Jakuart 5, 18831 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



447 



gUztural W¥° r U> 



SOMETHING- ABOUT WOLVES. 



U- 



' TYEEN camping out among the bears and wolves," 

 \> was the rejnaik of ray yourg friend and sports- 

 man, Hill S^kea, who hud just returned from a two weeks' 

 enuse in the mountain range. 



Ah, glad to see you again, if you have had a tussle with 

 the critters and come off with a whole skin and — 



" Hold on, there, you know as well as 1 that I never saw 

 a wolf, nor more than one bear, which was chained to a post 

 aud kept walking back and forth, and came as near perpet- 

 ual motion as any thing 1 ever saw. Come, now.you old ante- 

 diluvian, sit clown and tell me something of the nature and 

 habits of wolves, not Ihose little nasty prairie wolves, them 

 I have seen. But; it is of the big gray wolf that I wish to 

 know. N'ow, if 1 bad lived in the days of my great-grand- 

 father Sykes 1 should— " 



Yes, yes, if you had lived in the days of your great- 

 grandfather yon wouhfhave known more about wolves than 

 you do now. I knew old Sykes right well when 1 was a 

 boy. He caught wolves when ttie scalps brought $60 bounty 

 each, and he accumulated more money than 1 ever knew 

 any other Sykes to do since, and paid the whole amount for 

 a large tract of land which in after years became very valu- 

 able. Yet after living twenty years, as I might say, among 

 the wolves, I was hardly able to learn the habits of 

 the animal. They breed but .once in a year and from four 

 to six puppies lire produced at a birth. The young are born 

 about the first of April. The whelps when six or eight 

 weeks eld have a thick coat of woolly hair of a dark brown- 

 ish or dun color ; and their looks and actions are much like 

 dull, lazy puppies, while the full-grown wolf does not very 

 closely resemble the dog either in appeajauce or actions. I 

 knew an old she wolf to litter in one hollow log three years 

 in success! oft. She was robbed other cubs about the first 

 days of June in each year, the old wolf generally keeping 

 out of gunshot distance, even while being robbed of her 

 young. There are comparatively few wolves killed by gun- 

 shots. Instinct seems to have taught them the potency 

 of firearm:?. When they are shot, as sometimes happens, 

 they arc almost sure to escape unless broken down or struck 

 in some vital pan. I once followed a wounded wolf for 

 days when it seemed to me that every drop of blood had run 

 out .of him; and the second day of the chase I thought he 

 ran all the better for tbe bleeding. 



The wolf is rather cowardly, and would generally prefer 

 to run from a dog rather than fight;. But he is a powerful 

 fighter when he does fight. Notwithstanding some reports 

 to the contrary, I believe that there never was a dog that 

 could master a full-grown wolf. There are few dogs that 

 will attempt to fight a wolf, and when they do they are 

 badly cut up if not killed outright. The bite of a wolf is 

 not; like the bulldog grip, but is a succession of snaps, which 

 are about as quick as lightning. The wolf leaps back and 

 forth over the dog, his jfl vs snapping like a steeltrap, and 

 the dog is cut upas with knives in less time than it takes to 

 write it. Wolves will occasionally run down a deer, but it 

 is a rare thing that they hunt that way. They have a more 

 easy method, which'is to get on the windward side of the 

 deer while lying in his bed and creep up cat-like and pounce 

 on him before he fairly makes the first bound, as bus been 

 i i\!|'ieu'ly ascertained by the tracks in the snow. Wolves 

 Were more often caught in steel traps than any other way ; 

 but it requires great skill and patience to succeed in trapping 

 them, as they are shy aud wary. The wolf is not going to 

 run into any pens or deadfalls, nor slip his neck into any noose 

 or snare. 



1 have seen two animals, the progeny of a cross between 

 the dog and the wolf. They were ill-looking nondescripts, 

 Which were neither wolves nor dogs; and were the must 

 'vicious, surly, ill-natured brnteB I ever saw. It became 

 necessary to keep them chained before they were fully 

 grown: and they proved a decided failure toward improv- 

 ing the bret d of either wolf or dog. 



