268 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Apmi, 26, 1888. 



few back strokes which sent the craft well a. way from the 

 shore, addressed his brothers in a tone which was not in- 

 tended to reach them, "There, gol darn ye!" 



But then- suspicions had been msome way aroused, and 

 they came hammering down to the shore in hot haste 

 while Sam was handing over a Spanish half dollar to the 

 exultant Jethro, 



"Come back here, you darned heap, you," shouted the 

 irate mainstay of his'f amily, as he stooped and picked up 

 a stone so big* that his big hand could hardly grasp it; 

 "come back here or I'll—" Jethro jeered at him a deri- 

 sive guffaw, and the missile was thrown at the retreating 

 boat with a cast strong enough to reach it, but it fell to 

 one side and only splashed the occupants. A few more 

 strokes took them beyond the reach of anything more 

 harmful than angry words, which John and Job con- 

 tinued to hurl at them as, with Sam at the steering pad- 

 dle, they swept around the west point of the island and 

 headed toward the mouth of Little Otter, defined by the 

 light green of its willowy gateway. 



Jethro's brothers followed the shore, keeping the boat 

 in eight and continually pouring after it a volley of 

 threats, opprobrious names and words that came as near 

 curses as cnurch members might venture to use. 



"You'd better save your breath and keep your temper," 

 Sam advised, "an' go tu diggin' your worms. An' when 

 you git tu diggin' don't ye speak. 'F you du they'll move, 

 an' you won't git 'em." 



This hint that their secret was known was enough to 

 silence them without the threat thrown after it by Jethro, 

 whose patience was becoming exhausted. 'F you don't 

 shet up and stop yer sass," he shouted, resting on his oars, 

 "I'll go right stret an' tell Annerniees the hullo' — you 

 know what, darn ye. So, there naow-ah!" 



Then the island became so quiet that a party of crows 

 faring across the bay ventured to alight there, while 

 Jethro, whose strength was as ox-like as his motions, 

 sent the scow surging onward with strong, slow strokes. 



"When with a long swash, like a restful sigh, she came 

 to the landing, Solon and Joseph were there to welcome 

 then- friends, undemonstratively, but heartily, and to 

 comfort them with that balm which we are ever ready to 

 give but never to receive — "I told you so." 



The day was now too far spent for Pelatiah to get 

 back to his evening chores, so he was easily persuaded to 

 wait for the supper for which some horn's of Crusoe life 

 had given him a sharp appetite. Jethro was hospitably 

 invited to remain and partake of it and was nothing loth 

 improving the opportunity as one to whom such gener- 

 ous fare seldom came. "Darn 'em," he said, when un- 

 comfortably full fed, he arose from the stone table, 

 "they'd be madder yit 'f they knowed haow much I'd 

 hed t' eat. But they dassent kill me an' they can't kick 

 me, so there-ah." With this fraternal comment and 

 without a word of thanks or good-bye, he departed. 



"Per lite 's a pig," said Sam as the sound of their guest's 

 departure changed from clumsy footfalls to as clumsy 

 oar beats. "Wal, I don't want tu say nothin' agin my 

 breed, but it's all in the fam'ly, here, an' I will say that 

 of all mean critters a mean Yankee is the dumdest." 



While Sam was making ready to transport Pelatiah on 

 his homeward way, Antoine was heard lustily hailing 

 the camp from the eastern shore, and Pelatiah proposed 

 to cross the steam to that point with Sam and make his 

 way thence through the woods, thus saving his friend 

 the long voyage up the creek and Slang. Sam thought 

 this inhospitable and a non-fulfillment of his promise, 

 but Pelatiah insisted that he had had quite enough of boat- 

 ing for one day, and would much rather feel the solid 

 earth under his feet. So he was landed where Antoine 

 was waiting with a load of Canadian news that he at 

 once began to unburden himself of. 



