82 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Ato. 37, 1885, 



_ AMress all communications to the Forest and Stream Ihiblish- 

 tng Co. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 



"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood 

 When fond recollection pi-esents them to view." 



THE tales of "Uncle Lisha's Shop" and the "School Meet- 

 ing in District 13," have awakened many memories of my 

 boyhood among the hills and beside the limpid streams of 

 the Green Mountain State, and "One Lisha" and "Antwine" 

 are not such strangers as they would othei-wise be. Very 

 faithfully and enjoyably has the author pictured these and 

 other quaint characters, and I take occasion now to thank 

 him heartily for great pleasui-e therefrom. I think there 

 were more than one pair of moist eyes when the cheery old 

 man and his helpmeet bade a brave good bye to the 

 home and friends of so many years, and began the long 

 journey westward to the boy whose hold on their heartstrings 

 was stronger than all else. It was a real scene to me. 



Very much such a character as Uncle Lisha resided in the 

 village of my birth. He was on the other slope of the hill 

 when I was but a lad, and a source of much amusement to 

 the villagers, as he was continually getting the "cart before 

 the horse," having withal a bad lisp. Ilaviug borrowed a 

 horse and saddle from a neighbor, he returned them in due 

 time, tendering his acknowredgments for the same and say- 

 ing, "I put the thaddle in the barn and hung the horth up 

 in the thtable." Then seeing his error and the smile on the 

 face of the lender, he said, "I thometimeth get the horth be- 

 fore the cart, but theldom." He was an exe^mplary old man 

 whom the boys delighted to tease by borrowina: his "pung" 

 without his permission to ride down the hill o'jaights when 

 sledding was good; and intensely enjoying his lisping de- 

 nunciations when he discovered them. A cherry tree that 

 grew in the corner of his yard bore most excellent fruit. An 

 apple tree also, that stood in an orchard some distance from 

 my home, was a source of trouble. 



That little village witnessed my first passion for guns and 

 fishing "poles." The latter were not prohibited, although my 

 mother had no groat love for them; but the form^er she 

 detested and feared. My father was very fond of trout 

 fishing, then to be enjoyed in very many of the streams in 

 that section, and sometimes filled my cup of happiness full 

 to overflowing by taking me with him to carry the fish. 

 What joy it was to follow him as he picked his way beside 

 the foaming mountain stream and see him jerk the wriggling 

 beauties from the dashing water, albeit my arms were weary 

 carrying a goodly pail of fish. How refreshing at noonday 

 were the cooling breeze and lunch under the forest trees high 

 up among the hills, and how enjoyable at nightfall to ride 

 homeward well rewarded by a fine catch that would gi-ace 

 the breakfast table next morning, rolled in cornmeal and 

 fried brown in pork fat. I would 1 had some now. 



Once on a fine afternoon in June — shall 1 ever forget the 

 day? — my father drove up to the village school house, where 

 I with other callow youth was struggling with Webster's 

 Spelhng Book and other insurmountable obstacles. He spoke 

 to the teacher, who called me, and I went out. Oh, height 

 of happiness and summits of bliss. He had come for me to 

 go fishing with him, an unheard-of proceeding. What would 

 the boys say now ! Taken out of school to go a-fishing! I 

 was the envy of all of them, I knew, and as I rode away in 

 full sight of the school I was so full to bursting with pride 

 and happiness that it was a wonder the buttons didn't fly. 

 It seems a pity now sometimes that I wasn't more capable 

 of appreciating occasions of this kind. We bowled briskly 

 along the road, for my father was a lover of smart horses, 

 and hitched the horse in a farmyard near a trout brook that 

 slipped under a little bridge across the road in a hollow. 

 What trout fisher has not cautiously peered into the "hole" 

 under a bridge where partially undermined stones or logs 

 forming the abutment made fine lurking places for watchful 

 fish? But there were genei'ally only a score or so of dace. 

