.356 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 26, 1895. 



Yet, with all its grayness it is a nice lake and better by 

 far than this big city, where the air is gray too. 



Some day, and something tells me it will not be long, I 

 will come up to Hough's den, away up near the clouds 

 here in Chicago, and say to him : ' 'Klook-wah tillicum, I 

 am going back again to the lake of the pines and the 

 stream and the rushes, where one may live a life and 

 not be always in the fog of this big town of the white 

 men." 



Hough knows of these things too, and he will say, 

 "Good," and some time he will come and camp in my 

 lodge that is waiting by the shore of the lake, and will go 

 with me to hear the talking pines and the rushes that 

 whisper, and the stream that knows of the doings of the 

 mountains, for my latch string is always out to those who 

 love the woods and the lake, and there is always room in 

 my canoe for one more. El Comancho. 



BUCK FEVER. 



Il.-Old Pat's Story. 



"Say, Joe, do you remember the time you had buck 

 fever?" asked Pat. 



"Humph! it's a wonder you wouldn't give that story a 

 rest; it's so old it has whiskers on it," said Joe, turning 

 away. 



"I never laughed so much in my life," said Old Pat, in 

 answer to the inquiring looks after Joe had gone, "as I 

 did that day. You see, we had sent him down to the 

 mouth of a little ravine and I had started across to get 

 him, intending to go to another stand about a mile away. 

 I was walking down the hill to him, when a buck jumped 

 up and started right for his stand. He was in line with 

 the deer and me, so I had to stand and watch the proceed- 

 ings, and it was the funniest thing you ever saw. 



"Joe had his back turned to me and never saw the deer 

 until it was right on him, and then he never took any 

 aim, but just brought his gun to his shoulder and fired. 

 The deer gave a jump or two and dropped, and Joe just 

 stood and stared at him. The deer began to kick, and 

 with a yell that would have shamed an Indian he 

 slammed his gun down and piled on to that deer. He 

 grabbed him by the horns and began to yell for help and 

 —well, I didn't get there for a few minutes. I couldn't 

 walk. 



"When I did manage to get down there the deer was 

 dead, but Joe was hanging on for dear life and still 

 yelling for help: and when I told him the deer was dead 

 and asked him why he didn't bleed him he just stared at 

 me a moment, and then the sickest smile spread over his 

 face you ever saw. 



' 'He never said a word until I asked him where his gun 

 was. Well, sir, his jaw sorter dropped down and he 

 began to hunt around for his gun. I let him hunt a while, 

 and when I showed him where it lay he picked it up and 

 slowly worked the lever. 



"He had broken that deer's neck slick and clean the 

 first shot, but when I told the boys about it he didn't 

 seem very well pleased. Of course, he heard nothing else 

 but about how he killed that deer while we stayed in 

 camp, and the boys told all about it when they got home, 

 so if any man's life was a burden his was." 



"That reminds me of Reagan's first deer," said Duke. 



OCTOBER BIRD NOTES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have always been interested in the study of bird life, 

 and in fact anything relating to outdoor nature. I do 

 not have much time to devote to it, only Saturday after- 

 noon and Sundays, which I always improve by hitching 

 up Prince in the buggy, when my wife gets in and away 

 we go for a long ride out on the beautiful country roads 

 that we have in this vicinity. If it should happen to be 

 stormy on these days, which it pften is, why, I stay at 

 home and read Forest and Stream. I thought that 

 some of my observations might be of interest to some of 

 your readers. 



In twenty-five years' observation of birds and their 

 habits I never saw them so scarce as they have been this 

 year. I have seen only two bluebirds, not a single hum- 

 ming bird, only now and then a straggling catbird or 

 brown thrasher, and very few migratory birds. All our 

 most common birds have been here in few numbers, ex- 

 cept in a few instances as follows: Robins, red-winged 

 blackbirds, cherry birds, kingbirds, phcebes and several 

 varieties of vireos. Cuckoos have been more than plenti- 

 ful, also scarlet tanagers. 



