86 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



fFEB. 23, 1888. 



United States from the Carolina* northward to the sub- 

 polar regions, this animal has been driven by the advanc- 

 ing civilization of the white men to a restricted habitat 

 in certain mountainous districts north of the Territories, 

 in Maine, portions of the Dominion of Canada and else- 

 where. 



The forms of the male and female moose are so well 

 known in these days to the general reader, that 1 will 

 not attempt to describe them here; an old buck usually 

 stands higher at the withers than a full grown horse, and 

 may weigh as much as l,2001bs. In Montana they say 

 the animal attains a greater size than it does in Maine 

 and the Northeast, but this statement still demands au- 

 thoritative confirmation. The moose will eat almost any 

 kind of vegetation he may come across in his haunts, 

 from dry moss to all kinds of leaves of trees, weeds, and 

 many other plants. 



Able pens of both sportsmen and naturalists of this 

 country and the continent of Europe have preserved to us 

 many a tempting picture of the charms of a good moose 

 hunt; and indeed there are few or no sports afield that 

 can compare with it, as it demands all the talent and en- 

 durance which the hunter may command for its success- 

 ful pursuit. During the breeding season, which occurs 

 some time in October, the moose pair off, somewhat after 

 the manner of the roe deer of Europe, although in the 

 moose the arrangement is entered into only for the sea- 

 son, while in the roe deer it is a life-long contract. Usu- 

 ally the female bears but one fawn, but may deliver 

 triplets; she carries about nine months, and is very soli- 

 citous of her young after their birth. How different are 

 these sexual relations with the unbridled passions of the 

 insatiable elk, that ponderous old cervine Turk of the 

 tribe, described above. 



Often in the summer these animals come to the solitary 

 lakes in the forests and stand sometimes neck-deep in 

 the water, and thus escape the insect pests, as gnats and 

 mosquitoes, which worry them to an exasperating degree 

 at this season. Only the males possess the great pal- 

 mated antlers, and have "the bell," that peculiar glandu- 

 lar and hair-covered appendage, hanging beneath the 

 lower jaw back of the chin. Caton says that the females 

 may also possess one of these curious structures, and he 

 believes them to be the more vigorous individuals of that 

 sex. The moose lives to a great age. and does not attain 

 its growth until fourteen or fifteen years of age. Its 

 peculiar gait when pursued, aoid its habit of occasionally 

 falling are well known to us all. As to this latter trait 

 another writer tells me that "It is probablv owing to this 

 occm-rence that the elk [moose] was believed" by the 

 ancient and the vulgar to have frequent attacks of epi- 

 lepsy, and to be obliged to smell its hoof before it could 

 recover; hence the Teutonic name of Elend— miserable— 

 and the reputation, especially of the forehoofs, as a spe- 

 cific against the disease."' In Sweden the moose, or the 

 elk as it is called throughout its European range, has 

 been domesticated with some measure of success, and 

 made to draw the sledge, .much in the same way as the 

 reindeer does. Alces is^wtfchout the metatarsal gland, 

 and the tarsal gland's,' aftlioagh present, are very small. 

 There is a small area between the nostrils devoid of hair, 

 and the muzzle is broad and flabby. The animal is 

 higher at the withers than at the hips, but this is due to 

 long scapula?, and is well seen in' its most exaggerated 

 instance in the giraffe. 



Taking all authorities into consideration it seems to be 

 pretty well decided by the majority, that we have in our 

 fauna two caribous, viz., the barren-ground caribou (R. 

 t. grcenlandicus) and the woodland caribou {R. t. cari- 

 bou); these species are shown in Figures 0, 7 and 10, of 

 the illustrations to this paper. 



Rangifer tarandus is the true reindeer common to the 

 boreal regions of both hemispheres. The accounts of 

 the two species of caribou seem to be very insufficient, 

 and in many cases not a little mixed up. My friend Mr. 

 L. M. Turner, of the U. S. National Museum", has spent a 

 couple of years upon the range of these animals, and I 

 look for his report of their natural history with great inter- 

 est. I have for dissection two foetal woodland caribou 

 sent me by this distinguished observer and naturalist, and 

 I only await certain necessary facilities to complete my 

 observations upon them. 



The barren-ground caribou has a range, so far as I 

 can learn, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Makenzie 

 River on the west, while northward it passes to the 

 Arctic regions and southward sometimes to the borders 

 of the Great Lakes. On the other hand, the woodland 

 caribou seems at present to be restricted to New Bruns- 

 wick, Nova Scotia, northern Maine (?), and as far north 

 as the southern regions of the Hudson Bay districts. So 

 the ranges of these two species overlap at certain times, 

 the barren-ground caribou being migratory, yet the 

 species seem to have kept absolutely distinct. Both of 

 these species shed their an tiers as do other deer, but they 

 differ in that the females also possess small antlers, while 

 the greatest amount of variation in form of these cornute 

 appendages is observable in both species, though never 

 to an extent sufficient to deceive the observing naturalist. 

