Mat 8, 1884.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



283 



MAJOR JOSEPH VERITY'S STEAM CAT. 



" There, where the Garden of Irem lies, 

 Are the roots of the Tree of Paradise; 

 And liappy are they who sit below, 

 When into this world of strife and death 

 The blossoms are shaken by Allah's breath." 



IT recently happened that I found myself one evening in 

 the luxuriously-furnished library of Mr. J. P. Squiboh. 



We had dined. and the gas was lighted, and as we Selected 

 our cigars from the silver thingumbob upon the teapoy, I 

 observed by its side a copy of Foeest and Stream, lying 

 open at the last paper on the Bigosh. "Ah," said 1, ''it 

 seems that you manage to find time for Mr. Mather's admir- 

 able sketches." 



Replied then the Squibob: "With pleasure and proht 

 have 1 devQte'd to these papers a portion of those moments 

 of leisure which I sometimes contrive to reserve from the 

 cares of State." 



"What, then, think you, of the Bigosh? Is it a real 

 stream, or a delightful figment of the imagination?" 



Mr. Squibob leaned hack in his fauteuil, with a far-off 

 look in his eyes, and silentlv smoked, until the ashes from 

 his ejgar descended upon" and ohscured the lustre of the 

 magnificent coprolite which blazed in the bosom of his shirt. 

 Then he spoke: "The Bigosh is no myth. I know its 

 waters well. It is n stream of many sources, and the finest 

 fishes of all lands are there obtained. Its tributaries —I have 

 traveled far and I have seen them oft. They rise in the 

 grim shadows of Hood and Shasta, of Tahawus and Cho- 

 coma, of the Monck and the Aarhorn ; of Snowdon and the 

 Bens of Lorn, and their confluence may be found in the 

 Garden of Irem, where, stands the Tree of Paradise. 



Mr. Squibob remained silent for a space, while I mused 

 on the somewhat peculiar statement he had made; then he 

 spoke again: 



"1 made the acquaintance of the Bigosh when a little boy. 

 My first cane fishing-rod was in my hand, and I was happy. 

 1 stood on a small ledge of rock, with the bank rising abruptly 

 hehind me, and the foam of an eddy circling at my feet. 

 Above, there was a dam, and a bridge on which stood other 

 fishers. Across the river, the old mill clattered on; the sun- 

 beams sit led gently through the branches of the ancient elm 

 above, the dash of the water was in my ears, the golden 

 oriole darted in and out of his pendent nest. I could have 

 reached it with my rod, but I had come to fish, and had I 

 not, in my own hands, and for almost the first time, the 

 means of doing so? 



"There was a new cane rod, and a good stout line, and a 

 nice large hook, and a fine fat worm, and a good big hunk of 

 lead, and the cork of a bottle, and — 



"There was a tug and a strain, and— well! It is very fine, 

 and all that, to hear those tarpon fishers tell of their petty 

 exploits, with a few hundred yards of spare line to help 

 them out of a tight place; but there was I, an urchin five ot- 

 six years old, with line tied fast to the tip of the rod, and 

 standing on a ledge like a window sill, no chance for retreat, 

 the water foaming at my feet, and a good four-pounder do- 

 ing his level best to pull me in. 



"By dint of the most herculean efforts, born of despair and 

 the necessities of the case, I managed to raise the fish, once 

 only, half out of the water. That one look was enough. I 

 set my teeth hard, and planted my heel more firmly and held 

 on like grim death. How long the struggle might have 

 lasted, and what its result, had I been left to my own de- 

 vices, can never be known, for a young man, seeing my dire 

 predicament, and fearing, from the gallant fight the fish and 

 I were both making, that I might be pulled in and drowned, 

 ran down and landed the prize. "Augustus," said I, as to- 

 gether we rode homeward from the mill with the "grist" 

 for which we had come, and the fish I had taken at our feet 

 in the wagon; "Augustus, if that fish had pulled me in, 

 wouldn't you have saved the fish-pole f 



"But, Mr. Squibob," said I, "could you not contrive to 

 communicate some definite information concerning the Bi- 

 gosh?" 



