226 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 14, 1895. 



Thus, you Bee, I captured three unexpected meals to-day." 



"All of which shows," hegan Simeon sententiously, 

 "that"— but May out him short with "Don't put any 

 impertinent moral at the end of Uncle's menu card." » 

 Clarence L. Hebriok. 



New Mexico. 



THE FLORIDA MANATEE. 



The last two generations have witnessed such a destruc- 

 tion of animal life in this country that it is appalling to 

 look ahead and see what the future haB in store for us. 

 Our larger animals and birds are going with such rapid- 

 ity, and the wilder parts of the country to which they 

 have been driven are being cleared and settled so fast, 

 that the end of many species, still common in placeB, is 

 already plainly in sight. 



Man is, of course, the real cause, in almost every case, 

 of the extermination of a species, although often the end 

 comes by some natural calamity, as, for example, the 

 tragic end of the great auk. 



When a species has become, through the persecution of 

 man, reduced to a mere remnant that persists either from 

 the inaccessible nature of the country to which it has 

 taken refuge, or from the wariness the few surviving 

 individuals have developed, it takes but a small change 

 in its surroundings to wipe it forever from the face of the 

 earth. 



The winter of 1894-95 has been a most disastrous ore 

 and has shown us on how slight a change in temperature 

 the life or death of a whole species depends. Two such 

 winters in succession would in all probability extermin- 

 ate the bluebird, the snowbird and many others that win- 

 ter in the Carolinian zone. These birds went into the 

 winter in their full numbers and strength, and yet this 

 summer they are so rare that I have not seen a single 

 bluebird in the Plymouth county (Mass.) country, where 

 usually they are one of the common breeding birds. 

 Think what a proportionate reduction in numbers must 

 mean then to a species already on the verge of extinction. 



The cold in Florida of the last winter was unprece- 

 dented, and the mortality among fish in the shallow 

 water was such as I never thought to witness. The birds 

 suffered very much, but as far as I could tell few died as 

 far south as where 1 was. Oak Lodge, on the East Pen- 

 insula,J|opposite Micco. Here, at 5 o'clock on the morn- 

 ing of Feb. 12, the thermometer registered 20°Fahr., and 

 on the next morning at the same hour only 23°. It was 

 a strange" experience to walk over from the frozen sand 

 add see every little puddle covered with ice on a trail over- 

 hung by the sub- tropical vegetation of a Florida hammock 

 with a north wind blowing in my face that chilled me to 

 the bones. The cold of these two.days and nights was in- 

 tense. 



On Feb. 19, Mr. Walter L. Gibson came across the river 

 to tell me he had found two manatee that had been killed 

 by the "freeze," and the next day I went over to take 

 possession of them. They were both found where they 

 had floated ashore on the bank of the Sebastian Eiver, 

 one about four and the other two miles from its conflu- 

 ence with the Indian River. I found to my great regret 

 that both were too far gone to hope to save the skins and 

 the only thing to be done was tojsave the skeletons, which 

 we began to macerate out at once. One was an old 

 female of very large size, measuring from the end of the 

 nose to the end of the tail 1 1ft. 4in. The other, a young 

 male, measuring from the end of the nose to the end of 

 the tail 6ft. 4in.* Both skeletons are now in the collec- 

 tion of E, A. and 0. Bangs, Boston, Mass. 



These manatee were two of the survivors of the herd of 

 eight which had, for the past year, been living in the 

 St. Lucie and Sebastian rivers and that part of the In- 

 dian River which is between these two. For two years 

 the manatee has been protected by a State law and this 

 herd had come together in consequence and probably con- 

 sisted of most of the manatee of this region that, freed 

 from persecution, had collected into a herd, as was their 

 wont in old times when the rivers were theirs. 



Mr. Gibson told me that often he has stood on the rail- 

 road bridge that spans the Sebastian, and seen this herd 

 pass under him and counted them over and over 

 again and knew every individual in it. After the 

 first "freeze" of last winter, in December, three of the 

 manatee were found ashore, dead, in different 

 places and no live ones were seen. Whether any of this 

 herd pulled through both "freezes" is impossible to say, 

 but five out of the eight are accounted for, and it seems 

 likely that more died than were found, as a great part of 

 their range was not covered, and their carcasses might 

 easily have escaped detection even in places that were 

 visited. It does not take long for a dead body to disap- 

 pear in Florida, and the manatee as they lay half under 

 water would soon have been disposed of, the crabs doing 

 the business below the surface and the turkey buzzards 

 above. 



The manatee is extremely sensitive to a change in the 

 temperature of the water. This was noticed by Mr. 

