Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Tear. 10 Ctb. a Copy. 
Srk Months, 82. 
} 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULy 17, 1897, 
J YOL. XLVIX.— No. 3. , 
( No. 846 Bboadway, New York. 
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There is not a fluttering: leaf^ a rippling- rapid, a 
ilver cascade, a momentary sun- glint, a passing 
ihadowt a- ^ii*d note, a tiny flower, a feathery 
ern, or any one of a thousand other things of 
jeauty we see and hear where our pastime draws 
:is, which is not remembered hy the appreciative 
mgler equally with the rise and strike and swirl of 
*out or salmon* George Dawson* 
CONCERNING A SUMMER DELUSION. 
Eabies and hydrophobia, the former denoting the mad- 
less attributed to the dog, the latter a form of the disease 
jonveyed to man by inoculation from a rabid dog's bite, 
nd both diseases of such frightful virulence that their 
^ery names inspire mankind with a feeling of horror, 
lold an exceedingly peculiar position in the realm of 
nedical science, inasmuch as many physicians maintain 
hat both diseases are so rare that they practically have 
lo existence, while others strenuously maintain that they 
io not exist at all. And yet, institutions devoted specially 
0 the treatment of these diseases have a constantly in- 
creasing |)atronage, and seem to flourish financially. The 
iaily press has its annual run of mad-dog stories. Indeed, 
he summer season would be shorn of some of its most 
ireadfully delightful news features, so far as the daily 
jress is concerned, if rabies and hydrophobia were myths, 
he policeman in search of heroism, the reporter in 
learch of a story, the crowd in search of excitement, and 
he vulgar craving so common to humanity to see some- 
hing killed, would lose much in the way of opportunity if 
nad dogs could be discovered no longer. The common 
gnorance which prevails in respect to all that pertains to 
iseases of the dog, and to rabies in particular, added to 
vhich is the fear of it which dominates all other emotions, 
3 a condition favorable for the ready acceptance of any 
tory whose subject is a mad dog. 
Nearly all physicians hold that most of the cases 
ttributed to the inoculation from the bite- of a rabid dog 
xe mimetic or the result of suggestion. The fact of the 
existence of simulated diseases, caused by dread, imagin- 
ry symptoms and expectant attack, is well established. 
All authorities on the subject agree that this disease is 
0 more prevalent in summer than in winter. It is strict- 
Y infectious, and can be transmitted only by inoculation 
"he ommon belief that it develops spontaneously is an 
rror. However, the summer heat does harmfully affect 
36 dog betimes, producing attacks of vertigo, apoplexy, 
pilepsy and forms of craziness, as it does man under simi- 
ir circumstances; yet whatever may be the real disease 
ith which a dog is affected, it is almost to a certainty di- 
gnosed as rabies by the first observer, who without fail 
lises the cry of "Mad dog!" and begins the sensation, 
[en suffer more from nervous attacks in summer than in 
inter, yet the dog is subject to greater hardships conse- 
lient to the heat'than is man; for his body is closer to the 
irth, and, therefore, is exposed to the full intensity of the 
jflected heat; and let him need water ever so badly, there 
little and often no provision for him to satisfy his thirst 
the streets of a great city. Lolling, panting, sufiering 
ad ifaint, he must toil along till he finds water by acci- 
ent. If he should show any frenzy, his death is certain 
n the instant. 
There is a vulgar belief that the dogdays are so-called 
ith special reference to the predisposition of the dogs to 
) mad within that period. The name has no reference to 
le dogs directly or indirectly. It simply denotes the 
iltry part of the summer, from a part of July to a part of 
iptember, and originated in a belief of the ancients that 
le conjunction of the rising of the dog star with the rising 
' the sun caused the oppressive heat of summer, and the 
msequent maladies. Losing its original significance with 
le lapse of ages, it was an easy matter to transfer as per- 
.ining to the dog the name and all the ill it boded. 
