Juotb 1?, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



407 



as well bag all we could. He was quite relieved when I 

 assured that my excellency did not object a hit. A little 

 further on the dogs began to work around very carefully in 

 the grass, the quail had been rnnniDg around, and it 

 was several minutes before they came to a point. We came 

 up to the dogs, told them to go on, and they crawled up care- 

 fully a few yards when two quail arose, both of which I 

 managed to hill. They were the first migratory quail I had 

 ever shot, being birds about the size of a rail. They are 

 very strong on the wing, and make as much noise as our 

 quail in arising. They give a strong scent and afford excel- 

 lent sport, being nearly always scattered singly or in pairs 

 when they have been in the fields for some little time. 



We went on further and found that these splendid little 

 game birds were fairly abundant, not nearly as much so as 

 they are on the banks of the Nile, but sufficiently to give us 

 much sport. When a single bird or a pair arose, the keeper 

 always waited for me to shoot first, and notwithstanding this 

 be only missed two shots during the whole day, probably 

 owing to the limited range of his gun, as I shot several birds 

 that day at distances which seemed to him quite extraordi- 

 nary, for each time he delivered an old Italian saw, to the 

 effect that an oak tree was producing lemons. 



The sport was indeed splendid, seldom did more than a 

 quarter of an hour go by without a good point, and by 4 

 o'clock my fifty shells were exhausted, and we turned to- 

 ward home with about four dozen quail and and seven snipe, 

 besides two or three larks. 



It may be interesting here to say that on the shores of the 

 Mediterranean the quail arrive in huge numbers at certain 

 times of the year, and they are netted in countless thousands 

 and sent alive throughout Italv, where they are sold in the 

 markets, lightly packed in low wicker-work cages. The 

 Bishop of Capri, a small island near Sorrento, used 

 to derive an income of about two thousand dollars 

 from a tithe levied upon the quail netted upon the island, 

 and may do so yet for aught I know. Notwithstanding this 

 slaughter, they still come over from Africa in large numbers, 

 many falling in the sea from exhaustion, or when overtaken 

 by storms. I have often watched them arriving on the shore, 

 and seen them fall so tired that they could be captured with 

 the hands after a short run. Q. V. S. 



AT THE AGENCY SCHOOLHOUSE. 



LAST autumn a member of the Forest and Stream 

 staff attended an examination at an Indian schoolhouse 

 in far Montana, where the Agency children bad for a single 

 year had the benefits of instruction in the rudiments of an 

 English education. The progress which they had made in 

 this short time was very remarkable, and their quickness in 

 learning gave a most encouraging insight into the possibilities 

 of Indian education. 



We have recently had further news from this little school- 

 house, news of a very pleasant character, as is shown by the 

 story told below : 

 Editor Forest and Stream: 



At some leisure time, I promised to write you a brief 

 history of the school at this place, or rather, some of my ex- 

 perience at teaching Indian children. We arrived here May 

 22, 1884. The school was in session then, but closed soon 

 after for a summer vacation. 



My first effort was to teach a class of sixteen girls sewing. 

 My assistant and I cut and placed the garments ready for 

 the needle, and they, being great imitators, we found no 

 trouble in teaching them to use the needle and thimble. At 

 the end of two months, we had completed a suit of clothes 

 for each girl. And many a one with much better advantages 

 would be glad to sew as neatly. There we felt our efforts 

 were crowned with success. 



Our day school opened September 1. 1884, with a full 

 school, of which only two could speak English, or knew the 

 alphabet. One of these we employed as an interpreter. 

 Great patience and perseverance was required to teach them 

 the letters, so they could understand or speak them in 

 English. Our next effort was to teach them to sing the 

 Lord's Prayer, which was by no means an easy task, but by 

 practicing it a great many times, they came at last to sing it 

 very well. Some of the children have very sweet voices. 



About one month after the day school opened a boarding 

 school was started, which accommodates twenty pupils. 

