Oct. 15, 1885.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



225 



Whev. it is about ten or eleven montli's old, the annual 

 ■wood-burfling takes place. Fire sweeps over the face of 

 the pine region : every sprig of grass, every weed and every 

 deciduous slnub and tree that has sprung up since the last 

 annua] hum. is destroyed. All the hard-wood growths have 

 their eyes or Inids distributed regularly along the stalks and 

 stems, 'eutirely uni^rotected from the fire, and as the growth 

 of all plants cif this cliaracLer is slow m its early stages as 

 compared with tliose of the pine, none gets far enough ad- 

 vanced in the twelvemonth to rise above the flames, and so 

 they perish, while the young pine escapes with a severe 

 scorching, which the bud survives. Thus, upon the prin- 

 ciple of the survival of the fittest, the pine becomes master 

 of the situation and sole proptietor of the woodland. But 

 natural and arliflcial barriers are often offered to the progress 

 of these fiu'cst burns. 



Natural impediments consist of gullies, creeks, rivers or 

 ponds, across which the fire does not cross when traveling 

 before some prevalhug wind. If the rainy_ season, which 

 comes in the winter before the usual burnings begin, has 

 been an exceptionally wet one, all depressed places become 

 filled with water. These tiats sometimes extend consider- 

 ate distances in irregular courses. Imagine the woods on 

 fire and the flames traveling slowly along the surface toward 

 the southwest before a gentle northeast wind, destroying 

 every vestige of vegetation not too much grown to be within 

 reach. Suddenly it encounters a slight depression in the sur- 

 face of the land, 'where stands an inch or two of rain water. 

 This depression reaches perhaps iu an irregular course for 

 miles either way. It of course puts an end to the "burn." 

 On Uic oppos^ite side of this wet depression the little oaks, 

 hickories, mfignolias and bays, that have put up since the 

 last burn, are not svvept away tliis year, but get another 

 year's growth. This first season 's escape is enough to give 

 these deciduous trees a foothold, and enable them to rear 

 their heads high enough to escape complete destruction, 

 even should no protecting water interpose the second j-ear. 



Here, then, we have an incipient hamak, making its be- 

 ginniug on sandy "piny woods" land, in no particular differ- 

 ent from, or better than, that over which the fire has swept, 

 and which remains pine land. 



In a very hsv years, in this semi-tropical climate, this 

 j'-oung orchard of hardwood bushes has become a pronounced 

 hamak of spreading shade trees, whose shadows protect the 

 originally poor and sandy soil from the summer's sun, and 

 whose annual crop of castaway foliage tends year after year 

 to add mould to the ground, which, under these two power- 

 ful fertilizing agencies, gradually changes from the original 

 white sand to a dark, otten black, loamy soil, as fertile as 

 fertile cm be. It is no uncommon thing to find such parcels 

 of land in South Florida of wonderful fertility, possessing an 

 upper soil of i^artially decomposed leaf mould several feet 

 deep. — The Florida Annval. 



THE ANTELOPE GOAT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Rock and moimtain-girt, Burrard Inlet, howered amid the 

 primeval forest, a cove within a cove of the silent, tranquil, 

 far-away Pacific Ocean ; in the foreground the dirty and'un- 

 romantic Sywash paddling his canoe, in the background the 

 great peaks of the Cascade range, at least on those rare occa- 

 sions when they can be seen; isolation within isolation, soli- 

 tude intensified, it is certainly not a spot from whence the 

 emanation of deeply scientific disquisitions or even strictly 

 logical or novel argTiments based upon a knowledge of that 

 science can with any degree of fairness be expected. How 

 egregiously incorrect, however, this supposition is, is proved 

 by the three letters from three inhabitants of this locality, 

 the Messrs. Hughes, Fannin and Grilfin, which you have 

 lately published in your columns, and in which the chase, 

 characteristics and genus of the so-called white goat is once 

 for all described and definitely settled. Not only virtue, as 

 the proverb has it, but also truth and deep learning can dwell 

 in the modest Sy wash-bailt log cabin lost in the primeval 

 forest. 



