Nov. 10, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
399 
throughout the country, and should be well observed by 
all classes. Not that the planting of a few dozen trees 
here and there will in itself amount to much, but it incul- 
cates in the minds of the people, especially the younger 
portion, grand ideas of the beauty and value of trees, 
winch will in after years be of great advantage to them- 
selves and to the country at large. Let us take any farm; 
what a resource it is to the owner if there is a good-sized 
tract of timber on it. That seems to give a substantial 
look to the premises; even if the buildings and fences are 
poor; somehow a good wood lot seems to compensate in a 
great degree for their dilapidated look. There is consider- 
able land on most farms such as steep hillsides, gullies 
and the like, that often look unsightly, and are of no real 
value, which, if clothed with trees, young or old, would 
certainly beautify the farm, besides being a source of 
profit to its owner. Then take any large tract of land; if 
it is well timbered we ail know how much the landscape 
is beautified, and also what an improvement it is to the 
general face of the country around. I think the Druids 
in olden times had an eye to the beautiful in nature when 
they performed their rites and ceremonies beneath the 
branches of some venerable oak; for to many persons, as 
well as myself, one of the most pleasing objects in nature 
is a gigantic oak. It is something that scarcely any one 
will pass by without admiring, for we are all alike then, 
and the same may be said of any pother sound, well-pro- 
portioned tree, be it in the open land or forest. L?t any 
one of us go through a noble old forest; a certain inde- 
scribable, feeling comes over him; it might be called a 
slight feeling of awe mingled with admiration, something 
akin to that which one experiences when in the vicinity 
of mountains, cataracts and other grand objects of 
nature. It is not an unpleasant sensation by any means, 
as we all know, and that is the reason why communing 
with our great mother in her woodland haunts is so de- 
lightful to her human children. 
Now, let the Legislature and the people heartily join 
hands in preserving our forest lands and increasing their 
areas when necessary, for such work as that would be a 
lasting benefit to the people throughout the country. 
. A. L. L. 
CUBAN SHOOTING. 
Shoo .ing in Cuba must be enjoyed under conditions 
which to any but a sportsman who loves his pastime 
would be unbearable. In the first place, the system of 
licenses is in Cuba a nuisance in every form of business 
or of pleasure you may undertake. From a cock fi^ht to 
the leaving of the island in a perfectly legitimate manner, 
licenses and spscial permissions must be obtained, and 
invariably thay are presented to you in any quantity of 
tape. I found that any shooting license obtained in 
Havana gave me no more protection than none at all. I 
was stopped on several occasions by the soldiers and 
escorted a mile or more to an outpost, where a captain 
who murdered English politely informed me that it was 
all right, that he would have come out after me but he 
found it best to rest after dinner. Then he beamed upon 
me, offered a cigar and went to sleep. I afterward found 
that if your gun is heard at a fort, soldiers are sent to 
bring you in so as to be sure you are not rescuing the 
island from the august hand of Her Majesty the Queen of 
Spain; and thereafter I saw to it that the soldiers invari- 
ably returned without finding me and with something 
more than air in the pocket. 
I found very good shooting in the region about Cai- 
barean. which is a seaport town, two and one-half days 
away from Havana. Immediately outside the town lay 
tremendous swamps, nasty to walk around in, but the 
roosting place of bird creation. Parrots, pigeons, flamin- 
goes, guinea hens and birds of names I know not, all are 
there in great numbers. Also a not so desirable element 
is to be found in the presence of young alligators and 
snakes. The alligators are not much to be feared, as only 
on the large rivers do they attain large size. But the 
snakes — I saw great and weird scenes in the swamps in 
which they played prominent parts. I have the skin of 
one before me now which I got last winter. He looked 
to be 38ft. several inches when I saw him, but quiet con- 
templation, tanning and shrinkage brings the figure to 
12 ft. aj-in. without head or tail. 
Likewise horrible spidery crabs would flop over me and 
remind me that it was time dinner was ready and time to 
go home. But mud and rough country, snakes, crabs 
tarantulas, scorpions and all the rest sink into nothing- 
ness when you stroll into town muddy and nasty looking 
with a string ol forty or more birds. Small boys then are 
much in evidence, and the fair sex gaze enraptured at 
you and your boots. Then the crowd pull over the birds 
when the hotel is reached. An evening at the American 
Consuls office recounting the day's joys. 
All in all in Cuba there is much sport for the gunner. 
