356 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 27, 1894. 
THE MAY CYCLONE OF 1894. 
Right merrily our schooner howled over the waters, 
with no suggestion of storm in the balmy air, no sign of 
trouble around the horizon, nothing to indicate the 
approach of disturbance, save an almost imperceptible 
increase in the heave of the long swinging seas, and the 
ominous fall of the glass. 
All day we boomed along with the song of the wind in 
the canvas. All the night we hurried up the coast, till 
the morning broke and sunshine touched the wave crests 
with glistening spray. As the day wore on there seemed 
less joyousness in the tumbling waves. They rolled past 
sullenly, resistlessly, under the impulse of an unseen 
energy. Still the barometer fell, and gradually we be- 
came conscious of an uneasy feeling, as of impending: 
danger in the thickening of the atmosphere, and a general 
haziness that erathered over the ocean. 
The sunlight paled to a sickly yellow. Seabirds wheeled 
uneasily about, now high in air, now skimming over the 
water, their shrill wild cries suggesting alarm. Finally 
they vanished to south'ard, and the scene became doubly- 
gloomy on their departure. 
We were some fifteen miles south of the Delaware 
Breakwater at this time, and our anxious endeavor was 
to reach an anchorage there before the storm should 
burst upon us, this being the only harbor within fifty 
miles. Chincoteaerne lay to the south, Barnegat to the 
north, with the added danger of running the bars should 
we be so fortunate as to reach either inlet before night- 
fall. 
The seas were rolling up with fearful velocity as we 
kept away. There was an increase in the stormy appear- 
ance of the sky to northward, the sunlight had disap- 
peared entirely and a pall of dark scud was flying over 
head with suggestive swiftness. 
"What a wild rush we made for harbor, and as the 
anchor reached its resting place well within the sheltering 
break we felt the worst was over. There were twenty- 
seven sail nestled under the lee of that nile of stone that 
afternoon when we let the anchor go — pilot boats, fisher- 
men, coasters, to say nothing of the tugs and steamers. 
Darker grew the sky and presently an unearthly g;lare 
appeared close over the sea. under a mass of seething 
cloud that bore down with fearful rapidity toward us. 
Suddenly the breeze failed, we pitched uneasily on the 
waves while a deathly quiet held us in suspense as the 
whirl approached. 
With a deafening roar the squall struck us. The last 
thing to impress me, as the blinding rain obliterated all 
from sigrht, was a glimpse of a huge coppery cloud that 
tore wildly overhead with a shriek, as of fiends at war. 
For hours the downpour continued. It was with difficulty 
we could distinguish the nearer craft as they tugged at 
their anchors in the swift run of sea that reached us even 
here. 
The morning broke with the wind in the east. Outside 
the sea was foaming and tossing in wild confusion. 
Within it was smooth and swirled past the anchored ves- 
sels with an oily heave. The showers were now inter- 
mittent, the intervals being filled by heavy fog, that slid 
softly over and covered us with a mantle of silence. So 
still was the air that one might hear the "chirrup" of the 
rain drops that crinkled the surface of the water at each 
recurring downpour. Toward evening there was a light- 
ing of the horizon seaward. An unwholesome glare that 
filled one with foreboding spread over the east, and the 
barometer which for some hours had remained stationary 
again commenced to fall. 
Desirous of seeing the culmination of affairs .to the best 
possible advantage, I donned my hip boots and oilers once 
more, and had the boys pull me off to the breakwater, 
where I asked and obtained permission from courteous 
Capt. Richards, of the Philadelphia Maritimeilxchange, to 
stand watch all night with them in the station. The 
main room as I entered was filled with old sea dogs from 
the pilot boats, burly, deep-chested fellows, who spoke in 
low, resonant tones, saying much in few words, a volume 
of suggestion, as it were, in a sentence. I was sorry to 
see them enter their boats and pull away into the mist in 
the direction of their respective craft. 
Just before night closed in a bedraggled fishhawk 
perched on a broken spar that stood upright among the 
stones, a short distance from the station, and proceeded to 
devour a small fish he had captured. It was amusing to 
see the struggle he made to retain his footing, using his 
wings to balance his body when the fierce gusts threat- 
ened to dash him away. As opportunity offered, he 
would make a jab at his prey, and tearing out a morsel 
gulp it quickly down. A rain squall hid him from view 
for a moment: when it passed he had grone. 
