Aug. 25, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
159 
WAYS OF THE FISHER. 
The reading of an article on the wolverine in a recent 
Forest and Stream carries me back nearly forty years to 
my old trapping days in northern Wisconsin, and reminds 
me of a cDUsin of the wolverine. What a pest the fisher 
was to the trapping fraternity in those days. To great 
strength of muscle was added" pertinacity of purpose with 
extreme cunning, and it was almost an impossibility to 
outmaaeuver him. 
We had a line of traps, some twelve miles in extent, 
mostly deadfalls, for at that time the steel trap was rather 
costly and burdensome to carry. We had our cabin at 
one end of the line. Sometimes when the line extended 
some twenty miles or more we would have our shanty 
midway, so as to go over the half every two days or 
oftener. These lines were blazed through the woods, 
and generally began at our cabin on some water course, 
along its edge or around a pond or lake for mink, otter 
and beaver, then up over the knoll, through the woods, 
for martin and sable, to other water courses. 
Our line at the time I refer to ran some twelve or 
fourteen miles over the hills. We had been having pretty 
fair luck for a week, taking more than a dozen pelts, 
when one morning we found every deadfall had been 
visited and destroyed, and not only the bait but the 
captured animal taken. It was easily surmised by Ralph, 
the old trapper with me, that the culprit was "a doggoned 
fisher." We had killed a deer but a day or two before; his 
paunch and head, drawn over the route, had left a strong 
scent for the rascal to follow up, and in one night he had 
destroyed the work of many days. 
The fisher is very strong and very cunning. He can 
rarely be caught except in steel traps, and that, too, when 
they are buried and the scent of the same well Smoked 
off. The fisher upon approaching a dead-fall will in- 
variably go around to the back side and by main strength 
pull out or break off the stakes of the deadfall, when, of 
course, the bait can be eaten without danger. The day I 
have referred to Ralph was very angry, and to tell the 
truth your humble servant felt anything but amiable. 
Some twelve or fourteen of our 
best paying deadfalls were in ruins 
and no pelt to show, and worst of all 
we felt sure the scoundrel would call 
again. Oh, for even one good New- 
house. The half dozen steel traps 
we had were small and would only 
hold mink or muskrat, and we could 
not afford to lose them. We had 
them set around the lake and brook 
for mink. Ralph, after relieving 
himself by the generous use of some 
strong Western language, seemed 
wrapped in deep study for several 
minutes as he gazed on the wreck 
of our last fall. 
Presently jumping up he said, 
"B'a8t 'is 'ide, I guess we can fix 
'im." We rebuilt the fall, and over 
the back part, sufficiently high up 
not to attract attention, we fixed a 
heavy log to a pair of saplings, so 
fastened that a strong pull at any of 
the back stakes of the fall would 
loosen it. "There," said Ralph, "if 
that works right and comes down 
on the skunk's skull we'll have a 
pelt worth havin'." 
A couple of days after this, it 
being Ralph's turn to go over the 
line, he started out, dragging the 
deer's head behind him. He had 
been gone probably a couple of 
hours, and I had been busy mend- 
ing up my leggings and fixing up 
after breakfast, when I heard a 
shout, and upon going to the door 
of our shanty I could see up the 
river the big fellow (he only stood 
6 ft. 4in. in his stockings) coming on the ice toward the 
house swinging a big black thing in his hand and yelling 
"I've got him, I've got him, here's the cuss." Upon his 
approaching sure enough he had the reptile, as he called 
it, a full-grown fisher, as black as jet, full 28in. in length 
with a splendid bushy tail of some 18in. more. 
Ralph had found him with a broken back at the fall we 
had fixed up for his especial accommodation. The big 
boy was so tickled he didn't even wait to skin it, but 
hurried home to show it to me. It was a prime pelt and 
not only worth more in market than any two mink, 
martin or sable, but it probably preserved for us money 
that otherwise we would have lost, for we were troubled 
no more that season with torn down falls. 
Ah! the memory of those trapping days! They come 
over me like pleasant dreams. The life of a trapper is a 
life of hard work, interspersed with rough times now and 
then, with incidents of adventure and sometimes of 
danger in his encounters with the larger animals, the 
bears, lynx and more especially catamount or American 
panther, but the latter is now rarely met with even in 
our wilder regions. The very far West I know personally 
nothing about. But a trapper's life has its excitements 
and its pleasures, far outnumbering its dangers and draw- 
backs. It is a life of independence in the free woods. 
With what an appetite he enjoys his meals of venison or 
trout; how well he sleeps on his bed of balsam after a 
day's tramp, and with what intensity of pleasure he ap- 
proaches a trap and finds a prime pelt his reward, and 
how like a miser he gloats over his prizes as they hang to 
dry in his cabin, or are packed away for transportation. 
He comes out of the woods strong of muscle and robust of 
stomach. Who ever heard of a trapper catching cold or 
being sick or laid up except by some accident of axe or 
gun? Would that I were a trapper again even for one 
small month. I don't believe that I have forgotten all 
my cunning. Jacobstaff. 
