April 25, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
SS9 
"That reminds me." 
A SOUTH AFRICAN SNAKE STORY. 
We mining people and dependants were having our 
usual Sunday afternoon chat on the veranda of the coun- 
try store, this time swapping snake stories. The subject 
was started by K. telling us how D.'s little fox terrier bitch 
had been blinded in both eyes by a little blaoksnake hav- 
ing spat in his eyes, causing a whitish film to sprpad over 
them, and how D. had had a narrow escape, the little rep- 
tile having spat at him and missing his eyes by only an 
inch or two, the spittle lauding on his forehead. These 
were hard, dry facts that most of us had heard before dur- 
ing the last two days. Then old Oliver lit up and told us 
how when he and Harry had been in the DeKasp gold 
fields of the little time they had with a couple of mambas 
(one of the quickest aDd most poisonous of South African 
snakes). 
Harry and I were going to sink further on an old shaft 
on a good reef (a quartz vein holding lots, little or no 
gold). We had gone down about 60ft. and put a little 
drive at the bottom through the reef to cut her to see 
what she was like, aDd had abandoned it for a few 
months till the rains were over. When we went back to 
recommence work we went to have a look at the shaft 
and see how it was looking, and we saw that a couple of 
fine, lively, businesslike mambas of about 10ft. long had 
jumped our claims and were snug and comfortably lying 
at the bottom of the shaft. We decided to make them 
clear or we would make it hot for them. They did not 
seem to be inclined to get, so we sent down a bottle with 
a dynamite cartridge, a little cap (detonator) and a short 
lighted fuse inserted. 
The usual thing happened— the fuse burnt down, the 
cap exploded, the dynamite went off and the bottle got 
all broken up. H. and I then went to the tent to have a 
smile on the strength of our hit and get a rope to go down 
and see how the jumpers were feeling. I went down and 
saw lots of broken glass, but nary a sign of a snake, and 
so I came up and reported, saying: "That there were no 
holes and no snakes, and wondering where in the deuce 
the beggars could have got to, for they could not climb 
up 60ft., a clean perpendicular untimbered shaft of 5ft. 
square. Could they?'' 
"Why, that's nothing," said Harry. "When I was dig- 
ging at Pilgrim's Eest I saw a snake go right straight up 
the side of the whitewashed wall of a hut and shed his 
skin as he was going." 
Oliver then relit his pipe, K. coughed, and we departed 
for our various camps. 
The spitting snake and that a snake can climb up a per- 
pendicular untimbered shaft are undoubted facts in my 
mind, for I have heard so many reliable prospectors and 
miners in South Africa affirm it. The whitewashed wall 
yarn I can't swear to. The Canadian, 
Umtali Valley, Rhodesia, South Africa. 
he MmwL 
F IXTU RES. 
BENCH SHOWS. 
May 6 to 9.— Pacific Kennel Club's fifth annual show. H. W. Orear, 
Sec'y. 
May 9.— Hamilton Kennel Club's one-day show, Hamilton, Ont. W. 
J Tulk, Sec'y. 
May 13 to 16 —Seattle Kennel Club's third annual show. C. B. 
Yandell, Sec'y. 
Sept. 7 to 11. — Toronto Exhibition Association's eighth annual show, 
Toronto, Can. C. A. Stone, Sec'y of bench show. 
Sept. 22 to 25.— Milwaukee Kennel and Pet Stock Association's 
second annual show. W. W. Welch, Sec'y. 
FIELD TRIALS. 
Sept. 2.— Morris, Man.— Manitoba Field Trials Club. John Wootton, 
Sec'y. 
Sept 9.— Kennedy, Minn.— Continental Field Trial Club's chicken 
trials. P. T. Madison, Sec'y, Indianapolis, Lid. 
• Oct. 9.— Brunswick Fur Club's annual meet. Bradford S. Turpin, 
Sec'y. 
Oct. 26.— Hempstead, L. I— Natioonal Beagle Club's trials. Geo. 
W. Rogers, Sec'y, 250 W. Twenty-second street, New York. 
Oct. 28.— Greene county, Pa.— Tne Monongahela Valley Game and 
Fish Protective Association's second annual trials. S. B. Cummings 
Sec'y, Pittsburg. 
Nov. 2— Bicknell, Ind.— Continental Field Trial Club's quail trials. 
P. T. Madison, Sec'y. 
Nov. 16.— Newton, N. C— E. F. T. Club's trials. S. C. Bradley, Sec'y, 
Greenfield Hill, Conn. 
Nov. 17.— Chatham, Ont.— International Field Trial Club's trials. 
