Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Tear. 10 Cts. a Copy, i 

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NEW YORK, MARCH 16, 1882. 



j VOL. XVUL— No. 7. 



1 Nos. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York 



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CONTENTS 



Editorial. 

 Preparations for the Match. 

 The Swan ton Bats. 

 Another Death Trap. 

 Local Clubs. 

 Proposed Dog Law. 

 Easy Reading Lessons. 



Old Keel Fox of Bald Mountain. 



Adios. 



That Trip to Texas. 

 Natceal History. 



The Jeanette Voyage. 



Drummii,^ of the Ruffed Grouse. 



Shore Birds in Grenada. 



Live Brant. 



■'Bright Feathers." 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Destruction of Large Game. 



Mr. Posts Bill. 



Another Ohio Deer Hunt. 



My First Deer. 



Michigan Association. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 Camp Flotsam— III. Black Bi 



l-'!'ar:ir,<)'!> Oiar-'iile/ed. 

 Amateur Reel Making. 

 Lucid Fish Law. 

 Tennessee Fish Notes. 

 The Eel Question. 



FlSHCULTORE. 



Land-Locked Salmon. 



Rainbow Trout. 



Rights of Fishculturists. 

 The Ivennel. 



The Pittsburg Dog Show. 



Gordon Setters. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Tbae Shooting. 



The International Match. 



The "Teaser" Target. 



Matches and Meetings. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Seawanhaka Yacht Club. 



The Yawl in America. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



PREPARATIONS EOR THE MATCH. 



JP VERYTHING is now serene where but recently there 

 uh* was a very troubled atmosphere in the matter of the 

 preliminary arrangements for the international match. On 

 'this side the water the committee have sent out the pro- 

 gramme on which they propose to proceed in selecting the 

 team. It is but a general scheme of selection, and it is a good 

 one, and any really good military shot may rest assured that 

 Jie can win his way by merit to a place on the team. It would 

 be an honor which any American soldier may well give time 

 and labor to merit, and, whetber the score be high or low, a 

 well-made effort will be duly appreciated by the public at 

 large. There is no reason now wby the least obstacle should 

 be allowed to interfere with the harmony which prevails. 

 With open, above-board work the committee of five will find 

 a disposition to support them on every side ; but with the 

 manifestation of any disposition to bestow favoritism and 

 secure any undue advantage for any person, to the possible 

 prejudice of the interests and prospects of the team, they may 

 be sure of some lively talk, if nothing more. 



Across the ocean Sir Henry Halford, who seems to be 

 carrying the entire weight and burden of the preparations 

 upon his shoulders, is stirring up the popular feeling toward 

 the match and, at the same time, uttering cautions that the 

 match is not to be a walk-over for his team when selected. 

 In a If iter written for publication during the past week he 

 says; "It may now, therefore, be considered as settled that a 

 match will take place at Greedmoor in 1883, and at Wimble- 

 don in 1 ,S3. The committee calls upon the foremost shots 

 among volunteers to practice with special reference to par- 

 ticipating in this contest." He adds that nothing short of the 

 best work of the best men the country can produce will insure 

 Success for the British. 



It is well not to be over sanguine, and Sir Henry is very 

 careful not to raise any false hopes. The match is meeting 

 with general approval and (he chronic British grumbler, who 

 rushes into letters to the editor on every imaginable topic, 

 does not seem as yet to have found a peg on which to hang 

 Ids lucubrations. The volunteers are individually anxious to 

 secure the honor of being selected as one of the team for 

 America, and the press is giving the matter an earnest sup- 

 port. In its last, issue, fheYohmteer S&rvice Gazette, for nearly 

 a score of years the organ of the volunteer movement in 



Great Britain, says of the coming contest: "We may now 

 confidently hope that an international military shooting 

 match will become an event, if not of yearly, at least of fre- 

 quent occurrence. The great ingenuity and energy of the 

 Americans give hope that it will lead to great improve- 

 ments in military rifles and team shooting." 



THE SWANTON BATS. 

 X\7ITH the ordinary phenomena of hibernation as ex- 



' ^ hibited in many of our modern animals we are all 

 more or less familiar. The long winter sleep of the bear and 

 his kinsman, the raccoon, and of the woodchuck, or ground 

 hog, not to mention the more complete form of hibernation 

 of reptiles in northern climates, are facts familiar to every 

 schoolboy. Among mammals, however, the torpor is sub- 

 ject to interruption at times, by a rise of temperature, which 

 does not seem to affect the more profound sleep of reptiles 

 andbatrachians. 



