Sept. %1, 1895.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



247 



we turned suddenly to the west and re-entered the silent 

 forest. For the first time since leaving Kanab we seemed 

 to be in the virgin woods. In all their beauty the wild 

 flowers covered the ground, and from the thickest of the 

 foliage oame the evening songs of warbler and of hermit 

 thrush. As we drove near the edge of the timber we 

 could see far to the southeast and south the San Francisco 

 and Bill Williams mountains, the former still heavily 

 covered with snow. Occasionally, too, some amphi- 

 theater would jut in from the main caiion almost to our 

 very feet, or we would look far down some stately tran- 

 sept to the gloom that was fast settling over the mighty 

 chasm in Kaibab. The sun went down and the shade of 

 twilight gathers thick and fast, but not until we see below 

 us a beautiful glade, carpeted with rich grass, aglow with 

 blossoms, and better than all a silvery stream that be- 

 tokened a long-hoped-for drink from a spring of crystal 

 water. Down hill we plunge, and when the shades of 

 night almost hide our faces from each other we make 

 Camp Ultima Thule at Milk Spring, at nearly 9,000ft. 

 altitude and 390 miles from our starting point. 



The country through which we had traveled since leav- 

 ing Warm Springs is known as the Timber Reserve. 

 Naturally it is the best game preserve in the United States. 

 In no place can deer be found more abundantly. On the 

 Western Desert and running up to the Little Buckskins 

 are antelope, while on Mt. Trumbull and on the heights of 

 the Toroweap mountain sheep yet exist. I know of two 

 that were killed during June — by Indians, however. The 

 Indians do a great deal toward the extermination of the 

 deer by firing the forests and driving the deer on to the 

 long points that project into the canon, from which es- 

 cape is impossible. Every fall the stores of southern 

 Utah barter for bales of buckskin, the sole result of the 

 ruthless destruction. But the destruction of feed on the 

 Timber Reserve is doing more for the extermination of 

 game than all the Indians of Arizona can accomplish. 

 The region should be made more than a timber reserve. 

 It should be created a national park, guarded and policed 

 at least as efficiently as is the one in Wyoming. Such a 

 course would soon restore the verdure to the barren parks, 

 the rains to the thirsty fields, and the game to their native 

 haunts. A few stockmen might complain, but in the 

 amount of water for irrigating purposes Utah and Arizona 

 would be gainers by hundreds of thousands of dollars; and 

 when that little strip of Coconino county lying north of 

 the Rio Colorado is annexed to Utah, where it rightly 

 belongs and where all its interests are, the Garden State 

 of the Great Basin can offer to tourist, sportsman and 

 health seeker an attraction in comparison with which 

 Yellowstone and Yosemite will sink into insignificance — 

 the National Park of the Grand Canon. Shoshone. 



ENGLISH SPARROW ALBINOS. 



Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 7.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 The English sparrow (Passer domesticus) has so firmly 

 taken root in this country that no person from the old 

 country can any longer feel a stranger, once he has put 

 his foot in the streets of New York or Brooklyn. Whether 

 the bird has accomplished the object for which he was 

 introduced or whether he has not is not to the point just 

 now. 



My object in writing is to find out whether anybody can 

 give me a satisfactory or probable reason for the large 

 number of what may be termed "sports" among the spar- 

 rows in our cities. "Pied," that is, partly albino sparrows, 

 are so numerous on our streets that a specimen nas long 

 since ceased to be an object of wonder to me. Two prom- 

 inent cases are always catching my eyes. The first is a 

 sparrow of this year's brood, but full grown, that is gen- 

 erally to be found about 9 A. M. somewhere in the neigh- 

 borhood of DeKalb avenue and South Portland avenue. 

 I have seen it there several times lately, always in com- 

 pany with several others. Its head is nearly white, while 

 a pretty nuchal band of white feathers is strung out, 

 thicker on the right side of its neck than at the back of 

 the head. A still prettier and a more remarkable "sport" 

 is one that I have seen many times this summer, though 

 not of late, feeding on that strip of grass at the corner of 

 City Hall square that abuts on Broadway and Chambers 

 street. This bird is a curiosity. It is an old hen without 

 question, as I have seen her ministering to the wants of 

 her lately fledged brood, stuffing all sorts of insects and 

 other trash down their little throats. Her head, neck and 

 almost the whole of her upper wing coverts are of a dull 

 French gray. The rest of her plumage is made up of just 

 the somber, though pretty, russet tints that make the 

 plumage of a female sparrow of no account in the eyes of 

 those who prefer the bright colors of the parrots that hail 

 from the forests of the Amazon. I could name several 

 other sparrows, in and around these two cities of New 

 York and Brooklyn, as well as one or two other cities in 

 the United States, which have similar though less marked 

 peculiarities in regard to their plumage, but do not think 

 it necessary to go any further. 



