May 30, 1884.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



347 



Ttre Trapper's Silent Fkiend.— Olympia, W. T., May 

 iQ.— Editor Forest and Stream: Your valus ble paper has 

 been the spdrtsroan's friend and the medium of exchange of 

 valuable ideas, the result of the practical experience of 

 scientific sportsmen, and the liberal manner in which these 

 ideas have been given to the public has, in reality, laid the 

 foundation for many of the uselul inventions in connection 

 with the rod and gun, and various o'her articles belonging 

 to the sportsman's catalogue. Perhaps by the same method 

 Improvements can be made on the trapper's silent friend, the 

 steel trap. At least information and queries maybe ex- 

 changed, that will prove of interest to more than one. I 

 notice a growing inclination on the part of the modern 

 trapper and hunter, to catch his fur scientifically and to 

 keep up with the times, and I can show you the files of the 

 Forest and St ream in almost every trapper and hunter's 

 camp west of the Cascade range of mountains in W. T., 

 where a post-office is accessible. The principal fault that 

 vatious trappers find with the steel trap of to-day is that the 

 catch that works over I be jaw of the trap has a tendency to 

 throw the animal's foot away from the trap when sprung, 

 at most catching it by one toe, thus allowing it to twist out. 

 This loses at least twenty-five per ceut. of valuable fur. I 

 have reference to beaver and otter. Perhaps some trapper 

 will say, "You should set your trap so as to drown your 

 heaver or otter." In anticipation of such advice 1 will say 

 that on a lake or river, or where you have plenty of water to 

 drown the animal, that would be'eorrect, but in the shallow 

 brushy swamps that you find west of the Cascade Mountains 

 in this Territory, one do>'S not always have a choice, and 

 even where there is sufficient water the animal is liable to 

 cling to the brush or shore and twist out. Give us an im- 

 provement on the steel trap. What tfiink ye?— Tillicum. 



Shore Bird Movements —Philadelphia, May 24. — The 

 expected Llack-breasled plovers, robio snipe, curlews and 

 dowitchers appeared on the New Jersey coast on their way 

 north on Monday, the 10th inst , in small numbers. My last 

 week's communication reached you simultaneously with then- 

 arrival and the birds will have passed on before you go to 

 press again. On the 20th, 21st and 22d larger flights showed 

 themselves, and shooting is good at this writing. Market 

 shooters that started out from Atlantic City made good bags, 

 and the birds brought in on the first three days of the week 

 were shipped to this city. Quite a number of short-billed 

 curlew are go'ng north, but are wild and do not stool well ; 

 black-breasted plover are more numerous than the otheT 

 varieties. The birds will not locate at any point on the New 

 Jersey coast, as they once did, and are only passing. Not 

 many years ago wi'llets bred on the New Jersey shore in 

 considerable numbers, and their eggs were collected by some 

 in quantities and considered a great delicacy; but it has been 

 ten years since I have heard of a nest where tney once hatched. 

 Ocean City, a growing watering place on Peck's Beach, now 

 occupies what was once a favorite breeding spot. A bear 

 and cub were shot near Honesdale, Pa., last week. On being 

 discovered the old bear, coutrary to the custom of Vrsus 

 with young, beat a retreat, and the cub went up a tree and 

 was first killed. The old one being followed was dispatched, 

 making no resistance — Homo 



Mosquito Preventive, — Baltimore. — A year or so ago I 

 found a paragraph in a book by G. A- Sala ("Living Lon- 

 don," p. 322), in which he stated that the English army, then 

 in Egypt, were much annoyed by fleas, etc., and that they 

 had found a protection in Pyrethrum romum. I tried the 

 remedy the following summer. While knocking about 

 Chesapeake Bay in a small catboat. it was my custom to 

 camp on shore at night. These camps were generally in a 

 clump of woods, and the mosquitoes, flies and fleas were 

 simply awful. I fout d that by taking a small quantity of 

 Pyrethrum rosceum. or the Persian camomile, making itinto 

 a paste with a few drops of alcohol, then diluting with three 

 or four times as much water, applying to the exposed parts 

 of the body and allowing it to dry, that the trouble was 

 much mitigated. The pyrethrum is not poisonous, and may 

 be freely used without danger. The drug is the basis of the 

 so-called Persian insect powder, sold in all drug stores, but 

 some of it is worthless. — D. H. B. 



a 



"That reminds me." 

