204 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



[Sept. 7, 1895. 



breech made in such a gallery. The builders were at first 

 nonplussed, but soon evaded the difficulty by carrying the 

 gallery around the victim and thus uniting it. They also 

 compromised with their sympathies by building a mauso- 

 leum of clay over their still struggling colleague. It is 

 not among men alone that it is often easier to ignore dis- 

 tress than to relieve it. 



One more subterranean home and we have done. 

 Along the Eio Grande one sees innumerable hillocks and 

 the incautious Easterner says at once, "Ah, moles I see." 

 But he is wrong and our Western education taught us 

 how to open the burrow, leaving it exposed to the light, 

 while a steel trap was buried a few inches inside the 

 opening. The next morning we were greeted with a very 

 angry yellowish beast resembling a rat, but with an 

 enormous head and claws like a grave digger's spade. 

 We recognized in his Southern dress our pouched gopher, 

 pest of the potato fields and general ravager of root 

 crops. A few days rendered him quite tame and a most 

 encouraging pet in spite of blindness in the light and a 

 certain irritability of disposition. When fresh earth was 

 given him he fairly ramped about in excitement, caused, 

 no doubt, by the smell of the soil. He sprang fiercely at 

 work, literally tooth and nail, andjwas soon nearly out of 

 sight. Very amusing it was to see him emerge from his 

 burrow shoving before him a great load of earth like an 

 animated scraper. 



The older writers fabled how he filled the great pockets, 

 which open outside the jaws and extend to the shoulders, 

 with earth and carried it thus to the opening. But 

 Thomomys has a better use for these pouches than that. 

 They serve, in fact, the same purpose which is supplied to 

 a German university student by the pocket in his coat- 

 tail (rarely lacking its brodehen), and is often distended 

 with food. The long, almost interminable burrows form 

 a complex system, along which at intervals are store- 

 houses capable of holding several quarts. The northern 

 variety has a most remarkable device for securing green 

 and succulent vegetation during the long winter. Being 

 very fond of the stolons of the red clover, great quanti- 

 ties are gathered in autumn and packed in separate store- 

 chambers of such a size that the material slowly decays 

 and "heats." The warmth so produced stimulates the 

 growth of the external stolons, and so green vegetables 

 are always at the disposal of the subterranean gardener. 

 In one of the deepest of these chambers a dry, soft nest is 

 constructed, where the long winter months are chiefly 

 passed in sleep. 



But as we walk to and fro on the high plateaus or along 

 the greener arroyos we are continually catching glimpses 

 of strange homes and skillful workmen, all, we cannot 

 doubt, working together to achieve the common destiny 

 in which we hope to have our humble share. 



'New Mexico. C. L. HERRICK. 



ABOUT ADIRONDACK BEARS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



If there was a sportsman in the State Legislature when 

 it gave a $10 bounty on bears, why didn't he rise up and 

 paw the air? The idea of putting a bounty on bears and 

 not on deer or partridges. It is enough to make a farmer 

 quit voting and to make him shoot birds in the spring, to 

 think that his buckwheat and oats become food for par- 

 tridges and deer, yet no bounty is offered for them — in fact 

 that there iB a restrictive law on them. Bears are not a 

 circumstance to what partridges and deer are. Adiron- 

 dack bears are such fearful creatures that if a man is so 

 incautious to get within eighty rods of one it begins to 

 claw the ground in a way to make things swish so that in 

 five minutes it is a mile away still clawing things. 



Then, too, every little while we read about how a man 

 was out after bears, How he set a trap after baiting it 

 carefully, then gets caught in the blamed thing himself 

 and loses an arm or so. All because bears are so terrible 

 that they must be trapped and hung up on a heavy log 

 before they can be approached. 



They are such ravenous creatures, too, when hungry. 

 Why, only the other day I saw where one had been dig- 

 ging wild turnips in a swamp, and he was so afraid he 

 couldn't stand the temptation to eat me that he made 

 tracks 12ft. apart before I'd gotten within half a mile of 

 him. He was a big one, too. 



Two or three years ago a little shaggy dog that would 

 weigh about 81bs. barked at a 2501bs. bear and so irritated 

 it that it climbed a tree and stayed there almost an hour; 

 then, as the dog had gone home, came out of the tree 

 nd fled. 



One night about dusk a big black object was seen chas- 

 ing a man's sheep up the road. "B'ar," said the man, 

 "Whoop! an' I'm after him." Then he got his rifle and 

 went. The big "b'ar" turned out to be a dog, and that is 

 what 99-lOOfchs of the bear raids turn out to be, and the 

 raids on pig pens are made by scratch cats or Canada 

 lynx instead of by bruin. 