No doubt the world at large is perfectly satisfied with the 

 accounts and classification of this animal contained in the 

 above three letters. To me, to the ignorant wretch who 

 once dared to write a poor little paper on this animal in 

 the Century, and who has only paid five visits to the Puget 

 Sound country (four being, it is true, entirely abortive ones 

 on account of the peasoup-like dense smoke of forest fires 

 that enveloped for months at a time the whole country, 

 mountain goats and all, obliging me to retreat to other shoot- 

 ing grounds), and who only crossed the ocean thirteen times 

 to shoot in the Rockies and Pacific coast; to me, I say, and 

 perhaps also to some other poor dolts who have supposed that 

 they knew something of this animal, these letters meant 

 instantaneous annihilation. We feel weary, we feel tired 

 with the gross extent of crass ignorance we have displayed. 

 But not only to sportsmen, also to some so-called men of 

 science (save the mark) such as Hamilton Smith, Ae;assiz 

 and Spencer Baird, who have, without consulting lyiessrs. 

 Hughes, Fannin and Griffin, dared to rank the -'goat" as an 

 antelope, Mr. Gritfiu's dictum thundered forth from the soli- 

 tudes of Burrard Inlet that the animal is not an antelope; 

 "that there is about as much of the antelope in the actions, 

 habits and appearance as there is in a Government pack 

 mule," must mean beads of anxious perspiration if no worse. 

 Particularly creepy about the small of his back must Prof. 

 Baird of the Smithsonian feel, for has he not placed on 

 record m his "American Mammals" that the skull and other 

 hones "show very clearly that the affinities are much more 

 with the antelope than the goat or sheep? In fact, none of 

 the more modern s^'stematic wi-iters place it in the genus 

 Capraov indeed in the ovine group." 



Mr. Griffin's letter published in Forest and Stkeam of 

 Aug. 37, must make many an old professional discounter of 

 camp yarns of the tall, taller, tallest kind wince and scratch 

 his head, but I think Mr. Griffin can, with safety, "stand pat." 

 A royal flush, ace high, can not, as we all know, be beaten. 

 To have such a rare animal as the white goat, so rare that 

 only three mufseums in the world possess, so far as I know, 

 stuffed specimens and not a single one a live animal ; so hard 

 to find that I do not beheve more than six of England's most 

 indefatigable sportsmen have ever killed it, to have, I say, 

 such a rare guest come right into camp and "lie down within 

 ten yards of the camp-fire," "anxious to watch the operation 

 of cooking," is an event that deserves to be more widely 

 known than even your columns can give it publicity. Mr. 

 Griffin's feat repeatedly performed, as he assures us, of walk- 

 ing up "to within fifty feet of goats," of course in plain 

 sight of them, "before they attempted to leave the spot," 

 might be explained by the well-known extraordinary curi- 

 osity these animiils exhibit. They natnrally wanted to see 

 what kind of a man this Mr. Griflan was. He further says, 



"I once got so close that I shot two of them down without 

 putting the rifle to my shoulder," adding, "the first time T 

 tried that style of shooting, " words I think hemust have bor- 

 rowed from the man who, aiming at a sparrow, killed his 

 mother-in-law standing behind the bush. 



