Feb. 7, 1889 ] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



43 



in different directions. When disturbed there is an 

 instant scattering, not the least thought of seeking pro- 

 tection from the mother. When about to ovaposit, the 

 mother snake selects a sheltered, sunny, grassy spot, by 

 the side of a fence, stump, log or brush heap, not far 

 from water, and not frequentea by shrews nor arvicolm. 

 The laying of the eggs completes her duty, and she has 

 not the least maternal care nor thought of her progeny 

 afterward. I have repeatedly disturbed garters while 

 ovapositing: I have cautiously approached them unob- 

 served, and carefully watched them, and have thrown 

 my hat in the midst of the litter; and in captivity I have 

 watched them for hours, while coming out of the "shell" 

 and afterward, and time and again "scared" them, and 

 in every case, without any exception, unmistakably, the 

 mother' cared nothing for her young, the young cared 

 nothing for their mother. Neither sought nor offered 

 protection of any kind. I have seen a mouse kill two 

 young snakes before the very nose of the mother, without 

 a shadow of protest. 



I have seen a large Rana elamata catch and swallow 

 three young, in three consecutive gulps, close by the 

 side of the mother, and she did not even -wink at it. 



Garters are often captured when about to ovaposit, 

 smashed to bits with clubs, or dashed to pieces against 

 stumps or logs, scattering the eggs about, when the egg 

 membrane being ruptured by the violence, the young 

 snakes soon become active and scamper away; some- 

 times giving the impression they were stowed away in 

 the mother's stomach for safety. 



Why the snake was adopted by the ancient Egyptians 

 as an insignia of royalty and intellectual power, or why 

 it is spoken of in the Bible as remarkable for cunning- 

 ness and wisdom, is not easy to explain. Surely the 

 idea could not have been suggested by the mental quali- 

 ties of any of our present existing species. It may be 

 the idea, and many legends are from a prehistoric 

 species, which in the' age of reptiles attained remarkable 

 brain development, lived through the triassic period, be- 

 came contemporary with and a special enemy to man, but 

 losing hold of environment took to its belly and crawled 

 out. 



In this there may also be some explanation of the 

 widespread, cruel, popular prejudice, which prevails 

 among enlightened as well as savage peoples, against 

 our existing harmless species. W. B. 



Toronto. 



Ke.nt Scientific; Institute. — Grand Rapids, Mich., 

 Jan. 29.— Following are the officers for 1889: President, 

 E. S. Holmes. Vice-President, W. A. Greeson. Record- 

 ing Secretary, C. W. Carman. Corresponding Secretary, 

 E. S. Holmes. Treasurer, C. A. Whitternore. Director 

 of the Museum, W. A. Greeson. Curator, C. W. Carman. 

 Librarian, E. L. Mosely. Board of Directors: Wright 

 L. Coffinberry, W. A. Greeson, Samuel L. Fuller, E. S. 

 Holmes, J. W. Jones, C. A. Wittemore. Officers of the 

 Board: Chairman, W. A. Greeson. Secretary, E. S. 

 Holmes. Treasurer, C. A. Whittemore. 



Golden-Winged Woodpecker in Massachusetts.— 

 Gloicester, Mass., Feb. 8.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 While taking a walk this morning I saw a golden-winged 

 woodpecker (Colaptes auratus). The bird was flying from 

 tree to tree in an old apple orchard quite near town. I 

 am aware that some of our familiar birds are to be found 

 in the thick woods in winter time, but I did not know 

 that C. auratus was among the number. I should be 

 very glad to know if this is the case, or if this is very 

 early for the bird to arrive. — George Hughes Coues. 



The Audubon Magazine for 1888 has been bound, and 

 makes a valuable volume. Among its contents is a bio- 

 graphical sketch of Alexander Wilson. The twelve full- 

 page plates are photo-engravings of Audubon's bird por- 

 traits. The price is $1.00. 



January Arrivals at the Philadelphia Zoological Gar- 

 den. —Purchased— One Javan loris (Nycticebus javanicus), one 

 nutcracker (Nucifraga caxyocatactes), two goldfinches (Carduelis 

 elegans), one St. Thomas conure (Conurus xantholaaums), two 

 Mexican guans (Ortalida vetula), two Mexican cardinals (C. vir- 

 giniamis eoccineus), and one Madagascar boa (Pelophilus mada- 

 gascariensis). Presented— Two opossums (Didelphys virginiana), 

 one Virginia deer (Cervus virginianus), one screech owl (Scops 

 asio), one canary finch (Serinus canarius), one horned lizard 

 (Phrynosoma aouglassii), and two gopher tortoises fXerobates 

 polyphemusj. Exchanged— One American bison (Bison ameri- 

 canns). ' 



"That reminds me." 

 258. 



