I lived there 

 all through my boyhood.— New England Boy. 



[We are glad to receive the information contained in the 

 above note, and should be pleased to receive further inform- 

 ation and details from New England Boy or other correspon- 

 dents. We have never ourselves seen a copperhead East of 

 the Hudson Uiver, although iu New Jersey along that stream 

 they are by no means uncommon. De Kay mentions the 

 species as occurring in the vicinity of Northampton, Mass., 

 on the authority of Dr. Holbrook. Can any ol our readers 

 furnish us with further particulars on this point.] 



Hatohino of Woooooeif ■ -Newark, N. J., bept. 



, ,.-«,/ Strmm l Have you, or any of the 



f -ou- valuable paper, ever heard of a woodcock 



a brood of vnim- ones' at this season of I he year ; 



! iters a lii''- :.\ercise on Tuesday last, 



\ on the meadows south of &' ' -y, one of them belle, came 

 to a point. She is very staunch, and Bessy, the other, backed 



(§<m[e i§ng and p«m 



\*For table of game in season see last issue. 

 TWO INTERESTING QUESTIONS. 



WEIGHTS OP GAME B1EDS— GROWING SOABOITT 03? GAME. 



Rutlaud, Vt , Oct. 18S1. 

 Editor Forest and Stream ; 



The books give us (together with other descriptions of «' 

 game birds which no one but an expert can understand) the 

 weights of the average specimens of the different varieties. , 

 I have, however, found that the weight given by the authors 

 is almost always much more than the actual weight of the 

 birds. Thus the books give the weight of the woodcock as 

 from seven (7) to nine (0) ounces, while in my experience 

 the actual average weight of a fair lot of October birds is J 

 not over six. 1 weighed a bunch of ten birds shot yesterday, 

 the average of which was only 5 4-10 ounces, and yet they 

 did not strike me as being under-sized, and they were cer- 

 tainly in good condition. The ruffed grouse (partridge of 

 New England) average, with us about twenty (20) ounces, 

 and it is a large bird that weighs a pound and a half, yet the ] 

 books set them much higher. It has occurred to me to I 

 wonder whether the weight of birds of the same variety was so , 

 far affected by difference of localities, climate and food as to * 

 have misled the authors, and it is to solve this question that 

 I invite your correspondents to give us, through your col- 

 umns, the facts. The season at which the oirds are killed 

 should be noted, for it is, of course, certain that October or 

 November birds will be heavier than those shot earlier in the 

 season. 



Woodcock are quite abundant here just now, that is, 

 abundant for this country, where they are usually very 

 scarce. This I am inclined to ascribe to the abolition of 

 summer shooting in this State. Ruffed grouse are scarce, 

 very scarce, and this suggests another inquiry — What has he- 

 come of them ? We have many arguments on that question 

 here. 



Mr. A, who owns and shoots over well bred and well 

 broken setters, tells us that B O and D, who shoot the 

 birds out of trees and over spaniels or curs of lower degree, 

 have shot all the birda in that unfair and unsportmanlike 

 manner, while B C and D tell us that A, with his perfectly 

 trained setters, gets all the birds. 



Both classes of men ascribe the scarcity of birds lo over 

 shooting. That is a perfectly satisfactory explanation, if 

 the facts in other localities, where there is little or no shoot- 

 ing, are such as to bear it out, but I have recently been led 

 to doubt a little whether over shooting is the sole cause of 

 the dearth of game. I was invited a week ago to shoot with 

 two friends in one of our back farming towns, far away from 

 the before mentioned A, B, C or D, and where there is al- ' 

 most no shooting in any form. In fact, I was assured that 

 there had not been twenty birds killed in the town in two 

 years. The ground ana cover were right, there was plenty 

 of food, and yet a long day'B tramp gave us only two birds 



the bag, aud we only saw five, and in fact we had to take . 

 one of ihosc on tick, for no one saw it but one man tlwught , 

 he heard it. 



Certainly over shooting has not destroyed the birds in that 

 town. They are not a migratory bird, aud it is not to be 

 supposed that the birds have migrated from Grafton to Rut- 

 land for the sake of gelliug themselves shot by A over a set- 

 ter, or by B, C or D over spaniels. What has become of the I 

 birds in that town? Well, you are next told that the foxes, 

 skunks, hawks and owls have destroyed them. But I well re- 

 member when foxes, etc., were very abundant in these moun- 

 tains and hills, and so were the grotue. Now the foxes have 

 been almost extcrmiuated, together with skunks, hawks and 

 owls, and so far as destruction by vermin is concerned, 

 birds never had half so good a chance as now; but instead of 

 increasing in number as the foxes decrease, they decrease 

 faster than the foxes do, and this, mind you, in sections \ 

 vhere they are very seldom disturbed by the sportsman. 

 ' . v t, you will be told that the winters are too severe, aod 

 ciem- uj rda pgriji, i r0 iri cold and for the want of suffi- 

 than iht-j tC) lmt tl)e w j nter8 are certainly no more severe 

 were found j- t wen t y or thirty years ago, when the birds 

 Now, how shan. a 5 mtw „ everywhere. 



- : -" scarcity ? I con- 

 booting, for 

 or no 



fess that I do not kit- • 

 they a:e not pip--' 



