Am. 18, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM 



6B 



men is now in a much better place, among the reptile 

 collection of the National Museum, Washington, D. 0. 

 If I remember rightly, this specimen contained about 

 eight fully formed eggs, all about fin. in length by ^in. in 

 width, bluntly pointed on each end, resembling the egg 

 of an alligator in shape, but with a smooth, soft, white 

 skin instead of a hard, glossy shell like the latter. These 

 eggs were sent along at the same time among a number 

 of other alcoholic specimens. For some reason or another 

 both the native Mexicans as well as the Indians are ex- 

 tremely afraid of these reptiles, which they call "Escor- 

 pione," while they do not seem to mind so much the 

 numerous other poisonous creatures found in that Terri- 

 tory. I had an unusually intelligent Apache attached to 

 my command in 1873, Antonio by name, who firmly 

 believed that the very breath of this animal was deadly 

 poison, and who could not be induced to go within ten 

 feet of one under any circumstances, although it was 

 well known that he was a brave and courageous man on 

 many another occasion. For some reason this belief 

 seems to be universal among the natives there. All the 

 specimens I saw were from 16 to 20in. long, and I have 

 found them fully as ofton miles from water as along river 

 bottoms. They are nob rare about Tucson. There is no 

 doubt about their being poisonous. A specimen now 

 alive in Washington bit a young alligator in one of its 

 legs a few months ago and the alligator soon thereafter 

 died from the effects of the bite. C. E. Bendire. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Another name of the whip-tailed scorpion in Florida is 

 "scruncher." 



During a residence of nearly three years in that State 

 I became quite well acquainted with this creature and 

 listened to the warnings and exclamations in regard to it 

 from the Crackers, of which "I'd a heap sooner be bit by 

 a rattler," is a fair sample. But I never heard of any 

 one who was injured by one, though I was always on 

 the lookout. I never took any special pains to test the 

 matter on myself. I have several times given live ones 

 to my hens and chickens, and they always disposed of 

 them as readily as they would of any large beetle, never 

 showing any sign of being poisoned. From my own ob- 

 servations 1 am of the opinion that they are not more 

 dangerous than the true scorpion. I shall investigate the 

 matter more perfectly and will report to Forest and 

 Stream. C. L. Hopkins. 



Washington, D. C. 



SOME BIRD NOTES. 



T HAVE been expecting, since the exquisite poem on 

 JL the cheewink appeared in No. 25, July 14, to hear 

 from others of our corresponding sporting naturalists. 

 Now I have little doubt in my own mind that the chorister 

 mentioned was a genuine catbird (Galeoscoptis caroli- 

 nensti) and not a cheewink or ground robin. The catbird 

 is a veritable and very accurate imitator of other song- 

 sters, so much so that almost any farmer boy of central 

 New York knows kirn as the "northern mockingbird." I 

 know that he used to go by that name in our locality, and 

 many an hour have I, hidden in the deep recesses of a 

 prickly ash copse, listened to his wonderful impersonation 

 of the diffeient songsters of our glen. As with a flip of 

 his tail he jumped from the ground or limb to limb, he 

 was first a cat calling for its young or mate, then came 

 the carol of a robin, as a robin only can or does carol just 

 before sunset or a storm; then a whistle of the clupmunk, 

 as he seeks his hole, with the note of oriole or chickadee- 

 dee-dee, and many other feathered inhabitants of this 

 neighborhood. In fact I have even heard them giving a 

 good "ivho who'' at times. Yes, it might easily have been, 

 and more probably was our mouse-colored mercurial 

 jackanapes — the catbird. 



Another article in your last number rather amused me, 

 the duel between the hummingbird and the English spar- 

 row. Of all the fish and snake stories this will compare 

 favorably. The little tender honey and small insect 

 sucker penetrating the tough breast of an English spar- 

 row, to say nothing of a kingbird. Well, what next? To 

 be sure our Assistant Ornithologist, by way of a let down, 

 says, "It is possible that the kingbird and sparrow killed 

 each other." I should say so. Or perhaps one of the 

 minute insects that it is said the hummer extracts 

 from the innermost depths of the flowers, perhaps one of 

 these stung the sparrow and the kingbird in their little 

 throats and thus punished their audacity. But I am glad 

 to see these woodland matters agitated in your columns. 

 Let us hear from more of our sportsmen naturalists. We 

 all have reminiscences of "wood notes wild," and having 

 eyes can see. Let us tell each other. These chatty, short 

 items are generally read first. Jacobstaff. 



Skeletons op the Great Auk.— A St. Johns, New- 

 foundland , dispatch to the Boston Herald reports : ' 1 News 

 has just been received here that the cruise of the United 

 States Fish Commission schooner Grampus on the New- 

 foundland coast has been highly satisfactory in its results. 