 113. 



I HAD noticed while driving along the road some miles 

 from home a large pond with a swampy, swalish sur- 

 rounaing, and while gazing on it, up flew a brace of wild 

 black ducks. As was natural in any one fond of sport, my 

 heart was in a flutter, and a mental resolve was at once 

 made to come here lo-morrow with my gun. 1 sought a 

 companion, congenial both to the business in view, and the 

 requirements of sociability, and secured a young, robust, zeal- 

 ous sportsman, who was an inveterate smoker. In him I 

 had just the companion. I wanted. The morrow was fine, 

 but windy. Our drive, which accupied about two hours, 

 was somewhat marred of pleasure by the strong wind which 

 prevented our smoking and tilled our eyes with dust, for the 

 season had been wonderfully dry. Arriving at last, we tied 

 the horse to the fence, and rammed down a keavy charge of 

 No 4 into those old-fashioned muzzleloaders of that date. 

 Now, for the first time, we noticed a large board intimat- 

 ing "No trespassing," which, however, caused no more 

 trouble than the loss of a moment or so, in consultation. It 

 was a brave deed, we thought, to attack that pond, lying as 

 it did under the very shadow of the house and farm build- 

 ings, whose owner had expended labor ard money iu erect- 

 ing those warning boards for our benefit; but the grass and 

 the weeds were high aud thick, which lessened the danger, 

 and we had of necessity to crawl so as not to disturb the 

 game. 



Going on hands and knees in excruciating agonies and dire 

 discomforts, our nether garments soaked, our heads throb- 

 bing and swelling fit to burst, we at last found ourselves in 

 full view of the pond. But not a duck was there, and bar- 

 ring the two that had visited the place the day previous, I 

 do not believe there ever had been any. We were both 

 angry, and a look at either of us was as much evidence of 

 the fact as if we bad openly declared it. The strong wind 

 which now blew with unsheltered strength on us, had a 

 cooling effect, however, aud we filled our pipes. As we 

 puffed away, some thought, either of revenge or mischief, 

 sei ed my companion, for he quickly said, "i wonder if this 

 stuff would- burn ?" and by way of illustrating what he 

 meant, applied a match to the parched reeds and grass. Oh, 

 what a blaze was there! What, a game the wind had all 



alone. It seemed to pick up tuft after tuft of red hot grass, 

 and hurl I hem all over that swamp. It reminded me of 

 Samson's foxes over again, or ten thousand will o'-tlie-wisps 

 gone crazy. The heat became intense, and we were soon 

 hemmed between the two elements, fire and water, before 

 and behind. 



A shout startled us; then, as if in echo, ten. twenty more, 

 and we beheld a regiment of agriculturalists on the double, 

 each armed either with instruments of punishment or fire 

 extermination, we did not know which. We conld not 

 stand in idleness any longer, so we went to work, and worked 

 hard, too, by running with all our energy and strength along 

 the edge of the poud, miring at every other step in our en 

 deavor to escape the excited mob. I think we should have suc- 

 ceeded had not live or six men lain in ambush and seized us as 

 we emerged from the swale. We did no figbtiug. We cowed. 

 Discretion and valor had a meeting, and decided in favor ot 

 the former. Thoroughly ashamed of ourselves, we joined in 

 fighting the flames, and after throwing down a few hundred 

 rods of fencing and beating the blazing carpets till the spark 

 dust, flew thick about us, we became masters of the situation. 



