610 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jtitna m, 189$. 



the last thing the boy is aiming at, but the noise excites 

 your pigeons, and you are liable to have them seek more 

 sequestered quarters. 



Now as to parrots. I bought a little pin-feathered 

 squab in New Orleans two years ago, guaranteed a double 

 yellow-head; he turned out a single, is half the size of 

 the former, but talks and whistles cavalry calls as much 

 as I can stand without being driven from" home. Should 

 you think he was ignorant of what was being said, try 

 him. once. He has never been caged, but has lived on an 

 open perch; hates children and darkies, loves my wife 

 and tolerates me. I cut every third or fourth feather 

 from one wing, but not too short. He sits on his perch 

 by the table and eats with us as orderly as a deacon, and 

 drops his scraps to my Irish setter dog beneath him, and 

 they rub noses like a pair of love birds. He eats any- 

 thing I do, but I avoid giving him fatty meats, as they 

 induce his pulling his feathers. His great preference is 

 the bone of a chicken, which he dissects very artistically. 



My quail are fed on wild hemp seed, apples, cracked 

 black walnuts, crackers, with plenty of fresh water and 

 coarse sand. Any other granivorous birds, so far as I 

 have had experience, will thrive on the same diet. To 

 this I give my jay a little meat, raw or cooked, occasion- 

 ally, and he sings the sweetest little wild-bird song im- 

 aginable. The squirrel lives on nuts, apples, green bark 

 and sand, while the canary passes his time in singing and 

 gorging on the orthodox hemp, millet, rape and canary 

 seed mixed, with an occasional piece of fruit and a little 

 bread and cracker, or hard-boiled egg. They all like 

 celery. 



I care for the entire outfit in about ten minutes daily, 

 and it is a labor of love, but nobody should attempt any 

 such undertaking who is not prepared to think of his 

 pets before himself. 



I have had a few other oddities, past and gone, about 

 which I might be able to give an amateur hints, but I 

 guess this will suffice for the present. I must get home 

 and plant some flower seeds, for this seems the first day 

 of spring. Wild Woods Friend. 



Rattlesnakes and Their Ways. 



Gibbon, Neb. — I had quite an experience with the 

 "rattlers" several years ago, while capturing young 

 animals for the zoological gardens of the East. During 

 my rambles myself and companion captured a few good 

 specimens with the aid of a forked stick and a sack. In 

 the majority of cases the snake would attempt to escape, 

 and only once did one show fight and coil itself for a 

 strike, until we attempted to capture them. I think there 

 is no ground for the assertion that the snake expectorates 

 venom as a means of defense, for in my experience with 

 them I have yet to find a single case where the snake 

 acted in the manner stated. - Barker. 



A Domesticated Rail and Some Other Birds. 



While at Pembina, Dak., a fortnight ago, I happened 

 upon a full-grown rail (Rallus virginianus) which had 

 been six weeks in captivity, and was quite tame, taking 

 bits of meats readily from the hand and allowing itself to 

 be easily caught after being set at liberty in a closed 

 room. It was very vigorous, hearty and wide awake. 

 The person who owned it is a Mrs. George Hunting, an 

 amateur taxidermist. She has a specimen of cormorant 

 taken in the vicinity. At the same place there is an all 

 white egret which runs at liberty among the fowl in the 

 barnyard. It stands about 30in,; legs blue, about ldin.; 

 bill 3 1 in. , yellow; iris yellow. At Winnipeg I saw a flock 

 of tame white wavies, or snow geese, and also stuffed 

 specimens of Bohemian waxwings, which flock there in 

 winter, and are popularly known as cherry birds, in dis- 

 tinction from the common cedar birds, which closely 

 resemble them, but are not more than half the size, flock- 

 ing in winter at the South, especially in the eastern coun- 

 ties of North Carolina. Flying squirrels are said to be 

 very common in the locality of Winnipeg. In St. Paul 

 suburbs I found red-breasted grosbeaks, two kinds of 

 bluejays, golden-winged woodpeckers, robins, orioles, 

 phoeoes, red-headed woodpeckers, wrens and blackbirds, 

 all in sight at once among the treees of a gentleman's 

 yard. There was a marked absence of English spar- 

 rows,— Charles Hallock. 



fag mtd 



New Editions: The Gun and its Development, $2.50. 

 The Modern Shotgun, $1, For sale at this office. 



NEW YORK PROTECTORS. 



Complete List, June, 1892. 