 Conklin to be the case with the one that was kept alive in 

 the Zoological Garden of Central Park in New York, and 

 Mr. C. J. Maynard told me that he knew of three large 

 manatee that were killed in the "freeze" of 1886 and 

 washed up near Palm Beach. The 1886 "freeze" was very 

 mild compared with those of last winter. In 1886 the 

 mangroves hardly suffered at all, while last winter, 1894 

 and 1895, nearly every tree along the whole stretch of the 

 Indian River was killed to the ground. 



In both "freezes" last winter the cold came without any 

 warning and the change of temperature was so sudden 

 that the only chance for the manatee to escape certain 

 death lay m their being able to reach deep water before 

 they were overcome by the cold. 



The region from the Sebastian to the St. Lucie has, for 

 a number of years, been the only part of the Indian 

 River where the manatee were seen. Here, besides the 

 herd of eight, now reduced to three at the very outside, 

 there were some solitary scattering individuals, how 

 many it is impossible to say, as the manatee has become 

 very shy, but it is safe to assume that the scattering ones 

 fared no better than did the herd, and that the reduction 

 in numbers from the cold of last winter was very great. 



There are still, however, a few manatee alive in the Se- 

 bastian River. In a letter I lately received from Mr. 

 Gibson he told me that in the end of March he surprised 



* The Florida manatee grows but little larger than this female The 

 two largest I ever heard of were two caught in the St. Lucie Kiver bv 

 Mr. August Park, of Sebastian, Florida, One in August, 1880 that 

 measured 13ft. 7in. long, and one in June of the same rear that meas. 

 ured 12ft. long and estimated at a.OQOlbs. weight. 



several manatee lying together on a mud flat, high up 

 the Sebastian River. As soon as they heard him they 

 made a rush for deep water, throwing the mud and water 

 15ft. high in the violence of their flight. 



I made many careful inquiries among the people who 

 live along the river and would be in the way of knowing 

 of the manatee and its diminution of numbers of late 

 years, but got surprisingly little information of any value 

 except from Mr. Gibson, to whom I have so often re- 

 ferred, and Mr. Fritz Ulrich, a German of more than or- 

 dinary intelligence, who has spent the last fifteen years 

 dreaming his life away among the birds and animals of 

 the Indian River. They were all his friends. The pan- 

 thers knew his voice and answered him from the wilder- 

 ness, and the owls came from their hiding-places and flew 

 about him to his call, and the little lizards fed from his 

 hand. But it is all gone now, and there only remains of 

 the great life of the river a small terrified remnant, and 

 in its stead the railroad train hurries along the west bank, 

 and hideous towns and more hideous hotels and cottages 

 have sprung up everywhere among the pines. It is now 

 eight years since Mr. Ulrich saw a living manatee, but 

 when he first came to the river fifteen years ago they 

 were still common, and he often saw them from the door 

 of his little house at The Narrows passing up and down 

 the river, and occasionally he saw them at play, when 

 they would roll up, one behind the other, like the coils of 

 a great sea serpent. 



The spring and summer of 1894 were so dry that the 

 salt water went nearly to the head of the fresh-water 

 streams and killed out the "manatee grass,"! of which the 

 manatee are especially fond, and the poor brutes had to 

 fall back on the leaves of the mangroves, a food not much 

 to their liking, which they reach by laboriously dragging 

 their huge bodies half out of water. Mr. Gibson spent a 

 great part of that summer up the Sebastian, where he was 

 catching paraquets, and on several occasions he saw the 

 herd of eight feeding in this manner. 



The manatee is an animal of the highest economic 

 value and one that the Indian River, with its fresh-water 

 tributaries, seems able to support in large numbers, and it 

 would be more than mere sentiment to regret its disap- 

 pearance, should it become a thing of the past. But there 

 is still a chance for it. There are some manatee alive now 

 in the Sebastian River and these have passed through the 

 cold of a winter such as no living man in Florida has 

 known before; they are protected by law, and the net- 

 ting % has been stopped; and in spite of the small annual 

 increase— the female bringing forth but one calf a year — 

 it should slowly come up again to something like its old 

 numbers. — Outram Bangs in American Naturalist, 



1 1 regret that I am unable to give a more definite name to this plant, 

 never having seen it myself, but it was described to me as a tender, 

 ribbon-like grass, the blades of which are about J^in. wide and 4ft. or 

 5ft. long. Ic grows with the endB of the blades and the blossoms rest- 

 ing in the water, and is found in only a few of the fresh-water streams 

 of southeast Florida. 



t For a full account of this most successful method of destroying 

 the manatee, see an article in Forest and Stream, XIII., 1880, pp. 1005, 

 1008, by Mr. j. Francis Le Baron. 



