Jan. 18, 18U6.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
49 
had written them; and so with reluctance we pack up, 
ready for the teams to come for us. 
Will echoed our sentiments as he emphatically replied 
to Harry's question if this wasn't the happiest day of his 
life, "Not hy a jug full." 
A little later we were homeward bound, stopping long 
enough atLon's house to change our clothes and bid our 
kind and thoughtful friends farewell for another twelve 
months. 
So ends our yearly hunt, unmarred by a 6ingle accident 
or incident which would cause us to regret one moment 
of the happy two weeks spent "On the Moluncus." 
L. A. J. 
Rhode Island. 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 
Walking, to kill time, through the lobby of the Myrtle 
Baule Hotel at Kingston, Jamaica, Feb. 19, 1894, a yellow- 
complexioned youth appeared with three fish for sale — 
red grouper of from 25 to 40!bs. weight. My fishing pro- 
pensities were excited, for the grouper is a powerful fish, 
- and gives a magnificent tussle in the attempt to capture 
him, 
I interviewed the boy, who informed me that he was a 
native of Bluefields, on the Mosquito coast, and I con- 
cluded that he was a white man with a touch of Indian 
red, instead of the all-prevalent "tar brush" nf Jamaica. 
His dialect was almost incomprehensible, but 1 gathered 
that he had taken the fish he had for sale just outside of 
Port Royal the night before, and that he would be pleased 
to give me a night's fishing. The compensation he named 
was modest, and he promised to meet me at the hotel 
dock that evening at 8 P. M. with the requisite bait. It 
was the night of the full moon of February, and as I was 
very much wearied with the scanty amusements of the 
land, I looked forward with rather pleasurable anticipa- 
tions toward a night on the waters. 
At the appointed time my friend appeared with the 
usual long and narrow canoe burnt out of the trunk of 
the ceiba, but without bait, which I was told would be 
procured at the mouth of the harbor. I had my tarpon 
rod, reel and line, which were evidently looked upon 
with contempt by my Mosquito guide. I also had pro- 
truding from my pocket the butt of a revolver, for I had 
conceived a most unmerited apprehension of the sharks 
of Port Royal, gathered from "Tom Cringle's Log" and 
other West India yarns, and had some difficulty in per- 
suading my boatman that the weapon was not intended 
to be used against him. 
There never was a more magnificent night. The moon 
was at its full, and its clear brightness illuminated all 
objects with a power unknown to Northern regions, and 
not a breath of air rippled the level surface of the harbor. 
We rowed slowly down the middle of the harbor some 
Beven miles until we reached the dismantled fort nearly 
opposite old Port Royal, where we found thirty or forty 
canoes like our own whose occupants were trying to catch 
bait with east nets. I was told that the bait was a small 
fbh Called tarr apone (with the accent on the last syllable); 
this I erroneously inferred to be small tarpon, but 
they were a little silvery fish shaped like a silver 
mullet. The canoes carried two men each, and from 
them arose a babel of unintelligible jargon and jokes, 
punctuated with profanity easily understood. The major- 
ity of the occupants were ebony Jamaica negroes, a most 
courtly race; for as I approached two canoes collided, and 
one boatman vociferated, "By gad, sahl you run into me, 
sah! I smash you, sahl" Dominating all ran the deep 
diapason of curses from a heavy man in the stern of one 
canoe, intermixed with rough jokes, which running fire 
of obscenity and vulgarity, my guide told me, proceeded 
from an Englishman who was totally blind. After some 
fruitless efforts to find a school of "tarrapone," my guide 
suggested that we find the boat of "Fisherman Petah," 
whom I had been told at Kingston was the most success- 
ful man at the business in the region. We soon found 
"Petah" (who is a Jew), and for a dollar obtained a suffi- 
cient supply of bait. Peter informed me that he was tha 
captor of the grouper I had seen at the hotel in the morn- 
ing, and that he had given them to my guide to sell, and 
that he took them at some coral reefs out at sea some fif- 
teen miles and not off Port Royal, information which did 
not seem to discompose my guide's serenity one whit. 
Being supplied with bait we proceeded out of the har- 
bor, dropped anchor and fished. Other boats came out 
and anchored near us. We shifted our position frequently, 
and finally dropped anchor within the harbor over the 
submerged City of Port Royal; but not one strike did I 
have, although the bait was constantly removed by nib- 
blers. 
