dko. 15, im.] 
FORE ST AND STREAM. 
B09 
my own hunting camp and far away, whole banks of 
solid days and nights away from pain and thought and 
care. Just one moment! but it was priceless. Then, oh! 
that ligamentum patellae! Its torn and grieved | fibres 
protested, and with a sigh I adjusted my crutches and 
made my way back to the canoe. 
The morning after my arrival I was looking out upon 
the water when I saw a canoe round the point and 
approach the landing. Bow and stern paddle were mov- 
ing in pprfect form and time and, moreover, at a clipping 
pace. It was a pretty sight, of course. "Two old hands 
at the paddle hafts," said I to myself. Presently to my 
astonishment the tall and graceful young fellow in the 
bow whose stroke I had been admiring proved to be a tall 
and graceful young woman. Keeping full stroke till 
within little more than a canoe length of the landing, she 
laid the side of the canoe up to the plank as deftly and 
stepped out as readily and firmly as the best canoeman on 
Penobscot water could have done. I was not surprised 
after this to leara that this young Diana of the woods was 
one of the best fly-fishermen anywhere to be found, nor, 
later, through the columns of the Boston Herald— that 
she had distinguished herself by bringing down a good 
deer to her own rifle. Her name was given there and she 
must forgive me for recording it here. She is Miss Flor- 
ence Plaisted of Bangor. I was the less surprised at her 
success with the rifle, though this is her first year of prac- 
tice, after seeing some quite astonishing targets she made 
with a fine-shooting .22cal. Marlin while I was there. I 
wish that to scores of ladies whom I know could come 
some appreciation of, and then the opportunity to enjoy, 
the fine freedom and exhilaration which Miss Plaisted has 
the great good sense to take among the woods and lakes 
of her native State. She is a good object lesson to illus- 
trate your recent editorial entitled "Woman Out of 
Doors," and as good sense increases, there shall be more 
like her. 
One day a man came in who reported something of 
great interest if true, viz., that he had trapped a wolf 
over near Willinocket some time before. The carcass 
was much decayed when he found it. Having had no 
experience with wolves he was not absolutely certain as 
to what he had caught. 
Telling an old hunter who had killed wolves in earlier 
days, that he had some queer creature in his trap, he led 
him to it. The hunter instantly pronounced it a wolf. I 
advised the man by all means to save the skull, which he 
promised to do. 
Later a report came that two wolves had been seen in 
the neighborhood of the Jo Merry Lakes. 
It goes without saying that if the long expected and 
predicted return of the wolves to Maine has begun, sharp 
work by the Legislature in the matter of placing bounties 
on them will be in order if the present wonderful abund- 
ance of deer is to be preserved. With this next Legisla- 
ture also rests the duty of the reenactment of the law 
against the killing of cow moose which, it is said by sheer 
inadvertance. has been allowed lapse. This most un- 
fortunate affair has cost the State already what it will 
take years to regain. 
So far as I could learn, no thought of the future has 
staid the trigger finger of any man who caught sight of a 
cow moose this year in Maine. I know men who would 
not have shot a cow moose, but I fear not many such 
wera in the woods this year. 
One State Senator, Hon. Harrison Hume, has promised 
me his most earnest efforts at Augusta this year in 
securing the desired legislation. If every gentleman who 
hunts in Maine and desires the preservation of the moose 
will make it his business to see or communicate with some 
one of the members of the next Legislature on this matter 
we shall have a powerful aid to the cause. I am glad to 
say that many of the Boston papers are good in this mat- 
ter. The Herald has published many columns of reports 
and vigorous and well-directed editorials upon the sub- 
ject. 
Now that I am actually writing to Forest and Stream 
again there is a great temptation to touch on many points 
and to ask many questions not all connected with affairs 
in Maine. One is the wild pigeon question. By all means 
let us have reports from every one who has seen any of 
these birds of late, in any part of the country, and let us 
be assured that mourning doves are not mistaken for 
pigeons. In my boyhood these beautiful birds had ceased 
to be abundant in New England, but were not infre- 
quently seen in small flocks. Later, in Illinois, I shot 
many and saw their annual migration in such numbers 
as now seem fabulous, and were, even to those most 
familiar with the facts, always amazing and impressive. 
