Aug. 15, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



66 



bodies from the ground and gallop off like a land animal. 

 The sea lions travel by bending the posterior part of the 

 body to the right or left, extending their long flexible 

 necks in an opposite direction to balance themselves, and 

 then slowly raising their bodies by their fore limbs and 

 plunging forward, by which movement they thus gain 

 an advance of only half a length at a time. "When they 

 arrive in sight of the ponds they make a hurried scram- 

 ble for them, and, rushing in pell-mell, roll and tumble 

 in the water as though it afforded immense relief to their 

 heated and wearied bodies. When it is convenient to do 

 so they are allowed to rest over night in the water, by 

 which they acquire fresh vigor for the completion of the 

 journey. This severe and unnatural exertion overheats 

 and exhausts these poor beasts and necessitates long 

 halts to enable them to rest and cool. It usually requires 

 five days to make the journey, averaging two miles per 

 day. Three men conduct the herd, and camp at night 

 with their charge. On starting they kill a young cub 

 for their subsistence, using the flesh for food and the 

 blubber for fuel in cooking it and making their tea, 



where they are allowed to rest and cool before they are 

 killed. 



"The sea lions are too formidable to be killed with 

 clubs like the fur seals. When all is ready for the 

 slaughter the herd is started up a sloping hillside; the 

 hunters follow, armed with rifles, and shoot the full- 

 grown males from behind, the back of the skull being 

 the only part a ball can penetrate. After all of these 

 have been killed, the head of the column is checked and 

 turned back so that the animals become massed to- 

 gether, and piled on each other five or six deep. In this 

 way those below are held by those above while the hunt- 

 ers, armed with short lances, watch their opportunity to 

 rush up to the struggling mass and thrust their lances 

 into some vital part of the doomed beasts. This is at- 

 tended with some danger to the hunters, who sometimes 

 receive serious wounds from being hit with the lances 

 that the sea lions, in their death agonies, seize in their 

 mouths and wrench from the hands of the hunters. 



"Nearly every part of these animals is valuable to the 

 natives, but they have no commercial value outside of 



head gently in his mouth, and while bringing me wounded 

 woodcock m this way I have often heard the identical 

 twitter when the bird fluttered, that he had made when 

 trying to charm us on his first spring. 



Whether the sound is made by the primaries or by the 

 little stiff feathers at the pollex of the wing I would not 

 try to guess, but as the European woodcock, which 

 hardly whistles at all, has a larger development of the 

 pollex feathers than has our woodcock, it seems probable 

 that the sound is caused by the primaries. The little stiff 

 feathers, by the way, are saved by hunters for artists' 

 use in Germany, for when mounted for use as a brush 

 very accurate delicate lines can be laid with them. 



New York, Ao^b. Robert T. Morris. 



The Loon's Flight.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 

 have read with much interest "J. G. R.'s" letter on loons 

 in your issue of July 11, and Mr. Ide's reply in that of 

 Aug. 1. Now, loons have, been the object of much care- 

 ful observation and study with me, both as a sportsman 

 and as an ornithologist, and I wish to confirm Mr. Ide's 



STELLER'S SEA LION 



"After two days' travel the animals become very tired, 

 and as soon as they are permitted to halt they drop at 

 full length with their limbs extended. But their rest is 

 not peaceful, for some restless one soon starts up and 

 flounders over the others as if seeking a better place. 

 This disturbs the whole herd, which constantly keeps up 

 a low moaning apparently expressive of sore distress. A 

 most apt description of such a scene was once given by a 

 military officer who was seated with me on the edge of 

 a sand-drive watching a herd resting in this condition. 

 After a long silence he observed, 'This is the first thing 

 I have ever seen or heard that realizes my youthful con- 

 ception of the torment of the condemned in purgatory.' 



