208 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The "Black Duck." 
In regard to recent ment ion of ttie black duck breeding 
grounds, made in these columns by Mr. W. B Wells, of 
Chatham, Ontario, and Mr. Thomas Johnson, of Winnipeg, 
Mr. Geo A. Boardman, of Calais, Me , writes me as below: 
"In the last Forest and Stream. I see your remarks about 
what is called in the West the black duck. What the 
shooters in Minnesota call the black duck is our scaup duck 
{Fiilis marila), called also here b'ackhead, also bluebill. 
Our Eastern black duck is only accidental in the West. I 
have been several seasons in Minnesota and one of the old 
duck shooters on the Minnesota bottoms shot one of oiu- 
real black ducks, the first one he ever saw. 1 told him the 
name and got it mounted for him as a curiosity. This scaup 
duck is very plenty there and is a diving duck, not very 
good eating, and 1 have always heard them called in the 
West black ducks. They are of two sizes, same color, and 
I can see no difference, only size." 
In this part of the West and in Minnesota and other sec- 
tions I have often heard the bluebill called the "blackhead," 
"blackie" or "black jack," but never the black duck, which 
I fancy is locally restricted in this country. We never 
heard it called the scaup in this part of the West. Mr. 
Boardman speaks of its "two sizes." I think he will find 
the smaller duck called also the ringbill, and a clear distinc- 
tion is made between the two in the shooting of this part of 
the country. I have never heard the real black duck or 
dusky duck called hj that name in this part of the West, 
but it is commonly called the "black mallard," more rarely 
the dusky duck. ' In Ontario it is called black duck and 
mallards are called "gr&j duck." 
Speaking of Mr. Boardmau's "smaller" bluebills, I think 
if he had the two together he might see a difference in the 
marking on thebdls between the ringbills and the bluebills. 
At first look the birds are exactly alike except, as he says, in 
regard to size. I speak now only from memory, not having 
the bird at hand for examination. 
Iilr. John G. Smith, of Algona, la., writes as below to add 
his quota to the black duck fund of information; 
"I was very much interested in your 'black duck' article 
of Feb. 20. In my younger days I killed quite a good many 
black ducks on the meadows near Boston and on Cape Cod. 
I had a lot of live decoy ducks, which were quite well 
trained to call, and I always found the black ducks quite 
easy to decoy. 
"I have seen three black ducks killed in northwest Iowa. 
In 1872 Hon. Perry Belmont killed one that came to a wheat 
field with a lot of mallards. When I picked up the ducks I 
was very much siirprised, as I did not think they ever came 
West. That same fall my brother shot one that was with 
two mallards near Buffalo Fork, in this county. Some years 
after my brother and I were coming down the Des Moines 
Biver in a boat and he shot one that was with three or four 
mallards; two of these were drakes and one a duck. Their 
habits are very much the same as those of a mallard They 
have the same 'quack,' and their movements are alike, "l 
have never known any to breed here. 
"The velvet scoter {Oidemia fima) is often killed in north- 
western Iowa. They fly with the canvasbacks. I have 
never seen over two in a flock of canvasbacks, and think 
they must be strays. Their flight is a little dilferent from 
the canvasback, and I have always found them in poor con- 
dition. When I am shooting and' notice a strange duck in a 
flock I always try to kill it, and have let many a fine canvas- 
back slip by while trying to shoot the stranger." 
The Sixth Sense. 
Some very interesting siseculations are at times indulged 
in upon the question of a "sixth sense" in some of the lower 
animals, more especially the dog. Not a few philosophers 
say that in mankind this additional faculty is dormant, and 
will yet be evolved to the dignity of a separate sense. Allied 
herewith are all the separate questions of mind reading, 
telepathy, thought propulsion, etc., etc., which are things 
but barely dreamed of in our philosophy to-day. 
The other evening down at the Calumet Heights Club a 
few of us fell to talking of these things, and the conversa- 
tion took the form of relating such incidents as came to the 
mind of those present of evidence of a "sixth sense" in the 
dog, or some ill understood faculty by which that animal 
did things which would appear impossible did it rely en- 
tirely upon the recognized senses of touch, taste, sight, hear- 
ing and smell. One gentleman spoke of the case of a North 
Side butcher who owned a dog in partnership with a brother. 
The latter went to Joplin, Mo., and the dog was sent with 
him. Some weeks afterward the dog disappeared from the 
Missouri town, and after a time appeared at its accustomed 
haunts on the North Side in Chicago. He was gaunt and 
worn, but apparently glad to get back home. No one has- 
ever been able to tell bow he got there or how long it took 
him to make the trip. How he knew which way to travel 
is the question which bothers his owner. 
I recalled the case of a friend of mine, a Mr. W. Y. 