It is undoubtedly true that rabies and hydrophobia ex- 
t, but so rare is either disease that few physicians have 
seen a case. The cases of the newspaper sensations are 
not rabies. Most of the so-called hydl-ophobia cases in 
man are simulated — the result of nervous dread. The 
newspaper mad dog is always highly excited and frothing 
at the mouth. The really mad dog trots along slowly, 
oblivious to external objects unless they obstruct his 
movement, when he snaps at the animal or object and 
resumes his way. The mad dog does not froth at the 
mouth; the discharge is thick, ropy, tough, and harass- 
ing to the dog, for he endeavors to remove it with his 
paws or to relieve it by plunging his head in water. The 
common belief is that the mad dog is afraid of water. On 
the contrary, he is not afraid. He seeks it and drinks a 
great deal, unless, as in some cases, the muscles of the 
throat become paralyzed. He rarely barks, or whines, or 
yelps. His voice has changed to atone peculiar to rabies, 
and he uses it in a hoarse, croupy howl which is easily 
recognized by anyone who has once heard it. The disease 
may be weeks in developing, and when it reaches a cer- 
tain stage the dog seeks relief in wandering far from home. 
He does not attack maliciously. In a frenzy at being an- 
noyed or interrupted, he snaps and goes on. 
President John Haines, of the Society for the Preven- 
tion of Cruelty to Animals, has performed a public service 
by opportunely stating the truth in this matter, through 
the medium of the public press and through the Society's 
excellent publication Our Animal Fri&nds. 
As a result of the recent hydrophobic scare in England, 
some stringent regulations have been imposed on the im- 
portation of dogs from the United States, though such act 
would seem to be deficient in common sense, as the dis- 
ease exists and has existed in England from time imme- 
morial. There is no record of any rabid animal ever hav- 
ing been exported from Ameirca to England, hence the 
precaution is groundless. 
Much valuable information will be gathered relative to 
this subject between this time and the next quarterly 
meeting of the American Kennel Club, by a committee 
composed of eminent specialists, and the public may then 
learn definitely whether the disease is rare or mythical. 
THE RETURN TO SAVAGERY. 
This is a phrase frequently employed about those per- 
sons'who enjoy going into camp, lounging about in their 
most ragged clothes, and rejoicing in the independence of 
entire freedom from the conventions by which most of us 
are bound amid home surroundings. The form of words is 
expressive and true. Nothing is more attractive than to 
throw off for a little while .the trammels of our daily life 
to get rid of the tight clothing that we commonly wear' 
and to substitute for a white shirt, with its stiff coUar, one 
of flannel that is soft and loose. At such times we like to 
work hard with our bodies, and to let our heads rest; to 
make the skin of our knees and hands hard and callous 
by long contact with saddle or paddle or rope or axe; to 
do in a month of summer or autumn more hard physical 
labor than we perform in the remaining eleven months of 
the year. We enjoy this because in doing theses things we 
measurably return to natural conditions, and because the 
contrast between these occupations and those of: our usual 
life is shai'p. A woods vacation is a true an^ genuine 
vacation from conventionalities. , 
We are likely to.imagine that it is only the civilized man 
who has this feeling, but this is scarcely true. There are 
in this country a quarter of a million ' people, tnany of 
whom have just emerged from a condition of savagery, and 
who are making their way with slow and painful steps 
toward civilization and self-support. Under these changed 
conditions they live like the white man — wear "store 
clothes," dwell in frame houses, sit in chairs, sleep in beds 
and eat at the table with knives and forks. But many of 
the older Indians recall a time in their lives, when in warm 
weather clothing was a superfluity seldom thought of. 
when the small boys in summer were clad in a string' 
about the waist, and a belt with a breechclout constituted 
the wearing apparel of the men. The people remember 
those bygone days with pleasure, and even Indians who 
are well advanced toward civilization, who have comfort- 
able houses, and farm and raise stock, and have begun to 
accumulate property, sometimes long for a return to the 
old-time life. So every summer, about the Fourth of July 
— the whitei man's great medicine day — they are likely to 
move away from their houses and to go into camp, just as 
they used to do. 