Mr. Griffin remarks that it is no uncommon thing for a 

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

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

 five or thirty yards. Howe Sound adjoins Burrard Inlet, a 

 circumstance' which should be remembered by those who 

 propose accepting the invitation extended by Messrs. Hughes, 

 Fannin and Griffin to Eastern sportsmen— of course quite 

 disinterestedly— for, considering that their hides (the goats', 

 not the Eastern sportsmen's) find a ready sale at Victoria, 

 Portland, and other neighboring marts, there cannot be very 

 many left, or the Paget Sound Indians would be no Indians 

 but a tribe of aborigirTal Bergbs. To many a good old hunter 

 it will be news that the old rnuzzleloading Hudson Bay mus- 

 ket has only a range of twenty-6ve or thirty j'^ard.s. lam 

 no "experienced old huuter," and what is more I don't v,^ant 

 to be one, but yet I have repeatedly seen game brought down 

 by these very rifles at a distance of 150 or 200 yards, and 

 what is more I have seen Winchesters and Sharps badly 

 beaten at 100 yards by these very arms. I think natural 

 history is more in Mr. Griffin's line, and this being the case 

 his categorical denial of the measurement of the big Deer- 

 lodge ram, concerning which I had collected the substan- 

 tiating evidence of ten men who had seen the animal, would 

 appear quite in place, only it would seem to me that his "I 

 w^ould certainly require some better authority than that 

 which comes from 'the home of tall talk' before" I would re- 

 peat it as a matter of natural history," shows some quite 

 uncalled-for jealous fear. So far as I know, nobody dared 

 to ask the in'falhble Mr. Griffin, the maker of natural his- 

 tory, what he would require and as to the size of the great 

 ram those ten witnesses, good men and true, "pass" — and 

 who wouldn't? 



Mr. Griffin concludes his letter by a passage that exhibits 

 a delicacy of wit, a Voltairian penetralia mentis, that is 

 rendered all the more striking by the contrasting childlike 

 innocence that bland Ij'^ divulges and "gives away" the true 

 raison d'etre of Messrs. Hughes, Fannin and Griffin's attack 

 upon my humble self. It runs: "But it may be after all that 

 we of British Columbia know nothing of the mountain goat, 

 and that it has been reserved for an English sportsman who 

 comes all the way from London sewed up [I quote original 

 diction] by his metropolitan tailor in a fur sack, to teach 

 us." To teach Messrs. Hughes, Fannin and Griffin? What 

 a preposterously absurd ideal 



One thing remains to be stiggested ; do not some other in- 

 solent sportsmen who have come all the way from London, 

 such as their Lordships Southesk and Milton, Drs. Cheadle 

 and Hector, Messrs. Burton, Lord, Murphy, Douglas, Wil- 

 liams, Jameson and a half dozeu others, who have shot, or 

 who have tried to shoot, the goat, deserve no less than 

 I do that metropolitan tailor-made ^ack wherein to be sunk 

 to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean's Bcsi ihorus, i. e. , Burrard 

 Inlet? W. A. Baillie Grohman. 



P. S. — It occurs to me that Mr. Griffin's allusion to that fur 

 bag may not be understood b}' those who have not glanced 

 over my paper in last December's Century or who are not 

 acquainted with my Uttle book, "Camps in the Rockies," in 

 which reference is made to the usefulness of a fur lined, 

 waterproof sleeping bag, particularly when hunting "goat," 

 when everything has to be carried on men's shoulders, either 

 ji^our own or others'. A bag of this description weighs seven 

 or eight pounds, and is much warmer and far less bulky 

 than twice that weight of blankets. I have used them at 

 great altitudes in different parts of the world, and in America 

 the idea has found many imitators, for its practicalness is 

 obvious. 1 happen to write these lines while comfortably 

 housed in this very bag, for in the absence of a tent and in 

 the presence of a snowstorm there are worse places to get 

 into while on a raid after goat. W. A. B.-G. 



Upper Kootenay, British Columbia. 



Flying Spiders.— Jamestown, N. Y., Sept. 21.— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: Have you seen the spider fly? A friend 

 told me he saw it to-day. Perhaps it were better to call it a 

 spider bahoon ascension. The spider passed over his head 

 as he sat in the carriage (as he said) attached to a network, 

 which was about one foot in diameter, by small threads of 

 perhaps ten inches in length, passing from the spider to dif- 

 ferent parts of the netting, which floated in the breeze (which 

 was very light) with no apparent change of altitude. I 

 asked if he tried with his whip to cut the fine stretched across 

 the road, and he said '<No, there was no tree near for a web 

 to be attached to," and he watched it pass across the road 

 and over the fence, and he did not know how far it did go. 

 This is something I have never before heard of, though I 

 have heard of their climbing to the tops of trees and throw- 

 ing down a ball of web to go down on, or to jump down, 

 spin the web as they fall, this forming a line to pass on from 

 the ground to the tree top. Can you give us some light on 

 the subject?— R. H. Burns. [The flight of spiders has been 

 described in former numbers.] 



