4 9.0 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[JtJHE 30, 1887. 



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



IN THE CHEROKEE STRIP.— II. 



IT was an icy and blusterous air which greeted us on 

 the morning of our stay at the Eagle Chief Pool. 

 Our fingers stiffened as we harnessed up our team, and 

 our faces were covered with icicles before we had gone 

 half a mile. It was, indeed, so cold that we made a late 

 start; it was well on toward ten o'clock when we said 

 good-bye to young Mason, promised to "pull in when we 

 went north," and started on down toward the Cimarron. 

 A brisk trot soon warmed up our shivering horses, and 

 then we took turns on foot and warmed ourselves up. 

 We kept the greyhounds in the wagon and tied up the 

 foxhounds, thinking it better to freeze them than to have 

 them poisoned. This precaution we kept up until within 

 about sis or eight miles of our destination, when, think- 

 ing we were through the poison belt, we turned the dogs 

 all out on the Holmes range, which we afterward learned 

 was precisely the most dangerous place in the whole 

 country! None of them found poison, however, although 

 Mr. Allison turned gray in a single night when he learned 

 what a risk he had run. 



As we traveled on down through the country we had 

 ample chance to see the disastrous effect the recent great 

 fires had had on the range. Thousands and thousands of 

 acres lay black and desolate behind us and presently we 

 could see a vast burned strip on the other side of the 

 Cimarron. We traveled for a long time through the pas- 

 ture of the "Drum outfit." The upper Drum pasture lies 

 just below Kiowa and embraces 110,000 acres. The lower 

 range, through which we were now passing, comprises 

 300,000 acres. Here be figures. And all of this vast area 

 is under fence. And upon the upper range at least, sleek 

 and happy cattle in such numbers that you can't hunt 

 coyotes in any comfort among them. There are, I believe, 

 thirty odd thousand cattle on this range. Such cattle as 

 we saw as we went down into the country were looking 

 in very good order. There was none of the sad picture 

 of death and desolation which we saw along our road on 

 a trip into the Panhandle last spring — product of last 

 winter's terrible severity. This winter of 1886-7 has been 

 a very mild one in the Southwest for the most part and 

 the cattle on the finely sheltered range of the Strip have 

 come through splendidly. 



About the middle of the afternoon we entered the tim- 

 ber of Wildcat Creek, and knew we were approaching 

 our destination. The country now had an indescribably 

 gamy look. Thick brakes and swamps appeared along 

 the road: upon the right, dark masses of "black jacks" 

 hung over the low hills; to the left stretched out long 

 rows of sandhills; while ahead of us, through occasional 

 gaps in the timber and of the boundary wall of the sand 

 bluffs, we could see the picturesque southern breaks of 

 the Cimarron, blue-black and rugged — Round Mountain, 

 fifteen miles to the east; Gloss Mountain to the right of 

 that; and their long, flat mesas, jagged, scar-faced bluffs 

 and more ragged half -turrets, all the way up to the right 

 and out of sight. The impression was one of a wild and 

 unfrequented country, whose echoes never had been, and 

 never would be, wakened by the sound of the church- 

 going bell. For myself, I am never quite happy within 

 the city limits. A little more wilderness, please. And 

 now I could feel my blood hum a little and I began to 

 grow quite comfortable. Fiend Business, said the vaga- 

 bond of me, thou wilt have a hard time to find us these 

 two weeks now here in the breaks of the Cimarron! 



We crossed Wildcat Creek in a pleasant little open 

 level; twisted around among the sandhills for three-quar- 

 ters of a mile further, following the trail, and finally 

 came out on a hill, whence we could see the broad bed of 

 the Cimarron, with its tangled threads and splashes of 

 silver, and with its rough bluffs upon the further side. 

