102 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 3, 1885. 



THE BANG0OA8 GAME PRESERVE. 

 00 many attempts ,to introduce foreign game birds into 

 ^ this country have proved failures, that it is a pleasure to 

 chronicle the success of an undertaking of this sort. In 

 another column is given an account of the game preserves of 

 Mr. Pierre Lorillard's Rancocas farm at Jobstown, New 

 Jersey, where a number of English pheasants and European 

 partridges have been acclimatized, and where the adapta- 

 bility of those birds to America has been demonstrated 

 beyond question. 



^ This experiment was made on a large scale. The condi- 

 tions were carefully arranged, special cover being provided 

 for the birds, and every precaution being made against the 

 new enemies they would encounter in tbeir new borne. The 

 story of the Rancocas preserve is woithy of careful perusal 

 as a guide to other enterprises of h'ke nature, which will be 

 sure to follow. The Jobstown experiment is a notable one, 

 and has much significance, for it is an indication of one of 

 tbe channels in which the game-stocking efforts of individu- 

 als and clubs in this country a)-e likely to be directed. Mr. 

 Lorillard has shown the practicability of inclosing a plot of 

 ground and supplying it with game. What he has done 

 others can do aud will do. The tendency of the times is in 

 that direction. Clubs are annually formed for secur- 

 ing special territories and setting them apart for their own 

 exclmive use. Wildfowl mai*shes, beaches aud islands are 

 in demand. Gunners are finding it not mere expensive, but 

 much more satisfactory, to pay rent and gamekeepers' sala- 

 ries where some good is seen to come from it, than to put 

 their money into railway expenses only to lose time in long 

 journeys with no game to show after it. The public which 

 disregards game laws is quick enough to cry out against the 

 clubs which so set apart their grounds and do their own pro- 

 tecting, and we have heard from time to time a good deal of 

 an outcry against so railed game-ground monopolists; but 

 there is likely to be nothing but praise and gratitude for 

 such enterprises as that of Jobstown where new game is 

 added to the native supply and overflows the bounds to stock 

 all the country around. 



The Rancocas game preserve is only the beginning of 

 what will be done in game importation and pr< serving in 

 this country in the next twenty -five years. There are scores 

 of localities where lunds now almost valueless may be 

 secured f( r a .song and converted iuto such preserves. This 

 need not be 1. ft to individuals of large means; by clubbing 

 together and dividing the expenses it is possible for the 

 sportsmen of a town to maintain such a game i^ark at very 

 inconsiderable expense to each one. 



Address alt communications to the Forest and Stream Puhlish- 

 ing Co. 



A DEER HUNT IN EASTERN TEXAS. 



TELE first early frosts had fallen, and the deciduous trees 

 had put on their gorgeous coloring which, mingled 

 with the dark green of the pines, made a scene the most skill- 

 ful artist has never been able to equal. Nature seemed woo- 

 ing me to leave the monotonous routine of the school-room 

 and wander at will amid autumnal glories. I can turn a 

 deaf ear to the allurements of field and forest and stick to 

 business during every other season of the year, but when the 

 bracing airs of autumn begin to cool the summer heats, and 

 an occasional withered leaf floats down from the parent 

 bough and rustles under the foot, then I usually succumb, 

 perforce, to the allurements. What I sometimes call gun 

 fever gets complete possession of me. So when, on Thui's- 

 day night, my friend W. proposed that himself, our friend 

 C. and I should go over to Johnson's Bayou on Friday morn- 

 ing, after my school was over for the week, and camp over 

 night and come home on Saturday evening, and gave such 

 glowing accounts of the amount of deer and turkeys to be 

 found there, I was enthusiastic over the prospect; and I fear 

 that my mind during the next day was badly divided be- 

 tween the duties of the school room and the anticipation of 

 pleasure soon to be realized. Punctually at 4 o'clock on 

 Friday afternoon W. and C. stopped at the door of the 

 school house, each mounted, and W. leading my horse 

 ready saddled, a pair of blankets tied behind the saddle, 

 and my gun and "duffle" ready to my hand. I mounted 

 and we were off. 



Johnson's Bayou is a sluggish stream that comes down 

 from the northwest, near the line between the States of Texas 

 and Louisiana, and flows into Ooddo Lake. We had between 

 twelve and fifteen miles to ride to reach the point on the 

 bayou where we intended to camp. Our direction was 

 northeast, and for the first few miles our way led us by oc- 

 casional plantations where the hands were picking cotton, 

 but as we progressed the plantations became further apart 

 and the country soon became almost an unbroken wilderness 

 with only an occasional new clearing, and for the last five 

 miles of the way we did not see a house. 