 One of the main objects of the expedition was to obtain 

 skeletons of the great auk, a sea bird larger than a goose, 

 which was once found in myriads on the low rocky 

 islands off the eastern coast, and even out as far as the 

 banks. For more than half a century no specimen has 

 been seen of this remarkable bird, and it is 'wanted' 

 ba .^ly for scientific purposes, as in all the museums of the 

 world only nine skeletons are found. Prof. Baird dis- 

 patched the Grampus to search Funk Island, where three 

 skeletons were found many years ago. Funk Island lies 

 thirty miles from the mainland, exposed to the swell of 

 the Atlantic. There is no harbor or cove, and it is only 

 possible to land on it from a boat in very calm weather by 

 leaping on one of the narrow ledges of rocks. It is about 

 half a mile in length, bare, rocky, and without water. 

 At certain places , are guano deposits formed in by-gone 

 ages, and the hope was that buried in these heaps were 

 skeletons of the great auk, still well preserved. A safe 

 landing was effected by the scientific party, which spent 

 two days on the island, Capt. Collins forwards the intel- 

 ligence that they came away entirely satisfied with the 

 collection made. They believe they secured specimens 

 of everything on the island — animal, mineral and vegeta- 

 ble. It is thus evident the Smithsonian Institution will 

 be enriched by rare prizeB. The researches of the Gram- 

 pus will continue northward as far as Labrador. In 

 addition to dredging and collecting natural history speci- 

 mens, Capt. Collins is ch rged with the duty of verifying 

 reports of the appearance of mackerel off the northeastern 

 shores." 



»#mu j§ng m\A %nt\* 



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



BEAR TRAPPING. 



A S suggested in the Forest and Stream the other day, 

 __. there is not tire slightest doubt that bears are on 

 the increase in the north woods of New England. This 

 is especially true of the northern part of the western 

 counties of the State of Maine. In the region of the 

 Androscoggin lakes this increase is certainly very notice- 

 able, or else the fact that the region is being more thor- 

 oughly visited by sportsmen and amateur hunters is 

 bringing accounts of bears to light with much greater 

 frequency. The newspapers teem with items concerning 

 bears killed, and did not the fact of how they were killed 

 stand out with prominence, the heart of the real sports- 

 man would be fired with enthusiasm. The farmers sheep 

 fold is entered and havoc is made. Then the assistance 

 of the local bear hunter is employed. He comes, not 

 with his trusty rifle — he may have'an old shotgun with 

 him — but with a steel trap, weighing sometimes over a 

 hundred pounds. Some of the sheep or lambs that bruin 

 has killed are used for bait and the live ones of the sheep- 

 fold are now carefully housed each night. After a few 

 days bruin becomes hungry, and if he cannot find live 

 sheep on which to satisfy his appetite, he seeks the dead 

 ones and falls into the trap. This trap is rarely ever 

 chained up solid, but a heavy log of wood is attached. 

 This the bear can drag away and his attention is given to 

 moving off, rather than to twisting his leg out of the 

 jaws of the trap. It is presumed that the trapper is soon 

 on hand to dispatch the bear, but such is not always the 

 case. The instances are numerous on the records of any 

 old bear trapper where the trap is found containing only 

 the foot of the bear, and often where the bear is dead in 

 the trap. 



Now, what I desire to ask the readers of the Forest 

 and Stream is, if this is hunting? Is it sport worthy the 

 name to thus trap even a bear? The story of J. A. French, 

 of Andover, Me., and his son Tom, already recorded in 

 the Forest and Stream, is sufficient to open the eyes of 

 any true sportsman to what might be done. These two 

 dead shots with the rifle asked the farmer to house the 

 sheep the bear had left alive and to leave the dead ones 

 undisturbed for a few days. On the third day the moon 

 would be at its full. The night was grand. French sug- 

 gested to Tom that the old fellow would be there that 

 night. Without even informing their neighbors, they 

 took their rifles and stole silently out of the little village. 

 Not even the people at the house knew their errand. By 

 10 o'clock they crouched in ambush behind the fence and 

 within easy rifleshot of the dead lambs. Soon they saw 

 an enormous black object break from the woods on the 

 other side of the clearing. It crept toward the bait and 

 was cheered on its mission by the peculiar cry of a com- 

 panion in the mountain a short distance away. On came 

 the bear, for such it proved to be. The hair of French 

 or Tom — only a boy — stand on end, and they turn and 

 flee for their lives? Not a bit of it. At the proper moment 

 French gave the word, and both rifles rang out so near 

 together that French asked Tom why he did not fire, to 

 which question Tom indignantly replied that he did fire. 