One of our most beautiful birds in song as well as 

 plumage, the rose-breasted grosbeak, I never saw so plen- 

 tiful. It seemed as though you could hear his rich song 

 from almost every shade tree in the village. A pair built 

 a nest in on apple tree within 25ft. of my house. A pair 

 of robins that had nested in the same tree for several 

 years tried to drive them away, but the grosbeaks held 

 the fort, and in due time the young were hatched. On 

 the 17th of June one fell out of the nest. I caught it and 

 carried it into the house to save it from the cats. It 

 proved to be a male, which I knew by the rose color under 

 the wings. I thought I would try and raise it, and watch 

 the changing plumage to maturity. The striped appear- 

 ance of the head has turned nearly to black, and the rose 

 color just begins to show through the dark brown on the 

 breast. He is perfectly contented in his cage, although 

 he is out of it half of the time, and is the pet of the fam- 

 ily. He must come to the table to eat with us every 

 time, or he makes a great fuss. He sits on my hand and 

 picks at a piece of bread; and knows which side is but- 

 tered and tries to get at it. I suppose he likes the salt 

 taste, but I let him only taste it. He began to sing when 

 only two weeks old, and took his first bath at that age, 

 and wants it regularly every day. He is an expert fly 

 catcher, will catch a fly on the wing or pick one off of 

 the ceiling like a flash. We hope to winter him, and to 

 have a beautiful bird in the spring. 



I must tell you of a beautiful ride that we took Sunday, 

 Oct. 6, and some of the things we saw. I only wish that 

 everybody could see the country at this time. I never 

 saw the foUage show off to better advantage than it does 

 this season. I have one view in particular in mind that 

 we saw on that day which will remain in memory a long 

 time. Imagine a broad meadow, with a background of 



dark pines, bordered with a mixture of oak and maples; 

 then imagine the maples to be of all shades of red from 

 the most vivid to almost a silvery white, and the oaks 

 from a deep mahogany color to all shades of brown, with 

 here and there a true mixed among them all that still re- 

 tains a rich green color. Out in the middle of the 

 meadow stands like a sentinel a large maple, every leaf a 

 vivid red, with the afternoon sun (ihining brightly on it, 

 making it almost dazzling to the eye to look upon it. 

 A brook crosses the meadow, bordered by shrubbery 

 varied in color, with here and there a cow at rest chewing 

 her cud. Who could not enjoy such a sight? A little fur- 

 ther along we come to an old mill, long since past doing 

 duty. What a sight for a snap shot with a camera. I do 

 not possess one. Now we come to a piece of woods; none 

 of your fishpole woods, but trees that tower away up 

 toward the heaven, 2 and 3ft. in diameter. I told my 

 wife I would get out and stretch my legs, but to stay back 

 just far enough to keep in sight. I had not walked a 

 great way before I heard a rustling in the leaves, then I 

 saw a partridge; it ran along a few steps and flew, then 

 another, another, until five had risen and sailed away. I 

 walked on a few minutes and up went three more. They 

 were all of large size. We saw lots of quail through the 

 summer, but have seen more this fall. Gray squirrels are 

 quite plenty. We arrived home from our long ride by the 

 light of the full moon, tired and hungry. 



We have had many such rides and hope to take many 

 more, always seeing something new to interest us. This 

 was all seen within twelve miles of the gilded dome, in the 

 City of Baked Beans, and we were as much secluded as 

 though we had been hundreds of miles away. 



C. E. B. 



Hyde Park, Mass., Oct. 11. 



NOTES ON BEARS AND MOOSE. 



There is only one kind of bear in New England — the 

 black bear. Bears do not pass any excrements while in 

 their dens, although they hibernate for many months in 

 winter. The female bears never leave their dens without 

 first dropping their young, if disturbed ever so suddenly. 



They never enter their dens when hunted or followed. 



Bears subsist mostly on berries in midsummer, and 

 therefore they are frequently found on mountains or 

 plains where berries occur. 



When first leaving their dens in springtime they follow 

 brooks and water courses to obtain frogs and fish, of 

 which they are very fond. They are also fond of any- 

 thing sweet and insects, such as bees, ants. etc. 



When food is scarce in late autumn the bears gradually 

 taper off eating and, I think, lose their appetite by 

 degrees, until finally they have no desire for food and 

 stop eating altogether, and then soon go to their dens. 



If they go into their dens fat, they come out fat in the 

 spring, and their condition depends on the abundance or 

 scarcity of wild berries. They tear the bark from fir 

 trees in springtime, being impelled by their savage nature. 

 All feline animals often try their foreclaws on some 

 substance. 



It is thought that the antlers of the moose were in- 

 tended to prevent the male from harassing the female, 

 as she can easily run away from him in the thick bushes 

 when she does not desire his company. 



One noise of a bull moose, supposed to be a call to his 

 mate, sounds very much like striking the fiat of an axe on 

 a rotten log — a short, dull, heavy sound, repeated five or 

 six times at intervals of perhaps five minutes. 



