64 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[July 25, 1896. 
MAN AND NATURE. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
My good and worthy brother, Ransacker, is much per- 
turbed in his mind. Verily, the shaft which Coahoma 
sent forth on a mission of mercy hath smitten brother 
Ransacker in a spot where his tender conscience was but 
thinly armored, and he equirmeth, even as the humble 
reptile which he so much revileth from his vantage 
ground of superior intellect, and power for good or evil. 
Behold, hatb he not rent his garment and cast dust upon 
his head? What shall I say therefore? Is it a small mat- 
ter that a man array himself against his brother and go up 
against him in wrath and bitterness of words? 
Nay, but a soft answer turneth away wrath, and I will 
even come bearing gifts and an olive branch in mine 
hand; for how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell 
together in unity. 
• And yet, without these friendly clashing of ideas we 
would all of us be the poorer; for flint to flint emits the 
spark, and new ideas are born of intellectual impacts. 
And thus have T profited by my friend's complainings of 
my ill usage of hioi. It is true that man must shape the 
destinies of all earth ly*creatures, including his own. But 
does not that suggest a weighty responsibility, and the 
necessity for much circumspection in wielding such 
power over helpless or dependent fellc w mirtals? 
Truly "we grope," as Ransacker wisely says, we are 
very much in the dark as regards our moral duty in the 
premises. And yet there are certain general guides 
which we may seek out and follow; and our discernment 
of thefe guides and proper application of them mark 
our progress in the grand procession to higher planes of 
mundane development, which we have been treading for 
countless ages in nature's wonderful drama — an endless 
procession in an endl^^ss drama, at the head of which 
man. by his superior development, enjoys the high dis- 
tinction of being placed by nature. 
Now what guide shall we follow in wielding such des- 
potic power over the manifold forms of living and sen- 
tient beings which we tind in such lavish profusion 
around us — fellow travelers in a voyage, the import of 
which we may well believe they have no comprehension 
— a mystery of which we ourselves can form but nebulous 
conceptions? We now know that we and they all belong 
to the same great family, all are children of the same 
prolific mother— good Dame Nature. We know that we 
were once as they are in mental limitations, and have 
gradually outstripped them in the march, by what means 
it hoots not here to inquire. 
We also know that the natural propensity of the mere 
animal is to slay, to destroy. We know that the nearer 
man dates back to the mere animal; the more prone he is 
to obey this natural instinct, born of'"the struggle for 
life," to slay and destroy. We know that selfishness is 
the natural attribute of the brute, and the unnatural 
attribute of the brutish man, the more brutish the more 
selfish, and whatevt^r shadowings of the divine have been 
evolved in man's higher nature are accurately measured 
by the degree of unselfishness implanted therein, a quality 
which marks our nearer attainment to that ultimate goal 
toward which man's destiny must lead. 
But it may be accepted as axiomatic truth, that man's 
progress shall not be hindered by too great refinement of 
our sense of justice toward the lower order of animal 
existences. We might even go so far as to presume that 
the very purpose of these existences has reference only to 
the fulfillment of man's superior d^-stiny ; a position, how- 
ever, which some philosophers disallow, and their view 
seems strengthened by the consideration that there are so 
many forms of life between whom and man is no dis- 
cernible relationship except in conflict of interests. Such 
a presumption would seem to be the result of a circum- 
scribed conception of nature's great schemes. 
We may very properly, however, upon logical grounds, 
by analogy of reasoning upon nature's fundamental law 
of the "survival of the fittest," assume the right, or obli- 
gation, if you will, to remove from our path whatever 
obstacles may tend to hii:der the grand march of nature's 
highest creature in this small globe of ours toward the 
ultimate goal of our development. 
But while we are safe in going thus far, let us not use 
this power wantonly, but with extreme circumspection. 
It is safest to slay only when we know we are justified in 
killing an enemy. When we go beyond our own personal 
or racial interests, by what authority shall we assume to 
be the arbiters between nature's childrpn? Have we the 
knowledge to justify ourselves in assuming this high 
province? 
I opine to the contrary. 
We know that rabbits were introduced into Australia 
by man's contrivance, thereby disturbing nature's equili- 
britmi, and with dire results to man's interests. The same 
observation will apply to the introduction of the English 
sparrow into America, as well as to the introduction of 
certain apparently insignificant insects into the vin elands 
of California. 
