810 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[July 7, 1887. 



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



HUNTING WITHOUT A GUN.-I. 



MY boat parts from the oozy bed where it has lain so 

 long that the marsh weeds overlap its gunwales, 

 with a sound somewhat like a sigh, I know not whether 

 it be a sough of relief, or of regret, but I, afloat again on 

 Little Otter, feel something of the old exhilaration that 

 warmed my heart when I first beheld it shining like a 

 floor of silver at my feet ; something of the delightful 

 trepidation tli3,t thrilled me when with old Mingo Niles, 

 the good black angel of my childhood, as caretaker and 

 boatman, I first adventured upon these waters. Back 

 through the lapse of years come to me the childish awe of 

 the dark water only an inch board's thickness under foot 

 and encompassing me all about; the wonder at strange 

 sights, the delight at being here at last in the fulfilment 

 of the vague promise that I might "some time go a-fish- 

 ing with Mingo," in what had seemed such far away, al- 

 most unattainable waters as they gleamed in the breadth 

 of their springtime encroachment on marslies and low- 

 land, or in summertime ribboned the green levels with a 

 silvern or golden or azure band. The memory of those 

 sensations is revived with such vividness that I am ap- 

 palled by the swiftness of time. It was more than forty 



J r ears ago, and yet it seems that it might have been but 

 ast summer. Can it be that in so short a time the little 

 tow-headed boy has come to man's estate and grown old 

 enough to be grizzly ? Looking down into the still waters, 

 the gray-bearded face I see there returning my question- 

 ing gaze with something of wistfulness, something of 

 reproach, answers, "Yes, even so; and with youth old 

 friends are gone, and in the swift years old scenes have 

 changed," and I am constrained to admit that even so it 

 is, but breathe a silent prayer that my heart may continue 

 somewhat longer in youth and in the enjoyment of what 

 in youth delighted it. With these softening memories 

 upon me I have no desire to kill anything, not even time, 

 though I wish I might cripple him as he has me, and re- 

 tard his flight a little, and am quite as happy in hunting 

 without a gun to-day as I would be with the most ap- 

 proved and improved hammer less. Indeed, I would not 

 hunt with a hammerless gun. I wish to see how a gun 

 does it when I take a shot at a bird o:i the wing, or as often 

 happens in my experience, how it does not do it. If I am 

 to hunt with a gun, give me at least the time-honored 

 form and semblance of the weapon. Presently, I doubt 

 not, we shall be given that safe ideal gun of the old 

 woman's, "without lock, stock or barrel," and as the rapid 

 disappearance of game would indicate, presently such a 

 gun will be as good as any. Then we may all go hunting 

 without any show of a gun, and enjoy the pleasant and 

 quiet pastime of shooting without fire, smoke, noise — or 

 game. So I am hunting to-day. in close time, for all fowl 

 but those that no one but a murderer of innocents would 

 care to kill. 



Such is my unprotected friend, the kingfisher, who 

 comes jerking his clatter along the channt 1 till he spies 

 my harmless craft, then sheers off, distrustful of all 

 mankind. Far astern he poises in fluttering steadfast- 

 ness over the waterway, then drops like an arrow fallen 

 from the sky. tlirowing an upburst of crystal drops sky- 

 ward. I hope he got his prey; it was no fish that I care 

 for and it will comfort him greatly. "With such approval 

 he might greet my taking of the pickerel that is forever 

 robbing him of his minnows. As unprotected, a bittern 

 starts from his damp seat among the weeds with a gut- 

 tural squawk. Then a stately heron breaks from his 

 statuesque guard of a minnowy shoal and fans his way 

 to some more undisturbed retreat. 



It must have been hereabouts that Tom Sweet belabored 

 with his paddle and drowned his bear, the only bear of 

 whose death there is any tradition in this neighborhood, 

 and a memorable instance of the success that hunting 

 without a gun may bring, for Tom had only come a-fish- 

 ing from the back side of the township, armed with no 

 deadlier weapons than his fishpole and paddle. 



Rounding the bend, half-way between the Myers 

 Landing and the Sattley Landing, I come to the turn 

 of the channel that I can never forget while I re- 

 member anything of the stream, for here I killed my 

 first duck, shooting it on the wing, astonisliing myself no 

 less than Jule Dop, who paddled the boat for me. I was 

 so swelled up with pride that I wonder now how that 

 scow, roomy as it was, could have held me and Jule and 

 the duck, a dusky duck that certainly was, as I remem- 

 ber it, as big as any goose. But the good boat contained 

 and upheld us with our burden of glory, and when we 

 rounded the wide marsh off Horse Pasture Point, another 

 duck went splashing and fluttering and quacking out of 

 the wild rice straight landward. I blazed away at her, 

 though my paddler said, "She's too fur." Down she 

 tumbled, but so far away in the wide unmarked level of 

 marsh that we could not find her. Yet it was enough 

 to have that incomparable paddler regard me with un- 

 feigned admiration and say: "Well you're a cuss to shoot!" 

 and he not less than three years my elder, and as his 

 mother said, "Lawge of his age an' smawt as he was 

 lawge!" 



