Deo. 12, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



407 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



DY mere accident I am placed in a position to give the 

 J3 exact facts as to the death of the grizzly bear, old 

 Bob, of which late mention was made in other columns. 

 In the issue of Nov. 28 I stated, for the benefit of Mr. 

 Ames, that Bob broke into a cage where there were other 

 bears, and was killed in the general fight. That was the 

 local paper account of it. It was wbile talking of some- 

 thing not in the least apropos of this subject! the other 

 evening, that my friend. Mr. A. H. Harryman, editor of 

 the Sanitary News, of this city, happened to say that he 

 "saw the biggest fight of his life when old Bob was killed, 

 ovt r in Lincoln Park." 



•'Did you see that?" I asked, and he replied that he did, 

 and to further questioning described the affair as follows: 

 ♦ '*I lived near Lincoln Park at that time — the early 

 summer of 1880, I believe it was — and I used to go over 

 every Sunday afternoon to look at the animals. On this 

 afternoon I was standing directly above the bear pit, 

 and I saw the beginning of the fight. Old Bob was lying 

 in his corner of the pit, where he always staid — he was 

 kept in that pit with five or six other beare — and he was 

 quiet and peaceable as he always was. There was a 

 smaller bear, a black, or very dark brown bear, a good, 

 chunky bear, very wide a,nd strong looking, and weigh- 

 ing 6001bs., I should think. This bear was a younger one 

 than Bob, and though not so large, by any means, was an 

 ugly looker. This fellow came out of his hole in the 

 rocks and stood square in front of Bob, and humped up 

 his hack and growled out something at Bob. Old Bob 

 raised up on his forefeet and answered. He knew in a 

 minute that he had to fight, right there. Then the Utile 

 bear said something — I suppose he called Bob a liar — and 

 then with a great roar both rears sprang directly at each 

 other. They caught each other square in the mouth, and 

 you could hear their teeth clash at a great distance off. 



'The polar bears in the next pit quit walking and came up 

 and looked on through the bars. The cinnamon bears in 

 the pit next to that, all climbed up their trees, and there 

 they lay all through the fight, as quiet as mice. They 

 seemed frightened. All over the park, while this fight 

 was going on, the animals. were restless and uneasy, and 

 made a great deal of noise. They all seemed to know 

 that something big was happening. 



"The bears remained clinched and worrying this way 

 for quite a while. It was strange to see old Bob. He 



" knew very well that he had to husband his strength. He 

 kuew he was old, and that this was a fight for his life. 



i He would work himself around, easy like, till he got his 

 hind feet under the other bear, then he would give a rak- 

 ing kick that always lifted the other bear up and made 

 h im grunt. If Bob's claws had not been so old and worn 

 he would have ripped his enemy wide open. As it was, 

 you could hear his nails tear down the other bear's ribs 

 and belly till it seemed as if they would disembowel him 

 any way. 



"The other bear was a fighter, and he came back at 

 Bob right along. He got Bob by the neck and they 

 clinched again, and he nearly choked Bob to death. 

 While Bob was fairly gasping, with his mouth wide open, 

 the keepers began playing two streams of water on the 

 bears. One of these streams was directed right into Bob's 

 mouth as he lay there, I declare I felt like whipping the 

 keeper who did that. There was a big crowd there by 

 this time, and there wasn't one of the crowd but what 

 wanted to see Bob kill that other bear. Everybody knew 

 Bob and liked him. 



"I think the bears fought this way fully an hour, and 

 they couldn't get them separated. At last the little bear, 

 wet but not whipped, drew off and went back into his 

 hole. 



"I hung around the pit awhile after that watching poor 

 old Bob. He was bleeding a little on the neck. The 

 other bear did not seem much hurt. Bob's teeth were 

 too worn and old to hurt him. There was quiet for 

 about an hour, and then the other bear came out again, 

 walked over to Bob's corner and called him the same 

 name over again, humping up his back the same way. 

 With another great roar the bears sprang at each other 

 and clinched. They fought savagely this way for three- 

 quarters of an hour, I should think, and then the keepers 

 got them separated again, and each bear retired to his 

 part of the pit again. No attempt was made to put these 

 bears ip separate pits. They were left where they were. 



"I do not think there was* any more fighting that week, 

 but next Sunday, at about the same time, these bears got 

 to fighting again, and kept at it a long time. They got 

 them apart again, but on the next morning, Monday, old 

 Bob was dead in his corner when they went down to the 

 pit. There was a general sadness when this was known, 

 and Bob's murderer was universally hatect. 



"Old Bob was skinned, and his carcass, after the skin 

 was removed, without disemboweling, weighed l,6001bs. 

 The skin was mounted. 



"It is a mistake to say Bob was killed in a general 

 fight. He was killed by one bear, a smaller one than 

 himself, in a prolonged fight in which no other bear took 

 part, and it was right in the pit where they all lived. 

