FOREST AND STREAM. 



Stt 



through timln i i i . : i,I arrived at the meadow at which 

 I proposed to call. Standing, at its edge, I listened for 

 five minutes ; w>t a pound, not a leaf stirring, not a breath of 

 wind, nor a bud moving Bringing the bark to my lips, I 

 gave the first low, soft, timid call, but the way 

 it echoed up and down the woods seemed more like a roar. 

 Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass, not a sound, save ray call, 

 mocked by that bird of ill-omen, to hunters the carrion jay. 

 This time I repeat my call more loudly and clearly ; the same 

 echoes multiplied and louder, nothing else. ■ Nothing, Ah! 

 what's that, a squirrel budding ? No, not before dawn. Then it 

 must be a horn against a tree; it can't be a young sneaker, 

 for he would not dare make that sound; nor an old buck with 

 cows, for he would have answered once at least; then it must 

 be an old solitary buck. Yes! listen, as he comes head up 

 trying to avoid nothing, and with his powerful swinging step. 

 I can hear my heart beat, but I try to keep cool, yet my ears keep 

 following that welcome and louder growing sound. lie must 

 have come at least a half mile since I first heard him. Ah! 

 there he is, and 1 see the tips of his antlers, two hundred yards 

 off, among the alders. Still he comes, but now out of sight in 

 one of his swervings. Will he come nearer ? Yes, a few 

 steps ; there he pauses again for a minute. I dare not call, 

 but I place my foot in the moss, tmd make a sucking sound 

 like that of a cow stepping, a few sharp strides and he is in 

 Bight, head and antlers only, sixty yards off. O, what a' poor 

 chance to shoot, standing face to, yet i must. Up goes the 

 rifle ; but what's the matter, I can't shoot, my heart beats too 

 fast, nonsense ! I steady myself with a shake. In the mean- 

 time he moves his head with that grand swerve sideways; 

 now the eye! One glance along the sights, at that piercing 

 black savage orb. A cloud of smoke, arid a black mass 

 plunges forward, turns, and springs back on his tracks. Above 

 the alders I can see the tips of his antlers, judge for his heart 

 and tire ; still he goes on and out of sight. With all the speed 

 I can, I cross the wet meadow and stand in his tracks; for an 

 instant 1 listen. Ah, that cough ! Missed the heart but shot 

 through the lungs. I spring forward and get a glance at him 

 through the alders, and lire for the neck bone.. Missed, by 

 half an inch too high. Then the fore- leg must go." 1 fire at the 

 near one as he raises it to step, but too far back, it passes 

 through the thick of the shoulder cutting off two ribs, breaks 

 the leg on the oppositeside; then down he goes with a crash, 

 carrying everything with him . I draw the knife and spring 

 forward, but with his dying groan I can hear the blood gurgle 

 in his lungs, so it is of no use to cut the throat. 



I only stop a few minutes to examine him— the first shot 

 entered the eye and passed down the neck. He is a beauty, 

 in good condition, weight about one thousand pounds; four 

 feet across the antlers, which have beautifully curved palms. 

 Then I start back to meet Ned, as he promised to leave camp 

 at daybreak with an ax. Before long I see him coming, hat 

 in hand, "covering ground" pretty fast; as soon as he can 

 speak he wants to know what I fired at. " A fox in the 

 nieadnw." " You don't often fire four shots at a fox in an 

 alder meadow. You've sliot and missed a moose." I then 

 showed hiui my baud with the blood on it. " Ah ! you have 

 him." " Yes, a little fellow." Then came an army of ques- 

 tions; but 1 don't say much, holding back, with a selfish pleas- 

 ure, the surprise in store for him, 



"Here is where I stood and called ; here where he stood 

 when I fired the first shot." I show him spots of blood as we 

 follow his tracks. 



" But how far did he. go ?'' asks Ned in surprise. 



" Two hundred and fifty yards." 



"The devil!" 



"No, the moose," as I point him out lying among the 

 alders. 



" A little fellow ! By heavens, ain't he a beauty ! ain't he 

 a rouser?" 



h " Come now, Ned, plenty of work ahead of us to-day; this 

 fellow to dress, a road to swamp, two drays to make, skin of 

 head and the antlers to carry out six miles." 



The next day's work is a hard one. We leave home at 

 three in the morning with a man and two horses to help, and 

 do not reach home before nine o'clock in the evening 



After dividing among my friends we have but little left. 

