84 
[Jan. 80, 1897. 
pulled the trigger aa the crack of Tim's gun brought the 
young lady to the ground. 
"You missed entirely," said Tim, aa the smoke cleared 
away. 
"I did not." 
"Why, man, can't ye see thar's only one.hole?" 
"In the deer? Yes, but I've got a lion." * 
"The devil you have! "Where is he?" 
"Just up the trail " 
The Rocky Mnuntain terror was too badly injured to 
get up, but he clawed and spit most horribly as we ap- 
proached. Tim said that as he was my meat I should 
give him his cotip. This time I remembered to put in a 
cartridge. This lion incident raised me 50 per cent, in 
Tim's estimation, and he offered me a ranch as good as 
his own if I would only join him permanent! v. 
What a supper we had that night; what a breskfast in 
the morniDg, and with what glee Tim barnessed his 
mules for the last stage of the journey 1 It took but a 
short time to get over the divide, and then we swuug 
down the long caJajn of the upper San Francisco. The 
trail wormed in and out fso that we could see but a few 
rods ahead. Suddenly Tim reined in bis leaders. From 
far below came the sound of several men singing a wild 
cowboy song, Then we caught the refrain: . 
"She's a most attractive creature. 
She is knowJQ both near and far; 
An' she's called by those as love her 
The Eose of Rociy Bar." 
Tim seemed worried. 
"That's the M. J, outfit drivin' aoUt thar steers when 
thev orter be drivin' 'em in. I wonder what's up?" 
We were not kept in long suspense. Great, gaunt, 
■p^ide-horned Texans blocked our way. We halted for 
<hem to pass. The drivers did not wait to be inter- 
rogated. 
"Better turn back, Tim; the 'Paches hez broke out 
sgain. More'n likely they'll strike your ranch to-night. 
If you hurry you kin round up a few head, maybe, an' 
get out with them. We ain't got time ter stop," 
Ofl sped the mules down the canon at breakneck speed. 
If it had not been for the excitement I should have been 
terrified into jumping from my seat. 
"We can see the ranch from the next turn," said 
Tim, slackening pace as he spoke. "Good Godl what's 
that?" 
. The turn was made, but instead of cabin and stacks 
there was smoke and flame and the brutal yells of 
demonized savages. Tim grasped his field glass. 
"Ef it warn't fur you an' Cyntby I'd go daown an' 
fight them Injun devils. We can't turn 'raound bar, an' 
ef they see the wagon kiver we're gone. Take yer knife 
an' cut loose them leaders. Thar' used to ridin', both on 
em. Don't try to save the harness. Thar's a saddle in 
the back end. Git it. I kin ride bareback. Take yer 
gun an' fifty shells an' anything ye kin pack on ye. Be 
sprvl We ain't got no time ter lose." 
Even while he was talking it was done, and he and I 
were mounted, headed back on the Silver trail. Aa we 
started a louder shout proved that the wagon was discov- 
ered. Tim did not seem to care. He turned, shook his 
fi3t at the approaching Apaches; he was safe, for they 
were a full half mile away — and, for the first and only 
time in my acquaintance with him, I heard him utter a 
curse. Then we galloped back. Passing the cow 
punchers we gav«^ them the startling news, but did not 
pau=!6 to see its effect. On, on, on! Half an hour's rest 
at Oak Springs for the mules to water and get a bite, then 
boots and saddles again, back over the desert that we had 
traveled so j oyously the day before. It was in the gray 
of dawn that our steeds brought us into Silver. The 
news of the raid was before us. The whole camp was 
alarmed, and fugitives were constantly arriving from 
their herds or prospect holes, 
"Walt," said Tim, as we dismounted, "the stage is jest 
a-gnin'. She's full inside, but you kin climb on top. 
Thar naow, not a word! I'm a-goin' back tew save what 
I kin, I'll hev a hum fur Cynthy yet. Tell her—" A 
tear stood in his eye. "Tell Cynthy that I wuz powerful 
glad to see ye — powerful glad." 
One pressure of the hand and Tim had disappeared in 
the crowd as completely as though the ground had swal- 
lowed him. A whip crack! 1 was riding back to Deming, 
the railroad and civilization. Shoshone. 
AS IN THESE SIX STATES, SO THROUGHOUT 
THE UNION. 
From Indiana. 
I INCLOSE my check for another year's subscrip ion to Forbst and 
Steeam. Although a liille late, I bad no thought of not renewing; 
could not do without it. Fred Mather'.s ''Men I Have Fished With" 
has alone been worth the yearly subseripdon. John Q. Mott. 
