2l8 



RECREA TION. 



habits are always prominent and apparent, 

 while their good works are " hid under a 

 bushel." 



There is another family of birds that have 

 had a bad name — the Raptores. In Penn- 

 sylvania the farmers clamored for a boun- 

 ty, and it was placed on birds of prey and 

 on foxes and other so-called vermin. The 

 mistake was soon realized and the law re- 

 pealed, after the county treasuries were de- 

 pleted over $100,000 and much real injury 

 to agriculture had been done. In Burling- 

 ton county, N. J., there has been a great 

 destruction of hawks, etc., to our great 

 injury, I believe, as meadow mice are great- 

 ly on the increase. 



I hope we will never see a bounty on the 

 crow or any other bird. It is a poor policy. 

 If a thieving hawk or crow destroys our 

 poultry or steals our corn I suppose we 

 shall have to shoot him. At least some of 

 us will: I never disturb a hawk or a crow. 

 Edward Harris, MoOrestown, N. J. 



ROUGH TREATMENT FOR SNAKEBITE. 



I have had experience with nearly every 

 species of venomous snake in this country 

 and Mexico. I never saw anyone die from 

 a snake bite, although I saw 2 cases where 

 amputation of the limb was necessary to 

 save life. A boy in Atascosa county, Texas, 

 was bitten by what is there called a rattle- 

 snake pilot. The boy's leg had to be cut off 

 to save his life. I knew a young lady in the 

 same place who was bitten on the foot by 

 a rattlesnake. Her mother applied the flesh 

 of a freshly killed chicken to the wound. 

 The young lady fully recovered within a 

 few days, and without any suffering. 



In 1872 I was in what is now Oklahoma, 

 with a United States surveying corps. One 

 of our number killed a large rattlesnake, by 

 thrusting the points of a set of compass 

 tripods through its body. He swung the 

 snake in fun toward another of our party 

 and the reptile struck its fangs in the man's 

 hip. We were 200 miles from a doctor, 

 and had no w r ay of treating our friend save 

 the old frontier way of cutting out the 

 wounded flesh. Two men held the unfort- 

 unate victim, while a third, with a dull 

 pocket knife, cut a piece as large as a hen's 

 egg from the flesh surrounding the bite; 

 the patient bellowing the while like a calf 

 under the branding iron. Then we carried 

 the poor fellow to camp and gave him 

 whiskey enough to have paralyzed 2 men, 

 but it had little effect on him. At the same 

 time we filled the wound with chewing to- 

 bacco, and bound it with cloths. Our pa- 

 tient fell sick, either from the bite or the 

 treatment, and we sent him by ox wagon 

 to Arkansas City, but he was well when he 

 reached there. 



I was once bitten by a moccasin, while 

 bathing in shallow water. The snake 

 struck me on the ankle. My horse was tied 

 near by, and I hurriedly mounted and rode 



to the ranch where I lived. The folks there 

 told me I need fear no danger from the bite. 

 They killed a chicken and applied its warm 

 flesh to the wound. The next morning my 

 foot and leg were greatly swollen, and it 

 was 3 weeks before I fully recovered. 



F. W. Hambleton, Pueblo, Col. 



LARVA KILLERS, NOT SAPSUCKERS. 



It was said, in a recent Recreation, that 

 woodpeckers are harmless yet I have 

 seen the variety called sapsuckers doing 

 much damage to apple and pear trees. 

 They bore rings of holes in the bark until 

 the tree-trunks are fairly girdled in places, 

 the holes nearly touching each other. The 

 birds come at sunrise and work an hour or 

 2, boring holes clear to the wood and then 

 sucking the sap. They do most of their 

 deviltry in September. I used to enjoy 

 picking them off the trees with a pocket 

 rifle. 



E. Redden, Newton Center, Mass. 



In connection with the above, the follow- 

 ing extract from Baird, Brewer and Ridg- 

 way's " Birds of North America," Vol. II., 

 p. 512 on the lesser sapsucker (Picus pubes- 

 cens), will be of general interest: 



" They are very industrious, and are con- 

 stantly employed in search of insects, chief- 

 ly in orchards, and more open groves. The 

 orchard is its favorite resort, and it is par- 

 ticularly fond of boring the bark of apple- 

 trees for insects. This fact, and the errone- 

 ous impression that it taps the trees for the 

 sap, has given to these birds the common 

 name of sapsuckers, and has caused an un- 

 just prejudice against them. So far from 

 doing any injury to the trees, they are of 

 great and unmixed benefit. Wilson, who 

 was at great pains to investigate the matter, 

 declares he invariably found that those trees 

 which were thus marked by the woodpecker 

 were uniformly the most thriving and pro- 

 ductive. ' Here, then,' adds Wilson, ' is a 

 whole species — I may say genus — of birds, 

 which Providence seems to have formed for 

 the protection of our fruit and forest trees 

 from the ravages of vermin. They every 

 day destroy millions of noxious insects that 

 would otherwise blast the hopes of the 

 husbandman-.' " 



Therefore do I say again — don't kill the 

 woodpeckers or sapsuckers. 



W. T. Hornaday. 



DID YOU EVER SEE A CLAM WALK? 



We were seated in our boat waiting for 

 the guide to push off, when he asked, " Did 

 you ever see a clam walk? " We looked 

 over the side of the boat. There, in about 

 a foot of clear, still water, on the smooth 

 sand were 2 fresh water clams, about a foot 

 apart. From each clam extended a circular 

 ring of indented impression, about l /i inch 

 in depth and an inch in width, in the yield- 



