March &6, 1886 ] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



168 



of the feathers here are imported, and pay 23 per cent, duty 

 when they come in the skin and 50 per cent, when made up. 

 The Taw skins should be free, for there can he no sense in 

 putting a protective tariff, say on South American birds, un- 

 der the notion that some day or other we can raise them in 

 the United Stages. I should say that from 10 to 15 per cent, 

 of the feathers consumed here are of American growth, and 

 of these the great bulk come from the Southern States. Flor- 

 ida, Texas and Louisiana. I have men out now in Texas, 

 and here are two cases of merles sent in by them. The 

 birds have to be taken when in plumage, and this, in some 

 species, is only a few weeks out of the year. There are a 

 very few birds in the North taken, simply because there are 

 few to be taken. Now and then great flocks of the snow 

 bunting come down from the north and are welcome to the 

 gunners who shoot and trap for the trade: herons, too, and 

 some species of duck. The sparrow, that little pest which 

 I saw introduced here and raised my voice in protest at the 

 time, is now brought in and made use of. It is 'degraded,' 

 as we say. That is, the skin is bleached until it is a neutral 

 tint. This is done in all skins where it is desired to dye the 

 feathers. Common poultry feathers are now entering into 

 the trade. As yet we do not get many from this country, 

 because our people have not yet learned their value; but in 

 Poland and other parts of Europe, the feathers of the poul- 

 try killed are just as carefully preserved for sale as the eggs. 

 Our first task" is to separate them, for in the feathers of a 

 single bird we make seven grades. The steaming is followed 

 by the dyeing, eitner black, or yellow, or red, or anything 

 fashion may dictate. 



"I would gladly see the indiscriminate killing of birds 

 stopped. We have law enough, I think. What is needed 

 is the enforcement of those laws, and that can be reached by 

 the education of the people; but on the other hand, it is not 

 fair to say that because there are no birds where years ago 

 there were plenty, that therefore they have found their way 

 on to ladies' bonnets. As settlements are made, certain 

 species retire. I have ehot foxes on that hill yonder where 

 now you see rows of houses, but the houses killed the foxes, 

 not 1." 



As the feather maker talked he drew out drawer after 

 drawer, opened tin boxes by the dozen, drew out the 

 wrapped skins, until every section of the earth had contrib- 

 uted its quota. Down below stairs were coops of ring doves, 

 sleek and coy, and genuine white doves, too, not the ordi- 

 nary white pigeon. Strutting about the yard outside were 

 peacocks in all the glory of full strut, waiting the day when 

 in the height of plumage, a severed vertebra should give them 

 the happy despatch and give their feathers to the adornment 

 of some elaborate screen. Chinese pheasants too were in 

 other coops, and all about were evidences that Mr. Alex- 

 ander was an ornithologist, and differed from the ordinary 

 feather dealer in knowing his stock in trade; for with a 

 simile feather as a text the genial tradesman could preach of 

 family and genera, of habitat and habits, of past and present 

 trade history, and tell, too, of trips into every nook of the 

 world in feather quests. 



Iu the city C. Burtou Rouse is the editor of the Millinery 

 Review. He confessed that he had no statistics, had never 

 known of any gathered beyond tho-e given in the Custom 

 House returns, and there the various classes of feathers were 

 run under a common heading. About $10,000,000 per year 

 he thought would represent the feather trade of the country 

 in the finished article, and of this about 40 per cent, repre- 

 sented what the raw article costs; in other words, what the 

 bird killer got. He did not know of any exportation of oiir 

 American birds, and thought that 10 per cent, would repre- 

 sent our domestic contributions to our domestic consump- 

 tion. A single week might see a change in fashion, and the 

 birds so eagerly sought to-day might not a fortnight hence 

 be worth the wad iu the cartridge burned in their killing. 



Thomas Wo d, one of the best known leaders in the whole- 

 sale handling of millinery goods, stood in one of his great 

 lofts with open boxes of pretty artificial flowers and made- 

 up feather ornaments about him, and said that it would be 

 impossible to form any very accurate estimate of the busi- 

 ness. He called attention to the fact that many of the 

 feathers were from sea fowl and from game birds, the prairie 

 chicken and sandpiper, for instance, hunted for their flesh. 

 Then the foreign birds sold at the regular London auctions 

 of skins in the Fenchurch street rooms of Hall & Son, were 

 of foreign birds coming from portions of the British Empire, 

 where the birds existed in countless numbers. They were 

 not song birds, but such as parrots, tanagers. and others of 

 marked plumage and not of the insectivorous class. 



Other dealers were seen. All of them had heard of the 

 movement for the protection of home birds, and in every 

 case they spoke in favor of it; urging that the largest 

 measure of success would come with the cultivation of local 

 effort, that in a particular section or neighborhood the laws 

 enforced would bring benefit to those who acted as bird pro- 

 tectors, and all agreed that, with the fashion turned from 

 any particular class of bird, there would be very little risk of 

 any one hunting it. 