 These children attended the day school regularly. And that 

 gave us a much better chance to teach them, than those that 

 came from the camps, for these latter generally attended the 

 morning session only, in order to get the crackers that were 

 issued to them at noon. They would come with their faces 

 painted a bright red or striped with other colors, and dressed 

 m full Indian uniform. We soon furnished them with 

 water, soap and towel to remove the paint and tried to make 

 them understand it was not necessary in making their toilet 

 for school, to paint. But in this we were not very successful. 

 The first year our supply of books was rather limited, and 

 for the most we used charts, as the children were unable to 

 understand English and the books were of little use to them, 

 until they had made some progress in the language. And 

 here I must say to their credit that they are equally as apt to 

 learn, and in their deportment are above the average of white 

 children. 1 have had but little trouble in controlling them. 

 If there was any misconduct of any kind, I was never obliged 

 to use any harsher means of correction than to talk to them. 

 They would soon say they were "sorry and ashamed" (that 

 being their words for repentance) and would "try and never 

 do so again." At one time one of my boys, about eighteen 

 years of age, became unruly and I told him I should have to 

 correct him. He let his Indian nature appear and drew a 

 knife. I was not at all alarmed, but talked quietly to him, 

 and pretty soon he began to soften and then to cry, said he 

 was ashamed of what he had done, and would burn his bad 

 boy and be good ever after. So he proceeded to put a stick 

 in the stove to burn, to represent his "bad boy," and true to 

 his promise he has been a very good boy ever since. 



It is said that Indians are a spiteful people. I have not 

 found it so with my pupils. They never show the least 

 spirit of revenge at my reproof, on the contrary they seem 

 the more anxious to try to please. 



My school is often visited by the leading Indians and 

 parents of the children who attend school. They often ask 

 to talk to them, and always give them good advice, telling 

 them to mind their teuchers, and study hard while they have 

 a chance and not grow up in the dark like themselves. At 

 one time, old White Calf, the chief of the tribe, in making a 

 speech, told his hoys he wanted them to study hard, and 

 become scholars enough so that when they bought an article 

 from a white man they would know when they handed him 

 a bill, how much change they should receive and not be 

 like himself, take whatever the white man saw proper to 

 give him, The tears came into the old man's eyes as he 

 ppoke, 



The school is provided with an organ and Gospel Hymn 

 books. The children have learned to sing a grtat many 

 hymns and patriotic songs including Yankee Doodle. There 

 are some of them that have excellent voices, which if culti- 

 vated would make their possessors very fine singers. All 

 the boarding school children can read, a part of them quite 

 well. They take a great delight in writing and all write a 

 very good hand. And all this they have learnt within the 

 past year. Their Teacher. 



Blaokfket Agency, Mod. Ten, Feb. 1, 1886. 



THE BIRD RANGE INCREASING. 



Editor -Forest and Stream: 



The following notes may for your readers as well as myself 

 possess a certain degree of interest : 



On the 27th of May, in driving along the road about ten 

 miles north of Elk Rapids in the country , I saw a bird at a 

 distance of sixty or seventy yards, and from its appearance 

 and manner of alighting in the grass, I was sure that it was 

 a plover of some sort; a bird which I have never before seen 

 in this region. This one was about the size of the upland 

 plover of New England, but seemed lighter in color. I 

 heard no note, and circumstances prevented me from ex- 

 tending my investigations. 



A friend, in whom I have confidence, told me last week 

 that he had seen not far from this village a pair of crossbills, 

 this being the first instance within my knowledge of their 

 appearance hereabouts. 



My wife, yesterday, saw a brown thrush (Harporhynchus 

 rufus). These 1 have never seen here, though others may 

 have been more fortunate. 



