FOREST AND STREAM. 
288 
Qew clothes ttpou a time, these are the Rockies in new 
Lilothes. To me it seems they never were so adorable. To- 
iay, for the first time in many days, they are calm and clear 
md smilins; of visage, and every feature is clear cut against 
he sky. To-day the prairies are running water, but up in 
be mountains, as we know from two weeks of winter camp- 
Lig there, the snow is very deep and the winds are strong. 
But the Forest and Streaji luck held. E. Hough. 
taC(j BoycB BDnj)iNG, Chicago. 
HOURS IN A BLIND.— V. 
(Continued from page 166 ) 
Life of the Marsh. 
' The birds which pass over or stop on the marsh are its 
Host obvious inhabitants; but there are many others which 
: he casual visitor scarcely ever sees. Of these the largest 
ire the half wild horses, cattle arid hogs turned out to winter 
jy their owners. They feed among the tall cane, and only 
ijow and then come to the water's edge to drink or to eat 
he succulent water plants that drift against the shore. 
With these animals the struggle for existence must be a 
severe one; for, to one accustomed to the pastures of the 
•lorth or West it would seem that there is little or nothing 
0 eat on the marsh. Of course, vegetation is not lackine; 
lilt there can be little nutriment in the hard cane or its 
jarsh leaves, or in the coarse round marsh grass which 
MOWS only in infrequent patches. The drifting grass, 
lich consists of the rejected portions of the water 
; juts pulled up by the wildfowl in their search for its roots, 
s scanty in quantity and can hardly be very nourishing food. 
The hogs do better than horses or cattle, for they unearth 
he roots of the cane and the flags, and must procure not a 
if lie animal food. 
The horses are confined to the outer beach, and visit the 
idjacent marsh only to feed. They are little animals, not 
uilike the well-known Chincoteague heach ponies, and are 
ill branded. They are a tough and hardy race, qualified 
brough inheritance and experience well to fight the battle 
)t life. The cattle are small, wild and scrawny. 
Occasionally when you are sailing through these waters 
I 'ou will see, as you pass a watchman's house, a fresh skin 
ucked up to dry, and the long ringed tail hanging down 
1 om it at once proclaims its species. Coons are abundant 
icre, and it is not strange that they pre so. In summer the 
itBting birds and in winter the crippled ducks furnish them 
tathered food, while at all seasons the waters abound in 
isb. We are most of us accustomed to think of coons as 
: xiRsing a good part of their time in trees, but the coons of 
be mansh must by this time, I should think, have lost the 
r i of tree climbing; since, except for an occasional strag- 
! liDg pilliatary bush, there is here nothing larger to climb 
han a stalR of cane. Rarely seen by the gunner, the coon 
u js an easy, lazy life here. Now and then he puts his foot 
n ;i marshman's trap; and less often a gunner's dog, hunt- 
Dg- for a wounded duck, may suddenly fall upon him, and 
be sound of the fight will empty the bUnd, and bring boat- 
nan and gunner crashing through the cane to learn the 
uuse of the disturbance. It is in such ways as these that 
he coon is sometimes killed. 
]Next in order after the coon comes the mink— artful, 
erocious, daring. Like the coon, he fishes and hunts, 
Hit he has ten times the coon's energy. Not satisfied 
^ith the wild game of the marsh, he prowls about the blind 
I'l may steal a duck, if one is carelessly left at a little dis- 
iiice. He fights the muski-at, and sometimes kills and eats 
tun, and then he goes fishing every day. The mink is 
arely killed except by the trapper. 
The muskrat is everywhere, and if you have occasion to 
\^'ylk across the marsh you will now and then plunge thigh 
Jeep into one of the holes that it has dug. Sometimes as 
) ou sit in your blind you will see it swimming toward your 
iecoys, or crossing some lead not far away. It does no spe- 
cial harm except by its burrowing, which breaks away the 
iiarsh, destroys ditches that may have been cut, and makes 
nr falls for the careless to fall into. 
In the winter, when 1 see the marsh, its reptiles are safely 
u Iden away in their wai-m sleeping places. So it is that 
■ snake s, if any there be, and the tortoises are not seen. 
J 'it in summer, 1 am told, there are snakes and snappers and 
etTapin ; of these last there are not many. 