WILD ANIMALS OF MAINE. 



CARIBOU — CERVUS TARANDUS. 



ONLY the woodland caribou occurs in this State. The 

 barren ground caribou are found further north. Among 

 the cervine tribe of animals of the western continent there 

 are, perhaps, none more interesting than the caribou ; com- 

 prising delicacy of form, roundness of body, fine tapering 

 limbs, in fact, a compactness of organism calculated for fleet- 

 ness and endurance, seldom seen in any other animal. 



A full grown male will weigh alive about four hundred 

 pounds, and the female adult near one hundred pounds less. 

 The venison is considered by many preferable to the moose 

 or deer. 



Tbeir hoofs are very broad, partiug like the ox, and sharp, 

 enabling them to travel with as much ease on ice as on land 

 or snow. 



When running at full speed they spread their hoofs, squat 

 on their haunches from gambrel to foot, and thus are able 

 to keep top of very light deep snow and at the same time 

 throw themselves ahead with immense force. And when 

 under full blast, a herd of them reminds one of a train of 

 cars under full headway. 



The old male sports a very pretty set of horns, which rise 

 high over his head, with two frontals nearly covering his 

 eyes. The frontal branches are peculiar to this animal. 

 These immense antlers are slanted back on to his shoulders 

 by elevating his nose while going through thick woods. The 

 young and females have no horns, as a rule; yet there have 

 been some females killed in this State with good-sized horns. 

 These are exceptions, however, as I have killed and handled 

 a large number and have never yet seen horns on a female. 

 The horns appear on the male the second year, and they cast 



them every winter after January, generally in a thaw and 

 generally one horn at a time. They seem to have an itchin 

 sensation and rub them against a tree, and so shed them; an 

 like all the deer kind, receive new ones in early spring. 



They breed at the age of two years, going with young 

 about nine months, dropping them in May and June. 



They are extremely social in their habits, congregating in 

 large herds where they are plentiful, and only singling off 

 when frightened and scattered, or by accident stray away. 

 They live chiefly in swamps and subsist on mosses and lichens, 

 though when hard pressed for food they nip the tender buds 

 of the willow and maple. They eat the moss of trees as well 

 as ground moss, by sitting on their hindlegs, and, putting 

 their forward feet against the tree, stretch up high on the 

 body of the tree. In early morning or late evening they may 

 be found facing the south and working in that direction , and 

 the experienced hunter will take his position and wait their 

 approach in the feeding season. The reason they face the 

 south while feediug is that the moss grows more abundant 

 oq the north side of trees. 



In the rutting season, which occurs in September or 

 October, the call has the sound of "A" flat, with a tremulous 

 continuation, and in winter a continued grunt ending in a 

 higher key. They may have other sounds but I have not 

 been able to hear them. They are not considered dangerous 

 or vicious, yet if cornered or excited I would as soon be in a 

 safe place. 



They migrate from one forest to another in large herds. 

 Thus for many years tbey have inhabited the Province of 

 Nova Scotia and the adjoining forests, but a few years ago 

 they seemed to leave the Provinces and came over into Maine, 

 and for fifty miles along the range of the Ranaeley Lakes, they 

 were very abundant, and more than a hundred were killed 

 in that fall and early winter by hunters of the Umbagog 

 region, and some about Rangeley and Kennebago. Among 

 those killed were some very fine bucks with large handsome 

 antlers. When the snows are deep and in the coldest weather, 

 they stay mostly in the dense forest, and in early spring they 

 seek the lakes and ponds. 



The best way to hunt them is by still-hunting or stalking. 

 It would be impossible to successfully hunt them with dogs. 

 In the spring time when they are on the ice a man can go on 

 to the lake some distance to leewaid of the herd or individual 

 as the case may be, and lie down, stick his gun up over his 

 head and by moving it to and fro attract the attention of the 

 caribou, and when the animal discovers it he will make for 

 it, but there is danger of being run over if it be a herd, for 

 when their curiosity is aroused they are very excited. To 

 hunt them in thick woods the hunter spreads a sheet over 

 his head and walks carefully up toward the game, and when 

 observed by the animal, stops still until he is composed, then 

 walks on again until near enough to take his choice of the 

 herd, but if a large herd there is danger of being run over, 

 for after a few shots are fired they get crazed and furious 

 and run in every direction for some time, then make straight 

 off for many miles toward the mountains or swamps. 



In the spring of 1862 I went with an Indian of the St. 