Breaking loose from the thread of a story just begun, 

 Pelatiah went his way into the gathering t wilight of the 

 woods. Rowland E. Robinson. 



fKRRISBURGH, Vti 



IS MISTASSINI MYSTERIOUS? 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have looked carefully over the historical references 

 Avhich editor Chambers of Quebec has taken the pains 

 to annotate for my enlightenment regarding Lake Mis- 

 tassini, and I have only to say in consideration thereof 

 that it is remarkable how much more the early explorers 

 apparently knew of this continent than geographers do 

 nowl The French "Cartes" of the 16th century, of 

 which I have several, with access to many more in sun- 

 dry historical society collections, are truly marvellous 

 for general accuracy and also for their physical details. 

 The old French trappers established their lines on these 

 primitive tracings, and the Hudson's Bay Company which 

 supplanted them, has never deviated from the same old- 

 time fluvial thoroughfares and overland traverses. Once 

 a year the entire vast area embraced within the H. B. 

 Company's jurisdiction is covered by its agents and col- 

 lectors, through whom furs are brought out and supplies 

 delivered to the numerous factories and trading posts; 

 and once a year also, in the Canadian Blue Book, the 

 Superintendent General of Indian Affairs submits to the 

 Dominion Government a report which embraces every 

 department, district, sub-agency and farm, where In- 

 dians are employed or supplied with rations, from the 

 Mackenzie River to Cape Breton. All trails between 

 commercial points and places of rendezvous are as well 

 defined to constant travel as a turnpike and as easy of 

 recognition as a railroad; and yet railroads and turn- 

 pikes in all parts of the glohe^ften run through wilder- 

 nesses as vast and uninhabited as the Labrador. If the 

 Crown Lands Department of^uebeo has no general map 

 of the country, and no draft of the Hudson's Bay Itine- 

 rary, in its archives, it speaks unfavorably for its enter- 

 prise, as Mr. Murray intimates in the article ou the du- 

 bious Mistassini, printed in Forest and Stream, last 

 November, which first prompted my comments. 



It may be admitted that the country intermediate be- 

 tween Quebec and Mistassini Lake, or for that matter the 

 whole region from the North Atlantic coast to Hudson's 

 Bay, is not scientifically or statistically known, but it 

 does not follows that it is a terra incognita, because the 

 average tourist and school boy don't know of it. When 

 a yo mg man first strays from home the world seems 

 large to him, and new; and I have no doubt that there 

 are lots of people to whom some portions of the Adiron- 

 dacks, for instance, are essentially as wild and problem- 

 atical as the Mistassini country. With regard to the loose 

 talk and aimless speculation about the "Lost Lake" and 



its extent, its phautoin-iike characteristics, and what not, 

 I may say that I saw the same sort of rubbish written 

 about Lake Nepigon 18 years ago, about the time of the 

 first Canadian Pacific Railway surveys and the search for 

 silver back of Silver Islet on the mainland, when neo- 

 phytes in travel and woodcraft endeavored to make their 

 pioneer experiences as heroic as those of the Argonauts. 

 I am sure that some of your readers will recall to mind 

 the statements printed then— how no one knew the extent 

 of the lake or even its shape and environment, and that 

 it was supposed by many to be larger than Lake Supe- 

 rior, the same as is now said of the mysterious Mis- 

 tassini. 



Lake Superior is alway s the accepted standard of size 

 when these indefinite lacustrine bodies come into popu- 

 lar notice, not withstanding the comparative littleness of 

 the earth. And all this time my good friend Henri Le 

 Ronde, Hudson's Bay factor, was living in luxury at 

 Nepigon House, and the trail that led up from Red Rock 

 to his post was beaten by shoe packs as hard as a floor. 

 I have been over lots of these Hudson's Bay trails, from the 

 Saskatchewan in the Northwest Territory to Rigolet and 

 Nor' w est River in Labrador, and they are all alike; and 

 there is always some poor exile of a gentleman at each 

 and every post who is familiar with conventional ways 

 and known how to entertain like a prince, isolated there 

 for years, but by no means "savage," unless gently so. 