WE were possum hunting. Overhead in a moonless 

 November sky an innumerable host of stars shed 

 their soft, seductive light, while under our feet rustled 

 the crisp, brown carpet of leaves which a month before 

 had spread a glory of mingled gold and crimson all over 

 the wood. In the sharp ah the music of the hounds rang 

 in multitudinous melody from hill to hill. Having fol- 

 lowed the little creek, flowing with a dark, quiet current, 

 not yet swollen by winter rains, out of our usual range, 

 we were at a loss for a "foot log" on which to cross. One 

 of the boys, noted for the size of his boots, the noise he 

 made in getting through the woods, and the facility with 

 which he could fall down and get up, presently called 

 out, "Here's a place we can jump,'" pointing to a bank 

 about 3ft. high under which flowed a narrow but danger- 

 ously still channel, flanked on the opposite side by a pile 

 of brown gravel. As we came up he stepped back for a 

 "go," and cleared the bank in his best style. When his 

 No. 10 brogans landed on what the blinking stars had 

 persuaded him was a bank of gravel, the eddied leaves 

 parted lightly, and with a mighty splash he went into 

 3ft. of ice-cold water. "Ugh-h-h, gosh!" he yelled, 

 scrambling out on the other side, while the rest of us 

 'oiled on the ground and howled. Aztec. 

 ? an Luis Potosi, Mexico. 



259. 



A newspaper item reports: "A sardine box was found 

 in the stomach of a bear recently killed in northern 

 Michigan " Now, why did this brute swallow the sardine 

 box? — J. C. P. [That was something the bear himself 

 wanted to know after he had done it.] 



mm 



mid 



"Sam LoveVs Camps." By R. E. Robinson. Now ready. 



THE SHOOTING CLUBS OF CHICAGO. 



v.— the tolleston club. 



PASSENGERS on the C. R, I. & P. Railway, running 

 south of Chicago, notice in the vicinity of Wash- 

 ington Heights, Morgan Park, Blue Island, and indeed 

 for a long distance along the road, a smoothly rounded, 

 wooded ridge rising at the right of the track to a consid- 

 erable height above the wide level which serves as a pas- 

 sageway for so many railway lines running out of the 

 city. This long, low bluff is distinctly marked for miles. 

 Upon its brow one may look off toward the big lake over 

 miles of flat ground , which will appear to him like the 

 bottom lands of some vast river, so regular is the trend of 

 the bank wherever he stands. The town of Pullman lies 

 m the middle of this flat tract, and back of this, creeping 

 sluggishly around to Blue Island upon the right, sleeps 

 the slow Calumet, met by the ditch that runs from the 

 "Sag," a semi-lake lying further back in the country. 

 The whole panorama is such as a child might make in 

 play upon the sea sands, when the retiring tide has sunk 

 from his little dykes and left a lazy and tortuous trickle 

 or two of water creeping home to the big ocean. But 

 this is a panorama formed of hands almighty, and part of 

 a canvas whereon near by mighty scenes of civic history 

 have been enacted ; whereon also, even now, enough of 

 nature remains to warrant the minor chronicling of some 

 subordinate scenes. This wide valley is, in short, the 

 bottom of what was once part of the great inland sea. 



By what cataclysm or slow process of nature there was 

 formed the vast intercepting sand ridge which rims this 

 valley from the present sweep of the big waters, or the 

 lesser ridges which divide it, no one really knows: but it 

 seems clear that such a ridge has been washed up or de- 

 posited. Back of this lie the Calumet and other marshes. 

 Along these marshes are situated what we may call the 

 Calumet clubs, or the "sand hill clubs," which may in- 

 clude the Grand Calumet Heights, the Lake George and 

 the Tolleston clubs. 



The latter club is the one chosen for this week's men- 

 tion. Its grounds lie in Indiana, within twenty-nine 

 miles of the Chicago Union Depot, and yet it is one of the 

 most interesting and important clubs of the city, so far as 

 actual field results are concerned. It is, without ques- 

 tion, financially the strongest sporting organization of 

 Chicago, and it is much to be doubted whether any field 

 club in America embraces a similar amount of wealth in 

 its membership. Wealthy, successful, a bit seclusive, 

 perhaps, the Tollestons have been, in a way, the envy of 

 those few brothers who are open to any such feeling, 

 though themselves generous, unaffected and simple to a 

 degree. 



The Tolleston Club was incorporated March 27, 1873, 

 and now numbers 108 members. Its lists are always full, 

 and there are any number of applicants waiting for an 

 opportunity to buy stock, for which $400 or $500 a share 

 would eagerly be offered if any were for sale. The club 

 associations are socially very desirable, and more than 

 this, the Tolleston marsh, lying close and convenient as it 

 is, has lately been showing good bags of ducks, when the 

 other clubs were crying in a wilderness of duckless 

 nothingness. I am disposed to think that this fact weighs 

 more with the hoi polloi of the craft than the concurrent 

 fact that among the lists are the names of such promi- 

 nent gentlemen as Mr. Marshall Field, Mr, Farwell, Mr. 