It was by this time 4 o'clock, and in the south gleamed 
the splendid constellation of the Southern Cross, the stars 
of the first magnitude which form three of the points of 
the cross shining grandly and throwing a long stream of 
light upon the quiet sea. 
Then we started back through the mangroves which 
line the inner line of the Palisades, by which name the 
narrow strip of land which separates Kingston Harbor 
from the Carribean Sea is known, and crossing the har- 
bor arrived at the hotel at 5 o'clock in the morning, 
almost dead for sleep, for I almost pitched overboard sev- 
eral times nodding, and gladly sought a bath and bed. 
having spent a night memorable for the celestial glories 
of moon and stars and for absolutely worthless fishing. 
F. S. J. C. 
Hawk Killed by a Ferret. 
The ligrtit fall of snow which fell recently made busy times for Oak- 
land county, Mich,, sports, dogs and ferrets. Charley Gowe and 
Billy Brown, while rabbit hunting three miles north of the sand hill 
in Southueid, left their ferret in a rabbit hole to look: around for 
fresh Indications of game. After half an hour's absence they were 
startled to see a large hawk struggling in the air with a white ferret in 
its talons. The hawlc acted as though it wished it "hadn'o." Great 
clots of blood splashed on the snow under the combatants. The hawk 
appeared worried, and after a few aimless, weak flaps, it fell heavily 
to the ground with the ferret (irmly gra«ped in Its talons. Toe haws 
was dead and lacerated in a terriole manner, while the ferret came 
up smiling with one puncture through a loose fold in its hide. The 
hawk had evidently pounced on the rerrat as it lafc the rabolt furrow, 
aud not being pasted on the cunning animal's fighting quaiities made 
the greatest mistake of its life. The hawk was as largd as a Shang- 
hai rooster.— Port Huron, Mich., News. 
The Foansr and Stricam is put to press each week on Tuesday 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach its at th • 
qtest by Monday and as much earlier ax practicable, 
REPTILES. 
This morning I visited a naturalist, and in less than two 
hours I was introduced to a new world. I had loved out- 
door life for more than twenty years, and thought I loved 
all of it; but now I know that I looked at nature with one 
eye shut. Said I to myself, "Kennedy, you have missed 
half the fun of this thing and never knew it. Here was 
this facinating book of nature — a chapter for each day 
afield for twenty years — and yet you never read a page I" 
And having read my indictment, I cast about for a 
defense. I had not far to go to find one. The scientists 
who read in this book jealously sequester its delights by 
dint of a carefully studied style of writing. When one 
considers that one of these snake sharps — as Buck Fan- 
shaw would call them — can so fix up a miserable reptile 
in a glass jar, with his form, colors and markings so life- 
like that tbe reptile's own father would know him and his 
natural prey flee from him, it is hard to understand why 
or how they disguise themselves in print until, instead of 
appearing to be the delightful persons they are, they seem 
like sawdust images listlessly chanting, like chickadees, 
the immaterial gossip of the woodside. 
And yet they do. Listen to this: 
"Walked abroad. H^ard to-day (April 7) red-breasted 
woor) pecker {Peckeraris avis). Saw a garter snake 
(Squirmis liorribilis, minor)." 
1 submit that is a fair sample. But go into the den of 
one of these sawdust rnen and shake his warm and hearty 
hand, and you see that, after all, it wasn't sawdust, but 
Adam-dust; and in place of the song of the chickadee 
you hear a continuous stream of enthusiasm of the kind 
that is catching. 
Of course the information gained is not all pleasant. 
What, for instance, can be more distressing than .to find 
that the deadly Gila monster is not deadly? I am sure 
that all of us fondly cherished him as the rankest poison 
and the most dreaded reptile in the world. And yet Mr. 
Hiirter says he kept alive for several weeks the one now 
in his glass jar; that during that time it bit him repeat- 
edly, sometimes to the bone, "and I knew it was not poi- 
sonous," he continued, "because there was no shock fly- 
ing instantly up my arm, as was the case when the scorpion 
bit me." 
"It is the same way with centipedes. I have had 
good ones and when I teased them they would bite me, 
but absolutely without a trace of poison." 
The centipede is the fellow who caused the flesh to 
slough off where he crawled on itl 
Mr, Hiirter explained that bacteria often is found in 
the salivary glands of animals, and that when these are 
communicated to the person bitten they give rise to the 
belief that the animals themselves are poisonous. 