The lady above mentioned was yesterday walking in the 

 garden when a finch alighted on her hat, and after pattering 

 about for a short time took its departure. It may be men- 

 tioned that there were no wild birds' feathers upon the hat 

 and this fact doubtless tended to inspire an unusual degree 

 of confidence in the little creature, which left when it was 

 ready to go and not before. It is told that Robinson Crusoe 

 was horrified by a similar incident in his island experi- 

 ence; but I think there was in this case no feeling of that 

 sort. It shows that we are on good terms with the most of 

 our neighbors. 



We have not up to this time been annoyed by the English 

 sparrows, although I think that I have seen them as winter 

 visitants. I am informed, however, that in Mancelona, 

 twenty miles distant, they appeared last year in small num- 

 bers, but are now very numerous. 



This region has only of late years been occupied by whites, 

 and is even now but sparsely settled, and many birds com- 

 mon to the older communities of our State will, I doubt not, 

 find a home here in time, where as yet they are unknown. I 

 have been surprised that in all my excursions upon the 

 waters of this county, I have never yet seen a bittern of any 

 variety. These birds are so widely distributed, that with 

 the abundance of food and other conveniences which our 

 shores could furnish, it has seemed strange that none should 

 come among us. The common blue heron is frequently to 

 be seen, though they are less numerous than formerly. So 

 with the loons, whose nests are regularly robbed by the rafts- 

 men. I have an egg of this bird. I am glad to say that I 

 did not rob the nest. I also have one of the wing plumes of 

 a condor— a quill of extraordinary size, which, with the egg, 

 has a conspicuous place among various outlandish matters 

 which hang upon the walls of my sitting-room. Query. Is 

 this a violation of the pledges I have given to the Audubon 

 Society? I don't know. Were it the magnificent plumage 

 of some tropic bird, or even the lustrous skin of awoodduck, 

 I would have pulled them down at once; but that somber- 

 hued old plume, with its forty years and more of past asso- 

 ciations, still hangs on the wall. . I have not been able to 

 persuade myself that it is to be regarded in the light of a, 

 "decoration." 



Although no shooting for millinery purposes has within 

 my knowledge been practiced hereabout, I am persuaded 

 that many of our smaller birds have been killed elsewhere 

 during the migratory season. For example : I am informed 

 by one of the firm of Cameron Brothers, at Torch Lake, that 

 they have always protected the robins, which have heretofore 

 nested in large numbers about their buildings and lumber 

 yards; yet this year they have appeared in numbers sadly 

 diminished. For this no apparent reason exists, save that 

 which I have assigned, and it* goes to show that the work of 

 the Audubon Society was begun not a moment too soon. 



The Florida gentleman who is so anxious to ' 'stash" the 

 mocking bird should remember that there are a few insects 

 left in his State (there were a good many when I was there) 

 and that without the birds there wouldn't be much of any- 

 thing else but "bugs." Kelpie. 



Central Lake, Mich., June 10. 



BOYS AND BIRDS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As this is the nesting season of our feathered songsters, 

 Iwish, through the Forest and Stream and with your per- 

 mission, to say a word to parents in regard to their boys in 

 connection with birds and their nests. 



In many of our Eastern cities and some of our Western 

 cities as well, anti-feather societies are becoming very popu- 

 lar. I am pleased to note this fact, for, as a rule a woman's 

 head-gear is ridiculous enough, but I look with horror upon 

 a hat with a bird on it, no matter how fair the wearer may 

 be. But to the subject. Perhaps it is not very generally 

 known that boys about this time of the year and also later on, 

 form themselves into little bands or clubs as it were, and 

 start off on a crusade against birds and their nests; this is 

 nevertheless a fact, as the writer was an eye-witness to an 

 inventory that was being made by a band of these young 

 robbers who had just returned from a crusade of this kind. 

 One hat, that of the boss robber, contained nearly fifty eggs 

 of various kinds. There were five boys in this gang and °all 

 had met with more or less success. Indeed, I was told by 

 one of the boys that he had a collection amounting to some- 

 what over two hundred eggs at home and that his mother 

 took great delight in looking over the different kinds. How- 

 ever, this might not have been true, at least I should hope 

 not. Parents, do your boys belong to a band or club of this 

 kind? If not, see to it that they do not become members. 