Now, I am an Englishman, who as a boy captured, by 

 means of nets, thousands of sparrows in my time, rudely 

 awakening them at night while roosting in the warm lit- 

 tle holes that they had dug for themselves in the large hay 

 ricks of England, or in the ivy that covered the walls of 

 some old country house, or from under the thatched eaves 

 of some laborer's cottage, or while sleeping under the 

 overhanging roof of a farmer's barn. Yet out of all the 

 number that has met its fate at my hands, in conjunction 

 with others, I fail to recall more than one instance of any- 

 thing approaching albinoism. I do remember "laying 

 for" and ultimately securing, with the aid of an old 

 single-barreled muzzleloader of Purdey's, a "pied" spar- 

 row that had been noticed around one of the farmyards 

 belonging to a tenant of my father's. That is the only in- 

 stance, so far as my recollection goes, and I did not leave 

 the old country until I was fully fledged, if not more so, 

 as I was about thirty years of age at that time. 



Will some one please give me the benefit of his expe- 

 rience and observation on this point that interests me and 

 perplexeB me? Is it possible that change of habitat is pro- 

 ducing, or will produce ultimately, a change of dress? I 

 notice that such change has altered neither their manners 

 nor their customs. As some one once said about some- 

 body, it doesn't matter who just now; in fact, I can't 



emember — "Their manners are none, and their cus- 



toms are beastly." That just about fits the sparrow to 

 a T. 



Still, he is not without good points. Take his courage. 

 Although an Englishman, he has adopted a very Btrong 

 American trait, one that should be highly commended — 

 he won't take any back talk and stands up for his rights, 

 as many indigenous birds will bear me out. I claim they 

 are his rights, because he was introduced into this coun- 

 try, where he was supposed to be on an equality with other 

 birds. His pluck cannot be gainsaid. He has also strong 

 home ties, and believes there is no place like home. 

 Hunger and cold cannot drive him away in winter. He 

 stays by us and his home, and takes his hot and cold 

 lunches with the rest of us. Altogether, though he may 

 at times be somewhat of a scalawag, the little house spar- 

 row is not quite so black as he is painted. 



The above plea for the sparrow may be a little out of 

 place, but I have heard him so roundly abused by people 

 who had never thoughtfully considered his case that I 

 couldn't resist the opportunity to blow myself , and say a 

 few words for a fellow countryman who can neither read, 

 write nor talk, and who didn't come here of his own free 

 will. Anglo-American (like the sparrow). 



POCKETS. 



The great English dyspeptic called the pocket the true 

 pineal gland of the soul, and he was doubtless right, in 

 spite of the disrespectful phrase. The instinct of property 

 is one of the first evidences that the mind has passed from 

 the stage of pure objectivity and begins to see things in 

 their relation to self. An angel could have no possible 

 use for pockets, because the pure altruism of his exist- 

 ence could not make the distinction between mine and 

 thine. 



The subjectivity which is so important an element in 

 human thinking must have been very early to evolve, for 

 the spiny sea urchin has pockets for its eggs, and the sea 

 horses wriggle through the pages of popular illustrated 

 science with breast pockets overflowing with miniature 

 hippocampuses rampant. Yet when we come to man, as 

 usual, he seems to have it all to learn over again, and a 

 whole South Sea archipelago of marsupials did not in- 

 struct him in pocket using until long after the fig leaf 

 episode had been forgotten. It would be an entertaining 

 volume which should describe the struggle of untutored 

 man in his efforts to evolve pockets. Behold the naked 

 native in the diamond mines of South Africa, who yet is 

 able to secrete a gem worth a prince's ransom under his 

 eyelid or the distended lobe of his ear. His more civilized 

 neighbor of the Soudan carries the necessities of life easily 

 in the scanty breech clout, while his Arab over-lord could 

 stock a bazaar with that which reposes within the folds of 

 his snowy turban. 



Toss a trinket to the red brave in the midst of his 

 frenzied dance and see how deftly he twists it into his 

 scalp lock. Perhaps you have wasted a little pity on 

 yonder gamin whose rags are obviously incapable of sup- 

 porting such a luxury as a pocket. But you are all 

 wrong. See here, as I unroll the much turned-up sleeves, 

 here is a crust of a baker's loaf, a jack-knife with half a 

 blade, a broken corkscrew, some colored crayons, a lace 

 handkerchief with monogram, a quarter of an orange, a 

 brass door key, a handful of peanuts, three bolts without 

 their nuts, a stock of a No. 32 revolver with the hammer 

 broken, a circus handbill done into a wad and a story 

 paper containing "Dirk the Duffer's Last Lunge, com- 

 plete in one number." No, I will not turn down the other 

 sleeve, it would be much the same. 



