SS 
was killed by it. This was in’ July, at which season these 
creatures are Computed to be in the greatest vigor of their 
poison. 
> Another drig which is poison to a venomous snake is 
tobacco, within the reach of most persons. This, among 
native remedies, has always been in favor, and we have 
heard of its efficacy ever since the weed was known to Euro- 
peans, Various species of tobacco and its allies are in- 
digenous to most tropical countries, and probably were in 
use for both man and snake bites long before civilized nations 
fook comfort in smoking, Man carries more poison in his 
mouth than a snake, said an old Virginian writer, alluding 
{0 nicotine, He can poison a rattlesnake more quickly than 
it can him, Nicholson states that it also rapidly affects a 
cobra, and le recommends it, should you wish to destroy the 
snake uninjured. ‘You have,” he says, ‘but to blow into 
his mouth 4 drop or two of the oil from a dirty pipe.” 
Two young men chopping wood together in Virginia 
espied a, rattlesnake. With a forked stick one of them held 
its head close to the ground, keeping the body constrained 
with his foot, while his comrade took from his own mouth a 
quid of tobbacco which he foreed into that of the snake, 
The reptile was then released, and had not crawled a couple 
of yards before it was convulsed, swelling and dying within 
a short time. 
Strychnine appears to have a similar effect to tobacco 
on snakes. Fayrer found cobras extremely susceptible 
to the influence of strychnine, An almost impalpable 
quantity caused a cobra to twist itself up in a rigid series of 
coils and die. Carbolie acid is another drug which pro- 
duces powerful effects. Poured on the floor of their cages it 
will kill venomous snakes in a very short time. A large 
Bungarus died in ten minutes in this way. 
Dr. Weir Mitchell approves of carbolic acid. The Lancet 
vecommends every backwoodsman to supply himself with a 
little of it, which is easily portable and manageable in 
capillary tubes. In several of Mitchell’s experiments with 
erotalus venom, carbolic acid applied to the wound was 
attended with success. But it must be done at once. 
The whole secret of cures—when cures can be effected at 
all—lies in promptness. It is celerity on the part of the 
“Indians which insures their success, In an instant, if his 
comrade be bitten, the savage is on his knees sucking the 
wound, graspiug the lim) firmly or strapping it tightly 
above and below the bite, knowing quite well the importance 
of checking the circulation. He has his ‘‘poison. pills,” and 
ftobaceo in his pouch. He explodes gunpowder onthe wound 
and loses not an instant, nor does the victim lose heart. He 
submits with courage and confidence, and in these lies another 
element of success. aa 
Many cases are on record of persons being at death*s door 
through fear alone, when bitten by a harmless snake, but 
recovering on being assured that there was no danger, And 
other cases are well known where bitten persons haye died 
of fright and the depressing influence surrounding the acci- 
dent, when they might possibly have recovered. 
And now fora few words about the most popular and 
perhaps the most altainable of all remedies—alcchol. No 
wonder that the backwoodsman resorts to this, which, with- 
out any chopping-off of fingers or toes, or personal pyrotech- 
nics, or other local tortures, deadens his sensibilities, renders 
him unconscious of all suffering, and sends him intoa happy 
obliviousness of danger. It is not arefined mode of treat- 
ment, nor one that presents many opportunities of exhibit- 
ing professional skin; and itis no doubt somewhat deroga- 
tory to admit that to become dead drunk is an effective 
victory against snake yenom, During a sojourn in Iowa 
some years ago, when wild and uncleaned lands formed the 
‘streets’ of the town in which | was staying—Lyons, on 
the Mississippi River, and as lovely a spot as artists and 
botanists Gan wish to revel in—it was by no means an infre- 
quent occurrence to hear of rattlesnake bites. 
‘What was to be done tothe man? Is he alive?” were 
questions naturally asked. 
“He drank a quart of raw whisky and got dead drunk.” 
