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FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 23, 1890. 



OUT-OF-DOOR PAPERS. 



IX.— LARGELY PERSONAL. 



IT IS night now, and in winter the night is for owls. 

 In su m mer the small birds sometimes wake during 

 the long hours; the chippy, as if roused from pleasant 

 dreams, trills a little song before tucking her head under 

 her wing; the vesper sparrow often sings a few clear 

 notes; the whippoorwill chants in his vigils, and the 

 loon, sailing on the moonlit lakes, lifts a long halloo, to 

 which the hills respond. But when the winter's cold 

 closes in at evening and the heavens stand dark blue and 

 distant, and the stars blaze with a brilliancy unknown 

 on warmer nights, what birds are there abroad but the 

 owls? Chickadees and nuthatches, grosbeaks and red- 

 polls, long since made themselves comfortable on some 

 sheltered limb, muffling their toes in their feathers; their 

 enemies, the sbrikes and hawks, did the same; the grouse, 

 after his cold supper of poplar twigs, settled in the snow 

 to wait for morning; but the owls are out all night. They 

 whoop to each other; they break up rabbit parties and 

 flying squirrel conventions; they scour the woods far and 

 wide, bent on mischief, their coming first proclaimed by 

 the silent blue shadow which glides before shem. What 

 mortal terror must chill the hare, frisking in the moon- 

 light, as, affrighted at the shadow, he turns and sees 

 those goggle-eyes glaring at him. The incident is so 

 tragic, the moral so deep and universal, that it might be 

 given a place in Holbein's "Dance of Death," with the 

 motto, "For man knoweth not his end." 



Artists have never understood the nature of the horned 

 owl or they would have appreciated his value as an em- 

 blem of evil— something a little better adapted to artistic 

 representation than either Sin or the Devil, but contain- 

 ing the essence of both. The truth about him is best told 

 as it was first told: Time, thirty years ago; two little 

 girls playing school; the elder to the younger: "Now, 

 Alice, let's piay definitions." Alice agrees. "Now, Alice, 

 I shall say 'What is a owl?' and you shall say, 'I don't 

 know,' and I shall tell you." After a moment for learn- 

 ing the lesson comes the question, "What is a owl?" to 

 which Alice responds with equal truth and ignorance, 

 "A owl is a beast." 



A horned owl bears little resemblance to Minerva's bird 

 which was "accounted wise for saying nothing," nor to 

 any of those other sad and gentle creatures which are 

 represented as moping about church yards and complain- 

 ing to the moon. He is a fiend incarnate. He harries all 

 the smaller animals with relentless cruelty, and all night 

 long he howls and hoots in the swamps, making horrid 

 noises in great variety. ' 'I was not born in the woods to 

 be scared by an owl," says the proverb, but the best 

 hunter alive will probably remember at least one time in 

 his life when he has wished himself somewhere else, all 

 on account of an owl. These creatures seem to me un- 

 canny: a monkey, because with all his man-likeness he 

 falls so far short of humanity; a parrot, because with a 

 thimbleful of brains its wit puts man's in dis-esteem ; and 

 the horned owl, because without a drop of the milk of 

 human kindness, he seems to read men's thoughts and to 

 impute base motives. 



And yet I once loved a horned owl. A farmer brought 

 him to the door and I purchased the bird for a private 

 investment. Indeed, from the moment I first saw him, 

 he was mine; there was something fine and commanding 

 about the creature which won my admiration. 1 always 

 spoke of the bird as "him" out of deference to its spirit 

 — braver bird there never was — although its great size 

 and the pure white collar about the neck showed that it 

 was a female. He had been trapped and was hurt; he 

 had been caged and was offended; he was wild from the 

 woods and wholly unused to civilization, but when I 

 lifted him from his box and placed him on the floor, 

 wholly unconfined, he made no attempt to escape, and 

 showed neither fear nor resentment. His great eyes 

 scanned each one of us narrowly, but he stood as un- 

 moved as a captive Indian. From the very first he mani- 

 fested a preference for me, and before night he learned 

 to distinguish my step from all others. When any one 

 else came near his box he would snap his bill loudly, but 

 at my approach he was always silent. He seemed to en- 

 joy having me handle him; would let me take all sorts of 

 liberties with his feathers, even to examining his ears; 

 would He quietly upon his back and let me carry him 

 about on my arm; and he especially enjoyed having his 

 head scratched. When I rubbed it gently with my finger, 

 working the feathers back and forth, he would sit with 

 half-closed eyes showing his pleasure by the relaxation 

 of his muscles and the slow movements of his inner eye- 

 lids. He never made an attempt to escape or to bite. 