If I might by any shot at anything, once more have 

 my heart warmed with such exhilarating fire as those 

 two shots set aflame in it, I could not with any sincerity 

 recommend this blood-guiltless hunting, nor practice 

 what I now uphold. 



Poor Jule! many years ago, while he was yet a boy, he 

 resigned this weary world and tobacco-chewing and 

 departed into the unknown. I doubt not that Charon 

 impressed him into his service, for he would not let so 

 good a paddler depart into eternal uselessness. Poor 

 vagabond, he was good for nothing else, nor ever could 

 nor ever would be. I fancy that in my last voyage I 

 shall be assured by the noiseless stroke and undeviating 

 course of the craft, that Jule propels it, as I go hunting 

 then as now, without a gun, m search of I know not 

 what. I must confess that this companionless revisiting 

 of old scenes is somewhat depressing to the spirits. 



The yearly growth of lily pads, wild rice, rushes and 

 sedges, is the same that it was forty years ago, but I miss 

 the old familiar trees that then bent over the marshes 

 from the shores, now only naked banks of clay, and 

 the broad primeval forests, in whose place are now only 

 dreary acres of blackened stumps and scant herbage. I 



miss the once teeming wild lif e of the marshes. I do not 

 see one duck, nor hear one, and few bitterns, and only one 

 heron; there are not so many kingfishers, and even the 

 blackbirds are scarce, scant flocks of them rising in a 

 scattered flutter out of the wild rice, where once arose 

 a black cloud with a startling thunder of wings that 

 made one's gun spring toward his shoulder in expectation 

 of larger fowl worthier of its lead. Some alarmed fish 

 break the water with retreating wakes at my approach, 

 and I see some signs of muskrats, the floating remnant 

 of their late suppers and early breakfasts, and hear sounds 

 behind the green arras of rushes, splashes, plunges and 

 smothered squeaks, that I attribute to these little repre- 

 sentatives of their long departed bigger brothers, the 

 beavers. It is comforting to one who loves the inhabi- 

 tants of the wild world to know that some of them still 

 fairly hold a place in it in spite of all persecution and all 

 encroachment of civilization. Every spring, three or 

 four hundred or more of these fur-wearers are taken out 

 of the marshes of Little Otter by the trappers and 

 shooters, and yet there are muskrats, and the chance of 

 their continuance for many years to come, for it is hardly 

 probable that the water and the inarshes will be improved 

 off of the face of the earth within the lives of several 

 generations of men. 



I notice as many as ever of the marsh wrens' nests on 

 their supports of gathered rushes, and hear the rasping 

 notes of these birds, always reminding me of those well- 

 intentioned persons who have neither voice nor tune, but 

 will always be trying to sing. 



Button bushes are not worth cutting, even in malicious 

 spite of woody growth, and their wide patches of scrag- 

 gly, impenetrable tangle flourish and bear balls of purple 

 buds, white inflorescence, and green and brown fruitage, 

 whose bristling rotundity nothing seems to assail. 



There is promise of a great crop of wild rice this year, 

 but the old-time harvesters will not come in any force to 

 gather it, as they did in the days of our youth. Then by 

 the middle of September every stalk was stripped by the 

 hordes of ducks, and the wet fields so cleanly gleaned by 

 the throngs of blackbirds that it was a wonder how a 

 kernel was left for next year's seeding. It is sad to think 

 how the few survivors of that countless peaceful army 

 will be harried by the more numerous army of gunners, 

 and will not have a day's, hardly an hour's, truce given 

 them to rest and feed in the midst of this bounteous fare. 

 Sometimes as one considers the ruthless bloodthirst of his 

 kind, he is almost ashamed that he is of mankind, and 

 then, considering how little better he is than the meanest 

 of his fellows and how much safer he is to be one of them 

 than to be any wld thing, however harmless, he is 

 humbly reconciled. 



The blue spikes of pickerel weed bristle as of yore against 

 the pale of rushes, and the white blossoms of saggitaria 

 thrive there, above the spent arrows of their leaves, that 

 some time since were shot up out of the mud and water 

 by invisible sprites of the under world. 



"The white dots that toss on my boat's wake as it stirs the 

 border of rushes to a rustling of their intermingling tips I 

 fancy at first are the breast feathers of some murdered 

 waterfowl, or possibly a drift of castaway land blossoms; 

 but upon examination they prove to be what my friend 

 the botanist tells me is a species of buttercup— a milkman's 

 buttercup it must be, so white and so watery, yet never- 

 theless a pretty flower. 