Generally a quart had the desired effect, that is, of causing 
intoxication, Persons unused to intoxicants might be 
affected by a less quantity, but so violent is the combat 
between yenom and whisky that a large dose must be 
‘swallowed before any effects at all are produced. J heard 
of a man in Nevada, George Terhune, a teamster (I give his 
name, having reason to believe the truth of the story) who 
was bitten in the hand by arattiesnake while stooping to 
veach some water out of a spring. The man was alone and 
far away from human habitations. It was an instinctive 
and momentary business first to kill the snake; then rushing 
to his wagon, he drew the bung from a keg of whisky and 
took a large draught of the contents. After swallowing as 
much as he could, he took some tobacco from his pocket, 
saturated that with whisky, and applied this poultice to his 
hand. He then proceeded with his:team, drinking whisky 
at intervals, until he reached a dwelling, when he removed 
the poultice and found that the wound had turned green, 
Applying another of the same kind, he resumed his jonrney 
and lis potent doses, reaching his destination the’ next day 
as sober as a judge, having imbibed enough fire-water to in- 
loxicate a dozen men. 
The quantify sometimes_swallowed under such circum- 
stances ig utterly incredihle. Professor Halford describes a 
snake-bite, near Melbourne, in which two bottles of brandy 
were drunk withoul any symptons of intoxication, and 
another of a girl of fourteen, who, when bitten by an Aus- 
tralian snake, drank three bottles without being intoxicated. 
She recovered, 
Alcohol has powerful attractions for oxygen, writes 
Professor Halford, on the theory that the venom has 
produced foreign cells in the blood; so that if alcohol engage 
the oxygen absorbed by the poison, the cells perish and 
recoyery ensues. Dr. Shortt, of Madras, says: Bring the 
patient under the influence of intoxication as speedily as 
possible; make him drunk and keep him drunk until the 
virus is overcome. Dr. Weir Mitchell states that delicate 
women and young children under the influence of snake 
poison could take quarts of brandy without injury, and 
almost without effect. One man—a man of temperate 
habits—took one quart and a half pint of brandy, which 
only slightly intoxicated him for about four hours. An- 
other man, bilten in the throat, was cured at the end of 
twenty-four hours, during which time he had two quarts of 
whisky in one night. and renewed, as the pulse fell, besides 
red pepper and other stimulants, 
Wauerw ton AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGICAL UNION convenes 
we hope the members will take up the discussion of the 
destruction of small birds by irresponsible gunners and by 
aaxidermists’ agents, 
a 
Ss 
FORE 
craze,” 
spruces that are dying out, woodpeckers were numerous, 
Bores for insects day after day. 
multiply till whole spruce forests are in danger. 
worse yet, these dead trees are almost sure to be followed by 
fire. 
been made easy of access to the would-be hunter. 
= FF ht = 
ST AND STREAM. 
SMALL BIRD DESTRUCTION: 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The Formst AND STREAM has said many good words for 
the protection of our song and insectivorous birds, but the 
missionary work is not all done yet. An importer of millinery 
goods is authority for the statement that from the south 
shore of Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, there have 
been shipped to Liverpool during the past year about 40,000 
tern, a species of small gull or sea swallow, common in that 
locality. They go to Liverpool and thence to Paris, where 
they are prepared for ornamenting ladies’ hats. They are 
shipped from Massachusetts at twenty-five cents a piece, but 
the wholesale dealer in millinary goods imports them into 
this country again at $2 each, though they are largely worn 
in Paris. 
What is to be done to save these birds? It is of not the 
slightest use to ask Dame Fashion to put her yeto upon the 
wearing of them. ‘The only hope is that they will soon be 
out of style, and that the worst is over for this time, 
Our governm ent is to be asked to appoint specialists to in- 
vestigate the subjéct of the dying out of the spruce trees in 
the northeastern part of the domain. Some insect is eating 
around the stems and spruce lumber is endangered by the 
wholesale. 
nowadays, and in the absence of other living creatures what 
do they shoot? 
