96 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[AUG. 3, 1895. 



moil bear by a different name from the grizzly, Now, 

 nobody but nature knows just why the "pine-nut" bear, 

 whatever it was, grew different from other bears, The 

 fur trade knows such things as "silk bear," meaning a 

 very soft, silky individual sort of fur. "Silk robes" of the 

 buffalo were also known, though very rare and valuable. 

 "What made them grow so? Nobody knows. (I have 

 heard it denied that there ever was such a thing as a 

 "silk" buffalo robe, because the denier had never seen 

 one.) Until we have pried closer into the secrets of 

 nature's workshop we have no right to claim exactness 

 for the conventions, the artificialities, which (for sake 

 only of our own convenience) we adopt and put in use. 

 The continual wonder and glory of nature is that she 

 always has depths and ultimates beyond which man can- 

 not see, and always has phenomena which man cannot 

 weigh nor measure with any standards of his own con- 

 triving. In life everything is relative, not absolute. For 

 my part, I wish all the titles were off the mountain peaks, 

 that all the rivers were unlettered, all the lakes unnamed, 

 all the railroads off the earth, and all the guns back in 

 the elements again. If that were so, what a pretty, 

 pretty place this would be then, wouldn't it, with all the 

 CervidtB unclassified and all the Ursidce unnamed? Then 

 a fellow could make himself an uncalendared year, and 

 do nothing but sit around and play, on an unregistered 



guitar, an unprinted love song to his uncultured sweet- 

 eart. That would be nice. I remember such a song, 

 one which a maiden aunt of mine used to sing when I 

 was a child. It said, very fervidly: 



"I'll chase the antelope over the plain, 

 And the tiger's cub I'll bind with a chain, 

 And the wild gazelle with the Bilvery feet 

 I'll give to thee for a playmate sweet!" 



But I desist, lest I be asked to produce a species of 

 gazelle with silver feet, which methinks were more diffi- 

 cult to do than to find a fantail deer or a pine-nut bear. 



Later, July 19.— When I wrote the above, I had not seen 

 this week's Forest and Stream, but oddly enough, about 

 the first thing I saw on opening the paper was the pub- 

 lished offer of $100 for a pair of live fantails. I thought 

 Science would be doing something of that kind before 

 long, and here we are! It is not likely that the $100 will 

 change hands, for the same would not cover very much 

 of an undertaking in catching wild animals, unless one 

 happened to be on their range at the season of the birth 

 of the young. Moreover, the offer excludes what is prob- 

 ably the most certain part of the country for such a quest, 

 namely, the mountains of New Mexico. 



But I have something odd still to add. This morning 

 Dr. L. W. Cock, late of Texas, but now of Chicago, was 

 in my office, and fell to examining "El Comancho's" fan- 

 tail antlers. At that time he had not seen the Forest 

 and Stream editorial, and I had not seen this week's 

 paper — with the comment of Mr. Arthur Erwin Brown 

 on the Chisos Mountains. Dr. Cock said, "There are lots 

 of these fantails down in the Chisos Mountains. I have 

 heard some of my friends speak of them. They do not 

 wave the tail as the whitetail does, but whip it or 'fan' it 

 more. There is no doubt they are a distinct species." 

 Then I showed him Capt. Kendall's article. 



Now, it happens that Dr. Cock is the very man who 

 has been trying to persuade me that I should go with him 

 this coming winter down into New Mexico after my long 

 lost big bear. It further happens that Dr. Cock is the 

 inventor of a scientific application of certain gases by 

 which decomposition can be arrested in organic tissues. 

 He can treat fresh meat, or even fruit, so that it won't 

 spoil in even a hot climate. He has laughingly assured 

 me that if we get our bear, his skin and even his whole 

 carcass, if wished, shall be brought out safe, for we 

 should take one of those scientific smoke houses along 

 with us. Now, I don't suppose the $100 fantail offer is 

 of much use to us if we go to New Mexico, but I don't 

 mind saying that if Dr. Cock and I were forced to do it 

 (though we should have to change our trip from one side 

 of New Mexico to the other), we could not only get a 

 (dead) fantail, but lay it down, hide, horns and tallow, 

 everything but the viscera, whole and unchanged, in the 

 Forest and Stream office. I am willing to bet my job 

 against the Forest and Stream plant— which is certainly 

 offering odds enough to show I am in earnest— that we 

 can do this. All of which, to a great many minds of un- 

 believers in fantail deer, will no doubt seem further and 

 incontrovertible proof that I have gone stark, staring 

 mad, not only on one but more than one subject! But I 

 believe in William Tell and cinnamon bears; and I reflect 

 that Science got her start in business by learning things 

 she didn't know at first. 