 Whether he would have used his claws can only be con- 

 jectured, for I always held both feet when I handled him 

 for fear he might forget his manners; but as I once went 

 into a dark room whither he had escaped from his box, 

 and recaptured him without receiving a scratch, it seems 

 probable that his intentions were good. If the best of its 

 kind is the fittest to survive, that owl should be alive to- 

 day. How his demise came about need not be related, 

 and which cried the more over it, the owl or myself, the 

 owl will not now tell. 



The next which came was also a horned owl, a little 

 black fellow, as ugly as wickedness. A missionary pre- 

 paring for work among the Cannibal Islanders might have 

 learned the ways of heathendom from the little brute. 

 To be sure he had his griefs; his wings had been clipped 

 and his nails cut; his leg was sore from the trap, and his 

 temper completely ruined by weeks of captivity, but so 

 much diabolism could never have been wholly acquired 

 since the date of his misfortunes. I handled him as I 

 pleased, but it was through no good will of his; indeed, 

 he seemed greatly provoked whenever I tucked him under 

 my arm and carried him about. It was funny to see him 

 try to get away when put down, flapping with his wings 

 and hobbling on his knuckle joints, with his toes turned 

 under like a Chinese woman's and his head facing squarely 

 between his shoulders. It is funny also to remember how 

 I went to visit him in the morning and found only an 

 empty box, while from the top of a very high wood pile 

 he looked down on me, grotesquely like some of Cima- 

 bue's angels. But this escape and the mischief which he 

 did during that night of liberty so filled the measure of 

 his crimes that he never saw another morning. 



The great popular superstition regarding owls seems to 

 be that of their inability to see in the day time. It is 

 probable that the desire to account for the mysterious 

 nictitating lid has been strong enough to outweigh all 

 other evidence against this theory. What the use of this 



membrane is I cannot say, but that it is intended to shield 

 the eyes from too strong light seems very doubtful; for, 

 however bright the light, when intent on watching any- 

 thing, the lid is withdrawn. One has but to notice the 

 great contractility of the owl's iris and the peculiar shape 

 of the eyeball, which makes it an optical instrument 

 with remarkable power of adjustment to a focus, to be- 

 lieve that it is an eye especially formed for keen seeing 

 in light as well as in darkness. And the facts bear out 

 the belief. Even the barred owl can see well in the day 

 time, and a close observer tells me that he never saw a 

 horned owl which had not first seen him. He states 

 also that they can distinguish the motion of raising a 

 rifle as far off as he cares to shoot at them, which would 

 seem to indicate that their eyesight, if defective— as most 

 of the books believe — is so for astronomical distances only. 



The only one of our Northern owls which seems short- 

 sighted is the little Acadian owl. It is more exclusively 

 nocturnal than any other that we have here, seldom, if 

 ever, moving in the daytime unless disturbed. When 

 found it can often be taken alive without difficulty. But 

 whether this unwarinessis due to defective sight remains 

 to be proved, for those which we have had as pets seemed 

 to see perfectly in the daytime, although they did not 

 become lively until night. In all we have had three. 

 One refused all food and was liberated after a few days; 

 the second ate only too willingly and died from devouring 

 a scrap of salted meat; the other was for a long time a 

 most interesting pet, although this was before my re- 

 membrance. He was given the range of the house, and 

 soon became very tame, on good terms with the whole 

 family except the cat. He was a gentle little creature, 

 quiet in the daytime, but lively at night, when he would 

 sometimes be heard talking to himself — the only vocal 

 noise that he made — a soft co-co-co,eo-co-co several times 

 repeated. He seemed to notice vertical movements more 

 than horizontal ones, perhaps because he saw the shadow 

 quicker, perhaps on account of the arrangement and 

 structure of his eyes, which are almost immovable and 

 have a vertical contracting pupil, like a cat's. He never 

 was contented to sit on any perch which would cause one 

 foot to be below the other, and whenever he alighted on 

 such a place (as the top of a clock or a chair back) he im- 

 mediately walked sidewise up the incline until he stood 

 at the highest point, where his feet could be on a level. 

