Dec. 33, 1886.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



427 



was otherwise braised. Naturally I picked it up, and 

 then came the question what to do with it. The simplest 

 and most luiman course was to kill and "put it out of its 

 misery." That one does with little compunction, although 

 it is far from a pleasant duty when one wings or other- 

 wise wounds a bird. But this was a peculiar case. The 

 bird was a petrel, a "Mother Carey's chicken," and it was 

 blowing hard. I am not a very superstitious man, yet I 

 confess that I did not like to do it; my suggestion to the 

 quartermaster was not responded to in a very zealous 

 manner. 



I do not think that he, any more than myself, gave full 

 faith to the views attributed in both prose and poem, to 

 sailors in regard to the probable nature of this bird and 

 the probable ill-f ortime that would follow its slayer. 



For that matter I don't believe that I ever did know a 

 real sailor that did fully believe that in these little birds 

 are sheltered the souls of defunct sailors who, through 

 sundry indiscretions, have forfeited then rights to a snug 

 berth in Fiddler's Green, with free rum, tobacco and 

 sweethearts, and are confined in Davy Jones's lockers, to 

 be given in this form and under the recognizances of 

 Mother Carey, liberty for an indefinite period, their time 

 to be occupied in a constant hunt for rations, with never 

 a watch below. 



Still, I suppose we both had it to some extent. I think 

 that if my kitten had, while I was cogitating, left her 

 snug berth in my bunk and joined us, I should have 

 meanly put that bird where I had found it and she could 

 see it, and claimed that "it was the cat." 



Finally I concluded that even a petrel would, with but 

 one wing, one eye, and general demoralization, be better 

 off dead than alive, especially in a gale of wind and hun- 

 dreds of miles from shore, and I killed him. And the 

 consequences of this act still affect me, and the readers of 

 Forest and Stream, for this letter, vrritten a score of 

 years after, is one of them. How little I thought that 

 this apparently unimportant act would result in making 

 for me good friends, giving to me good dinners, and to 

 the world a very rare and valuable specimen. Thus it 

 was. I had an all night up before me with nothing,,to do 

 unless some unforeseen emergency arose. I had been 

 studying a little book and trying to learn from it how to 

 skin, prepare and preserve bnds, and this bird gave me 

 an opportunity to practice; it was a subject, in fact. For 

 several hours I passed my time in the effort to get it ready 

 for stuf&ng. It was my first attempt, and when finished 

 I threw it in a locker and forgot all about it. 



The next day the wind and sea moderated, and not long 

 after we had doiibled the Cape and anchored in Simons 

 Bay, whence to Table Bay and Cape Town it is but a 

 short and i)leasant drive across country, and as soon as I 

 could get away I went over. I had been there often, had 

 lots of friends, and a good time was in anticipation. I 

 visited the South African Museum, anxious to see the 

 only extant specimen of the dodo and its egg. 



At the museum I was most politely received and cicer- 

 oned by the curator, Mr. Edgar Layard, brother of the 

 famed explorer of Nineveh. Showing me around, we 

 ca,me to a great case containing quantities of petrels of 

 many varieties. Naturally I looked for one like mine, of 

 which I was now for the first time reminded. I saw none 

 just like it, and mentioned the fact to Mr. Layai-d. He 

 became at once greatly interested, and began a most 

 eager examination, in which I very much fear that, from 

 a scientific point of view, I failed badly. I had not 

 noticed much about my bird, but stuck to it that I could 

 see none like it in the case: and Mr. Layard's excitement 

 developed into an enthusiasm that I had then never seen 

 equalled, though since my experience with the professors 

 on the Bluelight dredging trips has furnished similar 

 exhibitions. I firmly declined to admit that by any pos- 

 sibility the pure white of my bird's belly was either orna- 

 mented or disfigured by a single black feather, let alone a 

 "stripe." This, by the way, was about the only point 

 upon wMch I was sure, and this certainly was due to the 

 ^act that, through want of skill and experience, I had 

 badly soiled the white belly with blood, and had wasted 

 considerable time endeavoring, with water, chalk and 

 pipe clay, to restore the primitive purity. This I told him, 

 and this convinced him. Seizing both of my hands, and I 

 verily believe coming within an ace of embracing me, he 

 shouted, "Upon my word, mj dear fellow, I believe you 

 have secured a leucogaster.' Where is it? Can I see it? 