How long it is possible for a hibernating mammal to sus- 

 tain its existence beyond that portion of the year which it 

 usually passes in this quiescent state, has been a question 

 which has engaged the attention of many a naturalist, but 

 which has remained unsolved until now. Discoveries have 

 recently been made in the State of Maryland, which illumin- 

 ate this subject with a flood of clear light, and suggest pos- 

 sibilities in regard to hibernation, hitherto unthought of. 



The editor of the Lonaconing (Md.) Valley Times gives an 

 account of the discovery of a pah of antediluvian bats in a 

 coal mine, from which the following facts are extracted. 

 "Mr. Anthony Reese, a miner employed in the Swanton 

 mine, near Barton, Allegany county, Md., dislodged what 

 appeared to be a piece of petrified wood in a seam of coal, 

 1,000 feet from the opening of the mine and 250 feet below 

 the surface. In the presence of two other miners it was dis- 

 covered that the find was a pair of bats and that they were 

 alive. They sip water, but do not seem to be able to devour 

 food, and most of the time are in a torpid condition. They 

 are quickly roused when handled, and one of them bit Mr. 

 Reese's finger till it bled. The discovery was made on the 

 16th ult., and the bats are still alive. One escaped while 

 Mr. Reese was taking it home, but, strange to say, it was 

 found again in the mine near where originally discovered. " 



This is certainly a most wonderful discovery; so remark- 

 able, indeed, that many people might question whether it had 

 over taken place had it not been vouched for by an editor. 

 We are relieved from all speculation as to how the bats 

 reached their position in the solid coal by the editor's theory, 

 which, we are proud to say, accords exactly with our own 

 ideas on the subject. "This theory is that the bats were pass- 

 ing the season of hibernation in the hollow of some decayed 

 tree, perhaps thousands of years ago, when a convulsion of 

 nature buried the tree in the depths of the earth. The coal 

 development came, the tree became a part of the coal stratifi- 

 cation, the bark a petrifaction, and the sleeping bats were 

 caged in a living tomb. But what saved the bats from per- 

 ishing? They did not need air, they did not need food ; they 

 were waiting in a torpid state peculiar to their species and 

 adapted to their nature for a season that never came to them. 

 The subtle influences of nature that touched them with life 

 at the approach of spring were cut off, and their state of 

 somnolency continued without interruption. The organism 

 that can retain life three months without sustenance or res- 

 piration ought, if the surrounding conditions are the same, 

 to retain the vital spark three years; then why not three 

 thousand? Decay was arrested because, with these creatures, 

 constituted as they are, their entombment was simply an 

 indefinite prolongation of their season of hibernation." 



Here we may, perhaps, be allowed to say that the editor's 

 modesty in claiming only a few thousand years for the 

 Swanton bats, however creditable it may be to his caution, 

 and to the truly scientific spirit in which he is pursuing his 

 investigations, must not be allowed to hamper the mind in 

 its consideration of the wonderful power of an animal to live 

 so long without air or food. We find from the records of 

 the Swanton coal mine that its foundations were laid 14,492,- 

 673 years ago. This was the age of the "steamboat lump." 

 The contract for the mine called for certain specified layers 

 of "stove," "egg," and "chestnut," to be in position and 

 ready for excavation in 4,000,000 years thereafter, under 

 penalty of a heavy forfeiture for each additional 50,000 years 

 after the date specified. As we find no record of any failure 

 to fulfil the contract, we may assume that the work was 

 completed according to its terms, and accepted, and hence 

 that the bats must have been in the dwelling from which 

 they have just been released something over 10,000,000 years 

 at the very shortest calculation. At the time of their im 



prisonment these bats were no doubt pterodactyles, or else 

 the immediate progenitors of that interesting group. As the 

 process of evolution was going on above ground and the 

 unimprisoned reptiles were developing into birds, and so on 

 up to mammals, the Swanton bats felt that they could not 

 afford to be left behind in the race toward perfection, and 

 that it was incumbent. on them to keep up with the progress 

 of events. .So, very naturally, in the spring of 1882, Mr. 