 At the same time there also came into view the rude in- 

 closure of the corral, and nestled in the big trees upon the 

 river bank the long, low ranch building and the stables 

 of the home camp of the 2 1 . With a rush we went 

 down the intervening space, and soon were out of the 

 wind in the nook by the house and exchanging greetings 

 with a certain very well-fed and hearty young man, who 

 came out in Ids shirt sleeves, as if he didn't know it was 

 cold. This was S. P. Chestnut, in charge during Mr. 

 Kirkpatrick's absence. The ranch name of this gentle- 

 man was "Red," and so we all called him. Baptismal 

 records are at a discount on the range. 



We turned our horses into a stable, which was made of 

 split logs. Behind each stall there was stretched, on the 

 inside, a big raw hide. The tails of these hides stuck out 

 between the roof and the top of the wall, and waved 

 gracefully in the breeze. It looked as if a row of cows 

 had crawled through the crack up there. It was very 

 hard to understand at first. This w r as the only attempt 

 at ornament I observed about the stables. 



On looking about the premises, we found the raison 

 (TMre of the camp in a beautiful little "spring branch," 

 which gushed out of the bank just below the ranch house. 

 This bold spring of clear, sweet water was caught in a 

 little reservoir, and passed through a log "spring house," 

 where it kept cool, and at the same time kept warm — for 

 its water never freezes — certain jars of milk and butter; 

 for, on this Elygian ranch, milk, butter and eggs are 

 actually produced and used — a thing unheard of on the 

 range. This little stream riffled and bubbled along, fur- 

 nishing cover for schools of minnows, which we could 

 see playing about under the logs, and after a short course 

 of perhaps 75yds. lost itself in the shallow, lazy, useless 

 Cimarron, whose waters are too salt for man to drink. 



I do not see the use of the Cimarron River. The cattle 

 leave it and go to the creeks to drink; it is not pretty; and 

 it is so salty that no self-respecting fish but the salt her- 

 ring or codfish of commerce can exist in it. This fact 

 will keep it from being a popular fishing stream. For 

 what man, unless he be a market fisher indeed, can take 

 pleasure in taking out so tired-looking a fish as a dried 

 herring or in pulling out a headless corpse of a cod, all 

 split open down the back like a summer ulster? No; the 

 Cimarron is no good for real sport with the rod— not what 

 I should call sport. 



We found the ranch house to be built of logs, and to 

 consist of two rooms, separated by a wide hall or porch, 

 which was covered by the same roof and inclosed, except 

 upon the south side. This porch makes a nice cool place 



in the summer, and it is a good place to step on a dog in 

 the winter. In this forum we found eleven dogs, not 

 counting our own. Of these dogs three were bob-tailed 

 shepherds and the rest greyhounds, with one staghound. 

 A very fine litter of pups, not yet a year old, of bright 

 fawn color and all very large and strong fellows, made 

 up the majority here. A likely young blue dog, just 

 engaged in his favorite occupation of whipping one of his 

 associates, attracted our notice. There was also a grand 

 black bitch, just recovering from bad injuries got on a 

 wire fence in a single-handed fight with a deer; and there 

 came hobbling up to us, looking up with meek, suffering 

 eyes, a noble brindle hound, almost off his legs with a 

 horrible gash in his thigh, got in an encounter with a big 

 buck, which had cut him with its hind feet. This hound, 

 Boots, was the best one on the ranch; he was not able to 

 run during our stay, but we saw his hurt mending with 

 marvelous quickness. Nearly all the pups had seams and 

 scars on their sides and heads, young as they were, and 

 we could see we were fallen axong a tribe of warriors. 



After our dogs had been presented — the brace of fox- 

 hounds occasioning much wonderment among the long- 

 legged greyhound puppies, who had never seen such a 

 thing before — and after certain questions of precedence 

 had been decisively argued among the dogs, we went into 

 the room which was not the kitchen. Here we met Jack 

 (John Middleton), another 2 1 boy, and Buck (which his 

 father's name was Hurt), the cook of the outfit. 