 1 always looked, just the same, for I might see a "whopper" 

 a half dozen inches long. 



It was not a noisy mountain stream. Only a peaceful 

 singing brook entering here a piece of woods as yet un- 

 touched by axe, where the shadows lay all day and the 

 stones were cusbioned with moss. By shady shallows, mur- 

 muring ripples, or dark pools where overhanging roots made 

 secluded retreat for the motionless trout, the beautiful brook 

 made its way to the pasture and meadow where the black- 

 berry, the alder and willow fringed its banks, and the bend- 

 ing grasses intermingling winnowed the sunlight. Cattle 

 lay quietly ruminating in the shade of a spreading elm or in- 

 dustriously grazed for the benefit of the pail, turning their 

 heads toward us in mild expostulation at our intrusion ; a 

 watchful woodchuck on the hillside stood guard at the door 

 of his domicile, and three or four garrulous geese down 

 stream muddied the water beautifully as they stretched their 

 necks toward us and harmlessly hissed their displeasure. 



The sun had some time dropped below the distant moun- 

 tains, the air was cool and the dew fafling as we drove home- 

 ward with a goodly string of trout, closing for me a red- 

 letter day indeed. 



During this decade was born my passion for guns and 

 things, and well I remember my first view of percussion 

 caps, as two young men of the village met just below our 

 house to have a little rifle practice. Those shining bits of 

 copper possessed a strong fascination for me, and in my sub- 

 sequent boyish experience, whenever I heard a cap crack I 

 was there if I could get there. One of my companions was 

 a year or two older than I, and had already developed much 

 wickedness, inasmuch as he would get an old flint-lock mus- 

 ket that belonged to his cousin, and slip away to the pas- 

 tures and blow chipmunks and other birds into atoms — 

 sometimes. I can't remember now that he was a very de- 

 praved boy, but my mother did not think that he was just 

 the companion for me, and rather deprecated intimacy, but 

 we were no great strangers to each other. One day he sig- 

 naled me according to the code from our back lot, and the 

 result of the interview was that he was to come to tbe back 

 fence in the afternoon with his gun, and we would go to a 

 pasture lot a half mile from town and just turn things loose. 

 I didn't tell everybody all about it, but at the appointed 

 time I carried out my part of the programme, and my watch- 

 ful mother viewed the departure from the buttery window. 

 We took rather a circuitous course and reached the rear of 

 the Methodist raeetin' house, where we proceeded to go 

 through the impressive motions of loading the gun, indulg- 

 ing meanwhile in many fond and glowing anticipations. 

 Just in the midst of these things my mother walked round 

 the corner of the building without needless delay, and nip- 



ping my pleasure and my ear with the same nip, bore me off 

 silently by a more direct route than I had come, to the seclu- 

 sion of sweet home. Could my feelings be expressed? Nay, 

 there is not literature sufficient. 



I remernber but one other occasion in my experience that 

 equaled this, I may say surpassed it in sudden culmination. 

 It was a regular cmq) d'etat.' It occm-red several years sub- 

 sequent after our removal to a Western city, but while I yet 

 sported jackets. I was stretched flat on my stomach on tlie 

 towpath of the canal with one hand just beneath the water 

 engaged in the silent and patient endeavor to catch a craw- 

 fish when he should emerge from his hole. Anything of a 

 paternal nature was completely absent from my mind, when 

 there was a terrific clap preceding the lightning that was 

 connected with my movements as I stood somehow with- 

 out volition before my father. It was enough, but why it 

 was necessary to add to my confusion by asking me wliat I 

 was doing there I couldn't tell. You will generally observe 

 that such questions are asked. 



About this time I became possessor of a singlebarrel pistol, 

 and distinguished myself by getting a piece of cap in the 

 bridge of my nose as I was sighting a big frog under a large 

 stone where he was ti7ing to keep cool on a scorching 

 August day. I carried the piece of copper three years, for 

 my modesty forbade mention of the matter at home. 