 The barren-ground caribou is not mote than half the 

 size of the woodland variety, yet the antlers of the 

 former are much the larger of the two species. It is 

 known that the vision in both caribous is very poor, 

 while the animals appear, too, to be stupid in many par- 

 ticulars, and easily captured and killed by their hunters. 

 In traveling over the snow the woodland caribou spreads 

 out its functional toes, and even the lateral rudimentary 

 digits come into play, the "spread" form as a whole a 

 very efficient cervine snowshoe. Did the ancestors of 

 these animals in early geologic ages possess five toes on 

 each foot? Science stands surely in need of exhaustive 

 accounts upon the entire natural history and morphology 

 of both of these interesting species of American reindeer, 

 accounts which it is earnestly to be hoped will soon be 

 forthcoming. 



Indeed, these remarks apply equally well to all of our 

 species of Cervidce, and science will be very grateful for 

 any* accurate observations upon the habits in a state of 

 nature of any of them. Careful comparisons of the Vir- 

 ginia deer from widely separate areas of its wide range, 

 are much to be desired; the habits of the mule deer and 

 black-tail have been by no means exhausted, while above 

 all a careful revision of much of the anatomy of any of 

 these types will by no means come amiss. My object 

 and my pains in compiling the present contribution will 

 be fully met and repaid should it prove to he the means 

 of giving to science another single fact of any character 

 heretofore unknown, from any competent observer. Our 



deer have, many interesting congeners in various quarters 

 of the world, as the Musk Deer; the Hydropotes inermis, 

 a deer without antlers, and long upper' canine teeth; the 

 more remotely connected Chevrotains, forms standing 

 between the true deers and the pigs; and finally, a host of 

 typical, deer with forms and histories most interesting. 

 Fossil deer go to show that in the earliest types these 

 aaiimals had no antlers, but as we pass through the forms 

 found in the Middle Miocene, the Upper Miocene, the 

 Upper Pliocene, they pass successively from the Lower 

 Miocene, where the species were all without antlers, to 

 those which had simple ones, to those with two branches, 

 and then to those which had three branches, and finally, 

 in the Upper Pliocene, where they occur with perfect 

 growths of this kind as in modern types. The fossil 

 Irish Elk (Cervus megaceros), an enormous cervine form 

 from the lake deposits of Ireland, is one of the most in- 

 teresting extinct species which has rewarded the explora- 

 tions of the paleontologists. 



Birds and Bonnets in Michigan.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: In the report of the Michigan Association, in 

 No. 2 of the current volume, Mr. T. E. Shepherd is repre- 

 sented as saying that "the association should turn its 

 attention to the protection of song birds, which are nearly 

 exterminated, owing to the demands of fashion." I can 

 account for the appearance of this sweeping assertion 

 only on the supposition that Mr. Shepherd was incorrectly 

 reported. There is no truth in the statment. I have 

 been a constant resident of Michigan for forty-five years, 

 have traveled extensively in the State, and am well 

 acquainted with the situation in many widely separated 

 localities, and I know from personal observation that in 

 and around some of the interior villages there has been a 

 large increase of song birds, both in the number of species 

 and the number of individuals. I have never known a 

 bird killed in obedience to the demands of fashion, nor 

 have I ever known of a person buying, or offering to buy, 

 bird skins for ornamentation of niilliners' work. Boys, 

 and sometimes older persons, shoot song birds from pure 

 wantonness, or for the sake of shooting something, and 

 need to be restrained by the application of law. — M. L. 

 Leach (Traverse City, Mich.). 



Dover, Del., Feb. 15— The thermometer registered 60° 

 here yesterday. Bluehirds and robins left then- retreats 

 and the town resounded with their carols. — Del. A. 

 Ware. 



\mnt Jf#g md 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 



Antelope and Deer of America. By J. D. Caton. 

 Price 82.50. Wing and Glass Ball Shooting with the 

 Rifle. By W. C. Bliss. Price 50 cents. Rifle. Rod and 

 Gun in California. By T. S. Van Dyke. 'Price $1.50. 

 Shore Birds, Price 15 cents. Woodcraft. By "Ness- 

 m«fc." Price $1. Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. Price 

 50 cents. The Still-Hvkter. By T. S. Van Dyke. Price 82. 



PILGRIMAGE OF THE SAGINAW CROWD. 



i. 