As per request, we "dumped our traps" on the floor and 

 took possession, just the same as if we belonged there. 

 There is little ceremony in a cow camp and absence of 

 all fine talking. You are privileged to enter; you are ex- 

 pected to wait on yourself ; no one will tell you where to 

 unroll your blankets, when to go to bed, when to get 

 up, when or how to do anything. The comforts and 

 conveniences of the camp will not be explained to 

 you; they are so simple that you are expected to know 

 them and to take advantage of them if you wish to. You 

 are, in short, given the run of the camp. Whether you 

 will be welcome again or not depends on whether or "not 

 you are found to be "white" and "square." And depend 

 upon it, your freedom from color and your rectangularity 

 will be pretty accurately determined. A dandy, a half- 

 man, a feather-bed sportsman, a hunter who wants to 

 pay somebody something to wait on him, would better 

 keep out of the cow camps. Yet no better, no more gen- 

 erous, honorable fellows live on earth than these much 

 misunderstood "cowboys." Consider, Eastern reader, 

 how lonesome, how same is their life on the range, how 

 void of all entertainment. Rob you of your opera, your 

 ball, your theater, your social gathering, your church, 

 your night-out in any form — your chance for a change; 

 take away your opportunity to see different faces, and 

 exercise different faculties — in short, gentle reader, apply 

 your revered nose to a grindstone of any sort, and let it 

 whirl for about twelve months in the year. Mark my words, 

 if you don't get wild the only reason will be that your 

 work don't make you healthy and hearty and strong like 

 a cowboy's, and full of that brimming devil which goes 

 with animal health and spirit, from Viking dogs down. 

 Give you your night-off, your day in town, your nose-off - 

 the-grindstone, and if you are foolish enough to drink 

 bad whisky, as most of the cowboys don't know any better 

 than to do," the first tiling you know you'll be riding your 

 horse up on somebody's billiard table; if you know how 

 to ride. 



I have lived in the far West a little, and I know who 

 does the murdering and all that sort of business. It isn't 

 the cowboy. It's the meek-looking fellow in black clothes, 

 and a diamond pin, and a stiff hat. He takes your money 

 in his little game. He practices the art of quick pulling, 

 and if you pistorially object, he comes in a little ahead of 

 you, in "self defense"; until he has a reputation, and then 

 he can kill you just anyhow. Crowded too close, he may 

 take to the range for a while, and stay at a cow camp ; 

 but he isn't a cowboy. The cowboy has his peculiarities, 

 his love of style, his pride of calling, his affectations, just 

 like the rest of us; with this exception, that his code of 

 etiquette, his style of dress do not change. He wears a 

 twelve-dollar white hat, because it lasts, and keeps the 

 sand out of his eyes ; he sits in a forty-dollar saddle, be- 

 cause leather costs money, and he must have weight of 

 well-fastened leather to hold a mad steer ; he wears 

 gloves, just as you wear a necktie; he wears heeled boots 

 so that his feet won't slip through the stirrups when he 

 is "cutting out" — for he rides with foot full in, as you 

 would also, if you had his riding to do; he carries a Colt's 

 .45, army size, square stock, single action, because he can 

 soak that in water, cram it full of sand, run over it with 

 a bunch of cattle, or knock down a broncho with it, and 

 it will still go off, sure. He will not have a Smith & 

 Wesson pistol, though acknowledging they may do "for 

 such as like 'em." 



The cowboy comes from pretty much all over. Those 

 at the 2 1 came from Texas and Arkansas. If one cow- 

 boy speaks of another, as like as not he will call him a 

 "puncher." In Texas he is called a "cattle driver." _ He 

 does not altogether like the name of "cowboy," especially 

 if he come from the south. If you are visiting with cow- 

 boys you don't want to go up to any one of them and ask 

 how many men he has killed, and want to see the notches 

 on his rifle stock, and inquire about his name in the 

 States. I am not certain that you ought to go off and 

 write a wdiole lot of stuff about him, either, as I am doing, 

 as if he were a six-legged pig or a headless rooster, and 

 not just like the rest of us, a laborer in a business of his 

 own, which he understands better than any outsider does. 