 Peacock, and dozens other of the city's best and biggest 

 business men. 



The station of Tolleston, or "Tollestone," as it is printed 

 on the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne Railway tickets, lies in 

 the heart of a sandy barren, covered with stunted oaks and 

 other low growth. The little town at the siding is pre- 

 cisely of that nature which will make you wish to get 

 away from there as soon as possible. Therefore no delay 

 will be made in repairing to the telephone which the club, 

 for its own convenience, has put m between the railway 

 station and the club house. The response to the "halloa" 

 of the wayfaring man is to the effect that a team will "be 

 there in a few minutes;" and before very long the visitor 

 is whirling along over the sandy road to the valley marsh 

 where the Tolleston Club makes its home. It was a bright 

 and eager day in early winter when I called up the club 

 house, and armed with the necessary letter of introduc- 

 tion from the veteran president, Mr. F. A. Howe, waited 

 for the team which would be over in a minute. This 

 team I soon found to be the bay mare Idle Girl, with a 

 record of 2.17, and the driver was Mr. Willard West, the 

 resident superintendent of the club, a man gray-haired 

 enough not to take me for a tenderfoot, and not to tell 

 me, as we spun over the four crooked, frosty miles, of 

 the time when he and a partner of his, hunting in the 

 Calumet cat holes, once killed 476 mallards with four 

 barrels — a story which naturally elicited one even more 

 solemn and painful in response, since I felt it would 

 not do to have Forest and Stream appear to a disad- 

 vantage when it came to any reminiscences of a serious 

 nature. 



Mr. West was yet pondering what he should say in sur- 

 rebutal, when Idle Girl whirled us out of the scrub oaks 

 to a point where we could see the valley of the Tolleston 

 marsh, lying: long and flat and narrow, in easy grays and 

 browns that showed clearly in the winter sun. Upon the 

 opposite side, two miles away, a low ridge of scrub oak 

 ran continuously. "Ruffed grouse in there," Mr. West 

 said. Upon the hither side there were little farms of 

 rye fields— the only cereal sure to grow upon that soil — 

 and wide wet meadows which the jacksnipe had but 

 lately left, and close to the road, which now turned 

 sharply up along the sandy timber edge, there nestled 

 the barns and buildings of a cosy farmstead, which, said 

 my informant, had been purchased and made part of the 

 club domain, simply because then- former owner had 

 some marsh which he would not sell unless the rest of the 

 land went with it. As far as one could see, in either 

 direction, up and down, from our standpoint, the marsh 

 belonged to the Tollestons, then- possessions running over 

 five miles in length, and being in width from three- 

 quarters of a mile to a mile and a half, or perhaps two 

 miles. Somewhere out in' the wide flat of rice and 

 "cane" and rushes, the lazy Little Calumet was crawling 

 toward the lake, along its wide valley flanked by low- 

 lying Bandy ridges. 



Half a mile along the boundary of oak and wild rice 

 brought us to the club house, lying at the crest of the 

 slope, among a scattered group of grand old crooked 

 forest trees. Of the premises no adequate illustration 

 can be made, as the grounds and buildings are scattered 

 over too wide a space. The barns, sheds, kennels and 

 kindred numerous buildings lie at some distance from 

 the house, and are grouped against the edge of a solid 

 body of second-growth timber. In the barnyards there 

 appeared all the multitudinous life of a large and prosjier- 

 ous farm. Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, sheep, swine 

 and even goats vied with each other in such rural sounds 

 as may often have pleasantly fallen upon tired ears on 

 other clear and frosty mornings. High-grade cattle and 

 horses filled the stalls, and there was at least one Jersey 

 cow which I would like to have chained fast to my desk 

 in town. The whole scene hardly looked like the property 

 of wealthy city men, yet one could easily see how de- 

 sirable it would be to have this bit of rural life left just 

 as it is, here by the big city, so that just these same city 

 men might always be able to see a bit of nature undefjied 

 with smoke and jar. Not altogether wanting, however, 

 were signs of the real character of the place. The trap 

 grounds lay on the level at the base of the hill, shaded by 

 magnificent oaks, and flanking these, past the icehouses, 

 and along a little willow-lined ditch, ran a good board 

 walk, to where, nearly half a mile away, stood the cluster 

 of boat houses, at the edge of the long ditch cut out to 

 the channel of the Little Calumet, which stream serves as 

 the main artery of the marshways. 