That affairs of society are in the line of retrograde evo- 

 lution you may know by the lost feeling a man has 

 when he hunts for his pocket. Yes, confound it, the 

 street car check is there, in your single hip pocket, and on 

 top of it is the latch key and the key to the store, carried 

 for convenience in case of fire, and the second handker- 

 chief, and your wife's card case, and a dozen other things. 

 And. when the conductor watches you squirm and smil- 

 ingly repeats "fare please" you wish his face would stiffen 

 perpetually into the smile. Then you dodge down a back 

 street munching a handful of peanuts by way of equilibra- 

 tion. "Surely that is Mrs. Lyons's turnout," and the sack 

 pops into your hat while you assume proper dignity. It 

 is not ten minutes later that you encounter Mrs. Highton 

 and the girls under the full gas glory of the Odeon and 

 your jaunty bow is somewhat neutralized by the accom- 

 panying shower of peanut shells. Decidedly a silk hat is 

 a poor substitute for pockets. 



These reflections were called out by the strange things 

 encountered here upon the plains. 



In my room at the present writing is a prisoner who il- 

 lustrates what nature can do in this line. He is a dusky 

 quadruped decidedly rat-like in appearance, with small 

 bead-like eyes, circular ear conchs below the soft, silky 

 fur. The short, almost naked tail and square muzzle belie 

 the rat analogy and the great-clawed scraper feet tell of 

 burrowing habits. In fact, it is a New Mexican pouched 

 gopher. It is curious that all the native mice and rats of 

 the Rio Grande valley seem to adhere so closely to one 

 color pattern, from the decidedly mus-like, long-eared 

 fellows that hobnob in the barns with imported pests to 

 the subterranean vermin we have captured, they are all 

 more or less gray above with washes of tawny or orange 

 upon the sides in strong contrast to under parts. It seems 

 probable that common elements in the environment 

 operate as causes. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of 

 natural selection, the problem is a simple one. It is a 

 question of point of view. An enemy like a hawk watch- 

 ing from above finds the colors identical with those of the 

 sand. From a lateral position the colors assimilate well 

 with those of the sear and scanty herbage, and everybody 

 knows that white or bluish white is the color which nature 

 selects for parts which are to be seen projected against the 

 sky. 



But our pocket gopher has little need of such color pro- 

 tection, and it is but imperfectly developed, as almost his 

 entire life is spent beneath the soil where his endless bur- 

 rows and frequent hillocks try the soul of the ranchero. 

 A family of these pests will invade a potato field and fol- 

 low it row by row until harvesting by the owner is a sine- 

 cure. In such forays as these the pockets are called into 

 requisition. These are inward folds of skin arising wholly 

 outside the mouth and extending beyond the shoulder. 

 They will admit nearly the whole of two fingers. 

 The first published figure of a pocket gopher, drawn 

 as usual from a stuffed specimen, had the pockets 

 wrong side out, dangling in a troublesome fashion be- 

 tween his feet, and popular natural histories in Europe 



may, for aught I know, still continue to copy this figure 

 from Carver's "Travels." The specimen in question 

 looked as though he had been "held up" and forced to 

 stand and deliver. Nature provides against such a.n ac- 

 cident by developing a strong skin muscle, called techni- 

 cally retractor bursce, the evolution of which when written 

 will form an interesting chapter. Some evidences of 

 such a change in the ordinary skin-twitching muscles of 

 the shoulder and face may be seen in those rodents which 

 have only rudimentary pouches. The other muscle, con- 

 strictor burses, or shir-string of the pocket (as also in the 

 case of the writer), is poorly developed and things keep 

 getting out of our pockets. This is perhaps partly be- 

 cause both gophers (the writer was born in Minnesota) are 

 too greedy. This is certainly the case with Oeomys. I 

 tested the matter yesterday. Provided with a handful of 

 potato slices I chirruped to Geomvs and he raced from 

 his burrow to the front. I handed him a slice, which he 

 promptly made away with at a queer hobbling canter, 

 and after burying it in the earth was back for more. 

 The process was repeated until the supply was exhausted. 

 Hungry as he was he would touch nothing until repeated 

 trials satisfied him that there was no more to be had. 

 Then slyly recovering a piece of his booty he gathered 

 himself up in a corner, washed hands and face and 

 combed up a bit and then fell to with great gusto. This 

 shows the correctness of our thesis correlating pockets 

 with forethought and a proper appreciation of self. 