["Jacobstaff" leaves us a little in doubt as to whether 
the animal captured was really a fisher. Some of the 
qualities attributed to it seem more like those of a wolv- 
erine, yet he describes the fisher. The two animals could 
hardly be confused.] 
FRIENDLY FLYING SQUIRRELS. 
Syracuse, N. Y.— I noticed what Mr. Eugene Mc- 
Carthy wrote of flying squirrels last week, in reply to a 
question as to what they will eat. For several years past 
several flying squirrels have made their home in my 
house, sometimes when at night causing disturbance by 
their pranks, creating a desire for their extermination, 
but as neither a rat nor a mouse has been seen in the 
house since they came, their occasional racing is toler- 
ated. 
But there are two mysteries connected with them. 
Whence came they? I know they are here, for several 
times they have been seen in different rooms, and once I 
saw one "fly" to one of the large elms in front of the 
house. Of their identification there is no doubt. And 
upon what do they subsist? No tracks or traces of them 
are to be seen about the house, and their presence would 
never have been suspected but through personal observa- 
tion and their occasional racing. They have never com- 
mitted any ravages of any kind. I am utterly at a loss 
to know upon what they feed. More than this, they are 
never seen among the many trees in the vicinity, so that 
if they leave and return to the house they do so only at 
night. 
They are mysterious little fellows, but I like to harbor 
them, for they are wholly inoffensive. But I never cease 
to wonder how they support their lives. D. H. Bruce. 
the plentiful tourists continually on the march, the inci- 
dent seems very extraordinary for animals so wary; espe- 
cially, too, is the tameness of the ewe, as seen by her 
resuming her breakfast in the presence of the neighbor- 
in g enemy, strange to me. I have heard of sheep invading 
the bunch of horses of a party of prospectors in early days; 
but I thought that all that simplicity had worn off. Cer- 
tainly this experience is the only evidence I ever had of 
that trait. H. G. Duloo. 
[Mountain sheep— and bison— are protected by law at all 
seasons in Colorado, and the tameness of the shepp seen 
by our correspondent would seem to indicate that the law 
is well respected in Estes Park.] 
TOUGH 
Ithaca, N. Y.- 
TOAD AND TURKEYS. 
-Editor Forest and Stream: As showing 
that it is the singular that sometimes happens even in the 
prosaic walks of life, let me present a circumstance 
recently encountered by Mr. Chas. Aikens, a man whom 
I know to be strictly trustworthy and truthful. Mr. 
Aikens, who resides some twenty miles north of Ithaca, 
in digging a well on his farm had occasion, upon reach- 
ing a depth of 12 or loft., to do considerable blasting. In 
the mass of broken rock thrown out was found a frog, 
apparently dead, while upon the surface of certain pieces 
of the rock was an exact outline of the amphibious curi- 
osity. But more wonderful still, the frog soon exhibited 
unmistakable symptoms of life, and in a brief time there- 
after hopped off, after the manner of his kind , as lively 
ON ST. LAWRENCE MARSHES. 
Sing, oh Muse, the sorrows of an old party of friends of 
Forest and Stream, who were camped on the broad St. 
Lawrence on the twenty-ninth of last August, on which 
day it pleased the weather clerk to unload on that fair 
river a very vigorous cyclone, which he had concealed up 
his sleeve, and which dampened most horribly the ardor 
and likewise the baggage, bedding and skins of Crown 
Prince, Abou Ben Tuska, Tony Van Kite and me Sing 
also, fair Muse, in praise of the fast flying duck pursued 
by swift death, leaping forth with lurid flash from its 
rounded cell, the graceful smoothbore's barrel. What 
labors will we not undergo, what fatigues and privations 
will we not endure in order to have even a chance of 
matching our skill against his in his own chosen field. 
Nothing could prevent me, nor shall, from going duck 
shooting when I have enough money to reach the shoot- 
ing ground. I care not whether I have enough to get 
back. I can walk and swim back. No previous failure 
daunts me, no prospect of ill success holds me back. 
Therefore in August, when Abou, who made last year's 
trip to the Rideau Lakes with me, and Tony and Crown 
Prince offered to join in 
happy hunting grounds, 
I leaped at the chance. 
We 
me, 
a second invasion 
and asked me to 
of 
go 
those 
also, 
THE FISHER. 
and evidently as full of the essence of exhilaration as the 
liveliest of well fed frogs can be. Perhaps the Forest 
and Stream's brotherhood of natural history students 
may explain whether this is a common or an uncommon 
freak of the frog family. 
In connection with this incident, Mr. J. H. Wilbur, of 
this city, took occasion to relate an experience of his, 
which illustrates the fallacy of the theory that the average 
turkey of a young and tender age is an exceedingly deli- 
cate creature, and particularly susceptible to anything out 
of the line of mild and propitious weather conditions. 
