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FOREST AND STREAM. 



[APBIL 21 , 1892. 



SOME SOUTHERN FIELD NOTES. 



THE following interesting notes are extracted from 

 letters to Mr. Robert Ridgway, of the U. S. National 

 Museum, written by Mr. Obas. A. Strawn, of Cerro Gordo, 

 Ark., under dates of Jan. 28 and March 22, 1890: 



Before the late war niy father owned a farm about fif- 

 teen miles from Natchitoches, in Louisiana. This was at 

 that time a great region for the ornithologist. T have 

 spent many a day in the Red River bottom hunting and 

 fishing, and often camped on the site Of old Natchitoches. 

 This was thirty years ago, when the region contained a 

 few panthers and abounded with bears, wildcats and 

 catamounts. Geese, swans and more kinds of ducks than 

 I have ever found in any other country were also plenti- 

 sul. I used to ride fifteen miles from home to Red River 

 bottom, hunt the remainder of the night, hunt and fish 

 all of the next day, and be back home Monday morning 

 ready for business. I would spend weeks camping with 

 the raftmen, and thus passed many pleasant days shoot- 

 ing alligators and fishing for alligator gars. I made a 

 wire contrivance, a kind of hoop fastened to a small rope, 

 and fixed the bait within it so that the gar in getting to 

 the bait most commonly poked one jaw inside the hoop, 

 when it would close or draw up, and then I had only to 

 pull the fish to the shore. 



I once resided in Campbell county, Ga., now Douglas 

 county, and while there I spent more time on the Chat- 

 tahoochee and Dog rivers than with my relations. Dog 

 River is a tributary of the Chattahoochee, and partakes of 

 the nature of a mountain stream, and when I was there 

 the people had fish traps along the river at the shoals and 

 fails. Whenever the river was a little flush the people 

 attended the traps day and night, and it was on moon 

 light nights I noticed at the shoals, where the long rocks 

 divided the. waters into narrow channels, that the owls 

 resorted to such places. Being curious to know what 

 they were after, I watched them many nights. The owL 

 would alight on the rocks, fly from one rock to another, 

 scuddle along on the rocks, stand still, hold up one foot 

 every now and then, grab out a fish and fly off. Many 

 fish were thus caught by the owls, which were of a large 

 size, I do not know their technical name. 



On this same river (Dog) I found a kingfisher's nest built 

 in the bank at an old ford. The hole went directly in 

 the bank about a foot, then turned to the left. I pulled 

 eleven young kingfishers from the nest. 



Does the snake slip out of its old skin or does it turn the 

 old skin wrong side out? I am of the opinion that it is the 

 latter. I have in my possession a tolerably good speci- 

 men, and the lips of the skin, as well as the tip end of 

 the tail, show that it was turned wrong side out and not 

 slipped off. 



Does the rattlesnake bring forth its young alive? I 

 have seen young snakes run in the old snake's mouth, 

 making a singing-like noise, and upon killing the old 

 snake and cutting it open have found the young packed 

 away side by side, not in the stomach proper, but in what 

 seemed a place for them. 



When a boy I once plowed up a snake about two feet 

 long. It looked a good deal like what country people call 

 striped lizards. It had two short stubbed legs four or five 

 inches from its head, and a few inches back of them on 

 the body there appeared to have been two more. These 

 were not present and I thought must have dropped off. I 

 had never seen such a reptile before, nor could I find any 

 one who had. 



In my rambles I have come in contact a f ew times with 

 the blacksnake, especially in the spring of the year, when 

 they would run at me, come very near and slash around 

 at me with their tails. This is when they have mated, 

 and are found in pairs only. 