 Would you be willing on any terms to ]5art with it?" and 

 more to that effect. 



Enthusiasm is contagious. I began to have it myself 

 and to wonder where I had put that bird skin. When I 

 told him that it was somewhere in my cabin, that- the 

 museum was welcome to it, but that I was a little appre- 

 hensive that Signor Jose da Cousta, who was my stewai-d, 

 might have taken the opportunity afforded by my absence 

 to clean house and might have thrown it away, his anxi- 

 ety was painful, and with my assent he at once tele- 

 graphed in my name, and I that evening wrote Joseph to 

 spare that bird and send it over. 



The next day it came, and I was nearly as impatient 

 (judging from my act) as was the scientist. Immediately 

 upon receipt of the package (I was at the time enjoying 

 the society and voice of a charming young South African 

 ,ady, singing to me the, to me, new song, "Pas de la 



rhone que nous,") I started for the museum, was met at 

 the door by Mr. Layard who claimed tha the had passed a 

 sleepless night; the possibilities of Joseph's failing had 

 broken him all up. I, too, had passed a sleepless night 

 and so I told him, but not at fltrst the cause — a jolly little 

 dance that lasted till the small hours. The joy, excite- 

 ment and enthusiasm of yesterday were but lethargy, 

 when compared with the sensations manifested when 

 with trembling hands the package was imdone and with 

 trembling voice my friend announced, "It is, it is, ajLettco- 

 gaster!" and at that shout there gathered other learned and 

 scientific men and collectors, some wise on butterflies and 

 some on bees. 



A great book of magnificently colored plates of the 

 birds of South Africa was produced, and life-size was seen 

 a portrait of my bird, and under it the legend: "But two 

 specimens of this very rare bird have been obtained, both 

 by Sir George Gray , Governor of the Colony. One was 

 presented by him to the British Museum, the other retained 

 in his collection." 



Could and would I part with it? Would I think £10 an 

 equivalent? 



I declined the money offer, tempting as it was in those 

 days, for the dance and extras had rather depleted my 

 pui'se: and jn'esented the bird to the museum, Mr. Layard, 

 however, insisting upon my acceptance of a few choice 

 hen turkeys to take to sea with me, and a good part of 

 another which I that day partook of at his hospitable 

 table. 



Some years after there came by mail to me a book. It 

 was a copy of the "Catalogue of the Birds of South 

 Africa." On its fly leaf the compliments of its author, 

 Mr. Layard, and on page 358 the description which has 

 formed the text of this discourse. I now send it to For- 

 est AND Stream with my compliments. PiSECO. 



"HA HA FLY." 



T THINK it is the wise, witty and wicked Henry Heine 

 -■- who says the Jews persecuted and hunted his ancestors 

 so much that he inherited a love of hunting himself. My 

 love of the pleasures of forest and stream accompanies 

 the early but fond recollection of the brier patches and 

 woods of Indiana where I was wont to pursue the fugitive 

 cottontail every Satiu-day during my college days, and 

 where I was ever ready to lay aside "Butler's Analogy of 

 Eevealed Religion," or the Pons asinorum, for a day with 

 a rifle among the gray and black squirrels in old Jefferson 

 county, in the Hoosier State, as long ago as 1853, and I 

 would be loth to asseverate that at fifty-three I could 

 cause a rifle ball to impinge upon and impale a squirrel's 

 eye as well as I could thirty-three years ago, when I was 

 a boy. And as this is only a brief, unambitious rambling 

 and gossiping sketch of a day's gunning, let me here ex- 

 press my joy at the forthcoming publication, through the 

 Forest and Stream Publishing Company, of "Nessmuk's" 

 poems. The grand old man whom I have joyfully fol- 

 lowed with his "duflie" and his light canoe from Punta 

 Passa, Florida, all the way up to the interior fastnesses of 

 the Adirondack woods, can get more good sense and more 

 fun and frolic out of the woods than any man in America. 