Do Panthers Play with their Prey? 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The panthers' leap and the panthers' scream have been 

 discussed if not settled to everyone's satisfaction. Now 

 let us hear what those who know have to tell concerning 

 the question whether the panther plays with its prey 

 before killing, as the domestic cat does with mice. Who 

 can say whether any of the large cats have this habit? I 

 once heard an old Indian tell how his brother-in-law saw 

 a panther in the Adirondacks playing with a hare, but it 

 was a second-hand story of doubtful origin. 



ANDSOOSE. 



Albino Deer. 



One of the greatest curiosities ever seen in this part of 

 the country was brought in yesterday. It is a genuine 

 white deer. It is snow white all over even to its horns, 

 not a particle of color appears on it anywhere. It was 

 shot by Hugh McDonald near Butternut Lake. It was 

 taken to Henry Gantzman, the taxidermist, and will be 

 mounted. — Eagle River (Wis ) Review. 



!&jif£ mi %mu 



DAKOTA CHICKEN GROUNDS. 



North wood , N. D., Aug. 26 —The grouse coveys of 

 this region are being invaded by the guns of the Twin 

 Cities. St. Paul sportsmen particularly have had their 

 blasts after the local prairie hen. Never in the recollec- 

 tion of the local chick has there been made such well- 

 organized attempts at large bags and seldom, if ever, has 

 there been such utter disappointment come to the hearts 

 of the men who are accustomed to wearing hot gun bar- 

 rels through the golden stubble-edge. 



For years the beautiful valley of the Cheyenne has been 

 noted as a rendezvous for pinnated grouse. No gamier 

 bird whirrs over the Western plain. A wilder mark 

 than the Eastern prairie chicken, in habit much like the 

 Canada grouse, the ruffed, gray-white denizen of the 

 buffalo grass is by far the most interesting to sportsmen. 

 In the fertile valley of the Cheyenne there is close cover, 

 shade and water. The cover affords the security which 

 is exacted by the wild nature of the bird. The shade is 

 its habitat during the hot hours of the day, and the 

 water its natural necessity. For miles to the east and 

 west of the picturesque river, Norway's sons are this year 

 smiling upon a lavish yield. It matters not that their 

 huts are black, their children uncouth and their sense of 

 a finer civilization stinted, all they care to know is their 

 gift of nature, so abundantly in evidence in every field. 

 And the valley of the Cheyenne is quaintly featured. Its 

 tillera are Norsemen, its hills are northern, and its 

 natural phenomena is pitched in that minor key, so tune- 

 ful of the Scandinavian races. 



Upon the ripe richness of yellow grain seas the wild 

 grouse preys, and to find him and bag him is the prayer 

 and the pleasure of the sportsman and the dog. But alas! 

 for this general gratification. The season in the Dakotas, 

 and especially in its southern and western sections, has 

 expressed itself most unfavorably as to game of any 

 kind. A measure of more serious prosperity will soon be 

 realized at the mouth of the grain sack, a prospect at 

 which all Dakota delights. But as for game— upland and 



aquatic — "well," the farmers say, "the crop o' chickens 

 isn't what they used to was." 



At this juncture the mystery of the situation begins. 

 ThoBe learned in the haunts and habits of upland game 

 dare to only theorize at the astonishing scarcity of birds' 

 in this, one of their most favored regions. 



For several years a St. Paul party has tenanted a shack 

 near Michigan City, just west of Cooperstown. The lodge 

 lies in the midst of one of the greatest bird haunts in the 

 West. Learning that the party had quartered there this 

 week, I made my way from the Cheyenne and invaded 

 their retreat. I found M. D. Munn, brown as a buck; the 

 genial C. B, Yale, of the legal department of the Great 

 Northern; Drs. J. A. Quinn and C. A. Wheaton, each as 

 happy as if he owned the earth and all the flies therein; 

 Dr. H. M. Wheeler, of Grand Forks, a great shot and a 

 fine fellow who discloses his good-fellowship in being Dr. 

 Quinn's life-long friend; and finally Dr. Walter Courtney, 

 of Brainerd, whom it would be a boon for all Western 

 sportsmen to know. There was also a howling wilderness 

 of dogs, three plainsmen drivers and an ebony cook. The 

 department of the interior of this brawn and hearty com- 

 pany was skillfully administered to by one George Ethiopia 

 Davis, of St. Peter street tonsorial celebrity, and one of 

 the best amateur performers at the gridiron and waffle 

 foundry in the West. It is the delight of Minnesotans to 

 observe the sporting proclivities of this aggregation. Drs. 

 Quinn and Wheaton shoot everything but craps: Mr. 

 Munn and Mr. Yale are great fishermen and have caught 

 many things besides a cold. The medical fraternity 

 present, constituting a hospital corps, were seen to ad- 

 minister a hypodermic injection of shot as deftly as they 

 do fermented poisons. Materia medica is essential in 

 some camps. 



