AV&. 1, 1880.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



23 



Or track the monster moose through regions vaat, 

 "Where primal oaks and stately pine trees grow. 



Until the rifle's fatal speed at last 

 O'ertakes and lays the an tiered monarch low; 



And as the life-stream from his side doth flow, 

 Mark how he struggles in his pain to rise 



And combat with his death-inflieiing foe, 

 Till gloomy darkness shoots athwart his eyes, 

 And quivering in each limb, the mighty victim dies. 



Then homeward speed through verdant solitudes, 



The heart exulting and the eye aglow, 

 Until, what time thehroad sun, sinking, floods 



The heavens with his splendor, on the brow 

 Of the vast mount you stand and far below 



Behold the liliputian haunts of men 

 Beside the migtliy sea whose murmurs low. 



By distance mellowed, turn to music. Then 



Descend the winding path and join the world again— 



The selfish world, where, 'mid the ceaseless strife, 



The heart grows callous and the soul's confined; 

 Where petty longings d warf the better life. 



And freedom blest we ne'er or seldom find. 

 But where the mighty oaks sway to the wind. 



And mountains lift their cloud-clapped peaks on high, 

 The heartache and the care are left behind; 



Forgotten is life's sad satiety; 



Health, peace, contentment cheer: and joy beams in the 

 eye. 



FouKCHiE, Cape Breton. H. E. Baker. 



SOME OLD-TIME NATURAL HISTORY. 



THE terrible story of the massacre at Fort William 

 Henry has seldom been told without quotations 

 from or at least allusion to the account thereof given by 

 Captain Jonathan Carver, a provincial officer who was 

 an eye-witness of the tragedy, and narrowly escaped 

 becoming one of the victims. This account occurs in 

 his "Three Years' Travels throughout the Interior Parts 

 of North America," as an illustration of the horrors of 

 Indian warfare, and has been credited by historians, ac- 

 cording to their bias, as more or less trustworthy. 



The dingy little volume, which is inscribed to "Joseph 

 Banks, Esq., President of the Eoyal Society," has a chap- 

 ter devoted to "The Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Eeptiles and 

 Insects" which are found in the interior parts of North 

 America, and another which treats of the "Trees, Shrubs, 

 Roots. Flowers, &c." These chapters seem to have at- 

 tracted little attention: though as curiosities in the liter- 

 ature of natural history and as internal evidence as to 

 the value of whatever else the author has written, they 

 are worthy of notice. 



One is given the impression that the author has not fab- 

 ricated hfs accounts out of whole cloth, but given us in 

 good faith second hand what he has received from very 

 untrustworthy first hands. He never as offensively offends 

 our credulity as does the Rev. Samuel A. Peters in his 

 " General History of Connecticut,'" who as for example 

 thus describes the Connecticut at Bellows Falls: " Here 

 water is consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swift- 

 ness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree 

 of induration that an iron crow floats smoothly down its 

 current; here iron, lead and cork have one common 

 weight: here, steady as time and harder than marble, the 

 stream presses irresistible if not swift as lightning; the 

 electric fire rends trees in pieces with no greater ease 

 that does this mighty water." 



Carver's fault is simply in being inaccurate and care- 

 less. Certainly the Provincial captain could not have 

 been an officer of the Rangers, whose peculiar service 

 taught them to read as they ran, signs so obscurely traced 

 that they were as a sealed book to the ordinary plodder 

 of forest byways. Nor, in the days before he went sol- 

 diering, could he have been a Yankee country boy, to 

 have learned no more of things that such a boy is likely 

 to meet now whenever he drives the cows home from the 

 woodside pasture or goes'a-fishing, things that such a 

 boy would hardly fail to see then, when this New World 

 was so wild that the shadow of the untame i forest cr apt 

 ,ckxe to the most populous town. 



Doubtless more nighthawks then than now wheeled in 

 ^waTering flight against the evening skies of summer, and 

 iboys watched their headlong plunge from aerial heights, 

 listening for the twang of their swift descent, and found 

 the one nestless egg laid on the bare earth, and saw the 

 another bird flitting silently away, alighting lengthwise 

 ,on the nearest branch. Yet of so common a bird our 

 .captain says: "This bird is of the hawk species, its bill 

 being crooked. At twilight it flies about and darts itself 

 in wanton gambols at the head of the belated traveler." 



Without falling into the vulgar error of confounding 

 the two birds, he briefly describes the whippoorwill, 

 which the Indians call the Muckawiss. Upon hearing 

 its note they are "assured of milder weather and begin 

 to sow their corn. The Indians and some of the inhabi- 

 tants of the back settlements think if this bird perches 

 upon any house, that it betokens some mishap to the in- 

 habitants of it." 



