184 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sbpt. 4, 1897. 
wet rags, and in fact with every appeaii&nceof mortification 
which it was pcfible for a dog to show, he slouched himself 
out of sight under the lounge, and for half an hour or so 
could not he persuaded to come out, even by the most en- 
ticing call of his favorite mistress. There seems to be a 
limit to the endurable disappointment of even a dog, and 
his nose tells him when that limit is reached. 
It is a singular fact— though this is not what I sat down to 
write about — that there are some animal odors which — at 
least until they^et used to them— are alwavs offensive to 
some other animals. I susnect ' that herein lif s the founda- 
tion of the usual and well-known antipathy which exists 
between dnss and cats. And the odor of the bear seems to 
be especially offensive to horses. A friend of my boyhood 
days having been fortunate in acquiring an abundance of 
worldly wealth, indulged himself in one of those extrava- 
gancies known as a "country seat." Among his other luxu- 
ries he made a purchase of a pet bear, and during davtime 
chained it to a stake in his back yard, about 60 or SOvds. 
distant from the public country road which passed in front 
of the house. His own horses soon became accustomed to 
the bear and paid it no attention, but aside from them, there 
wasn't a horse in three counties which could be driven past 
that house without showing everv sia-n of extreme terror, 
and sometimes becomina: almost frantic. Also, oncR up in 
the White Mountains I was riding across from the Profile 
House to Littleton, behind a livery team with a livery-stable 
driver, when suddenly both horses threw up their heads 
and snorted, and but for a free use of the whip would 
Lave backed around and gone the other way. The driver 
explained that a bear had probably crossed the road shortly 
before, and left the odor of his trail behind him, which the 
liorses had caught, and hence their fright. But there was 
no bear in sight, nor any visible sign of one, nor could we 
see anything else which a livery horse ought to get fright- 
ened at. I 
I did not sit down to write about female seminaries either, 
but 1 am reminded of an incident which may be worth 
telling. 
An'old bachelor friend, to whom the deities who preside 
over the distribution of wealth had been quite liberal,' was 
persuaded by his married sister to make a generous contri- 
bution to the endowment of the seminary of which she was 
a loyal graduate. His munificence led the seminary author- 
ities to make a special effort to secure bis attendance at the 
next following commencement. He went. He was the 
guest of honor. He attended all the receptions and parties 
and teas, and was assigned a front seat on the platform on 
commencement day. He was introduced to and was smiled 
on by some six or eight hundred fair damsels in the full 
blush and beauty of charming girlhood, and for a week 
breathed an air that was redolent with moire antique, white 
tulle, laces, curls, smiles, blushes and perfumery. Eeturn- 
ing to his city home, he wai asked what he had enjoyed 
most. He replied that the thing which he remembered with 
chief est pleasure, was "the deliarhtful odor of young girls 
which pervaded the entire atmosphere." 
If our literature contains any better description of the 
predominant feature of a female seminary commencement, I 
do not remember to have seen it. 
But, lest T should forget it, let me say right here that I sat 
down chiefly to recall a statement about female seminary 
life, made in Forest and Stream, Aug. 7, 1897, page 104, 
reading as follows, the italics b°ing my own: "One deaf- 
blind girl assorted the clothing of her fellow pupils after it 
Tiad rei^miedfrom the wash, entirely by smelling it." 
Now, after having personally witnessed the facts which I 
have stated above as to sheep and lambs and dogs, I am pre- 
pared to believe a good deal about seminary girls; but the 
statement above quoted rather stumps even my credulity. 
The line must be drawn somewhere. I have never been in 
the laundry business, but I would suppose that every taint of 
personal odor belonffing to the garments would be effectually 
killed or overcome by the vile and pungent stenches of the 
laundry soaps commonly used in washing. If it had been 
stated that the deaf-blind girl referred to was able, by the 
sense of smell, to distinguish and name the particular kind or 
quality of soap used in washing each garment, I could read- 
ily believe that. Or, assuming that the same kind of soap 
was used on the entire "wash," if it had been stated that by 
smelling the garments she could tell the particular kind of 
fat used in making the soap, I do not think that my 
credulity would have hesitated for an instant. It has 
been taxed much worse than that by the fish yarns 
that have been worked off on me in years agone, 
by angling friends whose tongues are now as cold and dead 
as are the camp-fires around which we sat while the yarns 
were b-'ing spun. Or yet again, the deaf -blind girl referred 
to might be trusted, after smelling the wash, to say whether 
the laundry maid, who had handled the clothes, was Irish or 
pure Teutonic, "or even an I tal-i-an." She might also be 
able to identify, by smelling, the particular brand of starch 
used, whether Oswego starch or some other kind of starph. 
