Sept. 29, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



183 



htt L itl jgistorg. 



BLACK AND SILVER FOXES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have just returned from an extended tour through 

 the Northwest, and on looking over the back numbers ot 

 the Forest and Stream I notice that two of your corre- 

 spondents take exceptions to my theory regarding black 

 or silver gray foxes. I wrote the article they refer 

 to for the purpose of obtaining "more light" on that sub- 

 ject, and the opinions of Mr. McD., of McDames Creek 

 (not McDavies), Cassiar, B. C. are gratefully received. 



As I have before stated in your columns, I once owuccl 

 a tame black fox, that was taken when quite young out 

 of a litter of young red foxes; and having heard of other 

 similar instances, and having also seen their skins, one 

 in a place, scattered through the country from Nova Scotia 

 to the Northwest, I became convinced that they belonged 

 to the red fox family, and began to collect facts to sub- 

 stantiate my convictions. . 



Francois Mercier, Esq.. ©f the Alaska Commercia 1 Com- 

 pany, is a cultured gentleman and interested in natural 

 history subjects. The Mercier collection, now in the 

 Dominion Museum, Ottawa, Can. , is a valuable and inter- 

 esting one. Some years ago Mr. Mercier attempted to 

 procure a female black fox for breeding purposes, but 

 was informed by his trappers that there were no females; 

 that all black foxes were males. This excited his inter- 

 est, and to learn if this was a fact he offered a reward for 

 a female black or silver gray fox; but everywhere through- 

 out Alaska was met with the reply: No such animal ever 

 seen. During the. present season I have visited several 

 Hudson Bay Company's posts and other large fur-buying 

 firms, and have conversed on this subject with men from 

 the extreme northern posts, and they have all expressed 

 to me their belief in the truthfulness of Mr. Mereier's 

 statement. I have during the present season had the 

 pleasure of inspecting several lots of these fox skins- 

 prime ones — caught last winter, and there were among 

 those lots all shades, from perfectly black to almost a 

 pure silver gray. Above and over the mere value of the 

 pelt, I will give a liberal reward for the body, dead or 

 alive, of a female black or silver gray fox sent to my 

 address, Montreal, Can., or Highgate, Vt., or care of 

 John Fannin, Esq., Government Museum, Victoria, B. C. 

 I offer this reward for the "cause of science." If the 

 black and red fox are of distinct families there must be 

 female blacks taken. Has any one ever seen a female 

 cross or bastard fox? (A bastard is a low-grade cross fox; 

 that is, I understand them to be such.) 



Regarding the black fox being finer furred than the 

 red, such is the case; and I have also noticed that the 

 occasional black or dark martin found East is much finer 

 in fur than Ms foxy red brother. The dark martin is 

 quite as rare in the East as the red martin is in the North- 

 west. Do they belong to the same family? 



In northern Vermont the black squirrel is but rarely 

 seen, but as we go west he becomes more plentiful, and 

 in western Ontario the gray is but rarely found. 



"Will Mr. McD. give us his opinion regarding the black 

 wolf? Is it not heavier furred than the large gray wolf, 

 and do they belong to the same family? Will other of 

 your Northwestern correspondents aid us in getting more 

 iight on this subject, for it is an interesting one? 



N. Parker Leach. 



Montreal, Canada. 



SNAKES AND STINGS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Talking about snakes, I believe I have a well authenti- 

 cated case of the killing of a s inging snake. 



Some ten years ago a young farmer in western Louis- 

 iana, the region of centipedes, scorpions, and tarantulas, 

 a young man of apparent veracity, related to me that he 

 had killed a stinging snake, and gave a minute description 

 of it. Still I had lingering doubts in my mind, thinking 

 that perhaps his imagination was inflamed by his very 

 inflammatory smrroundings, and associating the stinging 

 snake theory with the mythical hoop snake, the phantom 

 of negro folk lore. Apropos, I have heard many circum- 

 stantial recitals of the hoop snake story, from old negroes 

 indifferent localities, and the circumstances and sur- 

 roundings were indentical in all of them. In all of these 

 vivacious histories there figures a negro girl at a spring 

 getting a pail of water, when a hoop shake coir es rolling 

 down the hill and plumps his horn into her side, from 

 the effects of which she straightway gives up the ghost, 

 and the snake, intent upon fulfilling his destiny, rolls on 

 down the hill until he encounters an oak tree, which in 

 his precipitancy he whacks his horn, or sting, into, and 

 the oak tree incontinently withers and dies in the space 

 of a few minutes. 