In his description of the fish hawk there is a hint which 

 may enable unlucky anglers to improve then- score and 

 reputation. "It skims over the lakes and rivers, and 

 sometimes seems to lie expanded on the water as he 

 hovers so close to it, and having by some attractive 

 power drawn the fish within its reach, darts suddenly 

 upon them. The charm it makes use of is supposed to be 

 an oil contained in a small bag in the body, and which 

 nature has, by some means or other, supplied him with 

 the power of using for this purpose." And he adds, with 

 the certainty of faith, "It is, however, very certain that 

 any bait touched with a drop of the oil collected from 

 this bird is an irresistible lure for all sorts of fish, and in- 

 sures the angler great success." 



"The loon," he tells us, "is a waterfowl, somewhat 

 less than a teal, and is a species of dabchick," and 

 wrongly says that the "color is a dark brown, nearly ap- 

 proaching black;" but rightly enough, that "its flesh is 

 very ill-flavored and only repays the trouble taken to ob- 

 tain it by the excellent sport it affords," for "it requires 

 three persons to kill one of them, and that C£lh only be 



done the moment it raises its head out of the water as it 

 returns to the surface after diving," as "they will dex- 

 terously avoid the shot by diving before they reach 

 them." Had w-ar alarms frightened all the loons from 

 Lake George when the captain was campaigning on its 

 shores; or had innumerable triplets of gunners destroyed 

 them, or had the abashed waterfowl, outdone in devilish 

 vociferation by Montcalm's Indians, withdrawn them- 

 selves from observation and left only "hell-divers" to in- 

 vite the fusilade of marksmen and fool our naturalist 

 into such belittling and erroneous description of our great 

 northern diver ? 



He tells us that "the whetsaw is one of the cuckoo 

 kind, a solitary bird and scarcely ever seen," and we are 

 convinced that he never saw the little Acadian owl, but 

 he had seen "the king bird, which is like a swallow and 

 seems to be of the same species as the black martin of 

 swift. It is called the king bird because it is able to 

 master almost every bird that flies. I have often seen it 

 bring down a hawk." 



What is the Wakon bird, so called by the Indians, who 

 hold it in veneration? He says it "appears to be of the 

 same species as the birds of paradise. It is nearly the 

 size of a swallow, of a brown color, shaded about the 

 neck with a bright green: the wings are of a darker 

 brown than the body; its tail is composed of four or five 

 feathers, which are three times as long as its body, and 

 which are beautifully shaded with green and purple. It 

 carries this fine plumage in the same manner as a pea- 

 cock does. I never saw any of these birds in the colo- 

 nies, but the Naudowessie Indians caught several of them 

 when I was in their country, and seemed to treat them 

 as if they were of superior rank to any other of the 

 feathered race," and in the Indian language its name sig- 

 nifies Bird of the Great Spirit. 



Our captain has more to say of the rattlesnake than of 

 any other reptile. In his "Travels" he tells a marvelous 

 tale of a rattlesnake that a Menomonie Indian had tamed 

 and carried about with him in a box, from which he let 

 it loose in October, and wagered two gallons of rum with 

 the French gentleman who told Carver the story, that 

 the snake would appear there and return to the box on a 

 certain day in the following May. At the appointed time 

 the Indian and the Frenchman met at the place, but the 

 snake did not come at the call of his master, who then 

 offered to double the bet that the snake would come 

 within tw T o days; and "on the second day about 1 o'clock 

 the snake arrived, and of his own accord crawled into 

 the box, which was placed ready for him." 



The rattlesnake plantain is an approved antidote for 

 the poison of this snake, bountifully supplied by Provi- 

 dence wherever this creature is to be met with. "The 

 leaves of this herb are more efficacious than any other 

 part of it," and being chewed and applied immediately 

 to the wound and some of the juice swallowed, seldom 

 fails to avert every dangerous symptom. "A decoction of 

 the buds and bark of the white ash taken internally is 

 another remedy, salt another — newly discovered — and 

 "the fat of the reptile rubbed on is frequently found to 

 be very efficacious." He never could discover the man- 

 ner in which they bring forth their young, but he gives 

 positive testimony on the subject of snakes swallowing 

 their young. "I once killed a female that had seventy 

 young ones in its belly, and these were perfectly formed, 

 and I saw them just before retire to the mouth of their 

 mother, a place of security, on my approach. The galls 

 of this serpent, mixed with chalk, are formed into little 

 balls and exported from America for medical purposes, 

 an excellent remedy for complaints incident to children." 

