Nov. 13, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
888 
either the one or the other, Of all the places along the line 
from Harrisburg to Pittsburg he does not name one. or even 
mention by its name the great State through which he was 
passing. 
He speaks, though, of the pleasure he enjoyetl by the 
way. , "The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-paih, when 
every vein and artery seemed to tingle with bealtb; the ex- 
quisite beauty of the opening day; the lazy motion of the 
boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking through rather 
than at the deep blue sky ; the gliding on at night so noise- 
lessly, past frowning hills sullen with dark trees; the shin- 
ing out of the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels 
or steam, or any other sound than the liquid rippling of the 
water as the bi'^at went on— all these were pure delights." 
He speaks also of passing the new settlements and detached 
log cabins and frame houses; cabins with simple ovens, out- 
side, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs nearly as good 
as many of the human quarters; broken windows patched 
with worn-out hats and old clothes, and home-made dressers 
standing in the open air, whereon was displayed the house- 
hold store of earthen pots and jars "Somf?times at night," 
he says, "the way wound through some lonely gorge, like a 
mountain pass in Scotland, shining and* cnldiy glittering in 
the light of the moon, and so closed in by high, steep hills 
all around, that there seemed no egress save through the 
narrower paths by which we had come, until one rugged 
hillside seemed to open, and, shutting out the moonlight as 
we passed into its gloomy throat, wrapped our new course 
in shade and darkness." There h plenty of this truly Dick- 
ensian gush all through the book, though there is a strange 
want of deflniteness about everything. This last bit of word- 
painting of his could only apply to that part of the canal that 
lies in the gorge of the Laurel Hill and Chestnut Ridge; and, 
as it happened, he passed through these gorges in the early 
part of the night, and no doubt his description is true enough 
to nature. 
It was on March 27 that Dickens arrived in Johnstown, 
over the Portage railroad. About the only incident of his" 
trip that he has related took place here, though, as usual, he 
does not name the town There were two lines of packets, 
the Express and the Pioneer, lying in readiness to receive 
the passengers from the Exst. The Pioneer was the cheaper 
and likely the inferior line. The first-class passengers were 
designed for the Express; but at Johnstown an attempt was 
made to put all alike into the first-class boat. This was 
highly resented, at least by one of the passengers, the 
"brown forester" of the Mississippi. "This may be all very 
well with Down-easters and men of Boston raising," said 
he, "but it won't suit my figure no how; and no two ways 
about that; and sol tell you. Now, I'm from the brown 
forests of the Mississippi, I am, and when the sun shines on 
me it does shine — a little. No I am a brown forester, I 
am, I ain't a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth-skins 
where I live. We're rough men there. Rather. If Down- 
easters and men of Boston training like this, I'm glad of it; 
but I'm none of that raising nor of that breed." 
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon that Dickens was in 
Johnstown, and the whole population turned out to s-^e him. 
Among them was my old friend, the late Judge Potts of 
Johnstown, vvho described Dickens to me as a dapper, well- 
dressed, dandified young fellow, who, while the brown 
forester was thus objurgating the boat people, walked about 
the deck, and evidently appreciated the humor of the 
situation. 
The scenery along the line of the old Pennsylvania canal 
between Johnstown and Pittsburg well deserved the bpst 
word that even Charles Dickens could say of it. Gliding 
along the foot of the hills, whose wooded summits reflected 
themselves in the broad mirror-like expanses of the slack- 
water pools below; then by an attenuated channel through 
cultivated fields and quiet pastures where cattle were graz- 
ing, and by smiling farmsteads, where the white houses 
peered through the orchard trees; and on past thriving 
towns and villages, the canal boat, the Marathon, the Hec- 
tor, the Victory, or whatever name it bore, glorious in all 
the pride of white and red paint, passed like a vision, and so 
onward to the haven where it would be. It w.as the day of 
small things, and the passenger between Pittsburg and 
Philadelphia was relatively as I'ar-trave'ed a man as he who 
now goes from St. Louis to Boston. It was a matter of 
great boasting when the passage between the former two 
cities could be accomplished in three and a half days. 