It is a matter of common knowledge (not in Legisla- 

 tures, for they haven't any, but to woodsmen and sports- 

 men as well) that bears are as vicious as deer, but no more 

 so, and that where a dollar's damage could be laid against 

 a bear ten dollars could be charged up to deer or to par- 

 tridges. 



They haven't" put a bounty on mosquitoes, punkies and 

 black flies, but one of any of these can and does hurt a 

 man more than a bear has hurt one within the past ten 

 years, I do not know but twenty years. There isn't even 

 a bounty on hornets' stings (extracted). That only goes 

 to show that some people are chumps. Then think how 

 much better it would be if the bounties were on mosqui- 

 toes instead of bears. You hold up your cheek and there 

 is a hum. You raise your hand, squash! and with a knife 

 you scrape it off and pinning the proboscis to a sheet of 

 paper have your evidence. 



How much difference it is with bears! You shoulder 

 your rifle and begin to still-hunt for them. A week passes 

 and you've seen tracks, but no bears in sight. A bear trap 

 owner comes along and you bewail your ill-luck. You 

 talk to him awhile. Then, thinking evil of yourself, go 

 with the trapper and set the machine. You go to it two 

 Or three times and at last there is your bear. His forward 



Saw, a dirty mangled stub, but held fast by a whitened 

 one; tears run down its cheeks and the brown eyes show 

 suffering. Up goes your rifle and bang! A gash along 

 one jaw. The bear shrieks with pain. Bang ! and the bear 

 dies. Yours!! Yes, but he isn't anything to be proud of, 

 and if you further a bounty law you are no better than 

 the man that traps bears for sport, and if you'd kill such 

 a bounty law you would increase your own chanceB of 

 killing a bear man-fashion by still-hunting. 



Bears are around to some extent, but the berries were 

 dried up, and instead of on them the bears are feeding on 

 what they can get, roots, etc. So far I know of only one 

 being killed and that was in a trap. 



Raymond S. Spears. 



Noktottood, N. Y. 



ANIMAL HYPNOTISM. 



I am pleased to find that my question, Do animals prac- 

 tice hypnotism? has called for an interesting communi- 

 cation from Mr. Chas. F. Amery more or less to the 

 point. 



As the editor of this paper wrote in his brief note to my 

 article, "actual facts are not abundant," Mr. Amery does 

 not produce any new "facts," but confines himself to ar- 

 gument. He says that he does "not believe in the power 

 of any animal to fascinate its prey by its graze." He 

 holds that "the gaze of a ferocious creature upon its de- 

 fenceless foe serves to inspire terror." 



Whatever Mr. Amery may or may not believe, other 

 people do believe that some animals have the power of 

 fascinating others by their gaze. There is— there can be 

 —no doubt about it. I need only draw upon my own ob- 

 servations. I have seen several cases in which birds were 

 actually charmed by cats. 



Many a time we have watched cats try to charm birds 

 and fail. But that does not prove that the power of fas- 

 cinating prey does not exist. There are people who can 

 not be hypnotized. They resist the effort to conquer 

 them and make them pliant "subjects." 



So it is with animals. Attempts to charm do not al- 

 ways prove successful. Some animals are not "good sub- 

 jects" for the mesmeric power; they simply refuse to be 

 charmed. Some people who have resisted the efforts of 

 one mesmerifiier have been known to become "good sub- 

 jects" for another. That this holds in the animal world 

 is shown by the fact that a cat which fails to charm one 

 bird will succeed in charming another bird. 



Mr. Amery argues that animals are paralyzed with fear 

 and simply allow themselves to fall easy victims. There 

 is no doubt that terror does and often will put an animal 

 in a position similar to that of being charmed. But the 

 cases cited by me in my former article do not admit of 

 such an explanation. In case of the squirrels coming 

 voluntarily down the tree and tailing helpless into the 

 claws of the cat, terror had nothing to do with it. Fear 

 does not lead either animals or human beings into 

 danger. 



Perhaps I should have stated in my account of this case 

 that the cat was lying stretched out on a board seat at the 

 foot of a big elm tree. High up among the branches the 

 squirrel was hopping and playing. It was not until the 

 squirrel came down the trunk of the tree and Borne 5 or 

 6ft. from the cat that the latter fixed its gaze on the squir- 

 rel. Then the cat raised its head, opened wide its eyes and 

 presented a certain intensity of life ahd suppressed action 

 that denoted a putting forth of sbme power of some 

 kind. 



In conclusion, I am inclined to think that the power 

 which We know aB "charming" is a form of hypnotism. 

