4.50 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Crayfish. — There is no reason why greater attention should 

 not be paid to growing crayfish. They could he raised in al- 

 most any of our small rivers or creeks. At present the cray- 

 fish comes to market from the Potomac, and principally from 

 Milwaukee. If people only knew that crayfish are in good 

 demand in the New York markets perhaps they would try to 

 catch these delicate little crustaceans. The flesh of the cray- 

 fish is far more delicate than that of the lobster without being 

 indigestible. Whoever has eaten a potage bisqvs, a soup made 

 of crayfish, will never forget its excellence ; and for a centre 

 of a dinner table a pyramid of crayfish makes the handsomest 

 of edible ornaments. 



Systematic Fish Commissioners.— The New Hampshire 

 Fish Commissioners are preparing for their next report a full 

 record of the number of ponds, acres of each kind of bottom, 

 whether rock, sand cr mud, and kind of fish found in them 

 in every township in the State. By this means they are 

 enabled to proceed intelligently in the distribution of fish to 

 the waters suitable for each species. 



tnr&l !§iztot}s< 



For Forest and Stream and Bod and Gun. 

 DEER SHEDDING THEIR HORNS. 



BY HON. J. D. CAT0N. 



I HAVE observed several communications lately in Forest 

 and Stream discussing the question as to the time when 

 the antlers of the deer are shed. Will you allow me a little 

 6ay about it, as it is a subject which I have examined with 

 some care. 



All of our American species of deer cast their antlers ir- 

 regularly from October to May, except our elk— the wapiti 

 deer. He alone unformly carries his antlers till spring, 

 and casts them with great regularity in this latitude in Aprilj 

 or, those with their first antlers, in May. There is this gen- 

 eral law governing them all, that aged animals mature their 

 antlers sooner, and cast them earlier than the younger speci- 

 mens, the youngest being the most retarded. This law does 

 not govern after the animal has attained full maturity, that 

 is, the growth and maturity of the animal are not further accel- 

 erated after that time ; and in some of this species there are 

 frequently individual exceptions to the rule. Still it is gen- 

 eral with all, except possibly with the wapiti— the time of 

 shedding the antler does not necessarily depend on the time 

 of its maturity. I have observed the greatest irregularity in 

 the time of casting the antlers in the common deer, and this 

 does not seem to depend on the condition of the animal, the 

 character of their food, the temperature of the weather, nor 

 indeed upon any assignable cause which I have been able to 

 discover. 



The time of casting the antlers of the common deer may be 

 said to be from November to April, inclusive, but very much 

 the largest proportion are cast in December and January. 

 Some seasons nearly all seem to be carried till January and 

 February, wliile in other seasons nearly all are gone by the 

 first of January. 



To illustrate the great irregularity in the time of casting 

 the antler by the common deer, I may refer to the case .''elated 

 by me in The Antelope and Deer of America, pp. 181-2. 

 There a four-year old deer cast his antlers in April, in 1869, 

 and in November following he cast the antlers grown that 

 year. In the first instance he carried his antlers the longest 

 of any adult deer in this part, and in the next he cast them 

 the first. In both cases the deer was in perfect health, and 

 in very fine condition. I sought in vain for a solution of this 

 remarkable contrast. 



The observations of a few specimens, or of many speci- 

 mens, for a single year, or even several; years, cannot' furnish 

 information to be absolutely relied upon, and no matter how 

 extended one's observations may have been, unless he is in the 

 constant habit of noting down his observations at the time, 

 he may not rely upon them with certainty. If he trusts to 

 memory alone, no matter how retentive his memory may be, 

 he is liable to be misled. Let any one take notes of events, 

 and then after a considerable time write his observations from 

 memory, and he will be astonished at his errors on compar- 

 ing the result, of his memory with his notes. You can do no 

 greater service than by inducing sportsmen to make fullnotes, 

 at the time, of everything interesting or unusual which they 

 observe. If they would generally adopt this plan, they would 

 soon accumulate a vast fund of very useful original informa- 

 tion, and they would soon find a new enjoyment in the 

 chase. 



I see I have departed, in my conclusion, from my purpose 

 when I commenced this article, but we are on a subject I 

 have much at heart. 