"When the herd is once fairly halted and at rest it re- 

 quires from half an hour to an hour to get it moving 

 again in marching order. The process is quite novel and 

 worth describing. The sea lions have now become so ac- 

 customed to their captors that they will sooner fight than 

 run from them, and they are too much deafened by their 

 own noise to hear or fear any other sound. As they lie 

 on the ground in a compact mass, one of the men takes 

 an umbrella (before the introduction of umbrellas a flag 

 was used), and goes twenty or thirty yards to the rear of 

 the herd and approaching stealthily until he is quite 

 near, suddenly expands the umbrella and runs with it 

 along the rear of the herd: then closing it he retires to 

 repeat the maneuver. This has the effect to rouse the 

 rear rank, which thus suddenly alarmed, plunges for- 

 ward and arouses those in front, which immediately be- 

 gin struggling and biting. The return of the man with 

 the umbrella communicates another shock and adds an- 

 other wave to the sluggish mass. This is repeated at 

 intervals of four or five minutes till the successive shocks 

 have aroused the whole herd, when, with much roaring 

 and bellowing, the whole mass begins to move, gradual- 

 ly extending itself in a long irregular line in open order, 

 each animal lumbering along as best it can. By shout- 

 ing and waving flags at the rear and on the flanks of the 

 herd, they are kept moving until it is necessary to halt 

 them again for rest. Seen when thus moving in a long 

 irregular line, the slow heaving motion of their bodies 

 and the swaying of their long flexible necks give a gro- 

 tesque appearance to the scene, and suggest anything but 

 a herd of lions. The islands, being composed of volcanic 

 rock, is full of subterranean fissures covered thinly with 

 soil and vegetation, and the earth so resounds with the 

 noise of the tread of the sea lions that the sound may be 

 heard to the distance of two miles. The approach of the 

 herd to a village is always an occasion of interest and 

 excitement to all of the inhabitants, who go out en masse 

 to meet them and escort them to the slaughtering-ground, 



Alaska. Their skins are indispensable to the sea otter 

 hunters of the Aleutian Islands, for the covering of their 

 canoes in which they hunt these animals. The natives 

 also use them for covering their large boats used in load- 

 ing and unloading vessels. * * * Its flesh is preferred 

 for food to that; of the fur seal, that of the full-grown 

 animal being finer in texture, lighter in color, and of a 

 sweeter flavor, and it dries more readily in preserving it 

 for winter use; the flesh of the young at the age of four 

 months is esteemed a great luxury by the natives, and is 

 not easily distinguished from veal by educated palates. 

 * * * Only the skeleton is left to waste. 



The stomachs of the full-grown sea lions are found to 

 always contain from six to ten pounds of stones, varying 

 in size from that of a hen's egg to a large apple. These 

 stones are the same as those found on the beaches, worn 

 round and smooth by the surf. The natives say they 

 take these stones into the stomach for ballast when they 

 leave the breeding grounds, and cast them out again 

 when they land in the spring. I have, however, had no 

 means of verifying this, as the only season when they are 

 taken is during the winter. 



"As soon as the animals have all been killed the men 

 proceed to remove the skins and blubber, and the other 

 useful parts, which the chiefs divide and distribute among 

 the several families. * * * Only a few of the skins 

 are required for use on the island, the remainder being 

 shipped to Ounalashka and other points, where they are 

 sold to the sea otter hunters. The value of the skins at 

 the island is sixty cents each. About eight hundred are 

 annually taken at Saint Paul's Island, without apparently 

 any decrease in the stock. 



"There are many other places in the Territory where 

 these animals bring forth their young, but as they resort 

 mostly to outlying rocks and ledges, they cannot be cap- 

 tured in any considerable numbers." R. W. Shufeldt. 



THE WOODCOCK'S WHISTLE. 



IT seems strange to me that the question as to whether 

 the woodcock whistles with his wings or with his 

 throat is still an open one. In the first place the timbre 

 of the sound is certainly very wingy, and any one who 

 has lived and loved among the birds is familiar with so 

 many wing notes that are analogous to those of the wood- 

 cock that it would be hard to convince him that the loud 

 clear twitter of the October cock as he springs from the 

 yellow brakes over the tops of the sere rustling alders, is 

 caused in any way except by his pinions. 