All through the winter, however — except when, as some- 
itoes occurs, a freeze has locked the waters of the sound — 
here are fish a-plenty. Of these the most important and 
iiuable are chub, which I take to be the large-mouthed 
) lack bass; but there are many other smaller sorts which 
nay or may not be good to eat. The common blue crab 
i ounds here in summer, and everywhere on the marsh its 
may be seen — the relics of feasts had by the coons- 
In the spring and the late summer these marshes are the 
esting places of thousands on thousands of beach birds and 
aiKs. Here may be found great flocks of waders of all de- 
t liptions, from the tiniest sandpiper up to the great sickle- 
curlew. These sandpipers and rails wade busily about 
n er the mud flats where the ducks have been swimming or 
iiobethem for food. Then gulls of many sorts winnow 
btir slow way over the broad channels, and companies of 
:ea swallows hunt the schools of tiny fish that swim in the 
hallows. 
Atr whatever season of the year you take it, the life of the 
narsh is abundant, and is worth observation and study. 
The Swan Sons. 
We are told tliat it is the dying swan that sings the sweet- 
!st song. Those that we see about the marsh are musical 
inough, but so few of them are killed that I cannot believe 
:hat the ordinary note which they utter is the one which 
mmediately precedes death. Yet it is a soft, sweet call, 
iigh pitched, pleasing and hard to imitate. Xoo, Tioo, kookoo, 
fcoZ), is the way it goes, the flock calling to their leader, 
ind the leader answering thf m again. 
In ancient song and in story the swan holds a firm place, 
3or is his eminence confined to any land. To Lohengrin in 
iis search for the Holy G-rail, and to the Blackfoot Indian 
leeking out the home of the Sun, swans come as supernatu- 
ml helpers. 
Its size, the purity of its plumage, and its soft, sweet notes 
make the swan always a striking object, and it is not 
strange that this bird should have impressed itself on the 
imagination of all peoples, and that this impression should 
find voice in the folk stories of races which have attained 
the highest civilization and culture, as well as of tribes that 
are still savages. As the mind of man is everywhere the 
same, so we see tliat swans are used by the ancient gods as 
messengers and beasts of burden, and in the same way and 
with a like object they draw the car of a Lohengrin and 
carry across the ocean an American Scarface. 
The swans move slowly through the sky, with wingbeats 
that seem heavy and labored, but which, carry them forward 
at a high rate of speed. If that flock were near enough for 
you to kill one of those birds and you did so, you would find 
that in falling his impetus would carry him a long way for- 
ward before he struck the earth or the water. 
Swans are killed usually only when by chance they fly 
over the blind low enough to be reached with a shotgun. 
Few gunners have swan decoys, though I have seen, on the 
sloops of one or two professionals, a great pile of these ; for the 
swan will decoy readily, coming either to swan decoys or to 
the call alone. I remember once tying out at a point in a 
bay from which we put out great flocks of swans and geese, 
and an hour or two later a single swan was seen flying 
toward the bay. My boatman called to it, while I tried to 
change the duck cartridges which were in the gun for those 
loaded with buckshot, which were laying ready for just such 
an emergency. Alas for the chancel The day was rainy, 
the chambers of my gun a little foul from smoke, and the 
cartridges had swelled. It took me a long time to |et out 
the ones that were in and a long time to insert the others in 
the chamber. While 1 was wretchedly working at this I 
was reduced to the last pitch of nervousness by the boatman, 
who punctuated his calls to the swan by remarks such as 
these: "Here he comes I" "He's heading right for us I" "Be 
ready how, he's almost near enough!" "Now he's right over 
the decoys; get up and kill him !" "Oh, shoot, shoot !" 
"There he goes!" "He's gone!" There was a pause, during 
which 1 managed to shove first one and then the other car- 
tridge into the gun; but before I had closed it the boatman 
whispered excitedly : "Here he comes back again, right over 
the decoys!" Closing the gun, I stood up and killed the 
great bird just beyond my furthest decoys. 
"Oh!" cried the boatman, as he ran to the skiff to get the 
bird, "that's wuth a dollar— a dollar, sir." 
Sometimes swans do curious things. Once watching a 
wedge of seven birds that flew over, 200 or 300yds. distant, 
and that were slowly lowering themselves toward the waters 
of the sound, I saw one bird help himself along by means of 
another. The last swan on one arm of the V seemed higher 
than the others, which were close in front of him, and with 
a quick stroke or two he overtook the bird immediately be- 
fore him, caught his tail feathers in his bill, and, bending 
his neck, pulled his own breast close to the tail of the other 
bird, whose progress seemed absolutely stopped. Then the 
last bird let go the tail and they all went on. It looked as if 
the last bird had used the other to pull himself down to its 
levtl, being himself too impatient to wait for the slower 
descent of flight. The occuiTence seemed to me a remarka- 
ble one, and called up to my mind the old story of little 
birds crossing the Mediterranean on the backs of owls, geese 
and cranes, and the story, related years ago in Fore,st and 
Stream by Dr. J. C. Merrill, of the "Crane's Back" of the 
Crow Indians. 
