Feb. 29, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
171 
"Wal, seh, Zhozeff, Ah dun' know 'f Ah'U a'n't prob'ly 
'd ought for toF you 'fore Ah t'row it," Antoine said, 
apologetically, "but, sah, if you'll heat dat t'ing he was 
mek you sick lak hoi' dev'. You'll a'n't goin' heat dat 
hawk, a'n't it?" he asked, as Joseph drew the bird toward 
him with evident intention of plucking it. 
"It hain't sartain but what I will if I seem tu hanker 
arter seen victuals," Joseph answered; "hut anyways, if 
you hain't no objections I'm a-goin' tu save the feathers, 
which is what I'm arter in partie'lar." 
"Naow, Zhozeff, Ah'U goin' tol' you de trut'," Antoine 
said, with impressive seriousness and an accompaniment 
of emphatic gestures. "If you put de hawk fedder wid 
de dawk fedder he heat it all up." 
"Sho', Antwine?" 
"Dat jes' as true as Frenchmans heat onion," Antoine 
asserted in the face of Joseph's incredulous stare. "Wait 
for Ah'U goin' tol' you. One tarn Ah'll was leetly boy an' 
leeve in Canada, mah mudder was mek it some bed fed- 
der of geese's fedder an' she was gat it mos' all stuff up 
but leetiy maght be a'n't gat 'nough fedder. Den mah 
fader was keel two hawk, was come 'raoun' for ketch de 
Chicklin, an' mah mudder was pull de fedder for feenish 
his bed of it. It was very nice plump beds, an' dey keep 
it for de bes' one for w'en company come see it, an' nex' 
year mah gran'pere an' gran'mere come for visit all naght, 
an', seh, gran'mere was gre't big hoi' hwomans, an' 
w'en he come on de room in de morny he was r-r-r-rubby, 
r-r-r-rubby hesef a an' grunt very hard, an' w'en mah mud- 
der ax it what de matter, she say de bed rope cut him all 
in chonk, 'cause de bed fedder was so t'in, an' mah mud- 
der was supprise mos' for be mad for have it say so 'baout 
heesbes' bed, but w'en he ex-am ine he fin' honly dehawk 
fedder, de res' it was all heat up. Yas, sah, Zhozeff, dat 
jes' true you leeve." 
"Wal," said Joseph, continuing the employment which 
he had still pursued while listening to the story, "I c'n 
keep 'em sep'ritt an' put 'em in a piller. Mebby if a fel- 
ler slep' on it't 'ould keep him f'm bein' hen-pecked 
nights." * 
When Sam returned and the sportsman and his oars- 
man had departed a hot supper was prepared and eaten, 
after which the party sat around the cheerful camp-fire and 
recounted the day's adventures, from which were judi- 
ciously eliminated the episodes of Joseph's encounter 
with the hawk and TJncle Lisha's goose shooting-. 
Rowland E. Robinson. 
BIRD FLIGHTS. 
IN looking over some old numbers of Forest and 
Stream I noticed the following : "The train started up a 
bevy of quail, and for some distance two or three of the 
bunch flew along between the fence and the train and 
keeping up with us. One was near the window and in- 
stead of passing us, as I supposed a quail would naturally 
outspeed a railway train, it only drew ahead a little; 
* * * as the bird was almost stationary, I had a rare 
opportunity to note its appearance while in flight. It 
seemed as though the whole figure of the bird was drawn 
up into very convex shape, the back being humped up 
and the wings apparently strongly curved up, as if hollow 
underneath and pulled in, so to speak, at the lower edge." 
In another number of the paper is a photograph of a 
flying prairie chicken, which shows the bird's tail con- 
siderably depressed, giving the bird some of the convex 
appearance described above. 
The description and the picture have evoked some 
thoughts on the manner and the speed of bird flights. 
In level or descending flight the bird's tail is always de- 
pressed, because the bird's wings are hinged to the body 
forward of the center of gravity, and but for the support 
given by the air beneath the tail feathers the bird could 
not keep its body in a horizontal position when on the 
wing: the hinder parts would hang down. By depressing 
the tail more or less, the height of the flight is regulated. 
In proof, watch the flight of young birds whose tail 
feathers have not yet grown, and it will be seen that the 
body is carried in a partly upright position. 
When a small boy I read somewhere that a woodpecker 
was able to perch against the side of a tree by holding 
with its claws and resting its weight on the stiff tail 
feathers; that if it were not for these stiff tail feathers, 
the bird could not do it. Soon after this two fighting 
woodpeckers locked together fell to the ground, and one 
was secured unhurt. To prove the tail supporting theory 
the tail feathers of this bird were pulled out and the bird 
was set free. It flew away with the rear part of the body 
hanging down, and its line of flight rose at an angle of 
about 45 degrees. The bird perched on the side of a tree 
all right. 