 Reese finds that they have transformed themselves into 

 something so very like the ordinary bat of to-day that to the 

 casual eye there is no difference perceptible. Had the editor 

 carefully examined the matrix which held them, it is not 

 impossible that he might have seen in it the imprint of a 

 hitherto unknown species of pterodactyle. 



Hibernation among mammals rarely covers more than a 

 few months, although we have met cases in our own experi- 

 ence where it lasted much longer, in fact, for many years. 

 One of these we remember especially well. Joe Jefferson, 

 whom we believe to belong to the class Mammalia, once 

 slept twenty years, while playing Rip Van Winkle, and we 

 can bring hundreds of living witnesses, who saw it when we 

 did, to prove our words. Epimenides, the Greek poet, went 

 Mr. Jefferson a few better, for he took a nap of fifty-seven 

 years, while the seven sleepers of Ephesus "straddled the 

 blind," so to speak, by dozing away 230 years. These last 

 were mammals also, although boys. Their case is interest- 

 ing as presenting another point of similarity to that of the 

 Swanton bats, for they, too, did their sleeping in a cave. 



The Swanton bats in their Carboniferous days squabbled 

 with antediluvian monsters in dispute over their food, and 

 dwelt in caves and hollow trees in company with Dendrerpe- 

 ion, Baplietes and Archegosaurus, forming a happy fam- 

 ily, not second to that of the "the greatest show on 

 earth." In the twilight of early morning they circled over 

 the steaming pools chasing the swift- winged and beautiful 

 Mia mm, Blaitina and Haplophlehiu/m, which there abounded, 

 and dodging the teeth of the ganoids and selachians that 

 were ever ready to take a rise at them, while the goswucrus 

 and all the rest of the saurus family looked on at the wild 

 romp with kindly interest. Later in the day, when the tropic 

 sun poured down with fervid heat, and no breeze ruffled the 

 surface of the water or stirred the straight, pale foliage of the 

 tall lepidodendrids, calamites, and tree ferns, the Swanton 

 bats hung themselves up on the cliffs and comfortably dozed 

 away the time until the cool of the evening, when they recom- 

 menced their flight. Then the Carboniferous boy, if there 

 had been one, might have thrown up his hat, and as the 

 Pre-pterodactyles flapped by on leathery wings, entreated 

 them in the language of his time : 

 "Bat, bat, fly into my hat, 

 And I'll give you a pound of candle fat." 



About this time, our heroes — if we may be allowed this 

 term — entered the hollow tree of our friend, the editor of the 

 Valley Times, to take a short nap of a few months, when the 

 contractors for the Swanton mine took their lodging house 

 for a support to be used in timbering up the mine while the 

 coal was being dumped in, and here the tree with its slum- 

 bering occupants was carelessly left. The poor creatures, 

 snugly cuddled up inside, were never told anything about 

 the matter, and never saw the light until the sixteenth of last 

 month. 



Such appears to have been the history of the Swanton bats, 

 sole living relics of Carboniferous Time. We stand before 

 them with bared heads and awestruck minds as we contem- 

 plate the changes that have passed over our globe since they 

 were first hatched near the borders of what is now the Swan- 

 ton coal bed. 



We cannot allude to the many interesting features of this 

 discovery, but one point is worthy of special mention. This 

 is the survival, in the small bat discovered, of the ferocity of 

 the primitive Palaeozoic monster. It is stated that one of the 

 animals bit Mr. Reese's finger until it bled! It is shocking to 

 contemplate what might have happened if Mr. Reese had 

 made Ms find earlier, during the Cretaceous period, for ex- 

 ample, when the bats were probably pterodactyles, with a 

 spread of wing of not less than twenty-five feet. Had they been 

 disturbed then, probably the sole evidences of their release 

 would have been a pool of blood, a miner's hat, a candle and 

 a pick. We congratulate Mr. Reese on his escape. 



The Swanton bate, as sleepers, have certainly achieved a 

 success, and so far as yet heard from, they are fairly entitled 

 to the cake, the whole of it and any crumbs that may be 

 scattered about. They are, in the language of the "literary 

 fellar," facile principes, and to use the not less expressive ver- 

 nacular of the street boy, "they take the rag off the bush." 

 They missed some few years of fun ten million years ago, but 

 if they had enjoyed it then, they could not now, so on the 