 But if it ever be your fortune, as it luckily has been mine, 

 to be somewhat with the cattlemen and the cowboys of 

 the cow camps, you will say as I do, Thank God! here, at 

 least and at last, is a class of men genuinely sincere, and 

 a hospitality simple and unstrained. 



But right" here Buck stuck his head out of the door of 

 the kitchen and sang out one long and magic word:. 



" Chu ckawa-a-a-y !" 



Greyhounds erectis auribus. Exeunt dramatis personce, 

 each bearing a stool. E. Hough. 



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



During the rebellion T. Buchanan Read, the poet, was sit- 

 ting in Col, Forney's room when the editor began to dictate 

 a vigorous editorial in which the word "war" was used. 

 Read sprang up at the sound and exclaimed, "War! war! Oh, 

 that some beautiful bird from the South would make its 

 nest in the cannon's mouth and stop this awful carnage!"— 

 Baltimore American. A robin has built a nest in the mouth 

 of one of the Parrott guns that ornament the burial plot of 

 f the Maquoketa (Iowa) Grand Army post--a picture or peace 

 I which it would be difficult to improve upon. — Omaha Bee. 



SPARROWS AND INSECTS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



A paragraph, frequently headed "Food of the English 

 Sparrow," has recently been going the rounds of news- 

 papers and other periodicals both in this country and 

 abroad; and, judging from the number of copies received 

 at the Department of Agriculture, it is accepted by many 

 people as proof positive that the imported sparrow is a 

 most valuable bird. As the article warrants no such con- 

 clusion, but affords a typical instance of the popular mis- 

 interpretation of facts, it seems desirable to point out a 

 few of its fallacies before they become more widely 

 diffused and absorbed. As originally published, the basis 

 of this paragraph formed part of a'statement submitted 

 by the Rev. F. O. Morris to the Select Committee on 

 (British) Wild Birds Protection, June 26, 1873, and is as 

 follows: 



"Two pairs of sparrows were watched by an observant naturalist 

 feeding their young in their nests in onlv one-half hour with the 

 larva? of the bluebottle fly from a dead cat. They fetched these 

 in all 104 times, and one of the birds also caught fourteen 

 flies on the wing. Now, the common housefly is computed to pro- 

 duce in one season, so prolific is its progeny after progenv, no less 

 than 20,000,900, say in round numbers 20,000,000, and thus were pre- 

 vented by these two pair of birds no fewer than 2*0,000,000 by 

 the capture of fourteen flies, and 2,0fW.000,(XK) by the de- 

 struction of the 104 larvae. Again, we read on unimpeachable 

 authority, that there figured in the parish accounts of one parish 

 in Gloucestershire a charge for seventeen dozen tomtits 1 heads; 

 in another parish, Melbourne, in Derbyshire, a sparrow club de- 

 stroyed in one year 4,577 small birds, and in yet another 3,500, 

 Take the smaller of these two last numbers and multiply by it the 

 number of flies just calculated as prevented by the two pairs of 

 sparrows and it gives what we may very well call 'a grand total' 

 of 7,280,000,000,000. Linnanis calculated that the progeny of three 

 flies would devour a dead horse almost as quickly as a lion. The 

 aphis, fed on by several of our smaller birds, produces of herself as 

 is well known, female aphides, generation after generation. As 

 many as eleven of these female generations have been produced 

 in one year, and it is believed that it may go on in the same way 

 year after year." 



The probable inference of the average reader of this 

 statement would be that the house sparrow in this partic- 

 ular case did a vast amount of good, while the further 

 inference that the sparrow habitually consumes large 

 numbers of injurious insects might naturally follow. In 

 reply to this it may be said: 



First — It is by no means certain that the sparrows 

 watched were house sparrows, although this is rendered 

 probable from, the fact that when "the sparrow" is spoken 

 of in England, the house sparrow is commonly meant. 

