Deo. 12, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



40B 



renegades. The two troops now stationed there in sum- 

 mer cannot patrol a tract of wilderness 65 miles long by 55 

 wide, or over 3.000 miles of territory. In winter there 

 seems to be very little protection of any sort to the an i- 

 mals-and it was estimated when we were there this sum- 

 mer that not more than 200 or 300 were resident there. If 

 Our Government means to preserve the buffalo and other 

 animals in the Park, so that future generations may look 

 upon them, more stringent measures must be resorted to 

 before it is too late. We see no other way of prevent- 

 ing the animals from getting off the Park and being 

 killed than by running a palisade fence entirely 

 around it. It would cost next to nothing except 

 for labor. There is abundant of the finest timber 

 in the world for such paling right on the ground. The 

 thick growth of pines is perfectly wonderful; not large 

 enough for lumber, but trees from four to eight inches in 

 diameter, about as thick as they can stand, and running 

 up fifty to seventy feet without a limb, except the clump 

 at the top. Let these be cut in poles twelve or fifteen 

 feet long and set close together in the ground, where that 

 can be done, or spiked together with lateral supports. 

 As the trees are cut along the boundary line a road could 

 be cheaply made, so that patrolmen could pass around 

 the Park to guard the property; or tourists that are com- 

 ing here every year by thousands from all parts of the 

 world to see the marvelous works of nature, could utilize 

 it as a popular driveway. Many species of animals from 

 foreign lands might be introduced, in fact there is hardly 

 a limit to the variety that could be successfully intro- 

 duced or kept there, and then this country would possess 

 a zoological garden as much superior to that of any other 

 country as it is nobler, grander and more prosperous than 

 any other. It would fitly symbolize the progressive spirit 

 of our people. The cost would be comparatively trifling. 

 Is any man's soul so dry that he would not cheerfully 

 pay a contribution of one or two cents for each member 

 >f his family to gratify the national pride ? 



W. Hapqood. 



OUT-OF-DOOR PAPERS. 



VI. — THE BROOK. 



HPHERE is a brook— a tiny little brook, so small that it 

 JL might properly be called a brooklet — which trickles 

 down through a hillside orchard so old and mossy and 

 shagbarked that it can scarcely tell itself from the' pine 

 grove on the knoll above, and drops musicaJly (the brook 

 now, not the orchard) over stones not thicker than your 

 hand, gurgling with a diminutive murmur suited to its 

 own diminutive size, around clean pebbles, spreading out 

 over sandy shallows as large as your palm, or maybe 

 larger where they are very large, and losing itself in a 

 great forest of forget-me-nots a, rod square, until after a 

 quarter-mile of such wandering it gets clown to the pond 

 where the great bullfrog lives. It is strange if you never 

 heard of this brook; lor a poet lives right beside it, a lady 

 whom you all know, and a novelist, a very famous novel- 

 ist, whom you all know, too, lives just beyond, and near 

 by a professor whom you all ought to know: but I am not 

 aware that the poet or the novelist or the professor care 

 very much for the little brook, which is left to babble on 

 to its ferns and apple trees and its pines and forget-me- 

 nots. 



However, the birds know it, all of them, and trim little 

 sparrows delight to flirt in and out of brush piles on the 

 bank, playing hide-and-go-seek with themselves; warblers 

 beyond number inspect the old apple tree boughs every 

 morning, and great fat robins take the whole stream to 

 bathe in, covering both banks with their motherly wings . 

 There is no danger of the birds forgetting the little brook- 

 let. All winter long in the far South they think of it, 

 and it is the first place they visit in the spring, passing by 

 the pond where the great bullfrog says per-r-uTte and the 

 middle-sized frogs say tr-r-ronk, and the little ones 

 (which the learned professor declares are not frogs at all 

 but toads), being neither wig dealers nor trunk makers, 

 keep up an auction din by proclaiming that their articles 

 are cheap! cheap! In the spring the birds fly directly 

 past this Vanity Fair and seek the brooklet cuddled down 

 among the apple trees and pines. 