And now the anchor lights began to blink among the 
shrouds of the little fleet behind us, and the flash from, 
the lighthouse started on its monotonous round in the 
tower alongside. 
Supper over, we returned to the watch room. The 
captain's wife, a sweet-voiced little lady, favored us with 
song, in which the captain joined with his rich baritone, 
while I sat in the shadow by the open door to leeward, 
listening, smoking, thinking. 
Far away in the black of the night the swinging lights 
of the vessels danced like fireflies as the gale whistled by, 
while the boom of the sea on the breakwater thundered 
in strange contrast to the soft voices that filled the room. 
At half-past 10 the captain was relieved, and the second 
watch began. Still I sat by the door, listening, smoking, 
thinking. 
"Clickety, click; clicketv, click," came a message from 
the Weather Bureau at Washington, "Continue signals 
for to-morrow." 
So the storm was not yet over? How good it was amid 
the fierce rush of waters, to feel that we were still in 
touch with the seemingly far away world. 
The steady tick-ticking of an energetic little clock on 
the corner shelf soon restored my meditations. How the 
time passed; what I thought about I do not remember; I 
was content, that was enough. 
With the flood tide the gale increased in violence, and 
shortly after midnight its fury was almost beyond descrip- 
tion. The station trembled under the pounding of the 
huge billows that dashed against the broken stone to wind- 
ward, and rearing angrily, launched their roaring masses, 
at times clear over its roof. 
Occasionally would come a lull in the fearful tumult, 
and leaning heavily against the blast I ventured out, 
keeping a firm grasp on the hand rail that ran around the 
station. As the squalls ceased for an instant, I could see 
that same weird light over the sea, while a moaning 
seemed to fill all space and lend its aid to heighten the 
effect of the gloomy scene. A drive of stinging rain 
lashed along in horizontal sheets by the storm fiends, 
almost blinds me as I seek the shelter of the watch room. 
Through the early morning hours the fury of the storm 
knew no bounds, but with the daylight came a change. 
The wild frenzy of the night was gone. The ocean lay 
exhausted, panting under a dense fog that was slowly 
trailing away before a southerly breeze, to vanish later on 
when the sun should command. Wilmot Townsend. 
Bay Ridge, N. Y. 
THE CRY OF THE COON. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The contention over the cry of the raccoon is sure to 
arise when the coon season is on. One class of writers 
contend that the coon is a silent animal, and that it is 
the little owl's cry that fools the hunter. Another class 
blame it on the skunk. A third class stoutly assert that 
the cry is all right and is owned by his coonship. 
I think I can throw some light on this vexed question.. 
A life in the woods, sleeping in an open tent from April 
to Christmas, has enlarged my knowledge of the habits of 
many of the nocturnals. 
The little owl with his cry is the plague of my life. He 
is quite numerous. Sometimes as many as five come 
around about dusk to see if I am at home. When I am 
snugly and comfortably in my hammock for the night, 
the little scamps glare into the tent and snap their bills at 
me, and follow it up with their monotonous wail. I stand 
their .abuse for a while and then club them into the dark- 
ness of the forest. That ends it for the night. They 
come around the next night for an encore, and usually 
get it. 
The raccoon has a cry something like that of the little 
owl, but louder, clearer and without the closing trill. I 
often hear both cries at the same time. 
In the fall of '86 I had a male coon in my dooryard, 
. chained beneath the trees. Nightly he answered the coons 
in the forest. When uttering the call, or cry, he sat on 
his haunches, threw up his head, so that one side of his 
mouth was upward, and blew the sound through the half- 
closed lips into the upper air. 
My coon was a ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come 
from the treetops above him. 
The raccoon sometimes repeats a loud cluck. This cry 
can be heard on still nights half a mile away. The cubs 
are warned when in -danger by a cry of one note. A 
young coon, that I had caught in a steel trap, was care- 
fully tended by an old male. The wound on his leg was 
frequently licked, and the old coon was always uneasy 
when the young fellow seemed to be in pain and would 
purr like a cat. 
The skunk has a cry, but it does not resemble the cry 
of the coon. The call, so far as my knowledge goes, is 
heard only in the spring, and at daybreak or near that. 
It is something like this: "Kloong-Moong, Moong-kloong." 
I hear this cry every spring in my dooryard. The 
skunks are uninvited and unwelcome visitors to my 
cabin home, but I treat them with great respect for fear 
of consequences. Hermit. 