The dismal howl of the wolf is what we often sec written and 

 often hear quoted; but 1 contend that there is nothing dis- 

 mal about; it. I would be willing to travel some distance to 

 hear a concert gotten up by a half-dozen wolves. Not that 

 1 claim any very swi et melody for tbe sounds except that 

 they would bring back to my memory pleasant reminiscences 

 of other days. 



The wolf, like the Indian, is fast disappearing before the 

 march of civilization, and we may safely predict that at no 

 very remote period they will be counted among the extinct 

 races. Antlek. 



J'iiuy Falls, Term., Dec. 37. 



THE DIVINING BOD. 



MAINTAINS OF SOUTHEHN KlSNTUORi, Dt'C. 10, 1831. 



IT was by a curious eohufidence that not a week before 

 reading ray FSebLst WSD Sthkam of Dec. 1, in same col- 

 umn of which 1 lound allusions to divining rods and si ip- 

 poSed relations bet ween beechnut crops and winters — tbe only 

 instances uf those identical items which came under my im- 

 mediate Cognizance— bad been discussed. A night spent 

 with an old friend took me off my accustomed route to our 

 county town and pa«t the spot where I bad seen the water- 

 wizard's manipulations of his rod, This was so vividly im- 

 pressed upon raj boyfeh memory that after a lapse of thirty 

 years I located the well (now 'tilled), though the house had 

 Oeen removed and tluj road changed. Arrived at town t met 

 my old schoolmate and boy confidant, now living n, I 

 it-niueky. who, while an a visit to me in July, 1880, di 

 ici td my attention to tbe rcmarkablj heavy beech crop, and 

 after informing me lhaH ccrtaio native of the mountains 

 bad .i few days before t .id him that suob a crop always fore- 

 bodes a "bard winter." added; "N.w, let's remember and 

 watch that " The winter of '$Qr'81 finds no counterpart in 

 . oi the memory of the oldest observer, 



Dr. Mcminn observes that mild winters are apt to follow 

 good beechnut years iu New Yoik. J he reverse obtains 

 hero, 



JJoip-'llA retain an abiding faith iu Ihe approximate infalli- 

 bility of the divining rod iu locating the meaftdwrings of sub- 

 oi an streams, Bud no belfevet doubts that volume, 



cans.', depth, confluence and divergence can be accurately 



L let. o tied i.y tbe aid of the rod in peculiarly gifted hands. 

 it is averred that the bark has heeit wrenched from the di- 

 vining rod, jo particularly gifted bands, wjien croMng the 

 course of subterranean torrents, and sudden ami viob in dips 

 of the switch have piocltomtd underground riyeie. lam 



not positive aa to accuracy of memory in associating the in- 

 troduction of water-witching with the time that spiritualistic 

 phenomena were so intensel. absorbing a theme in our com- 

 munity, but remember we'l that about the time the Foxes 

 were so interestingly notorious, developments of mediumis- 

 tic gifts with tne rod were scarcely a secondary amazement 

 la this famously spring'watered country, wells and cisterns 

 are few, and he is thought rash who essays a well without 

 appeal to the water-wizard's Tod. Professional well-diggers 

 wielded the wand in my boyhood, but principally amateurs 

 cultivate the art now. A peach-tree twig, three to four feet 

 long, and straight, used in one hand by some, forked and a 

 prong held in each hand by others, was the popular wood 

 when the practice was in its glory a score and a half of years 

 ago, 



1 suppose I was ten years of age when I visiled the farmer, 

 for whom a water-wizard was at the time digging a well on 

 contract — ho water no pay, but board whether or no. The 

 peach-tree twig, forked and held in both hands, had located 

 the confluence of two strong streams, at a certain depth, in 

 the most, convenient hollow, so far below which the old gen- 

 tleman bad tediously blasted his way through exasperating 

 strata of limestone that he made daily appeals to the rod in 

 hope of new revelations, or detection of some miscalcula- 

 tion. After showing me the persistent hut deceptive move- 

 ments of the rod, ho placed it in my hands for trial, lly 

 recollection is that I was led in his courses, and that I 

 agreed that his interpretations of indications were in perfect 

 accord with mine. A. gentleman who has lived on an ad- 

 joining farm for more than forty years told me that the hole 

 was abandoned, filled, and a spring half a mile away is still 

 the dependence of that farm house, no owner having had the 

 enterprise to dig a cistern. My observation has been that to- 

 pography is a prime motor with all operators left to their 

 dfectution— a natural fallacy, in view of the illiteracy of the 

 average wizard. 