 And he translates the unwritten laws as well as the joys 

 of the forest, and of the deep sea, too, better than any 

 disciple of good old Izaak Walton it has ever been my 

 good fortune to follow with mind and heart and im- 

 agination. 



"Nessmuk" sent me a copy of his poem, recently writ- 

 ten, entitled: "The Joys of ye Granger," and it is as full 

 of his characteristic genius as the "Arkansas Idyl," lately 

 printed in our own Forest and Stream. It was Dean 

 Swift who said "Only a man of genius could write an in- 

 teresting sketch on the subject of a broomstick;" and 

 "Nessmuk" almost casts the halo of romance around the 

 form of "Ye Granger's Son," as he feeds the brindle bull 

 or takes care of the "Darby Ram," and then lazily swings 

 himself on the old-fashioned farmyard gate. 



"Nessmuk" never misses in his studies of natiu-e what 

 N. P. Willis calls "the reluctant, hiding, best word," and 

 some of his sentences are poems, as with the same per- 

 meating and subtle love of nature, in her various moods, 

 he paints in immortal colors scenes where 

 "The May sun sheds an amber light 

 The new-leaved woods and lawns between." 



But this is only preliminary to my funny recollections 

 of an festlietic day, with a double-barreled shotgun, 

 among the rabbits with Senator George Handy Smith and 

 Magistrate James Brown, of the Twenty-sixth Ward: 



The portly Senator, who is President pro tevi. of the 

 Pennsylvania Senate, is a close friend of that bright, 

 lovable and genial gentleman, M. Stanley Quay, the great 

 piscator, who, it is well understood, is the coming man 

 to wear the Senatorial purple for Pennsylvania at Wash- 

 ingion, after the 4th of March proximo. We call the 

 President pro tern, the Lord Chesterfield of the Senate, 

 and as a boy he had a good deal of the blood of "old 

 Virginia never tire" in him, and the rod and gun were 

 early household words and joys to our elegant but some- 

 what adipose friend and statesman. 



The world and politics have dealt tenderly with 

 "Gentleman George," and he had long been promising 

 the Scribe and Magistrate Brown that we should go to 

 his country seat in Montgomery county, and bag a dozen 



abbits. But the serious question before the House was 

 "where should we get a good rabbit dog?" A happy 

 thought Btrack the Senator from the Twenty-sixth Ward 

 We called on Dr. Parmenter in our Division, who assured 

 us tliat he had the finest beagle in the land in his cellar 

 and in truth his cellar was "full." "But," said the 

 Teutonic doctor, "while he catch the rabbit in the open 

 field easy, when you say 'Ha! ha! Fly,' the dog he ran 

 away vnth. avidity, so, Senator, you must not lose your 

 eye on him yet." 



After extremely moderate libations of Bohemian beer 

 and the warmest assurances as to the safety and certainty 

 with which the beagle would chase a rabbit to his death on 

 the greensward, the gastronomic and somewhat Rabelai- 

 sian Senator asked that the beagle should be shown up by 

 the hospitable Dr. Parmenter. 



The Doctor, after exhibiting his Parker gun of marvel- 

 lous excellence, produced the dog in a leash. 



And I am bound to say that a more furtive-looking 

 beagle hound I never gazed upon; but one more bottle of 

 beer satisfied the Senator that we had "corralled" on to a 

 prize in dog flesh, and that not a single rabbit would sur- 

 vive our aggressive and sijoradic hunt, with three guns, 

 miUmited cartridges, and a lunch which, when the gas- 

 tronomic George had packed it in a capacious basket, 

 would have made Lucullus grow green with envy. 