This company has hunted about a week. In every fea- 

 ture but bag, the outing seems to have been a glorious 

 respite from the herculean efforts to earn a living in 

 town, So far, nobody has been able to find the birds. 

 The stubble-edges near the wire and sour grass, the 

 sloughs and water pockets, the coolies and swails, and the 

 sage hillocks all are flushed clean of everything which 

 resembles a grouse. 



The dry condition of the weather, the absence, often, 

 of dew, conduces to anything but sport. The dryness 

 dissipates what scent there may be, and the dogs give up 

 the chase in disgust. Where, in pond and lake beds, 

 there should be water, only the baked white alkili gleams 

 in the sun. 



Local observers of game breeding declare the failure of 

 the chicken season is due to several causes. There 

 are those who say it is simply because the late spring 

 frost ruined the hatching. Then there are those who say 

 that the late J une rains killed the broods. Added to these 

 is that class which points to dry lake beds and declares 

 that although a very temperate bird, the chicken has got 

 to drink. The truth is, there is no water in that country 

 except that issued from farm wells. There is little corn 

 growing to afford birds a chance to drink dew from a 

 leaf -crotch, and the State being prohibition anyway r 

 everything has gone dry and quit. But if the Cheyenne 

 country and the plains along the southern tributaries of 

 the Red River are barren of sport, it is refreshing to learn 

 that in the lake regions of our own State there will be an 

 abundance when the season opens, on Sept. 1. I have 

 held confab with the natives all along the Great Northern 

 R. R. from St. Paul to Minot, and it is my opinion that 

 there is a plenitude of game wherever there is water. 

 All migratory birds will find this element of their subsist- 

 ence, as the instance of their absence near breeding 

 haunts during the present drought would indicate. 



A verification of this belief comes in a report from 

 Willow City, just south of the Turtle Mountain region, a 

 dense thicket studded with live spring lakes and muck 

 swails. A St. Paul party entered this field last Sunday. 

 The company is composed of Hon. Albert Scheffer, Hon. 

 William Hamm, Paul Hauser and Otto Miller. They re- 

 port a large bag of ruffed grouse, mallard, teal and red- 

 head ducks. Willow City is about fourteen miles south 

 of Bottineau, the northern terminus of the Great North- 

 ern road, in the midst of the Turtle Mountains, a few 

 miles south of the Canadian border. I camped three 

 weeks in these mountains last October, with St. Paul 

 parties and Capt. Anson, of the Chicago ball club. The 

 country is a fastness for moose, antelope and bear, and 

 the lakes swarm with canvasback ducks, geese and swan. 



The Dispatcfi party was made up at Northwood under 

 the espionage of Herr Thomas Gjerdrum and his aide, 

 Robert L McKellar, both of the North Dakota Milling 

 Association, and Col. C. F. Singular, of Minneapolis. 

 Herr Gjerdrum is one of the most aggressive and popular 

 leaders of the Norwegian people in the Dakotas. He is 

 the scion of a noble family, the estates of which are still 

 the pride of thoBe who bear its name. In his native land 

 Herr Gjerdrum was a great yachtsman, and his narrative 

 of cruises in the seas of the midnight sun are inspiring. 

 He is the only representative of his family in this country, 

 and he has come to his people in the Dakotas with a home 

 always open with its hospitality to his race. Mme. Gjer- 

 drum is an accomplished musician and the mother of a 

 young family of marked refinement. 



Herr Gjerdrum's Dispatch equipment consisted of three 

 teams, six dogs and five guns. The stores and provisions 

 were almost sumptuous, and the relish of everything was 

 of the fullest. We drove overland from Larimore, 170 

 miles, in five days, went past Cooperstown, through the 

 Cheyenne hunter's paradise — Lakes Jessie, Red Willow 

 and Pickerel, There, in a country noted for its feathered 

 game, our bag was very paltry. We shared the fate of 

 the medicine men, Drs. Quinn, Wheaton, Wheeler and 

 Courtney, and our local Talleyrand, Mr. Munn. Under 

 Herr Gjerdrum's guidance and princely hospitality the 

 Dispatch party learned where the game "was not," an 

 achievement in itself of value to sportsmen. There is good 

 shooting south of Rugby, at Pleasant Lakes, north of 

 Devil's Lake, and all through that section; at Alexandria, 

 Hallock, St. Vincent and in the Red Lake country; and at 

 Ashley they say chickens have never been so plentiful. 

 Generally all along the Great Northern the shooting is 

 good where the situation is near water, bottom lands and 

 short cover. I met Ben Schurmeier on the line the other 

 day and learned that he was bound for Pembina, where, 

 he says, "you simply can't miss 'em." 



Deputy Clerk of the Supreme Court Helm is on the 