Well, men and boys go into the woods by scores 
Insectivorous birds. Woodpeckers have 
been among the first victims to fall before the “guoning 
Twenty years ago, in the vicinity of these very 
To-day they are scarce. What does the woodpecker do? 
Kill off the woodpeckers 
The answer is plain; the insects 
Then, 
and what is the result? 
Only a few years ago the Canada jay was very common in 
the vicinity of the Androscoggin Lakes, That EON fai 
as! 
every boy who goes into those woods in season and out of 
season, is armed with a shotgun or arifle, For what? To 
shoot bears. But the poor Canada jay, a pretty bird, falls 
the victim. To-day not one is to be seen in a day’s tramp, 
and the spruce trees are dying. There is law enough in the 
most of the States to save the birds, but how is it to be en- 
forced? The birds are shot miles away from anybody who 
will inform against the destroyers. The only way is to cre- 
ate a stronger public sentiment. Make every man and boy 
who is likely to carry a gun feel that it is a wicked shame to 
destroy the life of song and insectivorous birds. You, dear 
Forest AND STREAM, are doing a noble work in that direc- 
tion, and I speak it right out here, although I suppose you 
will blush like a ripe peach—good to the very core—with 
modesty. SPECIAL. 
Recount ARRIVALS AT THE PHILADELPHIA ZoonocicaAL GARDEN.— 
Purchased—One red-bellied squirrel (Sciuwrus awreogaster), male; two 
European squirrels (Scturus vulgaris), male and female; two passer- 
ine parr4keets (Psittacula passerina), male and female; four cactus 
conures (Conurus cactorum), two males and two females; one blue- 
streaked lory (Hos recticulata), and four undulated grass parrakeets 
(Melopsiltacus undulatus), Pregented—Two opossums (Didelphys 
virginiana), one flying squirrel (Pleromys volucella), one red squirrel 
(Sciurus hudsonicus), one black and white creeper (Mniotilta varia), 
two great horned owls (Bubo virginianus), two land tortoise (Hmys 
guttata), one mud turtle (Cinosternum pennsylvanicum), one alliga- 
tor (Alligator niississippiensis), one banded rattlesnake (Crotalus 
horviduz), and one copperhead snake (Ancistrodon contortrix), Born 
in the Garden—One fallow deer (Cervus dama), female. 
Game Bag and Gun. 
BULLET VERSUS BUCKSHOT. 
Hiditor Forest and Stream: 
When “‘Piute’s’ communication on the barbarisms of 
buckshot appeared in your issue of July 24, I could not but 
commend the feelings and sentiments it expressed. I had, 
however, purposed to have said nothing on the subject, inas- 
much as I did not then think that any one professing to be a 
sportsman would openly advocate the ‘‘barbaric” usages of 
buckshot for hunting deer, but since ‘‘Wells,” ‘‘Backwoods” 
and ‘‘S,” have entered the lists in its favor, ] join hands 
with ‘“‘Piute” in protesting against it. 
Time and again have | heard the virtues of a double-bar- 
rel load of buckshot descanted on, but never for fhe purpose 
of killing deer. Occasionally I have seen it used with ter- 
rible effect, and believed at the time that it was the right 
thing in the right place, but the game was not “‘the most 
beautiful animal in creation” referred to. ‘‘When in Rome 
do as Rome does,” says ‘‘Backwoods,” writing from West 
Virginia, But the nse of buckshot for the purpose he in- 
dorses can hardly be the custom there. The West Virgin- 
ians were, I thought, famous for their skill in the use of the 
rifle, at least they were so accounted when I was a boy (for 
I too am a West Virginian), and I believed until I saw 
‘Backwoods’s” letter that: the rifle still had charms for that 
sport-loving, backwoods people. But be that as it may, the 
custom of hunting deer with buckshot is not common in the 
West. At all events I do not know it, and I have lived in 
that section for quite a while. Our hills are more wild and 
broken, and in places the undergrowth more incomparably 
dense than any afforded by West Virginia, North Carolina, 
or in fact any State east of the Rocky Mountains, and yet 
the rifle for deer hunting is almost invariably used. 
