288 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|KovjiMUEit 10, 1881. 



Hie shores of deep lnkes, shot turbulent rapids, and paddled 

 ou over the deep pools below. 



-At noon of lUe seventh day w sailed out of the Idalto 

 upon. Grand Luke, the largest of the chain, twenty-seven 

 miles long. Qut of this lake Hows the river from whose 

 banks we bad storied into the wilderness, with our pirogue 

 lashed upon ftDoreiuid's lumber-skd. We had "swung 

 round the Circle" of a hundred miles of forest, and were back 

 again close to dot Marling point. Ou Ihe hills across I he 

 lake were ihe " habitations of bread-eating men," the first 

 we had seeu for a week. Among them glistened the tinned 

 steeple of the village church. The hamlet seemed a cily to 

 our forest eyes. 



Wu paddle across the lake. The prow of the dug-out 

 grates ou the beach for the last time. I lake a plunge Into 

 the clear wilier, and wash the camp out of me. Then we 

 each shoulder a pack, bid good-bye to our tough little ship of 

 the forest and, striking into a woodland path, climb the 

 Eteep slope of the lake basin. 



As we emerge from the woods single file into a clearing, 

 whom should we Bee inowingin the stumpy field but Moreaud 

 the teamster? Since we left hiiu a week ago on the borders 

 of Beaver Pond we hsd not seen a human being. He 

 swings Ilia scythe with eyes bent on ihe ground and does 

 not sec us. Jim holds up the bear's bead and gives a growl. 



Moreaud jumps, then laughs heartily. "Aha!" he ex- 

 claims; "voila la bonne chance!" 



MIGRATION OF SHORE BIRDS. 



Navy Yakd, Boston, Mass., October 38. 

 Edit"/- Fortjt find Stream: 



I infer from Mr. llapgood's paper in your issue of October 

 20, that he thinks that the Limieulf migrate as a body from 

 their northern breeding grounds to South America, stopping 

 c uly at intervening grounds for for.d and rest for a few days. 

 That this is a mistake can be easily proven by passing a 

 winter on Hie coa-t of Florida or any of the other Gulf States. 

 The Coast Survey party to which I was attached, reached 

 Charlotte Harbor west coast of Florida, in January, 1880, and 

 remained there and im the coast until the latter part of May. 

 Lai lithe latter part of March great flocks of sand-pipers 

 could be seen ou every shoal and rial, and on the outer 

 beach on Ihe sand bars "exposed at low tide or during the 

 prevalence of an oJi'-s! ore wind. 



On the mud flats were lii'ge numbers of sickle-bills, wil- 

 lets, dough-birds, godwits, etc.. On one flat, in a short 

 time, I killed 54 sickle-bills, some dough-birds, and 

 some of the larger sand-pipers. In tbe early part of 

 April I killed one afternoon 115 dowitchers, and a 

 few days afterward 123 dowitchers, 2 sickle-bills, 3 

 dough-birds, 1 calico-back and 2 oyster-catchers. In May, 

 at 'I am pa Bay, I saw a great many sand-pipers, found some 

 eggs, and found a few blue- winged teal and little black-head 

 ducks. I could not get near enough to the sand-pipers to 

 identify them, but think they were either pusillus or minu- 

 tHhi. At Mosquito Inlet, on the east coast of Florida, I shot 

 a few willct ami gicy-backs, and saw large numbers in April. 