 On Saturday 1 try a little nearer home ; leave at noon ; go 

 three miles back so as to get 'to leeward of the ground I 

 wish to examine. Heie I soon find fresh tracks, which lead 

 to a thicket of firs and maples. There he lies; then he must 

 be called out, as I would only start him by entering. I give 

 one call, this brings him on to his feet not thirty yards off , 

 where he stands answering, in soft grunts. One glance along 

 the sights at his heart and 1 fire; but he never moves a mus- 

 cle. A second shot through the lungs and down the hill he 

 goes at a fearful gait. Standing still I follow the sound until 

 I hear him fall. On coming up to him 1 find a nearly pure 

 bred elk, five years old, in a good condition, with a very 

 pretty pair of antlers. 



The reason he did not move at my first shot was that the 

 ball had completely severed the principal artery of the heart. 

 In nearly every case where 1 hive shot moose or caribou 

 through the heart they have stood as if never touched. I 

 have noticed in your paper a discussion as to the dropping of 

 antlers. About deer I know nothing, but of moose and cari- 

 bou, and I can assure any one that they have no secret place 

 in which to hide them, nor do they seek to do so. I have 

 found them in all kinds of places, but never covered except 

 with fallen leaves or spills from firs. I always in the autumn 

 . find more horns than animals — some partly rotted away, but 

 the majority eaten by squirrels, porcupines or martens. Old 

 moose drop their antlers as early as the middle or last of 

 November ; young ones sometimes not until the middle of 

 March. 



This part of our county has sportsmen from all parts; some 

 few from New York, but Lhey have pom' success in calling be- 

 cause of the weather, and in creeping because they do not 

 know how. Elk. 



Joggvns Mines, Nova Scotia,OcL 13, 1877. 



—From the Spirit of the Times, of Oct, C : 



The Sportsman's Gazetteer,— Under this title, Mr. 

 Charles Hallock, editor of the Fokest and Stream, has pub- 

 lished an elaborate work, of nearly 900 pages, which is de- 

 signed as a general guide to the principal game resorts of this 

 country, illustrated with maps ; together with instructions in 

 shooting, fishing, taxidermy, woodcraft, etc., and -copious in- 

 formation about the game animals, birds and fishes of North 

 America, their habits and various methods of capture. Ibis 

 a most important and valuable contribution to sporting litera- 

 ture, meets a want that has long been felt, and its author was 

 eminently qualified to prepare it. In an advertisement will 

 be found other particulars about the book. 



^(ihiml ]§wtorg. 



CHIMNEY SWALLOW. CHIMNEY 

 SWIFT. 



ioa.— BAird. 



ACCORDING trTBaird, Brewer and Eidgeway, the specific 

 characters of this species are as follows : "Tail slightly 

 rounded, sooty brown all over, except on the throat, which 

 becomes considerably lighter from the breast to the bill; 

 above with a greenish tinge, the rump a little paler; 

 length, 5.25; wing, 5.10: tail, 2.15 inches. It is distributed 

 throughout the Eastern United States and British Provinces, 

 from the Atlantic Ocean to the fiftieth parallel of north lati- 

 tude. It probably extends West to the slopes of the Rocky 

 Mountains, as it has been taken as far West as the Bijoux 

 Hills in Nebraska. 



"It arrives in Eastern Massachusetts the last week in May, 

 and departs for the South about the first of. September. Soon 

 after their arrival they commence to build their nests, which 

 are very neat pieces of architectural work. The nest is com- 

 posed of small twigs of uniform size, interwoven into a semi- 

 circular basket. In selecting the twigs with which to con- 

 struct the nest, the swift seems to prefer to break from the 

 tree such as are best adapted to its wants, rather than to 

 gather those already scattered upon the ground. This is done 

 with great skill and adroitness while on the wing. Sweeping 

 on the coveted twig, somewhat as a hawk rushes on its 

 prey, it parts it at the desired place, and bears it off to its 

 nest. This fact is familiar to all who have attentively ob- 

 served its habits. Each of these twigs is firmly fastened to 

 its fellows by an adhesive saliva, secreted by the bird, and 

 the whole structure is strongly cemented to the side of the 

 chimney in which it was built by means of the same secretion. 

 When dry this saliva hardens into a glue-like substance, ap- 

 parently firmer even than the twigs themselves. In separat- 

 ing a nest from the side of a chimney, I have known portions 

 of the brick to which it was fastened to give way sooner than 

 the cement with which it had been secured." — Dr. Brewer. 