The sharp, clear, clean crack of a rifle is peculiarly fas- 
cinating to the hunter, the broad, bawling bang of a buck- 
shot-laden gun is abhorrent to the soul of a sportsman. It 
is I know to that class of men hereabouts. These go-between 
sportsmen, these buckshot bangers belong to that category 
of men, who, through the columns of the Formsr AND 
Stream, have for the past six months been clamoring for-a 
more deadly and destructive hunting rifle, This broad 
assertion will, I know, hit many a good man but poor 
hunter, for such they certainly are who demand a better 
rifle than any now in use for the killing of any animal that 
walks that part of the earth bounded by the Atlantic and 
Pacific oceans, There may be, as ‘‘Backwoods” claims, a pro 
and con to the game, but it is hard to make those who have 
been there see if. Buckshot has its legitimate uses, but kill- 
ing deer ig not one of them. ‘‘Hand cannon” finds no favor 
for that class of sport in the West, and, I fancy, with none 
but “go hetweens” in the East. Not onthe plea of humanity, 
however good that may be, but because it 1s not sportsman- 
e, 
Rifle shooting is an art perhaps not easily acquired, but 
when once learned it is never again surrendered for a hand 
cannon and buckshot. To be a successful sportsman, other 
‘ knowledge. 
{23 
than target practice must be had; with that alone a bullseye 
hitter would be an unsafe man to wager on as a deer killer, 
Familiarity with the rifle in the haunts of the beast hunted 
is essential to success. Get that, and in ordinary conditions 
the chances are in your favor, This I say from personal | 
Iam free to believe that there are many better 
marksmen than myself, but the woods are not full of them, 
for if venison is procurable 1 can get it and at the same time 
give the deer the advantage of his first jump. ‘This may be 
regarded as a vaunt, but I have many times sprung two deer 
together and killed them both, and that too with a single 
shot (Sharps) rifle. I once killed three under the same con- 
ditions. The knack of the thing is to kill the leading animal 
and those in the rear will momentarily slacken thew speed 
when it tumbles. 
The last deer that I ever drew trigger on was distant pos- 
sibly 400 yards. We were much closer together when if 
first started, but the configuration of the country was such 
that I could not again see it until it reached the crest of a 
ridge at about the distance stated, As it came in sight I 
fired, unfortunately as I then thought; the deer hesitated be- 
fore crossing to the other side at the instant I pulled the 
trigger. I imagined, as the deer sprang back and headed 
down the swale it, had just left, that the bullet had cut the 
sround immediately in its front; in fact, I thought that 1 
had seen it strike, Iran to the crest of a ridge lower down, 
hoping to get a second shot if it again attempted to cross the 
hills, but not seeing it | concluded that it had kept on down 
and into the canyon below, Curious to see what had he- 
come of my bullet, I went to where I imagined it had 
struck. 'To my surprise, the rocks and grass were splashed 
with blood, and not 100 yards below lay my deer, with its 
jugular vein cut in two. It was the neatest thing done | 
eyer saw, I had calculated for a shoulder shot, and the 
sudden halt on the part of his buckship came near losing 
me my yenison. I have killed deer with a revolver at 200 
yards. Ihave killed them with a rifle not 10 feet from me, 
in fact with nothing but a small jutting boulder between us, 
and again 1 have downed them at almost incredible dis- 
tances. The longest shot I ever made may be put down to 
chance, if such a thing there be, but I made it with the best 
possible calculations. 