But recurring to the stinging snake: Mr. William 

 Robinson, a reputable citizen of Coahoma county, a man 

 not likely to provoke the antics of phantom snakes by 

 over-indulgence in the seductive juice of the corn, in 

 other words, a sober-minded man of reputable character 

 among his neighbors, related to me, under strict injunc- 

 tion of veracity, that a month ago or such matter, while 

 engaged with some negro hands in clearing certain woods, 

 they discovered a snake which the negroes immediately 

 pronounced to be a stinging snake. The reptile was killed 

 under his supervision, and he described it as being about 

 5ft. long, of very slim proportions, jet black on top — a 

 brilliant shiny black— and pink underneath. He said the 

 snake showed a great inclination to hide its head, but kept 

 the tail flourishing around at a lively rate, and upon ap- 

 plying a stick a bristle-hke sting was quickly thrust out 

 from the extremity of the tail and as quickly withdrawn. 

 This agrees substantially with the description of the 

 Louisiana farmer. Has Miss Catherine C, Hopley ever 

 encountered such a snake? I have been in the woods and 

 fields the better part of thirty years, and have made the 

 acquaintance of many varieties of snakes, but never had 

 the pleasure of meeting a stinging snake. 



A few days ago, while riding through a Mississippi 

 swamp, I fell in with a very interesting specimen of the 

 genus moccasin, I suppose, though unlike any other I had 

 ever seen. He (or she) was three and a half feet long and 

 very nearly six inches in circumference. The skin was 

 composed of scale-like divisions, very similar to that of 

 the rattlesnake, each having a slight protuberance at the 

 lower point, inclined toward the tail, so that a string in 

 the form of a noose around his body would slip readily 



toward the tail, but not at all toward the head. The 

 general color was dark brown with diagonal marking of 

 a slightly lighter shade. He was a very gentlemanly 

 snake and endeavored to avoid a difficulty with me with- 

 out exhibiting undign ified haste in getting awa w. I pur- 

 sued him with a stick having a twine string on the end 

 arranged into a noose, which I several times succeeded 

 in getting over his head, but which he succeeded in 

 crawling through. 



I secured him at last by tightening the noose just below 

 his neck, and held him up for inspection, and to the 

 great horror of an old negro who was with me, I cut off 

 his head with a pen-knife. This snake showed no dis- 

 position to bile at all during the whole quarter of an hour 

 I was "fooling" with him. On dissecting the head I 

 found the fangs only a quarter inch long, or about one- 

 third the length of the fangs of a rattlesnake of the same 

 size. I found the usual contingent of immature fangs, 

 either for periodical shedding or to provide for accidental 

 breaking, I have not learned which. Upon this point I 

 should feel much obliged to Miss Hopley for information. 



Memphis, Tenn. COAHOMA. 



Through some misunderstanding, or inefficient instruc- 

 tions on my part, the illustrations to my paper on the 

 rattle (Forest and Stream, July 7) are somewhat confus- 

 ing, and for those of my readers who are interested in 

 the subject the editor kindly spares space for the explana- 

 tions given below. But while writing I may report on 

 the progress of the new rattle, which only yesterday was 

 inspected for this express purpose. As was surmised, a 

 new link appeared after the casting of the cuticle, about 

 to occur when last writing, May 12, and there is now an- 

 other link partially developed, and which will be perfect 

 after the next desquamation, should the snake retain its 

 present excellent health. There is therefore quite a res- 

 pectable rattle again of 5in. and the "button," and it is 

 quite possible that some believer in links may declare this 

 remarkable Crotalus to be "seven years old" by the end of 

 the season. 



EXPLANATION OF ILLUSTRATIONS GIVEN JULY 7. 



Fig. 1. The deformed rattle (enlarged). 



Pig, The very long rattle (reduced in size) terminal links 

 worn. 



Fig. i$. A perfect and not very old rattle (natural size). 



Fig. 4. What remains of the rattle from which the long portion 

 was broken off. (Somewhat enlarged in size). 



Fig. S. The form of one single link detached from the rest. 



Fig. 6. Section of rattle, showing how the links run up, each into 

 the preceding one. (Somewhat enlarged, and imperfect at the 

 hasef. . , 



Fig. 7. An average-sized rattle, the earlier links gone (natural 



size). Catherine C. Hopley. 



London, Eng., July 37. 



While clearing out a ditch in an orange grove here, a 

 man named Bryens was up to his waist in water pulling 

 up the "bonnets" and weeds. He forked up a moccasin 

 five feet long from the bottom of the ditch, which exploit 

 made him shiver, but he had grit enough to stick to his 

 work. Only four snakes were killed in the afternoon. 

 This is a good region for the pursuit of ophiology. B. 



Orange Bend, Fla., Sept. 16. 



THE NAMES OF BIRDS. 