From Ohio. 
Your cird oE 13Eh inst. advising me that my subscription to dear 
old FoBEST AND Stueam has expired is at hand. 1 am "chained to 
business," hence ain compelled to do. the next thing— read your 
delightful, entertsining and instructive journal. Push along exten- 
sion of Yellowstone National Park and send Forest and Stream with 
unfailing regularity, for which I inclose check for $4, 
Xi, B. Yaplb. 
From Kansas. 
As I get old the reading of your delightful paper grows more and 
more interesting. My children gave me for Ohristmas "Uncle 
Lisha's Shoj>" and "Sam Lovel's Camps," both of which I had read 
in Forest and Stream, but was glad to get ihem in book form. I 
wish I could thank Fred Mather for his late letters. They breathe 
the kindly spirit of fellowship. I love him for the friends he has 
iWade. O. B. Woodward. 
From New York. 
I inclose check for renewal of my subscription. To live without 
the weekly treat I get from this paper would be worse than to have 
to live on one meal a day. Jno. Boulton Simpson. 
From Maine. 
Inclosed I send check for $4 to renew my paper. This will make 
twenty years I have been a constant subscriber and reader of Forest 
AND Stream. T. H. Wyman. 
From Pennsylvania. 
Erie, Pa.- Inclosed please find $i for six months' subscription for 
the old paper. It's hard times, and I'm out of work; but I have 
taken and now have every number since 1880, F. 
BENDIRE'S LIFE HISTORIES OF N* A. 
BIRDS. 
Ornithologists everywhere have extended a hearty wel- 
come to the second volume of Major Bendire's great work, 
which appeared some little time ago. Yet it is not the 
ornithologists only, hut everyone who is interested in 
birds or in facts about natural history, who will wish to 
see this second part of the work. 
Like its predecessor, this second part is published as a 
Special Bulletin of the United States National Museum, 
and, like the first volume, it bears the title, "Life His- 
tories of North American Birds, with Special Reference 
to their Breeding Habits, Nests and Eggs." Of course, 
Ma jor Bendire is best known to a large section of the 
public as an oologist, but nowhere in this work has he 
confined himself to this branch of his subject. Instead of 
this he gives us life histories, and as a part of each life 
history has to do with the reproduction of the species, we 
are of course given a full account of the breeding habits, 
the home and the eggrs. 
The processes of reproduction, though they occupy only 
a short time, may not be separated from the general ac- 
count of the bird's life. The same law that brought 
about the development of life upon, the earth decrees that 
life shall continue here until such time as it shall have 
ceased to play a useful part on the fragment of the uni- 
verse which we know. As the existence of the individual 
is brief, the continuance of the life of any species depends 
wholly upon its reproduction of its kind, and it seems cer- 
tain that the reproductive function is the most important 
one of life; that it is the chief end of the species. 
Among our wild birds the whole existence of the indi- 
vidual is a preparation for this function and its accom- 
panying duties. The spring is spent in finding the 
breeding place, in nest building, and in bringing forth 
the egg; the summer in caring for and rearing the tender 
young; the autumn in recuperation from the fatigues of 
the breeding season and in a deliberate j ourney toward 
the winter home; the winter in resting and in accumu- 
lating vigor. 
Major Bendire's first volume contained, as will be re- 
membered, the game birds and those which are com- 
monly termed rapacious. Thus the grouse, partridges, 
turkeys, curassows, pigeons and doves shared the volume 
with the vultures, eagles, hawks and owls. It is about 
four years since we called attention in the columns of 
Forest AND Stream to this important work, which con- 
tains the only modern biographies of the species noticed, 
so far as we are aware. 
The present volume carries on Major Bendire's work 
from the parrots to the grackles, and thus covers about 
200 species and sub-species, the groups treated being the 
parrots, cuckoos, trogons, kingfishers, woodpeckers, goat- 
suckers, swifts and hummingbirds, fly-catchers, larks, 
crows and jays, starlings, blackbirds and orioles. The 
volume contains more than 500 printed pages, together 
with seven beautiful lithographic plates. It is a large 
quarto. 
Major Bendire's very extensive knowledge of the 
species described is supplemented by testimony and notes 
from his very wide circle of friends and admirers among 
ornithologists all over the country. He has thus brought 
out and published in its pages almost everything that is 
known about any species up to date. 