IT IS usually expected that some member of a party 

 which takes two or three weeks' outing shall be the 

 scribe and chronicler, and report to the Forest and 

 Stream the doings and incidents of the trip. Now, this 

 time, I propose to make the other boys turn in and do 

 their share; in other words, kind of act as an editor of 

 the case, which will give readers an opportunity to com- 

 pare the styles of the different authors, and they will be 

 at liberty in the future to call upon which ever one they 

 consider slings the raciest pen and puts the most hair- 

 breadth escapes and blood-curdling scenes with a realistic 

 effect into his part of the narrative. 



It is the old Dakota goose party that I am about to stir 

 up. The readers of the Forest and Stream will remem- 

 ber that it has been the custom of a certain eight boon 

 companions to each year take the good car City of Sagi- 

 naw, which belongs to the Saginaw Hunting Club, and 

 fnake a pilgrimage to some far off land, for the sole and 

 only purpose of having a thorougldy good time. This 

 good time, of course, consisted of as much shooting as we 

 could get, breathing in the pure air of the western 

 prairies to the end that our doctor's bills might be less, 

 and last but not the least of the enjoyment was the plan- 

 ning for months beforehand what we should take and 

 where we should go, what we would do after we got 

 there, and when we would start, and the getting together 

 every few nights in the last weeks just before going to 

 make our plans, and talk over the good times we hadthe 

 year before and were going to have this year. And it 

 did not end here, for after our return there was the same 

 old enthusiasm manifested when any two of the party 

 got together, and one would recall an extra long shot that 

 so-and-so made, or what a delightful time we had the 

 day we went down to the McGuire farm, or the time the 

 undersigned left his gun at the car and did not discover 

 it until the decoys were all placed and the geese coming 

 up through the' fog of the early morning, and how the 

 team was despatched to the station -near by to telegraph 

 back to the car to one of the lazy ones who failed to get 

 up in the morning to go with us, to lure some one to bring 

 the gun with all speed, as it promised to be a great day 

 and he did not want to get left, and how at last the gun 

 did arrive; how the other boys had had their big shoot, 

 and finally the day was ended up with a score of 105 

 geese, all we could carry in the wagon, and we drove 

 back to the good old car in the dusk of evening, wet, 

 cold and shivering, but happy, and how good the hot 

 lemonade tasted that the City Official had brewed for our 

 coming, knowing by the storm that had raged all the 

 afternoon that we would need something of the kind to 

 cheer up our spirits. Oh, well, I say this part of the trip 

 is not to be despised. Then the comparing of notes and I 

 don't know, after all, but that anticipation is half of the 

 enjoyment of a sportsman's life. 



But this tune, instead of to Dakota, the trip was to the 

 Indian Territory. We wanted to go to Dakota and were 

 homesick for the spot that for four successive years had 

 been our paradise, but thfe new game laws prohibited 

 bringing liome to our friends any of the game we might 

 kill, and as there were very few inhabitants in the local- 



ity where we did most of our shooting, it was impossibi^J" 

 to give our birds away or make proper use of them, any| 

 of course we did not want to kill anything we could najjf 

 use. Therefore when Ed proposed that we go to the TeM| 

 tritory and visit their cattle ranch we acquiesced. Thefl 

 Sagi ninv Cattle Company have200,000 acres of land fenced! 

 in in the Sac and Fox Reservation, and we were veryl 

 glad to go and see how the cattle looked, and besides, M I 

 had reports of plenty of birds. In looking over the oldw 

 crowd two or three faces were missing. There was thifl 

 General, whom we had not heard from since we werfijl 

 salmon fishing in the summer, and Bob wrote us thatl 

 rheumatism prevented his going. "Whisky Bill," of I 

 Dakota fame, was somewhere in Kentucky buying fast I 

 horses, so they had narrowed down to Ed, the City/I 

 Official, "Genial George" and Brooks or "Section 37," as 

 he is familiarly called, and the Doctor, together with thai 

 writer of this chronicle, whom the boys nicknamed! 

 "Buzzard Bill," and undoubtedly the cause of the nam£l 

 will come out later on. So it came to pass that the F. & , 

 P. M. train, leaving Saginaw at 8:80 the evening of| 

 Oct. 11 bore us toward Chicago. All were present and! 

 accounted for with the exception of the Doctor, whol 

 was to meet us in Chicago in the morning. Our connection 1 

 with the Wabash was very close, and the Grand Trunk! 

 is noted for being late. We had arranged, howeveilJ 

 with the traveling passenger agent to hold his train fori 

 us if necessary, hut somehow or other this did not pa™ 

 out. It is always thus. You arrange for your transport 

 tation with the traveling passenger agent, and he dy 

 course guarantees everything, and is to be on hand tog* 

 see about your transfer, provided you are going in a pri vateHl 

 car, or is going to hold the train for you if you are not and J 

 it should be necessary to do this in order to make con-*! 