Verily, brethren, it behooveth ua to be cautious and 
modest in asserting our sup rior powers in nature's do- 
main — even for purely selfish considerations — without in- 
voking more exalted motivee, lest peradventure our 
thoughtless temerity shall be our own undoing. 
Now, friend Ransacker may be tempted to say, in the 
language of "Pinafore," 
""Though I am by no means clever, 
;. I could talk like that forever." 
And doubtless he*could, or even a great deal better. 
But then, brother Ransacker, perhaps everybody cannot 
talk as you and I can, and mayhap these observations 
shall awaken reflections in the minds of some who would 
not otherwise have given a thought to the subject. There 
are so many people who would be so good it they were 
not so thoughtless! 
But every moral dissertation should end with a moral, 
which in the present case I will try to define in condensed 
form, as follows: (1) Do not inflict needless suffering on 
any creature. (Apropos, you who ar« given to driving 
high-headed horses, release the check rein when your 
horse is standing. The neglect of this simple demand 
upon your consideration for the comfort of your beast is 
a. crying evil, and shortens the period of your horse's use- 
fulness.) (3) Do not kill any creature unless you feel well 
assured that man's higher interests demand such sacrifice 
of a life which you can easily destroy, but which the wis- 
est man can never restore, CQAWMA. 
The Weasels of Tforth America. 
Under the title "North American Fauna" the Biolog- 
ical Survey of the Department of Agriculture has for sev- 
eral years been sending out a number of interesting scien- 
tific papers. The last of these, No. 11, was published on 
June BO, 1896, and has rencntly reached ua. It is a Syn- 
opsis of the Weasels of North America, by Dr. C Hart 
Merriam, Chief of the Division, and includes the one fer- 
ret and all of the weasela yet discovered in North Amer- 
ica north of Panama. No less than twenty-two species 
and subspecies of true weasels are here recognized, eleven 
of which are now described for the first time. The ferret 
is the well-known black-footed ferret, originally de- 
scribed by Audubon and Bacheman, then lost for a time, 
and afterward rediscovered. Its habitat is the plains of 
the West from western North Dakota and northern Mon- 
tana south to Texas. It is about the sizo of the mink. 
All our other weasels are included by Dr. Merriam under 
the subgenus Ictis. They are widely distributed and are 
a useful group of mammals, for they prey to a very con- 
siderable extent on field miqe and other small rodents 
which do great injury to the farmers' crops. Of course 
in addition to this they kill some useful birds, and in the 
neighborhood of houses they sometimes destroy poultry, 
but on the whole it is probable that the good whiph they 
do far outweighs the bad. 
Besides numerous cuts of skulls found with the text, 
there are five full-page plates of skulls and jaws of differ- 
ent species of weasels, and in addition there is a frontis- 
piece giving in heliotype illustration heads of the bridled 
weasel and black-footed ferret. 
Some Montana Birds. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
On Oct. 2. 1895, while riding through the northern por- 
tion of the Little Rocky Mountains in Montana, near the 
southern border line of the Fort Belknap Indian Reserva- 
tion, and only two or three miles from the St. Paul Mis- 
sion, I saw on Peoples Creek two specimens of the dipper 
{Cindus americanus), 
I cannot recall that fever recognized this species further 
east than this point in northern Montana, though a good . 
many years ago I reported it from the Black Hills of 
Wyoming, and it occurs in the Powder River region in 
Montana as well. 
In the aututzin of 1890, in the St. Mary's Lake region, 
while ascending Cataract Creek, the principal branch of 
the Swift Current River, a tributary of the St. Mary's 
River from the northeast, I saw a young specimen of the 
varied thrush {Txirdus ncevius). It was snowing at the 
time, and the bird was so little shy that it permitted me 
to ride almost directly under it, so that it was not more 
than 3 or 4yd8. from me when I stopped and looked at it 
for a considerable space of time. There is no question as 
to the identification, although, not having a shotgun with 
me, I did not attempt to secure the bird. During this 
same trip I frequently saw small flocks of the western 
form of the Hudsonian titmouse (Parus Jiudsonicus colum- 
bianus), which were extremely common among the pine 
forests of the region. Geoege Bied Gkinnell. 
The Copperhead. 