Smith, who lives out on Washington Boulevard, near Fortieth 
street, this city. Mr. Smith had a dog which did not please 
him, and he wished to get rid of it, the affection of the 
creature extendiug to personalities such as jumping upon at 
new pair of trousers with his muddy feet, etc., etc. Mi-, 
Smith did not wish to kill the dog, and so resolved upon th© 
less humane idea of turning it loose in the down town streets 
of the city. The dog had never been down town before,, 
and Mr. Smith took him in on the Wisconsin Central steam 
cars. He turned him out into the cold world near the Board! 
of Trade, and thought that he had at last solved the questiott 
of getting lid of the dog. That night when he went home- 
the same dog greeted him at the front doorstep and planted 
a pair of muddy but affectionate front feet on Mr. Smith's 
trousers. I am glad to say that his owner gave it up then 
and there, and never tried again to lose the dog. The latter 
lived the remainder of his life in the family and died there 
of old age not long ago. 
Yet another gentleman spoke of a dog which belonged to a 
member of the Calumet Heights Club, who lived at Blue 
Island. The latter place is a suburb of Chicago, some fifteen 
miles out on the Eock Island road. The dog was raised 
there, and had never been down town. The Calumet Heights 
Club is on the B. & 0 road, some thirty miles from Chicago 
and perhaps nearly that far in a different direction from 
Blue Island. One day this gentleman took the dog into the 
city with him, as he was intending to go on out from the city 
to tbe club, and wanted to take the dog down to the club to 
leave him there for a time. At about dusk he arrived at the 
club, ma Chicago, with the dog, and soon was comfortably 
engaged m having a good time, forgetting for a time that his 
dog was more of a stranger there than he was himself The 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
dog came to the club house door once or twice before mid- 
night and whined to be let in, but was repulsed and rebuked. 
Nothing more was heard of him at the time, and in the morn- 
ing his owner could not find him. He left instructions for the 
dog to be tied up if found, and was forced to go on home with- 
out any word of his missing animal. When he got home to 
Blue Island he found the" dog there ahead of him. There 
had been no possibility that the dog could know the way 
either to the city, to the club, or from the club to his home 
at Blue Island. It was a mystery how he knew which way 
to go, yet he did know. 
Still another gentleman, Mr. L. J. Marks, who took part 
in the conversation, related a story quite as strange as the 
above. Mr. Marks said that some years ago he and Mr. 
Alex Loyd were engaged together one evening in an attempt 
to do some excava'ing about an old boat which had been 
wrecked on the beach about a mile or so from the club house. 
When they went out to their work they were accompanied 
by several of the dogs about the club house, among these 
two dogs belonging to Mr. Sam Booth, one of the club 
members. They dug away for an hour or so at the boat, 
which was half buried in the sand, and in the meantime the 
dogs busied themselves by romping and playing around in 
the sand. While this was going on it came time for the 
arrival of the railway train at the club station, which was 
something like a mile or more across the sand hills from 
where they -were. The men heard the whictle of the 
engine presently, and in a few moments one said to the 
other: "It is just about time for the club wagon to be 
starting over from the station to the house." A mo- 
ment or so after this all the dogs started off down the 
beach toward the club house on a stiff run. About 
a hundred yards or so from the place where the men were 
working three of the other dogs turned back and came 
back to the boat, and made no attempt to go on with 
the other two, which continued on a run to the house. These 
two dogs were those belonging to Mr. Booth. Before they 
started for the house they had both stopped, thrown up their 
heads and looked off over the hills toward the wagon road, 
which it was, of course, impossible for them to see in any 
part from that spot, and which was over a mile distant. 
Then, as though they had received word or heard a direct 
call, they started on the run and left their companions, who 
seemed to understand all about it. When they so started oft" 
Alex Loyd remarked quietly, "Don't you see, Sam Booth's 
on that train, and he's coming over in the wagon now." And 
this indeed proved to be the truth. Yet there was not any 
regularity whatever in Mr. Booth's visits to the club, and he 
never came oftener than once a week. No one knew he was 
coming that evening. Both Mr. Marks and Mr. Loyd agreed 
that the dogs must have smelled him and recognized the 
scent; or if that were impossible, that they must have known 
of his presence by some faculty unknown or unrecognized by 
man. 