W'e reached the desired location just as the sun was sink- 

 ing out of sight. When within about a half miJe of our 

 camping place we saw four deer spring out of a laurel thicket 

 about two hundred yards to our right, and dash over a little 

 ridge and disappear. ISTight was too near at hand for us to 

 think of fohuwing them that night, so we bid them good-bye 

 until to-morrow, and kept on, although C.'s two hounds 

 tugged manfully at their leading strings, and the men, 

 figuratively, ditto. 



We made our camp as quietly as possible under a spread- 

 ing oak, cooked some squirrels we had shot along the road 

 and made a pot of coffee, upon which and some bread we 

 had brought from home we made a hearty^ supper. After 

 which we fed our horses their corn, then built us a cheerful 

 pine knot fire and gathered more knots to replenish with 

 during the uight, then spreading om- blankets before the fire 



we lay down to sleep, some, and to lay awake and smoke, 

 keep up the fire and make plans for the morrow, more. The 

 night was clear and frosty. A past full moon arose about 10 

 o'clock, and all the after part of the night 1 could not sleep 

 but remained awake to enjoy the beauties of the same. I 

 finally arose and wrapping my blanket around me 1 wandered 

 away from the Ught of the fire and sat down upon a log for 

 more than an hour, enraptured by the beauties and impres- 

 sions of the night. The frost and the moon's bright rays had 

 turned every pendant dew drop into a sparkling diamond, 

 and bright shafts of quivering light gleamed athwart long 

 vistas of shadow as the moonbeams peeped through the dark 

 tops of the somber pines, and all nature was hushed in per- 

 fect silence, there iiot being even a whisper of a breeze 

 among the pines. I do not measure the enjoyments of the 

 field, wood and stream by the amount of blood spilled, or the 

 number of pounds of meat carried home. One such night 

 in the woods is worth more to me than the finest bjag of 

 game that could possibly be procured. 



About an hour before day we brewed another pot of coffee, 

 after drinking which we shouldered our guns, and, leaving 

 otir dogs tied by the fire, each of us took a different direction 

 to try our skill at still-hunting in the early morning. C.'s 

 gun was a rifle and a shotgun combined, W. and I each 

 carried a double-barreled shotgun. I enjoy still-hunting 

 better than driving, and nearly always do my hunting for 

 large game with a rifle; but as both of my companions pre- 

 ferred driving. 1 had brought a shotgrm on this trip. I went 

 east of our camp, through what was a swamp in wet weather, 

 but was dry now, until 1 came to the bayou ; then turned up 

 stream along a little ridge which seemed to separate the 

 swamp from the bayou, until I came to a higher i-idge that 

 came down from the upland and ended in a steep bluff 

 about twenty feet high next the stream. This ridge was 

 covered with scattering pines, interspersed with laurel 

 thickets and occasional clumps of deciduous frees and bu.shes. 

 Day was just breaking and the birds beginning to peep and 

 chatter. Thinking this a good place to stop, I sat down at 

 the root of a large pine and remained perfectly quiet, eyes 

 and ears on the alert. 



