Feb. 21, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



S3 



one jump and keeled over dead. Soon after another one, know if the odors I mentioned were very offensive, or 



mense sage cock took flight on our left, and as he was 

 crossing in front, down wind, with wings set and tail 

 spread out. as they do when under full headway, I drop- 

 ped hiiu in fine style, fully sixty yards. 



Returning to camp early in'the afternoon, I was put 

 under additional obligations to my friends by transpor- 

 tation to Miner's Delight, one step further toward the 

 Mecca of my an tieipations— the Rocky Mountains. At 

 this place I had previously employed a guide and hunter, 

 with his horses, wagon and camping outfit, and we were 

 to leave at once for the territory of the elk and the grizzly, 

 it was with much regret that I bade farewell to my friends 

 the herders, to whose kindness and hospitality I was in- 

 debted for many favors the past two days. 



The sheep herder's life, to say the least, is a hard one. 

 He lives in a tent the year round, and often for weeks at 

 a time entirely alone. The sheep require constant atten- 

 tion to keep them from straying and to protect them from 

 the wolves and coyotes. Out in the blazing sun all day, 

 with no friendly shade trees, and returning at night to 

 his tent, he has to do his own cooking and washing and 

 other work of the camp. As the grass is thin and scatter- 

 ing, the herd has to be kept constantly on the move, 

 which makes the additional labor of moving camp at 

 least every ten days. The herder is a stranger to even 

 the common comforts and conveniences of life, and is 

 deprived of all the benefits of society and friends. His 

 bed is on the ground. His blankets and clothing become 

 soiled and dirty. Often water is very scarce and he is 

 thankful if he can get enough to make his tea. He is 

 from forty to one hundred miles from any post office. 

 He has no knowledge of what is going on in the world, 

 and seldom keeps the run of the day, week or month. He 

 must get his own breakfast and be out by daylight, as 

 that is the time the flock are on the move. Often at night 

 he has to be out to prevent the herd from being scattered 

 by coyotes and other enemies. When added to all this 

 are the fierce winds and fearful cold of the Wyoming 

 winter, when he must pitch his tent upon the open plains 

 with no fuel but the scanty roots of the sage bush, surely 

 his occupation is not a desirable one. If asked what 

 compensation there is for all his hardships and privation, 

 I should have to give it up. C. L. S. 



Chattanooga. Tennessee. 



[TO BE CONTINUED.] 



NOTES ON THE CARIBOU. 



Editor' Forest and Stream: 



With the permission of Mr. Fenton I place the inclosed 

 correspondence at the service of the Forest and Stream 

 that you may publish so much as you may deem of im- 

 portance. I also inclose tuft of hair he refers to. 



Chicago. 111. J. D. Caton. 



John D. Caton, Esq.: Dear Sir— I have a copy of 

 your "Antelope and Deer of America," in the perusal of 

 which I have been much interested. In fact I have read 

 it over and over. In the appendix I notice that in speak- 

 ing of the sacks in the feet of the caribou it is claimed 

 that they seem to be formed — in part — for secreting 

 odor of the animal, etc. Now, I have been up in the 

 State of Maine, falls of 1887 and 1888, expressly to hunt 

 caribou. Last fall I had the pleasure of killing a buck 

 and doe, and saw two others after they had been bagged. 



In all of these, so far as I could judge, the odor came 

 not from the feet or legs, but from the tail. In fact the 

 tail was saturated with a yellowish gum or odor, i. e., 

 down among the hairs of the tail seemed to be this 

 gummy substance, which was so pungent that one could 

 hardly hold the tail up to within six inches of his nose 

 and take a good snuff of air. This was so in all I have 

 examined of both sex. The hides of the two I killed I 

 brought home with me, wrapped around the saddles, and 

 now after being killed over two months and the hides 

 salted and hung up, the odor contained in" the tail is 

 almost as strong as ever. In fact there never seemed to 

 be much odor in the tubes of their feet. 1 find the tube 

 in the hindfeet of those I have, but they do not seem to 

 give off much if any scent. 



We killed two bucks and two does last fall and neither 

 of the does had any antlers; and the buck I killed, 

 although he dressed 2001bs., and I think by the looks of 

 his teeth (grinders) that he was four or five years old, 

 still had no antlers. In fact I don't think he ever had 

 any, or ever would have had any, as his head was 

 smooth as a doe's head. He had little nubs started up 

 about half an inch high and about half an inch 

 diameter, but not through the hide. There was no scar 

 over the horns, so I judge he never had any more antlers 

 than when killed the 1st of November. ' * * 



Frewsburg, New York. THOS. J. FENTON. 