Gives it up on Snake Legs. 

 But while I am desperately committed on the fantail 

 question, and while 1 wish the $100 offer applied to a 

 specimen of the horn snake, I am going to give it all up 

 about the snakes that have legs— just as I am afraid I 

 shall have to concede the pine-nut bear. Below I offer a 

 letter received from Mr. Geo. A. Boardman, of Calais, 

 Me., which will explain the "legs" on Dr. Taylor's blue 

 racer snake which was sent to Forest and Stkeam. It 

 says: 



"I have been a reader of Forest and Stream from its 

 commencement, and Mr. Haliock promised to put me 

 down as its first subscriber (I think he afterwards told 

 me I was the second.) I have read every number, and 

 find none of the writers that please me as well as some of 

 those from the West. I will tell you what little I know 

 and that is not much) about snakes. What is called 

 sometimes feet of snakes are claspers, that only the males 

 have, and they are used to hold the female. The horn- 

 tail snake is common in Florida, and is often called 

 'bull snake.' It makes a queer noise, something like a 

 bull, and grows quite large in Florida. I have seen them 

 5ft. long; they are said to be harmless, and make no use, 

 as far as I could Bee, of the horn in the tail. I once set 

 my dog at one; the dog would only go near and bark, 

 The snake made a blowing noise, it sounded not much 

 like a bull. I shot the snake, and brought it in to Mr. 

 Brown Goode, who was collecting such things in Florida. 

 It made no use of its horn tail to fight the dog. 



"Several male fish have claspers. The basking shark 

 has them so large and long they look like legs. One 

 taken near here some years ago was mounted, and the 

 claspers were fixed to look like legs, and it was adver- 

 tised as a 'shark with legs.' " 



While we are spea ki ng of irregular and unaccepted and 

 mpossible things— which keep on happening— I cannot 



forbear to quote a sentence from a letter lately received 

 from Mr. A, B. Frost, the well-known artist, whose pic- 

 tures in and out of illustrated literature of the day have 

 delighted so many. Mr. Frost writes from Convent, N. 

 J., and says: 



"We are short of horn snakes here, but I had a pos- 

 sum this summer that growled and snarled like a dog, 

 and fought like one too, for that matter. All the other 

 possums I have ever seen have been as silent as clams 

 and hadn't a trace of fight in them." E. Hough. 



909 Security Building, Chicago, 111. 



A Curry of Snake. 



"POFF adder is out of sight" (Horace Kepbart's old vet- 

 eran said in last week's Forest and Stream), which brings 

 back to me one evening in '89 in the northwest provinces 

 of India. B. and I were out pig-sticking, which is the 

 colloquial term for hunting wild boar with spears from 

 horseback. We moved camp in the early morning, send- 

 ing all the servants and tents to a village about fifteen 

 miles away, expecting to find camp pitched, hot baths, 

 and one of the best of good dinners waiting for us in the 

 evening, after our day's pig-sticking. 



I remember we had capital sport, killing five good boars, 

 and finishing the day about seven miles from the village 

 where we had sent our camp. The heat was something 

 awful. We had finished all the soda water that had been 

 brought on one of the shikar elephants by the middle of 

 the afternoon, and after killing our last boar, which led 

 us a long gallop through a thorn jungle, we were both 

 fearfully thirsty, but were afraid to drink any water 

 from the native wells, as cholera was raging all through 

 the district. Getting on some fresh horses, we galloped 

 away to the village, with visions of iced bass, only to find 

 that none of our servants had arrived and that the two 

 bullock carts had broken down about six miles away. 



We got some boiled milk from the head man of the vil- 

 lage and lay down in the police bungalow which is 

 always kept for English officers. Some of our native 

 huntsmen had now come in, Brinjaris or Indian gypsies, 

 fine big men who are very plucky at beating boar out of 

 thick cover, and soon a most savory smell of cooking 

 reached me in the bungalow. I asked them what they 

 had and they said it was chicken curry. 



It was 8 in the evening and B. and 1 had eaten hardly 

 anything since 4 in the morning, and were too hungry to 

 think much of the Brinjaris' dirtiness in cooking, so we 

 had two helpings brought us from their pot on big leaves. 

 It was the best chicken I ever ate, and we enjoyed it until 

 suddenly B. stopped eating, his face became white, and 

 he became most violently sick. Then yelling in most un- 

 parliamentary Hindustani, he said to the Brinjaris, "You 

 sons of defiled mothers, do your chickens always have 

 scales?" 