When Mr. Loyd and Mr. Marks made known their facts 
as above at the club house, there was some discussion over 
the matter, and all agreed that it would have been out of the 
question for the dogs to scent any human or other being at 
that distance. "I don't know about that," said the club 
keeper, who lives at the club the year round and wno has 
charge of the dogs left there by members of the club. "I'm 
ready," he continued, "to believe even more than that. You 
know that we are not so very far from the city here, and once 
in a while some of the tougher elements of the city wander 
down in this direction. It is not imknown that a prize fight 
now and then is held in this wild country, near Whiting, 
Mniers or some of these little way stations out of the ken of 
the city or county authorities. I remember that not long ago 
one morning all the dogs about this club house ran down 
on the beach, and all beaded up the beach, standing there 
and barking like mad for two or three hours, 
their hair standing up on their backs and every motion 
showing them to be much excited over something, though 
they did not make any effort to leave their place or to run 
oft' after anything. I learned on the following day that a 
party of these prize-fighting toughs had come dpwn by boat 
and had landed on the beach for their little entertainment 
early in the morning. This was at a point between four and 
five miles away; yet 1 know that those dogs smelled the men 
or knew about their being there through some channel of in- 
formation other than that of scent. Of course it sounds 
unlikely, but these are just the facts." 
This sort of thing sounds a bit uncanny to our ears now 
To the ears of folk following us a distance of a century or so 
in time they may not seem so strange. A few centuries ago 
they burned dogs as witches sometimes because they did not 
understand dogs. We do not yet understand all about them, 
thouEfh we have ceased to burn them for what we do not 
understand. 
Wisconsin Game. 
Feb 13.— Kr. Val Eaeth, business manager of the Wiscon- 
■sin Voncaris, of Milwaukee, Wis., has a long article in the 
columns of the Milwaukee Sentinel this week upon the sub- 
ject of game protection in Wisconsin. Jilr. Baeth thinks 
that the growing demand upon the State game requires im- 
mediate iiction if the game of the State is to be preserved 
in any considerable quantity. He is in favor of a State and 
non-1 esident license, laid for the purpose of raising a warden 
fund, all wardens to be paid salaries. He is not in favor of 
selling any game at all. In many of his positions he is 
sound, as for instance in his views as to the amount of game 
any one person should be allowed to kill or take from the 
State; but in his notion about spring shooting he takes up 
the fallacious tenet now prevalent in Wisconsin, that Wis- 
consin ought not to forbid spring shooting until Illinois does. 
This interstate watchfulness and jealousy is quite different 
from the idea of uniform game laws between the States, and 
is far less worthy. In the matter of non-resident hunting, 
more especially for deer, Mr. Eaeth quotes Forest and 
Stream as to numbers of deer hunters who visited the State 
last fall, and is of the opinion that between 5,000 and 6,000 
•deer hunters were out in Wisconsin the past season after 
•deer, "and their number would have been increased to 7,000 
had OUT Supreme Court not spoiled the game." He com- 
plains that non-resident hunters do not observe the State 
laws, but openly violate them, especially in the matter of 
•using dogs, which is forbidden by the law. Mr. Eaeth goes 
on to say the following words of warning and advice, words 
which non-resident hunters might do very well to heed, for 
it is to the interest of the non-resident hunter as well as the 
local hunter that the game be preserved, if both expect to 
hunt for it upon the same ground : 
' 'During the last few years Wisconsin has been the most at- 
tractive territory for all kinds of hunters, because the States 
•of Michigan and Minnesota and others demand of every non- 
resident hunter a license fee of $25. In case Wisconsin fails 
LMaech 13, 1897. 
to do the same thing, most of the liuhters of this country will 
abuse our ill-advised liberality, and within a few years game 
will be extinct in this State. The same would be the case 
with the fish in our lakes, 
"Several Supreme Court decisions affirm that fish and game 
are 'common property,' therefore the State is duty bound 
to fix by law the share each one of us may have of these 
gifts of nature to mankind. At any event, no one has any 
right to pursue hunting as a business, and under no circum- 
stances should the State any longer allow game to be consid- 
ered an article of merchandise. If the 'market-hunter' 
cannot sell his game, he will be compelled to give up his 
murderous vocation, and if the Illinois fisherman (?) can 
only take 20!b3. of fish with him he will not rob our lak^ 
of 44olbs. of fish at one fishing. 
"If the privilege of hunting any kind of game in this State 
can only be secured by obtaining a permit from the State, 
and if shipment and sale is regulated as above suggested, it 
will only take a few years before the forests, swamps and 
lakes of Wisconsin will again be alive with fish. 
' 'It is to be hoped that our legislators will enact a law in 
harmony with the above suggestions,, in order to secure real 
protection for both game and fish." 
"The Last of the Trappers." 
A Chicago daily reporter found a good story the other day 
in the presence in Chicago of two trappers from Montana, 
near the Flathead country, who had managed to lose the 
trail in Chicago and wound up in the police court. These 
men were natives of New York, and were on the way back 
home for a visit. They either told the reporter, or he imag- 
ined it, that they were the last trappers in the West, and as 
such were entitled to respect. The story ended thus: "And 
then the last trappers of the. West moved on toward the New 
York farm which the old man had left in 1845." This is 
sad. We have had the "Last of the Buffalo" a good deal. 