If any one has a mind to wait here, lying at the foot of 

 the big white pine on a bed of brown pine needles, with 

 curtains of low bushes and the sky for a tester — if any 

 one has a mind to lie here all the morning, and can forget 

 chat he belongs to a very busy world which is moiling 

 and toiling and hammering its life out half a mile away, 

 he may see wonders. For the little birds, after they 

 have splashed and drunk and drunk and splashed to their 

 hearts' content, grow very tame and come close up to 

 him, so close that he can seen their bright little eyes, the 

 bristles about their tiny bills and their sharp little toe- 

 nails. Somehow everything about the brooklet is little, 

 ust as it should be: and if any one lies down beside it for 

 i time, and doesn't think too hard, he will find himself 

 ihrinkmg, small, smaller, until at last he is about as large 

 as a happy, well-fed baby, and there is no mistake about 

 this, though the professor didn't tell it me. 



This may be the reason why the birds are so tame, but 

 whether it is or isn't, they will come to you as you lie 

 there, just as I have told you, a long procession of them. 

 First there is the robin; but he doesn't come very near, 

 for he knows all about you, has seen you down town 

 mauy's the time, and you can't tell him anything. So 

 liter his bath the robin sits on the fence-post and tries to 

 nake you believe that the welfare of the world depends 

 m his being in that particular place. But the song thrush 

 md the veery who have not moved in society as much 

 is the robin, show their country breeding by their curio- 

 lity, and come and perch on the dry pine limb near by, 

 mite shy and silent unless the veery gives a tender little 

 serenade that seems to come from far, far away. By and 

 jy, when you least expect it, there is a soft flutter of 

 brown wings and the large-eyed visitors are off. 



Hardly have the thrushes gone before an inquisitive 

 olack and yellow warbler in ail the bravery of his new 

 raring coat lights on the swaying limb and eyes you with 

 is much self-possession as if you were the intruder, not 

 le — a gay fellow with his striped waistcoat of black and 

 yellow, a regular " blazer," his gray jockey cap, and the 

 slack coat which he seems to wear not because of its ap- 

 propriateness to the rest of the costume but because he 



has it; shrewd, energetic, and like most nervous people, 

 with a sharp, incisive voice. But the brook, bless you, 

 doesn't mind that at all; it doesn't mind even the chat- 

 tering red squirrels and the bluejays in the pines with 

 voices as harsh as a rusty gate hinge. The brook keeps 

 on blab, blab, blabbing to itself softly as a baby, not car- 

 ing whether any one listens to its sweet voice or not. The 

 novelist would tell you that is what makes it so sweet to 

 hear when any one does stop to listen. 



But the procession keeps marching along, big birds and 

 little, all busy until the shadow of a hawk's wings fright- 

 ens them into silence; gay orioles, testy as the Lords Bal- 

 timore whose livery they wear, sweeping past with a 

 blaze of black and orange and the snap of wings: droll, 

 big-headed fly-catchers that remind you of a boy you 

 used to go to school with— the same boy whom you could 

 beat seven times running at " four old cat," but who 

 always outwitted you at " tag," the boy that is now a 

 judge in the Supreme Court, while you are— no matter 

 what; gay, little redstarts, so unlike in color that you 

 never imagine they are mates; neat black and white 

 creepers as trim as barbers' poles; grosbeaks with their 

 breasts red as a pelican's in her piety. And how the trees 

 have to be inspected by this keen-eyed crowd ! Busy 

 vireos travel along each limb, peering in every crack 

 and warbling snatches from old songs; warblers of 

 all kinds go round and round the branches, 

 heartlessly tearing baby caterpillars out of their silken 

 cradles; woodpeckers inspect the trunks by traveling 

 upward, nuthatches repeat the operation "in reverse 

 order, so that, like Jack Spratt and his wife, between 

 them they leave nothing, and brown creepers search the 

 ground over again, following a special direction round 

 and round. What a company there is of them, each 

 seeming to find plenty which the other has left behind, 

 as if worms were a sort of heavenly manna to birds and 

 increased by being fed on. But how do the poor worms 

 manage to five? The professor, if you asked him, would 

 talk to you for an hour about "the survival of the fittest:" 

 but you would best not mention the matter to him, for 

 the birds all believe in "natural selection," and they have 

 an undoubted taste in worms. 