When the scorpion bit him he had no very good snake 
medicine on hand, but he put his ever- ready alcohol on the 
wound, and as he had heard that it was go^d to crush 
the scorpion's head on the wound, he said he did that 
also. I did not learn whether this latter procedure was 
remedial for poison or sin, but rather think it was a moral 
agent and not a medical one. 
He had a cute little alligator skeleton, and if any one 
can guess how he skeletonized it it will very much sur- 
prise me. He took off what flesh he could, but much 
still remained, and manifestly if he cooked it the bones 
would fall apart. So he placed it in sweetened water during 
the day, and at night he poured the water off and placed 
it in an outhouse, and during the night the hands worked 
at it, neatly denuding the bones of flesh, but leaving the 
connective ligaments intact. He said that some nights 
he had as high as 500 hands working on it. And, ye gods 
and little alligators! the hands were cockroaches! 
He ought to patent the process. 
"There is a suspected snake," he said, pointing to a 
specimen about as big as a big fishing worm. The poor 
little thing was so pale and harmless looking that my 
blood simply refused to curdle. I inquired what they 
were suspected of having done, but made up my mind to 
vote for acquittal. 
"They have a grooved fang (not a hollow one) and are 
suspected of being poisonous." The peculiarity in this 
snake consists in the fact that the poison fang, instead of 
being in front, is back in the jaw where his molars would 
be if he had any. It is supposed that, having seized and 
started to swallow his prey, if it gets obstreperous he gives 
it a little pinch with his Jonah tootn and paralyzes it. 
Now this looks like a case where poison is used as a means 
of securing food and not a means of defense. 
There was a jointed snake that came alive in a box. 
That snake's appetite was cultivated, and nothing tempted 
him until Mr. Hiirter's son brought a biacksnake home 
one night and put it in the same box with the jointed 
snake. In the morning they were one and indivisable. 
The jointed snake had swallowed the blacksnake, and a3 
he himself was but 4jft. in length and the blacksnake 
6ft. in length the result may be imagined. There 
he lay — an inert knotted crescent — and when lifted 
on the two hands he hung on them as stiff as 
a stuffed snake, which he literally was. The black- 
snake's tail was doubled back at the jaws of his de- 
vourer, and the latter's neck was bulged out in conse- 
quence until it was bigger than his head, the jaws of 
which were still disarticulated owing to the close prox- 
imity of the doubled tail. He lay there day after day 
calmly digesting his dinner and when the process was 
complete disgorged the skin and bones. 
When the hero of this exploit had shed his own skin 
and become a bright new snake, he was ignominiously 
preserved in the glass jar I saw him in. There were too 
many interesting reptiles and reptile stories for me to tell 
them all. There was the skull of a big rattlesnake, show- 
ing the fangs he was using at the time of his death, with 
two extra fangs neatly folded along each jaw just back of 
the one in use, and ready to be moved forward, by the 
mysterious process of nature, to take the place of the other 
when lost. There were beautiful lizards, strangely marked 
turtles, among which was the horny-backed turtle, found 
in Missouri, large enough to take off a man's arm or leg 
apparently. The harlequin, or head snake, marked in 
wide bands like a stocking; a small, sluggish-looking ser- 
pent, but said to be about as deadly as a cobra when it 
does bite. 
They were boxing up some snakes to send to some other 
collection, and a large cotton-mouthed moccasin got mad 
and tried to bite them; and when he was finally secured in 
his box he turned on himself, and struck himself repeat- 
edly. "Well, box him up and ship him. If he dies, he 
dies. We will see," was the determination. That snake 
reached its destination sound and unhurt. A cotton- 
mouth can bite himself or one of his species without any 
harmful result. He can even bite a common water snake, 
and the water snake, of a kindred species, remains un- 
harmed. Furthermore, one poisonous snake can bite 
another poisonous snake of different species without poi- 
soning it. Therefore there is an element in the Wood of 
poisonous serpents which renders them immune from the 
effects of snake poison. A snake-blood serum ! They are 
working on it now in India, and are not far off from the 
solution of this long-drawn-out problem. 
I cannot get my consent to stop without allusion to the 
midwife toad, which he lives in Germany, and when the 
woman toad of sadly advanced modern tendencies lays 
a nesting of eggs, what does the old man do, as Chimmy 
Fadden would say, but wrap them around his hindlegs 
and go off and be a father to them and hatch them. A 
devoted parent and a good citizen, he sits there in his 
travail and sings the classical arias of his country in so 
far as they are written in the base cliff, while his con- 
sort, unmindful of the duties of her sex, displays her 
charms upon the highway, or perhaps a trifle to one side 
in the ditch. The subject, however, is distressing to the 
masculine mind, and I will not press it. 