 TheKeys, or small islands hi low Key West, especially the 

 Mai quesas, afford fine feeding grounds and are frequented 

 by large ttocks of Lnnkohe, and a few roseate spoonbills In 

 the winter mouths. 1 have been told by officers that the 

 Texan, Mexican and Central American coasts are frequented 

 hy ao abundance of these birds in winter time. It seems 

 probable that large numbers of all of the Limiwla stop on 

 their southern flight and winter wherever they find, in warm 

 latitudes, good feeding grounds, which are not haunted by 

 man with the 1< cl mouthed and destructive shotgun. The 

 W indward Islands do not afford such good feeding grounds, 

 and are more shot over than the vast plains and mud flats of 

 South America. The physical conformation of Patagonia and 

 the Southern portion of South America is not such as to 

 make it bo faVOi I lea ground ei I for feeding or breed- 

 ing 8B the vast Hal i - h imps and level tracts of northern 

 ISorlh Ameiic i. Thai they do nflt breed during their south- 

 ern sojourn is supported by analogy, and by the absence of 

 "young of the year " when* they come back to us in the 

 spring. Some varaeVes Of the LtrMeiks breed in the United 

 Slates quiLG freely, and they probably did so, more or less, 

 before tue large game was lulled off and mau turned his 

 at leutii ai to them for food and sport. 



I urn of ihu opinion that the small yellow-legs (Totanus 

 jhiciprs) andthe jack-snipe {Trenga macutatd) breed along 

 "the Mississippi In Louisiana; for in April, 1879, I killed a 

 rid was told that they were " papabotte," 

 er and more delicious eating in July. 

 ght they stayed all summer and bred in 

 The yellow-legs, at the time I shot them, 

 . the jack-snipe solitary or mingled with 

 edges of the pools in the newly sowed 

 nisiana French call several birds of 

 ipabottp," I think, for the description 

 d only apply to a plover, 

 that I have only killed of the plover 

 tiudiug a great number of them in a 

 nd with a hundred or more Wilson's 

 killed at Key West 

 M. H. Simons. 



Coming from St. Louis to Chicago, several years ago, in 

 April, I was as much astonished as a man could be, by walk- 

 ing through a pigeon roost. Every acre of prairie land be- 

 tween the two cities was literally Bwarming wilh plover and 

 curlew. As far as I could see the ground was speckled with 

 millions upon millions of Ihem ; and this must have been 

 the case all over the prairie, for there is no reason wby they 

 shoidd have, collected along the railroad. 1 have seen a con- 

 tinuous flight of pigeons in Ohio for weeks, but 1 never had 

 such a conception of limitless numbers as thatllight of plover 

 gave me. They all seemed to bo resting quietly except 

 those that were flushed by the train. 



On another cecasion, at Providence, R. T., during a furi- 

 ous northeaster, about the 1st of September— the night being 

 so dark that nothing could be seeu — Ihe air seemed to be 

 alive wilh plover and snipe. I remained a long time outside 

 listening to their plaintive cads, but how long it was kept up 

 I cannot say. They seemed to be flying very low, and, 

 judging from their incessant clatter, they must have been as 

 " multitudinous" as they were on the prairie. 



I doubt whether their ranks are being decimated to Ihe ex- 

 tent that many suppose, but they are disturbed so much on 

 the feeding grounds along their route that I think most of 

 them take advantage of a northeaster when they can, and 

 pass by us in one night, only stopping at wild, uu frequented 

 marshes along tbe coast, where they are not molested. A 

 friend and myself killed over niuely yetlowlegs on the coast 

 of Maryland summer before last, in one day, and we could 

 have doubled that number ; but they will give that place, 

 also, the "cold shoulder" very soon. Didymus. 



■ cks 



large 



and were nwen 



My into mai I I 



theneigi br* 



were in small lb 

 the others around tl 

 rice fields. The 1 

 different varieties " 

 thai, one gave me CO 



I forgot ! a ti 



the Common kill-del 



flat, boggy piece of „_. 



snipe. 1 know, however, of plover bein 



and on tbe mainland during the winter. 



[The term " papabotte " is usually, wo believe, applied to 

 the P.arlntmian sand-piper ( UaHravda longicanda.)] 



New Tobk, Nov. 1, 

 Editor For. it and Stream l 



I think Mr. Hapgoud's article on tbe question of snipe 

 and plover migration carries it about as far as possible. I 

 found Ujciu in great numbers ou the southern coast of the 

 Caribbean Sea' very hue in winter, and it is probable that 

 they scatter over a vast, territory both north and south of 

 that to winter, but what motive' they could have for going 

 further 1 can't imagine. Wby should they cross the equator? 