My red setter Grouse— dear old Grouse, who is now in 

 the happy hunting grounds where there is no close sea- 

 i son — had a neat way of retrieving by holding the bird's 



statement with a little good evidence of my own. I am 

 quite certain that a loon can, under favorable conditions, 

 rise from a body of water of very small size, provided 

 there be wind to assist him. On one occasion I lay in a 

 blind at the extremity of a slender tongue of land which 

 projected into the lake, forming on one side a kind of 

 small bay. In this a loon was fishing, in very shallow 

 water filled with dense weed. He was very close in to 

 the shore— I should say not more than 10 or 20ft. from it, 

 and some 20yds. to the right and inside of my blind. 

 There were no ducks flying, and I became very curious 

 as to whether the loon could dive and get far away among 

 such heavy bottom growth. Standing up I fired upon 

 him, when instead of diving he at once rose easily toward 

 the shore and away from me, clearing without difficulty 

 some low bushes which lay before him. He rose then 

 some 4ft. in 12; there was quite a strong wind off shore 

 at the time, which of course helped him. I have another 

 case in mind where a loon was shot flying, hard hit and 

 crippled in the feet; in trying to escape capture he rose 

 by a supreme effort when close by the boat, and pass- 

 ing over it dropped on the other side. These instances 

 are to me conclusive; and I believe that while a loon's 

 instinct teaches it to dive whenever possible, as the surest 

 means of escape, yet it can and will on occasion rise in 

 an extremely short distance. I am equally sure, how- 

 ever, that in an extremely small pond shut in by woods 

 of great density, a loon cannot rise, as I know of one 

 having been tired out and captured on such a piece of 

 water.— Caryl D. Haskins. 



Recent Arrivals at the Philadelphia Zoological Gar- 

 den.— Purchased— One sloth bear (Melursus lahiatus) S , one cara- 

 cal (Felis caracal), one Bauer's parakeet (Platycercus zona-iiw), two 

 red-laced parrakeets (Agaporius nmiedllis), one cock of the rock 

 (Rvipticola crocea), one green snake (Cyclophis vernalis), thirty- 

 eight chameleons (Anulis principalis), four pine snakes (Pityophis 

 melanoleucus), one king snake (Opliiholus gctulus), two tree boas 

 (Epicratis angulifer), one glass snake (Opheosaurus ventralis), one 

 whip snake (Bascanium flagclliforme), one ground rattlesnake 

 (Crotalophorus miliarias), one bog-nosed snake (Heterodon platyr- 

 hinus), eight striped lizards (Eumeccs fasciatus), and two red- 

 backed salamanders (Pletliodon dnerem crijtltronotm). Presented 

 —Two raccoons (Procyon lotor), one opossum (Didelphys virgin- 

 iana), one Fournier's capromys (Capromys pilorides), one purple 

 gallinule (Porphyria maitinica), one mocking bird (Tardus poly- 

 glottus), one white-fronted parrot (Chrysotislcucocephahis) two barn 

 owls (Strix flammca americana), one sulphur-crested cockatoo 

 (Cacaiua golerita), one Levaillant's amazon (Chrysalis levojillanti), 

 one black-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus erythropthalmus), one spiny 

 soft- shelled turtle (Aspidonechcs spinifer), nine painted terrapins 

 (Chrysemys picta), one box tortoise (Cistudo Carolina), five alliga- 

 tors (Alligator mississippiensis), one pine snake (Pityophis melano- 

 leucus), two black snakes (Bascanium constrictor), and four yuma 

 spermophiles (Spermophilus tereticanaus). Born— One red kanga- 

 roo (Macropus rufus), one fallow deer (Cervus dama) 9 , nine opos- 

 sums (Didel-ph ys virginiana), and seven red- headed ducks (Fuligula 

 ferina americana). 