Doubtless some use of the wings is made in raising or 
lowering the line of flight, but the work seems to be done 
principally by the tad. In turning to right or left the 
wings seem to do it all, as the tail only presents its edge 
to the air, to the right or left. If the bird is sailing while 
making a turn the under side of the body is partly turned 
toward the circumference of the circle described by the 
line of flight, the tail and front edges of the wings slightly 
elevated. 
The large or crow blackbird is a notable exception to 
the ordinary way of using the tail feathers. This bird 
spreads them vertically and uses them to direct the flight 
to right or left, exactly as the rudder of a boat is used. 
The flight of birds while flapping the wings is verv easy 
to understand, as is also their sailing until their acquired 
momentum is used up, but when a buzzard sails for miles 
and meanwhile rises hundreds of feet without a single 
beat of the wiugs, I have to give it up. It looks like ap- 
plying force in one direction only, a thing supposed to be 
impossible. If any one understands how the buzzard 
does it (as it must), in accordance with any mechanical 
laws, and can give us a clear demonstration of it, let us 
have it. 
There is no doubt that the speed of bird flights is often 
overestimated. It is often stated that some kinds of birds 
fly from sixty to one hundred miles per hour. Now, the 
writer has hundreds of times noted the speed of many of 
the varieties to be seen from car windows in various parts 
of the country, and has never seen a bird of any kind- 
unaided by the wind— fly faster than the train, when the 
Bpeed of the train exceeded fifty miles an hour. There 
was no guess work about the speed of the train. The 
rails are 30ft. long— 176 rails to the mile. There are 3,600 
seconds in an hour; 3,600 +■ 176 = 20 (very nearly), so if the 
train ran one mile an hour it ran over a rail joint once in 
20 seconds; at five miles an hour it would run over five 
joints in 20 seconds, and so on, so that the number of rail 
joints passed each 20 seconds denotes the number of 
miles per hour the train is running. On the very best 
roads the "click" of the wheels on the rail joints cannot 
be heard, but on ordinary track it is heard very plainly. 
Time the birds when riding on the cars, and see if they 
don't fly slower than you thought, and whether there is 
not less difference in the speed of crows and quail than 
you supposed. 0. H. Hampton. 
THREE SNAKES AND TWO FROGS. 
Leaves from a Naturalist's Note Book. 
TJncle Remus has not told of all the wonderful pranks 
played by members of the animal kingdom, although he 
has given us many an interesting tale which, in one form 
or another, will be vouched for throughout the Southern 
States. In the mind of that worthy old gentleman of 
color the animals of to-day do not practice their wily ways 
as keenly a8 was their wont in the olden time of which he 
spoke, but there are observing ones who still find jokers 
among the creatures of the woods and waters. Even the 
reptiles are incessantly "watching out" for opportunities 
to play pranks upon one another, as will be shown by this 
little tale, in which a common grass snake and a bullfrog, 
both residents at the Columbia College laboratory, are the 
principal figures. Uncle Remus never allowed the more 
cunning fox to hold the mastery for long over the de- 
fenseless rabbit, and in this instance the snake has no 
chance with the slower frog, not through any favoritism 
of the narrator, but simply because in actual life such was 
the case. 
"Daddy" Bullfrog was one of the largest of his species, 
a giant in his way, and had been brought in from his na- 
tive haunts up the Hudson for the good of science. Such 
a prize was he that for a long time he lived on in his tank 
unmolested and much admired by all visitors to the labor- 
atory. His neighbors in the same inclosure surrounding 
the tank were two green snakes that had attained the 
goodly growth of perhaps 20in. in length. Although the 
snakes and frog were never really intimate— that is, not 
chummy — at least they did not war upon one another, 
and therefore may be considered to have been good neigh- 
bors. Daddy sat in his favorite corner by the margin of the 
pool and blinked and basked in the sun rays which found 
their way through a window near by, while the little twin 
green snakes reclined comfortably on their chosen side, 
and all no doubt thought how much nicer it was there 
than in their old existence, where they had to hustle 
around for their daily rations. It may be that they re- 
marked upon this to one another, for Mr. Frog was occa- 
sionally heard to utter a self-satisfied guttural, to which 
his neighbors would reply by raising their heads and wav- 
ing them about in the direction of the tank. Their tongues 
could be seen to move, but their remarks were inaudible 
to human ears. The frog, however, would wink sagacious- 
ly after each such interchange of ideas, so it is presumed 
that what was said was satisfactory to him. Some of the 
students of an imaginative but it is to be feared a frivo- 
lous turn of mind suggested that the snakes were simply 
I'sassing" the frog and sticking out their tongues at him 
in derision, Few accepted this theory, however. 