 In the meantime the old bear had given one leap into the 

 air and had fallen over dead. Both bullets had taken 

 effect in a vital part. The bear proved to be a very large 

 one. Does not his capture open a new idea in bear hunt- 

 ing? Is it sport to set a steel trap even for a bear? Has 

 not even a bear some sense of pain? Is it pleasant for a 

 true sportsman to think that he has been the means of 

 even a dumb animal falling into a terrible trap, from the 

 effects of which the poor beast must die after days of suf- 

 fering? 



Here is a case in point. A party of sportsmen visited 

 their camp in the Androscoggin Lake region this spring. 

 They had the best of fishing, and enjoyed their trip with 

 all the zest that the sportsman is entitled to. They caught 

 a five fox and had him tethered with a long chain in front 

 of their camp. To their credit be it said they let the fox 

 go when they got ready to break camp. But to other 

 animals their kindness was not of so much avail. They 

 discovered the work of bears in the old logs back of the 

 camp. They had scratched the wood to pieces in search 

 of ants, and a trap suggested itself. One of their guides 

 went out to the settlement and got the trap. It was set a 

 day or two before the party broke camp. The guide was 

 directed to visit it, as he had a chance afterward. But 

 he came out to the settlement and weeks passed before he 

 had occasion to visit the trap. He reached the ground. 

 The trap waB gone. He had not far to follow where the 

 clog had torn up the earth and logs before the odor be- 

 gan to tell him that the trap had done its work. He 

 found the bear, a large one, in such a state of decay that 

 he could not skin him, but he secured a claw or two and 

 sent them to Boston to members of the camp as trophies 

 of the bear hunt. Was that a noble bear hunt ? Did that 

 poor bear with both feet in the trap suffer untold agonies 

 before death came to his relief? Can a true sportsmen 

 afford to be the author of such misery, even to a bear? 



It brings to mind the story that sent a chill to the heart 

 of all who read it a few years ago. A poor Canadian 

 Frenchman, living on the borders of Maine, went out to 

 set his bear trap one day in the early autumn. He was 

 never afterward seen alive. The next year a party of 

 hunters found the bleached bones of a man in the woods 

 in that vicinity, both forearm bones of which were in 

 the jaws of a terrible bear trap. The poor Frenchman in 

 setting his trap had got caught by both his arms. He 

 probably knew, as no other man ever knew, the agonies 

 that even a bear suffers when caught by the leg in a trap. 

 It is still worse to leave the trap unattended. Such crea- 

 tures we are obliged to kill — indeed we may kill them for 

 sport, and noble sport it is— but every thing we kill is 

 entitled to a quick, and, as far as possible, a painless 

 death. 



Bear trapping is dangerous, and especially so now that 

 hunting has become so much the practice in all parts of 

 the country. It is next to impossible to set one of those 

 infernal steel traps where some hunter may not fall into 

 it. Cases where human beings have fallen into bear traps 

 are not unusual. One comes to mind which actually took 

 place in the mountains of Milton Plantation, in Oxford 

 county, Maine, several years ago. Two brothers, with a 

 little son of the elder, had started up the side of the Glines 



Mountain, then noted as blueberry mountain. They had 

 started in quest of that fruit, and had their baskets with 

 them. The elder brother was ahead, and the boy, only 

 eleven years of age, was between them. They were fol- 

 lowing a rather indistinct path up the side of the moun- 

 tain. The younger brother suggested that it might be a 

 bear path, and had scarcely spoken the words when the 

 men lx>th saw the bait, a part of a sheep that the trapper 

 had hung up to attract the bear. Both now uttered words 

 of caution about the possibilities of a bear trap hid- 

 den somewhere. But they little thought that it was 

 right in the path, buried in the leaves, and that 

 the elder brother had stepped over it, till a scream 

 and a groan from the poor boy showed him 

 with his little leg in the trap. Both men jumped 

 each for one of the springs, and by almost superhuman 

 efforts the springs were brought down far enough to 

 liberate the poor boy. His leg was not broken, but the 

 teeth had cut so that he was bleeding badly. The men 

 took him by turns on their shoulders, after binding up 

 his wounds with a handkerchief and such bandages as 

 they could improvise from their clothing, and brought 

 him to the settlement. The boy recovered from his 

 wounds, but either of the brothers would shudder for 

 years afterward when telling of the incident, and at the 

 suggestion of one falling into such a trap when alone, or 

 even if one of the men had been alone with the boy. The 

 trap weighed over 751bs., and the. suggestions^about what 

 might have been the case under slightly different circum- 

 stances are enough to make one hate the sight of a bear 

 trap. A brother of the boy is living in Boston to-day, and 

 to say the least, he does not think much of setting bear 

 traps. The hunting season is close upon us. Bears are 

 plenty in Maine, and let those who go into the woods 

 after other game beware, for there are bear traps and 

 bear traps. On the whole, would it not be sport to try 

 and shoot an old fellow at night, as did French and Tom? 