We take great pleasure in printing the above very interest- 

 ing notes from Judge Caton's pen, the more so as we are 

 quite sure that they will be new to.the very great majority of 

 our readers. Judge Caton has certainly the right to speak 

 authoritatively on this subject, for none of our naturalists have 

 given more time and care to the study of the very interesting 

 group of which he writes. His remarks upon the necessity 

 of notiug down at once observations made in the field, is most 

 timely and important, and it is but a short time since that, in 

 an editorial, we urged the same thing upon all who are inter- 

 ested in natural history. 



Judge Caton's remarks will, we are sure, interest all sports- 

 men, and not the least our friend Penobscot, who writes us 

 from San Francisco, Cal,, on the same subject, as follows : 



The letters of " Antler" and " Sycamore," to your very in- 

 teresting journal, were very important in one respect at least 

 as they bring out the fact that deer, in separate portions of the 

 country, casl their antlers at widely different seasons of the 

 year, a fact of which the vast majority of sportsmen must 

 necessarily be ignorant, and p-oves (if any proof was want- 

 ing) ibe great value of a national sportsman's journal, like 

 your own, circulating all over our common country, and 

 affording a medium loi the free interchange of views and 

 facts from every portion of it Before visiting this coast I 

 had taken it for granted that, the :m tiers of deer sprouted and 

 were cast at the same seasons throughout the country and 

 was therefore much surprised, on visiting Woodward's' «ar- ' 



dens, the first week in February, to see the bucks confined 

 there still carrying their antlers, apparently as firmly set as 

 ever, but was not sure it was not the result of captivity, and 

 have since met with no one who appeared to be thoroughly 

 posted as to the time in which they were shed when in their 

 native wilds. Believing that facts as to the time in which they 

 sprout and are cast in all parts of the country would be both 

 interesting and instructive, I have written the following facts 

 regarding the deer in my native State, hoping that in time we 

 may hear from all parts of the country in which these inter- 

 esting animals are found : 



The antlers of the deer in Maine begin to grow the very 

 first of April, but naturally very slowly at first, as the animal 

 is then in very poor condition, and can hardly find sufficient 

 food to sustain life. After the first of May, by which time the 

 green herbage has well started, they grow very rapidly, and by 

 the first week in July have attained their full dimensions, ex- 

 cept as hereafter noted; and at this time they present a singu- 

 lar and imposing spectacle. The antlers are nearly twice their 

 normal diameter, and at each point, as well as at the places 

 where the prongs appear are oval-shaped protuberances, at 

 least an inch and a half in diameter. The antlers now begin 

 to harden at the butt, and soon circulation ceases, but the 

 points and prongs still continue to grow by absorption of the 

 egg-shaped ends, and form points more or less fine, according 

 to the age and condition of the animal. By the 15th of Aug. 

 the antlers are hard throughout their entire length. Immedi- 

 ately after reaching this state, the velvet commences to peel 

 off at the butt, gradually extending to the tips. This process 

 is never hastened by the buck rubbing his antlers against 

 trees, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding. A mo- 

 ment's reflection will convince any one of the futility of such 

 a thing. The antler has now become a mere excresence, de- 

 void of all feeling, and whether covered with velvet or bare 

 can be a matter of no moment to the carrier. The animal 

 begins to attack the trees about the 1st of October, at the 

 commencement of the rutting season, and a full month after 

 the velvet has fallen off the antlers of those that inhabit my 

 own State. If there are parts of the country where the velvet 

 does not come off till October, then that period and the buck's 

 tree-attacking fury will occur at the same time, and so give 

 rise to a natural error. The rutting season is at its height 

 about the middle of November, and does not entirely cease 

 till nearly a month later. NineteerHwentieths of all the 

 budks, except the yearlings, cast their antlers between the 

 20th of December and the 1st of January. These carry their 

 "spike horns" a month longer. 



I never saw a yearling buck without horns, and have re- 

 peatedly seen fawns with one, and sometimes two little 

 antlers, from one to three inches in length. When this occurs 

 he will have one prong the next year. No buck in the 

 forests of Maine retires to any secret place to shed his antlers, 

 or bruises them after being shed. I do not even know what 

 is meant by a "secret place " in a forest. All parts are equally 

 open, and equally secret to the still-hunter. As there is any- 

 where from two inches to two feet ol snow on the ground in 

 Maine and the Adirondacks, where the antlers are cast, any 

 practices of that description would be detected, and if buried 

 the marks would be "powerful plain;" and as the antlers are 

 never shed simultaneously, except through accident, the buck 

 would be obliged to return and reopen his "cache" or make 

 another one. And how would he proceed to cast them after 

 arriving at the appointed place ? By knocking them against 

 a tree? One could as well imagine au alderman purposely 

 pounding his pet corn against a bed-post. The buck's head 

 is excessively tender at this period, where the antler joins it, 

 f nd he carefully avoids, as far as possible, hitting it against 

 the smallest obstruction. The buck, if undisturbed, lets his 

 antlers severely alone till they fall by their own weight; 