I sat there until broad daylight and was beginning to feel 

 the effects of the frosty morning air and was thinking of 

 moving my location, when from away down the bayou there 

 came a startling roar which echoed and reechoed upon the 

 still morning air. I knew it to be the report of W.'s 10-bore 

 shotgun, and as I knew from past experience that whenever 

 his gun awakened the echoes there was apt to be some exe- 

 cution done, I was naturally anxious to know what he had 

 found. But knowing that the report of his gun was quite 

 likely to set something moving in my neighborliood, 1 sat 

 stiU and waited. From my position I could command a view 

 of both sides of the ridge, upon the point of which I sat, for 

 two or three hundred yards back toward the upland. Soon 

 after W.'s shot I saw the leaves move at the edge of a thicket 

 off to my right and I became intensely interested. Soon a 

 deer and then another stepped in sight and stood in bold re- 

 lief against the green foliage behind them but about one 

 hundred and fifty yards off." Like "Nessmuk" when he was 

 in Southern Michigan, as he tells n^, how I wished for a 

 rifle. But all I could do was to sit still and wait. The deer 

 soon moved off up the ridge, but at such a leisurely gait that 

 1 knew they had not seen me. Pretty soon they passed be- 

 hind some bushes, and I seized the opportunity to leave my 

 place. Taking the opposite side of the ridge from the one 

 they were on, and which also left them to the windward of 

 me, I crept rapidly toward the upland, hoping to-be able to 

 get ahead of thern. Then followed more than an hour of 

 creeping and waiting, 1 sometimes thinking I was in the 

 right place and that the deer were going to feed up to me, 

 when they would suddenly change their course and I would 

 have to try again. But at last, as I was lying at full length 

 in the grass, my gun pushed out in tfbnt of me, I had the 

 satisfaction of seeing one of them, a fine yearling buck in 

 fine condition, step out into plain view and not more than 

 thirty -five yards distant. I lay as close to the ground as a 

 squirrel to a limb, for fear he would see me, until, as he 

 walked along, he passed behind a tree, and when he came 

 insight again, 1 was as motionless as before; but on my 

 knees with gun to shoulder, and as soon as most of his body 

 was in sight, I fired and he fell. The other deer, a doe, was 

 still out of sight, and all that 1 saw of her was a fleeting 

 shadow as she turned and dashed away. But I was well 

 satisfied with my morning's hunt, and saw her take herself 

 away to safety w'ithout regret. 



Upon going back to camp, I found W. already there with 

 a fine turkey gobbler. 1 took my horse and went after my 

 deer, and when I returned C. had come in empty-handed, 

 not having got a shot at anything. 



After breakfast we prepared for the great hunt of the day 

 which was to be a drive with the dogs. As I had already 

 killed a deer I offered to take the dogs and make the first 

 drive. W. and C. took stands between the upland and the 

 bayou wherever they supposed the deer might pass, while I 

 took the hounds back into the uplands, probably a mile 

 from the bayou and then turned them loose. They were 

 wild with excitement by this time, and away they went, 

 dashing into every thicket, giving vent to their pent up 

 feelings by quick gasps and keen sniffs at every bound. 

 Soon Fan gave tongue to a few sharp excited cries and a 

 moment after away they both went, making the woods ring 

 with their music. Rouser's deep bass and Fan's finer key 

 mingled in a duet that would have made stronger nerves 

 than mine tingle with excitement. After making a few 

 circles they started directly for the bayou, but W. and C. 

 not knowing the stands and runways and having to trust to 

 their judgment in selecting the same, did not get a shot, the 

 deer taking a different course from the one they supposed 

 they would. After the deer had crossed the bayou the horn 

 was sounded and the dogs called back and I again took them 

 to the uplands, but further up the stream than before, W. 

 and 0. selecting stands again. This time W., who, by the 

 way was apt to be our lucky hunter, killed a fine doe that 

 ran past him; C. had a shot with his rifle barrel at long 

 range later in the day, but without success. We made sev- 

 eral more drives during the day, but the deer had become 

 frightened and therefore wary and had left the neighbor- 

 hood and we were obliged to try a new locality each time, 

 and we also labored under a great disadvantage in not know- 

 ing the country and the stands, so we did not succeed in 

 getting any more venison. 



About the middle of the afternoon we started for home in 

 order to reach there before night. Nothing could have en- 

 hanced the pleasure of the trip, as we had enjoyed more 

 than the average degree of success, the weather had been 

 fine, besides which the pleasure of such a hunt in the glori- 

 ous autumn woods was in itself ample rewai'd for the trip, 

 at least to one of the party. Lew Willow. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ing Co. 



TARANTULA HAWKS AND TARANTULA. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



There is in Arizona and contiguous countries a species of 

 wasp, known to the English-speaking people hereabouts as 

 the tarantula hawk, and to the Spanish as CabaUo de diablo (the 

 devil's horse). There appears to be a variety of them, both 

 as to size and color, some being not larger than an ordinary 

 wasp, others again attaining a length of two and a half or 

 three inches ; some are extremely slender, others again are 

 quite stout. In color they vary from an iridescent blue- 

 black to a dark ochreish red. They receive the name of 

 tarantula hawk from the tarantulas upon which they prey. 



For the information of some of your readers it will not be 

 amiss to here state that a tarantula is nothing more than a 

 great hairy, poisonous spider, the bite of which is death 

 unless precautionary measures be at once taken by the in- 

 jured. An average sized tarantula will measure in spread 

 of legs about five inches, and I have occasionally seen them 

 measure seven inches when full stretched, hind and fore 

 legs. There appear to be two kinds, the black and tawny- 

 colored, the latter having claws on their toes while the former 

 do not. The jaws of tarantulas are placed externally and 

 measure from three-eighths to half an inch in l^glh. 



It is upon these spiders that tarantula hawks prey. But 

 tarantulas do not die without a struggle, inasmuch as when 

 attacked they will run, jump, throw^ themselves- back and 

 strike. In a battle for life, however, the tarantula is no 

 match for bis wily and fight-winged adversary. 