 Bob was too old to fight. But you comd see in the old 

 fellow's eye, as he grappled with his younger adversary, 

 that he wished for but one tenth of his former strength. 

 And I am sure we all wished he had had it." 



Dec. 2. — During a recent visit to Lake Koshkonong, 

 Wisconsin, I had opportunity to learn something of the 

 wdd celery which gives that lake suoh a reputation as a 

 resort for the canvasback duck. In company with Mr. 

 W. Y. Wentworth, superintendent of the Blackhawk 

 Club, and Mr. Duane Starin, perhaps the best-known 

 shooter of that locality, I went out on the lake and was 

 shown how the wild celery seeds are gathered from the 

 bottom of the lake— for that is where they must be gath- 

 ered, if at all. These gentlemen probably have more 

 practical knowledge of the wild celery plant and its seed 

 than any one else, for they used to sell the seed to parties 

 wishing to plant waters to wild celery. They experi- 

 mented for themselves and found that the seed taken 

 from the bottom of the lake would grow, and they have 

 heard from successful results from different lots of seed 

 they have shipped to clubs, etc. It is a simple matter to 

 plant the seed, the only thing necessary being to drop the 

 pods at the spot where the celery is wished to grow. 

 The seeds should doubtless be kept wet all the time, as 

 that is their natural condition. In Koshkonong Lake the 

 wild celery grows out of sand, clay, mud, or almost any 

 other kind of bottom, and there is no apparent reason 

 why it should not grow in any shallow water where it 

 was well planted. To head off anybody, however, who 



may wish to send Forest and Stream of myself, or either 

 of the above-named gentlemen, with letters asking about 

 wild celery seed, I will state plainly that the seed cannot 

 be had at koshkonong, for the reason that it is too late to 

 get it out of the lake and. there is no supply on hand. I 

 have sent in some samples of the seed pods to Forest 

 and Stream, and if there is time to have an engraving 

 made, anxious inquirers can look at the picture, which is 

 abou t as close as most of them will ever get to this rather 

 rare article of duck furniture. 



The scientific description of this plant will be the best 

 premise to this method of gathering the seed,' and that is 

 as folio ws: 



"Valisneria spiralis— A genus of plant remarkable on 

 account of the very curious manner in which the process 

 of fertilization is effected. A perennial herb bearing a 

 tuft of thin, narrow, green, grasslike leaves. The two 

 sexes are borne on separate plants. The male flowers are 

 extremely minute and sensile, but when mature they 

 become detached and rise to the surface of the water. 

 The female plants, on the other hand,|are borne singly on 

 the end of a long, slender, spirally-twisted stalk, uncoils 

 more or less, according to the depth of the water, so as 

 to allow the flower to float on the surface, where it ex- 

 pands and is fertilized by the floating pollen, after which 

 the spiral stem coils up again and conveys the flowers to 

 the bottom of the water." 



At the bottom ot the water the fertilized seed-pod lies 

 until moisture and decomposition have released the seeds 

 from their covering. At any time before the pods have 

 reached the bottom on their return journey, it is pi - ob- 

 able they are not fertilized sufficiently for growth. It is 

 on the bottom, therefore, that the celery hunters look for 

 the seed. The only implement they use is a rake with a 

 wooden head about 16in. long, into which are set lOin. 

 teeth of stiff wire, about fin. apart. Koshkonong is a 

 shallow lake, hardly more than 6 or 8ft. at its deepest, so 

 that the rake needs not be very long or ponderous. 



We rowed out of the mouth of the pretty Rock River, 

 crossed the head of the lake, along where the canvas- 

 back blinds are, and in front of the big bluff where 

 "Koshkonong Place" sits looking out over the lake. 

 We fell to raking like toilers of the seas. Three or four 

 ineffectual hauls were made, bringing up moss, pickerel 

 weed, decayed stems and a few young croppies and bull- 

 heads, when Mr. Wentworth called my attention to a 

 long, dark, slim-looking affair, tapered at both ends and 

 slightly curved. It was five or six inches loug and 

 an eighth of an inch thick, and looked more like a frozen 

 and disgruntled angleworm than anything else. 



" There's your celery seed," said he. And in this way, 

 after a half hour of hard work in the icy water — this 

 was Nov. 24 — we got half a dozen pods or so, including 

 a good specimen, and several in which the natural de- 

 composition had gone so far as to leave the seeds exposed 

 to view. We then went home, and it appeared to us that 

 the acquisition of wild celery seeds was a very slow and 

 laborious process. 