Eagle Rock, Ta..— Editor Forest and Stream: The 
copperhead of Missouri, as described by Aztec in Foeest 
AND Stream of July 11, must be a different snake from 
that of the Allegheny Valley, While the general mark- 
ing of the snake resembles that of the rattler, the colors 
are much darker, being a dirty brown marked with spots 
of a lighter shade of the same color; no yellow color as in 
the rattler. The triangular-shaped head is a distinctive 
characteristic of this snake. 
They, aa well as the rattlesnakes, are quite numerous in 
this section. One was killed by the section men on the 
railroad near here last week. A man was bitten in the 
arm a few years ago near here while cutting weeds along 
the railroad track. His life was saved by the application 
of the flesh of freshly killed chickens and the use of 
whisky as a stimulant, but his arm was badly crippled 
and broke out in running sores a year after he was bitten. 
They are found near the stream where it is both wet and 
rocky, and also on the islands in the river, under slabs 
and logs on which they can crawl out to sun themselves. 
They are never found upon the ridges where the rattlers 
are generally met with. They are more feared than the 
rattler, principally because they give no warning of their 
presence, but strike on sight. They are not nearly so 
quick in their actions as the rattler. Mo, 
A I<ynx Family. 
Lowell, Me.. July 13.— Since I was at the Sportsmen's 
Exposition in New York I have been under cover most of 
the time, with two months in the hospital, and am under 
the doctor's hands now. I am improving slowly, and 
hope to be at my camp by the open season for game. 
The prospect of big game never has been better for 
years, I sent my grandson, N. C. Fogg and M. Stubbs 
up to my camps some three weeks ago, to make some im- 
provements; they have returned and report moose signs 
plenty. They saw two feeding between sunset and dark 
in the water within easy range from the camp door. 
Wm. Staples, an old trapper, who is stopping at my camp 
to watch the dams that are full of water, caught three 
bears. My grandson set a trap and caught a large bear. 
When he and Mr. Staples came out last week they came 
down the stream in a canoe to the main road, and on 
their way, while passing through some wide dead water, 
they saw a Canada lynx with one young one crossing in 
front of them. The men paddled up to them and the 
lynx showed fight. They had nothing to capture them 
with but bare hands, and let them go ashore. As soon as 
they landed the little one scrambled up a tree. They saw 
two more small ones on the opposite side, and the old one 
was calling to them. The men paddled over to where 
they were, and the little fellows went up a tree like a 
squirrel. J. Dahling, 
Tornadoes and Cyclones. 
These phenomena are entirely dissimilar in their mani- 
festations. The terms are now generally used erroneously 
by the press, 
The tornado is a sudden outburst of wind in an other- 
wise quiet, sultry atmosphere; it is ushered in by a loud, 
indescribable roar, similar to a continuous roll of thunder; 
its path k very oarrow^^eeidom uioye thm 500fp, wide at 
greatest destruction; it moves generally from southwest 
to northeast, and rarely extends more than twenty miles; 
it very often rises in the air, to descend again at a point a 
few miles ahead; it is always accompanied by thunder- 
storms, with often a bright glow in the cloud; this cloud 
has usually a funnel shape, which appears to be whirling, 
though some observers have described its appearance like 
that of a huge ball rolling forward. A tornado may be 
considered as the result of an exteme development of con- 
ditions which otherwise produce thunderstorms. 
A cyclone, on the other J and, is a very broad storm, 
oftentimes 1,000 miles in diameter, and sometimes can be 
followed half around the world; the winds circulate about 
it from right to left, or the way one turns clock hands 
backward (in the Southern Hemisphere this motion is 
reversed). The air pressure always falls as one approaches 
the center, where, at sea, there is a portentous calm, with 
clear sky visible at times. The cyclone winds often rise 
to hurricane force, bat are not to be compared with the 
extreme violence of the tornado, before which the most 
solid structures are razed. 
The French term trombe or tourhillon describes almost 
exactly the tornado, which term was first applied to severe 
squalls, with funnel-shaped clouds, experienced on the 
west coast of Africa, and which to this day inspire the 
utmost fear in the minds of the natives. 
Willis L. Moore, Chief of Weather Bureau. 
A Playful Deer. 