During one of my hunting and fishing excursions in 

 Louisiana I was fishing on a lake two or three miles long 

 and from one-quarter to one-half mile wide. On one side 

 the hill land came down near the lake, leaving about one- 

 quarter mile of sand beach, and while there I saw a deer 

 running at the top of its speed toward the lake, and a 

 moment later a wolf appeared in hot purpuit. Expecting 

 them to plunge into the lake, when I could overtake and 

 kill them both in the water, I kept my place. Just before 

 the deer reached the water it was caught by the wolf, 

 which pulled it down and killed it. Then the wolf stalked 

 around, looked about, trotted off some distance and set up 

 a howl, went further and again howled, and then into the 

 woods when I heard more howling. The wolf being out 

 of sight, I rowed my boat to the place and got the deer 

 aDd then went back to my fish hooks. Shortly there ap- 

 peared on the scene a pack of ten or twelve wolves. They 

 sniffed and moved all around where the deer had been 

 killed. These movements occupied considerable time. 

 They would huddle together, change about, and mixing 

 up trot around in all directions, keeping close together. 

 Finally they got into a fight, the whole pack attacked one 

 wolf and killed it. It was literally bit and chewed to 

 pieces. Now what was the wolf killed for? The proba- 

 bility is, and I am almost positive, that the dead wolf 

 was the one that killed the deer. I have talked to many 

 hunters upon this subject, and have come across but two 

 who had seen anything similar, and they thought the 

 wolf had been killed for lying. If it was done in the case 

 I saw for lying, it was the only time I ever knew a wolf 

 to be killed wrongfully. 



[The "snake" with the imperfect feet may very likely 

 have been the so-called two-footed Congo snake (Amphi- 

 uma means), a tailed batrachian of the family Proteidce. 

 It is not uncommon in the South as far north as North 

 Carolina.] 



Michigan Spring.— Central Lake, Mich., April 9.— The 

 ice in the Intermediate Lakes broke up April 5. Four 

 robins seen March 29, after which they soon became 

 common. Four crow blackbirds seen April 3, and several, 

 finches or similar birds since, not identified. Have heard 

 of no ducks lately. We have had delightful weather of 

 late, but last night came a frost. Thermometer at 23 d 

 this morning and the robins look all humped up. They 



come and eat the bittersweet berries from our vines, and 

 we try to feed them.— Kelpie. 



Newbern, April 9. — It is interesting to note the move- 

 ments of fish of all sorts, especially of bluefish, whose 

 habits are not known as fully as those of some other 

 kinds of fishes. They are all "catching fine sea bluefish 

 at Roanoke Island. The steamer Newberne, of the O. D. 

 line, brought in a few hundred of them to this city yester- 

 day. They retailed here at 35 cents each. There were about 

 2,000 of them on the island when the steamer left. They 

 were nearly uniform in size, weighing full 71bs. each. 

 The mid-winter weight was heavier. There were 2,000 

 barrel boxes of shad shipped from the island last week. 

 As far as my observation goes, a run of big bluefish, 

 weighing from 7 to 12lbs., commences in February in 

 North Carolina waters and continues until some time in 

 April. Quite likely this run makes it way northward as 

 the weather grows warmer, usually appearing off the 

 New Jersey coast in May or early in June.— Charles 

 Hallock. 



AN ALBINO BUCK. 



From a photograph by Mr. B. W. Kilburn, Littleton, N. H., who 

 writes: "The buck was killed, in the Crawford Notch, by mx 

 friends, Messrs. Cheney and "Whitaker. It is the first albino deer 

 seen here within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The buck 

 was very fat, and the taxidermist has been successful in setting 

 up the specimen in the attitude of nature." 



PROTECTION IN NEW YORK STATE. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The present outlook toward better protection of the 