The horses are turned out to feed on the hills, and the 
lodges are pitched in a circle, with the larger home of the 
head chief in the center. As of old, the women go to 
the creek for water; or, outside the lodge, they ply tte axe 
on some tough log. The children play about the lodges or 
splash in the stream, and at night the dogs howl at the 
moon from the hilltops. Again, as of old, one hears the 
feast shout; the droning voice of the old crier, as he pro- 
claims the order of the camp or exhorts the young men to 
do what they ought to do; or the tapping of drum by a 
doctor or a party of dancers. 
If the crier is seen in his march about the camp, it will 
be found that he has cast aside for the time his hat, coat, 
shoes and trousers, and luxuriates in garments which con- 
sist of little besides the human skin. If one goes into a 
lodge where some old men are gathered, they will be 
seen to have discarded all modern clothing, and to be sit- 
ting cross-legged about the fire, either entirely naked, or 
wearing the old-time leggings or moccasins, but at all 
events, stripped of the garb which they al\\^ays assume 
when they visit the agency, and which has, in fact, become 
the dress of ceremony. Even during this luxurious period 
of camp life the white man's clothing is donned again 
if a feast or a council is called. 
Oddly enough the younger generation — those young 
men and boys who have been born since the new order of 
things came about, and since the white man's dress be- 
came the usual one — do not revert to the primitive cus- 
toms of their ancestors in respect to clhthing. They still 
wear, even during this season of relaxiation, boots and 
spurs and trousers and coats, sq that in the same home 
where the father sits naked by the lodge fire, the grown- 
up son near him is completely clad, and by his side lies 
his wide-brimmed cowboy hat. 
Human nature is everywhere the same, and though the 
long civilized man is, in time, a little further distant from 
things purely primitive than is his changing red brother, 
he still enjoys the return to such conditions, though not 
with the pure delight felt by the old Indian, who once a 
j^ear, for a short time, lives again as he really used to live 
when he was a boy. * 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Was it Andrew Lang who wrote of a wary old trout, fishesd 
for by all the experts for years with every device and lure 
and stratagem known to the honest angler, and circum^ 
venting all their wiles, only to fall victim at last to a tickler 
or guddler, or some other inhuman fisher dolt? Something 
like it has just happened in Columbia county, New York, 
where some years ago a planting of brown trout was made 
in the Harlemville stream, a brook tributary to the Phil- 
mont reservoir. For a long time one of the fish, a mon- 
ster of such prodigious size as to turn fishermen as green 
with envy as the banks from which they beheld him, had 
been known to haunt a certain pool, to which ambitious 
anglers of two States had resorted, time, and again, to drag 
him forth. For all of them the old fellow proved too 
wary; or, if it came to a test of strength, too strong for their 
fancy tackle. He had made a record of many seasons of 
broken tips and parted leaders; but his time came. A few 
days ago Benjamin Snyder with stout pole and cable 
yanked him out. The hero who had so often come out 
ahead in a fair-play contest with foes worthy of his best 
dodges, yielded at the end to the iinequal odds of catch as 
catch can with a bean-pole. He measured seventeen 
inches around, and twenty inches in length, and weighed 
ten and a-half pounds. 
5,L 
Persons interested in stocking presS$ye4 With foreign 
game birds have encountered an obstacle existing in the 
present tariff law which forbids the importation of such 
eggs. This clause was put in the Act of 1894 at the sug- 
gestion of Senator Lodge, who represented that the eggs of 
canvas back ducks were being largely imported into this 
country. The Senator was led to this view doubtless by 
the fanciful story .then current that millions of duck eggs 
were being imported from the northern regions of this con- 
tinent for use in the manufacture of albumen. The pur. 
pose of the Act was esteemed a most commendable one 
and the prohibition eminently wise, until the Forest and 
Stream demonstrated that no such duck egg industry ex- 
isted. In the tariff bill now under consideration the 
clause with respect to the importation of birds' eggs has 
been changed, so that the eggs of birds which are not edi- 
ble are put on the free list. This has been dcjne at the 
suggestion of Senators Hoar and Lodge, who declare it to 
be their desire to protect the eggs of the singing birds. 
The provision should be modified further to admit of the 
free importation of eggs of game birds. 