Special. 



BEARS IN ARKANSAS. 



ABOUT twenty-five miles from Beebe and nearly 

 seven miles above Des Arc, on the White Eiver, is 

 a section of country that is overrun with all kinds of 

 wild game; and reports came to me the other day that 

 the bears were destroying whole fields of corn, itfow, I 

 have always wanted to kill a bear, but up to this hunt I 

 had never been able to as much as sight one, although I 

 have put in a great deal of time hunting for them. This 

 was an opportunity not to be missed, so I washed out my 

 old muzzleloading rifle, sixty to the pound, lock a trifle 

 out of repair; sharpened my hunting knife, put some 

 bread in my game sack, and about 7 o'clock, July 19, 

 when the sun had set, I started, for I prefer to travel 

 after night in this hot climate. I footed it. Just as my 

 watch pointed to 1 :40 A. M. I reached the house of a 

 friend, John Malcom, in the strip of country infested by 

 bear. Well, the folks were all "chilling" when I got 

 there. This is the worst feature of life in Arkansas. 

 From July 1 until frost flies it is in fact the main feature. 

 Those of the family who were able to talk reasonably 

 were glad to see me; and when they learned that I was 

 down on a bear-killing trip the old man told me that 

 there were four bears down in the bottom that came in 

 his corn every night and had destroyed more than two 

 acres and had run him and two more out of the field that 

 night just after dark. I listened to it all and made due 

 allowance for a certain propensity which I knew was 

 second nature with my truthful friend; and I came to 

 the conclusion that perhaps I might find a bear track 

 somewhere within a mile or two of his corn. 



As soon as it was daylight I was out looking up sign 

 and laying my plans for killing my first bear. I went 

 through my friend's cornfield as a starting point, and was 

 compelled for once to own that Malcolm could tell the 

 truth. The destruction was immense; the corn was broken, 

 down in piles and the ground was literally covered with 

 sign old and new. As I was walking along looking care- 

 fully at the tracks my attention was suddenly drawn to 

 other matters. I heard a grunting, growling sound be- 

 hind me; and turning around with my rifle in readiness 

 for a shot, I saw a cub bear about one year old walking 

 toward me as if he owned the land and I was ti-espassing. 

 Within 20ft. of me he stopped, and then for the first time 

 he saw me, and turned to run. This was my chance. 

 Catching a quick sight at the base of his right ear I fired; 

 and at the report he turned as complete a summersault 

 as I ever saw and lay still. I dropped the butt of my 

 rifle on the ground and loaded as" rapidly as possible, 



Eutting down two round balls. Then I walked up to my 

 ear and turned him over. He was stone dead; the ball 

 had struck him at the base of the ear and carried away 

 the whole top of his head. This was my first bear; and 

 although I hunted day and night I got no more shots nor 

 saw any more bear. Still I could find plenty of fresh 

 sign; but as I had no dog, as soon as the bear took to the 

 cane I lost him. Deer sign is plenty, and as soon as the 

 season for killing deer comes round I will write you of 

 my first deer hunt of this year. G, J. B. 



Beebe, Ark. 



Quail and Rains in Georgia. — Augusta, Ga., Aug. 8. 

 — Editor Forest and Stream: The unprecedented rains 

 in this section for the past two weeks have ruined the 

 bird crop. A rainfall of over eight inches in six days 

 caused a freshet in all the lowlands and swamps here- 

 abouts, and the young birds have been drowned out, and 

 we came very near suffering the fate of the birds. Only 

 a day before the floods came I saw young quail that could 

 not fly, and many hens were yet on their nests. The up- 

 land birds have also suffered. We have had two freshets 

 in one river, which covers a large area of bottom land, 

 and it has been raining steady for two days and we are 

 expecting another. Up to two weeks ago the season was 

 splendid for quail, and I coidd have found a dozen coveys 

 in a day's tramp in the lowlands; but all my anticipated 

 pleasures have vanished, and I am afraid I won't be able 

 to send you the swamp quail specimens this season. Sor- 

 rowfully yours, J. M. W. 



Warrenton Junction, Va. — This has been a splendid 

 summer here for game birds of all kinds. We had a 

 great many old birds left last fall, therefore I am not 

 surprised to hear from all quarters of large numbers of 

 young birds. One party tells me of seeing over 100 young 

 turkeys in two days. So far as I can learn the law is 

 well respected here.— Wm. Hodgson. 