The gopher is a cleanly animal, as subterranean 

 creatures must be. The story that he uses his pockets as 

 wheelbarrows to convey earth is a myth. When at 

 work on his burrow he arches his back, and using his tail 

 as a third support has both forefeet free for the most 

 vigorous scratching and digging, not disdaining to use 

 his teeth when an unusually hard clod is encountered. 

 Then suddenly the hindfeet are brought into play and the 

 loosened earth is heaped up behind. In a trice the 

 gopher then wheels about and placing his forefeet close 

 together so that the scraper-like callosities of the palms 

 meet, starts briskly off pushing himself and the collected 

 earth out of the hole, resembling nothing so much as an 

 animated steam shovel. 



Geomys knows better than to carry all his eggs in one 

 basket and has numerous storehouses adapted to the ex- 

 igencies of the season. In the far north he even con- 

 trives them so that the decay of collected leaves causes 

 the germination of the much-relished clover stolons. 

 The gopher cannot be said to have a good temper. Last 

 night I placed a newly trapped specimen in the same box 

 with Geo. But, alas, this morning "the mangled corpse 

 strews the plain," which was splattered with gore and 

 torn up by the struggle, while the victor was compla- 

 cently nursing sundry honorable wounds. 



But nearly every mouse or rat we catch in this land of 

 the cactus has pockets. Here, for example, is a curious 

 fellow like a yellow rat on stilts. His hindlegs are fully 

 twice as long as those of any American rat we ever saw, 

 and the tail is longer than the body and bears a terminal 

 pencil of long hairs like a squirrel. The colors are warm 

 and delicate, with a white spot over the large squirrel- 

 like eye and a stripe across his thighs. In fact, he is an 

 American jerboa. It is strange how a saltatorial habit 

 tends to reduce the number of toes and causes the bones 

 of the legs to unite. It would be possible to make up a 

 complete series from the original five-toed type to cases 

 where only one functional toe is left. But our stilt rat is 

 a sort of parvenu — a new accession to the stilt-walkers — 

 and has all five toes intact, and curious indeed they seem 

 at the end of a slender stalk-like tarsus an inch long. The 

 pouches are external, and the grooved incisors and 

 strangely swollen ear bones produce a puzzle for the sys- 

 tematist. 



The most attractive of our bursif erse is a pigmy half the 

 size of the house mouse, with warm colors and great ears. 

 Scores of them were encountered on the meadows, where 

 we surprised, them gathering and neatly extracting the 

 kernels of cockle burs which so completely "stand off" all 

 other foes and secure the unwilling cooperation of all ani- 

 mals in disseminating the vulgar but ubiquitous weeds. 

 Let those who rashly conclude that any plant is useless in 

 nature's economy inspect the cheek pouches of our mouse- 

 let packed to bursting with these oily, nutritious seeds, 

 and confess that there may be good under the most unpre- 

 possessing skin. C. L. Herrick. 



New Mexico. 



"THE BULLY" AND "THEJ UNKNOWN." 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The citizens of Havre de Grace have had the pleasure of 

 witnessing one of the most remarkable prize fights that 

 I suppose ever took place in this country. Mr. Editor, I 

 am well aware that Forest anx> Stream don't take much 

 stock in prize fights; but I thought perhaps that as this 

 fight was such a novelty it might be a little interesting to 

 your many readers to give them a short sketch of how it 

 was brought about and how it ended. 



It appears that one of our citizens while on a visit to 

 West Virginia some time ago received a present of a 

 large rattlesnake that had the reputation of being a great 

 fighter, as he had licked everything of his -size and 

 weight in his native State. 



A few days after this great fighter arrived in Havre de 

 Grace, his owner threw out a challenge that his "West 

 Virginia Bully" would fight any living creature that 

 could be found in Maryland that didn't weigh over 3lbs. 

 One of our Havre de Grace fishermen concluded that he 

 would have some fun and accepted the challenge; but 

 would not give the name of his fighter, but gave a guar- 

 antee that he would not weigh over l^lbs. The owner of 

 the West Virginia Bully said, "Bring on your fighter," 

 as he didn't give an ehue what family he came out of or 

 what his name was. 



The owner of this rattler then put him in training. 

 With one exception he made short work of every living 

 creature that was put in the cage with him, but to the 

 utter astonishment of every one that witnessed.it, when 

 two land terrapins were put in the cage with the West 

 Virginia Bully he never offered to show fight and the 

 terrapins would crawl all around him. This was the first 

 time that I ever knew that snakes were afraid of land 

 terrapins. 



Well, at the appointed time our fisherman arrived with 

 a little basket, inside of which wa3 what we call a chan- 

 nel crab, a large fellow, nicely packed in grass. When 

 the Bnake saw the crab crawling around his cage, he eyed 

 him very oloaely, as he was Batisfied that in all his travels 

 through the mountains of Virginia he had met nothing 