There, now, across one of the shallows of the brooklet, 

 walks a water wagtail, walks, not hops, while a chewink 

 and a chipping sparrow sit on the fence to watch the feat 

 and criticise his gait. A kingbird swings in the top of 

 the apple tree; a catbird down in the alder bush is trying 

 to make himself heard: and now, just as you are going 

 off into a drowse and are ready to believe wonders, an 

 animated windmill spins up to you, buzzing as if struck 

 by a "norther." It is only a humming bird come to in- 

 spect. He frequents the place, for he knows a spot up 

 the brook where the jewel weed hangs its golden horns 

 among tender leaves, and he was on his way thither. 

 The windmill buzzes off again, but there is no more time 

 to dream by the brooklet; for the world will no longer 

 stay outside the happy valley, and the noon whistles, 

 seconded by a ready response within, urge you to leave 

 the brooklet. But it stays there still, and will be there 

 long after you have ceased to visit it; and so long as it 

 remains hard by the house where the poet lives, near 

 to the novelist and not far from the professor (for it is so 

 very small that it has now and then to remind itself of 

 its own existence by these famous landmarks) — so long 

 as it stays the little birds will seek it early and it will be 

 there, as now, a part of "Paradise" to all "who know how 

 to make the best of what this world gives. 



Fannte Pearson Hardy. 



We are willing to forgive the compositor much — mis- 

 spellings, abbreviations which we never thought of writ- 

 ing, and a free and easy style of punctuation which puts 

 most of the work on the commas; we will bear in meek- 

 ness all reasonable objurgations on the subject of poor 

 penmanship; we will even forbear to scold the editor if 

 matters are not borne according to our mind; infallibility 

 is as far from us as from the compositor. But is it not a 

 little too much to be made to say that Polyphemus was 

 "the victim of Woman?" We protest against the use of 

 our name in any such libel on a sex of which we are 

 justly proud, and of which we would say no harm , what- 

 ever the room for improvement. 



The allusion was to Ulysses's visit to the Cyclops, to 

 whom he gives an assumed name: 



"Cyclops, thou hast asked me my illustrious name. 

 No-man is my name, and No-man father, mother and 

 All my comrades call me."— (Odyssey IX., 363-366.) 

 Later, when Ulysses has blinded the Cyclops, the 

 wounded giant calls out to his fellows: 



"No-man is slaying me by craft and not by force," 

 who, understanding him to say that no one is troubling 

 him either by craft or by force, reply: 



"If no one harms thee, and thou art alone, 

 Reflect there is no way to escape great Jove; 

 But pray thou to thy father Neptune."— (410-413.) 

 But the joke — one of the grimmest in literature — ac- 

 quires a new and heightened horror by making poor, un- 

 offending Woman the giant killer. 

 Brewer, Me. Fannie Pearson Hardy. 



A Lono-H aired KABBlT.^St. Louis, Mo., Dec. 7.— Mr. 

 Fred Hugunine, of this city, the past week received from 

 a friend who resides in the vicinity of Fairfield, 111., a 

 rabbit which is without doubt a remarkable freak of 

 nature. It is about the size of the common cottontail, 

 but was covered with long hair of a golden yellow 

 color. Mr. Hugunine exhibited the rabbit on 'Change 

 Friday, where it was seen by hundreds of people, and all 

 without a single exception, stated they had never seen 

 anything like it before in their lives. Mr. Hugunine 

 will have the rabbit set up so as to preserve it. — Unser 

 Fritz. [A Lepus sylvaticus differing from the one 

 spoken of only in the color of its long hair, which is blue, 

 was brought to this office some years ago, and was at 

 that time noticedin Forest and Stream. It was mounted 

 and is now in this office, where it may be seen by those 

 curious in such matters.] 