In every little sheltered cove, or rush-locked pool, is 

 moored a great fleet of duckweed, with as unstable an- 

 chorage in the shifting waves as have the myriads of 

 water bugs that thrid the mazes of their dance in mid- 

 channel and among the lily pads. I have an impression 

 that that motionless green lump is a bullfrog, and slow- 

 ing my stroke until the boat lies almost motionless abreast 

 of "him, I detect the solemn wink of his eye, and presently 

 he begins to thrum the strings of his water-soaked banjo, 

 which his brethren hearing and quickly catching the old 

 air, all join in a melody of thin but resounding bass. I am 

 constrained to admit, much against my stomach, that I 

 enjoy them more so than fried in bread crumbs, and 

 indeed there is less grossness, less animalism, in feasting 

 one's ears than in feating one's stomach. The twang of 

 the bullfrog's chorus coming to our ears, the blush of the 

 apple blossoms to our eyes and their scent to our nostrils, 

 used to inform us that it was time to go fishing for 

 "pike," as we always called, and I suppose always shall 

 call, the pike-perch, in defiance of correct nomenclature, 

 as long as we call our commonest thrush, robin. The 

 habit of using familiar names is hard to break one's self 

 of in the ever-present temptation to make one's self easily 

 understood. Ask the ordinary country boy whether there 

 are any ruffed grouse in such a piece of woods, and if you 

 get any answer but a blank stare it wall be in the nega- 

 tive, possibly supplemented with the remark that he 

 "never heard o' no sech critter." Meet Mm half-way 

 and inquire for partridges, or come quite down to the 

 level of his speech, beyond that unnecessary first "r," 

 and he will tell you all he knows of those familiar woods- 

 acquaintances of his, all the more readily if you are hunt- 

 ing without a gun, for he is jealous of those who hunt 

 with one. 



Floating lazily along, without even a rod to hinder day 

 dreaming, my thoughts and fancies run counter on the 

 trail of time, back to the old, old days when, on the 

 shores behind the marshes, the border of the primeval 

 forests bristled stream ward in a great abattis of prone 

 trees and trees slanting in all inclines toward their final 

 fall. Then the moose and elk and deer came here to feed 

 on the succulent water plants; the woody walls tossed 

 back and forth the scream of the panther and the howl of 

 the wolf; the wake of the otter broke the stream that, in 

 three languages, he gave his name to, and such innum- 

 erable hordes of waterfowl as one can hardly imagine 

 now, bred here and congregated here in their passage to 

 and from northern and southern homes. 



Waubanakees and Iroquois prowled in the bordering 

 coverts, and neither for safety nor sport would one have 

 chosen then to hunt or even to journey here without a 

 gun. 



These waterways were the paths of the pioneers who 

 first adventured here, paths smooth and unobstructed in 

 summer and winter, leading up into the depth and mystery 

 of the forest. Where the marsh spreads widest from 

 channel to shore, or where the shining path stretches 

 toward the sunrise, those travelers caught glimpses of 

 such unmistakable landmarks as Mozeodebe Wajo* and 

 Tawabede Wajof towering above this frayed seam of 



[ *Mansfield: "The Moosehead Mountain." 

 tOamel's Hump. "The Saddle Mountains." 



almost unbroken forest. Otherwise they saw only the 

 undistingmshable sameness of the fringe of willows, the 

 lofty palisade of water maple, ash and elm, overtopped by 

 dark crests of pines behind them. 



The sense of loneliness and isolation must have fallen 

 heavily on those not born to the spirit of adventure or 

 to the as alluring love of solitude. I wonder if these voy- 

 agers were garrulous, and if many jests were bandied 

 back and forth among the crew or whether they were 

 well nigh voiceless, using only eyes and ears and muscles. 

 Doubtless they lightened their hearts with jests, as Kane's 

 men did theirs in midst of Arctic desolation, and were not 

 so lonely as I am here to-day, though I am attended by 

 ghosts of departed friends who were once here in the flesh 

 and by ghosts of slain trees and by memories— what ghosts 

 haunt one more than memories — of sports that are gone 

 forever. Sad company are they, but yet far better than 

 none. To have seen them and known them as they were 

 in the happy past is something to cherish, 



All along the creek the memory of old homesteads 

 lingers in the names of landings, where foundation stones, 

 a pit that was once a cellar and a few scraggy apple trees 

 are all that are left to show where men once lived. Al- 

 most as faint traces of human occupancy as the pot shards 

 and flint chips that mark the sites of old Indian camps. 