Remember that while snow is thick in the North here 
you may have shooting galore, 1,200 miles away 'from 
JNew York and amid tropical surroundings of beauty and 
grandeur. J 
The man who is weary of commonplace life and wishes 
for the hereafter, should take a Spanish dictionary, gun 
and traps to Cuba for one winter, and if after being com- 
pelled to send to the American Consul's office for an in- 
terpreter to explain that you don't drink coffee in the 
morning and being comfortably started off by train to 
iiavana by the obliging station agent when you wanted 
to reach the other end of the island— if then one does not 
find himself compelled to gird up his loins and take an 
interest in living he will have to die; for the Cuban wots 
little ot the school-learnt Spanish and the desires of the 
Northern mangier of his native tongue. 
Robert Philip Froelich. 
Colorado Game. 
Berthoud Colo., Oct. 27.-Duck hunting is very good 
here now, My son has a small lake that he has leased to 
some Denver sportsmen; and they come up here once or 
twice each week and usually get a nice string of about 
twenty ducks each, mostly mallards. No geese are alight- 
ing yet; some flying. Quail are on the increase under pro- 
tection. I have a number of coveys on my place now 
where two years ago there was not a quail. A friend of 
mine just returned from a hunting trip to Steamboat 
bpnngs, Colo., found deer quite plenty and had erood 
success and a grand good time. My son just returned 
from my sheep xanch in Morgan Co., reports antelope 
quite numerous. I am going down in a few days and I 
want one. A, A. I^nott, 
BREEDING HABITS OF KING PENGUIN. 
In Bulletin No. 2 of the United States National Museum 
(p. 41) Dr. J. H. Kidder mentions a curious habit of the 
king penguin (Aptenodytes longirostris) upon the author- 
ity of Captain Joseph J. Fuller. He says: "Captain Ful- 
ler, of the schooner Roswell King, informs me * * * 
that they [the king penguins] build no nests whatever, 
carrying the egg about in a pouch between the legs, and 
only laying it down for the purpose of changing it from 
male to female." 
This Bulletin No. 2 was printed in 1875. In 1891 I had 
the good fortune to meet this same Captain Joseph J. 
Fuller, then about to sail for the Antarctic as master of 
the sealing schooner Francis Allyn. After some experi- 
menting with cameras to find one best suited to the bad 
conditions of the Antarctic, we found a camera combin- 
ing the essential virtues and agreed that one principal 
point to settle, should be this one as to the egg-carrying 
habits of the penguins. If possible a king penguin was 
to be photographed so as to show the egg in position in 
the sac. Captain Fuller told me he felt sure he could 
manage the camera, which was fitted with a roll holder 
and films, but greatly feared the dark and foggy weather 
prevailing would hinder the best results. 
About ten months later I received four rolls of films by 
schooner from St. Helena, where the Francis Allyn had 
If the accompanying drawing should be held to have 
settled this question, I shall hope to be allowed to convey 
the information to Captain Fuller, who is at present pur- 
suing his isolated, arduous life among the seals, and to 
whom the credit should belong. I myself am entirely 
convinced from the development of my plate, that the 
case is proved beyond any question.— R, G. Hazard in 
the Auk. 
Color Variations of the Gray Squirrel. 
The exhibition of two distinct color varieties (often in 
the same nest) by a single species, as seen in the cases of 
the gray squirrel (Seiurus carolinensis [Gmelin] Allen) 
and the screech owl, HI, asio (L.) is an interesting fact, 
When, in addition, as in the case of the gray squirrel, one 
variety (the black) seems to have been the original one in 
certain localities, and to be giving place slowly but surely 
to the other variety, the fact becomes still more interest- 
ing. 
I have been told by old hunters that the black variety, 
they had heard, was quite common 100 years ago in some 
parts of Connecticut, but that for the last fifty or sixty 
years they had been practically extinct. So, too, in east- 
ern New York, a friend of mine who had hunted squirrels 
for years in Rensselaer county, told me some fifteen years 
ag > that he had never shot a black one, nor seen one in 
the woods, though years before that they had been quite 
common. 
In the "Vertebrates of the Adirondack Region" Dr. 
Merriam says of the gray squirrel: ' 'Fifteen years ago the 
two forms were about equally abundant along the western 
KING PESGCO (Aptenolytes longirostris). 