Migration of Hawks.— Onondaga, N. T.— The variotis 

 species of hawks and their habitsis to me an interesting 

 subject for study. We hve on a hill two miles southwest 

 of Syracuse, N. T., and from this point we have a fine view 

 of the city and a vast expanse of country lying to the west, 

 north and east of it. Thursday afternoon of last week my 

 attention was called to a long line of hawks coming from 

 the north, and as they reached a point directly over our farm 

 buildings, they began to circle around, hawk after hawk 

 joining the flock until they numbered twenty-four, skimming 

 in gradually extending circles, bearing toward the south. 

 They came and kept on coming until they formed a long Mne 

 of birds extending from north to south as far as we could 

 see. Their passage over lasted nearly an hour. We could 

 not distinguish the variety, but thought they were redtail 

 hawks (Buteo boreMis)—Qr. Albert Knapp. " [Such flights 

 of hawks are not uncommon in autumn, nor do they seem to 

 be confined to any particular species.] 



Loon's Eggs.— While in Prontenac county,' Ontario, Can., 

 tMs summer, I was fortunate enough to secure two loon'.s 

 eggs. They were laid m a nest of reeds and moss carelessly 

 drawn together, on the shady side of a small wooded island 

 in Long Lake. The bird is almost constantly on the water, 

 and is a very poor land bird, seldom building their nest fur- 

 ther than twenty inches to two feet from the water, as they 

 are but clumsy walkers. The eggs are fine specimens; light 

 olive in color, with dark spots over them, and measure re- 

 spectively 3^|x3H inches and 3|3x2H inees.— J. Lee Smed- 

 i,EY (Dugdale, Pa., Qct, 9). 



A Home-Sick Wild Duck. — Charlottetown, Prince 

 Edward's Island, Oct. 8.— While out duck shooting years 

 ago my dog brought to me unharmed three wild ducks from 

 a very late brood. I took them home with the intention of 

 rearing them. Two of them died shortly after, but the 

 remaining one, after being kept iu confinment until lame, 

 was allowed to run with the common ducks about the place. 

 Early last autumn it began to go away, at first for only a few 

 hours, but the periods of absence gradually lengthened until 

 at last I gave it up for lost. Imagine my surprise two weeks 

 ago to find it again with the tame ducks, where it stayed a 

 few days and again disappeared. Whether it has gone this 

 time for good is a question that only time can prove.— 

 Flapper. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 infj Co. 



WHISPERS FROM THE WEST. 



I ONCE knew a man intimately enough to borrow his 

 dog. My friend liad broken his leg, and as the dog 

 needed exercise he loaned him to me. A new collar was 

 made for the dog with his owner's name and address en- 

 graved thereon, and 1 took a cast-iron, kennel-riveted oath 

 I'd fetch him back. My friend had purchased the animal 

 from a noted dog handler, who had clinched the sale with 

 the remark that "the man who could not shoot birds over 

 Patsie was an extraordinary fool," or words to that effect. 



Now, Patsie was an Irish setter, small in size, dark in 

 color, famously well trained, but Patsie was a crank. "If 

 he don't mind you," said my friend, "give him a liver pUl, 

 that fetches him, becatisc Patsie is bilious at times." I got 

 a box of Mandrake's and started for the West. 



I had a lovely bitch along with me of Theo. Morford's 

 strain, and both these dogs subsequently caused me serious 

 grief. 



The first morning, after I had reached my destination in 

 •Missouri, was clear and balmy. I took both dogs with me 

 and killed .sixty-four quail over them, and saw Patsie do 

 both good and bad work. I never put a whip on him, but 

 treated him with the utmost civility and kindness. At last 

 about the middle of the afternoon I said to him, "Patsie, old 

 sport, go thither and procure for me that defunct quail which 

 fell before my unerring aim." Patsie gave me one look. 

 Across the horizon there was a red streak like unto the set- 

 ting sun. It was, I have since learned, Patsie. The prairie 

 was too small for him. He was gone. What under heaven 

 induced him to depart without saying "good bye." I cannot 

 conceive. William Goldenbow Kippy," Esq., who carried 

 the game bag and the whisky flask, looked at my brother-in- 

 law. Mr. Miraculous Cadwalleder Kingeland, of Pennsyl- 

 vania, and my wife's brother gazed with astonishment into 

 the western sky. We then looked at each other, and after 

 wiping away the tears which pattered on the dry prairie 

 grass, discharged four guns. 