Again there came into the eyes of my friend that far- 

 away look, but I brought hirn to a realizing sense of his 

 duties to the guest within his hall by requesting a light for 

 my cigar. Mr. Squibob struck with a sledge hammer, which 

 hung at his side, a large tin pan, attached by an emerald 

 clasp to a chain of rubies, pendent from the frescoed dome 

 above, and ere the soft tones had died away in the dim re- 

 cesses of the vaulted walls, appeared two gigantic blacks, 

 habited, one in the costume of the Falklands and one in that 

 of the Farallone Islands, and bearing flaming torches of the 

 perfumed wood of the Oklawaha. When I had availed my- 

 self of their services, another stroke upon the melodious pan 

 sent them through the floor, as I imagined; for so sudden 

 was their exit that, but for the burning cigar and the sable 

 wreaths of pitch pine smoke which floated among the silken 

 folds of the portico, it was as if they had never been. 



"You are well and promptly served," said I. "Aye," he 

 answered. "Those fellows were formerly in the service of 

 the Countess de Landsfeld-Heald. She trained 'em. But 

 to return. The Bigosh flows through many lands, and 

 is finally lost in Adironda, near the southeast corner of 

 Major Joseph VeruVy's park." "Ah," said I, "this reminds 

 me. Did you see, a few weeks since, in the Forest and 

 Stream, a communication from Major Joseph Verity, in 

 which he relates an incident connected with the initial ex- 

 periments with the combination bear-machinery?" "I did, 

 sir. I remember it well, as I was much annoyed." "Then 

 the statement was incorrect?" "I did not say that. The 

 annoyance arose from the Major's having called me J. B. 

 Squibob. My name is J. P. Squibob, and in schoolboy 

 phrase, I do not like to be called out of my name. I infer 

 that his memory fails. Besides, the original combination 

 bear gun was no invention of mine. It was conceived in 

 the brain, and manufactured by the hand of Doctor Ebene- 

 zer Christopher Columbus Kellogg, Justice of the Peace and 

 quorum." "And custalorum?"" "Aye, and rotalorum, too, 

 of Mancelona, Michigan. He is a man after Major Verity's 

 own heart, and let him have due credit." 



"But the Major's statement?" "Why, as to that, it seems 

 odd that any one should remember such a trivial occurrence. 

 Major Verity is a gentleman, firm of eye and calm of lip. 

 There was a time when the mere slaying of a bear with a 

 howie, or the ineidental slashing off of the seat of a gentle- 

 man's galligaskins, would have left his leathern visage 

 undisturbed even by the faintest ripple of emotion. But I 

 think that he retains some old-fashioned ideas concern- 

 ing pistols and coffee, and has, besides, quarte and tierce at 

 his fingers' ends, I shall not question his statements. The 

 graves of those who have thus*presumed, now dot the sward 

 from Passamaquoddy to Alaska. I think that had it not 

 been for a little circumstance connected with his old inven. 



tion of the once celebrated 'Steam Cat,' he' would scarcely 

 have borne in mind the occurrence he has related." Then 

 Mr. Squibob dreamed again, but roused himself, and said: 

 "I was trying to call to mind the occasion on which I first 

 met Major Verity. I think that it was in the charge of the 

 Six Uunc'red, at' Balaklava— or was it Solferino?— no— I 

 have it. It was in the famous campaign against Kamaiakan, 

 when together we 'wallowed in the Walla Walla,' and when, 

 in the words of a historian of that day, the hardy pioneers, 

 at the call of their country, castiug aside the frivolous spade, 

 the enervating pickaxe, and the trifling hoe, shouldered their 

 $50 rifles, and springing into their $80 saddles, dashed their 

 $300 steeds into the desolate plains of the Walla Walla, and 

 there recklessly and fearlessly encamped. It was in this 

 action that the Major won his spurs. They were purchased 

 by subscription of the brigade, from Spiegel Eisen & Co., of 

 'Frisco, and cost at the rate of $1.90 a dozen, 15 per cent, off 

 for cash in six months, and they were, I regret to say, a 

 fraud. We all did know those spurs, and I remember the 

 first time that the Major had them on. 'Twas on a summer 

 evening, near his teut, and the rowels were hooked into the 

 sinches of a bucking cnyuse. They both gave way. The 

 distance from the cayuse to the point where we picked the 

 Major up, was stated in the report of the Government sur- 

 veyors attached to the expedition, at sixty-seven feet and 

 four inches, in a northwesterly direction." 



