July 17, 1890.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



611 



decoyed me by showing her fatal injury across an icy 

 stream and through much nasty brush; she had arranged 

 things in such a way as to be so shot a second time as 

 only to add to her speed; she had led us over slide rock 

 and break -neck bank until long after sunset, and my dis- 

 position was still sweet, but these final straws, I confess, 

 infused a subtle acid into my feelings, and my expres- 

 sions at that time were not those of unqualified blessing. 



For the moment I thought that my age and infirmities 

 would look better by the domestic fireside; that hunting 

 and camping were occupations fitted only for the unde- 

 veloped, the slightly evolved savage; that after carefully 

 cleaning my gun I would hang it on the wall as an im- 

 movable ornament forever. 



.Did 1 follow this wise and sudden resolve? Time will 

 show. H. G. Dulog, 



A HUMMINGBIRD'S NEST. 



MARIN COUNTY, California, which lies just north 

 of Sari Francisco and the Golden Gate, is beautiful, 

 rich and fertile. It abounds in smooth, rounded hills and 

 rnoun tains, in beautiful, rioh-soiled valleys, in swift- 

 rushing crystal trout streams, in ravines and canons 

 lo% r ely with flowering fragrant shrubs, on some of which 

 every day in the year fresh bloom can be found. This 

 county has the most perfect of temperate climes, where 

 even the broad-leaved tender banana stretches its great 

 fronds up 15ft. in the air without fear of nipping frosts, 

 and the Galaduuvi eseulentum forms great clumps of 

 tropical foliage. Marin county is, as Kate Field wrote 

 of it, a poem. Not an epic nor an heroic poem of blood, 

 war or tragedy, but rather a bundle of love sonnets, a 

 winter's tale with a fair Rosalind in rustic garb, and beat- 

 ing a shepherd's crook or milk pail. For this fairest 

 home for the lovers of the beautiful is given up to the 

 prosaic cow and the bleating sheep. Where the hills and 

 mountains ought to be covered with the vine and olive, 

 instead we find growers of wool. On the foothills and 

 tablelands where we should see the orchards of apple, 

 pear, plum, prune, cherry, nuts and oranges, the finest 

 in the world, we find those most unromantic things of 

 rural life, the ill-smelling pig sty and the dairy. The 

 rich floors of the beautiful valleys given up to hay, 

 Marin county is nearly one continuous butter dairy over 

 its every acre, 



Marin county seems to be the natural home of those 

 jewels of bird life, the hummingbirds. For full half a 

 century I had striven to find a hummingbird's nest with 

 eggs or young in situ, but somehow I was always a little 

 early or late. At last, however, I have found one. 



Two weeks ago we, old Dobbins and I, were plodding 

 along in one of Marin county's mo3t beautiful valleys. On 

 one hand a, sparkling, rattling trout stream played hide 

 and seek beneath over-arching leafy bowers. On the 

 other side the mountain stretched away upward in 

 dizzy heights. The road, as smooth as any pavement, 

 was nearly overarched with an hundred flowering shrubs. 

 There were the grea.t round-topped " buckeye" with its 

 plumes of snowy white and pink, the spirea with its great 

 cones of creamy white, the elder with its broad sweet 

 umbels tinged with gold — ail of these filling the air with 

 their heavy honey, sweet, or spicy fragrance^ There 

 were great rounded clumps of ripening crimson goose- 

 berries, large, fine in flavor, but with prickly coats, long 

 banks with the drooping thread-like vines of the wild 

 blackberry arching over them like some smooth water- 

 fall of tender green, sprinkled beneath with their bright 

 red or black fruit. On the mountain side above, all was 

 aflame with the scarlet of the painted cup and the bright 

 gold of California's pride, the golden poppy. The setting 

 for these regal beauties of the mountain side was made 

 up of an hundred more moderate yet beautiful flowers of 

 every moderate size and color, and especially in a wealth 

 of the malvacia, from a tiny crimson cup with a golden 

 eye to the great pink and red cup of the school-girl's "wild 

 hollyhock. " The whole was intermingled with thousands 

 of great fern fronds and delicate maiden hair fern, .mosses 

 and lichens, fleur de lis and an hundred grasses. * Away 

 up that canon on the damp north mountain side a clump 

 of towering redwoods (Sequoia semper- virens) shoot into 

 the bright blue sky, they are 50 to 75ft. high and sur- 

 round the hoary stump of a patriarch felled 40 years ago 

 by some pioneer. 