I sighed when I saw this display of edibles and bibables, 

 good enough for Pantagruel and voluminous enough for 

 the paunch of Pantagruel himself, made me doubt 

 whether George, the Senator, meant anything other than 

 an esthetic outing. I sighed and said, looking at the weU- 

 filled lunch basket, plethoric to the bursting point, "It is 

 painfully evident to me. Senator, that you mean to sit on 

 the back porch wliile Magistrate Brown, myself and Ha 

 Ha Fly (the Teutonic-Parmenter dog) drive the cotton- 

 tails in front of you. Are you guilty, O noble Roman?" 



Senator George denied this soft impeachment, assever- 

 ating that as a Virginia gentleman he was "a gunner 

 from way back," and that the lunch was only a secondary 

 consideration, imdeserving mention, his objective point 

 being "rabbits." But he admitted that for the first hour 

 he and farmer Terry, who had met us at the station, 

 would guard the hmch basket, while Brown and myself 

 with Shoo-fly, as he called the dog, could drive out the 

 reluctant Bre'er Rabbit, close to the piazza! We consented 

 to this arrangement, only stipulating that the portly Sen- 

 ator should not devour all the cold beefsteak or the crisp 

 celery till we came back and reported progress with Ha 

 Ha Fly. 



I took one end of the sti-ing, the other end being securely 

 attached to Dr. Parmenter's Ha Ha Fly. Judge Brown 

 went peeking and poking with his gun into every fence 

 comer, brier bush and pile of fence rails visible to the 

 naked eye, while the dog, looking as if he had been fed 

 on cedar shavings for two months, was totally oblivious 

 to his surroundings, only semi-occasionaUy looking back 

 (like Lot's wife, hankering for— salt), toward Senator 

 Smith and the back piazza, where the old political "war 

 horse" sat, smoking a fragrant Cubana, but with a mis- 

 chievous twinkle in the left-hand corner of his right eye I 



The Senator had been positive that the rabbits were 

 abundant, but that the safety of the lunch basket would 

 require his attention for one hour. 



He said the game protective society of Montgomery 

 had planted out a dozen rabbits in the spring, and from 

 the cottontail's well-known fecundity, he had reason to 

 think there were about 444 rabbits in good position on this 

 100-acre farm. 



"Judge" Brown assured me "that Senator George 

 Handy Smith, for a man who had held office sixteen 

 yeai-s, consecutively, was an eminently truthful man." 

 Could I doubt such a candid statement? But being a 

 born doubter I said to myself, ''Cui quomodo quibus 

 auxillis is it that the demnition rabbits don't show up?" 



"Hist," said the enthusiastic Brown, "I see a cotton- 

 tail in the fence corner. Shoot him on the spot." 



I looked scornfully at the judicial-minded Brown as if 

 to say, "We are not the kind of sportsmen who kill any- 

 thing on the ground." 



With that palpable hit I took off Ha Ha Fly's leash 

 and led him up to the rabbitt in the fence corner. 



Ha ha Fly only looked embarrassed, and I grew hot 

 as I said to Brown, "This is the stupidest dog I ever 

 saw. Ha ha Fly must be the latest joke of the Senator 

 from the Twenty -sixth Ward." Finally, I kicked up the 

 rabbit and unloosed the Parmenter-Teutonic but seedy- 

 looking beagle. 



He took one mournful look at me, made no vocal sign, 

 but started full tilt after the rabbit, now 50 feet ahead. 

 Strange sequel! From that hour to this neither Ha ha 

 Fly nor the rabbit have been seen in Montgomery county. 

 We peeked around for another fuU hour intent on game. 

 Then Judge Brown gave me one despairing look and said, 

 "We can't do much with rabbits without a dog." I con- 

 curred with the "court," but I insisted that that was the 

 only rabbit in Montgomery county, and had been chased 

 and shot at so much that it was probably gun shy. 



Still, the Judge prodded all likely looking brier patches 

 and fence corners for the supposed reluctant and nest 

 hiding rabbit. Not one could be induced to show up; not 

 even a "mountain partridge." We both grew darkly 