"After four years' sojourn at the West we revisited Ver- 

 mont. During the summer a camp-meeting was in progress 

 near a village where I was visiting my cousin. He had 

 made preparations to go with some comrades and I wanted 

 to go of course, but he being several years my senior did not 

 wish to be harassed by small fry, so he easily bought me ot£ 

 by getting me a singlebarrel shotgun and some ammunition 

 and sending me after "gray ers," as they called gray squir- 

 rels, the killing of one by me being furthest from his imag- 

 inings. Lovers of a gun will understand how I felt when 1 

 say it was my first experience with a gun alone in the woods. 



It was a perfect afternoon for squirrel hunting, and as 1 

 shouldered the gun and started across the meadows for the 

 woods I was a little too big for my clothes. 



I had gone some distance into the woods and was walking 

 in an old road up a slight ascent, my senses all alert, when on 

 top of the knoll just ahead appeared a gray squirrel coming 

 my way. He stopped and so suddenly did I that he wasn't 

 sure he saw anything, but he sat there on top of the knoll, 

 outlined against the green beyond, with his tail cocked over 

 his back, and I thought he looked as big as a lamb. Pres- 

 ently reassured, he advanced, and when he had come a few 

 yards 1 made a rush at him, and with a frightened chatter he 

 disappeared like a flash up a huge hemlock. This was what 

 I wished, and knowing that he would show himself in a few 

 minutes I took my stand beside a convenient tree and waited. 

 Before long his curiosity got the best of him, find from a 

 height of forty or fifty feet he put his head around. I stood 

 motionless, with my gun rested against the tree pointed at 

 him. In a minute he began to bark, and little by little, his 

 tail jerking at a great rate, he edged round until his whole 

 body was in view, head downward and scolding furiously. 

 Then I pulled trigger and he came whirling down to tbe 

 ground. What a moment was that! Where were Hannibal, 

 Xerxes and those fellows then ! 



I sat down and taking that squirrel I examined his teeth, 

 his sharp claws, and feet blackened with early butternuts, 

 smoothed his shining fur, admired his perfect spreading tail, 

 until I cooled off, and then loading my gun I began anew 

 my search, which ended for that afternoon by finding one 

 more up a maple and bringing him at the first shot. Home- 

 ward I went in the evening, and when about midnight my 

 cousin awoke me and asked what luck, and I told him, I was 

 paid again for loss of camp meeting by his "By thunder! 

 You didn't though?" 



Through my uncle's farm ran a sizable trout stream in 

 which were numerous "holes" where dwelt numerous "lunk- 

 ers," many experienced old fellows of a foot and more in 

 length, that had occupied their retreats for lo, these many 

 seasons, resisting all the wiles of inexperienced boys and old 

 trout fishers. No worm, cricket, grasshopper, or fly ofl^^ered 

 the slightest temptation, even rubbed against their noses as 

 they calmly and confidently balanced their graceful forms 

 with slowly moving fins or tanlalizingly edged away if the 

 attentions were too persistent. 



1 tried to spear one one day by tying my pocket knife to a 

 pole, and succeeding in slicing the palm of my hand quite 

 extensively instead of the fish. My cousin said he knew how 

 to get them, and one Saturday afternoon when it rained so 

 that he couldn't be sent into the field to work, we an-ayed 

 ourselves in dilapidated garments, and with a bushel basket 

 for outfit went forth to conquer. The method was simxjle 

 but effective. I held the basket at the mouth of the hole and 

 he stirred up the trout and dirt, and when the frightened 

 fish ran into the basket I tipped it up and broke their necks. 

 We captured over forty that afternoon, very few of which 

 —well, they were whoppers. 