This, the coast redwood, is one of the strongest as well 

 as one of the most valuable trees in the world. It is 

 unique in many particulars. It seems nearly impossible 

 to kill them. Cut one down, and at once two to ten 

 spring up from the margin on top of the stump, and grow 

 with great rapidity into straight, stately trees again. 

 Tens of thousands of them felled 40 and 50 years ago, 

 have now these "suckers" grown into trees large enough 

 for lumber. In the redwood forest one may find thous- 

 ands of them. Where the original tree has survived its 

 span of perhaps 1,000 or 3,000 years, decayed and fallen, 

 there four to six offspring sprung from the margin of its 

 stump, grown into giants, have been felled, and now a 

 lusty third generation , ranged around their stumps, stand 

 over 100ft. high in 40 years. Th^ bark of a great red- 

 wood is 4 to 8in. thick. This becomes very dry in the 

 dry season on the outside, but is very moist on the inner 

 side. Then if very dry and this outer bark is fired, it 

 burns right up to the top of the tree, burning off all the 

 foliage and some branches, and leaving nothing but the 

 smooth blackened trunk. In a few weeks the whole sur- 

 face of this great black column will be covered with the 

 tender moss-like foliage of the tree, and in a few seasons 

 the arrowy giant is growing as serenely as if there was 

 no such thing as fire in the world. Think of a tree 35ft. 

 through at the surface of the ground, then shooting away 

 up 250ft. as straight as a candle, gradually drawing to a 

 point, covered from away up yonder with its thickly- 

 growing, slender spray, seldom over 10 to 15ft. long, 

 often gracefully drooping, and even pendant ! Then think 

 of these giants growing nearly as thickly together as 

 possible, so that if they were sawed off at the surface 

 of the ground then- stumps would make nearly one con- 

 tinuous pavement, and you would have in your mind's 

 eye a picture of a coast redwood forest. Yet these seem- 

 ing giants are mere switches in comparison with the great 

 redwood of the Sierras (Sequoia gigantea), specimens of 

 which can be seen nearly 400ft, high and 60ft. in diame- 

 ter at the base. 



Driving through such a forest we pass out into the 

 bright simshine. My eye is closely scanning the bank 

 to the left for ripe blackberries, for in this strange climate 

 of Marin one may find them dead ripe in one shelter and 

 exposure, and then only a few rods away hardly in blos- 

 som. From a cluster of drooping swaying blackberry 

 vines a tiny ball of gray goes whizzing up the mountain 

 side. A fire- flash of most brilliant crimson scintillated 

 toward the bushes, and then with arrowy flight followed 

 the brown buzzer up the mountain side, showing flicker- 

 ings of bright metallic - green in the sunshine. A sway- 

 ing of the drooping vines from where the little brownie 

 started gave me the cue, and looking carefully among 

 the slender prickly vines my eyes were at last gratified 

 by the sight of the nest of one of the smallest of our hum- 

 birds. There it was, a tiny little cup of delicate down 

 and fiber, deftly woven, perfect in shape, fastened di- 

 rectly on the side of the slender vine, with many a liga- 

 ture artistically entwined, covered outwardly with gray 

 and blue lichens and moss-like cryptograms, ail placed 

 in their natural growing form with consummate skill. 

 It was directly roofed by a large leaf, and so like its en- 

 tire environment as to be completely masked, so that 

 when one was looking right at it he could hardly see it— 

 a tiny cup, or well-nigh an oblong ball, about the size of 

 a hen's egg, drawn at the top, and the margin of the 

 opening smoothly rounded. The outside was of the strong 

 gray silken fiber of the hop-vine; the inside lined with 

 the softest down from the thistle and willowy, pure 

 white; and away down in its bottom, two tiny eggs, 

 pearl white, translucent, rarely tinted with a glinting 

 of shadowy pink. 