Possibly she could name the variety of potatoes from which 
the starch was made, and describe the kind of soil in which 
they grew- just as espei*ts in tobacco are able, after tasting 
a leaf, to say where it grew, and whether it was raised in 
unpolluted virs-in soil or in a soil artificially manured and 
fertilized. I think that T could believe all that, especially if 
I saw it in Forest mj> Stream, but to "go back of the re- 
turns," and say that after boiling and soaping and scouring 
and wringing and rinsing and drying and starching and iron- 
ing, enough of the odor of the original wearer remains so as 
to be discernible by any human nostril -that is a little too 
much, even for me — and I can stand a good deal. 
Mr. Editor, did you ever hear of the sea captain who had 
sailed over all the oceans and up and down all the seas on 
the face of the earth, until he was thoroughly familiar with 
every cubic yard of atmosphere under the whole heavens? 
and did you ever hear how he could go on deck in the morn- 
ing, smell the salt air, and tell the latitude and longitude 
without hesitation and with the most perfect accuracy'? I 
heard this story in my boyhood, and ever since that, when- 
ever I was in a skeptical state of mind, I have had some 
doubts about its I'eing altogether true; but I think that I 
could believe it quite as well as I could swallow the state- 
ment above quoted about the blind girl and the washing. 
And while the statement may be true, just as it is written 
down, it will take a good deal more to convince me of it 
than a photograph of the girl, or a piece of one of her broken 
corset-steels.' Shagamoss. 
To a shooting and fishing disciple just off a sick bed and able to 
shift a bit about the house Forest and Stream is both a stimulant 
and a tonic, although the dose, should be administered oftener than 
once a week— daily, for instance. Life is surely better, nobler, more 
manly and womanly, when Fohbst and Stream is permitted to play a 
part in it. _ M. Chill, 
ACCLIMATIZATION IN NEW ZEALAND. 
The twelfth annual report of the "Wellington (New Zea- 
land) Acclimatization Society for the year ending March 31, 
1897. is an interestinar document. On the financial side the 
results are very gratifying, the Society having a balance of 
nearly $1,100 to its credit— considerably more than it had 
last year. A portion of this, increase is due to receipts for 
additional licenses for shooting stags and another portion to 
recpipts for fishing licenses. 
The European red deer continue to increase and thrive in 
the Wairarapa district, notwithstanding the fact that some 
illegal shooting has taken place during the past year. Active 
measures are being taken to suppress this, and a conviction 
has already been secured, which cannot fail to have a good 
effect. The greater portion of the deer are at present rang- 
ing in settled districts, and in some cases have become quite 
tame. As it was desirable that new herds should be started 
in wild and unsettled districts, twelve calves were captured, 
of which one-half were turned out by the Government in 
Tongariro National Park, and on the west coast of the South 
Island, and the remainder on the Corporation Reserve at 
Wainui-o-mata. Arrangements have been made with the 
Wellington City Counsel to utilize this preserve for game 
preservation purposes, and some pheasants have been liber- 
ated there. 
Efforts to rear pheasants and ducks in confinement have 
not been specially successful. A consignment of English 
partridges has been arranged for during the coming 
season. 
In New Zealand, as in this country, a steady decrease is 
takinff place in the numbers of the native birds in many 
settled districts. This is due for the most part to the whole- 
sale slaughter of rare birds by paid hunters for purposes of 
sale to foreign museums. Strong efforts are being made to 
put an end to this destruction. 
Great trouble is had on the island by farmers, poultry 
breeders, and the society's aviary and fish ponds, from the 
depredations caused by the introduced ferrets and weasels. 
These vermin— introduced to destroy the rabbits and now 
protected for the benefit of the sheep growers— are rapidly 
increasing and are likely to become a real pest. 
The work being done at the Masterton fish ponds in rear- 
ing and distributine various kinds of Salmonidm continues to 
be successful, and the record made here is extremely credit- 
able. Mor<=< than 2,000,000 ova were taken last year, and of 
these 1,500.000 were disposed of either as idyde ova or fry 
and about 800,000 were gratuitously liberated as young fish 
in the waters of the district. 
The result of the good work dqiie by the Welhngton 
Society is shown in the excellent fishing that is to be had in 
this district. The American brook trout have thriyen 
splendidly, and while ^much work remains to be done an 
admirable beginning has been made. 
