316 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[May 9, 1889. 



A Captive Robin.— Editor Forest and Stream: When 

 out after English snipe at Flushing, L. I., on April 19, 

 my attention was attracted by a bird fluttering at the end 

 of a branch of a maple tree ahead of me. Upon a close 

 examination I found it was a robin which was attached 

 by one leg to the small twigs at the end of the branch. 

 Calling a small boy, who with several companions was 

 chasing the wily polywog in the neighboring pond, I got 

 him to climb the tree and cut off the branch, which I 

 caught as it fell. The robin had found somewhere a long 

 piece of shoemaker's thread and had appropriated it for 

 its nest. In some way this thread had become wrapped 

 around the bird's leg," forming a single hitch above the 

 foot and another around the longest toe. The long 

 streaming thread had become entangled around the end 

 of the branch and the struggles of the poor bird had only 

 served to fasten it more securely. I found the thread had 

 cut the toe to the bone and the bird had in its struggles 

 so strained its leg, that it hung uselessly down when I 

 released it. The bird's wings, however, were not injured, 

 and the bone of the leg not being fractured, it probably 

 recovered from the strain. What a meal a hawk would 

 have had, had he happened along and seen the captive. 

 — Robt. B. Lawrence (New York, April 27.) 



Bird Nesting Bo vs. — 1 wish that we had a game war- 

 den as energetic as Mr. Hague, our fish warden , one that 

 would stop the killing of all kinds of game out of season 

 as practiced throughout this and neighboring counties, 

 the use of ferrets, and last, but not least, wouldputachek 

 on the small-boy- with-a-gun, who kills all kinds of birds in 

 sight, and those young scamps who make it a business to 

 gather birds' eggs. One of the latter, whose fond father 

 looks upon him as a coming naturalist, boastingly told 

 me he had gathered fourteen sets of the eggs of the flicker 

 (Colajites auratus), and that he had discovered two more 

 nests to-day, but was so busy he could not attend to them 

 before next Saturday. The flicker commonly lays six eggs, 

 sometimes more. We will call a set in' this case six. 

 Multiply by fourteen and you will have some idea of the 

 work our young naturalist (?) is doing. How can this be 

 stopped? Our birds are almost all here, the Baltimore 

 oriole being our latest arrival.— G. A. Scroggs (Beaver, 

 Fa., April 29). 



Florida Birds of Plume.— We learn from Dr. J. A. 

 Henshall, who has just returned from Florida on the 

 Fish Commission schooner Grampus, that all the plume 

 birds were excessively scarce during the months of 

 February, Ma rch and April and that they are permanently 

 decimated by the slaughter for the market. He coasted 

 along from the lower end of Biscayne Bay, through Card 

 Sound, Barnes' Sound, around Cape Sable, the Florida 

 Keys, and up the west coast to Tampa, everywhere ob- 

 serving the scarcity of birds. An occasional white egret 

 was seen where he formerly met with thousands. Only 

 two roseate spoonbills were noticed. White egret plumes 

 that once sold for 10 cents each now bring a dollar, so 

 rare have they become. Merchants have placarded the 

 whole of Florida with directions for making, preserving, 

 and shipping skins. Even alligators were uncommon, 

 but this may have been due to the exceptionally cool 

 weather. 



Brant in Michigan.— Editor Forest and Stream: On 

 Nov. 8, 1888, John Boyse, a local gunner, killed at Mon- 

 roe, Mich. , a pair of brant, which were sent on to New 

 York to be mounted by John Wallace. The said brant 

 were examined by Mr. Geo. N. Lawrence, and pro- 

 nounced to be the common eastern species (Branta berni- 

 cla). In a letter, dated April 12, 1889, Mr. Lawrence 

 states: "I consider the brant to be, undoubtedly, the 

 eastern species, which has been but rarely obtained in the 

 interior." I believe in Herbert's (Frank Forester) time it 

 was quite a subject of discussion whether the eastern 

 brant was ever found on the Great Lakes, and, if I have 

 been rightly informed, a wager was made that they never 

 occurred so far away from the seaboard. Whether said 

 wager was won or lost I never heard, however. — Robt. B. 