Several times have I revisited the land of my birth, have 

 caught an occasional trout, shot the whirring partridge or 

 the cunning squirrel, but there lingers not the fragrance 

 around the memory of these sports that accompanies those 

 of former days, and as the years pass by, although the fas- 

 cination attending sport by field and stream is still strong, I 

 think it is waning, and sometimes when the death quiver 

 passes over the furred or feathered beauty, and the filmy 

 eye closes on the familiar scenes, a guilty feeling rises for 

 recognition as I think of Longfellow's lines: 



"And tte birds sang round him, o'er him, 



'Do not shoot us, Hiawatha 1' 



Sang the robin, tlie Opechee, 



Sang the bhiebird, the Owaissa, 



'Do not sboot us, Hiawatha 1' 



Up the oat tree close beside him, 



Spi-ang the squirrel, Ad jidaiimo ; 



In and out among the branches, 



Coughed and chattered from the oak tree, 



LaugLied, and said between his laughing, 



'Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!' 



And the rabbit from his jjathway 



Leaped aside, and at a distance 



Sat erect upon his haunches, 



Half in fear and half in frolic, 



Saying to the little hunter, 



'Do not shoot me, Hiawatha !" " g. 



Elk in New York.— Hornellsville, N. Y.— Editor Forest 

 and Stream: A farmer near here, while clearing up a fallow, 

 found an enormous pair of elk horns in good preservation, 

 which goes to show that they do not decay very easily, as it 

 is forty years or more since an elk was killed here.— J. Otis 



FSJLLOWS. 



A.ddress all eonimunications to the Forest and Stream Publi.^h- 

 tng Co. 



THE COTTON RAT AS A FIGHTER. 



{Sigmodon Mspidus). 



IN collecting cotton rats I have often remarked upon the 

 great number of mutilated males which come to hand. 

 Tails, ears, eyes, and even lees are missing or exhibit evi- 

 dence of wounds of more or less recent date. These speci- 

 mens were always males, and I had long suspected that 

 these little rodents had a penchant for regular "shindies," 

 which the following incident seems to prove: One bright, 

 sunny day last winter I winged a flicker and lost him among 

 some low oak scrub and broom grass. As is my custom on 

 such occasions, I sat perfectly still and listened. In a few 

 minutes I heard a slight rustling and scratching under an 

 oak bush just to the left, and turning my glass in that direc- 

 tion, I saw that the noise was not made by my flicker, but 

 by a gi-oup of three cotton rats. 



At first I thought they were at play, but this idea was 

 speedily dissipated when I saw fur flying about. I could dis- 

 tinctly hear the "twitch" as the combatants closed and 

 plucked away at each other. One was evidently a spectator 

 and kept near the edge of a pretty well-defined ring that the 

 principals had tramped down in their contest. They were 

 plainly adepts in the art of self-defense. They backed, 

 dodged, and feinted like human pugilists, their little eyes 

 sparkled, and every moment or two one would rattle his 

 teeth like a trapped woodchuck (only less so) a sort of defi- 

 ance, it would seem, for it was instantly answered in the 

 same way by the other. The points of attack seemed to be 

 ears and tail. Charge and counter charge were quick as a 

 flash and impossible to describe, but when a clinch occurred 

 the movement was quite slow. Each seized the other's head 

 with his paws and endeavored to hold his antagonist's jaws 

 at a safe distance. It was at such times that the fur-pluck- 

 ing episode occurred. In the last round it became apparent 

 that the spectator was a female. She sat upon her hind 

 legs, crossed her little front paws and uttered a squeak; this 

 seemed to rouse the combatants to frenzy. Each answered 

 the cry of encouragement and closed instantly, strugghng 

 and rolling about for nearly half a minute. I took this op- 

 portunity to approach a little, with the laudable intention of 

 obtaining specimens. Some slight noise I made probably 

 caused them to pause, and I saw that one had the other 

 firmly by the middle of the tail, while the other had doubled 

 back upon himself and had seized his assailant just as firmly 

 by the ear. The cessation of hostilities was very short and 

 the end near at hand. The ear was bftten off, but he of the 

 wounded tail crawled away dragging his crippled member 

 but still holding the ear, perhaps as a trophy. The one- 

 eared victor at once proceeded to pay his court to the fair 

 spect ator of his doughty deeds, but my hickory stick inter- 

 rupted the course of true love and he is now a specimen. It 

 seems, therefore, according to the "Marquis de Cotton Rat's 

 prize-ring rules" a broken tail is decisive punishment. 