W. B Wells, Sec'y, Chatham, Ont. 
Nov. —.—Newton, N. C— U. S. F. T. Club's fall trials. W. B. Staf- 
ford, Sec'y. 
DOG TRAITS AND DOG TRAINING. 
A recent article in Forest and Stream upon the sub- 
ject of instinct and bird knowledge, advancing some data 
for the proposition that instinct is nothing more than ac- 
quired knowledge, opens a field of speculation upon the 
subject of dog training, a most vexatious subject to all 
sportsmen, for a well- trained and highly serviceable dog 
is the exception, and the exception irrespective of whether 
he has been trained by an expensive trainer, a cheap 
trainer or the owner himself. Of course this statement 
would be challenged by all trainers, and by every amateur 
trainer who thinks he has trained a dog well, or who has 
in fact done so. But we all know how few and how far be- 
tween the good dogs are, no matter who trains them. A 
sportsman has no difficulty in procuring a good gun, and 
can even acquire the art of shooting well with it: but 
when it comes to getting a good dog he at once meets 
with difficulty, deceit and disappointment. You hardly 
ever meet with a man who has not a good gun, but you 
[hardly ever meet with a man who has a good dog. How- 
ever well trained your dog may be when the trainer 
gives him to you, he is apt to fall from grace. If he re- 
members his training, he is still prone to be a poor bird 
finder, to have a poor nose, no bird sense, or no stamina. 
And when we train him ourselves, he is subject to the 
J same deficiencies, only more so. In short, the dog is a 
■lottery wherein there are about ninety -nine blanks to one 
■prize. And the blanks are so well bred, so enticing, 
Iso friendly, so smart, so good in some one or two 
■directions, that "with all his faults we love him still," and 
Igo forth and brag about him. He finds birds well, but he 
■breaks shot. He hardly ever finds a covey except when 
She runs into it, but he is good on single birds.- He has a 
good nose, but does not range 100yds. from the gun. He 
is a good ranger and bird finder, but once in a while he 
flushes. And so on to the end of the list of dog traits. 
I Our system of training goes to the extent of drilling the 
animal in a more or less mechanical manner, and when 
the dog takes to hunting he does it with one eye on the 
cover ahead of him and the other on the drill sergeant; 
and when he finally applies his training to his field work 
he gets tangled up in the human methods of canine de- 
velopment and grasps what he can of it, takes his licking 
for the rest and makes up his mind that while hunting is 
a delightful pastime, it is hazardous and perplexing. 
That fellow back there has a calliope in his mouth, a. whip 
in one hand and a shotgun over his shoulder. Sometimes 
he shoots, sometimes he whistles and .sometimes he whips. 
It makes me weary and about 2 o'clock I am going to 
quit! 
Contrast the uncertain training of the dog with the easy 
and certain acquirement of knowledge in the natural way. 
One is a system of repression, and the other is a system of 
progression. One appeals to the sense of fear, the other 
to the sense of utility. 
By the time you have trained a dog as well as you 
know how, you will have succeeded in making him 
point, back, retrieve and drop to shot; and while you are 
doing it you are making him cock-eyed with looking back 
at you, and his intelligence refuses to progress along 
human lines and stops or rebels. Like the forced and pre- 
cocious child, he finally turns out vicious, peculiar or 
dull. 
Is it possible that we are training our hunting dogs in 
the wrong method? I am not wise enough to answer 
that question and I will not attempt to do so. I know 
that 1 have had all kinds of pointers and setters, so far as 
their training went. Those that I trained perfectly had 
no sense of their own, and those that I half trained had 
more sense, were better bird finders, but had, each of 
them, some canine idiosyncrasy that brought him down 
below the level of the desirable dog. I am half inclined 
to believe the way to train a dog is to let him learn from 
his superiors. This is a slower process, but it excludes 
any sort of human interference. So far as my experi- 
ment and observation have gone, it takes at least two 
years for an old dog to train a young one. They learn in 
this manner to point, back, retrieve and range, and no 
other dog can range like the self-taught or dog-taught 
ranger. He goes like the wind and hunts for birds every 
minute with an eye single to finding them. In time he 
learns to hunt to the gun to the extent of not getting lost; 
and in time the gun learns to hunt to him, because where 
he is there the birds will be found. One day he will 
watch the uld dog retrieving for awhile and then say to 
himself, ' ' I believe I can do that— I am going to try," 
and forthwith he becomes the best and softest mouthed 
retriever you ever saw! It is not like the pup who re- 
trieves in play, it is the act of a mature and thoughtful 
being. 