 Lawrence (New York, April 27). 



Whale and Killer Fighting.— On April 19, when 

 Mr. W. A. Wilcox was returning by steamer from Hum- 

 boldt Bay to San Francisco, he" witnessed a lively fight 

 between a California gray whale and a pair of supposed 

 thrasher sharks. " We first noticed them a mile away, 

 dead ahead, and passed within 15ft. of them. The whale 

 was having a hard time to 'come to the scratch.'" It is 

 probable that the opponents of the whale were killers, a 

 species of Orca, whose high and narrow dorsal fins would 

 naturally be mistaken for the long tail of the thrasher. 

 This shark is much too small and insignificant to combat 

 with a whale, but the killer is fearless, aggressive and 

 powerful in conflict. 



Food of the Bullfrog.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 April 20, while shooting bullfrogs for a mess of their 

 hindlegs, we found in the stomachs of two of them a 

 partly digested pickerel frog, at least a quarter the size 

 of the bullfrogs, one of which was quite a large one, the 

 other a medium-sized one. I considered it an unusual 

 thing for the bullfrog to practice cannibalism, as I have 

 always been told they were insect eaters only, and write 

 this thinking perhaps it would bring out other notes on 

 the subject. — E. T. J. (Bethel, Conn.). 



Albino Squirrel.— Out correspondent "Mae," writing 

 from Glasgow, Ky., under date of April 30, says: "On 

 April 25 Mr. Morgan Brents, a Louisville sportsman, 

 killed a male albino squirrel. The specimen has been 

 forwarded to a taxidermist and will be mounted. This 

 is the first albino squirrel killed here since 1848." We 

 should be glad to know what kind of a squirrel it was. 



Bird Notes.— Editor Forest and Stream: Since my last 

 letter the following birds have been seen: April 15, Wil- 

 son's snipe; 18th, kingfisher; 19th, black-throated green 

 warbler; 20th, chipping sparrow; 21st, field sparrow; 22d, 

 barn swallow, chimney swallow, bank swallow, hermit 

 thrush and summer yellowbird: 25th, nighthawk — P. C. 

 (Concord, N. HA " 



Names and Pobtraits of Birds, by Gurdon Trumbull. A 

 book particularly interesting to gunners, for by its use they can 

 identify without question all the American game birds which 

 they may kill. Cloth, 220 pages, price $2.50. Tor sale by Fobest 

 and Stream. 



'mm §dg mid @ut(. 



WITH THE CRESTED QUAIL. 



I USED to think that the population of Arizona con- 

 sisted principally of rattlesnakes and scorpions, centi- 

 pedes and tarantulas; while its climate was well described 

 by that old chestnut of the Yama soldier, who died, was 

 gathered in below, and the next morning was obliged to 

 telegraph back for his camp blankets. After being here 

 for six months I find that quail should be substituted for 

 snakes, and ducks for the rest of the varmints; while the 

 climate is as far superior to that of southern California 

 as my new hammerless is to a revolutionary musket. 



I am a member of what the inhabitants designate "the 

 one lung brigade,'' and whom they treat with the greatest 

 consideration , there being hardly a day but I am taken 

 by some one for a shoot or a drive. Last New Years I 

 had my first try at the crested quail, having been invited 

 by a Mr. Elder to join himself and a few friends. The 

 programme included a lunch at his ranch, about two 

 miles from town, after which we were to hitch up four- 

 in-hand to his big wagon and spend the afternoon in the 

 sage brush on the desert. The lunch was a grand success, 

 especially to one like myself, who had been living in a 

 Chinese restaurant at two bits a meal and where the 

 choice of napkins was limited to the corner of the table- 

 cloth or the back of one's hand. From my seat at the 

 table I had a full view of the barn and the man hitching 

 up our rig. Suddenly I saw him go flying about six feet 

 through the air, while the right wheeler, who had been 

 the propelling power, attempted a back somersault, land- 

 ing both himself and mate on their backs, breaking the 

 pole short oft", and making tilings generally pleasant all 

 around. These native ponies are not always to be relied 

 upon. The others rushed to the assistance of the man, 

 and peace and order were soon restored, but I stayed to 

 protect the ladies and the lunch. 