A TEXAS BUFFALO RANCH. 
[From our Texas Correspon lent] 
Goodnight, a little station on the Fort Worth and 
Denver City Railroad in Armstrong county, in the Texas 
Panhandle, is the home of Chas. Goodnight, who is 
quietly but earnestly and persistently conducting a ex- 
periment in the crossing of the American buffalo with 
native cattle, so far without completely successful result, 
but certainly with very interesting ones. 
Mr. Goodnight has a little home ranch of about 70,000 
acres. This is his garden. His real ranch, where he does 
business, is: the Quitaque, some distance away, where he 
has about 400,000 acres under fence. It is at his little 
garden or truck patch, that he has his buffalo experi- 
mental station. 
Several years ago, when buffalo were more plentiful in 
Texas than they are now, the cowboys working for Mr. 
Goodnight would often "rope" a buffalo calf and bring it 
home. These were turned into an inclosure, and, though 
little attention was paid to them, they formed the 
nucleus of the herd now on the ranch, As the wild 
buffalo began to disappear these became of greater in- 
terest, and six or seven years ago Mr. Goodnight began in 
earnest the attempt to produce a new and distinct breed 
by crossing buffalo and neat cattle, and trying to per- 
petuate this type by inbreeding. 
There are now on his ranch about twenty-five or thirty 
full-blood buffaloes, and as many more half-breeds. Most 
of these full-bloods — probably all of them — were calved 
on the ranch. Indeed, the herd are the product of the 
calves roped and brought in by the cowboys in the late 
70s, which grew up and multiplied by the regular and 
natural process. They are fine looking animals. Old 
buffalo hunters say they never saw finer looking ones 
when these animals covered the Texas prairies by 
millions, which is conclusive evidence that civilization is 
not fatal to the propagation of the buffalo. He needs 
only to be protected and given a fair show, and in time 
there is no reason why there should not be as many 
buffaloes on the prairies of Texas as there were twenty 
years ago. 
The crosses are, however, of the greatest interest. It 
was Mr. Goodnight's desire to establish a type of cattle 
with the valuable robe, the thrifty rustling qualities, the 
weight and general characteristics of the buffalo. He has 
bred "black mooleys" to the buff alo bulls — the cattle being 
chiefly polled angus — and the result is an animal with the 
light hindquarters and heavy shoulders of the buffalo, 
the shaggy head and the long, wooly hair so desirable in 
buffalo robes being reproduced almost as perfectly as in 
the parent bull. The tail is long and flat like a mule's 
tail. Horns are absent when bred to mooleys. In two 
or three cases where the mothers were Texas cows the 
horns were like buffalo horns, but some longer. One 
peculiar animal, which is out of place outside of a side- 
show, is the offspring of a buffalo bull and a Texas cow, 
which has black and white stripes running around the 
body like a zebra's. 
Mr. Goodnight finds his chief trouble in breeding the 
crosses. In fact, with a very few exceptions he has found 
it impossible to get offspring from the half-breeds. He is 
not discouraged, but will persevere in his efforts, and 
feels confident that he will at last establish a new race of 
cattle in Texas. 
The half-breeds are heavier in weight than the average 
cattle, are better rustlers and keep fat through cold 
weather and hard rustling that thin the others and often 
result in heavy fatalities. 
Mr. Goodnight also has on his home ranch about thirty 
or thirty-five elk that were brought from Colorado, which 
he has in a pasture of 400 or 500 acres, the fence around 
which is coyote-proof. These elk have not thriven well 
and do not appear to be at home. Texas Field. 
WOLVES IN THE AD1RONDACKS. 
Camp G~od Enough, Brandreth Late, Sept. 27.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: You wrote a letter to Nelson Cary of 
Long Lake, making inquiries about a wolf which was 
caught by him in a trap. His brother, Reuben Cary, who 
is the gamekeeper of our park here, has handed the ietter 
to me to answer. I have taken great pains to get the facts 
from him, just as they occurred, knowing that they would 
be of interest to you and many of your readers, and espe- 
cially as you had shown interest enough to write for 
information on the subject. 
The wolf was caught in a trap which was set in a large 
clearing about one and a quarter miles from Brandreth 
Lake on the Brandreth property. The cows and sheep 
are pastured in this clearing, and they were undoubtedly 
the bait which first attracted these hungry fellows. 