' 'And what were the results of the expedition ?" 



"They were thus briefly summed up by the historian pre- 

 viously quoted: 'That great chief, Kamaiakan, now sits 

 and gnaws the gambrel joint of a defunct Cayuga pony, 

 little knowing on which side of his staff of life the oleagin- 

 ous product of lactation is disseminated.'" 



"But about the 'steam cat?' " 



"Well, the Major and I drifted East after the war, and as 

 he did not at that time own the immense diamond mines 

 which he subsequently discovered in the Barkhamsted 

 Lighthouse Territory of Connecticut, he was, I imagine, 

 somewhat impecunious, and either invented or purchased 

 the. celebrated steam cat. Properly managed, there might 

 have been a fortune in it. It wjis designed to overcome and 

 do away with a leading cause of insomnia. Placed upon a 

 roof in the heart of a great city, its dulcet caterwauls were 

 absolutely irresistible, and the cats swarmed in like Bulwer- 

 Lytton's ghosts, only to be torn in pieces by the steam cat's 

 claws of steel. I think that it was first set going in Cleve- 

 land. Contracts from all the larger boarding houses were 

 rapidly filled and money was flowing in, when, unfortu- 

 nately, a large Persian cat, belonging to the wife of the 

 Mayor, yielded to the seductions of our animal, and the 

 Mayor's wife caused the passage of an ordinance prohibitiss; 

 its further use in the city. The other lake towns were jeal- 

 ous because Cleveland had the first chance, and wouldn't 

 allow it within their limits. 



"The Major was discouraged, and got a new idea. He 

 said: 'There's a big demand for kindling wood just now; 

 let's take the cat into one »f the tracts of dead pine, make 

 kindling, and freight a fleet. There's millions in it.' The 

 thing looked feasible, and in fact, the plan at the start proved 

 successful. The cat clawed a forty-four inch pine into 

 kindling stuff in nine minutes, and I began to think our 

 fortunes were made. There was, however, one trouble. 

 Our engineer was ill, and we hired McBallywhistle to take 

 his place. You knew him — not Dunk McB. ofBuctouche, 

 but Donald, the son of old Mrs. McBallywhistle of Meri- 

 gouische. He had been guiding parties, and used to leave a 

 piece of Limburger cheese at the camp so that he could 

 easily get back by a short cut, and not lose his way, but the 

 party was attacked by what the doctors, I thmk, called 

 'acute nostalgia,' and he was thrown out of a job. Well, 

 Mac didn't understand the cut-off or something, and the cat, 

 under his management, became restive and dangerous, and 

 would sometimes jump the wrong way. 



"We had just set the machine at work at the foot of a huge 

 piue, and Mac depressed the lever, when I saw in the steel- 

 blue eye of the animal, a gleam which meant mischief. It 

 was at that instant headed at the Major. ''Ware cat,' I 

 shouted, and Verity sprang. The claws just missed his 

 cuticle by the thirty-second part of an inch, but — this in your 

 ear — there wasn't as much clothing left on the weather side 

 of him as it would take to wad a combination bear gun. " 



G. Whtllikens. 



Elk Rapids, Michigan. 



in\%\ l§i$torg. 



DEER IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 



BY C. H. MERRIAM. M.D. 



[From advance sheets of the Transactions of the Linnean Society of 

 New York.] 



Cariacus Virginianus (Bodd.) Gray. 



COMMON DEER; VIRGINIA DEER; RED DEER; WHITE- 

 TAILED DEER. 



Spike-Ham Bucks. 



THE matter of "spike-horn bucks," though somewhat 

 threadbare, deserves mention in this connection from 

 the circumstance that the suppposed variety was first de- 

 scribed from the Adirondacks. In a note in the American 

 Naturalist for December, 1869 (Vol. III., No. 10, pp. 552- 

 553), a writer observed that he had hunted in the Adiron- 

 dacks for twenty-one years, and goes on to say: "About 

 fourteen years ago, as nearly as I can remember, I first be- 

 gan to hear of spike-horn bucks. The stories about them 

 multiplied, and they evidently became more and more com- 

 mon from year to year. About five years ago I shot one of 

 these animals, a large buck with spike-horns, on Louis Lake. 