 He was an acrobat in a small way, for when a small 

 stick was put between his jaws and he lifted by it, he 

 would swing back and forth in wider and wider arcs 

 until on some backward swing longer than the others, he 

 could throw up his feet and grasp the stick, when he 

 would raise himself into an upright position and look as 

 sedate as any owl. His great delight was to torment the 

 cat. He hectored the poor beast until an undisturbed 

 nap was something only to be dreamed of, flying down 

 from some high perch with a speed and silence which 

 enabled him to scratch his victim's nose or ears and 

 escape in good season. So sudden were the attacks that 

 the cat got no opportunity of revenge until after the owl 

 died and was mounted, when one day he tore off the 

 owl's head. Whether he was satisfied that the bird was 

 killed or was disgusted to find him only tow and feathers 

 can never be known; but after that he looked at the owl 

 and the owl looked at him without enmity. 



These notes are personal to an unusual degree, and 

 perhaps should be called gossip rather than science. As 

 the subjects are all dead they cannot object to anything 

 which has been said of them, and I am willing to vouch 

 for its truth; but if any one were to ask what the story 

 teaches, a wiser man must tell him or else he must go 

 directly to the owls. Fannie Pearson Hardy. 



GROUSE IN CONFINEMENT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Late in the past summer I captured a two- thirds-grown 

 grouse. He seemed to be perfectly healthy, and after I 

 got home I put him in an inclosure about 10ft. x3ft. in 

 size. Fed him on grain, berries and bread. He ate greed- 

 ily after the first day of captivity. To all appearances 

 he was doing finely, but on the eleventh day, when I 

 went to see how he was progressing, I found a dead bird. 

 As the pen had a ground floor, and he was plentifully 

 supplied with water, 1 could see no reason for his death, 

 except that he died of homesickness for his native thicket. 

 By the way, I shot a grouse last week which had a circle 

 of erect dark blue feathers around its neck. Can any 

 one explain it ? G. Jaye. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Often seeing in Forest and Stream accounts of tame 

 grouse, I thought I would write of one I have. It was 

 caught young and kept in a cage first, then let from that 

 out in the room. Often when it made dirt on the floor 

 the folks would drive it out doors; then it would go to 

 the window and peck to get in. It now stays with a 

 cock and hen in the chicken house. The hen pecks it, 

 but not so with the rooster. So at night the grouse snugs 

 up to him and sleeps. It does not attempt to go away. 

 Will perch on the finger and eat out of the saucer, etc. 

 I do not know whether it is a male or female; it has the 

 black feathers on side of neck. W, D. L. 



Peshtigo, Wisconsin. 



AQUARIA NOTES. 



A PECULIAR HABIT OP HOLOTHURIANS. 



I HAD been told by some one, probably Prof. Verrill, 

 that holothurians would completely eviscerate them- 

 selves, throwing off branchiae (lungs) and the entire 

 visceral mass, and speedily reproduce a new set as a 

 crustacean will grow a new claw. The throwing off 

 part of it I had observed dozens of time3, but never any 

 evidence of the reproduction of new organs, the speci- 

 men so affected generally dying shortly after, possibly 

 from starvation, as from some cause they do not live 

 long in the aquarium. Recently, however, observing 

 one divest itself of its vitals, I was surprised to see it 

 at once put forth a set of delicate and transparent white 

 branchiae, somewhat smaller than usual. This would in- 

 dicate that the new viscera are developed before and not 

 after the old ones are thrown off. The history of this 

 strange phase of development is no doubt described some- 

 where in the musty records of some scientific body, but 

 I have never noticed it anywhere in popular science lit- 

 erature, and so record it here for the benefit of the lay 

 reader. 



The branchiae of the holothurian ar.e ordinarily gray in 



color. The new branchiae were white, translucent and 

 beautifully lobed and branched, but not having the usual 

 fringed appearance given to them by the development of 

 numbers of still more minute lobes. They were evi- 

 dently, only partially developed. They looked like some 

 of the small and delicate red algae with all the coloring 

 matter bleached out. This reproduction of the most 

 vital parts of an organism, even as low as an echinoderm, 

 is decidedly wonderful. Wm. P. Seal. 



"That reminds me." 

 SG5. 



WHEN a youngster I had gone late one afternoon to 

 watch a frost grape vine where partridges were 

 wont to feed, hoping to get a shot at one. The vine grew 

 in a sort of bay as it were, which made in from the broad 

 meadow between two wooded hills. Taking a secluded 

 station within range of the vine I watched and waited 

 patiently in vain until dark, for no birds came to be shot. 

 My way home led up over the hill to the right, and I 

 began climbing the same a little chilled, for the weather 

 was cold, and somewhat disheartened at the thought of 

 not being able to take home to my mother the partridge 

 which I had so glowingly assured her I would bring on 

 my return. 