Thos. J. Fenton, Esq. : Dear Sir—Your favor of the 

 9th inst. reached me here this morning. I am gratified 

 if my work has in any way interested you. 



I am much interested in your statements of your obser- 

 vations on the caribou. I have never heard of a sub 

 stance similar to that which you mention, and if it is 

 universal or even common I am surprised that it has not 

 been observed by others. A description of the odors you 

 observed, whether offensive or not very repugnant, or if 

 there be any agreeable taint in them, would be interesting 

 to know. 



The want of antlers, on both buck and doe, is certainly 

 phenomenal, and must be very exceptional. It would be 

 important to know if the buck had been castrated, for if 

 that had occurred when he was a fawn it might explain 

 the absence of antlers. The want of antlers on the 

 female caribou might be considered as exceptional, as 

 their presence would be on the female of any other spe- 

 cies of deer. 



If you will give me permission I will offer your com- 

 munication for publication to the Forest and Stream. 



J. D. Caton. 



John Dean Caton, Esq. : Dear Sir— Yours of the 14th 

 inst, duly received. You say "it would be interesting to 



of the kind I had ever seen. I did not think of nor take 

 any notice of odor. The second week we were in camp 

 my cousin, while on his way one evening back to camp, 

 after an unsuccessful day's hunt, ran mto a drove of 

 three, a buck, doe and calf. This buck had quite a nice set 

 of antlers, containing fourteen points. I did not examine 

 for odor. The next one killed, about the 1st of November, 

 was the buck with no antlers. He had never been cas- 

 trated. This one I examined more particularly, and while 

 skinning him out noticed that if we got our noses near 

 the tail, we got a strong dose of very pungent odor, not 

 so strong nor offensive as that of the skunk, but pun- 

 gent enough so that if the tail was brought close to the 

 nose and a strong breath inhaled, it had a tendency to 

 shut off the breathing— like hartshorn inhaled. We 

 then looked over the feet and legs and smelled of them, 

 to see if they — like those of the Virginia deer — gave off 

 any odor, but we could not discover that they did; and 

 we made up our minds that the most of it came from 

 the tail. The last one bagged was a doe about Nov. 6. 

 She like the buck seemed to have the odor secreted (to 

 the same extent) in the tail and none in the feet that we 

 could notice. At the time I did not think anything sin- 

 gular or strange over the matter. If I had I would 

 aave sent you one of the tails, fresh before they had 

 been salted. After my return home I took your work 

 and van through what it said on the caribou, to see if it 

 mentioned anything concerning bucks without antlers 

 and odors in the tails. Seeing nothing of the kind men- 

 tioned I thought I would drop you a line in regard to it, 

 I did not think it so strange that the doe I killed had no 

 antlers, as I asked the old hunter that came in with the 

 saddle the day of our arrival up there if she had any 

 horns and he said she did not have any; he also stated 

 that he killed a doe caribou the fall before (1887), and 

 that she also had no antlers. So of course I was not 

 looking much for antlers upon the head of a doe, but I 

 did expect to find antlers on the adult buck at that season 

 of the year, or at least that he had had a set sometime. 

 This buck's head is set up (and where it can be seen and 

 examined at any time) at Number Four, Lewis county, 

 N. Y., at the residence of Lyman Wetmore, Esq. The 

 head of the doe now adorns my sitting room, to keep 

 company with a 14-pointed buck's head that I bagged up 

 in the Adirondack Mountains. 



I salted both hides heavy after I got home, which I 

 think had a tendency, coupled with the time that elapsed 

 since they were killed, to subdue in a great measure the 

 odors they then gave off. Still I think you will have 

 no difficulty in detecting in the squib of hair inclosed, 

 cut from the middle of the under side of the tail of the 

 enough of the odor to give you an idea of its 

 character. 



An article in Forest and Stream might be of sufri- 

 ient importance to draw attention to these matters by 

 hunters in the future. Thos. J. Fenton. 



THE SOOTY GROUSE. 



its habits, nests and eggs. 



rHE sooty grouse, better known on the Pacific coast, 

 however, under the names of blue grouse and pine 

 hen, has a wide range of distribution. Ridgway, in his 

 • Manual of North American Birds," gives its habitat as 

 Mountains near Pacific coast from California to Sitka. 