 although if roused by dogs, or wounded by the still-hunter, 

 he will frequently tear them both off in his mad flight, and 

 more than once I have seen them fly ten feet asunder when 

 shooting the animal through the head. The numbers which 

 I have picked up during a twenty-years' hunting experience 

 would comfortably fill an ordinary city bed-room, and they 

 have been in all stages of preservation from those just cast 

 from the animal I was following to those all but devoured by 

 mice. The popular idea which seems to obtain throughout 

 the entire country, that the old bucks are defeated by the 

 "spike horns" (as the yearlings are called at home), I totally 

 dissent from. I have not only seen the marks on the snow of 

 hundreds of combats between bucks, but have often killed one, 

 and a few times both of the combatants, while thus engaged; 

 but I never knew a yearling to even attack a full grown buck, 

 much less defeat him, ' and would like to hear from the man 

 who has. In regard to the number of prongs, as indicating 

 the age, not the slightest reliance can be placed on it, but an 

 expert hunter can judge vary nearly of the buck's age by the 

 general appearance of the antlers. They increase in length, 

 and the prongs in number each year till the animal is four or 

 five years old, then they have attained their full length and 

 beauty. Alter this they increase in diameter only, as long as 

 the animal retains his full vigor, so that at eight years old the 

 buck's antlers are nearly twice as heavy as at four ; as age 

 diminishes his powers, the antlers decrease in length, are 

 much less symmetrical, and have coarser points. They also 

 fall earlier, sometimes before the middle of December. The 

 fawns lose their spots, to a superficial observer, about the last 

 week in August, when they shed their summer coat, but a 

 close inspection in a strong light will reveal a single row of 

 very faint spots, extending the whole length of the body, just 

 below the spine and on each side of it. These remain till 

 the winter coat starts, the last of October; but they can easily 

 be told all through the winter by the shortness of their heads 

 in comparison to the length, by the greater length of the hair 

 on each side, and by a general look of immaturity. A veto- 

 ran still-hunter would consider himself insulted if told that 

 he could not distinguish a fawn from a yearling at a single 

 glance fifty paces distant, provided he saw its face. Of the 

 two types of deer which are well known to exist in Maine, of* 

 several interesting peculiarities exhibited by those in the 

 Adirondacks, not shown by those inhabiting the former State, 

 space forbids me to speak. The subject is almost inexhaust- 

 ible, and I may as well stop here, only adding that the above 

 notes are the result of many years patient observation and 

 successful still-hunting. 



To the store of valuable information contained in the above 

 papers, we may be permitted to add one note. In Nebraska 

 the fawns of the common deerjretain their spots considerably 

 longer than as above related by Penobscot, and specimens 

 killed the last of September are still strongly marked. At thin, 

 time, however, the summer coat is fast falling off, and, no 

 doubt, by the middle of October the young are uniform in 

 color. Moreover, the faint row of spots on each side of the 

 spine, of which our correspondent speaks, does not seem to 



be confined altogether to the young deer, for the largest and 

 finest buck we ever saw, which we killed this fall in Nebraska, 

 has just such a row of spots running down the back. This 

 state of things, however, is unusual, we think. We have 

 never noticed it before, and it attracted our attention as soon 

 as we reached the dead animal. We hope ere long to hear 

 more on these interesting topics. 



The King Partridge.— In an interesting communication 

 to our columns under date of September 27, of 

 upon the habits of the ruffed grouse, a new term, 

 " King Partridge," is chosen to express exceptional peculiari- 

 ties of habits on the part of the male bird. The language of 

 the article is likely to lead to misconstructions, not warranted 

 by actual facts observed as to the habits of this species. The 

 term of king partridge would seem to imply an isolated oc- 

 currence of a patriarch of the tribe, which may not occur L in 

 the lapse of many years. Under this supposition a hunter 

 may spend the half of his life in pursuit of this bird, and 

 never obtain a glimpse even of such a remarkable superannu- 

 ated male, who is entitled to take rank as a king partridge. 