Some years ago a charlatan gravitated into our neighbor- 

 hood, in whose hands the divining rod perfoimed such won- 

 ders in tbe detection of coins concealed within prescribed 

 bounds that many believed him gifted as were Pharaoh's 

 magicians ; and he had a soft time sponging his board and a 

 few dollars, till a skeptical old fanner, in discussing his abil- 

 ities, led him to a climax from which he could not decline a 

 proposed wager without virtually confessing himself an im- 

 postor. The old gentleman was to conceal a half-dollar In a 

 field of growing corn, within agreed limits, which, by aid of 

 the divining rod, the wizard was to find on first trial. He 

 was accurately led iu the old man's very distinct foststeps 

 till a sudden deflection of the treacherous rod— where the 

 keen eyes of the rascal discovered a very slight disturbance 

 of thesurface — led the unsuspecting to exclaim: " Here it is." 

 But it was not there ; nor could repeated efforts locate it, so 

 skillfully had the old man concealed the coin and "set his 

 traps." That was the last performance of that magiciau iu 

 that locality. 



A neighbor began building a new house last spring, near a 

 point where one of our popular amateurs had located a strong, 

 superficial stream, in the bottom, and so sttong was his faith 

 that he sold off that portion of his farm on which was the 

 house and surroundings and pushed the new house up much 

 faster than he did the well down. Results After digging 

 much below the indicated depth aud drilling four feet deeper, 

 without sign of anything to drink, be availed himself of a 

 lucky chance to sell out, and invested in a perpetual spring, 

 of which he had some knowledge. 



I know of no statistics by which conclusions can be reached 

 as to the comparative materials and modes adopted by the 

 water-wizards, and comparisons made of successes and fail- 

 ures, but there is a preponderance of failures in this lime- 

 stone region. Some persevering individuals, confident of 

 water at insignificant depths, in their disappointments have 

 obstinately pushed on till artesian depths, coupled with pe- 

 cuniary stress and insufficiency of human power to run the 

 hofstjng apparatus, constrained suspension of operations. 

 Allusions to water-witchery is all-sufficient in most such in- 

 stances to earn a cordial " cussiu' " or thrashing. In the 

 more favored part of Kentucky faith in the divining rod is 

 extinct, and the party who decides upon a well selects a point 

 m si convenient to the cook-room, and puts a well-borer to 

 work, though tbe nearest alluvium is ten thousand feet below 

 bis site. Kentixkian. 



Pout Royal, Tenn. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In the Fobbst aud Btbeam of Dec. 1, I notice an article, 

 headed " The Divining Rod." Evidently the writer of the 

 article thinks the divining rod a delusion and a humbug. 