CITIZEN BIRD.* 
This is one of the most charming as well as the most use- 
ful books on birds ever pr'nted. . It is the joint product of 
Mrs. Mabel Osgood 'Wright and Dr. Elliott Coues, both of 
whom are suflaciently famous in bird literature to make their 
authorship a guarantee that something worth reading has 
been produced, and it is as full of information as if it had a 
much more ponderous and formidable title. It is the vol- 
ume's great charm that it conveys information without 
appearing to do so; that in the form of a delightful story it 
gives us the essential facts about most of our eastern— and 
some western— common birds, telling what they do, how 
they live, how they benefit or injure man, and why they 
should b-» cared for and protected. 
The volume is especially remarkable for the engravings 
which it contains, which literally illuminate its pages. 
These are beyond question the best bird pictures that have 
ever appeared in any book of moderate price— one might 
perhaps say even more than this. They are from sketches 
of Mr. Louis Agas^iz Fuertes, the new bird artist who very 
recently began to astonish ornithologists by sketches which, 
while technically accurate, were as different as possible 
from the conventional bird sketches which have hitherto 
been regarded as satisfactory. Mr. Puertes's birds have 
something about them which is remarkable m its approach 
to life We get from them an idea of arrested motion which 
is startling. The Fketches are not all equally good as repre- 
sentations of the different species, but they all have this 
quality of lif elikeness— which is after all the essential thing 
in the drawing of a living creature. It is probable that this 
life likeness is due to the exquisite faithfulness to nature 
with which the attitudes of the birds are caught. Many of 
the best bird pictures that we are accustomed to see m 
popular books look as if they had been drawn from 
stuffed specimens— not always too well stuffed Mr. 
Fuertes's sketches, however, make one feel sure tbat the 
sketches were made from Ufe. There are 108 of these 
drawings representing different species, besides some dia- 
grams of bills and feet of birds, in all 111 illustrations. 
The plan of the book is delightful in its simplicity. A 
naturalist living on a country farm is visited by a small 
nephew and niece. To them and to another small boy he 
tells the story of the birds that they see from spring to later 
summer, taking up the species in their natural order, giving 
some brief account of their habits, and finally describing 
them in simple yet unmistakable language. Almost every 
bird is further described by its picture. ^ 
The volume opens with a chapter giving an imagined con- 
versation among the Bird People of the farm about the 
House People who have just come there, the buds express- 
ing their anxiety on the subject of cats, guns and small bays. 
Thenceforth, until the closing chapter of the book is reached, 
the Bird People collectively do not appear. In the two or 
three following chapters the naturalist tells the children some 
general facts about birds, the plan on which they are built, 
the class to which they belong, and many of the characters 
of the class, all given forth simply, naturally and interest- 
ingly. Feathers and flight are described, and migration and 
protective coloring touched on. A chart of the classes of ver- 
tebrates is given ; the plan of a bird's body with the names of 
the different parts, and sketches of bills and feet of different 
birds are shown in line drawing. 
The Doctor lends an adventitious interest to his birds by 
an artificial classification, by which he divides them into 
guilds, including those which make their living in the same 
way. These guilds he names Ground Gleaners, Tree Trap- 
pers, Sky Sweepers, Wise Watchers, Seed Sowers, Weed 
Warriors and Sea Sweepers; titles whose attractiveness will 
be acknowledged. In the course of his talk he takes the 
* MapMillaa Company. Price $1,50. ~ 
ground that each bird is a citizen of this country, and a good 
citizen, too; that he is industrious, a useful member of bird 
Focietv, patriotic, and that to the human community he pays 
taxes by renderine services which entitle him to protection. 
Hence the title of the volume. 
In their search for the birds of forest, meadow, swamp 
and seasliorp, the children visit these different localities, and 
besides what thev are told about the birds, acquire many 
other useful bits of knowledge concerning nature and her 
wavs. 
Besides their outdoor excursions with the field tflasses, by 
which they Iparn much concerning the livins' birds, the chil- 
dren are admitted now and then to their uncle's work room, 
and have an opportunity to see and even to handle — rare 
privilese — the skins of some of the birds about which they 
are being taught, but which thev may not be able to see or 
nearly to approach in life. Thev thus gain a practical 
acquaintance with all the common birds of the localify. 
The whole scheme is worked nut in an entirely plain and 
practical way. and shows how very easily an ornithologist 
might teach all his small friends the more salient points 
about the familiar bird.«, and thus become a very home mis- 
sionary for bird protection. 