 ' Till within the past two months 1 had believed that the 

 tarantula hawk killed the tarantula for food; but now I 

 think differently and venture the belief that the hawk but 

 uses its victim to propagate its species. I was led to infer 

 this by seeing a "hawk," a small red one, not larger than an 

 ordinary -sized wasp, attack a tarantula, which, by its 

 actions, evidenced mortal fear as it tried in vain to get 

 away. The hawk darted over it several times without ap- 

 parently touching it, but at last struck it as it went over and 

 paralyzed it with the blow. Instantly the haw k turned and 

 alighting on its now helpless victim's back, thrust his sting 

 a half dozen or more times into the body back of the should- 

 ers, then turning around it more than doubled its work at 

 that part of the body where the shoulders join the neck. I 

 stooped close over it to better see how it plied its trade. 

 Having apparently accomplished its purpose it flew away. 

 At first I thought the tarantula dead, but on its being moved 

 with a stick it started to walk slowly away; but in trying to 

 do so staggered and fell repeatedly. Not having time to 

 give the thing further attention, I killed it and went ray way, 

 believing that instead of eating the tarantula, they plant 

 their eggs in its body to hatch and feed on its life. 



The tarantula makes its nest in a hole in the ground, but 

 even here it is not safe, as its enemy follows it and does 

 battle with it in its home. I once saw* one enter a tarantula 

 hole— the wasp was one of the slender variety— but almost as 

 suddenly back out again. This it did for several times, then 

 finding that it could not dislodge the occupant, it filled the 

 hole up with small stones, many of them as large as the end 

 of my little finger. In picking' them up, it would roll them 

 over till it found a suitable place to take hold with its man- 

 dibles, when it would pick it up, walk deliberately to the 

 hole and drop it in. It continued doing this imiil the hole 

 was full, when it flew away. HEyKBERrBKaHfi- 

 Tucson, Ariz., June 19, 1885. 



There is a large group of wasps which provide food for their 

 young in the manner related by Mr. Brown of the Arizona 

 species. In the case of the tarantula, it is evident that 

 the eggs are deposited after the spider has been paralyzed, 

 and that subsequently the latter recovers — in part, at least — 

 from the effects of the poison, and carries the eggs and after- 

 ward the hatched grub about in its body. From the Pobest 

 AND Stream of Feb. 1% 1878, we reprint the following: 



The habit of most hymenopterous insects (bees and wasps) 

 of laying up food for their larvse to feed on when hatched is 

 of course known to all our readers, the case of the common 

 honey bee being the most familiar example of this kind. 

 Some insects of this order do not lay up this store of pro- 

 visions, but the workers take the food into their stomachs, 

 where it is prepared for the young and afterward fed to them. 

 'There is, however, a large group of these insects which do 

 not themselves care for their young, but, having laid their 

 eggs, prepare a quantity of food, stored up conveniently for 

 the future grub, and then leave the egg to take care of it,self. 

 The common blue, or mud wasp, as any one may learn by 

 an inspection of one of the nests so plentifully distributed on 

 the inside boarding of hay lofts, garrets and other similar 

 places, supphes its young with spiders; other genera draw 

 their supphes from other sources. 



All the wasps and hornets are ferocious and predatory m 

 their habits, and most of them feed to a considerable extent 

 on other insects. So much is this the case that in sotne parts 

 of Europe butchers are glad to have them about their shop.s 

 on account of the great number of flies which they devour, 

 and a certain species in Mauritius which feeds whohy on 

 cocki'oaches is on that account held in high esteem by the 

 natives. Some of the social wasps, however, lay up honey, 

 like the bees. . •, ■, , 



The wasps are divided into two groups, the social and the 

 solitary. Of the former, the common brown wasp, the "white- 

 tailed hornet" and "yeUow jacket" are good examples, while 

 the mud wasp may stand, as being so familiar to all, as a type 

 of the latter. It is with the solitary wasp that we have to do 

 at present. These insects are provided with a poison which 

 stupefies or paralyzes the insects upon which they prey and 

 which of course they secure by stinging them. The female 

 blue wasp— for there are no workers (neuters) in this genus- 

 having partially completed her nest of mud, deposits an egg, 

 and in the same ceU with it places a number of small spiders 

 which it has stung and which, although paralyzed and quite 

 incapable of motion, still retain hfe. The cell is then walled 

 up and auother one built adjoining it in which the same thing 

 takes place ; this is continued until several eggs have been de- 

 posited, when the last cell is finally walled up and the nest 

 completed. A similar nest is constructed for each set of eggs 

 which the female deposits. When the grub appears it feeds 

 on the spiders prepared for it until ready to undergo its trans- 

 formation, and, finally, when it becomes a perfect insect, 

 gnaws its way out through the wall of clay. 



Another large wasp, somewhat similar in general aspect to 

 the blue wasp, but larger, is common in our latitude; but as 

 it does not appear about the dwellings of man it is seldom 