The last wild pigeons I have seen were three individuals, 
four years ago, flying over an old field in northern Ala- 
bama. 
There were rumors of late of a small pigeon roost some- 
where in the Ozark Mountains. Cannot some one report 
for that region? Will not "Texas Field," also, whose let- 
ters I enjoy so much, expand his recent statement, viz., 
that "The Texas pigeon shooting is something nice," and 
that he would "guarantee.rare sport to any visiting sports- 
men?" 
I want to thank Mr. A. N. Cheney for his recent re- 
marks on the "black bass craze" and the folly of stocking 
certain waters with these fish. Experience in Maine 
would illustrate and add emphasis to all he said. Every 
year narrows the area of undisputed trout water and 
marks the destructive advance of bass and pickerel. Up 
the streams they go, and over low carries at flood time 
and, as Mr. Cheney says, once in they can never be got- 
ten out. 
Let me not close even this long letter without an item 
which I think will interest many, viz., the formation of a 
club for the especial purpose of opening up a new route 
to the sumarit of Katahdin (or as I suppose we should 
spell it "Ktaadn"), and for the more careful study of the 
topography, the fauna and flora of the mountain and its 
immediate vicinity, its legends and history and the pre- 
servation of its game and most important objects of 
scenic interest.', The Ktaadn Club will have its head- 
quarters in Bangor, but will have a permanent camp at 
the base of the mountain. Its founder is a well-known 
and public-spirited Bangor gentleman— Dr. Hamlin. To 
its associate membership will be welcomed gentlemen 
from other parts of the country who appreciate the pur- 
poses of the club and are willing to contribute in at least 
a small way to its work. The movement is certainly an 
admirable one, and I hope to report good things of it later 
on. C. H. Ames. 
DOWN IN THE MARSH. 
Darkness and quiet had fallen upon the camp, but not 
complete silence. From the tent the heavy breathing of 
my companion, who, rolled in his blankets, gave out an 
occasional snore ending with a snort (you have all heard 
it), the plunge of a muskrat or the quack of a belated 
mallard, these with the chattering of my friends the owls 
and the whistle of a coon, borne across the marsh by the 
light wind, were the sounds that pleasantly disturb the 
night, as with my pipe I sit by the dying embers of the 
camp-fire. The beauty of the night and of my surround- 
ings bring to mind the pleasant memory of days and 
nights spent here in the past, which have been among the 
happiest of my life. 
In the fall of 1865 I first camped here with an old 
hunter and trapper. Never since then have I seen that 
man's equal with a rifle. He used to shoot a heavy muz- 
zle-loading, double-barrel of about .32cal., and looked 
with disdain on any one who used a "scatter-gun." He 
killed all his game with the rifle, thought nothing of 
shooting off pheasants' heads, beheading ducks by the 
neck, and shooting geese on the wing was a mere pastime. 
I have seen him stand about 20yds. from a board fence 
and shoot at a nail, driving it through the board, and then 
putting a bullet from the other barrel through the same 
hole. At one time he wanted to see me shoot my rifle, 'a 
Maynard, by the way, that I was quite proud of. Making 
a small blaze on a tree about 50yds. away, I shot at it, 
striking about 2in. to the right and making a small scar 
on the tree, I shot again, but this time missed the tree, 
much to my chagrin. He then shot with his rifle and as 
I supposed missed, and again with the same result. I 
thought I had the laugh on him sure, but taking his ax 
he went to the tree and chopped out his two bullets piled 
in behind mine. He had shot at my bullet hole instead 
of the mark. [Here the owls made an awful noise, but 
it's true, every word of it.] As good a canoeman as I 
ever saw, and a first-class trapper, he caught that fall, 
with my slight assistance, a lot of fur that would be an 
eye-opener in these days, including principally, otter, 
beaver, foxes, wildcat, coon, mink, etc. I was with him 
about two months, and the fur caught during that time 
netted over $300. Our only other companion was a 
hound, whose never-failing qualities as a trailer came in 
handy several times when some animal would take to the 
woods with the trap. 
