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RECREATION. 





I am told by farmers in this vicinity 

 that pot hunters are shooting woodchucks 

 for the cheap restaurants in New York. 

 They are boiled or pickled and served 

 with beer at the Raines law hotels. I 

 do not doubt it, as the meat is equal to 

 mutton in life-supporting elements, and 

 the animal is as much a vegetarian as is 

 the Belgian hare. I was deeply interested 

 in an article I read the other day by a 

 Mr. Donald. He realizes the skill it re- 

 quires to place a bullet in a 'chuck's head 

 or neck at even 50 yards. His stalking 

 cane is almost identical with Dr. H. A. 

 Baker's which is of metal and telescoped*. 

 In it he can carry a ramrod and a wash 

 for his throat in case it should become 

 dusty. Medicus. 



WOLVES EAT UP A RAILROAD TRACK. 



Portland, Ore. 

 Editor Recreation : 



About 1872 one of the first railroads of 

 the Northwest was built in the Territory of 

 Washington, from Walla Walla to Wallula, 

 along the banks of the Walla Walla river, 

 and following the general line of what is 

 now the Oregon Railway & Navigation 

 Company's road between those points. The 

 road was a primitive affair, and was built, 

 owned and operated by Dr. Baker, of Walla 

 Walla. It had no Pullman cars, chair cars 

 or buffet cars, and the day coaches were 

 mostly platform or flat cars. Instead of 

 having a right of way the road had per- 

 mission to go through the fields of the 

 farmers ; consequently the road was not 

 a rapid transit one, as the train hands had 

 to get off and lay dov/n the rail fences 

 and put them up again after the train had 

 passed through. 



The road-bed was constructed by laying 

 cross-ties 6 or 8 feet apart, and on those 

 laying wooden stringers for rails. The 

 heavy traffic over the road caused the rails 

 to wear in spots, so that train wrecks and 

 smashups were of daily occurrence. These 

 were not serious, for when the train crew 

 saw a wreck coming their way they would 

 hop off and let it wreck. 



The annoyances, however, soon became 

 detrimental to the interests of shippers, so 

 the owner had to devise some means of 

 overcoming the difficulty. Rails of standard 

 railroad iron were out of the question, as 

 they had to be shipped "the Horn around" 

 and freighted by wagon quite a distance. 

 Strap iron could not be had, an - the doc- 

 tor, with Yankee shrewdness finally hit 

 upon the happy idea of substituting raw- 

 hide for strap iron. Cattle were plenti- 

 ful and rawhide cheap, so the doctor soon 

 had his track layers at work putting the 

 rawhide on to the wooden stringers. The 

 rawhide soon became dry and as hard as 

 iron, and answered the purpose admirably 

 during dry weather. 



The wintef succeeding the laying of the 

 rawhide track was a severe one for that 

 part of the country. The snow laid on the 

 ground several weeks. The wolves were 

 driven from the mountains by the deep 

 snow and skirmished for a living as best 

 they could in the valleys. When the snow 

 began to melt it softened the rawhide rails, 

 and the hungry wolves soon found the 

 track. When spring came and the snow 

 had melted, the wolves had eaten up the 

 raihoad track from Walla Walla to Wal- 

 lula. C. E. Oliver. 



THIS ONE DID NOT EAT MEAT. 



Editor Recreation 



Wellsville, N. Y. 



What Mr. Horace W. Ward, of Bath, 

 Me., says in Recreation about squirrels 

 eating meat is a surprise to me. During the 

 summer of 1894 a red squirrel lived in our 

 family. He was a great favorite, a perfect 

 pet, and allowed us to handle him in the 

 most familiar manner. He never offered to 

 bite, and never seemed as happy as when 

 being rolled about. He had the liberty of 

 the house, and was only shut up at night 

 to prevent harm befalling him. I had every 

 opportunity to study his habits, and as he 

 nearly always took his dinner at the table 

 with the family, perched on the back of 

 a chair, I learned what kinds of food he 

 liked best ; also what kinds he would eat 

 if he could not have what he most wanted. 

 I tried to get him to eat meat, of all kinds 

 that we used, both fresh and salt, cooked 

 and raw, but could never get him to taste 

 any. His favorite dish was full cream 

 cheese, of which he would eat a ^-inch 

 cube each day. He was fond of nuts of all 

 kinds, but preferred butternuts to all others. 

 We had a large stone near the kitchen 

 door, and a basket of these nuts always 

 sat there. When I would sit down by the 

 stone and take up the hammer, the squir- 

 rel would go to the basket, get a nut, and 

 lay it on the stone for me to crack, he sit- 

 ting just out of reach of the hammer wait- 

 ing for me to crack the nut. When I had 

 done so he would extract the meat and sit 

 up and eat it. Then he would repeat the 

 operation until he was satisfied. He would 

 eat nearly all kinds of vegetables, but 

 seemed to prefer horse sorrel. He went 

 daily to the wall under the house, pulled 

 out small pieces of dry mortar, ate them, 

 and seemed to relish them. 



Warm days in the summer, when I sat 

 in the shade to read, his usual place was on 

 the arm or back of my chair. We captured 

 him when he was quite young, and he never 

 knew what fear was. He would play hide 

 and seek with the members of the family, 

 and when he was found he would frolic 

 around in great glee for a few moments, 