Oftentimes, however, the nest becomes so moistened by long 

 or heavy rains, that it falls, together with its contents, to the 

 bottom of the chimney. The young birds cling to the sides 

 of the chimney with their strong claws, and often -escape 

 beiug precipitated to the bottom of the chimney with the frac- 

 tured nest. Even when undisturbed the nest soon becomes 

 too small for the young birds, and they climb to the top of the 

 chimney, where they are fed by their parents till they are able 

 to fly. 



Immense colonies often inhabit the same chimney, especially 

 if it be one with many flues. In May, 1808, a chimney was 

 taken down in a village known as Putnamville, in Danvers, 

 Mass. It was a large chimney, connected with a shoe factory, 

 which had not been used for four or five years, and it con- 

 tained upward of two hundred nests. 



Its original breeding-place was in hollow trees, but as the 

 •country became settled, and the forests cut down, it has 

 changed its habitation to chimneys, where the majority now 

 breed. In wild portions of the country they still breed in 

 partially decayed trees. Mr. George A. Boardman, of St. 

 Stephen, N. B., found them breeding in this manner as late 

 as 1863, when he found them nesting in a hollow birch. He 

 also met with a nest built against a board in an old winter 

 logging-camp at a distance from any chimney. It was found 

 to be quite abundant in Kansas by Mr. J. A. Allen, breeding 

 in hollow trees in the forests chiefly. 



Its nest is occasionally found iu other situations. Perhaps 

 the birds are taught by their experience to look for more 

 secure places than chimneys in which to breed. Mr; John 1 1. 

 Sears notes the breeding of the species at Beverly, Mass., in 

 the American Naturalist for December, 1873. He says : 

 "About June 15, 1871, a pair of chimney swallows (Chwtwa 

 pelmgia) commenced building a nest in the barn in close 

 proximity to the nests of the common barn swallow (JTiruiulo 

 liorreorurn}. The nest was finished by the 4th cf July, and 

 four eggs were laid. \ In 1S72 there were two nests built in^the 

 barn, and this year two more were built, one of which I took 

 down on July 8 and sent, with four eggs which it contained, 

 to the Peabody Academy of Science. The nest that I removed 

 was replaced by a new one about the 20th of July." Another 

 instance is cited by Mr. C. Hart Merriam in the same maga- 

 zine for June, 1874. It was in Lewis County, New York. 

 Mr. Frank H. Nutter, of West Roxbury, informs me that 

 while on a visit to Lancaster, N. H., in June, 1877, he 

 found a nest in the end of a barn, near the apex of the roof. 

 The nest was of the typical form and was attached to the 

 boarding. It contained eggs when found. The birds were 

 observed to pass in and put through a knot-hole in the board- 

 ing- 



In its habits it is- crepuscular, preferring dull, cloudy 

 weather, early morning, or the latter part of the afternoon in 

 which to search for the insects which form its food. It is 

 undoubtedly influenced by ,the abundance or scarcity of 

 food, as it is occasionally observed pursuing its prey in the 

 glare of noonday. When they have young they are often 

 obliged to keep up their search into the night. 



The eggs vary in number from four to six; they are pure 

 white, without markings, sub-elliptical in shape, and vary in 

 size but little, measuring .75 to .81 of an inch in length, by .50 

 to .55 in breadth. 



The chimney swallow raises one, sometimes two, broods here 

 in a season. 



Before migrating they collect in large flocks. During the 

 first week in September of the present year a flock of 

 several hundred had their rendezvous in a large chimney. 

 Here, collecting just before dusk, they would circle aroun 

 the chimney, and pass down into it in a continuous stream 

 till the whole. Hock had disappeared. They gathered thus for 

 three days, and were not seen afterward. 



Abthttk F. Gkat. 

 Dawoer sport, Mast., 0;t. 13, 1877. 



AN ANTEDILUVIAN MONSTER. 