The antlers of moose commence the second year and 

 receive an additional prong for each year of his life after. 

 I never knew a cow moose to have antlers. 



The cows almost always drop two calves, which are 

 generally male and female, but not always, and they fol- 

 low the mother a year. 



The moose always make two beds in the snow each 

 night in their yards; sometimes during the night they get 

 up and sniff the air in every direction to see if they can 

 discover any danger, lying down in a new place; thus 

 hunters can tell the number of moose in a drove when 

 they come to where they spent the night. 



One time I was with a party on a moose hunt and on a 

 fresh trail in the snow, when we came to where they 

 had lain the night before, when one of our party ran and 

 felt in a moose bed, and in excitement remarked, "They 

 have just gone, the snow is warm in his bed!" 



J. G. Rich. 



Bethel, Maine. 



Experience with a Rattler. 



East Radford, Va. , Oct. 11. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 About three months ago I obtained a fine specimen of the 

 mountain rattlesnake (Crotatus adamanteus), caught on 

 Fort Lewis Mountain, ten miles west of Roanoke, Va. It 

 had twenty-one rattles and the usual button, and meas- 

 ured even 4ft. A short while after caging it, it seemed 

 very savage and would rattle and strike on sight, but by 

 daily attention it seemed to get over this and would 

 neither rattle nor attempt to strike at me. Carefully pro- 

 tecting myself, I could feed it (what little it did eat) from 

 a spoon, and I was especially proud of it. 



On Wednesday evening, the 2d inst., some friends 

 called and wished to see my pet, and as the snake had 

 concealed itself under the grass covering in the cage, and 

 in order to see it better I pulled back a little slide door to 

 remove the covering that they might get a better view of 

 it — a space of not more than 2in. was moved back — when 

 without warning it struck me, the fangs going well in on 

 each side of the second joint of the forefinger on left 

 hand. This of course stopped the show. It was very 

 painful, going through my arm like an electric shock. 

 Knowing life depended upon instant action, I at once bit 

 out the piece where the fangs entered, and sucked out all 

 the poison possible," at the same, time binding my finger 

 tightly below the joint to prevent circulation, and was 

 soon in the charge of Drs. Farmer and Black, who brought 

 me around all right, although it was a close call. 



During my illness I had the snake killed preparatory to 

 mounting (which I will do myself). On close examina- 

 tion I find on the left side of the upper jaw two perfectly 

 formed fangs (close together) and on the other side only 

 one. The fangs measure i'm. Though I have been a 

 reader of Forest and Stream for over fifteen years and 

 a close observer of natural history, I have never read or 

 noticed anything on snake-ology similar to this (two fangs 

 on one side). Will not some good reader of Forest and 

 Stream give views as to whether this is or is not a freak 

 in snake nature? J._W. Schooley. 



Capt. Dick's Rattlesnakes. 



When I was located in Florida some years ago I num- 

 bered among my acquaintances Capt. Dick Munday of 

 Choctawhatchee Bay. Dick's hailing port was a town 

 in Michigan, and he was one of the Federal soldiers 

 whom the fortunes of war had left stranded in the sunny 

 South. 



He had located a claim on the sandy shores of Choctaw- 

 hatchee Bay, and managed to wrest a living from the 

 sandy soil of his claim and the waters of the bay. Choc- 

 tawhatchee Bay is a famous place for red-fish, mullet, 

 tarpon, Spanish mackerel and many other varieties of 

 fish. When the Captain with his small sloop made a fair 

 catch he would hoist sail and bear away for Pensacola, 

 eighteen miles to the west. There his catch would be 

 purchased, carefully iced and forwarded by fast express 

 to the great cities of the country. New Yorkers have 

 often eaten Spanish mackerel that a few days before 

 cleaved the clear waters before the Captain's cabin. 



One bright morning in late autumn the Captain's sloop 

 poked her nose through the tangle of shipping and shot 

 up to the dock in fine style. The Captain was the sole 

 occupant, barring two husky rattlesnakes that he had in 

 a slat-covered box just forward of the cockpit. 



I was invited aboard to inspect his pets and did so. 

 They were the largest and most venomous-looking rattlers 

 it has ever been my lot to behold, fully 5ft. in length, and 

 the bodies in the largest part seemed as large as the fore- 

 arm of a middle-weight pugilist. Unfortunate would be 

 the lot of him who would chance to step on one of these 

 reptiles in the palmetto scrub of a Florida forest. 