We all know that the one human trait which towers 
over everything else is courage. Learning, wit, strength, 
ambition, sincerity, goodness, all come back to courage. 
It is much the same with the dog; and the indomitable 
courage of the unwhipped, dog-taught dog carries him 
far afield and carries him as fast at night as when he 
started in the morning. Talk about pointers and setters 
only being good for one or two hour heats at high speed. 
I know a half dozen that can do it all day and I would 
not keep a dog that could not. It is all in the training, 
or development, of the dog. 
I do not know, however, that an old dog can teach a 
young dog to be steady to shot, nor to come in when or- 
dered. I suppose we will have to keep putting our hu- 
man fingers in the pie here, unless some old dog makes a 
specialty of teaching young dogs to be steady to shot and 
to mind the whistle. I would like to see the young dog 
that would break shot after an old dog had whipped him 
for it a time or two! 
I fear I have not made myself very plain to many, and 
that I will not be very kindly received with my strange 
notion by many others. And yet I am sure there must 
be many who have felt that there is a flaw in our treat- 
ment of our dogs; and perhaps there are some who have 
fancied, as I have, that the right way is along the line of 
self-development and self-discipline, and observation and 
thinking by the dog instead of by the man. If I am 
wrong, please charge it to the fact that my observations 
have misled me. George Kennedy. 
AN OLD FOX. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Almost every one about the townships of Auburn, 
N. Y. , knows Dr. Kennedy, as he has been an eye and ear 
surgeon here for thirty years, and having mixed up fox 
hunting pretty thoroughly along with the sight and hear- 
ing trade, he has had numerous antics with old John Fox, 
the wiliest of all animals on earth, for reynard had a 
world-wide reputation for cunning before there were any 
newspapers to advertise him. 
The doctor and his lovely wife are very fond of horses 
and dogs, and are prone to possess the best to be had for 
money, and along under a piazza adorning their carriage 
house are tacked up two rows of fox skins, over sixty in 
number, twenty-four of which were added during the 
past season. 
The armament for the chase is a repeating shotgun and 
a> pair of tall white foxhounds, own brothers, one being 
5 years old and the other nearly 2 years, and the house 
pets run to beagles. 
These people are seemingly contented and happy, for 
they have an abundance of the world's goods and are 
often seen riding or rambling around the woods and fields 
together, for the cry of the dogs on a cold or fresh trail 
tingles the ears and quickens the heart with a pleasure 
that no other music can produce. People who love it, 
and love the woods and hills and valleys and streams, 
need not be mussed up with the multitude to find fun 
and deep-rooted pleasure. What an unspeakable delight 
it is to such folks to stroll across the big cedar swamps 
after a fresh layer of snow has fallen, and view the fresh- 
made trails of foxes and rabbits and mink and squirrels 
and partridges. 
That kind of people don't need to sail across the heav- 
ing bosom of the ocean to find amusement, and almost 
heave up their diaphragm in doing it. 
In a ramble across the big Owasco swamp with dogs 
and gun not long ago, the writer found a fox trail of un- 
usual size, a trail of a fox that had made a meal off a 
partridge he had snatched from a stump. The crafty old' 
grouse catcher had a splay foot that made an uncommon 
large imprint on the moist snow, and the dogs were 
started on the trail. It led them out through the north 
end of the swamp and around the fields into the south 
end, where soon after the long, eager cry of the dogs told 
the hunter that reynard had cut loose from his cosy nap 
and was heading up the valley to the south. In the mean 
time a stiff gale had risen from that quarter, and the air 
was laden with driving snowflakes. Notwithstanding the 
wind and snow, the gunner headed up in the direction 
they had gone at a brisk gait, being stimulated by the 
baying of the hounds, which rolled back on the breeze. 
As the fox led out of the valley up on to the hills over- 
looking Skaneateles Lake the snow and wind quickly 
obliterated his trail, which made it difficult for the dogs 
to follow, and the tail end of the procession was scurry- 
ing along brisk enough to keep them in hearing. 
After three miles of tramp, over the hills and through • 
the woods and stump lots, he finally caught up with the 
dogs. As the storm was increasing and the trail was 
buried under the snow, the hunter called off the dogs and 
headed for home with a stern wind. In coming over the 
lasthill before pitching down into the valley the young 
dog ran his nose up in the air and galloped up the wind 
toward Decker's big sugar bush, a half mile to the south. 