The rest is i< Id in a few words. We footed the bill and 

 said no more about it till now. I often think now that it 

 would have paid me better to have bought a farm than to 

 go seeking a couple of ducks that my own eyes bad beheld 

 flying away twenty-four hours before. Verax. 



Oauada. 



113. 



Ten years ago I found an Indian skull while hunting in 

 Chaquaco Canyon, Colorado, and took it home to my ranch. 

 I have had so much fuu with it since that I have always kopt 

 it, and at this moment it is grinning at me. 



I came to Kansas in 1878, and hung the skull in the office 

 of my hotel. The country was full of land hunters I rom the 

 East, who proposed to make farms out of a chunk of this 

 desolate prairie that will hardly raise buffalo grass. Ttie} 

 were to the last man very romantic and anxious to hear big 

 yarns. My clerk observed that if he told the truth about the 

 skull when questioned about it. the tenderfeet would seem 

 disappointed, so he used to romance a little. One morning 

 he related to a lone land seeker a most blood-chilling account 

 of how he shot the Indian in the bowels and cut off his gory 

 scalp with his own bowie knife. The next day another mrm 

 questioned him, and he forgot that Number One, who was 

 present, had ever heard anything about the skull, sohekilltu 

 the Indian over for Number Two by putting out a biscuit 

 baited with strychnine, and "ketching" him and afterward 

 cutting off his head with an ax." "Hold on," says Number 

 One, "you told me yesterday that you shot him in the bow- 

 els with a rifle and scalped him." "That was another time 

 I killed him," remarked Jim, looking Number One mildly 

 in the face. W. J. D. 



114. 



A young man who did not know a setter from a pointer or 

 a trigger of a gun from the hammer, went from this city to 

 Toronto, and became acquainted with some Canadian sports- 

 men, to whom he vaunted of his skill with the shotgun and 

 success in the field over dogs. He was welcomed intc the 

 circle of shooters and promised by them a day's sport, they 

 volunteering to provide him with gun and dog. A party 

 was made up and duly repaired to a locality where birds 

 were known to be abundant. Our hero (who told the story 

 himself), with gun in hand, followed a setter, and after some 

 tramping through the brush noticed the d">g moving slowly 

 and finally stop as if paralyzed. He thought that it was a 

 hunting dog's business to hunt, and that a dog which grew 

 tired and gave up so soon in the day deserved punishment 

 for laziness, so picking up a piece of wood he hurled it at the 

 offending setter, and started in amazement as a "lot of big 

 brown birds" burst up before the dog. Crown Wad. 



Rochester. 



115. 



Uncle John McK. was a local preacher, quite wealthy, 

 and withal a good man. He was also a sportsman and well 

 known in several counties around for his love of field sports. 

 His case was the subject of frequent discussion among his 

 brethren, but the old man still clung to his gun, rod, hounds 

 and his profession. 



One Sunday morning, while on his way to fill an appoint- 

 ment, he found his youngest boy, Russel, at the foot of the 

 river fishing. The old man was justly indignant; but just 

 as he reined up his horse the boy made a handsome cast and 

 strike. The hard lines on the face of the father gradually 

 soltened as the play went on, and presently he said, "My 

 son, give him the butt of the rod and he is your bass." 

 Even then he was not forgetful of the duties of his calling, 

 and when the boy plead the beautiful day and the voracity 

 of the bass as the cause of his transgression, the father, 

 mindful of the publicity of the place, leaned forward- in his 

 saddle and whispered, "Russel, my experience leads me to 

 advise that just up around the bend of the river is the best 

 fishing ground in the State." Parson O'Gath. 

 Ohio. 



titter fishing. 



WHAT THEY SAY OF "WOO DC RAFT." 



THIS book contains a series of useful Instructions for those who 

 go to the woods in search of health or amusement, and is, on the 

 whole, a valuable companion and assistant to such as have not large 

 stores of personal experience to draw from. It is systematically 

 arranged and plainly written. * * * On the whol", the 

 book is sound and practical, and well worth the reading.— The Nation. 