The Captain gave me the details of the capture. He 

 had trailed them to their den beneath the roots of an up- 

 turned pine, and a few passes of a shovel had brought 

 them to light. They were in a torpid condition and it 

 was but the work of a moment to place them in a soap 

 box that he had provided. Nailing down the top, he 

 wended his way to his cabin, listening all the while to the 

 merry music the now thoroughly aroused rattlers were 

 making. 



We allowed the Captain to place his snakes in our ware- 

 house and undertook to sell them for him. 



After correspondence with several of the zoological 

 gardens of the country, I found that rattlers just then 

 were a drug on the market, so one fine morning the Cap-, 

 tain again tied up at the dock, loaded the box on board, 

 hoisted sail and shaped his course for home. He no doubt 

 liberated the snakes upon his arrival. Ivanhoe. 

 Chicago. 



Fluctuations of the Bluebird Stock. 



Glendale, O.— Editor Forest and Stream: I notice in 

 recent issue of your paper a note from a correspondent at 

 Paschal, Ga., to the effect that the bluebirds had been 

 exterminated in Georgia by the cold weather of last 

 winter. 



That the extreme cold of last winter did destroy many 

 birds is undoubtedly true, and no one can regret it more 

 than I, but the effect was not quite so bad as your corre- 

 spondent infers. I have seen a considerable number of 

 bluebirds since last February and am confident that by 

 next spring they will have become at least not rare. 



In fact, I think the complete disappearance of the 

 species from Georgia localities must have been due not to 

 extermination by the cold, but to migration in search of 

 either food or more congenial climate, for I have several 

 times known the same birds to survive much colder 

 weather. 



Once I took bluebirds during a week when the ther- 

 mometer reached 5°, and it was below 10° when the 

 specimens were shot, and I have frequently observed the 

 species in this locality in February and March when the 

 thermometer has gone below 10° at night during their 

 presence. John Bonsall Porter. 



The Bluebirds. 



Springfield, 111., Oct. 16.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 In the last (Oct. lji) issue of Forest and Stream I read a 

 communication on "Extinction of the Bluebird," by 

 W. R. Gorman, of Paschal, Ga., in which the writer in- 

 quires for facts regarding the presence of bluebirds in any 

 of the Northern States. I observed my first bluebird here 

 March 10, and noticed a few specimens a week later, and 

 again during June. August and the greater part of 

 September were spent at Dansville, N. Y., and during the 

 first week of the latter month I saw two or three speci- 

 mens. Since coming back here I have been on the alert 

 for the presence of our little feathered friend, and to-day, 

 while taking a walk in the suburbs, was happily rewarded 

 by seeing a small flock fly by high overhead uttering 

 their fall notes. Theo. M. Schlick. 



P. S. — The beginning of another series in Forest and 

 Stream of the doings of the Danvis folks, by Rowland E. 

 Robinson, is an event to be thankful for. I have read 

 the opening chapter, and am exceedingly gratified and 

 delighted. ' , T. M. S. 



Scarcity of Small Birds. 



Grand View, Tenn., Oct. 10. — I notice some reports of 

 the scarcity of small birds in many localities. It is the 

 same here. The absence of bird life during the past 

 summer has been unprecedented. The robins, which 

 were always plenty here in February while migrating 

 North, failed to show up this year. The bluebirds, which 

 remain with us summer and winter, have wholly disap- 

 peared; so have the yellow-hammer or high-hole, the 

 meadowlark, catbird, chewink, and several other kinds 

 of small birds; even the bluejav has become scarce. The 

 estimate here is that fully 80 per cent, of the usual 

 amount of quail are missing, and it is said that all the 

 late broods of wild turkeys were starved or frozen during 

 the unusually cold weather last winter. Antler. 



The Moulting of Birds. 



Philadelphia, Oct. 17. — Editor Forest and Stream: I 

 am preparing a paper on the moulting of our Eastern 

 birds, more especially the land birds, and I would be glad 

 of any correspondence relative to the subject or any de- 

 scriptions of curious plumages. If you could put a note 

 to this effect in your valuable paper you would confer a 

 great favor. I propose to treat each species separately 

 where I can obtain sufficient data to do so, and I find 

 there are many points of interest about which we are 

 still in the 1 dark. Wither, Stone, 



Conservator Ornith. Section. Acad. Nat, Sciences, Pfciia, 