On the 19th of April, 1893, one of the men at Bran- 
dreth Lake saw what he supposed was a deer walk- 
ing on the ice about half way down the lake; he 
went into Cary's house and told his daughter that 
there was a deer walking on the ice, and if she 
wanted to see it she had better come out. She looked at 
it, and not quite understanding its shape got the field 
glass and discovered that it was not a deer; she ran down 
to the shop where Reuben Cary, her father, was working, 
and told him about it, and he immediately pronounced it 
a wolf. He got a gun and started to stalk it, but only 
succeeded in getting about 200yds. from it; he fired but 
miBsed it, as it was a long shot. In October of the same 
year he saw another wolf in the large clearing one and a 
quarter miles from our camp buildings; he stalked this 
fellow for about 300yds. and could not get any nearer 
than about 250yds. ; he fired while the wolf was running 
and wounded it, as he found tracks of s blood. When this 
wolf was first seen he was making a meal of a fine fat 
sheep he had just killed. 
Reuben Cary immediately went to work to catch this 
thief, and brought up the bear trap we use for catch- 
ing anything in the shape of an animal which will molest 
our live stock. He baited the trap with the sheep the 
wolf had not finished; the trap was set Monday night. 
Tuesday morning he went over to look at it, but no wolf 
as yet. He was obliged to go to. Long Lake, and he left 
particular orders to the men here to watch that trap and 
to go every morning while he was away. 
The first time they went up to the clearing they found 
an eagle in the trap; the wolf had been there, but having 
found the trap occupied and things probably rather lively, 
concluded not to investigate too closely. The next morn- 
ing a pet spaniel belonging to Gen. Ralph Brandreth was 
found in the trap and was so badly hurt that the men 
were obliged to shoot him. The body of this dog was 
thrown aside in a pile of brush, and the next time the 
men went up most of the dog was missing. For some 
time after this the wolves deserted the trap and the foxes 
began to steal the bait away, but were wary enough never 
to be caught. At last Reuben Cary hit upon a clever 
plan. There was a stack of oats in this clearing, which 
was surrounded by a fence, and he suggested that they 
should take some of the lambs up from our barn and 
put them in this inclosure, and that their bleating would 
probably call the wolves around; the plan worked well, 
and it was not very long before they had the wolf. 
Reuben was away at the time and Nelson Cary, Peter 
Tipador and Dar Parker went up to the clearing one Sat- 
urday afternoon with the wagon to bring down a load of 
oats; when they got there they saw the wolf lying as if 
dead, with his foot caughtjin the trap. One o^the men, 
Parker, was lame and used a cane; he went toward the 
wolf and the men warned him that it might be ugly ; but 
he poked it with his cane and it never moved; then he 
pushed its head around and still it never moved, yet it 
was alive. In making inquiries among the hunters I find 
this is a little trick the fox has and if struck ever so 
lightly with the slightest stick will immediately play dead 
and not move. The wolf and fox, I imagine, are near 
akin, as they are alike in build and hunt the same game. 
At last they shot him, and if they had been many hours 
later there would have been ho wolf, for he had nearly 
succeeded in tearing his foot out of the trap. 
His entire body was white excepting one dark gray 
patch of the original color left on his tail. All the hun- 
ters of this part of the country say that it is a sign of 
great age, especially as his teeth were very much worn 
away. They did not weigh him, but his height was 2^ft. 
The body was sent to C. H. Downs, taxidermist at Blue 
Mountain Lake, to be mounted; it now stands in the large 
sitting room at Camp Comfort, belonging to Col. E. A. 
McAlpin, where his wolfship can gaze leisurely at prob- 
able the finest private collection of mounted heads in this 
country. . . 
I inclose a photograph of the wolf taken by Benj. B. 
McAlpin, son of E. A. McAlpin. 
If this story is doubted by any of your readers they can 
investigate the certificate at Albany, which was regis- 
tered there when Nelson Cary received the State bounty 
of $30 P. B. Brandreth. 
Taming Chipping Sparrows. 
I noticed in the last number of TYi& Aulc a reference to 
the taming of a chipping sparrow (Spizella socialis). My 
father has always had a great fondness for birds and has 
devoted a great deal of time to ornithology. Some four 
or five years ago, at my home in Nelson county, Va., 
there were several pairs of chipping sparrows building iu 
the rose bushes around the porch along the front of the 
house. It was the custom of my father upon leaving the 
breakfast table, every morning to put several pieces of 