Are we now to have the "Last of the Trappers?" 
Destruction of Illinois Birds. 
In the report of tlie A. O. TJ. committee on protection of ' 
North American birds, published in January of this year, 
Mr. Euthven Deane, member of the committee for Illinois 
and a well-known ornithologist of this city, makes mention 
of the fashion of decorating feminine headwear with plu- 
mage. He finds a great naany such decorations made of 
chicken feathers dyed, but learns that egret plumes are much ! 
in demand. He does not think our song birds are suffering ' 
at the hands of the milliners, and goes on to say: 
"Eeally the only destruction that is now going on among 
our native birds is evidently among the herons and egret?, 
and, while this has been on the increase for the present 
fashion of this spring (1896), the general opinion is that it ' 
will die out, not to return to the extent that has heretofore ' 
prevailed. 
"1 have recently been using my influence upon a number j 
of ignorant country boys, who have annually made a gi-eat ' 
depredation among the herons in what is known as 'Crane 
Heaven,' on the Kankakee Eiver, in Indiana, and, while my . 
influence was only on a moral basis, several promised to de- ^ 
sist from any wanton destruction this year. Two gunners 
would visit the heronry once or twice during the summer and 
slaughter from sixty to eighty great blue herons in a day, ■ 
leaving them where they fell on the ground." i 
In a later communication Mr. Deane writes as follows: 
"Fashion in feather ornamentation has not materially 
changed since I wrote you in detail in the spring. Weocca- ! 
sionally see the heads or wings of some of our native species • 
worn in their natural color, yet the tame pigeon and egret ! 
head the list in this section of the country. I 
"I wrote you before that I had endeavored to use influence 
in the protection of a certain 'Crane Heaven' on the Kankakee 
Eiver in Indiana. During two trips in the past two weeks 
in that region I find, quile to my satisfaction, that no raids ■ 
were made on the heronry last spring and summer, as had I 
yearly been the custom of the native boys, and, I am sorry •' 
to say, some so-called sportsmen. My appeal may have done 
some good, but tbe fact that a bad fire played havoc in the 
woods near the heronry made the approach much more dif- 
ficult. The location where the night herons bred, a long 
stretch of low 'pucker brush' bordering the marsh, was 
wiped out by fire, but the birds evidently found another 
favorable site, for they are much more abundant now than I 
have seen them in years." 
Mongolian Pheasants. 
Mr. H. F. Bosworth, of Milwaukee, is just back from an i 
extended visit in New York and the East, and while in Chi- 
cago on his way home called several times at this office, 
though much to my regret I was out and did not meet him. 
I should have liked to ask how his big hatchery of Mongo- 
lian pheasants is doing this year. Mr. Bosworth, as has been 
mentioned in these columns, is the largest breeder of these 
birds in the West, and his interesting experiments have 
really passed the stage of experiment and reached the point 
of success long ago. I infer that the birds are doing well, as 
he still advertises the eggs for sale. Mr. Bosworth deserves 
much commendation for the plucky way in which he stuck to 
the work of establishing these birds in Wisconsin, in spite of 
backsets of a most discouraging nature. 
St. Faitl, Minn , March 3.— Weather at St. Paul moder- 
ate, but 2ft. of snow. Work of game wardens on illegal 
venison handling has been very effective this season. 
Moose abundant in upper Minnesota now, and when the law 
is off in 1898 there will still be enough to make sport sure. 
A local shoe store here shows what I have long ago schemed 
out, a rubber-soled moccasin, or a trapper's low rubber shoe 
with buckskin top sewed to it. This combines softness and , 
waterproof quality and should make good snowshoe wear, j 
At Montreal, Can., good snowshoes sell at |3 a pair; in Chi- 1 
cago and St. Paul we pay $5 and $6 for same quality. At | 
Montreal the snowshoe and toboggan fad is falling off so : 
one cannot buy a blanket coat in the whole city. Ten 
banks failed in St. Paul and JMinneapolis in two weeks dur- 
ing the height of the hard times, and the depression is such 
that few persons are spending money in sport. Every other 
man in the twin cities wears a fur coat, yet fur dealers had a 
hard time this winter and one or two heavy fii'ms assigned. 
Two genuine Indian painted buffalo robes, property of Maj. . 
McLaughlin, Indian trader, are shown in Kennedy Bros.' i 
windows at St. Paul. Ice fishing on Lake Minnetonka is 
illegal. Large numbers of crappies were sometimes taken in 
this way. A pike weighing 20lbs. 8oz. was taken by a lady 
in Minnetonka last fall. This is all the news I have time to 
know. E. Hough, 
1208 JBoYCE Building, Chicago. 