Though perhaps it has not the same popular interest, 
the present work fully equals in importance the earlier 
part, and it undoubtedly represents considerably more 
labor than that, for the reason that the number of species 
considered is greater, and that many of them are but 
little known, and so require much time and investi- 
gation in order to give anything like a complete history 
of the life of the species. 
These splendid volumes are not only enduring monu- 
ments to Major Bendire's energy, patience and assiduity 
in the accumulation of material, but they also show how 
much a man may accomplish in his leisure moments, if 
his devotion to the occupation of his leisure is real. Major 
Bendire has been all his life a soldier, yet it is not as a 
soldier that he has made himself famous, for while Bendire 
the soldier may be forgotten, Bendire the ornithologist 
will have an enduring remembrance. It is unfortunate 
that the second of these volumes could not have appeared 
earlier, but it is well understood that this is not the fault 
of the author. He was prepared to furnish in quick suc- 
cession the material for this and other volumes, if only 
the meshes of governmental red tape could have been un- 
tangled or cut. The delay has been a real loss to science. 
It is certain that the demand for this most valuable 
work will be very great, and the completion of the sec- 
ond part has laid ornithologists under fresh obligations to 
Major Bendire. 
Some time ago in Forest and Stream we were per- 
mitted to print Major Bendire's extremely interesting 
paper on the magpie, and those of om* readers who re- 
member this, as well as the extracts printed from his 
earlier volume, can appreciate the charming style in 
which these biographies are written. There is about 
them nothing that is sentimental. It is a plain, straight- 
forward statement of facts, chiefly the recording of ob- 
servations, though now and then the author does announce 
his own beliefs, especially when they are at variance with 
those of other observers. Although they are in no sense 
sentimental, at the same time these biographies are full 
of feeling, and no one can read them without coming to 
share witb Maj or Bendire his love for the birds he has 
studied so long. 
We cannot convey what this charm is in any other way 
so well as by quoting one of the biographies which Major 
Bendire has given us, and for this we select the first in 
the book, the Carolina paroquet. This species possesses 
an exceptional interest on account of the rapidity with 
which its numbers are decreasing. The day is not far 
distant when it will be extinct. Major Bendire says: 
"The range of the Carolina paroquet, the only repre- 
sentative in the United States of this numerous family, is 
yearly becoming more and more restricted, and is now 
mainly confined to some of the less accessible portions of 
southern Florida, and to very limited areas in the sparsely 
settled sections of the Indian Territory, where it is only a 
question of a few years before its total extermination will 
be accomplished. Formerly this species had quite an ex- 
tensive d&tribution in the United States, ranging from 
Florida, the Gulf, and the South Atlantic States generally, 
north to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois 
and Nebraska, and casually even to Michigan and New 
York, while west it reached to Texas and eastern Colora- 
do. It was especially common then throughout the entire 
Mississippi Valley and the heavily timbered bottom lands 
of the larger tributaries of the stream. 
"With the more general settlement of the regions in- 
habited by these birds, their numbers have gradually but 
steadily diminished, and even as early as 1832 Audubon 
speaks of their not being nearly as common as formerly. As 
late, however, as 1860 they were still comparatively numer- 
ous throughout the Gulf States and the Mississippi, Arkan- 
sas and White River valleys; and I well remember seeing 
large flocks of these birds throughout that year in the 
vicinity of Fort Smith, Ark., and near several of the mili- 
tary posts in the Indian Territory. 
"At present it is very doubtful if the Carolina paroquet 
can be considered a resident anywhere excepting the lo- 
calities already mentioned, and it is rapidly disappearing 
from these, especially the Indian Territory. Occasionally 
a pair are still seen in southern Louisiana, 'and as late as 
the fall of 1891 Mr. Thurman S. Powell s^w a couple at 
the Linchpin camping grounds, Stone county, Mo. Al- 
though rather restless birds at all times, they can gener- 
ally be considered as residents wherever found, roving 
about from place to place in search of suitable feeding 
grounds, and usually returning to the same roosting place, 
some large hollow tree, to which they retire at night, 
hooking or suspending themselves by their powerful 
beaks and claws to the inner rough wall of the cavity, 
"Previous to the more extensive settlement of the coun- 
try, their food consisted of the seeds of the cocklebur 
(Xantheum strumarium), the round seed balls of the syca- 
more, those of the cypress, pecan, and beechnuts, the 
fruit of the papaw {Asimina trilobata), mulberries, wild 
grapes, and various other wild berrias. According to Mr. 