I too had by that time found a large piece of scaly 

 diamond-marked skin. But I must say the curry was 

 good, though it was made up of a huge lizard and a very 

 large snake! 



The Brinjaris are rather ashamed of eating lizards, as 

 the other natives will not do so, and these had therefore 

 called their lizard chicken. Without any twinkle in my 

 eye I can truthfully say that lizard curry is "out of 

 sight." Sowar 



The Scarcity of Small Birds. 



Charlestown, N. H, July 24 — Editor Forest and 

 Stream: Your correspondents from all over the Northern 

 part of the country have been very well agreed in noting 

 the scarcity of "bird life" this spring and summer, and I 

 now wish to ask if any of them agree with me in noticing 

 an apparent superabundance of insect life, as a natural 

 consequence? 



It seems to me that I do not remember a summer when 

 small insects of various kinds have been more in evidence 

 or more annoying. If I sit out on the doorstep in the 

 evening I am continually disturbed by something crawl- 

 ing or creeping on my neck or in my hair, and if I go up 

 to my room and light my lamp to read there are soon a 

 host of moths.and millers buzzing about the shade and 

 dropping on to my papers. The ground under the big 

 elms on the main street has been strewn with twigs from 

 4 to 8in. long, apparently cut off by some "borer," and 

 the Boston papers have been full of the accounts of dam- 

 ages to the elms in the city and surrounding towns by 

 various insects, such as the "trissock" and "gypsy" moths. 



Now, I believe this to be the natural consequence of the 

 destruction of the birds by the great snowstorms at the 

 South last winter, but ac all events it is a strong bit of 

 evidence, if found to be of general occurrence, in favor 

 of the crusade against "bird destruction" which Forest 

 and Stream has fought so gallantly for many years. I 

 hope, if others of your contributors have noticed it and 

 agree with me, that they will bear their testimony in 

 favor of the proper protection to all our smaller "insect 

 destroying" birds. As the summer wears on, I still note 

 the scarcity which I spoke of two months ago, and even 

 the familiar robin is like angels' visits, very "few and far 

 between," and I cannot positively vouch for either an 

 oriole or a bluebird in our street this summer, though the 

 little "chipping" sparrows and their English cousins seem 

 to be about as plenty as usual. Von W. 



From Vermont. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Robins and bluebirds first made their appearance in this 

 locality March 8, but the following week of snow and 

 cold weather caused them to disappear suddenly and they 

 have not returned in their usual numbers. There is a 

 scarcity of song birds here this summer, excepting the 

 northern mockingbird (the so-called catbird) and the bro wn 

 thresher, both of these birds are seen and heard often. 



The upland plover back on our hill farms are very plen- 

 tiful. They raise two broods here in the season. The 

 young of the first brood can now be seen like young tur- 

 keys running about our newly-mown meadows, while the 

 old birds are sitting on their second clutch of eggs. Their 

 nests are bowl shaped depressions in the top of a small 

 knoll and lined with soft dry grasses. 



The hot dry weather has made bass fishing poor. The 

 fishermen, however, report that they see plenty of good- 

 sized fish, Stanstead, 



Highgate, Vt., July 20. 



'mt\e ijntj mid §im. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



The Game Laws in Illinois. 

 Chicago, 111., July 27.— Warden Blow deserves credit 

 for his successful raid on the notorious Kewanee freezer, 

 long operated by H. Clay Merritt. A second warrant was 

 s worn out the present week and a more thorough explora- 

 tion of the Illinois cold storage fortress was made, result- 

 ing in the finding of great quantities of Illinois game. 

 Yesterday a meeting of the directors of the Illinois State 

 Sportsmen's Association was held, Messrs. R. B. Organ, 

 Abner Price, C. S. Wilcox, L. M. Hamline and A. C. 

 Patterson, Messrs. Baird and Booth for the law commit- 

 tee also appearing. Counsel will be chosen to prosecute 

 the cases against Merritt, which are apt to be long and 

 hotly contested, the defense being the old one that game 

 legally obtained can be legally held and sold as wished. 