This charming little book is written to teach the traveler how to 

 journey through the wilderness with ease, and on perusing its con- 

 tents we find that it is the experience of an old hunter, who gives the 

 best of advice to those who go out in the woods for a season of rest 

 and relaxation, and need to study lightness and economy in a forest 

 and stream outing.— Spirit of tlve Times. 



Seattle, Washington Territory, May 8.— I received "Nessmuk's" 

 book, and was highly pleased with it; in fact, did not lay it down till 

 I had finished it. It contains numberless hints of value to the novice, 

 or "tenderfoot," and even some which we old haj.ds might profit by. 

 Succe-s to old "muzzleloader's" venture anyway, and may he sell ten 

 million copies.— H. H. L. 



The newest volume of the Fobkst akd Stream series is "Wood- 

 craft," by "Nes-muk." It is a little volume written in a sparkling 

 vein, and crammed with hints to the camper -out. It is intended to 

 teach the reader "how to make an outing a pleasure instead of a 

 misery, a comfort instead of a calamity," aud it is certainly one of 

 the brightest books on the subject that has ever come to our notice. 

 Not the smallest ot its attractions is the illustration of the subject, 

 even to the details of inaldog a camp-fire, showing at a glance what 

 the writer means to teach. It is a charming little publication, and is 

 quite as attractive for its occasional dit-serta'ion on trout fishing, as 

 for its matter-of-fact details of camp life.— Portland (Me.), Press., 



CAMPS OF THE KINGFISHERS. 



Black Lake, Michigan. -II I. 



SHORTLY after leaving the spring we came to the "twin 

 lakes," a pair of lovely little gems of water, sep- 

 arated by a high backbone a few yards "wide at the top, over 

 which the wagon road passes. So narrow is this ridge that 

 from the wagons we could look down, seventy or eighty feet 

 it seemed, ou either of them; the one on the right appearing 

 much lower than the other. 



They are perhaps eighty rods long by half as wide, and 

 are surrounded on the side's opposite the ridge by hills that 

 are thickly wooded lothe water's edge. 



We cjuld see no inlet or outlet to them, and our driver 

 said he had never heard of their having any, nor was it 

 known whether they contained fHi or not. As this was a 

 question we did not care to spend time in solving, we drove 

 on, satisfied that the Master had scooped them out for some 

 wise purpose which to us was a sealed book. 



Skirting around the base of a lofty, forest-clad ridge, 

 trending off to the left in a southeasterly direction, the road 

 led us around the point on to another plain, and off in the 

 distauce we caught the shimmer of water and the sight of a 

 green line some miles away that our driver informed us was 

 the further shore of Black Lake. Our understanding had 

 been that we were to have crossed Big Black River some- 

 where below a'xl gone up on the opposite side from where we 

 now were, as Merrill lived on that side and our camp was to 

 be somewheie near his house; but we njw learned from the 

 drivers that it was impossible* to cross the river without 

 swimming it, so we had the unplpasant alternati T e lef t of 

 driving clear around the lake to a point some three miles 

 from the head to where we were to mak« camp. 



And we learned, too, that neither of the three smart driv- 

 ers knew where tbey were going or how to grt there, nor did 

 they know where Merrill lived, only that his place was 

 twenty-two or twenty-three miles from Cheboygan and near 

 Black Lake. Ilere was another * 'category," but we took the 

 matter into our own hands and mildly requested them to 

 "bile ahead till they smelt blud," or find Merrill's, if it took 

 a week. The road led straight across the plains to the lake, 

 which we struck a mile or such a matter from the outlet. 



Prom the top of the bank overlooking the lake, we could 

 see a small steamer at anchor near the further shore three or 

 four miles away, which our driver said was used to tew 

 booms of logs to the head of Big Black River — the outht of 

 the Tike — and this might be brought over by a smoke signal 

 to take us and our traps up to our camp, which would allow 

 them to drive back to town that evening. 