J. F. Menge, they also feed on the seeds extracted from 
pine cones, and those of the burgrass or sand bur {Cench- 
ras tribuloides), one of the most noxious weeds known. 
They are also rather fond of cultivated fruit, and in Flor- 
ida they have acquired a taste for oranges and bananas. 
They are also partial to different kinds of grain while in 
the milk. Mr. Frank M. Chapman states that while col- 
lecting on the Sebastian River, Fla,, in March, 1890, he 
found them feeding on the milky seeds of a species of 
thistle (Cirsium lecontei), which, as far as he could learri, 
constituted their entire food at that season. Ha says: 
'Not a patch of thistles did we find which had not been 
visited by them, the headless stalks showing clearly 
where the thistles had been neatly severed by the sharp, 
chisel-like bill, while the ground beneath favorite trees 
would be strewn with the scattered down.'* 
"According to the observations of Mr. August Koch, 
published in Forest and Stream, Sept. 34, 1891, they also 
feed on the red blossoms of a species of maple {Acer ru- 
brum). In the vicinity of Fort Smith, Ark., during the 
fall and winter of 1860-61, 1 frequently saw flocks of these 
birds in osage orange trees, which attain a large size here, 
biting off the fruit and feeding on the tender buds; here 
they were also accused of doing considerable injury to 
Indian corn while still in the milk, and many were shot 
for this reason, and there is no doubt that they do more 
or less damage to both fruit and grain. 
"Although clumsy- looking birds on the ground, it is 
astonishing how readily they move about on the slender- 
est limbs in trees, frequently hanging head down like 
crossbills and redpolls, nipping off the seed bulbs of the 
sycamores, etc., and swinging themselves, with the assist- 
ance of their powerful beaks, from the extremity of one 
branch to another. 
"Their flight, which is more or less undulating, resem- 
bles that of the passenger pigeon, and again that of the 
falcons; it is extremely swift and graceful, enabling them, 
even when flying in rather compact flocks, to dart in and 
out of the densest timber with perfect ease. Their call 
notes are shrill and disagreeable, a kind of grating, me- 
tallic shriek, and they are especially noisy while on the 
wing. Among the calls is one resembling the shriU cry 
of a goose, which is frequently uttered for minutes at a 
time. Formerly they moved about in good-sizsd and 
compact fljcks, often numbering hundreds, while now it 
is a rare occurrence to see more than twenty together, 
more often small companies of from six to twelve. When 
at rest in the middle of the day on some favorite tree 
they sometimes utter low notes, as if talking to each 
other; but more often they remain entirely silent, and 
are then extremely difficult to discover, as their plumage 
harmonizas and blends thoroughly with the surrounding 
foliage. 
"They are most active in the early morning, and again 
in the evening, while the hotter parts of the day are spent- 
in thick-foliaged and shady trees. They are partial to 
heavily timbered bottom lands bordering the larger 
streams, and the heavy cypress swamps which are such a 
common feature of many of our Southern Scates. Social 
birds as they are, they are rarely seen alone, and if one is 
accidentally wounded the others hover around the injured 
one until sometimes the whole flock is exterminated. 
This devotion to one another has cost them dearly, and 
many thousands have been destroyed in this way. 
"Mr. E. A. Mcllhenny has kindly furnished me with 
the following notes on their habits as observed by him in 
southern Louisiana, where the species was still compara- 
tively abundant a few years ago, but has now nearly dis- 
appeared: 
" 'The Carolina paroquet rhay be looked for in this sec- 
tion about April 35, or when the black mulberries begin 
to ripen. This fruit seemed to be their favorite food, and 
in the morning from sunrise to about 7 o'clock, and in 
the evening from 5 o'clock to sunset, at which hours they 
feed, they were to be found in the mulberry groves. 
They spent the rest of the day and roosted at night in 
the livB oak timber. In the morning, just before sunrise, 
they mounted the tallest trees, congregating in small 
bandj, all the while talking at a great rate. As the sun 
rises they take flight for the nearest mulberry grove, 
where they partake of their morning meal amidst a great 
amount of noise. After they have eaten their fill they 
generally go to the nearest stream, where they drink and 
bathe; they then go to some dense oak timber, where they 
pass the heat of the day. After they get in the oaks they 
rarely utter a sound. In the afternoon they go through 
the same performance, with the exception of going to the 
water. 
* Proceedings of the Litmaaan Society, New York, for the year end- 
ing March 7, 1890. 