The wind at the time was blowing hard, and as it seemed 
to insist on going my direction, turn which way I would, I 
found if almost impossible to get a glimpse at a deer, to say 
nothing about getting a shot at one. T-consequently headed 
toward camp, and for easier travel held to the backbone of a 
mountain spur that debouched into a wide and broken cation 
below, in which myself and comrades had at that time made 
ourhome. At the extreme point of this ridge I saw several 
deer disappear, I stood for a moment to watch, if possible, 
the course taken, when I saw what afterward proved to be a 
spiked buck, standing head and shoulders past a big pine 
tree, and looking up the hill directly toward me. To ap- 
proach closer, under the circumstances, I knew would not 
be possible, and to attempt the shot looked foolish; but as it 
was that or none, I determined to venture it. So, raising 
my sights to the 800-yard notch, I fired, off-hand, twice at 
where I thought the deer to be, for I could not see it through 
the sights, but it never inched other than to uncover itself a 
little more. 
Tthen put in practice a little frontier lore and lined his 
body with the tree against which he stood. I lowered my 
hind sight one notch, and marked in lieu thereof sufficient 
space above the deer’s back to make it good, for I believed I 
needed every notch, and thus cleared my sights from the 
dark body that would otherwise have been before them, and 
again fired. My game vanished in an instant, and not until 
I reached it was I certain of its fate. I found it a short dis- 
tance below the tree walking on its fore feet and dragging its 
hindquarters, which were perfectly helpless, Having dis- 
patched it, I looked in vain for other wounds than the cut 
throat, the work of my knife, but could find none. I went 
back to the tree, the rough bark had been burst off for an 
inch in depth, showing plainly the course the bullet had 
taken, but that was all. Nor was the problem solved till 
the deer was skinned in camp, when a black spot about the 
size of a silver dollar on one side of the backbone, showed 
where the bullet had struck, and although it had not broken 
the skin, it had still carried sufficient force to paralyze the 
deer in its hinder parts. : 
I cite this last shot, however extreme it may be, to prove 
to “8.” that deer are more ‘‘comatable” with a rifle than 
with a shotgun. Jt is but now and then that you can catch 
a deer nodding. From 300 to 500 yards isa fair killing 
distance and one that no handy rifleman will refuse. Deer 
in the West are not targetable any more than are the deer in 
the East. When in the rut they, under certain circumstances, 
are an easy prey, but. the same law holds good everywhere. 
In the rutting season I have seen from one to a dozen 
males keep company with one female, and had I been so 
minded, could in almost every instance have killed them 
all. The secret is first kill the doe, and as the bucks will 
not leave her body, they fall an easy prey to any one un- 
scrupulous enough to kill them, but as this fact is not known 
to hunters generally, they blaze away at the first thing they 
see with horns on, and the doe with the major part of her 
coterie, invariably escapes. The bucks at this time haye 
great swollen necks and are dangerous to approach, this I 
know from an encounter that then bade fair to cost my life, 
put it was a chance to use my rifle and not shotgun I prayed 
or. 
Perhaps, like ‘‘Piute,” I may be accused of trying to 
bolster up the virtues of a cheap rifle, and possibly | may 
be induced to acknowledge the soft impeachment, High- 
priced guns are not common to every man’s hands, A plain, 
solid-looking shooting iron, with indorsed qualifications for 
accuracy and reliance, is good enough for me. <A few years, 
or perhaps a few months, of constant service, such as they 
were formerly subjected to in Arizona, will take the polish 
(and that generally is what the high price consists of) and 
leave a high-prized gun as modest-looking as its less preten- 
tious but equally as efficient fellows, A Sharps carbine 
that stood my friend in many u dark corner, cost me but $26 
new, and now they can be bought much cheaper, But if 
was a worker, and did what it was told todo. What man- 
ner of man is he that asksmore? Before it parled company 
with me (by sticking to agreaser’s hands) it looked old and 
travel worn, but in my grasp it was still as true as the mag- 
net to the pole, I missed many times, but the fault was 
mine, not its. An armory of shotguns could not have re 
placed the loss. I have anolher of the same make, but it 
was given to me. I own a little shotgun that likewise came 
tome asa gift, I use it to collect a few bird skins occa- 
sionally, and now and then for a day at ducks or quail. For 
such uses it is, of course, fitted, but to ram in 12 or 25 buck- 
shot and thus convert it into # ‘“‘hand cannon’ for the pur- 