 The subject is an obscure one, because even the most 

 patent hypnotic phenomena among hiiman beings are 

 but vaguely recognised and Understood. L. J. VanDe. 



MOUNTAIN MOCKINGBIRD. 



One of the most charming song birds of the mountain 

 section of North Carolina is the wren (Oaleoscoptes earo- 

 linensis) of the Troglodyte family. Its notes are varied 

 like the Southern mockingbird and catbird, both of which 

 it closely resembles in everything but size, and it is 

 locally known as the mountain mockingbird, though it is 

 really a wren and only allied to the others. Though 

 quite diminutive, being no larger than the common flong- 

 less wren, its notes are loud, full and positive, Very often 

 imitating the redbird and robing from whose warbling it 

 is not easy to distinguish it wheh unseen, especially as it 

 possesses the art of ventriloquism to a remarkable degree, 

 the observer very often looking for it in the frondage of 

 a distant tree when it may be warbling among the dry 

 twigs of a brush pile only 10ft. distant. Its haunts, like 

 those of the catbird, are in the underbrush of the upland 

 valleys in the vicinity of mountain streams, and to any 

 one who is fond of sylvan minstrelsy and woodsy environ- 

 ment a ramble in the shade of these quiet purlieus is most 

 captivating. Here its nests are usually built, three chicks 

 to a nest, the eggs when first laid being ovoid in shape 

 and white with brown speckles. In such seclusion they are 

 not easily studied, but this summer a pair of wrens were so 

 considerate to science as to build their nest of grass and 

 fine straw in the top of a lattice on the side of a farmhouse 

 kitchen furthest from the cats, and there they reared 

 their little brood quite unmolested, until finally the 

 younglings essayed their first flight on Aug. 18, the 

 parent birds encouraging them with chirrups and chu-r-r- 

 wees until they became strong of wing, which was very 

 soon; and in a few hours they disappeared and were off 

 and away. The male bird is now teaching them to sing, 

 and I hear his ivitch-ta-ivitchita even now amid the frond- 

 age on Turkey Creek, uttered with a joyous sort of ex- 

 pression as if the sylvan world were heaven enough for 

 him, and the season of cares and duties had forever 

 passed away. 



Sometimes I feel almost sorry that I did not capture a 

 pair of the younglings when I had the chance, for I feel 

 confident that, born and bred as they were within 2ft. of 

 the heads of people who were continuously passing daily, 

 they would have been easily domesticated and made good 

 cage birds. Usually birds of this family are shy. 



I am not informed of the distribution of this mountain 

 songster. Personally I have not observed him else- 

 where than on the Blue Ridge and Alleghanies. 



The mockingbird of the sea coast and lowlands is a 

 warm weather bird, seldom seen in this high altitude. 



Charles Hallock. 



Blackwbll's Springs, Buncombe County, N. O. 



Remedy for Snake Bite. 



Dr. W. H. Howell, of Center Hill, Fla., communicates 

 the following to the Medical World, Philadelphia: "Since 

 I have been practicing in Florida I have been constantly 

 expecting an opportunity to test permanganate of potash 

 in serpent poisoning. We have some very large rattle- 

 snakes here and any quantity of moccasins. Occasionally 

 a dog is struck by a rattler and death invariably results in 

 a very short time. There have been a few.persons bitt»n 



by them in this community and all have died in great 

 agony. A few weeks ago I was called out five or six 

 miles in the country to see a lad about 8 years old who 

 had been bitten the day before by a moccasin. It was 

 twenty-four hours after the wound was inflicted before I 

 saw him and the condition of the lad was anything but 

 encouraging. He had been bitten on the calf of the right 

 leg, and the fang punctures being at least one and a half 

 inches apart, it must have been a large snake. Nothing 

 had been done for him except the administration of alco- 

 hol freely. The entire limb — even his body — was enor- 

 mously swollen. The leg from his knee down was almost 

 black. He was cold and his pulse very small and weak, 

 while he lay in a stupor except at short intervals, when 

 he would shout and scream as if he thought another snake 

 had fastened its fangs in his person. I injected at the seat 

 of the bite one-tenth grain permanganate of potassium 

 and they continued to administer it by the mouth, one- 

 sixth grain doses every two hours; gave digitalis to sustain 

 the heart, and continued the alcohol in moderate quan- 

 tities. Visiting the boy next day I was rather surprised 

 to fined Buch marked improvement. The swelling was 

 reduced, the discoloration had disappeared, while a strong 

 pulse and calm surface denoted a much better general 

 condition. The antidote was continued for another day 

 and he made a prompt recovery without even suppuration 

 at the seat of the wound." 