 In September, 1867, I shot another, a three-year-old buch 

 with spike-horns, on Cedar lakes. These spike-horn bucks 

 are now frequently shot in all that portion of the Adiron- 

 dacks south of Baguette Lake. I presume the sarre is true 

 north of Raquette Lake, but of this latter region I cannot 

 speak from personal observation, having visited it only once. 

 "The spike-horn differs greatly from the common antler of 

 the C. virginianus. It consists of a single spike, more slen- 

 der than the antler, and scarcely half so long, projecting 

 forward from the brow, and terminating in a very sharp 

 point. It gives a considerable advantage to its possessor 

 over the common buck. Besides enabling him to run more 

 swiftly through the thick woods and underbrush ( every hun- 

 ter knows that does and yearling bucks run much more 

 rapidly than the large bucks when armed with their cum- 

 brous antlers [!]), the spike-horn is a more effective weapon 

 than the common antler. With this advantage the spike- 

 horn-bucks are gaining upon the common bucks, and may, 



in time, entirely supersede them in the Adirondacks. Un- 

 doubtedly the first spike-horn buck was merely an acci- 

 dental freak of nature. But his spike-horns gave him an 

 advantage, and enabled him to propagate his peculiarity, 

 Ilis descendants, having a like advantage, have propagated 

 the peculiarity in a constantly increasing ratio, till they are 

 slowly crowding the antlered deer from the. region they 

 innhabit."* 



The foregoing note contains several inaccuracies of state- 

 ment, and the writer's deductions are wholly erroneous. It 

 was verv justly criticised by Mr. W. J. Hays in the Natu- 

 ralist for May, 1870 (pp. 188-189). Further remarks and 

 discussions may be found in the same journal, Vol. IV., pp. 

 442-443, 762-763, and Vol. V., pp. 250-251. The subject is 

 now well understood, and the Hou. Judge Caton has pre- 

 sented the facts of the case with such accuracy and concise- 

 ness that I cannot do better than transcribe his own words: 



"It has long been a prevalent opinion among hunters, and 

 to some extent has been adopted by naturalists, that a race 

 of common deer, the adults of which have antlers without 

 branches, have established themselves in the no theastern 

 part of the United States and in Canada, whence they are 

 driving out the prong-antlcred bucks. 



"This is a matter of the greatest scientific importance, and 

 I have taken pains to investigate it to my satisfaction, and 

 am entirely convinced that it is a popular error, founded upon 

 incomplete observations. The spike bucks found in the 

 Adirondacks are all yearling bucks with their first antlers. 

 The universal testimony, so far as i have been able to gather 

 it, is that they are smaller than the average of the prong- 

 antlered bucks, and that their spikes vary in length 

 from eight inches, or ten inches at the very utmost, down to 

 two or three inches in length. It is only the largest of these 

 that any have claimed to be adults. It is very easy for a 

 hunter to say, and even believe, that he has killed deer with 

 spikes ten inches long, but did he actually measure them, 

 and make a note of the fact, with time and place, describ- 

 ing its appearance, and take and note the measurements of 

 the animal, or did he preserve the head, so that he could 

 submit it to the examination of others? * * * 



"Continued observations upon the young deer in my parks 

 have enlightened me much on this subject. For several 

 years I really persuaded myself that I had the true spike- 

 antlered bucks, and set myself to carefully note their pecu- 

 liarities, and fondly believed that I was about to add au 

 important chapter to scientific knowledge. But these careful 

 and continued observations soon undeceived and disappointed 

 me. By marking the spike buck of one year, which was as 

 large as one feeding by its side having two or three tines on 

 each antler, I found the next year that his antlers were also 

 branched, and my spike-antlered buck had become a fine 

 specimen of the ordinary kind. And then the early fawn of 

 the year before, dropped from a full adult vigorous doe, 

 which had furnished him plenty of milk, had now grown to 

 the size of a medium adult, and had fine spike-antlers., 

 resembling in all things his older brother of the preceding 

 year now bearing the pronged antlers. And so 1 anxiously 

 pursued my observations for a number of years, ever looking 

 in vain for a second antler without prongs. Without this 

 certain means of knowledge, I should have believed that 

 those large spike-antlered bucks were more than yearlings 

 and nearly adult. It is true the dentitien might have unde- 

 ceived me, but this I could not acertain while the animal was 

 alive, and this test has probably been rarely examined and 

 carefully studied by those hunters who believe they have 

 killed adult deer with spike antlers. I feel quite sure that 

 they had not the means of accurately determining the true 

 ages of the wild deer which they had killed; and what I 

 have already stated may serve to show how very liable all 

 are to be misled in relation to a point upon a certain knowl- 

 edge of which the whole question depends."! 