 Francis tribe — named Prince Bushola— on a hunting expedi- 

 tion from Canada down by the forks of the Kennebec River 

 and over Moxy township, in the northern part of Somerset 

 county. On the borders of Moxy Pond we discovered a herd 

 of caribou of nearly thirty individuals. With sheets spread 

 over our heads and bodies we slowly advanced toward them 

 on the lee side, so they could not scent us by the wind, and 

 we were favored by a light falling snow. We struck their 

 sloat on the pond and followed up carefully within sight of 

 them. I was highly excited. The woods seemed alive with 

 them. Some were reared high up against the trees feeding 

 on the moss; others digging away the snow for evergreens 

 on the ground; others were walking about making a low 

 moaning noise in short grunts; others were lying down, and 

 others still fawning each other in the most affectionate man- 

 ner. Presently I heard Bushy fire (I called my Indian guide 

 Bushy for short), and very soon after heard him shout, and 

 at the same time the very woods seemed alive with caribou — 

 the roaring sound of a large herd on the travel, and the 

 sonorous grunts of the old males, together with the lively 

 shouts of Bushy, who was an eighth of a mile to the north 

 of me, made the woods ring with exciting interest. I started 

 toward the Indian, but it was with the greatest difficulty I 

 could reach the spot from which the shout arose, and on mv 

 way shot, right and left, an old buck and a year old doe * 

 The whole herd were now fairly aroused and on a lively 

 scare, running hither and thither. Bushy had shot a large 

 doe, and several old males were after him, and he had 

 jumped into a beech top and had dropped his ammunition. 

 On my approach they scattered, and Busby, being relieved^ 

 soon reloaded and let drive at the nearest. 



As one came near in their circuit, we would shoot 

 until we had killed seven, when the whole herd made off to 

 the northward at a tremendous pace, and we with tumplines 

 and fir boughs dragged our game together on the shore of 

 the pond and then enjoyed the realization of our successful 

 hunt over a pot of hot tea and roast venison. 



We camped on the shore of Moxy Tond that night and 

 the next day we made some moose sleds and loaded on 

 each a whole animal and slowly made our way out of the 

 woods to the military road, made more than a hundred years 

 ago by Arnold, while on his disastrous expedition into Can- 

 ada, six miles distant, thence back to camp and so on until 

 we hauled them all out. Bushy then returned to Moxy, 

 where he trapped a few weeks for fishers and sable, i 

 took the caribou to Boston, whole, hired a room at the foot 

 of Cambridge street on Charles street, where, after due notice 

 in the daily papers, I was visited by Prof. Agassiz and °-en- 

 tlemen from the Boston Society of Natural History and 

 agents from Yale College, and others who examined my stock 

 in trade with much interest, and made purchases— some for 

 skeletons, others for mounting, and others for both— and the 

 most of the same caribou can now be seen, prepared and 

 preserved, in the above museums. 



Thus a relic of that herd of caribou of twenty five years 

 ago is being handed down to future posterity— possibly in 

 the future years when the original animal shall be extinct 



J. G. R. 



Bethel, Maine. 



Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.— On March 7 I was so for- 

 tunate as to procure a specimen of the above-named rare 

 species. It was pecking on a laree cypress tree in a swamp 

 near the St. Mark's River, about twenty miles from this 

 place. I observed a pair of these birds near the same place 

 a few weeks previous, but was unable to shoot them, as they 

 are very shy. March 8 I killed two pileated woodpeckers 

 at the same place. They are abundant all along the river 

 and in the cypress swamps throughout the States— Horace 

 A. Kline (Tallahassee, Fla.). 



HAWKS AND OWLS, 1 



BENEFICIAL or injurious? 



AT a meeting of the West Chester (Pa.) Microscopical 

 Society, held March 4, some interesting matter on the 

 subject of the good and bad qualities of our rapacious birds 

 was brought out. 



This subject had been investigated, under the circum- 

 stances explained below, by a committee, of which Dr. B. 

 Harry Warren was chairman. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 



The committee appointed at the last meeting of the Mi- 

 croscopical Society to take into consideration the Act of 

 Assembly passed the 23d day of June, A D., 1885, entitled 

 "An act for the destruction of wolves, wildcats, foxes, minks, 

 hawks, weasels and owls, in this commonwealth,'' and which 

 reads as follows: "That for the benefit of agriculture and for 

 the protection of game within this commonwealth, there is 

 hereby established the following premiums for the destruc- 

 tion of certain noxious animals and birds, to be paid by the 

 respective counties in which the same ares-lain, namely: For 

 every wildcat $2, for every red or gray fox §1, for every 

 mink 50 cents, for every weasel 50 cents, for every hawk 50 

 cents, and for every owl (except the Acadian screech or barn 

 owl. which is hereby exempted from the provisions of thb* 

 act) 50 cents;" beg leave to report that the chairman of the 

 committee, Dr. B. Harry Warren, Ornithologist of Pennsyl- 

 vania State Board of Agriculture, has devoted several years 

 of his life to the collection, dissection and examination of 

 birds, and that all of the committee from observation and 

 experience, have believed that all of the birds denounced in 

 the law above quoted, with rare exceptions, have been found 

 to be the best friends of the farmer. Lest, however, any of 

 the committee might be mistaken, tbey have corresponded 

 with the best ornithologists in the country, men who have 

 made ornithology a study and are connected with that de- 

 partment in the Smithsonian Institution, asking their opinion 

 as to the benefits or injury likely to arise from the execution 

 of the law against the birds therein named. 