That night we divided a pod into lin. sections, and 

 counted the number of seeds carried in a lin. length of 

 the pod. We found that the seeds ran about 60 to 

 the inch, and we figured that from this there must be 

 about 500,000 seeds in a quart jar of the pods. It is very 

 probable that there are normally more than 60 seeds to 

 the inch, as the specimens we counted had already partly 

 opened and perhaps some of the seeds had escaped. The 

 seeds are very minute, slender and pointed. They re- 

 semble ant eggs, but are very much smaller and a little 

 darker in color. 



From what we saw of the seeds and their great num- 

 bers, it would appear that the wild celery is a plant 

 which could easily and abundantly be sown' and grown 

 in any shallow waters. I have heard of, and I believe in 

 the mention of the Hennepin Club last winter I described, 

 an attempt to plant the wild celery roots. This attempt 

 was, I believe, unsuccessful. I don't believe it is the 

 natural or rational way to plant wild celery, and I think 

 any one who would tear up the roots of this plant from a 

 water where it was native, would be doing a very un- 

 wise, wasteful and foolish thing. 



Dec. 3. — Mention has been made several times of "Kosh- 

 konong Place," and I shall need to speak of it once or 

 twice again. This pleasant abode is managed and partly 

 owned by Mr. C. E. Gordon, once president of the Na- 

 tional Humane Society, a former member of the Audu- 

 bon Society, and well acquainted with all the men promi- 

 nent in the latter organization. Mr. Gordon has about 

 him a very choice collection of mounted game birds, and 

 a few rare specimens of other sorts. During our visit 

 there he called our attention to an odd-looking and 

 diminutive bird, whose contour was rather similar to 

 that of the auk, apparently. None of us could identify it. 



"It is no wonder that you can not," said Mr. Gordon, 

 "for that is the second bird of its kind ever known in 

 North America, and the only one ever killed in the 

 United States proper. I shot that bird in 1882, in the 

 midst of one of the worst blizzards I ever faced. The 

 canvasbacks were flying splendidly, and I was having 

 grand shooting in my blind. A big canvasback and this 

 little bird dropped in to my decoys together, and I killed 

 them both. I sent the bird on to Dr. Coues. He men- 

 tions it as the black-throated guillemot, found once in 

 Alaska, once in Wisconsin. The latter was my speci- 

 men. I value this bird rather highly therefore." 



Talking of other and allied topics, Mr. Gordon re- 

 marked as follows: 



"I wish you would ask, in Forest and Stream, whether 

 any one knows of a canvasback duck ever having been 

 killed in Europe at any season of the year; and I would 

 like to know, too, whether anybody knows of an instance 

 of the canvasbacks nesting in any part of North America. 

 I believe the canvasback nests only in Asia, far north in 

 Siberia. It is knowm to nest there in untold numbers, 

 and in that place it loses all its fear for man, so that it 

 can be approached within a few yards. I should like to 

 know if it nests anywhere else. It seems to me that this 

 bird goes yearly, all those thousands of miles north into 

 the circumpolar regions, and yearly returns solely for the 

 benefit of us, the favored people of the earth. When I 

 think of the tremendous flight of this bird, and of its 

 patient though mysterious persistence, I cannot help 

 feeling an added respect and sympathy for it." 



Wisconsin has had respect and sympathy enough for 

 this bird and its kin to prohibit its killing in the spring, 

 and to hedge about its killing with all the difficulties 

 possible. I should say that Mr. Gordon has been-active 

 always before the Legislature in his efforts for proper 



game laws. Before the committee he was once reproached 

 by a market-shooter who was present in the interests of 

 butchery. 



"Mr. Gordon," said the latter, "what are you driving 

 at anyhow? It looks to me as if you didn't want us to 

 kill any canvasbacks at all !" 



"That's precisely it," was the reply. "I don't want 

 you to. Failing of that, I want to see such a law as will 

 make it just as hard as possible to kill a canvasback duck 

 inside the State of Wisconsin; and I only wish we could 

 legislate for the other States also." 



Mr. Gordon was formerly a minister of the gospel in 

 an important charge of Milwaukee, and is valued as a 

 forceful speaker. In connection with Mr. Geo. W. 

 Esferly, a prominent citizen of Whitewater, Wis. ; Mr. 

 W. Y. Wentworth, game warden for the southeastern 

 district of Wisconsin, and keeper of the Blackhawk 

 Club, and Mr. E. D. Coe, chief clerk of the Wisconsin 

 Assembly, and very probably the next Secretary of State, 

 he has worked hard and given much time to the cause of 

 rational game laws. I should not like to name one of these 

 men before the other in this work, but I believe I am 

 right in saying that the present rigid State laws on duck 

 shooting arc due to the efforts of these four men more 

 than to any other cause. They all live near Lake Kosh- 

 konong, and much remains to be said about their locality 

 and their work. They are mentioned in this column 

 because each of them loves a live bird more than a dead 

 one. 