 nections, but in all my trips T have never yet had a thing I 

 come out just as they agreed. This w^as no exception,.! 

 and when we reached the outskirts of Chicago and began 

 crossing the numerous tracks going into the city, waitin3B 

 for trains here and there, we saw that we were hope- 

 lessly late and something must be done. Telegraphing I 

 in we found that the Wabash train had not waited tor 

 us, but that we could possibly catch it by getting off at 

 some junction outside of the" city. This we did and our 

 heavy baggage was unloaded, but we were in a peck of 

 trouble to know what we were to do about our transporta- 

 tion, as we merely had orders for tourists' tickets, which • 

 would be issued us at Chicago. We were going to eheejw 

 it through some way as we were not to blame and did not 

 want to be delayed an entire twenty-four hours. Sooqi 

 the train came rumbling into the station. Somehow the 

 conductor knew about us and was expecting us. The 

 Doctor's cheery face was seen from one 1 of the windows, 

 the dogs were hastily put on board and away we wont. 



Nothing of importance occurred that day. The dog 

 were given their exercise at Decatur while* the bagg 

 was being transferred from one car to another, and 

 were there provided with the proper tickets. We ha 

 taken precaution to telegraph ahead for our sleepir, 

 berths at St. Louis, and it" proved to be a very wise on 

 as it was the day of the Harvest excursion, besides g 

 Louis always lias some kind of convention and the tov 

 was full of strangers, and when we reached the Uni< 

 Depot, such a hurrying, scurrying and crowding 

 never seen. Bells were clanging, women rushing to 

 fro, dragging helpless children by arms that seemed rea( 

 to pull out of the sockets; porters bustled around, stowin 

 away the passengers in the different sleeping cars, ai 

 all making ready for the far West, Or those who hat 

 been to the land of the setting sun were once more lea 

 ing for the cultured East. Around the window of t 

 sleeping car agent was a solid jam of people, twenty dee 

 There is no rule nor system about the different ones ta 

 ing. turns, merely a crash, so that the strongest ms 

 rushed in and stood a better show than the poor helplef 

 females with two or three children, who really needed 

 comfortable lower berth, but nine times out of ten had t 

 take the leavings. Our three sections were waiting f< 

 us, and George and Ed had to transfer the dogs and pu 

 them to bed for the night, and we were all aboard for th 

 Indian Territory and the West. Here comes in a littl 

 something about the peculiarities of baggagemen i 

 making their charges for dogs' transportation. Wit; 

 most railroads there is no charge made for dogs, but it 

 expected that a gratuity be given the baggageman 

 Some demand it as a right, while others with more gei 

 tlemanly instincts are perfectly wdling to "leave it to yoi 

 sir," and almost always get a better fee by so doing. Th 

 Grand Trunk baggageman roasted us unmercifully, ant 

 when we struck the 'Frisco line they tried to make us 1 

 lieve that dogs were charged half a cent per mile, an 

 began figuring up quite an expense bill on our three. "W 

 profited by former experience, however, and got througl 

 without much of a robbing. Our sleeper was a new oi 

 of the latest pattern, and the night was most comfortabl 

 passed. 



On awakening the next morning we made the acquaint 

 tance of a fellow traveler, who was a thorough oil 

 Southern gentleman in the first place, but had acquire< 

 the active instincts of the Western land speculator am 

 boomer as well. Slightly helpless from some acciden 

 or deformity, he was going accompanied by his servan 

 to the new town of Monet, as he expressed it, to "pell ou 

 the town." In other words, with the usual enthusiasn 

 created by a brass band and lots of "hoorah," an auctio 

 was to be held there that clay to dispose of village lot 

 In due course of time the train pulled into the futui 

 metropolis. The brass bands were there and so were th 

 village lots, and about as far as the eye could reach ther 

 seemed to be lots more lots of the same kind as those tha 

 were marked with stakes at each corner, with the exce; 

 tion of price. Those without the mystic talisman of tl 

 boundary stakes could undoubtedly be secured at thera 

 of about .$5 or $6 per acre. But the staked ones, rig! 

 where the city building was to be, and here where th 

 court house was sure to go up, and there where a dr 

 goods store larger than Field's was to be erected, in those 

 places, of course, land was bound to boom and must ht 

 worth several hundred dollars per foot. The depot was, 

 new and the surroundings neat and clean, and aftei 

 getting a good substantial breakfast we exercised th< 

 dogs a little by letting them run across some of the cit; 

 property (and we had a faint suspicion that they starte 

 up a rabbit on one of the lots laid out for a public square 

 As we gave a shrill whistle, and they obediently came in 

 to be tied up, a long, lank individual of the thoroughly" 

 Missourian type, witnessing their obedience, rammed hi 

 hands down into his pockets a little further, if such " 