The same instinct of happy choice seems to have, gov- 

 erned the white man as the red, for I think of four landings, 

 bearing English names, where there are traces of quite per- 

 manent aboriginal occupancy. The Hazard Landing, 

 better known now as Mud Landing, and better so named, 

 as any one will attest who has set foot hi it — and I say in^ 

 advisedly. At the Myers Landing, where old John 

 Myers's locusts still flourish; at the Davis Landing, nearly 

 across stream from this, and most notably at the Sattley 

 Landing as well as what is now called Hawkin's Landing, 

 its former name being lost, some of the red pre-possessors 

 of the shores dwelt long enough to make a'yet enduring 

 mark. All of these were places where shore and channel 

 w ooed one another, and the access to land or water was 

 easy to lazy Indians or tired white men. 



Where the East Slang is yet bounded by. stable shores 

 of its own, at the spot where my friend Sam Lovel once 

 built his camp, there is a landing that never had a name 

 in modern times, unless for a little while old John Cher- 

 bineau was its godfather, where is abundant proof that 

 Sam instinctively chose a good camping place. On a 

 lucky day one may find handsome arrow points there, on 

 any day chips of flint and fragments of pottery to show 

 that for reasons not all apparent now, this place was in 

 favor with those ancient campers out. No doubt they had 

 a name for it as drowsily musical as the gurgle of a 

 brook or the lazy song of a wood pewee. ^he Waubana- 

 kees spend no unnecessary strength in the triviality of 

 speech, never struggling* as we do, with rough con- 

 sonants, but just opening their lips and letting the smooth 

 words ooze out. What a lazy, effortless sound their "yes" 

 and "no" have, "Onh honh," "n' dah." They have not 

 to stir their tongues nor pucker their lips to utter them. 

 One can but wish their christening of these streams had 

 been recognized and held to by their successors. Such 

 names as Peconktuk, Wanakaketuk and Sungahneetuk 

 certainly are better than Great and Little Otter and Lewis 

 creek. They suggest something, even though one does 

 not know that they mean the Crooked River, the River 

 of Otters and the River of Fish Weirs. 



A bumble bee comes blundering aboard my craft, and 

 after a brief inspectioa of crew and cargo, settles on my 

 paddle handle. I wonder if he can be the same old golden- 

 coated voyager who used to board o lr craft in those long 

 ago September days when we came here duck shooting? 

 His dress and manners are most familiar, especially his 

 unceremonious manners. In spite of statistics, I am will- 

 ing to believe that he is our fejlow voyager and visitor of 

 those days. Also that the hoary-headed eagle who swings 

 in majestic rounds above the bluff at the creek's mouth is 

 the same one we used to see there in just such noble 

 flight, scorning this lower, creeping world, even when he 

 deigned for a little while to enthrone himself on the tall- 

 est of its trees. It is pleasant to fool one's self with the 

 belief that not all the wild life of those days is extinct. 



A family of wood ducks, the youngest well grown and 

 strong-winged, rise out of the niarsh with a prodigious 

 startling splash and flutter and squeaking, close at hand, 

 and offer such a tempting shot that I take aim with my 

 paddle, and tell them how lucky it is for them that it is 

 close time and that I am hunting without a gun. So is 

 his majesty of the skies over there, above the mouth of 

 the creek, but I warn them to beware of him, for he has 

 cruel weapons. 



Poor, persecuted wretches, get you into the furthermost 

 nooks of the marsh, liide behind the thickest screen of 

 rushes and bide there, for these waters will be populous 

 with men who are hunting with guns when the hrst Sep- 

 tember morning dawns. 



Somehow this dispersed congregation of ducks convince 

 me that I have had enough of hunting without a gun for 

 to-day, and I turn my prow homeward, pondering, as the 

 swallows skim and wrinkle with their light touch the 

 blue-black path before me, on recent advice concerning 

 the loading of shells. Rowland E. Robinson. 



Ffbrisbubgh, Vt. 



SOME INDIAN SONGS. 



AFTER trying for some time to arrange business 

 matters so as to give me a chance to do a little in- 

 vestigation into Indian archaeology in an amateur way, 

 I succeeded a month ago in partly carrying out my plan. 

 Some notes on the subject of Indian songs made with a 

 good deal of care and trouble at that time, may interest 

 your readers. To show the amount of credit to be 

 attached to these records I will briefly tell the circum- 

 stances under which they were taken down. 



An old Mexican friend of mine had for long been tell- 

 ing me about the last remnant of the once considerable 

 population of the islands of Santa Barbara Channel. 

 These islands, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and San Miguel, 

 were from the time of the first discovery by Cabrillo up 

 to the early part of the present century inhabited by a 

 race of simple, mild-mannered fishermen. All the island 

 Indians were, however, at last removed to the mainland 

 by the mission priests in order the better to wean them 

 from their idolatries. The Indians of the coast have now 

 few living representatives, but the last relic of the island 

 tribes is a white-haired palsied man who has been blind 

 for fiftv years, and whose intelligence, never bright, is 

 clouded by the failure of his senses. This old man was 