 Rhabdomancy is no more a humbug thau the science of 

 mathematics, aud can be as clearly and satisfactorily demon- 

 strated. I can show you several men down hi re who can 

 convince the most skeptical that the rod is not a fraud. I 

 can show you a man who can not only locate underground 

 stream- with the rod, but will manipulate the rod in such a 

 way that it will point as unerringly and indicate the direc- 

 tion that underground streams flow as the mariner's compass 

 points toward the north. The divining rod is no more of a 

 humbug than the m riner's compass. "All risers oid creeks 

 aiefed by small underground sire ms, but there are no sur- 

 face indicatioi s of their existence. Now, 1 know a man 

 who, with a rod, can find every underground stream that 

 flows into a surface stream. You might set him down iu 

 California, or any strange place, might lose him in the 

 " continuous woods where rolls ihe Oregon, and hears no 

 sound save its wave dashit.gs," and he w odd find every 

 underground stream in the neighborhood and trace ib m 

 from source to mouth. I have seen hiui do that very thing- 

 have seen him put to the severest test by skeptics, and he 

 never failed in a single instance to demonstrate clearly and 

 unmistakably that the rod is nut a fraud. Carry hirn to a 

 well, and in an instant he will show you the direction the 

 stream flows that sustains the well, and the side on which it 

 the well. Carry him within, say, a quarter of a 

 1 1 _, i ' ._■ ; : spring that "be knows not of,"and with the rod he 

 will find it. Where his rod indicates that, there is water, dig 

 aud you will find it. 1 sit now within a few bundled > arris 

 of two never railing wells that his unerring rod lot ted 

 When people want w iter iielow the surface they scud for 

 him. He never fails to find it. My father once put a rod 

 man toa severe test. Tic claimed that with his rod he could 

 locate deposits. if precious metals as well as water. My 

 father thought him aud his rod a fraud. He th audit he 

 WOU d lest him. lie said to htm, " Phase walk with me to 

 my business house and work your rod, and see if y m can 

 fii. d water;" Now. the road leading lo my father's house 

 ran parallel with a creek for some distance, and he knew pf 

 the existena Esevera dergrpund streams that crossed the 

 road aud ran into the creek, and he wanted to see if the iod 



would indicate them. He found every stream and traced 

 them to the water's edge, lie could not have been guid-d 

 by surface indications, for there were none ; for at the time 

 the creek was flooded, and the streams flowed beneath the 

 surface. My father is now a bel ever in the rod. Some 

 years ago a certain journal in our State discussed the rod 

 question quite elabora'ely^'o and (ton Correspondents had 

 it up and down. The rod men offered to bet large sums of 

 money nn the rod. The anti-rod men would cry "fraud," 

 •'humbug" and "delusion," but did not dare come to the 

 scratch with money. Then Ihe editor came out and said the 

 "who e thing was a fraud and a delusion." But, remember, 

 I he editor was a pompous, conceited individual, with A. M., 

 Ph. D. stuck to his name, and had learned and forgotten 

 more, than the balance of mankind knows Because tbey do 

 not know the whys and wherefores iu regard lo the workings 

 of the rod, many people are ready to cry "humbug." Does 

 any one know why the needle points unerringly toward the 

 North Pole and guides the mariner across the trackless 

 ocean? There must be a cause, and when we see the effect 

 must we vote it a humbug because we do not know the 

 cause? Effects are more obvious than causes. Ignorant 

 people contend that the science of astronomy is a humbug 

 and a delusion. Can it not be easily demonstrated? It can. 

 So can rhabdomancy. Biboo. 



THE SNOW GOOSE AND BLUE GOOSE. 



Philadelphia, Pa, 



Editor Forest and Stream .' 



I have read Mr. Dutcher's communication to you in refer- 

 ence to the snow goose (A a.vrr hyperboreus) and the blue 

 goose (A nsep emnilencens) in last number of your journal. I 

 am quite sure an examination of adult and young eprcimens 

 of both will convince one that they are an entirely different 

 species. I have to-day visited our Academy of Natural 

 Sciences in Philadelphia, and last week the Smithsonian 

 collection at Washington, and find the full plumaged adult 

 bird of A. hyperboreus is no larger than specimens of the 

 young of the same species, yet the latter is of entirely different 

 color, being of a dull bluish or pale lead color, while the 

 young of A oaru'cticens is mnch smaller, and has the bill 

 shorter and tbe laminae les3 prominent. In color I find the 

 latter darker and of a more solid shade than the young of 

 A. hyperborem—gr&dusXly, as it grows older, assuming the 

 brown hue and a'taining the white head and rusty markings 

 of the parent bird — while the youag of A. liyperhortm 

 changes from its bluish or pale-lead colored markings as it 

 grows older to the lighter hue, and at last dons the snowy 

 plumage of the full feathered fowl. 