 Chief Game and Fish Protector, J. Warren Pond, 

 Malone. Office in Capitol, Albany. 



1. Richmond, Kings, Queens and Suffolk Counties. — 

 Protector, Robert Brown, Jr., Port Richmond, Staten 

 Island. 



2. Orange, Rockland, Westchester and New York 

 Counties— Protector, Dr. Willett Kidd, Newburgh. 



3. Rensselaer, Dutchess, Columbia and Putnam Coun- 

 ties.— Protector, Matthew Kennedy, Hudson. 



4. Hamilton and all of Essex lying south of a line drawn 

 from the southeast corner of Franklin County, east to 

 Port Henry on Lake Champlain.— Protector, Isaac Ken- 

 well, Indian Lake. 



5. Franklin, Clinton and all of Es3ex lying north of 

 the line drawn from the southeast corner of Franklin 

 County, east to Port Henry on Lake Champlain.— Pro- 

 tector, Byon A, Cameron, Raybrook. 



6. St. Lawrence, except the town of Hammond.— Pro- 

 tector, John Hunkins, Hermon. 



7. Lewis and all of Herkimer lying north of the towns 

 of Russia and Ohio, and all of Oswego north of a line 

 drawn from Pulaski to the northwest corner of Oneida 

 County. — Protector, George Meyer, Lowville. 



S. Fulton, Montgomery, Schenectady, and all of Herk- 

 imer lying south of the north line of the towns of Russia 

 and Ohio.— Protector, Thomas Bradley, Rockwood. 



9. Delaware, Sullivan, Broome and Tioga Counties.— 

 Protector, S. F. Snyder, Davenport. 



10. Onondaga, Madison, Courtland and Oswego from 

 Pulaski to northwest corner of Oneida County.— Protec- 

 tor, Harrison Hawn, Cicero. 



11. Jefferson and the town of Hammond in St. Law- 

 rence County. — Protector, Joseph Northiup, Alexandria 

 Bay. 



12. Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne and Tompkins Counties. — 

 Protector, Henry C. Carr, Union Springs. 



13. Yates, Schuyler and Ontario Counties. — Protector, 

 John Sheridan, Penn Tan. 



14. Monroe, Genesee and Livingston Counties. — Pro- 

 tector, G. M. Schwartz, Rochester. 



15. Niagara, Erie and Chautauqua Counties. — Pro- 

 tector, Charles Ripson, Youngstown. 



16. Ulster, Greene, Albany and Schoharie Counties. — 

 Protector, James McMillan, Broadhead Bridge. 



17. Warren, Washington and Saratoga Counties.— Pro- 

 tector, C. H. Barber, Greenwich. 



18. Otsego, Chenango and Oneida Counties. — Pro- 

 tector, Ephraim Burnside, Cooperstown. 



19. Chemung, Steuben, Cattaraugus and Allegany 

 Counties. — Protector, Cameron Cotton, Bath. 



"That reminds me. 1 ' 



While on an antelope hunt in northwest Texas two 

 years ago, a member of our party played a prank on 

 another that created a good deal of laughter. M. was 

 exceedingly uneasy about the skunks. They were abund- 

 ant in the vicinity of the camp, attracted by the viscera 

 of the antelopes and turkeys, which had been thrown at 

 some distance from the tent. I had seen five at one 

 sight prowling around among the wagons, and even snif- 

 fing the ashes of the dead camp fire. The cowboys are 

 thoroughly of the opinion that their bite will cause hydro- 

 phobia. M. would fasten the tent down all around, 

 place the lighted lanterns in a row in front, and annoy 

 the whole party by getting up to shoot the skunks at all 

 hours of the night. One day in exploring an old dugout 

 that had once been occupied by a cattleman and his fam- 

 ily, W. came across a wooden clothespin that had a steel 

 spring, and quietly slipped it into his pocket. That night 

 Mi, as was his wont, made all things as snug as possible 

 against the skunks. He was lying flat on his back sound 

 asleep at about one o'clock, 'snoring sonorously. W. 