 The remedy for this evil, for it is a sin and a shame, must 

 come through the parents, I contend, and if a gentle admoni- 

 tion will not effect a cure, the flat side of a shingle, judiciously 

 applied, will be found to be very efficacious. M. H. 



Champaign, 111,, June, 1886. 



Can a Snake Poison Itself?— Fort Monroe, Va., May 

 23.— Editor Forest and Stream: Another idol shattered! A 

 newspaper writer says: "Meanwhile the deadly but still 

 pretty creature was writhing about the cane which held it, 

 biting and tearing its own flesh. The strange fact which 

 Dr. Weir Mitchell made known to the world in 1868, that a 

 poisonous 'snake cannot poison itself,' is no less strange be- 

 cause true." If the above assertion be true, what is to 

 become of all of our old stories of teasing a rattlesnake until, 

 in his impotent rage, he terminates his own life with hia 

 fangs; or if the blacksnake which, when struck by the fangs 

 of his horrid adversary, seeks the aid of some mysterious 

 weed as an antidote, and soon returns to the fight with fresh 

 vigor ! No doubt many of the old woodsmen ( ?) can disap- 

 prove the assertion of this rash doctor as readily as they can 

 prove that the bullet from their trusty rifle "flies perfectly 

 straight" for sixty or more yards. — A. O. S. 



A Florida Fox.— Glence, Fla.— My next door neighbor's 

 boys recently caught a gray fox, which was prowling around 

 their hen coop one night. This is the first time in ten years 

 residence here that I have seen or heard of a fox in this part 

 of the State. _ They are sometimes found over on the Gulf 

 coast, but it is a great curiosity here. Strange to say, the 

 boys caught it in a common box trap which had been set and 

 baited with cheese for a 'possum. Either the Florida fox is 

 not as cunning and crafty as his northern relation, or else 

 this one was unusually simple-minded. It was a full grown 

 female, but seemed to me to be very small compared to those 

 at the North. Dimensions, total length from tip to tip, 37 

 inches; body, 22 inches; tail, 15 inches; weight, 7i pounds. 

 — Red Wing. 



Voracity of the Blacksnake.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: In the early autumn of '74, I was rambling among 

 the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts, when about a 

 hundred yards from a mountain brook I discovered a black- 

 snake working its way along with difficulty. Calling my 

 friend's attention to it, we killed the snake, and noticing the 

 unnatural size of its body, opened it and found in its stom- 

 ach a frog nine inches in length. The snake measured three 

 and a half feet. At another time 1 killed a blacksnake on 

 the bank of the Hoosic River, near Pownal, Yt., that 

 measured four feet and eleven inches, and its stomach con- 

 tained a large rat. Another instance occurred near the 

 same spot. — E. T. 



Bears.— The Forest and Stream's grizzlies at Central 

 Park receive daily through the month of June. 



POISONOUS FISH AND FISH POISONING IN 

 CHINA. 



BY D. J. MACGOWAN, M. D. 

 [From tbe Chinese Recorder of February and April, 1886, by favor 

 of Prof. 8. F. Baird, U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries.] 



THE porpoise occupies greater space by far in Chinese 

 ichthyology than any fish. Chan's Cyclopaedia quotes 

 thirty authors who refer to it. Few fishes are so prized for 

 their flavor and none so much condemned for poisonous quali- 

 ties. Like English, German, French and other maritime 

 people, the Chinese name the animal from its resemblance to 

 a pig— it is the ho-t'un— "river pig," of which there are two 

 varieties, a white and a black. It enters the rivers from the 

 sea early in spring, is very abundant in the Yangtsze, which 

 it ascends over a thousand miles, as far as the rapids allow. 