Prof. Elliot Coues informs me he deems the species un- 

 doubtedly distinct. Prof. Baud likewise inclines to the 

 same belief, and my friend, Mr. Spencer Trotter, writes me : 

 " Cmrulemem is certainly a distinct species from Tlyperborem, 

 From specimens 1 have examined in the collection of the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, the blue goose 

 was apparently smaller and very differently marked than the 

 young of the snow goose." It has struck the writer, in his 

 examination of specimens of the Anser family of this conti- 

 nent, tint very possibly some of the varieties which now 

 exist and have become numerous, and bear marked pecu- 

 liarities of plumage, maybe prolific crosses of older known 

 species. Without venturing an opinion, it struck me that a 

 full plumaged blue goose would tie just what the result of 

 a cross between Artscralbifrons and Anser hyperfmreitssliO'OlA 

 be. 



I will take this opportunity of stating to Sir. Dutcher that 

 the bodies of snow geese that yearly appear in Delaware 

 Bay make, their appearance in tbe spring, and not in autumn, 

 although occasionally a stray bird is killed In the fall and 

 winter, 



Another variety of the snow goose exists which should not 

 be confounded with A. hyperborevs. It is named hy Cassin 

 Anser albaius. and is much smaller and more delicitely 

 outlined than the first named. Tbey are plumaged alike in 

 every respect, save that in the smaller variety the rusty head 

 markings are seldom as distinct as in the larger; in fact, 

 adult birds are often found without it. 



Since writing the above I would mention that I met John 

 McCullum, one of the market shooters who has posted him- 

 self as to the habits of the snow g lose, and he told me that 

 winter before last (it was a remarkably open one, it will be 

 remembered) the bodies of snow g*-ese remained in Delaware 

 Bay, below Bombay (look, until sp ing, and that they are 

 there n w. Daniel Weds, a professional gunner, well and 

 favorably known lo all Philade phians, is at Bombay Hook 

 at this writing, in charge of Mr. Ghas. Matthews' yacht, and 

 so reports the news of the presence of the snow geese. 

 McCullum is about going down the river, and could readily 

 procure for Mr. Dutcher all the specimens desired. Using 

 Mc'Jml urn's words, "The geese nre not all of one color. 

 Some arc pure white, with red bills and feet, and black tips 

 to their wings, and russet colored beads ; and some are of a 

 light gray, with black bills and feet." Doubtless there are 

 many grades of plumage in these fl cks at Bombay Hook, 

 ■i an ipportuuity now pres nts itself for collectors who 

 w u specimens. A letter addressed to John McCullum, 

 1 John Krider, Second and Walnut streets, Philadel- 

 phia, will reach him. 



I whs not aware that the snow goose appeared on our bay 

 excepting with spring, and have so wri"en it, but the infor- 

 mation received to-day assures me tf e fowl is now a regular 

 Spring and autumn resident, and that in mild and op. n win- 

 ters i Ley rera.do wi'h us until breeding season, when they 

 move to more northern r. gions. The attraction seems to he 

 the immense meadows which border the lower Delaware 

 River and Upper H y, in which they fe. d; and from the fact 

 that Ihey have not been molested owing to an ignorance re- 

 garding their merit as a food, and a consequent slow se 



the poulterer's, it is safe, to supp se their numbers 

 gradually increased. It may be that among them the 

 i ■ . , .. ■ ■ / is and possibly the.), albifronx ran be fmind. 

 C. S. Westooit. 



Zoological Society of Pnir adei.piua.— Editor Forest 

 ream: I was under the impression that tbewaiitof 

 identity between the bhif- 



and the suow goose (A. hyp.) bore"*) bad been clearly 

 settled, but. H, agajij raised in your oor- 



. t oe col mm of tuSt week. Pi rn si me ro Bay that in 

 ,s ptember, 1375, the Zoological S cicty procured 

 - - tens of the former Species in itdui plumage. Bevenof 

 • iese geese are stid living, and have sii >wn no changes 

 teept possibly that the dark coloring lies become 

 ..ignily intensified. I cannot 6peak from personal obaerva- 