 slipped the clothespin out of his pocket, put out the lights 

 and fastened the vise-like grip of the horrible pin over 

 M.'s nose, and shouted, "Look out for the skunk! There's 

 one in here!" In the one-hundredth part of a second 

 M. was knocking, squalling, bucking, pitching and yell- 

 ing. He ran all over everybody else in the tent, planting 

 his foot plump into the face of one of the party, and crying 

 out at the rate of sixty words a second . When the hub- 

 bub subsided and M. found out that it was only one of 

 W.'s practical jokes, he was too glad that it was not a 

 genuine skunk to get angry with W., and promised that 

 if the boys would not play any more such jokes on him 

 he would not annoy them any more crawling over them 

 at all hours of the night to shoot skunks. J. C.WlNGO, 



IS THE SNIPE A WATERFOWL? 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The question, '-Is the snipe a waterfowl?" is one likely 

 to excite the interest of all sportsmen as an abstract 

 question, without reference to the controversy between 

 Col. E. S. Bond and the game wardens. I for one say 

 emphatically that he is not, and I think most sportsmen 

 will agree with me. Reference is of course only made 

 to Wilson's snipe, commonly called jacksnipe, or, I would 

 suggest, more properly chape snipe, from the cry he utters 

 on being flushed. 



It strikes me that the decision of the court is obviously 

 wrong that places the snipe in the category of waterfowl. 

 The snipe is neither a wader nor a swimmer. He does 

 not seek his food in the water but in the ground. The 

 occasional presence of water in his haunts is merely inci- 

 dental. He seeks soft ground in search of food simply 

 because it is easier for his bill to penetrate than hard 

 ground. Snipe are frequently found feeding where there 

 is no water at all, but where the ground is soft enough to 

 be penetrated by their bills. 



The woodcock, which feeds in the same way, has the 

 same claim to classification as a waterfowl. 



I am in favor of protecting all game at proper times, 

 whether it be "waders," "runners," "swimmers" or "fly- 

 ers," but cannot subscribe to the doctrine that snipe are 

 waterfowl, the courts to the contrary notwithstanding. 

 What does your able correspondent and very perspicuous 

 writer, Mr. E. Hough, think about it himself? 



We have had plenty of water in the Mississippi bottom 

 this spring and a fair supply of waterfowl, but not a 

 snipe. Coahoma. 

 June 23. 



ED. WILSON. 



Yellowstone National Park, June 14.— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: The season is veiy backward yet. 

 The transportation company have been unable to take 

 tourists to the lake, and only very lately to the Grand 

 Canon. Some of the roads are in very bad condition, but 

 a few dayB' work will repair them as soon as the ground 

 dries enough to be handled. 



The soldiers and parties traveling through the Alum 

 Creek country report a great many dead elk. Bunches 

 of ten to fifteen are often seen in one small space. The 

 game was so weakened by starvation that when the green 

 grass started it killed many of the poorer animals off like 

 so much poison. 



On Sunday, the 13th, while the night watch and a little 

 girl were walking along the old wagon road to Cinnabar, 

 and only a short distance from the Hot Springs, the little 

 girl turned off to pick flowers. The man followed, and 

 when near a quaking aspen grove he found a skull of a 

 man. Investigating a bit he found the body in the grove. 

 It was at once reported to the hotel and to Fort Yellow- 

 stone. By papers, a watch and other articles found, the 

 remains were identified as those of the Government 

 Scout Edward Wilson, who mysteriously disappeared last 

 summer. A bottle containing morphine, found about 



20yds. below the body — where it had been washed by rain 

 and melted snow — shows that he died by his own hand. 

 The papers found on him have not been examined as yet 

 further than to identify him. 



On May 30 Capt. Scott with Troop D, 6th U. S. Cavalry, 

 came to the Park to be stationed at the Lower Geyser 

 Basin. They will look after the southern section of the 

 reservation during the summer. 



On the Sth Scout Tansey captured two poachers with 

 young elk. He had quite an exciting chase, but by hard 

 riding and a shot ahead of them captured both and took 

 them to Fort Yellowstone, where they gave up their 

 horses and outfit. A few days later they were escorted 

 to the Park boundary and turned loose, 'but their stock 

 goes to increase the herd of confiscated animals. 



There have been captured for the National Zoological 

 Park, so far this season, five antelope and one elk. These 

 animals are at the Mammoth Hot Springs, where they 

 will be cared for until sent to Washington. H. 



"Old Acquaintances." 



"Old Acquaintances" in the last Forest and Stream, 

 carried me back twenty-five years to my old home in the 

 Berkshire Hills, and the many lively times that I had 

 when a boy with the self -same woodchuck. And many 

 limes the boy came out second best in the encounter. 



My first experience was catching them with a steel 

 trap, when I could get the hired man to set it for me, as 

 I was not strong enough to master the springs. 