FORT SIMPSON, British Columbia, Sept. 5.— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: Regarding Mr. McManus's call- 

 ing the cheewink "catbird," in his little poem, which 

 appears in July 14 number, and the correspondence 

 relating thereto, may I be allowed to suggest that it is 

 through a local name that the apparent mistake has 

 arisen. 



Our cheewink (Pipilo oregonus), is known altogether m 

 this country by the local name of "catbird," for the rea- 

 son that it utters the peculiar cat-like cry. The catbird 

 proper (Mimus carolinensis), is not, to my knowledge, 

 found in this province, not at least near the coast. Might 

 it not be, therefore, that Mr. McManus's cheewink calls 

 the cat call and thereby earns the cat name as his 

 own? 



It is certainly very confusing to thus have different 

 birds called by the same name, and to have different 

 names given to the same'bird. Still, one may argue that 

 as your Corvus in Canada is called "Jingo" because he 

 says jingo, why should I not call my Cygnus in Pata- 

 gonia, by the same name, when he plainly rouses me 

 every morning with his jingo! jingo! ? The question of 

 arranging and classifying the various local names in use 

 for identical birds in different parts of the country should, 

 I think, receive more attention than it liitherto has. 



Geese are beginning to congregate on our flats. A few 

 marbled god wits, ring plover and redback sandpipers are 

 about. Northern swifts have been darting around for 

 the last wee? preparatory to taking flight, A few Caro- 

 lina doves have been seen. Their second summer here. 

 I got a kingbird this summer, the first I have ever seen 

 on this coast: also the first horned lark. W. B. A. 



way. One day, after having done this, however, it oc- 

 curred to me that possibly the animal was not really dead 

 and I waited near it for five or ten minutes. At length I 

 saw it get up again and crawl away, apparently not much 

 the worse for the blow it had received. On another oc- 

 casion, one which had received a much more severe blow 

 on the end of the nose did not recover. G. B. G. 



[In this connection comes the following note from the 

 Billings, Mont., Gazette: "O. F. Goddard and B. W.Toole, 

 who have been out to Mr. Oldens ranch on Rock Creek 

 on a hunting trip, returned last night. They had quite 

 an exciting time with a badger. Mr. Goddard attacked 

 him and but for the timely appearance on the scene of Mr. 

 Toole, the badger would have got away. "J 



A New Subspecies of Petrel from Guadalupe* 

 Island.— In a paper recently read before the California 

 Academy of Science, Mr. Walter E. Bryant described a 

 new petrel from his collections made at Guadalupe Island, 

 an account of which was published some months ago in 

 Forest and Stream. He says: "A series of fourteen 

 specimens of Oceanodroma, collected by myself on Guad- 

 alupe Island off Lower California in March, 1886, were 

 assigned to the species teueorhoa (Leach's petre'), in my 

 paper on the ornithology of that island. In a footnote, 

 reference was made to the cons'derable excess in size of 

 the Guadalupe Island specimens over Leach's petrel of 

 the Atlantic coast, but from lack of sufficient material 

 for comparison I was unable to satisfactorily determine 

 their differences, although strongly inclined to consider 

 it a distinct race. My supposition has since been con- 

 firmed by several prominent ornithologists, and by com- 

 parison with typical specimens of Leach's petrel from 

 Alaska and coast of Massachusetts, which were kindly 

 loaned from the Smithsonian Institution. The Alaskan 

 birds seem to be the same size as those from the Atlantic 

 coast, and of about the same color. A single female from 

 Alaska (No. 102,381 Smithsonian Coll.), is nearly as dark 

 as the Guadalupe birds, but the upper tail coverts are 

 much whiter and the measurements less. For this well 

 marked local variety, I propose the name Oceanodroma 

 leucorhoa macrodactyla, subsq. nov., Guadalupe Petrel. 

 Subsq. Char., similar to O. leucorhoa, but larger and 

 darker. White of upper tail coverts more restricted, and 

 the ends of coverts broadly tipped with black. Pileum 

 darker than back, lighter anteriorly. Bill broader and 

 deeper at base than that of leucorhoa. Wing, 155—171 

 mm. ; tail feathers, 85—99 mm. ; depth of fork, 23—35 

 mm.; exposed culmen, 15.5 — 17 mm.; tarsus, 22 — 20 mm.; 

 middle toe and claw, 28—30 mm. Habitat.— Guadalupe 

 Island, Lower California. Types.— Nos. 2567, 6 ad.; 2565, 

 ? ad. Both in collection of Walter E. Bryant, 



HABITS OF THE BADGER. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have read with great interest Dr. Shufeldt's contribu- 

 tion to your columns touching this curious animal, and 

 beg leave to add a word on some of its habits which seem 

 noteworthv. 