On Nov. 25 four white swans settled in an open bit of 

 water within 200yds. of the foot of the big bluff. Thous- 

 ands of bluebills and golden-eyes remained in the open 

 holes. The canvasbacks had all departed on that date. 



A great flight of waxwings occurred on Blackhawk 

 Island last year. Last spring thousands of sparrows 

 perished in that neighborhood in a sudden cold wave 

 that caught them. 



Dec. 5. — Holzhay, the Gogebic murderer who killed 

 Mr. Fleischbein on the stage coach last summer, has been 

 sent up for life. 



Mr. G. O. Shields, of this city, and Fish Commissioner 

 McDonald, nf Washington, give a stereopticon lecture 

 before the Fish and Game Club of Louisville, Ky., in a 

 few days, for which extensive preparations have been 

 made. 



Mr. C. D. Gammon, Mr Harry Loveday, Mr. John 

 Grey, Mr. Major and Mr. Nichols start next week for the 

 St. Francis country. Arkansas, after quail, deer and bear, 

 for all of which they are duly loaded. 



Weather here at this date is warm and rainy. Our 

 first cold wave is past. No ducks to amount to anything 

 reported as left in this country. There has been no duck 

 shooting here this fall except on Tolleston Marsh, and 

 some of the old shooters sigh and say the flight has gone 

 permanently West. Yet ducks in adjacent bodies of 

 open water have undoubtedly been seen, if not sfeot, in 

 exceptionally large numbers this fall. Another freak of 

 duck-shooting fortune. E. Hotjgh. 



NEW YORK ASSOCIATION. 



THE Association for the Protection of Fish and Game 

 held its first meeting for the season of 1889-90 at 

 Pinard's Monday evening, Dec. 9. 



As it was the first appearance of its president, the Hon. 

 Robt. B. Roosevelt, since his return from Holland, the 

 meeting was, as might have been expected, one of the 

 best-attended and most enthusiastic ever held. After the 

 usual dinner the Association adjourned to the big parlor, 

 where they devoted the evening to the regular business, 

 including the reports of committees and officers, reading 

 communications, etc. Mr. Simeon J. Drake mentioned 

 the fact that Mr. Pond, the game warden having the 

 counties of Essex and Franklin in charge, had been very 

 energetic; and had arrested twenty-three or twenty-four 

 persons, including hotel keepers, visitors and others, for 

 killing deer out of season. Mr. Holberton called the at- 

 tention of the club to the fact that around the Raquette 

 Lake and Blue Mountain Lake region there were a num- 

 ber of instances of violations of the close season for 

 grouse and deer, also that netting of ducks was going on 

 m the neighborhood of Good Ground, Long Island. 



There was some talk of asking the Legislature to pro- 

 hibit the killing of does in the North Woods at least until 

 Sept. 15, but while they thought such a law wise, "the 

 majority were of the opinion that it would be very dan- 

 gerous to attempt to change the present law, particularly 

 regarding deer, as it had been hard work to get it passed. 

 All needed, it was thought, was to try and have it en- 

 forced. All agreed that the season for selling venison in 

 this State should end Dec. 15, and not Nov. 15, 



Mr. Imbrie called the attention of the club to the diffi- 

 culty of understanding the many complex clauses of the 

 game laws and urged the appointment of the commission 

 to codify and arrange them. 



Mr. Blackford, on behalf of the Fish Commission, 

 promised to have the abstract of the game laws ready for 

 the association as soon as the next Legislature adjourned. 

 The club adjourned to meet the second Monday in Janu- 

 ary, 1890. 



GUNS AND GAUGES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Your correspondent "Cohannef'has undoubtedly made 

 a grand point in reference to light guns with small bores. 

 What is the use of carrying a 9 or 101b. gun all day, 

 fatiguing yourself, and doing no better work perhaps 

 than with a lighter weapon? The many advantages he 

 names are very evident. As for killing qualities, a 14 or 

 16- bore will generally do as good shooting as a 12 gauge. 

 According to the tests which Forest and Stream has 

 kindly given, the 16-bore that was tested ranks high both 

 in pattern and penetration. 



Early last fall I saw a "water hen" killed at 40yds. with 

 a 16-bore, and a moderate charge of powder and shot; 

 this bird, by the way, is very hard to kill. 



The pattern and penetration tests have been interesting 

 and instructive, and would like to see a few more of the 

 smaller gauges tested. E. 



Fobicst and Stream, Bos 3,832, N. Y. city, has descriptive illus- 

 tra,ted circulars of W. B. Lefflu^well'a book, "Wild Fowl Shoot- 

 tug," which will he mailed free on request. The book is pro- 

 nounced by "Nanit," "Gloan," "Dick Swiveller," "Sybillene" and 

 other competent authorities to be the best treatise on the subject 

 extant. 