 The account, as given in the communication, ceases, however, 

 to excite unusual surprise when analogous cases, in the order 

 of gallinaceous buds, are taken into consideration. The entirely 

 different aspect of our barn-yard turkey when his temper be- 

 comes ruffled, from his general appearance in his usual mood, 

 are well known to all who have amused themselves by excit- 

 ing the anger of an old gobbler. His attitude offers many 

 points of resemblance to those observed by our correspond- 

 ent when speakiDg of the king partridge. All of the feathers, 

 particularly those of the back, become almost perpendicular. 

 The primaries of the wings are sharply separated, and trail in 

 angry sweep the ground. The tail becomes a perfect pattern 

 of a fan, and neck and head are deeply suffused by the quick 

 rush of blood surging toward the upper extremities of the 

 offended lord of the barnyard. If he only possessed the ring- 

 like ruff of feathers like his wild relative, the ruffed grouse, 

 a perfect crown, or ring, would quickly develop itself around 

 his well drawn in head, and a magnificent edition of the king 

 partridge, a veritable king turkey, would be the final result. 

 We may view at ease, and as often as wo please, this interest- 

 ing spectacle in our domesticated tribes ; but we experience 

 difficulties when we wish to extend our observations to the 

 wild members of this order of birds. They are only too much 

 an object of pursuit on part of the indefatigable sportsman 

 and their countless natural enemies, to indulge in these antics, 

 which mostly result from sexual excitement and jealousies 

 toward rivals of their own persuasion. Since an audience is 

 not wanted on account of its being intrusive, the dramatic 

 displays are limited, and probably only enacted under ex- 

 tremely rare combinations of favorable circumstances, when 

 no observer is near. We know on the authority of Gould 

 that the black cock of Europe is addicted to like habits, and 

 that the entertainment in the case of that bird is frequently 

 enhanced by drawn battles, in which a number of excited 

 males engage to gain undisputed supremacy over the females 

 of the vicinity, who are said to be then often silent spectators 

 of these conflicts. It is possible that the ruffed grouse would 

 act in the same way under such circumswices, and by the 

 erection of all the erectable appendages give rise to the singu- 

 lar appearance which led your correspondent to the adoption 

 of such a singular name. But few observers would ever be 

 gratified by an opportunity to watch this most shy of all 

 game birds in its fancied security, and the full display of its 

 handsome ornamentations in order to render himself formi- 

 dable to its competitors in the struggle for possession of the 

 female. 



The pairing season would thus be inaugurated by the ad- 

 vent of the king, the oldest and most excitable cock, who gains 

 at last a well-earned victory over all the rest of the aspirants in 

 these erotic tournaments. The widely varying attitudes of the 

 bird while drumming or standing perfectly erect, when wishing 

 to evade observation on the knotted limb of the hemlock tree 

 afford full evidence of its inimical powers, which are reach- 

 ing their climax when laboring under periodical sexual ex- 

 citement, and cause thus an apparent entire transfiguration of 

 its smooth appearance when ready to fly on approach of 

 danger. 



HABITS OF THE RUFFED GROUSE. 



Testimony op a Veteran. 



St. Joseph, Mien., Dec. IT, l^TT. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



As much of the sportsman's pleasure follows from reflections of inci- 

 dents which occur on a day's hunt in the field or forest, bo does a large 

 share of our enjoyment come from detailed rehearsals of chums as they 

 gather in social chat over events and occurrences that have passed 

 during the day. The spicy account of this and that— this chance was 

 S0 — jf it had or had not been for such— I should— and how I missed that 

 good, or fair, shot I don't see. 



Many of these chats give zest to the recreations of sportsmen from the 

 busy cares of life. This is one reason why I look so anxiously for my 

 Forest and Stream weekly, and on this account it has become a sports- 

 man's necessity. One seems to meet with brother sportsmen from 

 north to south, east to west, and enter Into a sportsman's paradise. 



Every one has something of interest to relate. Each gives his own 

 views. in lusown way, his own explanation, theory and philosophy. 

 Much of the natural history is quite entertaining, with much that is 

 equally ridiculous. But still it prompts one to thought and closer obser- 

 vation. While I confess I am much Interested in articles of many corres- 

 pondents of the Forest and Stream, many things excite my rulbles, 

 look quite flaby, ami are as ridiculous as some of the questions asked 

 the Editor. 



Some time ago we had an account and description of the " King Part- 

 ridge." 1 am just past my sixty-seventh year, always loved the rod and 

 gun, uave spen! may enjoyable clays in their use, a great lover ol Na- 