A N arlicle with the sbove heading is now revolving, meteor* 

 * *■ like, through the vacant spaces of newspapers. People 

 crave for mastodons, and behemoths, and their longings must 

 be satisfied. Take the ordinary newspaper reader ; he may 

 be devouring a singularly horrid murder, or a rascally em- 

 bezzlement, but let his eyes catch the notice of some bones 

 dug up anywhere and he is ready in the most guileless way to 

 swallow a mammoth at a single gulp. Of course we by no 

 means wish to discredit the statement made, that in Henry 

 Woodward's^ ranch in Indian Territory, near a mineral 

 spring, the remains of some huge brute were discovered. The 

 locality indicated is just the one where a creature of past 

 ages may have been mired. But what we must smile, at is 

 the credulity which would allow any one to suppose that 

 because, as per statement, other bones were found resembling 

 those of a man, that it was the mammoth that had swallowed 

 the human being. That well-stocked arsenal of flint weapons 

 described as having been discovored with the human remains, 

 must be taken with a great deal of salt. It is by no means 

 impossible to believe that prior to the destruction of these 

 huge beasts man existed. Traces have been found of 

 man's handiwork, even in lower geological strata, or under- 

 neath the bones of extinct animals. There is every reason to 

 suppose that the age of man is older than that of many of the 

 so-called antediluvians. Still, up to the present day, we may 

 affirm that, with the exception of one single skull, over which 

 there has been no end of wrangling and discussion, and 

 whose age is not yet well established, no positive remains 

 of man contemporary with the mammoth have been discovered. 

 Of course, the argument that man did exist then is as strong 

 as need be, but his bones have got to be exhumed. Possibly 

 "dust to dust," that great law of God, as far as man's scaffold- 

 ing goes, has prevented it. 



The conclusion arrived at, that it was the beast who de- 

 voured the man, is a ludicrous one. These monstrous brutes 

 as far as we can make out, were vegetable feeders. Suppose 

 to carry out the argument further, the bones of some smaller 

 animals were found near the man. Should we jump at the 

 conclusion that the man had Swallowed a rabbit, and then 

 that the mastodon had gobbled up the man and the rabbit too? 

 It would be well for newspaper scientists to have recalled to 

 them a very old story, attributed to Cuvier. An awful 

 creature, with horns, cloven feet and a tail, once met a timid 

 naturalist, and the awful beast, flourishing his tail and lower- 

 ing his horns, bellowed out, "I am going to eat you up." "I 

 ain't a bit afraid," answered the naturalist, suddenly picking 

 up courage. "Horns, hoofs and a tail proclaim you to be 

 herbiverous and not carniverous. Clear out of my way and 

 let me go on collecting my specimens." 



We are, then, perfectly willing to accept all about the tusks, 

 and how they crumbled as soon as they were exposod to the 

 air. We even credit the flint arrow-heads and the stone 

 knives, a whole bushel basket of them, but the big Injun, 

 ' ' eight feet long, with his spinal eclumn attached to a cranium 

 and his ribs and other appendages," w T e cannot digest any 

 more than the antedUuvian monster. 



PARASITES ON THE HOUSE FLY. 



Rock Island, 111., Oct. 15, 1877. 

 Editor Fokkst and Stp.eam and Rod axd Gun: 



Is it generally known to entomologists that the common 

 house fly is sometimes infested with parasites? I am not as 

 well "posted" in insectology as I should be, perhaps, my 

 study of animated nature having been mostly devoted to those 

 branches which furnish more imposing specimens, and it may 

 be that a fact which is new to me, will have a " stale " appear- 

 ance to most of your readers. Nevertheless, I venture to send 

 you the following, which had for me all the interest of an 

 original discovery, with the request that if the fact is already 

 known you will give me any other information you may 

 chance to have upon the subject. 



Yesterday afternoon, while examining a common fly of 

 medium size with a small microscope I noticed that it was 

 covered with a number of small insects which were utterly 

 invisible to the unaided sight, I countedseven of them, four 

 of them being huddled together in a bunch, and the other 

 three running separately over the fly's body. They all ap- 

 peared to confine themselves to the under part of the body 

 where the legs are uniteti, occasionally running out upon these 

 limbs. The outlines of the bodies of these parasites, looking 

 down upon'their backs, was of an oblong shape, the len<dh 

 being nearly twice as great as the width. The bodies them- 

 selves appeared to be round and plump. They were covered 

 with what seemed to be a smooth, hard shell or skin, of a 

 transparent yellowish color, reminding me somewhat of am- 

 ber. Each had three claw-like legs on each side of its body, 

 while its head or snout was armed with a pair of sickle-shaped 

 mandibles, which opened sideways. I could not get a good 

 view of their heads owing partly to their movements and 

 partly to the low power of my lens, which ouly magnifies ten 

 diameters. Judging from their apparent size, I should place 

 their aci ual length at about 1-loOths of an. inch. 



I afterward caught and examined some score of flies bu ' 

 could find no trace of the " varmint " on any save the first. ' i 

 do not remember ever seeing the subject mentioned, and if th C 