The badger is very courageous and is always ready to 

 fight if the avenues of its escape are shut off. I have fre- 

 quently surprised it at a distance from its hole, overtaken 

 it on foot and had it turn on me in the fiercest manner. 

 It can give a most severe bite and should not be handled 

 without the gloves which Dr. Shuf eldt recommends. 



It mav not be generally known that a blow on the end 

 of the nose will render a badger hors du combat for a 

 while. I first learned this many years ago when travel- 

 ing with the Pawnee Indians. An old chief told me that 

 this animal was easily killed by a blow on the nose, and 

 not long afterward coming upon a badger as I was ridxag 

 over the prairie I experimented to see for myself if this 

 were true. The badger lumbered along toward home 

 and I galloped up alongside him, and holding my rifle by 

 the muzzle, swung it from before backward and after 

 two or three attempts hit the animal fair on the end ot 

 the nose. The blow was not a severe one, no force being 

 exerted, more than the momentum of the weight of the 

 gun swinging like a pendulum. On receiving the stroke 

 the badger turned over, kicked a few times convulsively 

 and then lay quiet, to all appearances dead. 



We were in a buffalo country where badgers were 

 abundant, and I several times knocked them over rn this 



A Coot Strikes a House. — New Castle, N. H.. Sept. 

 24.— My brother, while walking to-day, observed the fol- 

 lowing curious and fatal freak of a butterbill coot. The 

 coot was flying almost head to wind, which was blowing 

 fresh, and was rapidly approaching a clump of buildings. 

 He came nearer and nearer, and finally, without swerv- 

 ing a foot from his course, struck the side of a house, and 

 broke bis beak, and fell down stunned, whereupon my 

 brother despatched him. I have often heard of sea fowl 

 killing themselves by flying against a lighthouse in the 

 night, but I never heard of a duck that in broad daylight 

 flew against the broad side of a dwelling house, with 

 sufficient force to stun him. Perhaps some of your 

 readers can account for this curious porformance. — J. 

 Wendell, Jr. 



HUNTING IN THE SHOSHONE. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Mr. Rainsford inquires, in his reply to my criticism of 

 the article he wrote in Scribner's, why I rushed into print 

 to accuse him of violating necessary laws, etc. Possibly 

 it may be fairer to give my reasons for so doing. I object 

 to his method of trapping bears and then killing them; 

 Mr. R. acknowledges having secured two in that manner. 

 When I called attention to the dinner of elk steak at 

 Heart Lake where Mr. R. was camped, I said the infer- 

 ence was that the elk from which the steak was cut was 

 killed in the vicinity. Mr. Rainsford says that Heart 

 Lake lies eight miles north of the southern boundary, 

 therefore it is entirely in the Park. The laws of the Park 

 very properly forbid having in possession any game (save 

 fish) dead or alive. Hence it is a legal assumption that 

 this elk was killed in the Park. 



Mr-. R. does not denv that it was killed in the Park but 

 leads one to infer that it was killed outside and packed 

 in as meat. In either case the law was violated. 



I have been informed that Mr. Rainsford, or one of his 

 party, did kill an elk in the Park, and that a fine was 

 voluntarily paid for so doing. I have also been told that 

 Mr. R. and his outfit were seen in the Park with a num- 

 ber of bear traps. 



Mr. Rainsford objects to criticism, but calls for facts 

 and. a courteous spirit. I have given the facts as I know 

 them, and endeavored to be as courteous in spirit as pos- 

 sible. I may be wrong as to facts and courtesy; if I am 

 it will give me pleasxu-e to say so, but the very defenseless 

 position of the Park, and the prominence of the author 

 whom I have ventured to criticise, have led me much 

 against my inclination to thus "rush into print." If Mr. 

 R. and his party did not hunt and kill bear or elk in the 

 National Park it's the simplest thing in the world for him 

 to say so by a manly, straightforward denial, and not 

 split hairs about the exact geographical location of Heart 

 Lake or lecture us on dried elk meat. If, on the other 

 hand, Mr. R. or his party did while camping within the 

 boundaries of the Park, trap bear or kill elk, as may be 

 inferred by his article, it is eminently right and proper for 

 any one to try and deter others from doing likewise by a 

 criticism of author and article. 



Mr. Rainsford pleads that because a bounty is offered 

 for bear, and because other animals are trapped in a simi- 

 lar manner, it is too late to cry out about the cruelty. 

 This, if he will pardon my saying so, is a very weak de- 

 fense of the practice so many sportsmen abhor. As it 

 may be taken for granted, Mr. R. hunts as a sportsman, 

 for recreation and pleasant excitement, and not on the 

 dead level of a professional skin hunter, who cares not a 

 brass farthing about the cruelty, so long as he gets the 

 skins and the money. Archibald Rogers, 