 But " Mr. Chambers knows all this, perhaps as well as I 

 do. He is old enough to be informed at all events, even 

 if he has not been far away from home. Why, the Cana- 

 dian Pacific Railway, between Prince Arthur's Landing 

 and Winnipeg, runs for 500 miles through a more "sav- 

 age wilderness" than the desolate Mistassini country. 

 The old Dawson route and the Pigeon River route along 

 the southern Minnesota boundary are equally as savage 

 and Would be no better known, but for the immigration 

 of 1871-6 into Manitoba. During the Riel rebellion of 

 1 885 volunteers for the western campaign were surprised 

 to find the people of the Northwest Territory living in 

 substantial houses, with newspapers printed in principal 

 villages, and even the Indians, thousands of them, 

 engaged in profitable farm work. It may be equally 

 surprising to searchers after the unknown to learn that 

 steamboats run up the Yukon River in the season of navi- 

 gation as often as once a fortnight. But to people who 

 travel wonders become commonplace, and history fails 

 to keep up with the pace of modern progress. Testimony 

 of this sort is as wide as the continent in support of my 

 position that "wilderness" is only a relative term. 



Mr. Murray can go nearly nine-tenths of the distance 

 from Lake St. John to Lake Mistassini by canoe, follow- 

 ing the old route of the Hudson's Bay vbyageurs up the 

 Mistassini River, which rises in the Heights of Land and 

 empties with very considerable volume into Lake St. 

 John. Mistassini Lake is a body of water about double 

 the size of Lake St. John, with four deeply indented 

 bays, two of which open to the eastward and two to the 

 southward. The portage strikes the most southern and 

 western of these bays. 



If Mr. Murray wishes to visit the Mistassini country 

 from personal curiosity, or in the interest of natural sci- 

 ence, I shall be glad to lend him my mosquito bar andhave 

 the meshes fine. I have no doubt his investigations will 

 be of value, but he cannot pose as the original discoverer 

 of what has been known for centuries, All that he can 

 write, or whatever discussion may be provoked in respect 

 to his mission, will bring out information about a region 

 which is practically a sealed book to the public, and it 

 will greatly interest the readers of your journal. More 

 especially will it advertise the lagging Lake St. John 

 Railway enterprise, which is pushing in that direction. 

 It will fill the Canadian country with tourists, as Mur- 

 ray's book filled the Adirondack's. It will line the mar- 

 gins of its sequestered lakes and streams with anglers and 

 campers. It will enliven the desolation, and fill the 

 country with more silver coin than it has seen since the 

 discovery of the Labrador by Cabot, or any of his prede- 

 cessors. I have no doubt that Mr. Murray and his Can- 

 adian coadjutors will smile a very broad smile when they 

 discover the headway already obtained, and the prom- 

 inence likely to be given, by a discussion so successfully 

 initiated as this seems to have been through the medium 

 of a journal so wide awake and popular as the Forest 

 and Stream. 



No wonder that "there is merriment in the ancient 

 capital," Charles Hallock. 



NATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 



Office of the National Association for the ) 

 Protection of Gamp., Birds anh Fish, ;- 

 St. Louis, Mo., April 31, 1888. ( 



THE fourth annual session of the National Association for the 

 Protection of Game, Birds ami Fish will be held at the Mer- 

 cantile Club, in the city of St. Louis, on Tuesday evening, June 

 19. 1888. 



A full attendance of all the members of the Association is 

 earnestly requested, and all sportsmen are cordially invited to at- 

 tend the meerintc and give to the Association the benefit of their 

 observation and experience. 



The Association is desirous that some effective method may be 

 devised to secure the passage, by the Legislatures of the various 

 States, of uniform laws for the protection of game and fish, and 

 the appropriation of such sums as will enable us to employ suffi- 

 cient police force to insure the observance of these laws. 



To all observing sportsmen it has become painfully apparent 

 that the day of sport on field or stream will soon be but a remin- 

 iscence, unless aggressive protection is speedily adopted. 