 My belief ia that the birds seen in Patagonia go to that cold 

 regiQD 10 breed, and, when the propuga'ing business is over, 

 migrate toward l»C equator as our birds do, but; never cross 

 it, as the IcuqieraUiro is hot enough for them long before 

 they 'each it. 



They have good snipe r-hoo ing at lVrnatnbtteo and other 

 eei along Lhe South American coast, but if those birds 

 want'.d to get b/u e .ulci' quarters I bey would not be likely 

 touonie thousands of mile? noill: when I hey could find the 

 same by going a few hundreds of miles south. I must be- 

 that they Hy each win from the equator until we hive 

 proof to the contrary, which it will bo very difficult to gei. 



As to the course of OUT birds in migrating I laiow but 

 little, but from that little 1 infer u great dt-al. 



a little deeper to reach the pay dirt. Had more time, been 

 at our command we would have returned with a collection of 

 which we should have been really proud. 



FOOD OF THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS. 



IN lhe November number of the Caliprnian, Mr. B. B. 

 Redding has a very interesting article on the "California 

 Indians and Their Food," an extract from which we pub- 

 lished a few weeks since. His description of the manner in 

 which the Indians prepare their acorn meal will, no doubt, 

 be new to many of our readers, and we reprint it here : 



"The second night after we left Long Bar, we camped on 

 the banks of a small brook, in a vauey on the mountains 

 near Foster's Bar. In the morning we fouud that we were 

 near an Indian camp. Curious to learn their habits. I 

 watched the women preparing the morning meal. To ihe 

 bank of the brook they brought, in conical, water-tight 

 baskets, about two pecks of dried acorns. These 

 baskets, as I subsequently learned, are made from a trian- 

 gular grass, that grows in the water near the banks of moun- 

 tain streams, and are frequently ornamented in dark brown 

 patterns, with the outer fiber taken from the stems of a fern, 

 adianium, found in great abundance at high elevations in 

 our mountains. The acorns were evidently of the growth 

 of a previous year, as they were thoroughly dry. I have 

 since found that, when readily obtained, the California In- 

 dians preferred the acorns from (<). c/irt/sokpis and Q. lobala, 

 perhaps because large, and yielding a greater supply of food 

 than most of the other oaks. 



"One of the women, sealing herself on a ledge of reck, 

 commenced shelling the acorns,- which she did with great ra- 

 pidity. An acorn was held with the point upward by the 

 thumb and first finger of the left baud. A slight blow "with 

 a small bowlder in tbe other hand readily freed the kernel 

 from the shell. The kernels .were thrown into a basket ; 

 when sufficient had been collected, they were carried to a 

 pot-hole in the ledge, which probably had originally been 

 made by the action of the water in whirling a bowlder. Here 

 they were powdered into fine meal, or flour, with one of the 

 stone pestles, which are so frequently turned up by the plow 

 in all parts of California. Upon arriving at the ledge, which 

 w T as near our camping-place, the first thiug the women did 

 was to build a brisk fire, in which they placed small bowl- 

 ders gathered from the brook. When sufficient acorn-meal 

 had been powdered for their breakfast, a conical hole was 

 made in tbe dry sand on the shore of the brook, into whicli 

 the acorn-meal was poured. It was first thoroughly sat urate. 1 

 with cold water from the brook, then one of the bask its was 

 filled with water and set in a depression in the ground, the 

 hot rocks were raked out. of the fire and thrown into the bas- 

 ket until the water boiled. This boiling water was carefully 

 poured over the meal in the sand, until all parts of the meal 

 were saturated. I concluded that the co!d and scalding 

 water acted the double purpose of cooking the food and 

 leaching out the bitter tannin. 



"When sufficiently cooked, it was eaten without being 

 removed from the sand; all squatted on the ground and 

 helped themselves, by stirring with the first two lingers, until 

 a mouthlnl was collected, when it was transferred. A few 

 years afterward, iron pots and kettles became so plentiful 

 "that this system of cooking was abandoned. 