Circumstances were such that for three years following 
the events just narrated I could not visit my old stamping 
ground; but in '69 I was there again and have camped in 
the same vicinity every year since; and although in the 
meantime I have hunted and pitched my tent in many 
wild and pleasant places, notably in northern Minnesota, 
Dakota, Montana and Oregon, there is yet a charm about 
the woods and the marsh of which we know every tree 
and bog that will never wear away. 
They may cut down the timber, 
Drain the land if they will, 
But the old smell of woods and bog 
"Will hang round it still." 
The owls are still chattering away. (These fellows must 
have a language of their own.) The fire is getting low, 
my pipe is out and a suspicious cool wind is beginning to 
sway the treetops; and rising to my feet I observe, "Ah, 
a change; a norther is on. That means business to-mor- 
row. Turn in." Wapahasa. 
Wabasha, Minn. 
A USEFUL BIRD BOOK. 
The value of a natural history museum depends less on 
the number and completeness of its collections than on 
the manner in which these collections are arranged and 
described. In other words, such a museum is useful just 
in so far as it conveys to the public a knowledge of the 
collections exhibited there. It should not be a mere curi- 
osity shop which people visit in order that they may be 
astonished, but a place where natural objects are gathered 
together and set in order, so that visitors may take in 
through the eye information which can be acquired only 
with difficulty, and very slowly by reading. It is within 
comparatively few years only that the importance of 
properly labeling museum specimens has been appreciated 
and acted on. Formerly a collection was thought to be 
labeled when each specimen had attached to it a card, 
which bore its Latin name. But the casual visitor who 
reads a label like this — 
Ay thy a vallisneria (Wils.). 9 
North America at large. 
certainly carries away with him no very useful informa- 
tion. He sees a duck which is said to be an inhabitant of 
America, but he has always known that there are ducks 
in America, and he passes on without having added at all 
to his knowledge. 
It is a great thing for the increase of popular knowledge 
on natural history subjects that the matter of telling 
people what the specimens exhibited are is now receiving 
attention. In some collections each label contains, 
besides the name, the locality and sex, some salient fact 
about the specimen, something which the visitor may be 
struck with, and which he will carry away with him, 
which he will not only remember, but will remember in 
connection with the name and the appearance of the 
specimen to which the card belongs. A publication in- 
tended to do just this is the "Visitors' Guide to the Col- 
lection of Birds Found Within Fifty Miles of New York 
City," which has been issued recently by the American 
Museum of Natural History at Central Park. It is pre- 
pared by Mr. Frank M. Chapman, assistant curator of the 
Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology of the 
Museum, and is a most creditable production. This 
Guide is intended to accompany and give facts about a 
collection of birds formed especially to aid students of 
ornithology who wish to identify birds found near New 
York city. With few exceptions all the birds contained 
in it were collected within fifty miles of New York, and 
species of which individuals have not yet been obtained 
within those limits are for the present represented by speci- 
mens taken from the general North American collection. 
Stragglers and accidentals are wisely excluded from the 
collection. With the Guide in his hand the student need 
have no difficulty in identifying every species in the col- 
lection. 
The situation of New York is such as to give it a very 
large representationfof bird life. Mr. Chapman puts the 
case forcibly in his introduction when he says: 
' 'The region embraced within our limit possesses natural 
advantages calculated to attract a great number of birds. 
Our sea coast, with its sandy beaches and shallow bays; 
our rivers, creeks and ponds, with their surrounding 
grassy marshes; our wooded hillsides and valleys, our 
rolling upland and fertile meadows, offer haunts suited 
to the wants of most birds. Again our coast line and the 
Hudson River Valley form natural highways of emigra- 
tion regularly followed by birds in their journey to and 
from their summer homes. 
"But the exceptionable abundance of birds in this vicin- 
ity is not due alone to the varied character of the country 
or to the fact that twice each year streams of migrants 
pass along our coasts and through our valleys. There are 
certain causes which tend to limit the ranges of animals. 