The eggs are truly large for so small a bird, somewhat 

 more oblong than usual among small birds. 



I asked the bright sons of a settler near at hand if they 

 knew where there was a hummingbird's nest. "Oh, yes," 

 they replied, "there is one right up the road there on 

 some blackberry bushes. She laid her last egg yester- 

 day, and we have another in the house which we found 

 last week, that some mean skunk of a boy stole the eggs 

 from." And sure enough he brought out a nest, the 

 exact counterpart of the other, but fastened to the side 

 of a slender drooping twig of a blue gum (Eucalyptus 

 globulus) tree. Neither of the boys knew how long it 

 took for incubation and rearing. 



Two weeks from that day I drove out there, ten miles, 

 expressly to see the young in nest, and to find out if 

 possible what the little creatures were fed on. As I 

 neared the nest I saw both parents fly up the mountain 

 side out of sight. The young birds were nearly fledged 

 already, two weeks and a day since the last egg was laid. 

 I therefore consider that only a little over three weeks 

 suffices for nest building, laying, incubation and rearing 

 until the young leave the nest. 



Once upon a time I saw a large humming bird at the 

 lower end of a sloping, leafy-shaded glade, busily visiting 

 every tuft of "Sweet William" up toward where I was. 

 I laid down prone on the turf with my eyes within 16in. 

 of a fine spray of flowers. The bird was a fine fellow 

 with his flashing coat of bright emerald green. He vis- 

 ited every flower of each clump as he came up the little 

 vale. At last he reached the one near my face, and with 

 no suspicion thrust his slender beak into each purple cup. 

 When I would wink my eyes he would stop and peer at 

 me with his wee diamond black eyes, but I could not see 

 what he got from the flowers to eat, whether nectar, pol- 

 len or minute insects. It is generally supposed that they 

 feed entirely on nectar, and that their tongue is a slender 

 tube by which they suck it up. The student of biology 

 should take no such hearsay stories for granted; facts are 

 his stock in trade. My wish was to find out on what and 

 how these tiny birdlings were fed, so I carefully hid my 

 person in the greenery with my face within a few inches 

 of the nest, and waited long aud impatiently for feeding 

 time, but the parents did not show up in sight. After an 

 hour or more, thinking my horse near by kept them 

 away, I moved him, and then hid still more carefully, 

 but in vain, and as the young became restless I concluded 

 not to punish them longer. Then looking carefully I 

 found numerous voidings of the young on twigs around 

 the nest and on the ground below. I gathered a number 

 of these pellets, took them home, soaked them in clear 

 water, placed them under the glass, and found them to 

 be wholly composed of the remains of very small gnats 

 and aphids, and seemingly nothing else. I could find in 

 them no heads of small caterpillers and grubs. Many of 

 the wings and heads of these gnat remains were so per- 

 fect that the trained entomologist might have determined 

 from them the species. There were whole heads with 

 the antenna? attached, whole perfect leg cases, etc. This 

 seems to settle the question that this hummingbird does 

 not feed its young on nectar from flowers, as I have read 

 they do. These young, though nearly full grown, had 

 not their beaks as yet more than one-third the length of 

 the old ones. 



Hummingbirds of many species are quite plenty here, 

 some of them remaining with us quite or nearly all winter. 



In Marin county in old times the great grizzly (Ursus 

 liorribilis) was the cruel monarch. Then he roamed 

 where he pleased, afraid of neither man nor beast. There 

 are supposed to be a black bear now and then in the 

 mountain fastness near the west coast yet, with quite a 

 sprinkling of deer. Marin in ancient times was the 

 favorite winter home of deer, elk a*nd bear from a wide 

 scope of country. The pioneers say they just swarmed 

 there. Byrne. 



Pet-Aluma, Oal. 