Four or -five of us got out and took an old loggers' road 

 down to the water to get a better view of the lake and study 

 over the situation. 



The driver's hint was not acted en and no smoke was 

 made, except by old Ben in making a few remarks to fit the 

 occasion, as the water was too shallow near shore to allow 

 the steamer to get nearer than thirty or forty yards, which 

 would leave us to float our heavier boxes alongside and get 

 them and ourselves aboard as best we might. 



This we did not propose to do, and we went back to the 

 wagons and took the road up the lake in not quite as hilarious 

 a mood as pervaded the party at the spring, for we knew by 

 the slant of the sun that it would be long after dark before 

 we reached Merrill's, where we could at least pass the night, 

 or what remained of it, and go to camp early in the mornin°\ 

 But we were in for it, ana drove along at a good pace 

 without grumbling, having made up our minds that growl- 

 ing would not shorten the di>tance nor find Merrill's clearing. 

 When near the head of the lake, shut off from view, how- 

 ever, by a belt of timber, the road forked and the drivers 

 soon decided they did not know which one to follow. The 

 one leading to the right might be only an old log road ending 

 at the lakeside; the other they thought led into the State 

 road a mile or so further on, which crossed the Rainey River 

 near the head of the lake. "Nothing like having drivers 

 that don't know anything," remarked the Scribe, "as it gives 

 us a chance to run the whole show for a brief period our- 

 selves." 



We settled the matter by taking the right hand road, as 

 promising a near cut, taking the chances "at the same time 

 ou getting through, or camping somewhere for tne night. 

 At the top of the hill we got out, except old Dan, Frank 

 and the drivers, and forming ourselves into a pioneer corps, 

 went ahead, the wagons iollowing after. Down a steep! 

 sandy hill, and into a cedar swamp bridged by a corduroy 

 of poles and logs, a matter of forty "rods from the main 

 roaa, and we came suddenly out of the tangle onto the 

 beach at the very upper end of the lake. Here the road 

 seemed to end, and we weie in a worse category than ever, 

 for it would be a senous matter to turn around here and get 

 the heavily loaded wagons back to the top of the sandhill. 



When our minds were about made up that we were in a 

 trap, we noticed faint wagon wheel marks in the bushes to 

 the left which the Scribe and I followed a few yards and 

 found a good road leading along a. strip of low, open bottom 

 land between the beach aud the hill a few rods back. 



A hundred yards further, we stood on asubstantial wooden 

 bridge .-panning the Rainey River, only a few rods from 

 where it flowed into the lake, and from this point we had a 

 good view of this beautiful sheet of water for the greater 

 part of its length, which is about nine miles. It was fully 

 as wild as we had pictured it. 



Sweeping away around to the left in the form of a deep 

 bay, to a poiut six miles or more below, where the lake 

 narrowed from six miles, at its greatest width, to about three 

 and a half miles, was an unbroken line of wooded shore, not 

 a sign in sight of clearing, house or shanty to mar the 

 harmony of its green setting. Down the right hand side, 

 near which we were, the shore line was nearly straight, and 

 as far as we could see for a trend in it to the northward, the 

 general features were the same, woods and bushes nearly 

 down to the water the entire distance. It was a rare, quiet 

 picture, but we had little time in which to enjoy it as the 

 sun was nearly down, and Merrill's yet in the dim and un- 

 certain oistance— veiily not a cheering prospect of seeing our 

 camp that night. 



We shouted to the boys to come ahead, and following the 

 road along the bottom for perhaps an eighth of a mile it led 

 us off to the left up a low rocky hill (the first rocks we had 

 seen) out onto the level country and into the State road. Soon 

 we saw a faint blue smoke through the woods, then a house, 

 and as we came abreast of a small clearing by the roadside^ 

 a man hoeing in a "tater patch," the whole -'farm" fenced 

 by the road on one side and a wall of woods ot the other 

 three. Walking over to the stranger, who on noting our ap- 