"Many of the tribes near the southern coast used pots 

 made of soapstone. The quarry from which this was ob- 

 tained is found on one of the islands in the Santa Barbara 

 channel. Mr. Paul Schumacher, of the Smithsonian, has 

 given a description of this quarry, and of the mode in which 

 these pots were patiently quarried out with stouc knives and 

 scrapers. At some remote period, there must have been 

 quite a trade or system of exchange between the coast and 

 interior tribes; for I have found broken pots made from this 

 soapstone in graves as far north as lhe islands in the southern 

 part of Tulare Lake. Some of these pots were made so 

 large that they would contain three or four gallons of water. 

 Their shape was nearly that of an ordinary iron pot. A 

 broken fragment of one that I found at Atwell's Island, in 

 Tulare Lake, showed that it had been quarried so that tbe 

 mouth flared out, thus enabling it to hold a cover. 



"One of these pots, uninjured and capable of holding 

 about two gallons, was recently taken from a urouud near 

 the town of Tulare." 



A few years since it was our fortune to spend a few months 

 in Southern California not far from Santa Barbara, and be- 

 ing fully aware of the ethnological value of the stone imple- 

 ments pxisting in the mounds which marked the ancient 

 burial places of the aborigines, we devoted some time and 

 money to searching for them. 



The collection which we then made was, though not a large 

 one, very typical. It consisted of a. number of mortars of 

 basalt and smdstone, pestles, dllas or sandstone and lap- 

 Stone, the only cooking pot with handles that we have ever 

 heard of, pipes and cups of serpentine, fish hooks of abelone 

 shell, small pestles and mortars for mixing paint, flint knives 

 and arrowheads, beads of various shapes and s : zes, abelone 

 shells for holding paint and others used as dishes, with a num- 

 ber of bones of the former owners of these utensils. 



Tbe search for these articles was most, hue;'.:.- 

 we sunk our prospect holes in one place ami anno ei 

 site of the ancient villages our feelings were akin to those of 

 the gold miner who has struck the color, and only has to go 



BRAVE. 



A FORMER teacher of mine, then and now president of 

 a celebra'ed institute of learning, sought most earnestly 

 to convince me, during recitation in mental philosophy, when 

 the subject was under consideration, that, animals have no 

 faculty at all similar to memory or reason in the human 

 species. 



Once when there had been considerable discission in the 

 class, I attempted to relate an occurrence tending to show 

 that my horse did have a memory, but the good Doctor ex- 

 claimed wilh more than his usual positiveness: "I tell you, 

 sir, an animal never remembers." He then explained, not to 

 my satisfaction, however, that the reason why a horse would 

 take the road over which it had once traveled in preference 

 to a strange one, or manifest fear at a place where it had 

 previously been frightened, etc., was "animal instinct 

 awakened by the law of association." 



At another time when I related an incident which showed 

 something wonderfully like reason on the part of a dog. the 

 Doctor broadly intimated that if a puppy did reason it 

 was because nature had mada a mistake in the number of Ida 

 legs. 



I do not propose in this article to argue the question of 

 memory or reason in animals, only by the relation, of a few 

 facts which have come under my personal observation, and 

 which may prove interesting to those who, like myself, have 

 a special fondness for the canine race. 



When I was fourteen years old, and living near the 6ea 

 coast, in Maine, I became the happy owner of a dog. He 

 was a genial, winsome fellow, a mongrel in breed, black, 

 wilh shades of buff over his eyes and on his breast, and 

 weighing, when he reached his full stature, about forty 

 pouuds, and courageous even to rashness. Iu consequence 

 of this last characteristic I named him Brave. 



When Brave was ayear old I went to live in a wild, moun- 

 tain Sua country town in New Hampshire, and of course my 

 dog went with me. 'Coons, foxes, hedgehogs, partridges 

 and squirrels' were plenty, while occasionally a hear or wild- 

 cat would make sad havoc in the sheep pen or poultry yard. 

 Brave and I soon developed a perfect passion for hunting, 

 and many days and nights we spent in the grand old woods. 