 Alaska." It is found, however, equally abundant in 

 suitable localities throughout the entire interior mountain 

 system of the Northwest, as far east at least as the 

 western spurs of the Bitter Root Range of Montana, fully 

 800 miles from the sea coast, throughout the entire Blue 

 Mountain and Cascade ranges of Oregon, as well as 

 through the mountains of Washington and Idaho Terri- 

 tories, and northern Nevada. These birds from the 

 interior, beginning from the eastern foot hills of the Cas- 

 cade Range (vicinity of Fort Klamath, Oregon), and 

 throughout the remaining localities mentioned, are, how- 

 ever, much lighter and paler colored than the type speci- 

 mens of D. obscurus f uliginosus Ridgway, which were 

 obtained in the vicinity of Sitka. Alaska, but are never- 

 theless referable to this form rather than to D. obscurus 

 (Say). 



I have met with the sooty grouse, in all the above-men- 

 tioned localities in the Northwest, and have had excellent 

 opportunities to observe their habits. As a game bird, 

 considered from a sportsman's point of view, it has no 

 peer, and its flesh, in gastronomic value, is of an equal 

 order of excellence. Although a resident throughout the 

 year, wherever found, the sooty grouse is seldom seen 

 during the winter months, spending almost the entire 

 time in the tops of tall, bushy fir and pine trees, which it 

 leaves only for a short time about the middle of the day 

 to procure water from some little mountain spring. 



Their presence in a tree selected by these birds as a 

 roosting and budding place can, however, be readily de- 

 tected by a close observer, especially when the ground, as 

 it almost invariably is at that time of the year, is covered 

 with a foot or two of snow. The food of the sooty grouse 

 during the entire winter consists almost exclusively of 

 the buds and tender tops of the pine and fir branches, as 

 well as of fully grown pine needles. Li picking these off, 

 a certain amount is usually rejected, or dropped by acci- 

 dent, and I have seen fully a bushel or more scattered 

 about the base of a single tree, which I attributed first to 

 the work of squirrels, till I found out otherwise. The use 

 of such food imparts to the flesh of these birds at this 

 season a strong, resinous flavor, not particularly relished 

 by me at first. After finding such a tree used as a roost- 

 ing place, it still remained to locate the birds, which gen- 

 erally proved to be a more difficult matter than one would 

 anticipate. When theyfound themselves discovered they 

 would usually remain perfectly motionless, and it was no 

 easy matter to see a bird among the dense branches. If 

 sitting on a good-sized limb, they would crouch length- 

 wise on it, leaving very little of their body exposed to 

 view from below, and if one went off some little distance 

 the foliage of the lower limbs would hide the bird equally 

 effective. Single families only are found together during 

 the winter, say from eight to twelve birds, and frequent- 

 ly but two or three. I have scarcely ever seen larger 

 packs together at any time. They certainly do not pack 

 in the late autumn in the manner of sage-fowl (Centro- 

 cereus urophasianus) and sharp-tailed grouse (Pedioccetes 

 phasianellus cohmbianus), both of these species having 



been observed by me on more than one occasion in packs 

 numbering over a hundred. 



I first met with the sooty grouse on Craig's Mountain, 

 near Fort Lapwai, Idaho, on the Nez Perce Indian Reser- 

 vation, and was told by both trappers and Indians that 

 these birds did not remain there during the winter, in 

 which belief I consequently shared at that time. I was 

 also told that when a covey had been located in a tree, 

 by being careful always to shoot the bird sitting lowest, 

 the whole lot might be secured successfully. This may 

 be so, but somehow it always failed with me; usually 

 after the second shot, often even after the first, and cer- 

 tainly at the third, the remaining birds took wing, and 

 generally flew quite a distance before alighting again, 

 nearly always placing a deep cation between themselves 

 and me. 



At Fort Lapwai, Idaho, in the early fall of 1870 and of 

 1871, on two or three occasions I found a few of these 

 birds mixed in and feeding with large packs of tYfe sharp- 

 tailed grouse. This must, however, be considered as an 

 unusual behavior, as I never noticed it anywhere else 

 subsequently, although both species were equally abund- 

 ant in other localities where I met them frequently in 

 after years. The favorite locations to look for the sooty 

 rouse during the spring and summer are the sunny, 

 upper parts of the foothills, bordering on the heavier 

 timbered portions of the mountains, among the scattered 

 pines and the various berry-bearing bushes found in such 

 situations and along the sides of cations. According to 

 my observations these birds are scarcely ever found any 

 distance within the really heavy timber. In the midtlle 

 of the day they caii usually be looked for with success 

 among tlie deciduous trees and shrubbery found along 

 the mountain streams in canons, especially if there is 

 an occasional pine or fir tree mixed among the former. 