 fish and game interests in this State is indeed far from 

 flattering and the efforts of those true and loyal sports- 

 men who have, for the past two or three years spent con- 

 siderable time and worked faithfully to bring about a 

 revision of our present imperfect laws, appear to have 

 been in vain; and there is at present an indication of bad 

 matters being made worse by the passage of a bill which 

 will be infinitely inferior to the existing law; a bill which 

 will take away about every protection which we now 

 have and which will give the pot-hunter and game-hog 

 unlimited sway, even to the killing of song birds, the 

 depopulating of nearly every stream in the State and the 

 complete extermination of the present limited supply, 

 both of fish and game. Yet this is the bill which origin- 

 ally was intended as a bill expressing, as near as may be, 

 the general needs and desires.of the better class of sports- 

 men throughout the State: a bill carefully framed by the 

 Codification Committee appointed for that purpose some 

 two years ago, which committee acted under the advice 

 of those interested in all parts of the State; a bill which 

 was afterward submitted to the New York State Associ- 

 ation in convention with other associations at Syracuse, 

 where sportsmen from every section in the State were 

 present and almost to a man expressed but one view in 

 relation to the bill. In Assembly committee the bill re- 

 ceived a few amendments but still remained the good bill 

 which it was desired to have become a law. Upon reach- 

 ing the Assembly, the war began and at the present time 

 the bill would hardly be recognized by its promoters as it 

 bears such a complete disguise. Amendments were 

 offered by members whom it is safe to say could rot dis- 

 tinguish between a mallard duck and a jack snipe, and 

 who would probably regard bullheads ana brook trout of 

 the same family of fish, yet these amendments, offered 

 by these narrow* ruinded members acting under the advice 

 of those not in favor of protection, were allowed to pre- 

 vail. 



There are two prime reasons for this state of affairs, 

 the one is the want of public sentiment favoring and re- 

 cognizing the necessity of better protection and the other 

 is the failure, on the part of the sportsmen throughout 

 the State, to recognize exactly one course and to follow 

 it with united effort to the end that every member in 

 both houses of the Legislature will be taught to vote for 

 a bill which has received the indorsement of those in- 

 terested, without tacking on a lot of amendments to suit 

 any individual or set of men. Sportsmen must be united 

 and together in their efforts and willing to work in har- 

 mony, abolishing the idea that they can longer deal 

 liberally with this matter. 



"We need better laws for the fish and game of this State 

 and that speedily. 



Local protective associations, energetic and faithful 

 in their work, will do much to awaken public sentiment 

 in this direction, and success depends largely upon this. 

 Immediate action should be taken to stop the passage of 

 any bill which will give any greater latitude than the 

 present law and which will take away any of the present, 

 though inefficient, means of bringing law breakers to 

 justice. 



Better take a step in the right direction or call halt at 

 once. 



Unless this bill can become a law as indorsed by the 

 sportsmen of this State, it is better that the present law 

 exist until proper action can be taken. 



I have confidence that a better state of affairs can be 

 brought about, but it will only be by systematic, un- 

 flinching, hard work. Who among the many true sports- 

 men of this State are willing to join the forces and labor 

 to this end? W. S. Gavitt, 



Pres. Central N. Y. Fish and Game P. A. 



SPRING SHOOTING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



A few days ago President Harrison was duck shooting. 

 A. few weeks ago ex President Cleveland was doing the 

 same thing. These be bad examples. There should be 

 no spring fowl shooting nor spring fishing. If there 

 could be a national statute prohibiting these wastes of 

 birds and fishes, their old time plentifulness wotdd, in a 

 measure, be restored. Of course the increase in popula- 

 tion; the facilities for reaching all places where fish or 

 fowl are to be found; the muzzleloading gun, and the 

 artificial fly: the drying up of streams; the refuse of 

 factories and mills; the drainage of lakes, ponds and 

 swamps all tend to deplete the waters of all animal life, 

 hut no one or two or more of these unavoidable causes are 

 to destructive of fish and game as the avoidable one of 

 fiphing and shooting in the spring of the year. 



It does seem that there ought to be enough genuine 

 sportsmen, backed by the large number of humanitarians, 

 who would join in the agitation to create a well formed 

 =entiment against these twin iniquities. Public opinion 

 is all powerful when once aroused and dirt cted. 



What say you, brothers of the rod and gun, let us agi- 

 tate: if not for our own interest, for the good of the cause 

 and the coming generations. Jap. 



New Albant, Ind., April 13. 



THE WHITE SWAN. 