The only exception, that has come to my knowledge, to 

 the rule that spike-horn bucks are always yearlings, is a case 

 that fell under the observation of Mr. E. L. Sheppard : A 

 very old buck, with much gray about his head, was killed 

 in Queer Lake about ten years ago. In addition to its ex- 

 treme age, it had but three legs and was consequently ill- 

 conditioned, having been unable to procure sufficient food. 

 It carried a pair of spike horns, which differed from those 

 of yearling bucks in being much thicker at the base, 

 rougher, more warty, and deeply wrinkled for some 

 distance above the burr. This apparent exception is an 

 illustration of two general laws (a) that in extreme age 

 there is a tendency for certain parts to revert to a con- 

 dition resembling that of early life; and (b) that ill-nourished 

 bucks bear stunted and more or less imperfect horns. It is 

 a well-known fact that the largest, handsomest, and most 

 perfect antlers eome from middle-aged deer that have win- 

 tered well, and are in fine condition ; while the few-pronged 

 and unsymmetrical ones are grown by young or very old 

 animals, or by those that have been wounded or from other 

 cause are poor and ill-conditioned4 



All yearlings do not have true spike-horns, and if the term 

 be made to include all unbranched antlers, I am strongly of 

 the opinion that two-year-old bucks sometimes grow them. 

 1 have a pair of unbranched antlers that are curved both in- 

 ward and forward, and are of exceptional length, 

 the separate horns measuring respectively ten and a hall and 

 eleven inches (or 267 and 279mm.) over the curve, and 

 seven and a half and eight inches (190 and £03mm.) in a 

 straight line from the base of the burr to the tip. The long- 

 est horn presents a slight enlargement, three inches from the 

 tip, along its upper and posterior border, the greatest thick" 



♦The above passage fell under the ever-searching eye of that eml> 

 nent naturalist and Indefatigable collector of facts, the late and much 

 lamented Charles Darwin, wnose massive intellect and exhaustive re- 

 searches have revolutionized natural science and mark a new era in 

 the progress of knowledge. Mr. Darwin, misled by this account, part 

 of which he quotes in his masterly work on the "Descent of Man," 

 remarks upon it as follows: "A critic has well objected to this ac- 

 count by asking, why, if the simple horns are now so advantageous, 

 were the branched antlers of the parent-form ever developed ? To 

 this I can only answer by remarking, that a new mode of attack with 

 new weapons might be a great advantage, as shown by the case of 

 the Ovis cycloceros, who thus conquered a domestic ram famous for 

 his fighting Dower. Though the branched antlers of a slag are well 

 adapted for fighting with his rivals, and though it might be an advan- 

 vantage to the prong-horned variety slowly to acquire long and 

 branched horns, if he had to fight only with others of l he same kind, 

 yet it by no means follows that branched horns would be the best 

 fitted for conquering a foe differently armed." ("Descent of Man," 

 New York, 1875, p. 513.) 



+ Antelope and Deer of America, p. 281-232. 



± Through the kindness of the well-known guide, Mr. K. L. Shep- 

 pard, I possess a specimen of unusual interest that well illustrates 

 this point. The buck, which was an adult, was killed at Big Moose 

 Lake, September 10, 1880, and its horns are imperfect, asymmetrical, 

 and very scraggy. The animal was lank and thin, and was found to 

 be a cripple. Its left humerus had once been broken and the frag- 

 ments had united at a right angle, so that the fore leg was directed 

 forward, and the shortening of the humerus was so great (its greatest 

 length being less than six and a half inches, or exactly, l&tmnti.) that 

 the foot could not be made to touch the ground. 