Not at all apropos of the above, I will remark that the cot- 

 ton rat takes readily to the water, swimming and diving 

 with great rapidity. Wat>tek. Hoxie. 



Froomore, Beaufort County, S. 0. 



THE WHITE GOAT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In yom- issue of July 9 appears a letter concerning the 

 mountain goat {Aplocerus columUanus) and the mode of 

 hunting it, by Mr. W. A. Baillie-Grohnian, which is so 

 widely at variance with my experience of the animal, that I 

 am induced to offer the following in reply : 



My acquaintance with the white goat commenced twenty- 

 three years ago, in the Yellowhead Pass of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, "since which time I have met him in various localities 

 in the Cascade Mountains, at Burrard Inlet, Howe Sound 

 and the head waters of the Stickeen and Mackenzie rivers. 

 During all this time I have been endeavoring to invest this 

 animal with some claim to game qualities, and wherev^er I 

 have met one which showed that alertness usually found in 

 wild animals, I have put it down on the credit side of the 

 account; but in striking a balance up to the present time, I 

 am sorry to rob this animal of much of the romance thrown 

 around "it by enthusiastic writers, who have, I fear, put to 

 the goal's credit all the dilficulties and dangers springing 

 from the nature of his habitat, and whose record of slain 

 goats could probably be counted on the ends of their fingers. 



Speaking of hunting with dogs, Mr. Baillie-Grohman says: 

 "By no other means, save perhaps some fantastical and 

 entirely visionary drugging scheme, such as Munchhausen 

 speaks of, could goats" be approached within lassoing dis- 

 tance." As this assertion is unqualified, 1 would like to ask 

 Mr. Baillie-Grohman with what amount of experience he is 

 prepared to support it. I have repeatedly walked up to within 

 fifty feet of goats before they attempted to leave the spot ou 

 which they were feeding, and when they did go it was with 

 a shuflling, uncertain gait, as if they had not really made up 

 their minds about it. J once saw a goat come within ten 

 yards of our camp-fire, and there lie down, apparently 

 anxious to watch the operation of cooking. One of om' 

 party fired four shots at him (his sights were up to 500 yards, 

 which, of course, he was not aware of till afterward). At 

 the first shot the goat got up and walked down the slope into 

 a ravine; nor did the subsequent shots— all of which missed 

 hiin— serve to quicken his pace in the least. I once got so 

 close to a small band of goats that I shot two of them down 

 without putting the rifle to my shoulder— the first time I ever 

 tried that style of shooting. It is no uncommon thing for a 

 Howe Sound Indian to kill twenty-five goats in a day with 

 an old flint-lock musket, the range of which is about twenty- 

 five or thirty yards, and instead of ball they sometimes use 

 duck shot. 1 once saw two Indians kiU a goat each with 

 No. 4 shot. The distance was about forty feet, the Indisms 

 having the advantage of the cover afforded by some low 

 bushes on the margin of a mountain stream, on the opposite 

 side of which the goats were feeding. And these are not 

 isolated cases, for 1 can recall very few instances in which 

 goats have been at all ditficult of approach. 



I believe naturalists find something in the structure of the 

 white goat to justify them in placing it among the antelopes; 

 but, as in the case of "Nessmuk's" cranberry bear, so in this 

 the naturalists assume too much, as there is about as much 

 of the antelope in the actions, habits and appearance of the 

 mountain goats which I have met as there is in a government 

 pack mule, and about as much game as there is in the great- 