De, H. J. Fredebice saw a pretty sight early one morn- 
ing a short time ago. He was on his way to Chelsea in 
his carriage, when he saw ahead a full-grown deer. The 
deer saw him and ran on ahead a way, then turned and 
looked back at the doctor. As the latter approached, he 
jumped a fence and kept on part way up a hill, again 
stopping, evidently filled with animal curiosity. Again 
he ran and then for the last time he stopped, his head 
just showing against the blue sky amid a field of daisies 
over the brow of the hill. He finally ran as deer usually 
do, and disappeared into a ravine, where he was lost to 
sight in the dense verdure. — Kennebec Journal, Augusta, 
Me., July 15. 
A Bull Caribou without Antlers. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Seeing in your columns accounts of bunk deer minus 
antlers I am emboldened to mention that a well-grown 
caribou without antlers was shot by me some ten or 
twelve years ago in Aroostook county. Me. The bull was 
well developed and normal except as above mentioned. 
The time of killing was in October. The skin on the 
skull was fully haired and not the least indentation of the 
bony process which supports antlers was discoverable. I 
have not before dared to put the fact in print, but the 
accounts of the hornless bucks lets me in. Pine Tree. 
[This note is extremely interesting. Will our corre- 
spondent give us a little more detail of the occurrence, 
What was the animal's age by teeth? Was it alone or 
with companions? If in company, of what sex were the 
others? What was the condition of the animal? Did it 
appear to have taken part in the rut?] 
Hornless Bucks. 
Lowell, Me.— I read in Forest and Stream about the 
hornless buck. Some ten years ago I killed in November 
an old buck that had no horns, but there were rough 
nubs that were just through the hair. I also saw another 
buck, killed at Pistol Lake, which we judged to be four 
or five years old and which had otraiaiit horra 1ft, long 
and large at the head. Jonathan Darling. 
>HttiB mid 0m 
THE HUNTING RIFLE. 
Washington, D. C, July 9 —Editor Forest and Stream: 
My letter in defense of Tiam, printed in your paper of 
Feb. 8, set a number of your correspondents to pitching 
into me; not because of my defense of Tiam — for no one 
seems to have found fault with that, nor indeed to have 
mentioned it, I believe, except Dick of Connecticut, who 
acknowledged that I was right in supposing that when he 
wrote his criticism of Tiam he had never hunted moose — 
but because I said I thought if people would learn to hunt 
and to shoot they would not need the large bored, heavily 
charged guns when lighter ones would do the work, giv- 
ing as an example my own experience of some years with 
a .44 40 Winchester. My idea is that good work is due 
more to the skill of the workman than to the quality of 
his tools, that a poor workman cannot do good work no 
matter what kind of tools he has, and that the man is a 
much more important factor in hunting than the gun. 
A majority of those who wrote about my views as to 
heavy guns disagreed with me, or rather said or thought 
that they disagreed with me. I put it this way because 
some of them misunderstood what I said and my position, 
A minority, composed of hunters some of whom could 
count their deer, etc., by the hundred, agreed with me 
that large calibers and heavy charges are not necessary 
for the kind of hunting I was writing about — moose 
hunting. I think a man should use a gun suited to the 
conditions surrounding his hunting and under which it is 
to be done, the kind of game he expects to kill , and his own 
ability and qualifications as a hunter and shot. The great 
bulk of our moose hunting is done in the Provinces of 
Ontario and Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and 
northern Maine. Very few moose are killed in these lo- 
calities at over SOOyds., probably a large majority at 1< ss 
than lOOyds'., so that the kind of gun needed differs from 
that required for open country long range shooting, such 
as may be had west of the Mississippi. I am not an ad- 
vocate of small bores; I shoot a .44cal. gun, which is 
only a hundredth of an inch smaller than the army 
Springfield, and large enough for any game found in the 
localities above named, 
A rifle is heavy or light according to its powder and 
lead, not the weight of material in stock and barrel. A 
.44 40 I call a light gun, a .45 90 or .50-110 a heavy one. 
When I wrote that "It would not occur to me to carry a 
.50-110 or even a ,45-90 for hunting. I might use such 
a gun at a 500 or 600yds. target match," I was on the gen- 
eral subject of light and heavy guns, and what I wrote 
meant that it would not occur to me to carry guns of 
mioh large caliber m .50, for ieet^nce, oy §|iOQtmg 89 oy 