To Raise Beavers,— Editor Forest awl Stream: I think 

 I have a plan whereby beaver may not only be raised 

 without loss by straying, but may even be made to pay the 

 breeder a handsome profit on the investment. Find a 

 small, deep lake, around part of which the banks are 

 high and steep. Dig a trench all around it at least 3ft. 

 deep and not less than 50yds. from the water's edge. Set 

 regular fence posts in this trench, and tack to them a 

 woven copper wire fencing of say lOin. mesh and 8ft. 

 deep. All but 3if t. of it could be made of iron wire, but 

 the lower part should be copper. When the fence is 

 completed fill in the trench and make a gateway large 

 enough to admit a wagon. Now you can put your beaver 

 in the lake and they cannot possibly get away from it 

 unless they climb the fence. I do not think they would 

 do that, but to be doubly sure a wide board could be 

 nailed along the top of the posts. If there should be no 

 suitable food timber growing along the shores of the lake, 

 it could be cut and hauled to the place by wagon as re- 



quired; and two or three times a year the debris should 

 be cleared away. I venture to say that with a starter of 

 four beaver in such a place as I have described a person 

 with ordinary luck could raise a large number of them 

 in five years.— J. W. Schultz (Piegan, Montana). 



Recknt Arrivals at tue Philadelphia Zoolooical Gar- 

 denv— Exohange&r- Three reindeer (Dangifrr tnrandiis). Pur- 

 chased— Ono grizzly bear (Ursus horribiiis), three black ducks 

 (Anastibscura), sixty-five water mocassins (A ncisl ration pisctvnrvs), 

 seven ground rattlesnakes (Orotalophorns miliarias), one harle- 

 quin suake (KUtps fulvius), four pine snakes (PwyopMs meltt/fM&ii- 

 au&). fonr garter snakes (Eutmnia sirtalis), five block snakes (lit tit- 

 can him mmslr(elor\ three Sacken's garter snakes (EutcenUi sakeni), 

 thirteen king snakes (Qphiholux get wlWS), six water snakes (Trovi- 

 tlnntitm sipedan), three cyclops water snakes (Tropidonotus cycla- 

 phtnt), seventeen banded water snakes ^PropidonotMS fasciatus), 

 tour brown water snakes (Tropi.donotus ta.rispilntus), one green 

 snake (Oyolophis ve.rnalis), three indigo snakes (Spilotes oehennus), 

 two whipsnakes (Bascanium flauelli forme), one corn snake (Coluber 

 guttdim), and one gopher tortoise "(Tcstutlo radiata). Presented— 

 Two woodchucks (Arctomys monax), one mink (Putorius Visok), 

 one ocelot (Felix partialis), ten opossums (Didelphtjs virginiana), 

 one woodcock (Pbilohela mimn), two barred owls (Syrnlttni m-hu- 

 losum), one screech owl (Scops asio), three hognosed snakes 

 (Hcterodtm platyrMnus), one pine shake (Pilyophis melanoleucus), 

 two Fox's snakes (Coluber vulpimis), one mountain black snake 

 (Coluber obsaletus), three common water snakes ( Tropidonotux 

 Vipmonh one pine snake ( I'i.l.yoplm myi mcxicn,ria), one Agassi'/.'* 

 gopher (Zcrobates aoassizi), seven alligators (Alliyaior mississippi- 

 cilsis), one horned lizard (Pliryuosomd regale), one horned lizard 

 (I'hruuosomaorbiculare). one geograohic terrapin (Mahieovh' mirvyk 

 gt.ograj>iiicus), one box tortoise (Cistudo Carolina), and three 

 ampimuuns (Ampliiuma means), lioru — One fallow deer (Duma 

 Vulgaris)', tWo elk (Cereus canadensis), one black-st riped wallaby 

 ( Hidmaturus dorsal is), one llama (Lama, peruana J, and three 

 leopards (FelUi pardus). 



fame §ag nnd 



" 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 sent on receipt of price, ten cents: 

 CnABROtTGH 12. May 1, '90. Pabker 10, hammer, June 6, '89. 

 Colt 12, July 25, '89. Parker 13, ham' rless, June o,'89. 



Coi/r 10 and 12, Oct. 24, '89. Reiltnoton 10, May 30. '89. 

 FOLSOM 10 and 12, Sept. 2(5, '80, Remington 12, Dec 5,'89,Feb 6,'9'J 

 Francotte 12, Dec, 12, '89. ReminotoxN 10, Dec. 26, '89. 

