NATURAL HISTORY. 



139 



should be pleased to correspond with other 

 coon hunters who are readers of Recrea- 

 tion. 



H. J. Klotzbach, Girard, Iowa. 



I notice an article in Recreation writ- 

 ten by F. W. Allard, Atlanta, Georgia, 

 who says coons make no noise. He is mis- 

 taken. They make a noise similar to that 

 of the red owl, but a great deal louder. 

 On a still evening they can be heard a 

 mile at least. I have heard raccoons in cap- 

 tivity chattering. When in a fight they 

 make a noise much like that made by a 

 shepherd dog. I have a coon in captivity 

 at present, caught March 9, 1902. March 

 nth, at 8 o'clock, he made the noise de- 

 scribed above. I was an ear witness, and 

 there were others. 



S. R. Covert, Fayette, N. Y. 



I have read with interest in your valua- 

 ble magazine the article by M. H. Douglas 

 on coon chatter. I agree with him fully. I 

 have a friend who has 2 pet coons that 

 chatter and screech a great deal, but I have 

 recently been told by an old hunter that a 

 coon never screeches or chatters unless in- 

 terfered with by some other animal. 



I have been a regular reader of Recrea- 

 tion more than 2 years and would not 

 miss a copy for 5 times the cost. 



Herbert S. Berry, Saco, Maine. 



GREY SQUIRRELS SHOULD HAVE THEIR 

 CORN. 



I saw in January Recreation 2 articles 

 by you about protecting grey and fox squir- 

 rels. If you lived where they were thick 

 and on a farm you would perhaps change 

 your mind. Here in Southern Minnesota 

 squirrels are numerous, and are not in the 

 thick timber, but in groves of one to 10 

 acres in extent and are generally near farm 

 buildings. That is why the farmers in this 

 part of the country want the squirrels 

 killed. A squirrel will go to a farmer's 

 corn crib, take an ear of corn in his mouth, 

 run off with it and hide it, then come back 

 after more, and keep on until he has a 

 bushel or more stored away. Where there 

 are many squirrels it counts up fast, and 

 means something to the farmer, especially 

 when corn is 50 cents a bushel, as it was 

 this year. 



I buy Recreation every month at the 

 news stand and like it very much. We 

 have a few game hogs here, the kind that 

 kill 25 or 30 rabbits and give half of them 

 to their cats and dogs. I have seen that 

 done more than once. 



F. E. Williams, Spring Valley, Minn. 



I am sure you have been misinformed 

 about the work of squirrels. I was born 

 and raised on a farm in the West, and have 

 b?en among squirrels more or less all my 



life. I have lived in different sections of 

 the country at different times, where they 

 were abundant, and have studied their 

 habits closely. I have never yet seen a 

 grey squirrel carry away an ear of corn, 

 nor have 1 ever heard of it before. I have 

 often known the grey squirrel to go into 

 a corn field and make a meal of an ear of 

 corn. It is possible he may carry away a 

 few Kernels and deposit them in his den 

 in some tree, but a whole ear of corn? I 

 doubt it seriously. Has any other reader 

 of Recreation ever seen a squirrel carry 

 away an ear of. corn? Mr. Williams says the 

 squirrel keeps on carrying ears of corn un- 

 til he has a bushel or more stored away. 

 This is simply absurd. I have investigated 

 many squirrels' winter cache and have 

 never yet found one that contained a quart 

 of food. All species of squirrels hibernate 

 more or less through the winter and do 

 little eating. They are not such gluttons 

 as to store 10 or 20 times as much food for 

 the winter as they can eat within that time. 

 — Editor. 



WRENS FIGHT SPARROWS. 



In looking over the natural history de- 

 partment of February Recreation, I noticed 

 an article about the sparrow not being the 

 only feathered fighter. Last summer I 

 made a bird house out of a starch box and 

 nailed it to a tree near our woodshed. A 

 wren soon came and built in it, and I 

 could watch the bird from the window in 

 the shed. Of course the sparrows tried 

 to drive the wren out, but the wren is able 

 to handle sparrows. When the wren went 

 away the sparrows went to the house 

 and started to pull the sticks out. The 

 wren soon found a way to stop this, which 

 was to put a lot of sticks squarely across 

 the doorway until the hole was too small 

 for the sparrows to get in. Then if the 

 sparrows tried to pull these sticks out 

 the ends caught on either side of the door- 

 way and held them in. 



One day the wren was in the house, fix- 

 ing some hair in the nest, and some spar- 

 rows came along, bent on mischief. The 

 wren waited until one of the sparrows 

 perched on the shelf just outside the door. 

 Then the wren flew suddenly out, right 

 in that sparrow's face, and sent him roll- 

 ing to the ground. The wren was not 

 content with that, and chased the sparrow 

 about a block, pecking him hard all the 

 way. 



Another time a woodpecker lit above the 

 house and started pecking. The wren 

 came out and scolded awhile. Then its 

 mate came, and they made the woodpecker 

 fly off in a hurry. 



Bluejays also chase sparrows. There is 

 a water pan for our dog out in our front 