I had made my way nearly to the top of the hill in the 

 dark, when up went a partridge in front of me, and I 

 instinctively raised my gun and fired — at the sound of his 

 fluttering. He flew almost over my head, and I could 

 hear his wings occasionally clip the twigs as he darted 

 down the hill up which I came. Listening for an instant 

 in the stillness of the woods, I heard him strike the 

 ground heavily in the ravine at the foot of the hill, and 

 following down quickly I hit the bird with my foot, and 

 picking it up hurried home as proud a boy as one often 

 sees, having shot and found a partridge in the dark. A. 



296. 



My friend Paoli had an experience once which I think 

 worth relating. He was visiting in the country, and his 

 cousin, a lad of fifteen, gave very enthusiastic accounts 

 of the squirrels which abounded in the woods thereabout. 

 Upon his urgent invitation Paoli and the boy started out 

 for the woods early next morning, "just as the sun was 

 gilding the treetops, etc." After traversing a mile or so 

 of open ground they entered timber, where the squirrels 

 were making a lively racket, cutting nuts and chasing 

 each other up and down the trees. Our two hunters 

 were armed with muzzleloaders, this being in the ante- 

 breechloading period. 



The battle began at once, and Paoli had knocked three 

 squirrels down from the same tree, when he was inter- 

 rupted by an appeal from the boy to help him get his 

 gun off, as it would do nothing but snap caps, and being 

 a single barrel he was left out of the game. So Paoli 

 took the gun and proceeded patiently to "pick" powder 

 in the tube. After getting it chuck full he tried a cap on 

 it, but it still snapped. This process was tried again and 

 again without success, when seeing the boy's great dis- 

 appointment he proposed to go back to the house, procure 

 a "wiper," and withdraw the load. They accordingly 

 trudged back as rapidly as they could, and arriving at 

 the house the wiper was procured, the worm adjusted on 

 it, and it was dropped into the gun. When it struck the 

 bottom there was a metallic sound given forth, which 

 sugested the idea of blowing into the muzzle, when it 

 developed at once that the gun had not been loaded. 



Mississippi. COAHOMA. 



zme mi %m\. 



"FOREST AND STREAM" GUN TESTS. 



THE following guns have been tested at the Forest and 

 Stream Range, and reported upon in the issues named. 

 Copies of any date will be seat on receipt of price, ten cents: 

 Colt 12, July 25. Parker 12, hammei lefcs, June lit, 



Colt 10 and 12, Oct. 24. Remington lfi, May 30. 



Folsom 10 and 12, Sept. 26. Remington 12, Dec. 5. 

 Francotte 12, Dec. 12. Remington 10, Dec. 86. 



Greener 12, Aug. 1. Scott 10, Sept. 5. 



Greener 10, Sept. 12, Sept. 10. L. C. Smith 12, Oct. 10. 

 Hollis 10, Nov. 7. Winchester 10 and 12, Oct. 3. 



Parker 10, hammer, June 6. 



TEXAS GAME AND VARMINTS. 



JAYTON, Kent County, Tex., Jan. 4.— The weather 

 this winter has been uninterruptedly good, with two 

 slight exceptions, once in November, with a three days" 

 cool rain, and a cool blow on the 30th of December, when 

 ice formed nearly half an inch thick in exposed vessels, 

 but ponds did not freeze over. The delightful weather 

 for camping brought forth the hunters in double and 

 treble the numbers ever before known. While it was 

 believed there was plenty of game, it has certainly been 

 a surprise to the few of us who live in this country and 

 do not appreciate the game (because it is so plentiful), 

 that the hunters have met with such gratifying success. 

 Turkey, deer and antelope are the favorite game with 

 most of the hunters. Many of them are hunting to sup- 

 ply the markets, and will load a wagon at the turkey 

 roosts in a night or two. The continued warm weather 

 spoiled load after load before reaching the markets, the 

 railroad being eighty-five miles distant. It is not un- 

 common to see the game abandoned in camp because 

 spoiled. 



Having stock upon the range, and being interested, I 

 yesterday asked a crew of three young men why they 

 did not kill the panthers and large beasts of prey. The 

 spokesman replied, "Oh, I'm afraid of them things, and 

 let 'em alone it' they'll let me alone." And so the major- 

 ity of the hunters kill the inoffensive game that the beasts 

 of prey live upon, and the latter are then compelled to 

 kill our calves and colts, and often our larger animals to 

 subsist upon. The stockmen pay bounties ranging from 

 $5 to $50 for each scalp, and yet there are few who care 

 to engage in a business, exciting in the extreme, but with 

 a considerable percentage of the elements of danger. 



A short time since a sheepherder, supposed to be a 

 very mild-mannered man, saw lying down an animal 