Mr. Wilbur's flock of young turkeys was confined in a 
coop in the dooryard, and one afternoon the rain 
descended and the floods came. After the storm passed a 
dozen drowned turkeys were spread out on a convenient 
board and allowed, through unintentional neglect, to 
remain there over night. The following morning the sun 
burst forth with a wealth of warmth and heat. Mr. 
Wilbur passing across the yard a little later was astounded 
to observe sundry twitchings of beaks and bones among 
his supposed lifeless turkey crop, which soon developed 
into vigorous manifestations of activity, finally resulting 
in the entire brood gaining its feet and pursuing the even 
tenor of its way. This is directly in line with the evidence 
which I have heard more than one old-time hunter 
advance as proof that the young of the wild turkey is a 
hardy bird, especially after the first few days of its 
existence. ' M. Chill. 
A Tame Mountain Sheep. 
Estes Park, Col., Aug. 9. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
During a drive that I took yesterday with my brother I 
saw something which has inspired me to write to you. 
We had started in a phaeton to drive from the Estes Park 
Hotel to Lamb's, and when we had got a mile and a half 
perhaps from the hotel, and were driving through a big 
pasture dotted with cattle, I saw the drab coat of a moun- 
tain sheep, feeding among the cattle about 100yds. from 
our wagon. I stopped and pointed her — it was a ewe — 
out to my companion, who thus had his first sight of that 
kind of game. She looked up at us, trotted a few steps, 
and then went to grazing again. 
When you consider the nearness to a traveled road and 
rendezvoused at; my island 
home on the St. Lawrence, and 
on the 28th of August started in 
three boats on our three days' pull. 
Then at the very start began the 
sorrows that I have requested the 
Muse to put to music. Abou and 
Crown Prince paired off in the 
smallest boat, only 13ft. long. 
Abou weighs' about HOlbs. and the 
Prince about 200. In consequence, 
when Abou rowed and Crown 
Prince sat in the stern, the bow 
rose so high in the air that the 
oarsman could scarcely get the oar 
blades into the water, and the 
boat's stern exhibited perhaps an 
eighth of an inch freeboard. When 
they reversed positions and Crown 
Prince put his ton- weight person at 
the oars, the skiff's bow was so de- 
pressed that it was utterly impos- 
sible to keep a straight course, for 
as every one familiar with a boat 
knows, a vessel so trimmed will per- 
sistently attempt to turn in circles. 
Tony and I cast our lot together, 
and but for the tenderness of my 
companion's hands (he a novice at 
the oars) and my own delightful 
habit of splashing, which made a 
trip with me rather a watery amuse- 
ment, we got along excellently. 
George Patterson, the guide, cook, 
protector, camp-master, etc., of the 
party, flocked by himself, and he 
rowed one boat altogether, his 
strength being equal to that of any 
two of the others. So much for 
our division of labor. 
We started out from near Alexandria Ray with the 
intention of making Kingston, Canada, 33 milps away, the 
same evening. But we did not. Owing to getting away 
late, and the scandalous conduct of Abou and Crown, we 
had advanced only about fifteen miles by 4 o'clock, when 
it began to rain and we decided to camp on "Jiminies" 
Island. We took a nice spot and set up two tents, one 
7x7, for George, and a larger one for ourselves. Then 
we took a bath in the rain and river, and cooked some 
ham for supper. While eating I saw a loon about a 
hundred yards away. Taking out a .25-20 rifle I fiddled 
with the sights, posed prettily and lectured to the admir- 
ing crowd on the proper elevation, etc. I fired and 
missed the bird by about ten feet. I did not look at any- 
body and no one made any remarks, but I thought many 
things of a most lively character. 
At about nine we went to bed. Then began the circus. 
All night long the rain leaked into the tent. At 2 A. M. ' 
the wind arose; at 4 a gale was mowing; at 6 the front of 
the tent blew in; at 6:05 a hole appeared in the side and 
at 6:10 another. The gale was now a hurricane and 
every five minutes a new slit appeared in our canvas 
house. At 7 the last relics of it blew away and we fled to 
George's tent, where the five of us crowded into its 7x7 
feet of space, with the sides continually blowing in, and 
the cold rain running in in streams. Through it all, the 
Crown Prince sat stolidly on the ground, reading the 
Scottish Chiefs. Abou Ben Tuska and George ventured 
forth in the storm to seek a place of shelter under the lee 
of some friendly rock, but returned exhausted and unsuc- 
cessful. We endured this until 3 P. M , when we 
launched our boats at great risk and fled from that 
cursed island, venturing out on the river, preferring to 
run the chances of drowning in the attempt to i-each 
Gananoque, to perishing of exhaustion and starvation on 
shore. We left all our stuff, guns, cartridges, everything 
behind us. We finally did reach the little Canadian town 
in safety after a very respectable pull. I have lived on 
the St. Lawrence every summer for twelve years and 
have never seen such a blow, nor have I ever met an uglier 
cross sea than that which ran off Gananoque that Augudi; 
day. 