 The flesh of the snake also dried and made into broth is 

 much more nutritive than that of vipers, and very effica- 

 cious against consumptions!" 



The thorn-tail snake ' 1 is found in many parts of America, 

 but is seldom seen. It receives its name from a thorn-like 

 dart in its tail, which is said to inflict a mortal wound." 

 Only one specimen of the two-headed snake was ever 

 seen in America, and that was found near Lake Champlain 

 in the year 1762, and presented to Lord Amherst. 



Of seven or eight sorts of land turtles it is well to know 

 that the bite of the least and most beautiful " is said to 

 be venomous." 



Capt. Carver describes the tiger of America as resem- 

 bling in shape those of Africa and Asia, though consid- 

 erably smaller and of a "darkish fallow color, and entirely 

 free from spots. The cat of the mountain is in shape 

 like a cat, only much larger, in color of a reddish or 

 orange cast, beautified by black spots of different figures." 



In his Western travels he can hardly have fallen in 

 with the grizzly bear, for he makes no mention of it. and 

 says that the bears of America are timorous and inof- 

 fensive, unless they are pinched by hunger or smarting 

 from a wound. The sight of a man terrifies thein, and 

 a dog will put several of them to flight. " 



" There are two sorts of foxes in North America which 

 differ only in their color, one being of a reddish brown, 

 the other of a gray ; those of the latter kind that are 

 found near the river Mississippi are extremely beautiful, 

 their hair being of a silver gray." 



He gives a very good description of the buffalo, but 

 confounds the elk and the moose, saying of the first 

 that its horns are not forked like those of a deer, but 

 have all their teeth or branches on the outer edge, and 

 that the horns of the latter, though "almost as numer- 

 ous" as that animal's, branch on both sides like those of 

 a deer. "It has feet and legs like a camel." 



"The carcajou, which is of the cat kind, is a terrible 

 enemy" to the deer, elk, moose and caribou, which he 

 lies in wait for and springs upon," when he fastens upon 

 his neck and opening the jugular vein, soon brings his 

 victim to the ground. This he is enabled to do by his 

 long tail, with which he encircles the body of his adver- 

 sary; and the onlv means they have to shun their fate is 

 by flying immediately to the water; by this method, as 

 the carcajou has a great dislike to that element, he is 

 sometimes got rid of before he can effect his purpose." 



"The skunk," he says, "is the most extraordinary ani- 

 mal that the American woods produce," though he has 

 just described a quadruped whose tail enables it to hold 

 on to its victims— a "tail-holt" quite, different from 

 that taken in the ordinary sense. "As soon as he finds 

 himself in danger, he ejects to a great distance from be- 

 hind, a small stream of water of so subtle a nature and 

 at the same time so powerful a smell, that the air is 

 tainted with it for half a mile in circumference, and his 

 pursuers, whether men or dogs, being almost suffocated 

 with the stench, are obliged to give over the pursuit." 

 This "displeases rather from its penetrative power than 



from its nauseousness," and "is considered as conducive 

 to clear the head and raise the spirits." The captain is 

 not squeamish, for he has often fed on skunks and found 

 them sweet and good. Indeed, one who can speak au- 

 thoritatively of the broth of rattlesnakes, would not 

 spleen against the flesh of the skunk. Does it occur to the 

 Ichthyophagos Club what a valuable member it might 

 have had had it been born a century and a quarter ear- 

 lier, or Captain Carver a hundred years later than he 

 was? 



His lengthy description of that prolific theme of the 

 imaginative naturalist's pen, the beaver, is only noticeable 

 for the absence of exaggeration and for his forbearance 

 when in the closing sentence he assures us that were he 

 to "enumerate every instance of the sagacity that is to 

 be discovered in these animals they would fill a volume 

 and prove not only entertaining but instructing." 



The otter "greatly resembles a beaver but is very dif- 

 ferent from it in many respects." Wherein the resem- 

 blance consists he does not set forth, but only the differ- 

 ences, except that "in winter it is contented with the bark 

 of trees or the produce of the fields." 