That made the other dog uneasy, and the hunter snapped 
a leading strap in his collar so as to make sure of taking 
one dog home; for the snow had ceased, yet the wind was 
stout. As he meandered off down the hill the absent dog. 
began to give tongue way off back in the sap bush, and 
the hunter got down between the roots of a big elm tree 
at the south end of a swampy grove, out of the wind and 
to get a little rest, and to take an occasional glance back: 
on the side hill in the direction of the lingering dog. It 
was not long before the hound in hand began to whine 
and cast eager looks in that direction, as much as to say, 
"Let me loose, I hear it going on," and directly the eager 
running cry of the young dog was wafted down the wind 
to the hunter's ears, and he was stringing it out up over 
the hill and headed north. Well, now, brother hunters, 
after a man had given up all hopes for the day, didn't 
that raging Bound take the chill out of a man's bones and 
make him feel like a king on his throne with the warm 
side up? 
A half minute more and a brown speck broke over the' 
brow of the snowy hill half a mile away and was headed 
toward the black ash grove and looked like a hawk sail- 
ing. The hound in hand saw him as the fox neared the 
bottom of the hill, and whined to go, and as the fox stopped 
at a gap in the fence to take a look behind and decide if it 
was himself that the hound was making such a hoodoo 
about, the hunter slips around behind the elm with a gun 
and dog accompaniment, pocketed his mittens, cocked 
the repeater and sat it against the tree, unsnapped the 
leash from the dog, clapped both hands over his ears and 
slewed him around tail end to the fox, which was head- 
ing straight across the grove, and as old Shine used to say,, 
"it looked very much as though the gunner would get a 
rip at him." 
There were a thousand places close about that this fox 
might have run and steered clear of all hindrances, for he 
had his senses on the alert, and ears poked up in front as 
he bounded and rolled across the roots and knolls like a 
rubber ball, for a little further down the swamp farmer 
Cuykendall was whaling up an old tree into stove 
wood. The steady plick, plick of the axe veered rey- 
nard's course in the gunner's favor, and as he galloped 
across an opening about 40yds. away a pop of nitrate 
turned him end over end. Firing the gun released the 
hound and the fox rose on his haunches, just in time to 
nail the dog's nasal organ in the first round. Reynard 
always hangs on when he gets a grip, and a man who 
has been there well knows the only certain way to turn 
one loose is to shut off his wind; but the dog, Buster, has 
had his nose in a fox's jaws now for the fifth time, and 
ought to profit by experience. Anyway, this time, as the 
shooter ran up, the fox loosened his grip, dodged througii 
a rail fence, got two jumps ahead of the dog, so that a shot 
at the fox would comb the dog too. All this happened in 
five seconds, and the yelling and howling started the farmer 
sprinting after the fox, which was headed down his way, 
that sheered old red toward the grove again, and though 
the hound was yelling and running his best lick wasn't able 
to shut up a foot of the gap, while the gunner mounted the 
old rail tence for a better view, shouting "sick 'em, sick 
'em," and yelling as a man does in a dream. A new factor 
appeared on the scene in the shape of the big white pup 
flashing down through the trees like a specter. He had 
come in on the trail and got his eye on the fox as it shied 
back into the grove, and'inside of a hundred yards' run he 
had the old ranger by the back, whisking the big bushy 
tail around the atmosphere, and both dogs spent the time 
mopping that big splay-footed fellow around in the snow 
until hunter and farmer got there and stopped the gym- 
nastics. 
While the men stood talking and getting their breath 
back, and the dogs were lapping snow, that fox went 
bounding away, and the dogs had to overhaul in a short 
run and give him another churning. More anon from 
Repeater. 
Sebipperkes and Carving. 
I notice a great deal is being written in your valuable 
paper at the present moment upon the above subject. I 
am not prepared to say whether the terms gouging or 
carving are proper ones or not, but I prefer the former 
and will use that expression in this letter as opposed to 
docking. There can be no possible doubt that a schip- 
perke that has been gouged has a far more typical appear- 
ance than one that has been docked. The docked dog 
may perhaps have rounded quarters when he has nothing 
better to do than to wonder what has become of his tail; 
but let some other thought enter his mind, or let him 
meet another dog, and you will see the stump stick up and 
wag. The dog that has been gouged has no stump to wag. 
Now for facts. In the early days of the schipperke 
craze there was a fairly well known kennel of this breed; 
and in course of time that kennel brought out several dogs 
bred in England. Whatever other points these dogs pos- 
sessed, everybody remarked on the wonderfully rounded 
quarters, just like a guinea-pig, they all had. No matter 
how pleased the dog might be, there was no trace of a 
stump. Now, being in the secrets of this kennel, I am 
able to tell you how this typical rump was produced, 
rphe operation took place at five or eight days old, and 
w as invariablv done under ether. A slit was made over 