I well remember one afternoon seeing a woodchuck 

 standing in an oat field down in the meadow. I got mv 

 trap and went down there. There was an almost per- 

 pendicular bank from the edge of the oats, down for 

 about 15ft., and the hole was within 2ft. of the top. There 

 was no woodchuck in sight when I arrived, and taking it 

 for granted that he was inside, I got the trap ready and 

 carefully crawled on my hands and knees up to the hole. 

 I put in the trap, but the position did not suit, so taking 

 it out I laid it beside me and commenced scraping out 

 the loose dirt with my hands. 



While busily engaged at thU, I thought I heard a slight 

 rustle in the oats, and upon raising my head I saw my 

 woodchuck standing on the edge of the bank above me 

 with a puzzled expression on his face, and his nose not 

 over Sin. from mine. 



It was the finest opportunity I ever had to catch a 

 woodchuck. But for some reason, probably because I 

 had been making different arrangements, I failed to 

 grasp, either the opportunity or the woodchuck. What 

 I did do was to fall over backwards, and the last I re- 

 member seeing as I rolled to the bottom of the bank, was 

 the end of the woodchuck's tail disappear in the hole. 



That Forest asd Stream is the paper, will not even 

 admit of discussion. It stands alone in bringing out new 

 facts, figures and faces, far in advance of all others. 



Your wide awake representative in Chicago says the 

 sun rose the morning of the Illinois State shoot. 



Judging from the report I think he must have seen the 

 sun rise and the moon too. And while he sat on the 

 fence and whistled, he must have been using his Kodak. 



Namrod. 



Texas Wild Turkeys. 



Norris, Texas. — A couple of years ago two German 

 boys were gathering pecans on Devil's River. They had 

 frequently asked me to come down and stay a few days 

 with them to fish and shoot turkeys. I went down one 

 afternoon , and getting up before breakfast next morning 

 started off from the camp, and had gone only a short dis- 

 tance when I ran into a big bunch of gobblers that had 

 just come off the roost. I had them hemmed in at the 

 foot of a bluff and their only way of escape was to fly up 

 the bluff on to the side of the mountain. The brush was 

 very heavy, which interfered with their taking wing, 

 only two of them getting up at a time. Almost without 

 moving out of my tracks I got four with as many shots, 

 stopping then and not trying to shoot any more. While 

 sitting on the bank of the river drawing them a short 

 time afterward, my attention was attracted by the ex- 

 cited peet-peet of one on the side of the mountain, and 

 looking up I saw a very large eagle trying to catch a 

 turkey that had taken refuge in a pin oak thicket. The 

 turkey rose and started for the bottom with the eagle a 

 close second. The turkey tried to light in a sycamore 

 tree near me, but was so badly frightened that it missed 

 connections and fell through to the ground, then ran off 

 in the brush and escaped. I could have shot both turkey 

 and eagle, as they came directly over me, but I had all 

 the turkeys that I cared for, and besides I wanted to see 

 how the chase would terminate. — Rto Diablo. 



That "Game Pocket." 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The offer of Mr. Hubbard in last week's Forest And 

 Stream is just simply staggering. Never heard anything 

 like it. Here is a man who knows of a "lone rock in a 

 weary land," a truly "game pocket," and with a big heart 

 he tells about it and offers to accompany several parties — 

 parties, mind you — and show them all about it, "for 

 sport, not remuneration." And he can "probably give 

 one hundred men" good locations, and "those who go 

 with me can be assured they will have good dogs to shoot 

 over." He furnishes dogs, too; good dogs. And he will 

 "try to keep your readers posted." Such a perfectly sub- 

 lime offer as that just takes the cake and my breath. 

 Just hold that good deed up to a naughty world, please, 

 and let all those sportsmen who have a little preserve of 

 their own with two quail and a rabbit in it, which they 

 wouldn't talk about out loud even to themselves, rest 

 their exclusive eyes on Mr. Hubbard's offer. I'd like 

 mightily to go out to that "pocket" and take a handful 

 out of it, but I'd like better to grip Mr. Hubbard's hand 

 and thank him for such a refreshing exhibition. This is 

 one of the rare cases where big heart and free pocket 

 travel together. May none but the whitest kind of men 

 go near him.— O. O. S. 



"Bull-Head" Deer Killers. 



Ticonderoga, New York, June 24.— To Game War- 

 dens of the Adirondaelts: Keep your eyes on the marshes 

 for deer slaughterers under the disguise of bull-head 

 fishermen, etc.— Will Hotjldoroft. 