But nothing is likelier to shake the reader's faith in the 

 captain's veracity or accuracy than what he writes of 

 animals that he could hardly have failed to see often and 

 that would almost force the most careless observer to 

 notice their form and habits. How could one whose ser- 

 vice must frequently have taken him to the haunts of 

 the muskrat, escape a better acquaintance with that 

 miniature beaver than to write of him that his summer 

 fare is "strawberries, raspberries and such other fruits as 

 they can reach," and that "in winter they separate, 

 when each takes up its lodging apart in some hollow tree, 

 where they remain quite unprovided with food and there 

 is the greatest reason to believe subsist without any till 

 the return of spring." or of the mink, that in shape and 

 size "it resembles a polecat," which he has told us is larger 

 than a skunk, that it "is blacker than almost any crea- 

 ture," and that its tail is round like that of a snake but 

 growing flatfish toward the end and is entirely without 

 hair!" If he ever smelled the nauseous effluvia of the 

 mink, he must have had a nose of his own to enable him 

 to say that "an agreeable musky scent exhales from its 

 body." 



Of the little space devoted to insects, the greater part 

 is taken up by a description of the "lightning bug. or fire- 

 fly, which is almost the size of a bee, and if you permit 

 five or six to crawl upon your hand and they freely ex- 

 hibit their glow together, they will enable you to read 

 almost the smallest print." 



Of trees, he tells us that the hemlock, though "of very 

 large growth, is quite useless and only an incumbrance 

 to the ground," an opinion in which he would find few to 

 agree with him now. 



What can be the "Wickopic or Lucknic," which "ap- 

 pears to be a species of the whitewood, and is distin- 

 guished from it by a peculiar quality of the bark, which 

 when pounded and moistened with a little water, in- 

 stantly becomes of the consistence and nature of size. 

 With this the Indians pay their canoes, and it greatly 

 exceeds pitch or any other material usually appropriated 

 to that purpose; for, besides its adhesive quality, it is of 

 so oily a nature that the water cannot penetrate through 

 it, and its repelling power abates not for a considerable 

 time." It is a pity that a tree having such valuable qual- 

 ities should not be generally known. 



The hickory is, as we well know, "a very good fire- 

 wood:" but how many know that "as it burns an excel- 

 lent sugar distills from it?" 



Who that is accustomed to the weird autumnal bloom 

 of our witch hazel would recognize it when found ' 'cov- 

 ered early in May with numerous white blossoms." He 

 tells us, ' 'It has been said that it is possessed with the 

 power of attracting gold or silver, and that twigs of it 

 are made use of to discover where the veins of these 

 metals are hid," but he conscientiously adds, "I am ap- 

 prehensive this is only a fallacious story and not to be 

 depended on." 



A stickler for old names is glad to see that our captain 

 gives that of wake robin to the Indian turnip and not to 

 the moose flower or white trillium, as is the fashion now- 

 adays. If he was ever fooled into tasting the root and 

 knows whereof he affirms, the effect recorded is singular, 

 for he says that "it will greatly inflame the tongue and 

 immediately convert it from its natural shape into a 

 round hard substance, in which state it will continue for 

 some time." 



With this pungent taste of Captain Carver's wake robin 

 we take leave of the naturalist and traveler, wondering 

 whether he who so long since journeyed to the undis- 

 covered country from which no traveler returns, was 

 attempting to impose upon the credulous reader or was 

 himself imposed upon by unscrupulous tellers of camp- 

 fire tales. Rowland E. Robinson. 



[The thorn-tail snake, so called from the thorn-like dart 

 at the end of its tail, must be identical with the hoop 

 snake, so much discussed in these later times, and with 

 the stinging snake "H. P. TJ." and "Coahoma" are inter- 

 ested in finding a specimen of. This elusive creature is 

 certainly entitled to veneration because of its age, and 

 is no less deserving of respect for so successfully keeping 

 itself aloof from naturalists for a century or more.] 



Loons. — In Forest and Stream of July 11. "J. G. R." 

 has an article on loons, in which he says: "Once in a 

 small space of open water, there they must stay until 

 the ice thaws sufficient to give them a chance to rise, 

 which requires at least one-eighth of a mile. They can- 

 not arise from the land nor from any hard surface, only 

 from a large space of water. They can be easily shot 

 when confined in one of these open' spaces of water, but 

 to shoot one in the open lake is considered a big thing to 

 do." Such was my belief in years gone by and will be 

 accepted by most, if not all, who read the article. But is 

 it true that a loon cannot rise from a small body of 

 water? If one will remain in a small body of water and 

 suffer death it is pretty good evidence that he cannot get 

 away, but it is not conclusive. One will stay in the open 

 lake for horns under a constant fusilade and not take to 

 wing for safety. The loon usually leaves the water in 

 the manner described by "J. G. R.," for the reason that it 

 is easily done by a bud heavy in body and small in pinion. 

 I believe the loon can rise from a small body of water Or 

 from any body of water likely to attract attention. 

 What say the readers of Forest and Stream?— Joseph 

 Ide, 