Snowy Owl in Massachusetts. — Boston, Dec. 4. — On 

 Nov. 15 I shot a fine female snowy owl (Nyctea nyctea) 

 on the beach at Scituate, Mass. She was in good con- 

 dition and in beautiful plumage, with very heavy black 

 bars. Stomach empty save a few partially digested 

 pieces of coarse grass. She was intently watching small 

 birds, enabling me to creep within range. Extent of 

 wings spread five feet. — C. W, C. 



Snowy Owl in Connecticut.— Portland, Conn., Dec. 

 9, 1889. — On the 25th of November a male snowy owl was 

 shot at Westbrook, Conn., and is now in my cabinet. — 

 John II. Sage. 



Recent ARRIVALS at the Philadelphia Zoological Gar- 

 den.— Purchased— One green monkey (Cercopithecus caMtrichiis), 

 one Rhesus macaque (Macacun erythraius), three- Campbell's mon- 

 keys < VerenpH h <••<• tm cumpheili), ihree white-crowned maugabevs 

 (Ocrcoeehue irtfi fops), two sooty mangabeys (Cercoce-lmsfuliginosm), 

 four beaver [Cantor jiher rannden*i&),one wildcat (Lynx- ruftts), <me 

 short-eared ow] (Brachyotns pnlv^tris'i, two sparrow hawks (Falco 

 ?iMrvcrim), two royal pythons (Python n-<rivs), two Fox's snakes 

 (Coluber mil pi mix), one green snake (Ci/chiphis ver nal is), one garter 

 snake (Evlu'-n'm airialM, one brown snake (Storwia dekayi), six 

 hog-nosed snakes (Heterodan platyrhinus), one corn snake (Colu- 

 ber ifntiaiitx), one Osceola's snake (Osceola dapsokiea), two pine 

 snakes (Pityoplm nielaitotruc-uft), one Cyclops watersnake (Tro- 

 pUhmnlm Hiflojti-um). one indigo snake (Spiiole-s ,-rebennm), four 

 ground rattlesnakes (Crotcdophorns miliarias), and one American 

 crocodile (Croc-od ilun ameriearais). Presented— One coyote (Canis 

 latmw), one turkey vulture (Catluirtex aura), one red-tailed buz- 

 zard (Bvl en horrid it), one. alligator (Adieiator mLixteiipjrlensia), one 

 banded rattlesnake tCrotnlus horridits), two Arizona diamond rat- 

 tlesnakes (C. adainonteus atrox), and one wood frog (Ram sil- 

 witmi). Born— One leopard (Fells pardun), and three king snakes 

 (Opllihnlnx ffctulus). 



)Htne j§tig md 



DUCKS IN GREAT SOUTH BAY. 



WE have hunted through forests and have fished fresh 

 water streams, but for all-round pleasure there is 

 nothing that can equal a week spent on board a catboat 

 in the Great South Bay after ducks. And ducks do not 

 seem to decrease in number; we were told last month, by 

 an old bayman, that there were more ducks there this 

 season than he had seen before in years. 



For several seasons past we have used the Lilly S., a 

 catboat 24ft. long, owned by Johnny, one of our party, 

 and built just as he wished her to be. She will easily 

 accommodate six. On either side of her cabin are benches, 

 which are not fastened, and so can be picked up and 

 placed outside when we wish to turn in, leaving room on 

 either side of her centerboard for two, with room in the 

 forecastle for two more. There is no waste room on 

 board. Extending fore and aft on each side of her cabin 

 are shelves where we can stow our small duffle, and in 

 her stern are lockers for our guns, etc. In one corner of 

 the cabin is built a three-cornered closet for our dishes 

 and cooking utensils; and opposite is placed a kerosene 

 stove burning four wicks, which is large enough to cook 

 a good square meal. This stove, too, will keep the cabin 

 so warm at night that we do not need many blankets. 