"Ho! Patsie, old boy, yer needn't fetch the bird. I don't 

 want him," I cried aloud. 



"Does yar kum pack. Batsey?" ejaculated Mr. Kippy. 



"Whet! Whet! Patse-e-e!" yelled the youthful scion of 

 the ancient Kingsland family. "Hi! Here, Patsie, he-re," 

 But Patsie was deaf to all persuasion and did not iiear worth 

 a cent. We then began the most scientific hunt ever entered 

 upon in Missour* after a dog. (I may remark that the State 

 appeared to have grown since I was there last year, and the 

 old man's legs were shorter.) The hunt, however, was so 

 terribly scientific that it resulted in our all getting lost. 

 This was Thursday afternoon at 3 o'clock. It was very 

 cold. We got into the frozen marsh, which jVIi". Kippy's 

 choice remarks caused to smell like the White Sulphur 

 Springs. At times, after it grew dark, I thought I could 

 discern a blue light shining like a halo around his head, but 

 1 may have been mistaken. But Mr. Kippy's utterances 

 were vile. At last he became so entangled in a patent 

 complicated Dutch oven oath that he lost the trail and got 

 separated from us; while a little later my brother-in-law 

 went splashing off into the dark and was seen no more. 

 NeUie, my bitch, stuck to me like wax. She waded through 

 ice and water after me until she became frozen, and then I 

 had to carry her, I became desperate, plunged into the 

 deep water, crossed the marsh and got home at 10 o'clock 

 that night. Mr. Kingsland struck the house at 7 A. M. next 

 day and William Goldenbord Kippy, Esq., fetched up at 9 

 A.'M. Although I did everything I could for my poor 

 bitch the terrible exposure was too much for her and she 

 died two days later and was buried on the prairie. Because 

 I do not interpolate here a copyrighted lament for the death 

 of my dos is not because I do not feel keenly her loss. 



In the meanwhile Patsie having been heard of iu Ajkansas 

 and Iowa at the same time, caused distraction for my sad and 

 over-burdened heart. Scouts armed with toy whistles and 

 wild duck calls were prevailed upon to scour the earth. For 

 three days the search was kept up. No Patsie. I then took 

 a two-days' whack at it myself in a wagon, varying the 

 means of transit in an old locomotive on the "narrer-gouge" 

 railwa3^ No Patsie. On the evening of the sixth 'day, a 

 man leading a something which appeared to me to be a short 

 section of a red clay drain pipe, uppeared upon the scene. 

 He demanded twenty-five cents for the animated hollowness. 

 I looked through the pipe several times, spotted an undi- 

 ;ested liver pill and knew it was Patsie. The long lost 

 'atsie of Patsieville. Behind the dog appeared the band 

 who had been discoursing sweet mu.sic on the bird-like 

 whistles and duck quackers. The wandering minsti-els had 

 come to cuss their luck as they saw the promised reward 

 hovering out of reach. After serenading me and demanding 

 shekels, they left. Then Mrs. Clamhoister came for $1.30 

 for a breast of veal knocked off of her calf on the "narrer- 

 gouge" raikoad, wliile I had been skirmishing intwo counties 

 after Patsie. This finished the outlay, for I secreted myself 

 on a muskrat house out on the marsh, where neither man, 

 woman or child could wade to me except in gum boots, 

 which don't grow on trees out West. 



As for the shooting, my brother-in-law had been having 

 fine sport. On returiiing home one evening from the marsh 

 he came on some wild tin-keys on the roost. He killed three 

 big fellows; one we eat and the others were sent as presents 

 to friends. But after my brother-in-law left for home I had 

 to pay $3 for the turkeys, which turned out to be tame ones 

 belonging to old man Gobblingrod's flock. 



But seriously speaking, quail were in thousands, and dur- 

 ing the cold snap (for we could walk on the ice toward the 

 end of our stay) mallards were in millions. I fairly 

 slaughtered them in the oak timber. Then came a dreadful 