Frog and Water Snake. 



Burleigh, Ont., Aug. 23. — A curious incident came to 

 my knowledge lust week while stopping at this place bass 

 fishing. 



A reverend gentleman seeing a very large bullfrog in 

 the edge of a marsh near tnis place, with something stick- 

 ing out of his mouth like a cigar, concluded to investi- 

 gate, and to his amazement found it to be the head of a 

 water snake about 18in. long which the frog had all but 

 swallowed, commencing with the tail. The frog lost his 

 dinner and the snake his life. This certainly was a case 

 of "the biter bit." C. B. T. 



tfflflt §4g mid §tm. 



NEBRASKA GROUSE CLEANED OUT. 



North PLatte, Neb., Aug. 25.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: 1 think that perhaps a few game notes from 

 Nebraska may be timely, so I give you the results of my 

 explorations. 



Business recently called me to western Nebraska, and 

 in the last six or seven weeks I have been all over north- 

 ern and western Nebraska, the Black Hills of South 

 Dakota and portions of Wyoming. My trip took me over 

 the entire Sand Hills country, embracing about one-third 

 of the State of Nebraska, and naturally I made careful 

 inquiries in regard to prairie chickens and sharp-tailed 

 grouse, as this section has always contained both in the 

 greatest abundance. In my travels I did a large amount 

 of driving that frequently took me away from the rail- 

 roads and into the heart of the chicken country, a section 

 in which In the last few years a moderately fair shot 

 could bag in a day's shoot anywhere from fifty birds ttf). 

 Taking into consideration the great abundance of birds 

 up to a very recent date it sounds incredible to state that 

 they are all gone, yet it is an absolute fact. In several 

 hundred miles of travel I did not see a bird. Two years 

 ago in traveling fifty or sixty miles by train it was no un- 

 common thing to have a dozen or more coveys flush from 

 beside the track, and yet on this trip, over 200 miles of 

 which was made in a buggy, away from the track as 

 Wen as beside it, and frequently with one or more dogB 

 along, I never even saw a feather. Constant inquiry 

 elicited the information that Scarcely any have been seen 

 this season. Occasionally some one would mention 

 seeing a covey or a few stray birds, but mostly the 

 answer was, "Haven't seen a chicken this year." 



The answer to this is not hard to find, for the constant 

 fusillade that has been kept up both in and out of season 

 by everyone owning a gun could have but one result. 

 Last year the crop failure throughout this section caused 

 many to take to market-shooting who had never done so 

 before, and every man and boy big enough to shoulder a 

 gun was out early and late shooting for mai-ket as long as 

 there was a bird in sight. As late as the 1st of last April 

 I heard of parties still camped in the hills and shooting 

 for market. 



Nearly every town on the B. & M. R. R. in this section 

 has its recognized game buyer who devotes hia entire time 

 to this business, and large cold storage houses are located 

 all through the sand hillsj often at stations containing less 

 than a dozen buildings. In addition to these, nearly 

 every merchant in small towns makes a business of buy« 

 ing game and shipping it to Chicago and New York. It 

 is marked "dressed poultry," but the station agent knows 

 what the barrels contain. This is a cattle country and 

 there are scarcely any domestic fowl in the region. They 

 take grouse in trade and handle them in the same way 

 buttti- and eggs are handled in older-settled communities. 

 Several merchants I know have told me that in the fall 

 they usually have to stay up until 12 and 1 o'clock at 

 night to pack and ship the grouse received during the day. 

 This is all done in direct violation of the game laws, but 

 then game laws cut no fignre in Nebraska. 



Well, if s all over now, and we won't have to worry for 

 fear we will not get good chicken shooting any more. If 

 any one wants a good gun they can have mine. I will 

 have very little use for it in the future. 



I have talked and written on the subject of game pro- 

 tection until I have made a bore of myself, and the only 

 thanks I got was to be called a crank and an alarmist. 

 You couldn't make a sportsman of Nebraska believe that 

 the fearful slaughter that has been going on for years 

 would decrease the supply; but I rather think that they 

 will change their minds when they get out this fall. I 

 have seen the once countless buffalo wiped off the face of 

 the earth, the deer and antelope about exterminated, and 

 now I have seen the last of the sharp-tail and pinnated 

 grouse as far as Nebraska is concerned. 



I talked with Lowe, the Chicago man who has been 

 located for the last two years at Hyannis, Neb., and who 

 operates the big freezer at that point a3 well as several 

 others at other places. He tells me that last season he 

 shipped over two thousand dozen grouse from Hyannis 

 alone; and yet he has the nerve to say that market- 