What an appetite we build up out here and how sleepy 

 we become. We have to turn out before daylight, for 

 there are so many gunners we have to be early to secure 

 the best points. We have tried battery shooting, but it 

 is such tiresome work that we prefer point shooting. 

 True, we can slaughter more birds from a battery, but we 

 are sportsmen. 



Our party this season consisted of Uncle Dan, Ell, Capt. 

 Jack and Doc. Johnny, who was with us last year, is in 

 Texas after email. We missed the jolly yams he used to 

 spin after supper, but hope he will more than make up 

 for the loss by relating to us, at some future period, his 

 hunting experiences in the South. 



For twenty years Uncle Dan and Ell have spent a week 

 together each fall after ducks, and how they do love to 

 sit and talk of the dunks they bagged, and the bars they 

 ran on to; and to relate anecdotes of baymen who used to 

 take them out — some of them long since gone under. 



Our trip this season lasted six days. All through the 

 first five we had fine weather with winds from the north- 

 west; this is bad weather for ducking, as it keeps the 

 birds east. What we want are cloudy days with east 

 winds. Our last day out was of this kind, but it rained 

 so hard we preferred to hug the cabin rather than take 

 our points. 



The old bay furnished us with our fresh food. As Ell 

 said, "Boys, we have oysters, we have clams, we have 

 fish and we have eels. What more does a man want?" 

 And as for cooking, in our opinion Uncle Dan's duck 

 stew or Jack's oyster fry cannot be equalled by any 

 French chef. 



We bagged about sixty birds during the trip; sheldrake, 

 black duck, broad bill, coot and bitron. We left Freeport 

 at 8 A. M. Monday morning. Arrived off Amityville 

 about 6 A. M. Went immediately to points. Ell and 

 Jack put out stool on south side of Thatch Island, and got 

 nine sheldrake and one bitron. Uncle Dan and Doc 

 rowed over to North Island, and returned after the flight 

 was over with five sheldrake. In the af teraoon Ell and 

 Jack poled over the flats in search of oysters, while Uncle 

 Dan and Doc hoisted sail and went flying before the wind 

 over to the beach, two miles away. Here we whiled 

 away the afternoon watching the surf and hunting the 

 sandhills for owls. We did not see any, however. On 

 returning to the Lily just after sundown we found Ell 

 and Jack there with a fine basket of oysters and a black 

 duck, which Jack had shot. 



So the week passed only too quickly. The wind was 

 too strong for battery shooting until Friday. Then we 

 heard the guns booming all day to the east, over by Fire 

 Island. Hundreds of ducks must have been shot that 

 day. 



Friday afternoon we wended our way westward, spear- 

 ing a fine basket of eels on the trip, which gave us an 

 eel chowder for supper. That night we anchored off a 

 point at the Jones's Inlet, which is one of the best places 

 to put out stools in the vicinity of Freeport. Here we 

 hoped to get a number of coot in the morning; but when 

 morning came it rained so hard we did not go out. 

 Toward noon th8 rain moderated and we started for the 

 boat house, arriving in an hour, and the trip was over. 



To those sportsmen who have never shot ducks in the 

 Great South Bay, our advice is, try it; there are plenty 

 of boatmen to take you out, and it does not matter where 

 you go, ducks can be f ouud at all points in the bay. 



B. L. L. 



[By "bitron" does our correspondent mean bittern?] 



A Score Near New York.— New York, Dec. 10. — J. 

 and H.von Lengerke killed in five days' hunting, including 

 two rainy days, within fifty miles of the City Hall of 

 New York city, in New Jersey and New York State, this 

 Ust of game: Fifty-four ruffed grouse, twelve woodcock, 

 eleven quail, ten rabbits, one gray squirrel, What two 

 guns have beaten this within ten years? 