To the end, therefore, that we may have the wise action that 

 springs from an abundance of counsel, we earnestly ask all 

 sporting journals to publish this call and to urge a full attend- 

 ance. 



Full information touching the objects and purposes of the Asso- 

 ciation -will be furnished on application to Capt. H. C. West, Sec- 

 retary. Post Office Box 699, St. Louis. 



The secretary will also receive and receipt for dues of members 

 and for all contributions in aid of the Association. 



We are authorized by J._ G. Schaaf, Secretary of the Missouri 

 State Sportsman's Association, whose address is this city, to state 

 that their annual convention will be held at the same time and 

 place, and that visitors to both conventions will he entertained by 

 one of our local clubs with a five-days' shooting tournament, two 

 and one-half days of which will he open to the world. 



W. 0. Jones, President, 



A Diking Car Line to the Pacific Coast.— The completion of the all rail 

 line between Portland, Ore., and San Francisco K ives the Pacific coast trav- 

 eler an opportunity to patronize the famous Dining Car and Yellows tone 

 Park Line, t he Northern Pacific Railroad. The sportsman traveling in the 

 West, whether a lover of the rod or gun, naturally seeks this road, pene- 

 trating as it does the lake park region of Minnesota, and running: through 

 the valleys of such trout streams as the Yellowstone, Gallatin, Hell Gate, 

 Clark's Fork, Spokane, Yakima and Green Rivers, for a distance of fully 

 1,500 miles, as well as lying Immediately contiguous to the finest hunting 

 grounds In the United States, viz., The Big Horn, Snowy, Belt, Bitter Roof, 

 Coeur D'Alene and Cascade Mountains. Information in regard to thJbj 

 region can be obtained by addressing Chaeles S. Fee. General Passenger 

 and Ticket Agent. N. P. R. R„ Sc. Paid. Minn.-^rff. 



REMOVAL. 



The offices of FOREST and Stream are now at No. 318 Broadway. 



Every person who is sufficiently interested in the National 

 Park to do his share toward, securing protection for it, is in- 

 vited to send for one of the Forest and Stream's petition 

 bUivks. They are sent free. 



THE "CRANES BACK." 



ABOUT seven years ago Dr. J. C. Merrill published 

 in these columns a most interesting note on the 

 "Cranesback."' This, according to the Crows, from whom 

 Dr. Merrill derived his information, is a small water bird, 

 probably a grebe, which is said to perform its migrations 

 on the back of the sandhill crane. 



Shortly after the publication of this note, we alluded 

 to Dr. Eae's observations in the far North, which cred- 

 ited the Crees with a similar story of a small finch-like 

 bird which migrates on the backs of the wild geese. 

 Bearing on the same point is a note by our lamented 

 friend, J. C. Hughes, who found a young sandhill crane 

 unable to fly, under circumstances which pointed strongly 

 to its transportation on its mother's back. 



In a recent number of the London Field, the well 

 known naturalist, Dr. J. E. Harting, calls renewed atten- 

 tion to this widespread belief among people, civilized as ! 

 well as savage, and brings together a great deal of inter- 

 esting matter bearing on the point in question. He 

 says: 



"At a recent meeting of the Linnean Society, Dr. John 

 Rae, the well known Arctic traveler, read a paper relat- 

 ing to the birds and mammals of the Hudson's Bay Ter- 

 ritories, and in the course of his remarks referred to the ! 

 assertion of the Cree Indians, both at Moose and York 

 Factory, that a small passerine bird, which was pointed 

 out to him, but the name of which he has forgotten, 

 habitually avails itself of the Canada goose when migrat- 

 ing to get a lift in the same direction, they having fre- 

 quently seen it fly off from a goose when shot, or shot at, 

 on the wing. All the coast Indians of Hudsons Bay, says | 

 Dr. Rae, devote a month or more every spring to shooting 

 wildfowl (chiefly geese), the birds killed forming their \ 

 entire food for the time. As soon as the geese begin to 

 arrive, the Indian constructs a concealment of willows | 

 and grass, usually near a pool of open water, at the edge , 

 of which he sets up decoys. When geese are seen ap- 

 proaching, usually flying at a great height, the Indian j 

 imitates then call, and the geese, on seeing the decoys, 

 circle round, gradually coming lower down until within 

 shot, when they are fired at. It is from these high flying ; 