But my plea stands — that these fellows, with their 
beautiful enthusiasm, might well acquaint themselves 
with the rest of the world, lending it some of their zeal 
and new zest in life. Geokge Kennedy. 
January Robin in Pennsylvania. 
Philadelphia, Jan. 3. — On Jan. 1 my brother flushed a 
robin from under a hedge in his garden. Is not this rather 
early? He seemed in good condition. F. R. 
utt[t j§zg nnd %mu 
FIXTURES. 
March 16 to 31, 1896.— Second annual Sportsmen's Exposition, under 
the auspices of the Sportsmen's Association, at Madison Square 
Garden, New York city. Frank W. Sanger, Manager. 
WITH THE GREENE RABBITS AGAIN. 
Several weeks since S. met me and remarked, ' 'Well, 
Art, it's about time we got down to Greene. What do 
you say?" 
What did I say? What would any fellow be likely to 
say whose past experience tells him where there is a good 
old-fashioned farmhouse nestling among good hunting 
grounds, where the good people are always ready to wel- 
come one in genuine no-axe-to-grind hospitality, the home 
of Brose, the Rhode Island Sam Lovel? I said, "Old man, 
we'll go whenever you say." 
"Next week then," replied S. 
The day came, but what a prospect! Rain and mud, 
and when I stopped for S. his face was as gloomy as the 
weather. 
"No use, Art, we will have to give it up this week. It's 
settled in for a long siege." 
Well, you all know how we felt. 
But the next morning all clouds had passed away. The 
sky was clear, the air warm and the ground in condition 
to hold scent which would have enabled us to make a 
good bag. But we were not there, and could only kick 
ourselves and trust in Providence that the time set for 
our second attempt would be as good, and that whatever 
storm hovered in the vicinity would give Little Rhody the 
go-by. 
The next week soon came, and with gun and duffle I 
presented myself at the store, where I found S. ready. 
The prospect was not good, for it rained in the morning, 
and even then the sky was hung with dull-looking clouds, 
but after a little discussion we started for the train, and 
were soon hustling along down toward the stamping 
ground. 
As we neared Greene we noted that a heavy fog over- 
hung everything, and when the station was reached one 
could hardly see 100ft. ahead. Leaving our traps for the 
team to bring over in the evening we hoofed it over to 
the farm, and after a good supper, a smoker and a talk, 
turned in for the night with the hope that the morrow 
would bB as fair as the day we had lost. 
But fate decreed otherwise. Early in the morning as I 
lay backed up to S. I could hear the sharp clicking of the 
frozen rain against the window panes, and presently my 
neighbor turned over and glared at me. We didn't either 
of us say anything. We didn't have to. But we thought 
considerable, and that word "eheu" suggested by one of 
our sportsmen brothers, explained by many and used now 
by all, was the only comforting article of cussedness we 
indulged in. Then we heard B.'s cheerful voice calling, 
"Come, you chaps, get up and look at the weather." We 
crawled out, looked and then held a debate. 
"What do you think, Brose?" asked S. 
"Well, you fellows came down here to hunt and I don't 
think it will be so very bad after all. The woods are 
wet and it's turning to a light rain now. Anyhow we will 
try it. You take Stub up in the big woods and look out 
for a squirrel or two before breakfast. Anxious old Stub, 
dancing and talking with eyes and stumpy tail, gave us 
courage and away we went. As we entered the woods 
Stub ran ahead and shortly we heard him barking sharply. 
Running toward the sounds we found him engaged in a 
lively tussle with a big gray, which somehow he had 
managed to get the best of before the old fellow could get 
to a tree. S. soon had the big fellow safely deposited in 
his game pocket, and Stub was again barking off to the 
right. Now if Stub had been well trained he would have 
made a first-class squirrel dog, but his fault was that he 
would not stay under a tree when once a gray was driven 
up. It was a case of sprinting to where we heard him 
first bark and then using your eyes to find the squirrel, 
for the uneasy dog, when once the gray was driven up a 
tree, would leave for another section. However, Stub 
was barking now at the foot of a good-sized chestnut, but 
hard as we looked, neither of us could see any signs of a 
gray. Off to the left was a newly-made nest, and I sug- 
gested to S. that in all probability the fellow was watch- 
ing us from there, Sure enough, as I fired at the bunch 