From the October Aufc. 
transhipped her catch of skins. They were Eastman films 
and many were excellent, especially such as had been ex- 
posed in sunlight at Cape Town, St. Helena, and Tristan 
d'Acunha. But the special efforts to photograph seals, 
sea elephants, penguins of all degrees, skuas (Buphagus 
skua antarcticus), Johnny rooks (Senex australis), 
sheath-bills (Chionis minor), and many another strange 
and interesting denizen of that comfortless Antarctic 
region were all failures, in part at least. The weather 
was no doubt largely responsible for this, and in many 
cases there was barely light enough to show a horizon 
line. The large percentage of failures was relieved 
by the fact that some of the best and most decipher- 
able among them bore precisely upon the point stated 
by Dr. Kidder upon the authority of Captain Fuller. The 
photograph from which Mr. E. Whitney Blake has kindly 
made a careful scale drawing now reproduced, was one 
of the best of three, all meant to show the egg in the 
pouch. All three were taken on Kerguelen's Island during 
January, 1894, at which time the whole "rookery" of 
penguins was incubating. While the sailors caught the 
birds, then not a hard ta3k, Captain Fuller photographed 
them, and while very bad photographically, it is possible 
to decipher at least one of them, as I think the drawing 
proves. A careful inspection of the original shows the 
Urger end of the egg, which barely projects from the ex- 
ternal sac, which holds it firmly between the thighs of 
the bird, a king penguin. The bird reclines in its position 
in the sailor's arms, while his finger holds the egg 
securely, to prevent the bird dropping it. The soles of 
the penguin's feet, if one may so speak, are turned up 
toward the camera, and are clearly defined against the 
breast. Mr. Blake's drawing shows all this and more. 
The penguins, as shown in the photograph, stand dis- 
mally in pessimistic attitudes, scornful and disgusted at 
the intrusion, highly disapproving and indignant over the 
oucrage with the camera. They seem to be wondering 
over the strange times on which they have fallen. 
Upon Captain Fuller's return, nearly eighteen months 
after his departure, he brought me a most interesting 
mass of material, including a fine series of the eggs of 
Chionis minor, with skins of this singular bird, which is 
neither pigeon nor gull, yet partakes of the nature of 
each. He also secured eggs of the southern skua (Bupha- 
gus skua antarcticus), wandering albatross (Diomedea 
exulans) and. others, aUof which J retain in my cabinet, 
border of the region under consideration ; but the black 
has gradually become less and less common, till now it 
may almost be regarded as one of our rarer mammals. 
However, it is still abundant in a number of places bor- 
dering Lake Ontario, both in this State and in Canada." 
(Transactions of the Linnasan Society of New York. Vol. 
II., 1884, p. 134.) 
In regard to the western part of New York State Robert 
Munro, in "A Description of the Genesee Country," pub- 
lished in 1804, says: "Squirrels are so numerous in some 
years as considerably to injure corn; and upward of 2,000 
of them have sometimes been killed in a day, which is 
occasionally appointed for that purpose by the inhabitants; 
the most common kinds of them are the black and the 
red, the gray colored being very scarce." 
Old hunters at Le Roy, N. Y., some twelve miles west 
of the Genesee River, tell me that fifty or sixty years ago 
a gray squirrel was considered quite a prize there; not 
more than one gray to ten blacks being the ratio. To-day 
the ratio is more nearly thirty-five grays to one black. 
From my note book I find that during the seven years, 
1877-83 inclusive, out of one hundred and twenty-four 
squirrels observed twelve were black, or about 9f per 
cent. From 1884-90 inclusive, out of seventy-nine ob- 
served two were black, or about 2i per cent. These were 
all observed within ten miles of Le Roy, most of them 
within six miles. 
From my own experience and observation, extending 
over a period of about thirty years, it would seem that in 
the vicinity of Le Roy the gray form is replacing the 
black in a manner that may be compared to a wave 
advancing slowly from north to south. 
Thirty years ago the black form was probably nearly, 
if not quite, as numerous as the gray, from two to four 
miles north of Le Roy, and probably more numerous at 
the same distance south of that village. To-day the black 
is very rarely found north of Le Roy, and i3 slowly giving 
place on the south to the gray form. At a distance of 
twelve to fifteen miles south the ratio of blacks is higher 
and I understand increases as the Pennsylvania line is 
approached, a distance of some sixty miles. Of the four- 
teen blacks recorded in my note book, as above, only one 
I believe, was taken north of Le Roy. 
From the above facts it would seem that there must bo 
some reason for the displacement of the black form by 
the gray, and that is not entirely due to chance, or to a 