But granting even that these creatures did not converse 
together after the human fashion, it is certain that they 
possessed certain traits in common with the man animal. 
Like men, they lived together on civil terms at least until 
a matter of business, something involving their bread and 
butter so to speak, appeared upon the scene, when at once 
a keen rivalry began. Reformers tell us that there is 
something radically wrong with our social system which 
causes this unfriendly competition among men, but those 
who watched the frog and the snakes hold the opinion that 
the difficulty is more deep seated than social condions, in 
fact that it is but a remnant of the animal nature, an evo- 
lutionary struggle for the survival of the fittest. 
Each day the inward cravings of the inhabitants of the 
tank were appeased with a hatful of small frogs. The 
instant these were turned loose upon the community a 
grand scramble bpgan to see which would win the most 
of the plunder. The snakes, with a wholesome respect 
for their big neighbor, never crowded him much in this 
business, but by their greater agility and cunning strove 
to overcome his greater capacity of mouth and general 
ponderousness. At last, however, a day came when one 
of the snakes so far forgot himself in his zeal as to tres- 
pass upon the territory of Daddy Bullfrog. There was 
a loud "kerchug" as Daddy landed with a mighty spring 
upon his rival, who found himself in chancery and en 
route, headforemost, down froggy's throat. Daddy 
without more ado drew himself together on the bank, took 
a good gulp or two to help the snake along, and then with 
an expression of entire satisfaction went to blinking 
again with a good I6in. of animated green tubing swing- 
ing from his grim, set jaws. For a time the snake slatted 
around pretty freely, that is the portion left out-of-doors 
did, but "Daddy, like Brer Rabbit, he say nuffin," but 
now and again would give a knowing wink, as much as to 
say, "That's all right, young feller; I've got you now 
where you'll do the most good." 
Next morning all was quiet in the tank inclosure. In 
a far corner lay the bereaved twin snake torn twixt grief 
and fear, and no amount of gentle poking could induce 
him to so much as raise his head above the ferns and moss 
about him. At each touch he would wriggle along a little, 
but always in a narrow circle, so as to keep well into his 
corner. He evidently realized the strategic necessity of 
keeping his flanks protected against attack by the frog, 
and was unconscious of any other enemy or willing to 
submit to any fate than that which overtook his late 
brother. Over by the pool sat Daddy with a countenance 
serene, and any one ignorant of the tragedy of the pre- 
vious day, and seeing that long green tube hanging pas- 
sively from his mouth, would have said that he was smok- 
ing a hubble bubble. Closer examination showed that 
there was a little less snake visible, while the frog seemed 
no bigger than before. For three successive days the frog 
sat slowly and calmly consuming his former neighbor, and 
on the fourth morning the snake had disappeared entirely 
from sight and the frog was apparently none the worse 
for his gustatory feat. 
Another cannibalistic experience of a frog and snake 
wherein the tables are reversed was witnessed by a natu- 
ralist while walking cross country in the South. His at- 
tention was first attracted by a sound coming from the 
direction of a pool near by, a sound which would have 
made a timid man's blood run cold. It was not a shriek 
or a wail. It was not articulate enough for either, but 
was more like the sounds deaf mutes make at times, per- 
haps at pain, perhaps at joy— they always sound the same. 
It was a harsh, throaty utterance, not unlike the loud 
creaking of a door. But the wayfarer did hot need to 
wonder at it on this occasion. He knew at once the 
meaning of that sound. In his life spent afield studying 
untamed life he had heard that sound many a time before 
and instantly answered it as he would any 'other signal of 
distress, for such he knew it to be. A couple of strides 
brought him to the pool, and, as he knew full well, there 
on the farther bank lay a big black snake holding in his 
mouth a fat bullfrog. The snake bad made his attack 
from the rear and only the frog's head and shoulders were 
now visible. He was being swallowed bodily. The saun- 
terer's pistol was out in an instant, but he suddenly held 
his fire when he realized that to shoot then was to endan- 
ger the life of the frog, when his desire was to set him at 
liberty unharmed. Accordingly he waited patiently in 
the brush until the snake had worried his fat morsel well 
down. When the bulgy spot had retired just behind the 
snake's head the naturalist, fearing to wait longer lest suf- 
focation should put the poor victim beyond his power to 
aid, leveled his weapon and fired. The snake's head was 
shot clean off and the frog, unscarred, but badly scared, 
jumped forth and sunk himself in the pool. 