Taking Up. 
All day long the gray clouds have hung low over the 
waters, and occasionally the sad heavens have dropped down 
their rains, which the winds have thrown spitefully against 
us Now, however, just at the close of the day, the broad 
orb of the sun looks out at us from the western sky just as it 
ii falling belosv the horizan. Slowly it sinks until only a 
thin red line is visible above the low distant forest which, 
bounds the view to the west. I take a last long look about 
me to see if perhaps a duck will come before the sun has 
actually set; but. seeing no bird, I break down my gun and 
say to John, "Take up." 
As he crashes through the cane to get the skiff, I unload 
both guns and put them in their covers, close ammunition 
box, and begin to carry the things down to the edge of the 
marsh. John is already among the decoys, taking up first 
the live ducks— which he puts in their coop— and then the 
wooden ones, which he stacks neatly in their places. Then, 
when he pushes the boat to the marsh, I pass him the things 
from the shore, handing him last of all the ducks, which he 
packs away on and abaft the decoys, counting them as he 
lays them down : "Twenty -seven, twenty-eight, twenty- 
nine, thirty, and the hairy crown's thirty-one. A pretty 
good day's work, sirl" 
I put on my heavy coat and step in the skiff, and while I 
light my pipe John pushes the boat through the shallow 
water, and presently steps the mast and sets the sail, and 
with a merry ripple the little boat bears us homeward. 
"Well, John, it's my last day, and it has been a good one. 
I am sorry to go." 
"I wiirh you could stay longer, sir; but anyhow you've 
had some good shooting, and you certainly have done right 
well— better'n I thought you could that first day." 
And so I have. Cotjples. 
SHOOTING PRIVILEGES AND TRESPASS. 
EdiUi^r Forest and Stream: 
I notice in the present issue of Forest and Stream 
(April 3), speaking editorially on the shooting afl'ray that 
took place on the Toileston Club grounds, in Indiana, that 
in condemning the absurd biU to legalize trespass that was 
presented in the Indiana Legislature, you go a step fur- 
ther and point out what you believe to be the tendency 
among landowners of the country at large, namely, "to 
make more clearly defined and more stringently enforced 
their exclusive right to control their lands as they please." 
Very good. We have been taught that it is good law 
that the wild game of the country belongs to the people 
just as much as navigable waters and highways, the tax- 
ing power, etc. But if every owner of land in Indiana, 
California, etc., decides to exercise his "right to exclusive 
control" of his land, where will the fellow come in who 
has a gun, who loves to hunt as well as the landowner 
and who has proven his right to live by earning his living. 
The game belongs to the State, yet only such citizens of the" 
State as happen to own land can touch it. In other words 
has the owner of the land something which is yours as mucli 
as his, yet can keep you from having it? How is that? 
I do most of my hunting on land that is not yet owned 
by jjrivate individuals, or by railroads and timber com- 
panies that do not yet care to enforce every prerogative 
that ownership of land gives. But the moment they do, 
what becomes of me? AVhere can I go that I will not be' 
at least technically a trespasser? You have been foremost 
in the protest against discriminating taxes on guns, which 
would place a poor man at the disadvantage of a richer 
one in the exercise of his natural right. But if the owners 
of land, who are few compared with the army of men and 
women who love ;the woods and the fields, and who go 
there to fish and shoot and live for a space an ^outdoor 
life, choose to exercise their prerogative and keep;;us ofl", 
what then? 
I am not speaking to defend the action of either side in 
these clashes between those who have often made their 
privileges valuable by improving them, and that other 
larger mass who do not yet sufliciently understand their 
natural rights nor the limitations to the exercise of indi- 
vidual freedom. I do not excuse the mistakes of either 
side; I deplore the killing of a human being, whether by a 
game club's warden, who may be acting in a legal way, or 
by some ignorant yap who feels that somehow he is being 
deprived of a natural right. But I do wish to say that I 
certainly do hope that the tendency on the part of owners 
of land is not toward a more strict enforcement of their 
legal rights to claim exclusive use of that which God has 
placed ou their lands for the use of all. It is not some- 
thing to be settled in a day, and our present laws of all 
kinds are an indication that it will not be settled in many 
days; but it is something for thoughtful persons to think 
about. 