 Greener 12, Ang. 1, '89. Scott 10, Sept. 5, '89. 



Oreener 10, Sept. 12-19, '89. L. O, Smith 12, Oct. 10, '89. 

 Hoi/Lis 10, Nov. 7. '89. Whitney Safety 12, M'ch 6, '90. 



Lefever 12, March 13, '90. Winchester 10 & 12, Oct. 3, '89. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., July 5.— The following loose and inac- 

 curate paragraph from a recent issue of a Chicago 

 daily contains a reference to a late Supreme Court deci- 

 sion which in some respects appears to be the most inte- 

 resting and important to sportsmen of any of recent years: 

 "The Supreme Court of Illinois in a recent decision af- 

 firms the constitutionality of the game laws of Illinois, 

 and affirms the judgment of the lower court. The law 

 was passed by the last session of the Legislature, and the 

 new feature was the absolute prohibition of the selling 

 of game, as well as its transportation for sale. Last fall 

 the American Express Company received and delivered 

 quail to a Chicago commission house. The company was 

 fined $200 in the County Court for the violation, and to 

 test the law the case was taken to the Supreme Court, 

 w hich has just handed down a paternal decision affirming 

 the judgment of the County Court. Counsel for the 

 company raised two principal points — the unconstitu- 

 tionality of the law and its violation of the rights of 

 property, holding that the game when killed became pri- 

 vate property, and the game law violated that right by 

 destroying the property without the process of law. It 

 is the first test case under the la w, and the decision is of 

 great interest to the people as well as to the bench and 

 bar of the State." 



In the above, reference is doubtless made to what is 

 known as the "Effingham county case," which has been 

 watched with interest by sportsmen since last December. . 

 In this case the Supreme Court has fairly carried the war 

 into Africa, and has taken ground which could not be 

 more satisfactory to the sportsmen of this State. It 

 has always been tacitly admitted in Illinois, Indiana, 

 Wisconsin and Michigan that, in spite of the law. when 

 game was once killed and in possession, the State could 

 not step in and control its disposition. The Supreme 

 Court of Michigan, indeed, is on record directly to this 

 effect. ^No game warden in Michigan will pretend now to 

 prevent a party from taking or shipping deer out of the 

 State, and even the wardens of Wisconsin are afraid to 

 make a,n arrest on that ground, for fear they could not 

 made a case stick. It has been thought all through this 

 country that the laws forbidding shipment, sale, etc., 

 were unconstitutional, and indeed they have been practi- 

 cally disregarded. This Illinois decision makes good law 

 out of what was believed to be bad law, and it is at least 

 an offset to the Michigan case. The Illinois case holds 

 that the State holds paramount title to its wild game; 

 that no individual can acquire title in the same other than 

 a title in trust; that the individual holds such property 

 fully subject to all conditions the State may impose, and 

 under sufficient notice through existent statutes. Such 

 doctrine as that will be an eye-opener to the South Water 

 street men, for it means practically that the State can 

 follow its title even into a private game-freezer, in spite 

 of the fact that money may have been paid for its 

 contents. 



Mr. Wolfred N. Low, the attorney who has had in 

 charge most of the prosecutions in Chicago for game law 

 violations, himself a prominent sportsman and ex-presi- 

 dent of the State Sportsmen's Association, said in regard 

 to this late decision: 



"It is all we could ask and more than we could expect 

 as sportsmen. I have purposely delayed pushing the 

 celebrated Smith case, which has lam so long in the 

 courts, until after hearing from the Effingban county 

 case. You will remember the large seizure of illicit 

 game in the hands of F. Smith, the Chicago commission 

 merchant. We will now have some definite law to go on, 

 and the only thing to prevent our winning the Smith 

 case is the question of search-warrant right. The latter 

 complicated the Smith case and made it harder than the 

 case in hand, so that we were willing to wait and see a 

 thing or two first. Now we will go ahead and win the 

 Smith case in every probability. The State court has 

 taken the position of good sense and justice. Another 

 precedent or two and we can make trouble on South 

 Water street yet. I do not quite understand the quoted 

 bearings of the decision which would make it seem that 