The club house itself is a big, long building, with no 

 claims to modern pretentious architecture, but fairly 

 radiating an air of perfect comfort. It is only what it 

 was intended to be, a spacious, solid house, simple, 

 strong, home-like, admirably adapted to its use, and 

 with a wide and sheltering air of direct appeal to one 

 coming from buildings of quite another character. Some 

 of the Tollestons are a little bit ashamed of their club 

 house, and are in for building another on more magnifi- 

 cent lines. This may be necessitated by the social de- 

 mands of such an organization, but should it ever be 

 done, I trust that tbe old building will be left just where 

 it is and just as it is. To me it seems the most desirable 

 sort of a club house, and quite the sort to be preserved 

 unchanged. 



The gun room of the Tollestons is a veritable hunters' 

 den, touched with an indefinable spirit of ease and luxury. 

 There was the same big box stove I had seen at the Mak- 

 saw-bas, and from the ceiling depended the same spolia 

 optima of a departed army of boot- wearing men ; but the 

 great cane-seated arm chairs grouped outside the stove- 

 railing looked suggestive of men who knew how to take 

 their ease in their inn; and the glasses and decanters, the 

 lemons and bottles of Apollinaris, the cog-wheel cork- 

 screw and the various flasks spoke in plain and simple 

 language of the fact that here was the home of the Tol- 

 leston cocktail — a beverage which, so I am told, is a life 

 experience and an after dream. This sideboard is main- 

 tained by the club, and is quite as free as the ice-water 

 tanks, if any cared so to look at it. There was a case of 

 books, standard authorities on sporting topics, over one 

 of which I later fell asleep by the fire. There were a few 

 little tables, and hard by them stood a few little boxes 

 filled with white, blue and red ivory discs, which had a 

 pleasant clinking sound, but with whose use I wa3 not 

 acquainted. I presume they are used for some sort of 

 targets. Upon tbe shelves were piled up the shell boxes, 

 mostly made of stout and serviceable tin, and of propor- 

 tions whose generosity indicated the demands sometimes 

 put upon them by the flight. The lockers were all closed , 

 the gun racks were empty, and all denoted the fact that 

 the club house was virtually closed for the season, 

 although it transpired later that there was still to be 

 some shooting, even when December was nearly done. 

 Mi\ Brown and Mr. Gillespie, two gentlemen who were 

 out on the marsh during that day, were of the opinion 

 that they had seen the last of it for the year. 



The little alcove off the main gun room contained two 

 large cases of admirably mounted specimens, all of game 

 birds or birds of prey killed upon the Tolleston grounds. 

 Among these I remember to have seen the mallard, red- 

 head, blue or green-winged teal, sheldrake, golden eye, 

 ruddy duck, gad wall, pintail, canvasback.widgeon, dusky 

 duck" butterball, woodduck, bluebill, ringbill, etc.; the 

 Canada goose, the swan and the pelican; also the Wilson 

 snipe, the rail, larks, etc. : the quad and ruffed grouse, a 

 number of hawks and the great snowy owl. The collec- 

 tion was a very interesting one and certainly showed the 

 variety of sport afforded by the grounds. 



Thf 'sleeping apartments of the club are upstairs. They 

 are all furnished alike, solidly and handsomely. As to 

 the table, my recollections are only vague and confused. 

 I know I dined in solitary state in the big dining hall at a 

 great table bearing that due relation to snowy linen 

 and gleaming crystal, which the civilized mind has ac- 

 cepted as the height of prandial accessories: I have a 

 recollection also of a fine series of sporting pictures upon 

 the wall and of a general air of peacefulness; after that 

 all was a wild struggle between me and the Jersey cream, 

 nor did I give over until I was master of the situation 

 and asked Mr, West what he would take for the cow. 



In the boat houses I found as complete sets of decoys 

 as I ever saw and everything else was in keeping. There 

 is not, however, much necessity for artificial blinds on 

 the Tolleston marsh, the natural cover being so good. 

 The most prevalent style of boat seemed to be a light 

 flat-bottom, sides of one piece , with a considerable rake. 

 These boats are made, 1 believe, by a builder in South 

 Chicago, I should not wonder if a close student of 

 Forest and Stream could dicover where to buy a better 

 boat. Still the model is not badly suited to the locality, 

 the distances not being great and the going mostly along 

 shallow and reedy channels. I think it a better form 

 than the long round-bottomed "Monitor" model. It ap- 

 proaches the Green Bay model a trifle, but is higher in 

 the side and not so straight on the bottom. There were, 

 of course, different styles of boats, but I saw more of 

 those named. 



Speaking of decoys reminds one of Mr. West's live 

 decoys. He had at one time forty or fifty young wild 

 ducks, raised from eggs taken upon the marsh, but the 

 minks came up through the swamp drain and made havoc 

 with the birds. Crippled ducks left by the flight often 

 breed upon the marsh, and so also do numbers of others. 

 Nests of the wild goose have been found here within 

 thirty miles of Chicago. The laborers found two wild 

 duck nests upon the hay meadow the past spring. 