If the plan of the book is simple and pleasing, its execu- 
tion is not leso so. There is nothing about it that is techni- 
cal, and the long words in it are few. The talk of the 
children is natural, and that of the older people is just such 
as intelligent adults would use to children. Very early in 
the book one of the little people, already interested in the 
birdp, asks her uncle if he cannot write a little book for the 
children, "just a common little book, all in plain words?" 
And behold the book has been written, and is here before us. 
Pinnated Grouse Habits. 
Chicago. Aug. 37. — Editor Forest and Stream: This week 
I note editorial comment on the sharp tailed grouse, and I 
note it is said that the pinnated grouse has not been observed 
to take to the timber during the cold weather. In central 
Iowa in my time we did not have the sharp-tailed grouse, 
but had many prairie chickens. It was very common dur- 
ing cold weather in the winter, and more especially in case 
of snow, to see the prairie chickens roosting on trees in the 
timber along the river bottoms, or in the groves of timber on 
the uplands. Sometimes many dozens would be on a single 
tree, and my father and I have often killed a number of 
chickens from the same tree, phootinff them with the rifle 
and killing the lower chickens first. If not disturbed, these 
large flocks of chickens would of a cold day sometimes sit in 
the trees until nearly noon. At times they would alight on 
fence rails. At the" first approach of cold in the fall it was 
quite a common sight to see numbers of them in the morn- 
ings perched on top of wheat stacks or straw piles. 
E. Hough. 
"The Osprey." 
Eecent numbers of the Osprey are remarkable for the 
interesting illustrations found in them. Those of the hum- 
mingbird and of the great horned owl in the May number 
are especially srood." The June number contains several 
notes of interest upon the bird from which the publication 
takes its name, together with a number of photographs 
bearing on the species. 
The "Briers" Pictures. 
THBas are twenty-Dine illustrfttioDS in the current edition of Game 
Laws in Brief, wont of Uiem full pagre half-tr>nes, and all admirably 
printed. The book is a beauty, and well worth having for the illus- 
trations which. Mr. Oharle'? Halloek says, so well represent A.merica's 
wilderness sports. The Brief gives all the laws of the United States 
and Canada for the practical guidance of anfclers and shooters As 
an authority, it has a Ions record of unassailed and unassailable ac- 
curacy. Forest and Stream Pub. Oo. sends it postpaid for 25 cents, 
or your dealer will supply you. 
THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
One of your correspondents, in an article under the above 
title, says "that a good shot should hit the width of the body 
of a running deer at any distance at which the rifle is accu- 
rate, and gives two instances of remarkable shots made by 
himself. 
The question of caliber of rifle for big game is almost en- 
tirely one of convenience, that I think as well played out as 
the old question between muzzleloader and breechloader, 
which rests upon much the same ground. But what can be 
done with the rifle on moving game is a question tolerably 
fresh. For years we have heard much of "wing-shooting 
with the rifle," "champion wing-shot with the rifle." and 
similar things, nearly all of which seemed to consist of hit- 
ting so many glass balls at a few paces, always at the same 
distance and in the same position. In "The Still-Hunter"_ I 
devoted some space to this, but we have had little or no dis- 
cussion of it the columns of this paper. In the hope that I 
may stir up a debate of the old-time sort and call out infor- 
mation from many of the crack shots who are able to give it, 
I will tell what I "know about it. 
I have had far more practice with the rifle than most of 
the crack game shots of the worid. I killed with the shot- 
gun nineteen quail handrunning in the Itiickest of catbriar 
swamps before I was twenty, and would have been backed 
against the worid with the pistol about the same time by the 
students of Princeton College. I have since that had far 
more practice with the rifle on moving game than I have had 
all told with the pistol and gun combined, though I have 
never shot a match at a trap. I have had as big a local repu- 
tation as any one was ever given by ignorant or unwise 
friends, and you can find plenty in southern California to- 
day who will tell you that I can kill as many quail flying 
with a rifle as any one can with the gun. I have shot with 
it on the wing almost every bird that flies, from the great 
condor down to the little wi-en tit, one of which I once shot 
crossing and dipping at 38yds., the body being of about the 
same size as that of the hummingbird. I have shot hundreds 
of flying quail with the rifle; running jack rabbits and cotton- 
tails by the hundred, have made many doubles on them, 
and I once made a double on a single quail, cutting a bunch 