 The cocks separate from the hens after incubation has 

 commenced, I believe, and keep in little companies, 

 say from four to six, by themselves, joining the young 

 broods again in the early fall. At any rate, I have more 

 than once come on several cocks in June and July, with- 

 out seeing a single hen among them. High rocky points 

 near the edges of the main timber, among juniper and 

 mountain mahogany thickets, are their favorite abiding 

 places at that time of year. The young chicks are kept 

 by the hen for the first week or two in close proximity 

 to the place where they were hatched, and not till they 

 have attained two weeks' growth will they be found along 

 the willows and thickets bordering the mountain streams. 

 Their food consists at first principally of grasshoppers, 

 insects and tender plant tops, and later in the season of 

 various species of berries then in abundance everywhere, 

 as well as the seeds of a species of wild sunflower of which 

 they seem to be very fond. It is astonishing how quick 

 the young chicks learn to fly, and well, too, and how 

 quickly they can hide and scatter at the first alarm note 

 of the mother bird, which invariably tries by various 

 devices to draw the attention of the intruder to itself and 

 away from its young. A comparatively small leaf, a 

 bunch of grass, anything, in fact, will answer their pur- 

 pose; you will scarcely be able to notice them before they 

 are all securely hidden, and unless you ehould have a 

 well trained dog to assist you, the chances are that you 

 would fail to find a single one, even when the immediate 

 surroundings were open. After the young broods are 

 about half grown, they spend the greater portion of the 

 day, and, 1 believe, the night as well, among the shrub- 

 bery in the creek bottoms, feeding along the sidehUls in 

 the early hours of the morning and evening. During 

 the heat of the day they keep close to the water, in shady 

 trees and the heavy undergrowth. They walk to their 

 feeding grounds, but in going to water they usually fly 

 down from the hillsides. 



The love note of the cock has a very peculiar sound, 

 hard to describe. It can be heard at almost any hour of 

 the day in the spring, often in the beginning of March 

 when there is still plenty of snow to be found, and it is 

 kept up till well into the munth of May. Ic is known as 

 hooting or booming. The cocks when engaged in this 

 amusement may be found perched on horizontal limbs of 

 large pine or fir trees, with their air-sacks inflated to the 

 utmost, wings drooping and the tail expanded. They 

 present then a very ludicrous appearance, especially 

 about the head. When at rest these air-sacks, of a pale 

 orange yellow color in the spring, are only noticeable by 

 separating the feathers on the neck and upper parts of 

 the breast, but when inflated they are the size of a 

 medium orange, and somewhat resemble one cut in 

 halves. This call is repeated several times in rapid suc- 

 cession, decreasing in volume gradually, but can at any 

 time be heard at quite a distance. It appears to be pro- 

 duced by the sudden forcing of a portion of the air in the 

 sack quickly through the throat, and is quite misleading 

 as to the exact locality where uttered, the birds being 

 expert ventriloquists. I have frequently hunted in vain 

 to locate one while so engaged where there were but a 

 few trees in the vicinity; and although I searched each 

 one through carefully, and with a powerful field glass to 

 assist me, I had to give it up, completely baffled. 



It is beyond me to describe this love call accurately. 

 Some naturalists state that it resembles the sound made 

 by blowing into the bunghole of an empty barrel, others 

 find a resemblance to the cooing of a pigeon, and some 

 to the noise made by whirring a rattan cane rapidly 

 through the air. The latter sound comes in my opinion 

 nearer to it than anything else. The closest approach to 

 it I can give in letters is a deep, guttural MM, the 

 first letter scarcely sounded. 



The accounts of the nesting habits of the sooty grouse 

 are somewhat vague, the number of eggs to a set being 

 variously given as from eight to fifteen. I have person- 

 ally examined quite a number of the nests of this grouse 

 between May G, 1871. and June 25. 1883. The largest 

 number of eggs found by me in a set was ten, in two in- 

 stances three sets contained nine each, seven sets con- 

 tained eight each and five sets seven eggs or less, the 

 latter, probably, incomplete, although some of these sets 

 of eggs were advanced in incubation. I think that eight 

 eggs is the ordinary number laid by these birds. 



Eggs may be looked for from April 15 to the latter 

 part of May, according to altitude. The earliest date on 

 which I obtained eggs of this grouse was April 18, 1877, 

 when a set was found by Lieut. C. R. Bacon, 1st Cavalry, 

 containing seven fresh specimens. This nest was placed 

 in a willow bush growing under a solitary pine tree, in a 

 small ravine, five miles northwest of" Camp Harney, 

 Oregon. This nest was composed entirely of dry pine 

 needles, picked up in the immediate vicinity, 