 On its first appearance it is fat, and less hurtful as food than 

 at a latter period. A portion of fat found in the abdomen is 

 so esteemed that it is styled "Ti Tsze's milk," that lady being 

 pre-eminent among all comely women for her beauty. One 

 writer attributes the fatness to willow leaf buds, on which the 

 porpoise feeds ; but another combats that idea, inasmuch as 

 the fatness is found to exist before the pendent willow 

 branches reach the water's surface and begin to sprout. The 

 former observer, it may be remarked, lived higher up the 

 Yangtsze, where the willow buds and porpoise appear syn- 

 chronously. Another writer says willow buds are hurtful to 

 fish. Porpoises, it is added, are a terror to fish, none daring to 

 attack them; their appearance in large numbers indicates 

 a blow. A centenarian author who wrote at the close 

 of the twelfth century is cited to show tbe risk of 

 indulging in porpoise flesh. It is quoted by the re- 

 nowned poet See T'ungpo, who remarks that "the price of 

 porpoise eating is death," and then narrates how it happened 

 that the aged author failed to see a full century. He being 

 on a visit to a relative (a literary official at Pahg-yang) was 

 told by his host that the southern region produced nothing 

 more savory than porpoise, some was ordered to be cooked 

 for a repast. As the two were sitting down to partake of it, 

 they had to rise to receive a guest; at that moment a cat 

 pounced upon tne dish, upset it and, with a dog, ate the dainty 

 contents ; but very soon it killed them both, thus plucking 

 death from the watering mouths of guest and host. The poet 

 adds, that in Honan the eatmg houses prepare mock porpoise 

 dishes, and that in his opinion, the genuine article being fatal, 

 the imitation should suffice to half kill the eaters. Animals 

 seem to be more obnoxious to the poison than man. One 

 authority says that cats and dogs partaking of it invariably 

 die; and fishermen tell me that carrion birds will not eat por- 

 poise entrails, or if they do they die speedily. The liver, which 

 is regarded as a great delicacy, is often poisonous; the eyes 

 and the blood and particularly that part which is found near 

 the back, are always poisonous. All cases of fatal poisoning, 

 however, appear to be due to neglect of certain precautions 

 that require to be observed more minutely after the animals 

 have made their visit to the rivers. In the first place, the 

 parts indicated require to be well cut awav and the flesh thor- 

 oughly washed, and when cooked to be well boiled. At Mngpo 

 the boiling is kept up by careful people for eight hours. Fur- 

 ther to secure safety, the Chinese olive or sugar cane is boiled 

 with the flesh. A man who happens to be taking as medicine 

 a sort of sage will assuredly be killed if he takes porpoise at 

 the same time. The toxic effects vary according to the por- 

 tion which is taken. The blood and liver are generally poison- 

 ous, the fat causes swelling and numbness of the tongue, eat- 

 ing the eyes produce dimness of vision. On the Lower Yangtsze 

 the fat is prepared for food by mixing it with liquor dregs aud 

 for the time burying it. With regard to the whole "river 

 pig," a proverb says, "Eat if you wish to discard life ;" but 

 when well cooked all other food compared to it will be found 

 insipid. 



Antidotes.— Antidotes to porpoise poisoning are the cos- 

 metic which women use to give color to their lips (Mirabilis 

 salappa) and the fire-dried flowers of Mimosa comiculata, 

 pulverize and give in water ; or give the Chinese olive (C'ana- 

 rhtm) aud camphor soaked together in the water. 



Test.— To testa roe, throw some of the above cosmetic on 

 the roe, when it is boiling; if it turns red, it is safe to eat; if it 

 fails to take the color, it is poisonous. 



Notwithstanding most magistrates issue proclamations from 

 time to time cautioning people against the use of por- 

 poise flesh, scarcely a spring passes without fatal cases of 

 poisoning from that cause. The SMnpao lately reported 

 eleven deaths that occurred at Yangchow from eating portions 

 of that fish. Agaiu, five persons died at Aneh'ing in April 

 last from eating porpoise. In one family a father and son 

 were the victims; in the one vomiting was induced, in the 