HARR1SBURG, Pa., April 13.— I notice in your late 

 issues that the white swan is always spoken of as 

 a rare bird. Every spring and fall during the annual 

 migration of the waterfowl there are a few billed in this 

 locality. On Sunday the 10th our river was full of ducks 

 with a liberal sprinkling of geese among them, and one 

 flock of sixteen beautiful swans. Monday morning the 

 shooters were out in full force, and while most of the 

 ducks had left several hundred were killed. Eleven 

 miles above us, on an island, Mr. Brelsford has a fishing 

 and shooting box which is in charge of Charlie Lukens, 

 who, although partially crippled in the late war, is 

 possibly the most expert duck shot and paddler in this 

 section. The flock of swan before mentioned alighted 

 near this island and Lukens succeeded in getting near 

 enough to kill two of them outright and so badly crip- 

 pling a third that it was finally captured after a hard 

 chase. The three immense birds weighed 38lbs. together, 

 but looked as if they weighed a ton. The largest is 

 being mounted for Mr. B. Are these swan what are 

 called trumpeter swan? They are pure white with black 

 legs, feet and bills, with a small yellow mark on the bill 

 close to the head. They were killed with No. 6 shot and 

 scarcely a feather injured. Quite a feature of this flight 

 of wildfowl was the great number of woodduck, more 

 than old gunners have noticed for years. These beauti- 

 ful birds, while quite common with us, have never been 

 killed in such numbers before. Some of the drakes were 

 in exceptionally fine plumage, and our local taxidermist 

 has had hia hands full mounting them. One specimen 

 secured by Mr. Harry Bach was the finest the writer has 

 ever seen, being exceptionally brilliant in plumage even 

 for one of its species. Snipe are here in small numbers. 



PlGARTH. 



[Swans are rare in most parts of the Eastern and 

 Middle States, but winter in numbers in the Chesapeake 

 Bay and on Corrituck Sound. Of course to reach these 

 grounds they niupt pass over or by the more northern 

 States, but they are rarely seen in New England. The 

 swans killed as above stated were not trumpeters but 

 whistling swans (Olor columbianus) ] 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From a Staff Correspondents 



CHICAGO, 111., April 16.— Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, 

 I president of the Boone and Crockett Club, of New 

 York, went out to the W r orld's Fair grounds, this city, to 

 select a site for the typical hunter's camp, which will 

 form so interesting a portion of the exhibit. Mr. Roose- 

 velt and Mr. Codman, of the landscape department, 

 agreed upon a small desert island at the southern end of 

 the lagoon. Here a cabin and camp will be established. 



Joshua Roberts, a trapper of Port Arthur, Ont , has 

 sent to the Department of Ethnology of the World's 

 Fair, a collection of Indian curios, comprising bows and 

 arrows, arrowheads, beads, moccasins, etc. 



Two accidents with firearms, one fatal, occurred at 

 Iowa City April 10. Harry C. Kelley shot himself in the 

 face with a revolver while taking it from a drawer. 

 Herman Nass, 17 years old, blew off his with a shotgun 

 and died soon after. 



Iowa has raised the wolf bounty to $5 a scalp, and 

 many wolves have been killed lately in the northwestern 

 part of the State. 



Mr. R. B. Organ is lately back from a little shooting 

 trip on the Kankakee, on which he bagged a fine brace 

 of genuine Canada geese, one weighing 94lbs. and one 

 ll^lbs. He knocked down four, and his pusher jumped 

 one of the strays an hour after it was shot, but it rose 

 slowly and got off. A real Canada is a tough bird. Mr. 

 Organ tells me a friend on the same trip bagged twenty 

 snipe on a little piece of buckwheat. The marshes are 

 too marshy now for the snipe. 

 Our duck season is now over. 



Mr. Cnas. Comly, of the Chicago Rifle Range, returned 

 from Fox Lake at the close of the season. He was there 

 two weeks, his top bag being thirty-two and his daily 

 average fifteen. The ducks are now more abundant than 

 ever at Fox Lake. The snipe are not yet dp fully. Lower 

 down in the State by 159 miles everything is looking 

 green and well advanced, but up here it is cold and bleak 

 and the grass is gray. 



Mr. M. L. Kellv, of -'Kelly's" near Lorenzo, writes me 

 ' to-day that the Kankakee is still high and quite muddy. 