 I have said that hedgehogs were plenty, and as Brave 

 would unhesitatingly pounce upon any creature he came 

 across in the woods (there were two exceptions after a while), 

 I was not surprised when one evening he came to me with 

 his mouth and head bristling with hedgehog quills. 

 of them penetrated his head nearly half au inch, and it re- 

 quired all my strength, with a pair of pincors, to remove 

 them. Could you have seen how still he held himself dur- 

 ing the operation, and how careful to place himself iu the 

 most advantageous position, and witnessed his demonstra- 

 tions of thankfulness when at last he was free from their sting, 

 you would have thought his "instinct " something wonder- . 

 ful. 



That he remembered this experience, and, in consequence, 

 exhibited something wonderfully like reason, the following 

 incident will show. 



Some weeks after the quill experience, Brave and I started 

 out for a hunt. We had gone perhaps half a mile into the 

 woods, when, away to my right, I heard him give voice. 

 Ruuning a hundred rods or so, guided by his bark, I saw 

 him chasing an unusually large hedgehog. I halted when I 

 saw what he was after, and wailed for developments. 



Brave made no direct attact upon the beast, but contented 

 himself with keeping about six feet in the rear and giving 

 vent to occasional yelps which seemed to express both hatred 

 and disgust. 



The hog was making, with its lumbering gait, for a large 

 hemlock tree, and reaching it, commenced Fo claw his way 

 upward. 



Brave waited until the hog was some four feet from (be 

 ground, and then, making a spring, seized him by one hind- 

 leg (a hedgehog's legs to the kucc arc devoid ol quills; and 

 yanked him to the ground, but so dexterously that not a quill 

 touched him. Three times I witnessed tills operation, and 

 then, showing myself, bade the dog let the creature alone, 

 and, allowing it to climb high up the tree, brought il down 

 with my gun. 



For two years we waged a war of extermination upon 

 these pests of the corn-fioid, but Brave's wonderful in-: 

 (?) preserved him from quill torture. 



That Brave understood more than the ordinary dog talk I 

 am prepared to assert and prove. 



While liviug in New Hampshire I had a brother residing 

 four miles away, and when I wished to Communicate with 

 hiui, I would write a letter, call Brave and attach the letter 

 to his neck, and tell him to go to Jacob. Off be would go 

 at railroad speed, and, reaching the house, bark for admission 

 or bound in through an open door or window, manage in 

 some way to call attention to bis trust, go to the pantry and 

 by the wag of his tail ask for payment in rations, and, upon 

 riceiving an answer to the letter, come directly back to me s 

 Resting at my feet after such a trip his eyes would indicate 

 more intelligence than I have seeu in many human faces. 



Obedient to my command he would go to any part of the 

 farm, and wee to the creature he found trespassing upon for- 

 bidden ground. 



I remember one incident which demonstrated that he had 

 a remarkable understanding of the English language, or 

 profited by the experience of a disagreeable odor, "lie came 

 sneaking to me once, acting as though he bad taken an emetic, 

 and fairly loaded down with the perfume of the skunk. 



I scolded him sharply for getting into such a fix, and told 

 him, among other things, iliat if he couldn't kill skunks 

 without getting his clothing scented in that way to let them 

 alone. A few days after I was in the pasture with him, and 

 saw him crawling along with all the stcaltbiness of a cat, his 

 ears erect and bis lips parted exposing his teeth ; at tl 

 moment I saw that the cause of ibis mameuvre was a skunk. 

 digging for mice, and totally unconscious of approaching 

 danger. brave drew himself cautiously along until within a 

 few feet of the essence peddler, and then, giving a tremei - 

 dous spring, seized his Jkunksbip by the neck, andg ■ .. ■ 

 snip aad shake, dropped il and, springing quiekiy away, 

 came bounding back 60 me with yelps of satisfaction, leaving 

 tha skunk dead. 



Me was nev.r known p, get -'rented lip afterward. Wooil- 



'■'. acta he con lidered bis especial prey, and would even visit 

 ig farms hunting for them. If be got one into a 

 hole where; in consequence of rocks or mots, he could not 

 dig it out, be would hide himself a short distance away and 

 patiently wail, for Hie creature to come out ; and will 