 The buds might, however, have belonged to one of the 

 three or four other species of sparrows common to the 

 country, and it is even possible that the "hedge sparrow" 

 (Accentor — not a sparrow at all) was the species observed. 



Second — Granting that the birds which carried the 

 maggots to their young were house sparrows, it must 

 then be admitted that in doing this they did, not good, 

 but harm; for, the blue-bottle fly and the house fly are 

 two of the most beneficial insects known, and their work 

 as scavengers is so important that their entire extermin- 

 ation would doubtless be speedily followed by an alarm- 

 ing increase of human disease, if not indeed by universal 

 pestilence. 



Third — The number of flies estimated as pr evented by 

 these four sparrows has very little significance. The com- 

 puted number (rather over three billions), although less 

 than the six-millionth part of the theoretical increase, is 

 yet unquestionably several hundred thousand times too 

 large. According to Packard, the house fly in Massachu- 

 setts lays about 120 eggs ; and the entire period from egg 

 to mature fly is from ten to fourteen days. In the latitude 

 of Washington this would allow at least eight generations 

 between May and October, and if we assume that one-half 

 of each generation consisted of females, and that all eggs 

 laid produced perfect insects, the eighth generation would 

 give us about 336 trillions of flies, or enough (allowing 100 

 to the cubic inch) to cover sixty-nine square miles 1ft. 

 deep with dead flies. If one-half the 118 flies and maggots 

 caught by these four birds were females then it might be 

 argued that the birds had prevented the production of 

 more than enough flies to cover 4,071 square miles 1ft. 

 deep ! As the blue-bottle lays many more eggs than the 

 house fly, and rears fully as many generations in a season, 

 this amount might be doubled or even trebled ! 



Of course all this is absurd. No one can tell anything 

 definitely about the number of insects prevented by birds, 

 except so far as the individuals actually eaten by the birds 

 are concerned. In the case cited they undoubtedly pre- 

 vented the dead cat from being as quickly destroyed as 

 it would have been had they let the flies alone. By what 

 allowance or calculation the estimate of 20,000,900 for the 

 aggregate annnal product of a house fly was obtained, I 

 cannot say, but I know of no reason for considering it 

 more correct than any other estimate between ten and 

 ten billions. Of the thousands or hundreds of thousands 

 of eggs laid by flies on a single dead cat the chances are 

 that not one in a thousand will ever become a perfect 

 fly; while in very many cases such a carcase will not pro- 

 duce a single mature fly. 



It cannot be denied that the sparrows in this case pro- 

 bably did lessen somewhat the number of flies which 

 might have been reared from this cat, but any attempt 

 to estimate the actual number thus prevented is utterly 

 futile; and it must be remembered besides that for every 

 one of these flies actually killed the sparrow deserves 

 blame and not praise. 



Fourth — This destruction of the flies was the work of 

 at least twelve birds (four adults and eight young), yet 

 the number of flies prevented by these twelve sparrows is 

 multiplied by 3,500, the number of small birds destroyed 

 by a sparrow club in one season, and it is left for the 

 reader to infer that the grand total thus obtained fairly 

 represents the prevention of insects which these 3,500 

 small birds would have accomplished in a half horn - . 



The assumption that all the small birds destroyed by 

 "sparrow clubs" are sparrows, is without any foundation 

 in fact. One would be glad to believe this the case, but 

 there is every reason to fear that more than half these 

 small birds were 6pecies mfinitely more valuable than 

 sparrows — species which never inflict any injury on 

 farmer or gardener, but which are continually lessening 

 the number of insect pests. 



Finally — No observant person who has had a fair oppor- 

 tunity of knowing the facts, denies for an instant that 