Of course this knocked our four-in-hand in the head, 

 lint Mr, E. hitched up one pair to his buggy and taking 

 me in that and leaving the others to come in the farm 

 wagon, we were soon in the brush with quail on every 

 side. Dogs are absolutely useless, except as retrievers, 

 the birds refusing to lie at all. He hitched the team to a 

 mesquite stump and then for an hour we had a fine time; 

 we crawled up ditches on our hands and knees, dodged 

 from bush to bush in the most approved Indian style, and 

 at the end of that time I had a lame back, my clothes 

 covered with dirt and one quail. This was aggravating, 

 as we could see and hear hundreds of them, but their 

 lungs were better than mine, and they could run two 

 yards to my one. We went back to the wagon, and after 

 driving some minutes in silence Mr. E. remarked, "The 

 last time we shot over this team they cleared the traces, 

 but if you wish to try it, bang away." It was his team, 

 not mine, and if he could stand it 1 rather guessed that I 

 could, and so slipping in a couple of shells and praying 

 that 1 would land in a sand heap and not in a cactus bush, 

 I waited my chance. Mr. E., who is a man of great 

 strength, took a fresh grip of the reins and nodded to 

 my left, where I saw about twenty quail some forty 

 yards away, making tracks at a rate that would have 

 done credit to a fox-terrier chasing a Hempstead rabbit. 

 1 let them have it right and left, getting two with the 

 first and one with the other, and was greatly surprised to 

 find myself still sitting in the buggy. The horses had 

 given one grand plunge, tried to stand on their heads and 

 then gave in beaten. After a few more rounds they 

 really seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing them- 

 selves and would stop short at the report. For the next 

 hour we took turns driving and shooting, and such sport 

 I had never seen before, the birds being as thick as the 

 sparrows in Central Park. At the end of that time we 

 counted up thirty dead birds, including a few doves, and 

 started for home, arriving tired and hungry and just in 

 time for the best dinner I had seen in weeks. Some of 

 you may think that this is pot hunting, but you will find 

 that hitting a running quail from a moving wagon is not 

 so easy as it looks. In my next I will tell you of my first 

 attempt at duck shooting by moonlight. Phcenix. 



A HUNT IN ARKANSAS. 



T HAD made up my mind that I must kill a deer, and 

 -L on my return from duck hunting on the Illinois River, 

 in the spring of 1887, I proposed to S., one of our party, 

 that we build a boat, and float down the Illinois and Mis- 

 sissippi Eivers to Arkansas. There we might have a 

 chance at something larger than snipe and ducks. S. re- 

 marked that he always had had a desire to take a trip of 

 that kind, but could never find any one to go with him. 

 So it was settled that we go the following fall. 



We at once began to get our duffle ready, as we had but 

 seven months of time before we intended to start. Both 

 of us being what the world calls poor, we had to contrive 

 to make our limited means go as far as possible. We 

 built a boat of weather boards, 16ft.x54in., to carry us 

 and our outfit. We had two of the things most despised 

 by "Nessmuk," namely, a wall tent and camp stove. I 

 never want to go into camp for a week or more without 

 the stove. Ours was 14x24in. on top, lOin. deep, with 

 oven 10xl4in., which, with-f our joints of telescopic pipe, 

 made a very complete stove for four or five persons. 