They have received answers from Dr. C. Hart Merriam. 

 Ornithologist of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture; Robert Rldgway, Curator of Department of Birds 

 United States National Museum; Dr. Leonard Stejneger, 

 Assistant Curator of the same department; H. W. Henshaw, 

 of the Bureau of E'hnology, also a collector of birds for the 

 Smithsonian Institution and connected with the late Wheeler 

 Survey of the Territories, and Lucien M. Turner, a collector 

 of birds, etc., for the Smithsonian Institution for the last 

 twelve years. These answers, which are annexed to this 

 report, all bear testimony that the hawks and owls are of 

 great benefit to the farmer, and render him far greater ser- 

 vice than injury, and that' it is unwise to select any of them 

 for destruction. 



The committee regrets that there have been ninety odd 

 hawks and a dozen or more owls killed since the law was 

 passed, June 2b, 1885, at a cost to this county of about $75, 

 and that, thc-slaughter is still going on. 



Believing, therefore, that the killing of these birds is 

 detrimental to the interest of the agriculturists, they believe 

 that instead of being destroyed they should be protected, 

 and they, therefore, recommend the passage of the following 

 resolution : 



Resolved, by the Microscopical Society of West Chester, 

 that in the opinion of the society the act of June 23, 1885, 

 offering a premium for the destruction of hawks and owls is 

 unwise and prejudicial to the interests of agriculture, and so 

 far as those birds are concerned, oueht to be repealed. 



Resolved, That the president and secretary of the society be 

 instructed to forward a copy of the above resolution to our 

 members of the Legislature at its next session and request 

 their aid toward the repeal of the act so far aa is above 

 stated. 



All of which is respectfully submitted. 



B. Harry Warren, 1 

 W. Townsexd, 



Thos D. Dunn, }- Committee. 

 James C. Sellers. 



March 4, 18S6. 



U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1 

 Washington, D. C, March 2, 1886. i" 

 Br. B. Harry Warren, Ornithologist of the Pennsylvania 

 State Board of Agriculture: 

 Dear Sir— Your letter' of the 1st inst. has just come to 

 hand. I have read with surprise and indignation the copy 

 sent of Section I page 141 of the laws of Pennsylvania for 

 1885, in which a bounty is offered for the destruction ol 

 weasels, hawks and owls. The clause purports to have been 

 enacted "for the benefit of agriculture," etc. 



The possibility of the passage of such an act by any legis- 

 lative body is a melaucholy comment on the widtspread 

 ignorance that prevails even among intelligent persons, con- 

 cerning the food of our common birds and mammals, and is 

 an evidence of the urgent need of just such systematic and 

 comprehensive investigations as this department is now 

 making on the subject of the relation of food habits to agri- 

 culture. 



There are two kinds of weasels in the Eastern States. The 

 smaller kind feeds chiefly on mice and insects and is not 

 known to kill poultry. The larger preys also mainly on 

 mice and rats, but in addition sometimes kills rabbits" and 

 poultry. Both species are friends of the farmer, for the 

 occasional loss of a few chickens is of trifling consequence 

 compared with the good that these animals are constantly 

 doing in checking the increase of mice. 



You ask my opinion in regard to the beneficial and injuri- 

 ous qualities of the hawks and owls which inhabit Pennsyl- 

 vania. This question seems almost su perfluous in view of 

 the fact that your own investigations, more than those of 

 any other one person, have led to a better knowledge of the 

 food habits of these birds, and what you have done in the. 

 East, Prof. Aughey, of Nebraska, has done in the West. Mam 

 others have added their "mites," till at the present time a 

 sufficient array of facts have been accumulated to enable us 

 testate, without fear of contradiction, that our hawks and 

 owls must be ranked among the best friends of the farmer, 

 With very few exceptions their food consists of mice and 

 insects, meadow-mice and grasshoppers predominating. The 

 exceptions are the fierce goshawk from the North and two 

 smaller resident hawks. Cooper's and sharp-shinned, which 

 really destroy many wild birds and some poultry. These 

 three hawks have long tails and short wings, which serve, 

 among other characters, to distinguish them from the bene- 

 ficial kind. 



Strange as it may appear to the average farmer, the 

 largeBt hawks are the ones that do the most good. Foremost 

 among these are the rough-legged and marsh hawks, which 