 geese that the small birds are seen to come. If the geese 

 are flying low it is a pretty sure indication that they have 

 already rested on the ground, somewhere near, after their 

 long flight, when of course their tiny passengers would I 

 have aligted. The Indians on the shores of Athabasca i 

 and Great Slave Lakes— both great resorts of wild geese 

 — and those living on the Mackenzie River, more than 

 1,000 miles to the northwest of Moose Factory, tell the 

 same story, and from the positive statements which were 

 made to him on the subject Dr. Rae sa w no reason to 

 doubt the assertion. So far as he could ascertain, the 

 Canada goose is the only species in North America which 

 thus acts the part of a locomotive, and conveys small 

 passengers from place to place; but in Emope and Africa 

 the common crane and the stork have on every respecta- 

 ble authority been credited with performing a similar 

 friendly office. 



"Dr. Lennep, in his 'Bible Customs in Bible Lands,' 

 refers to the many small birds which find their way from 

 Palestine into Arabia and Egypt on the backs of cranes, 

 over lofty mountains and sea, which without such aid it 

 would be difficult to cross. In the autumn flocks of 

 cranes are seen coming from the north with the first cold 

 blast from that quarter, flying low, and uttering peculiar 

 cries as they circle over the cultivated plains. Little 

 birds of different species may then be seen flying up to 

 them, while the twittering of those already comfortably 

 settled upon their backs may be distinctly heard. On 

 their return in spring they fly high, perhaps considering 

 that their little passengers can easily find theirway down 

 to the earth. 



"In some instances, however, the small birds have been 

 seen to come off the backs of the larger ones, just as the 

 latter were about to alight. An American visitor to the 

 Island of Crete in the autumn of 1878, as related by Pro- 

 fessor Claypole, of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, 

 Ohio (Nature, Feb. 24, 1881) satisfied himself that wag- 

 tails and other small birds cross over from Europe on 

 their southward migration on the backs of cranes; and 

 although on first hearing the statements made, he was 

 extremely incredulous, he afterward, on one occasion, 

 had ocular demonstration of the fact. A fisherman in 

 his presence discharging his flint-lock at a flock of passing 

 cranes, he saw three small birds rise up from among 

 them, and disappear. 



"A German author, Adolf Ebeling, writing in the 

 GartenJaube, asserts that he found it currently believed 

 at Cairo that wagtails and other small birds cross from 

 Europe to Nubia and Abyssinia on the backs of storks 

 and cranes, and details the result of conversations which 

 he had with several independent witnesses, all testifying 

 to the same thing. He then j)roceeds: 'At supper, in the 

 Hotel du Nill, I related the curious story to all present, 

 but, naturally enough, found only unbelieving ears. The 

 only one who did not laugh was the Privy-councillor von 

 Heuglin, the famous African traveler, and, excepting 

 Brehni, the most celebrated authority of our time on the 

 birds of Africa.' On asking his opinion, he remarked, 

 'Let others laugh , they know nothing about it. I do not 

 laugh, for the thing is well known to me. I should have 

 made mention of it in my work, if I had had any personal 

 proof to justify it. I consider the case probable, though 

 I cannot give any warrant for it.' 'My discovery, if I 

 may so call it (continues Heir Ebeling) I would have kept 

 to myself, even after Heuglin had thus expressed him- 

 self, had 1 not since discovered a new authority for it. In 

 the second edition of Dr. Petermann's great book of 

 travels I find the following: 'Prof. Roth, of Munich, 

 related to me, in Jerusalem, that the well-known Swedish 

 traveler, Hedenborg, made an interesting observation on 

 the island of Rhodes, where he was staying. In the 

 autumn, when the storks came in flocks over the sea to 