 Besides the tent and stove we had the usual cooking 

 utensils, an axe, hatchet, saw, pliers, a bag of nails, tacks, 

 rivets and wire, needles and thread, buttons, fishing 

 tackle, two double-barrel shotguns, one .22cal. rifle and 

 ammunition, and four dozen steel traps, which, by the 

 way, I was not in favor of taking; then there was our 

 bedding and extra clothing, gum boots, and about 2001bs. 

 of provisions. We started from here at 4 o'clock on the 

 morning of Oct. 5, going by wagon to Frederick, a small 

 town on the Illinois River. Arriving there that after- 

 noon, we pitched our tent, and got everything ready for 

 an early start down the river next morning. 



Daylight found us packing our outfit in the boat, and 

 we had a large load when we got everything in and took 

 our seats at the oars. We had one set of bow-facing and 

 one of common oars. At 11 o'clock that day we camped 

 at the mouth of Crooked Creek, five miles below Beards- 

 town. We camped here a day, but as the weather was 

 very warm we concluded to strike out down the river at 

 once. For the next ten days we rowed each day until 

 tired, then camped on shore, rested and ate, especially 

 eat. Arriving at St. Louis, Mo., at 11 A. M. on the 13th, 

 we concluded we had enough rowing, and secured pass- 



age on the City of Vicksburg for the mouth of the river 

 we were bound for, in Arkansas. Leaving St. Louis at 

 9:80 P. M. of the 15th, we arrived at our destination about 

 4 o'clock on the morning of the 21st, it having taken us 

 five days and six nights to make the trip on account of 

 the low stage of water. Tired of steamboat life and 

 ready to again "paddle our own canoe," we started up 

 river, but only succeeded in getting eleven miles up it 

 that day, the river being very swift here. On the follow- 

 ing day we succeeded in getting up river about thirty- 

 five miles to our permanent camping ground. Here we 

 camped on the bank of the river and about half a mile 

 from a, series of lakes, around which we saw plenty of 

 fresh bear and deer signs. Several days were now spent 

 in fixing up camp, setting traps and trot lines and enjoy- 

 ing a free woods life. 



We had plenty of ducks and squirrels, but had seen no 

 deer, until one morning I went to the upper end of the 

 lakes. I had walked up the dry bed of a slough about a 

 quarter of a mile, when I heard something running in 

 the brush, which was here quite thick. I stepped behind 

 a tree, slipped two shells loaded with buckshot into my 

 gun, and waited what seemed to me a half hour, but was 

 perhaps a minute or so, when a young buck emerged 

 from the brush and stopped and looked at me. I gave 

 Mm a load of No. 7 buck m the head and neck, and he 

 dropped in his tracks. I ran to him— or rather stepped, 

 for I think I covered the 2oyds. at about two steps— put 

 my foot on his shoulder and bled him. As the knife en- 

 tered his neck, he rolled his pitiful-looking eyes to mine, 

 and I was sorry that I had shot him. But only for a 

 moment; then the instinct of the hunter made me rejoice 

 in my triumph. After admiring him as he lay for ten or 

 fifteen minutes, I shouldered him as he was and carried 

 him about two miles to camp, arriving there covered 

 with glory and blood. 



After that I hunted but little, but saw plenty of sign of 

 both deer and bear, and some six or seven deer. 



My partner S. getting tired and wanting to see wife 

 and baby, we only stayed about a week longer, living 

 on the fat of the land, venison, duck, snipe, catfish and 

 squirrel. As to the latter I differ with "Nessmuk" as to 

 how to skin a squirrel easily. My way is to cut through 

 tail from under side close up to the body, leaving only 

 the bide on top side, then put my foot on tail, take him 

 by hindlegs and pull, when the hide will part on belly, 

 take this by point and pull and the skin will come off in 

 two parts, leaving the body free from hair. Try it. 



On the morning of Nov. 3 we broke camp, pulled to the 

 mouth of river, and took passage home. I was homesick 

 for the camp before I got on board the stormier, and 

 promised myself that I would go again next fall and stay 

 longer. I am going again next fall if I can get a stayer 

 or two to go with me. I think I can get more than one 

 deer and perhaps a bear. 