Chief among these is temperature. A study of the ranges 
and habitats of animals and plants shows that the bound- 
aries of the habitats of many species coincide with one 
another and also to a greater or less extent with lines of 
equal temperature. The ranges of these species being thus 
governed by natural causes are taken as indices of the 
limits of faunas or natural life areas. The lines between 
these faunas cannot of course be sharply drawn. The 
change from one to another is gradual, and thus between 
the two a neutral strip exists in which will be found 
species characteristic of each. Just such a condition is 
found in this vicinity; the northern boundary of the 
Carolinian fauna overlapping the southern boundary of |the 
Alleghanian fauna in the valleys of the Delaware, Hud- 
son and Connecticut. In other words, we have here on 
the one hand a number of birds which are found no fur- 
ther north and on the other certain species which are found 
no further south. That is,in the breeding season ; for among 
birds only the nesting ranges are of value in determining 
the boundaries of faunas." 
Thus we find in northern New Jersey and southern 
New York and Connecticut, an unusually numerous 
avifauna, the total fist of species found within 50 miles of 
New York numbering 348, summarized as follows: Per- 
manent residents 35, summer residents 92, summer visi- 
tants 18, winter residents 36, winter visitants 16, regular 
transient visitants 82, irregular transient visitants 30, ac- 
cidental visitants 39. 
The material on which is based the annotated list 
which is so valuable a part of the Guide, comes from 
three sources: (1) previously published records, (2) the 
author's observations near Englewood, New Jersey, which 
cover about ten years of intermittent study, and (3) the 
observations of Mr. William Dutcher, whose careful, 
painstaking and valuable work on Long Island birds is so 
well known to all ornithologists. 
The Guide is beautifully illustrated, in part by line 
cuts, chiefly of heads and single figures, which appeared 
in Coues's "Key to North American Birds," and by several 
full-page half-tone illustrations taken from Dr. Shufeldt's 
recent work on "Scientific Taxidermy." The latter are 
photographs of the beautiful bird groups in the American 
Museum, which are marvels of truthfulness to nature, 
both as regards excellence of taxidermy and faithfulness 
of accessories. 
The young student of our birds cannot better employ 
his time for a week or two than by going over this local 
collection with this 1 Guide' in his hand. He can there 
learn in an hour what might take him many months of 
hard work to acquire in the field or the closet. Mr. Chap- 
man has performed a useful service for the ornithology of 
this locality. 
What was this Owl? And what this Bear? 
Hushfuckany, Miss., Nov. 26.— I have just finished Mr. 
Hough's very interesting article in the last impression of 
Forest and Stream. I wish to add some testimony of 
my own, relative to the undescribed fera and avi-fauna 
of our country. I am convinced that there exists an un- 
described species of owl in the great cypress brakes of 
Louisiana and Mississippi. I have shot and hunted in 
these forest fastnesses for the past thirty years, and three 
or four times I have met with the species of owl I am 
about to describe. It is not unlike the great horned owl 
in appearance, but it is much larger, and more powerful. 
I have seen this bird dash into a flock of mallards at sun- 
set, and carry off a big drake with as much ease as the 
ordinary owl would capture a sparrow. 
The only one I ever saw dead was killed by a comrade, 
in the late twilight. It was heavily eared and marked 
somewhat like the B. virginianus, but it was much 
darker in coloring, and measured 6ft. lOin. from tip to 
tip in expanse of wings. Every Louisiana duck hunter 
knows of this bird, and I should be glad to know really 
what it is. It is never seen about the plantations, but 
lives in the densest of the great cypress forests of the 
State mentioned. 
Then, too, I believe we have in the far South three 
kinds of bears. The first is the big black bear; I saw one 
killed three years ago that weighed nearly 800lbs. on a 
pair of accurate cotton scales — scales for weighing cotton 
bales. It always has a white horseshoe mark on the 
breast. The second bear is the ordinary brown, which 
is common in all the country from Maine to Louisiana. 
It seldom weighs over 3001bs. The third bear is red in 
color like a eteer; long, slender, takes to the water like 
an otter; can swim quite as well, and will tire out the 
best pack of dogs that ever ran. It never lives out of the 
great swamps and weighs from 250 to 3001bs. 
This bear is utterly unlike any of its kind in many 
respects, varying enough to make me think it is a new 
species or the common brown bear modified and changed 
by its environment. If the modern naturalist could be 
induced to leave his study and do as Audubon, Wilson 
and other great hunter-naturalists did, it would be greatly 
to the benefit of science and add very much ^to our present 
