THE GAME BREEDER 



51 



down stairs to get a rake. Father was no 

 slouch with the rifle and at the crack of 

 the rifle I made a rush with the rake and 

 secured the turtle. 



After chopping off its head I cut open 

 the mouth and discovered that what I 

 supposed was a white grub was its 

 tongue. The rifle ball had gone through 

 its head and nearly severed the tongue. 



The Owl as a Fish Enemy. 



The aforesaid incident also calls to 

 mind another case wherein an acquaint- 

 ance of mine who had a nice trout pond 

 began missing some of his largest speci- 

 mens. He told me that mink were rais- 

 ing havoc with. his trout and wished me 

 to help him out of his difficulty. At the 

 upper end of the pond was a precipice 

 of rocks formed against a steep bank. 

 The water from a spring trickling over 

 the edge of the rocks formed a little 

 pool at the base 5 or 6 inches deep, with 

 a little neck of water 3 or 4 inches deep 

 connecting with the pond a distance of 

 about 3 feet. In this little neck or pas- 

 sage I placed a No. 1^ Newhouse trap 

 as a blind set. Tlie next morning in 

 looking at my trap I found an owl 

 caught by both legs and between the 

 legs lengthwise of the jaws of the trap a 

 trout of nearly three-fourths of a pound 

 weight. The owl evidently was perched 

 on the rocks and pounced on the trout 

 just as it was passing over the trap in 

 search of cold spring water. 



M. J. Newhouse. 



With best wishes which include your 

 success in providing outdoor sport and 

 game dinners for everybody, I am, 

 Yours sincerely, 



Allen S. Williams. 

 New York. 



[The editor appreciates the honor. Re- 

 cently he has been made an honorary member 

 of some new Game Breeding Associations 

 and clubs and he contemplates visiting many 

 of these places to sample the shooting.] 



Snakes. 



The Game Breeder: 



Snakes have certainly broken into good 

 society in the pages of The Game 

 Breeder. I enclose a bit of copy as an 

 additional communication. 



By virtue of the enclosed you are a 

 life member of the Reptile Study So- 

 ciety. This honor is deserved because 

 you have been helping to let in the light 

 on obscure Ophidian manners and 

 morals. 



I am spending this summer, as usual, 

 lecturing at camps for boys and girls 

 in ten States about reptiles and other 

 zoological subjects. 



Siberian Hares and Advertising. 



We are pleased to observe that the 

 Siberian Hare Company advertise a 

 guarantee. 



We have received letters asking if the 

 magazine guaranteed its advertising. We 

 use great care in receiving advertisements 

 and we have refused to publish them in 

 some cases. The cases of advertisers 

 who do not deal fairly with our readers 

 are referred to our game guild, which 

 disposes of controversies. He receives 

 a letter stating the complaint and if 

 found in the wrong his advertisement 

 will no longer appear. Most of the cases 

 passed on have been settled satisfactorily. 



« 



Snakes. 



Editor The Game Breeder: 



It is a very nice little symposium that 

 is permeating the pages of The Game 

 Breeder as a result of my communication 

 about North American species of ser- 

 I^ents, and all the contributions have been 

 interesting. I am not ready to believe 

 with Mr. Oscar S. Weed, of North Rose, 

 N. Y., that blacksnakes and water snakes 

 should be classed with the rattler and 

 copperhead because as Mr. Weed says, he 

 believes "they kill more edible fish than 

 all the fishermen in this section." Rattle- 

 snakes and copperheads are not anglers, 

 of course, and Mr. Weed probably does 

 not mean that they are. The Banded 

 Water Snake, Matrix fasciata sipedon, 

 the only water snake in New York 

 State, of course, is an ichthyophagus 

 creature, although his main diet is frogs, 

 and possibly some of the remains of fish 

 found by Mr. Weed belonged to slower 

 moving species than brook trout. 



The Buckeye Blacksnake, described by 