A word in regard to best gun. After two trips south, 

 missing several good shots and crippling one or two deer 

 with a shotgun, I have decided to uge a rifle for large 

 game, as being surer to kill and giving much more satis- 

 faction to the user when he does kill. En Ami. 

 Macomb, 111. 



LAST SEASON IN KENTUCKY. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



More attention has been given to hunting and fishing 

 matters in the "dark and bloody ground" during the past 

 year than perhaps ever before, and it is now quite the 

 proper .thing to have a gun and a dog or a rod, and be well 

 up in the laws of both sports. Gun clubs are being or- 

 ganized all over the State, and Capt. G. G. Berry, right 

 band man of Griffith & Semple, dealers in all manner of 

 sporting goods, says that a great deal of hunting is being 

 done all over the State, and small game is to be found in 

 abundance. 



In eastern Kentucky and in the Green Eiver region 

 birds were very plentiful, and great sport was had. A 

 party consisting of Capt. G. G. Berry, his brother, Lieut. 

 Com. R. M. Berry of the United States Navy; Mi\ James 

 O'Bryan, and Mr. R. W. Crabb of Uniontown, Ky., shot 

 last winter about Alligator Lake, Miss. Alligator "Lake is 

 eighty-seven miles below Memphis on the Newport News 

 & Mississippi Valley Railroad, and is a favorite hunting- 

 ground with Louisville hunters, who are old enough in 

 the business to be known as professionals. Capt. Berry, 

 who is, perhaps, at the head of the lovers of the gun in 

 the Falls City, goes to this famous hunting ground each 

 year in search of bear, but last year he was kept so busy 

 selling guns and gunning paraphernalia to hunters that 

 he was unable to get away in time to meet bruin. The 

 party came back home, however, triumphant with 

 eight handsome deer, a number of wild turkeys, and a 

 great load of ducks and squirrels. They had much 

 trouble with their dogs, or the results would have been 

 even better. 



Dr. Dudley S. Reynolds and Dr. Allen Kelch, who are 

 as handy at the trigger as they are with a patient, were 

 out on the new Louisville, St. Louis & Texas Railroad, 

 about fifty miles from Louisville, and had great sport. 

 The country is new and is full of the small game so 

 eagerly sought by Louisville nimrods, and Judge W. B. 

 Fleming, Kentucky Railroad Commissioner, averaged 

 thirty-six birds a day for the five days he gunned. Mr. 

 M. J. Burke, of the Louisville, St. Louis & Texas road, 

 and Dr. Austin B. Alexander, were also out on the line 

 of the road, and brought in some handsome birds. About 

 Pineville, Beattyville, Winchester, Uniontown, Rich- 

 mond, Nicholasville and other Kentuckey towns, the 

 sport was finer than for a dozen years, and hunters were 

 not slow to take advantage of the fact. 



The extremely light winter has made fishing very good 

 for the season, and on the Falls here, along Green River, 

 and at and near Pineville, some good catches are being 

 made. Sporting goods dealers anticipate an unusually 

 good season, and are making preparations to handle an 

 increased stock. The Uniontown, Ky., Hunting Club 

 has now one of the best club houses in the South, and it 

 is the pride of all who are fortunate enough to be inter- 

 ested in it. The members are Capt. G. G. Berry, Dr. C. 

 W. Kelly, Judge W. B^ Fleming, Mr. John G. Roach, 

 Dr. Arthur Peter, Mr. Joseph W. Davis, Mr. James 

 O'Bryan and Mr. Paul Cain. The club house is very hand- 

 somely and conveniently equipped, and is about two miles 

 by land and three miles" by water from Uniontown. It is 

 situated on Hovey's Lake,which is own ed by and named for 

 the present governor-elect of Indiana. In high water the 

 lake may be reached by boat, but in low water only by 

 land. The location is the very best, and the duck shoot' 