Also, if we are to continue to have some kind of game, 
we must look right away to the enforcing of better game 
laws, or we will indeed have all the game in the country 
in the parks of a few rich clubs and individuals. It is the 
testimony of history that where individuals have acquired 
privileges which they abused, the people had proven un- 
worthy of the possession of their so-called rights. Land- 
owners are finding the game disappearing, and they choose 
to enforce more strictly their right to that which the law 
says is theirs. The abuse of the land-owning privilege is 
at the bottom of much of the evil of the monopolies we 
hear about, but the surest way to extend the evil is to fail 
to provide for the adequate protection of game. If the 
country is turned into private game preserves and the man 
with a gun but no land has nowhere to go, he will have no 
one but himself to blame. If, when adequate laws are 
passed, the areas over which a person may hunt become 
restricted, then there will be that question to settle; but 
tha^one of the game laws is just now the more urgent. 
After that let him think of the other. Tappan Adnby. 
A TRAGEDY OF THE WOODS. 
The day was hot and sultry. The scorching rays of the 
midsummer sun penetrated through the verdant foliage of 
the large oak forest and sprinkled the winding paths with 
plenteous spots all aglow with his reflected rays. The si- 
lence was well nigh complete, save when it was now and 
then gently broken by the twittering of a hummingbird or 
suddenly rent by the fierce calls of a crow. A large black 
snake lay sunning himself in the path, and was presently 
aroused to proceed in his sinuous career by the sound of 
approaching footfalls. 
A man, clad in corduroy trousers and canvas coat, armed 
with a rifle of small caliber, which he carried carelessly 
over his shoulder, entered the wood. His lithe step be- 
tokened an active man. He pressed on quickly, yet 
no stick icracked under his feet, nu bough was jarred 
in his onward career. Invading as he was the realms 
of nature, his true hunter's instinct told him that 
the skill of man must be used in all its ef- 
fectiveness in order to cope with the alert fac- 
ulties of nature's children. He knew too that the little 
gray squirrel is far from being a novice among nature's 
"artful dodgers." The little gray fellow has skill too. And, 
dear hunter, is not his skill used for a nobler purpose than 
yours? He uses his to evade; you use yours to invade. He 
uses his to live; you use yours to kill. His is a weapon of 
defense; yours is a weapon of oflEense. Yes, there is a sad 
side to a hunter's life. His pleasure is keen while the ex- 
citement lasts, but when in sober reflection he glances at 
the limp, almost lifeless little form before him; sees its life 
blood ebbing away; sees a happy, beautiful, harmless crea- 
ture cut off in its career; sees it in the agony of its death 
struggles, or hears its piercing cry for help, the animal of 
the man goes out for a moment, his savage nature departs 
for a season, and that God-like element of pity comes to 
the rescue. But this is aside. 
The hunter presses onward into the thick of the forest. 
Presently he stops to listen. Hark! what is that he hears? 
He hears something, for he starts slightly and gazes in- 
tently into the wood. It is the sound of falling hickory 
nuts, and the hunter proceeds cautiously to the spot from 
whence the sounds proceed. Far up into the limbs of a 
tall hickory tree there sits a little animal, innocent, yet 
alert; graceful, yet muscular. His little eyes shine radiant- 
ly. The color of his coat resembles marvelously the limb 
upon which he is sitting. His bushy tail is curled over 
his back. He sits almost as still as death, and were it not 
for the movement of his jaws as he scrapes the hickory 
nut he could scarcely have been distinguished from a 
knot on a limb. Interested as this little fellow was in 
obtajning his daily food, he did not see the hunter ap- 
proaehing; he did not hear the click of the hammer when 
the rifle was cocked; and he did not know until it was too 
late that fate was plotting his downfall. Crack! went the 
little rifle, and the little gray fellow started at the 
sound. The half-eaten hickory nut dropped from 
his jaws to the ground. He tried to scamper 
away to his den, but his limbs seem to fail him. He 
seemed to have lost his head. After he had darted to 
and fro for several minutes, in seeming delirium, he 
stopped, he wavered. He would seem on the point of 
falling on one side of a limb, but would catch himself with 
his sharp claws, only to repeat the performance on the 
other side. Finally his efiorts became more and more 
feeble. His eyes slowly but surely lost their luster; his 
claws by degrees lost their tenacity, until at last he fell to 
the earth, dead. The hunter picked up the limp form and 
placed it in his pocket, glancing the while to note whether 
or not he had made a center shot. Thus ended the 
tragedy of the woods. 
The sun sunk deeper into the west. A slight breeze 
arose and sighed through the tree tops. The hunter went 
silently homeward, and as he turned to glance toward the 
woods he had just left he sighed and realized that the cur- 
tain had fallen upon the closing scene of one little hero's 
play upon the stage of life. Bang-Bang, 
Virginia. 
r/ie FoRKST AND Streaii in put to press tath vttcH on luesdcj/. 
Correspondence mltinded for publication nhoitld reach us at tjte- 
latest by Monday, and us much tarlier us practicable. 