There has been a good dial siid and written first and 
last as to the power of the snake to charm the creatures 
which he sought as prey, but their ability to overcome a 
human being by their wiles would scarcely be entertained 
as possible. It can, however, be stated with the utmost 
truthfulness and good faith, that at least one man, both 
sturdy in body and strong in mind, fell a victim to a harm- 
less little whipsnake. 
It was in the woods in Georgia one bright day that the 
gentleman was walking when he chanced upon the little 
reptile lying coiled in a sunny spot anions: the leaves. As 
he paused to look at him a moment before turning aside 
to pass him unmolested (for he had inherited none of the 
animosity of mankind toward the serpent tribe, except 
they be dangerous), the snake raised his head and instantly 
' began drumming upon a dry leaf with the tip of his slim 
tail. Its beady eyes were riveted upon the intruder, the 
pink tongue darted in and out incessantly, and all the 
while the tail kept up a ceaseless and ever increasing 
r-r-rat-tat-tat upon the leaf. For a few moments it was 
amusing to the gentleman to watch what he supposed to 
be the agitation of fear, but suddenly he realized that 
such was not the case. He could not take his eyes off the 
snake, and as he stood riveted to the spot, speechless and 
powerless to move, he felt that a blue vapor was creeping 
up from the snake and enveloping him in its toils, and a 
sensation of suffocation seized him. He began to struggle 
with himself, but felt, he afterward said, as he had often 
in a horrible dream, wholly incapable of moving a muscle 
to defend himself from what seemed impending doom. 
But the allied forces of mind and body were soon rallied 
and conquered in this case, and with one fierce effort and 
a yell of rage he hurled himself forward, and catching 
the snake in his hands broke the spell and killed the little 
demon. No man who knew the subject of this experience 
would for a moment question its truthfulness, and yet it 
must be admitted that it is well calculated to arouse the 
suspicions of the stranger. Allen Chamberlain. 
THE DECREASE OF BIRDS. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Much discussion has been going on among naturalists 
and others in regard to the decrease in the number of 
birds of some species. We as well as others have ob- 
served of late years a great difference in the numbers of 
the feathered tribe, not only in this vicinity and State, 
but in other places as well, compared with those that 
swarmed through the same sections years ago; and 
many a time have we thought about it and tried to solve 
the problem. 
Many writers and others claim — and with some ground 
undoubtedly — that much of this decrease is owing to so 
many being killed for millinery purposes; but should one 
while in assemblages of ladies take particular note of the 
supposed birds he would be surprised to see how few of 
those head-dress ornaments were really specimens of the 
taxidermist's art. In reality a goodly portion of them are 
simply make-believes and nothing more, although we do 
not doubt that many skins and wings of the real birds — 
that is, of those having the brightest-colored plumage — 
are so used. 
Now, any one will observe that those birds having sub- 
dued colored dresses, such as ground birds and those 
nesting in low bushes, are scarcely ever seen upon milli- 
nery, and yet we find they are fully as scarce in propor- 
tion throughout sections that we have been in as those o 
more brilliant colors, thus showing that other cause 
besides the demand for them in themiilinery business hav 
produced the decrease. 
Although we have never heard of any one's advancing 
this opinion before, we think one of the greatest causes, 
especially in and around thickly settled sections — and 
such sections include the greater part of the northeas 
portion of our country— is the very great increase durin g 
late years in the ownership of improved firearms and thei 
cheapness. With breechloading guns and rifles and th 
cheapness and convenience of ammunition now, how 
easy it is for men and boys to load and shoot at birds of 
any and all kinds— so much easier than it used to be with 
the old flint-lock and percussion muzzleloaders. And the 
shooting, whether the birds are on the wing or even sit- 
ting, gives those gunners, so they think, some practice in 
the use of firearms. 
One taking note will be surprised to see how many boys, 
large and small, in the country and in and around vil- 
lages own either Flobert or other small caliber rifles, be- 
sides what a vast number of airguns are in use among the 
boys— and a good, strong-shooting airgun will maim or 
kill a little bird almost as surely as a small caliber rifle. 
Should one take note of it also he will be surprised to see 
so many young persons having those cheap guns rov.ng 
around during the pleasant part of the year and popping 
away not only at English sparrows, but a.t anything and 
everything of the bird kind coming within shooting dig- 