 Warden Blow says he found the game concealed in 

 twenty-five zinc vacuum tanks, each capable of holding 

 over 200 mallard ducks. The tanks were found in a cellar 

 under a shed. It is claimed 80,000 dozen quail were 

 located, 500 dozen prairie chickens and a great many 

 ducks. Blow claims he has proof that Merritt has re- 

 ceived game out of season. In or out. look at the destruc- 

 tion of game in Illinois and west of Illinois! The mem- 

 bers of the committee figure that on quail alone Merritt 

 could legally be fined $15,000,000. That he will ever be 

 fined at all is a question only to be determined after a 

 long legal fight. This same fight has been on in the Illi- 

 nois courts before, but has never been brought to actual 

 decision. There are many good Supreme Court decisions 

 in other States which are against the game dealers' de- 

 fense of property right in game. The Illinois Association 

 has never been in so good shape before to make this fight, 

 never had so good fighting men or so good fighting posi- 

 tion before as it has now. The question is further along 

 now, and the lapse of years seems to leave the sportsmen's 

 side stronger than it was in the past. Of course, the 

 question will have to be fought out, else the cold storage 

 houses will continue to despoil the entire Western country 

 of game. 



Backset to Sportsmen. 

 Mr. M. R. Bortree, president of the National Protective 

 Association, received a disappointment yesterday, one 

 which may be called a backset to the proper interests of 

 sportsmen. Ever since February last he has been trying 

 to force trial of his suit against the Union League Club of 

 this city for serving illegal grouse at a banquet. After 

 many continuances by defense the case came to trial 

 yesterday. Justice Glennon dismissed it, saying he could 

 find no law forbidding a man to eat illegal game at his 

 own table, and that the club table was the same as 

 a family table, not being a restaurant where the article 

 was sold. From this remarkable decision Mr. Bortree, 

 being for the people, of course had no appeal. It leaves 

 things in a bad shape on this particular point. It is not 

 doubted that these clubs are large purchasers of game, 

 much of which is of the "early" sort. Mr. Bortree pointed 

 out the Supreme Court decision holding that having the 

 game in possession in close season was a violation of the 

 law. But probably Justice of the Peace Glennon will 

 hold the Supreme Court version of the law unconstitu- 

 tional ! 



Bad State of Affairs In Iowa. 



A meeting of the executive committee of the Inter-State 

 Fish and Game Protective Association was held last week 

 at Brown's Lake, Iowa, for the purpose of bettering tho 

 condition of protective affairs in that State. Judge Shaw, 

 President, being absent, Vice-President J. W. Miles took 

 the chair. Among those from abroad were U. S. Fish 

 Commissioner. Hon. S. P. Bartlett, of Quincy, 111. ; Hon. 

 G. W. Langford, State Fish and Game Warden of Illinois, 

 of Havana; his deputy, Hon. Chas. Grouse, of Savanna, 

 and Hon. Geo. E. Delavan, Fish Commissioner of Iowa, 

 of Estherville. It was shown that Wisconsin has a good 

 law and a warden with eighteen or twenty deputies with 

 good salaries to enforce it — i car especially built and fitted 

 up for transporting an I distributing fish and an appropri- 

 ation of $15,000 per year for this enterprise. Minnesota 

 has a board of fish and game commissioners with execu- 

 tive agents all over the State to enforce their excellent 

 laws upon this subject. They also have a car similar to 

 that of Wisconsin and an annual appropriation of $10,000. 

 Poor old poverty-stricken Iowa has one commissioner for 

 its ninety-nine counties and no deputies or agents, no car, 

 and nothing but a few old rusty milk cans in which to 

 transport fish, and the sum of $3,000 appropriated with 

 which to carry on this work. 



It was finally resolved to refer the matter of preparing 

 a bill and memorial to the general assembly, back to the 

 executive committe, with power to act and to report at 

 the next annual meeting of the association, the second 

 Wednesday in October, It is the purpose of the executive 

 committee to take up the work at once and to call to their 

 aid the best talent of this and adjoining States. It is 

 probable that a bill for a law similar to the Minnesota 

 law, with some modifications, will be prepared and 

 adopted. 



Over the Range. 

 Mr. E. S. Morse, late of the firm of Edwards, Morse & 

 Klein, some time a member of the Calumet Heights Club 

 and a sportsman beloved by many friends, died within the 

 present week and was buried Tuesday. 



His Friend. 



Lately the body of a suicide or of a murdered man was 

 found in the woods near Niles Center, Mich. Beside his 

 bones was found the skeleton of a dog, thought to be a 

 spaniel. Probably his friend, and faithful. 



Low Water North. 

 The rivers of Wisconsin are very low this year, and it is 

 feared the marshes will not have all the water sportsmen 

 could ask for their duck shooting. The Wolf and the 

 Northern Fox are phenomenally low, the latter near Poy- 

 gan Marsh being too low for rafting logs through the cut- 

 offs, as is usually possible. 



In Montana. 

 A letter from a friend in Montana says: "Bears are said 

 to be very abundant east of the National Park this sum- 

 mer. The rivers are all very low. The trout fishing ia 

 extremely good." 