At the end of his canal trip, at PiLtsburg, Dickens says 
that in the bustle and turmoil of getting the baggage ashore 
in the dark, he stumbled over the brown forester; who was 
sitting on the cabin stairs smokmg a cigar, and muttering 
to himself, with a short laugh of defiance: "I ain't a Johnny 
. Cake, I ain't, I'm from the brown forests of the Mississippi, 
lam"; from which Dickens was led to infer that he had 
never left off saying so, though he could not make aflidavit 
to that part of the story. T. J. Chapman. 
PiTTSBURO, Pa. 
FOLK LORE AND FACT. 
Doubtless most persons who have been interested in folk 
lore and been pleased at the care which has been bestowed 
in late years upon its study, have been inclined to think the 
results valuable chiefly as a study of the working of the 
imagination of primitive peoples or primitive stages of society. 
Many a tale is thought to be purely and solely an invention, 
or at best with but the slightest and vaguest foundation in 
anything veritable. There has recently come to me with 
force a reason why much of folk lore and tradition may 
have a nearer relation to history than has been supposed. 
I have long felt a strong desire that my children should 
not only have the same pleasures that 1 had in my childhood, 
lyit, especially that they should hear and enjoy the same 
stories that were told to me- 
For a long time I did not reflect upon this, but carefully 
recounted to my children certain stories with which my 
father and my uncle charmed me when a b^y. These in- 
cluded a great varietv of things, pithy proverbs and wise 
sayings, stories of tne advsntures of some of my ancestors 
wiio were soldiers in the Revolutionary War, encounters 
with wild animals in the days of the early settlement of 
New Hampshire, my native State, bits of songs current in 
the early time, etc., etc. These i^'oved to my children in- 
teresting, not only as I think because of the nature of the 
stories themselves but because they "belonged to the family." 
I often found myself telling them that if they should grow 
up and have any little boys and girls to teU stories to.'they 
must remember to tell them these same stories. Hound 
myself very anxious to take my children to my bii-thpiace, 
to show them the very rocks on which I had played, the 
brooks and ponds in which I had fished, the hills and 
mountains whicsh I knew so well, and when this was for tlie 
first time possible, I experienced a deep and subtle joy in 
hearing my own little girl refer to these places in her own 
familiar way as of right belonging to her experience as well 
as mine 
Lately I have reflected on this experience and reasoned 
about it as follows: If this desire to have my children share 
in their turn the very experiences that I once enjoyed is so 
innate in me and strong, despite the fact that the mo'lern 
world and particular environment into which they are born 
is far richer than my childhood was in actual marvel and 
complexity, is it not altogether likely that I but share in 
thi.s what is common to mankind? 
And if it is true that man has generally felt this desire, is 
it not certain that he would feel it with especial force in the 
case of those stories and traditions connected with what 
he deems needful for the wise guidance of his children? 
Will not this principle account not only for the mar- 
velous transmission, in jealously preserved accuracy of form 
for generations, of rituals and ceremonials such as those of 
the wife men and priests of the Zunis, but the great literary 
works like the poems of Homer? 
Would not the care spent upon faithfulness and accu- 
racy in the transmission be almost proportional to the lack of 
anv other means of tiansmission than the oral? 
Doubtless this has all been thought out and properly 
estimated by the experts in these matters, but my own 
discovery of myself as a careful transmitter of my own 
experiences''and my received traditions has so interested me, 
that I hope this note may suggest reflections from others, 
which they will be willing to give to me and others in the 
columns of Eorest and Stheajvi. 
Surely men like Geo. Bird Grinnell, and many others who 
have'studied thelndiau with special reference to such matters, 
will understand my wish and will respond. C. H. Ames. 
COON INSTINCT. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I was greatly interested in Mr. R. L. Warner's "Notes" 
in to-day's issue of Forest and Stream, under the above 
caption, as it gives me an opportunity to say to Forest and 
Stream whatlhave long intended doing. My experience 
with "that same old coon" dates back to more than half a 
century ago, when I was a lad between ten and fourteen 
years of age. On my way home from school one early 
summer day I met a farmer boy with a young coon about 
the size of a half-grown cat which I purchased for all the 
ready cash I had on hand — 10 cents. The animal was 
quite tame, and could be handled like a kitten. I carried 
him home in my arms and put a strap around his neck 
and attached a chain. Although he would follow readily 
when loose, he did not propose to be led; and when any 
force was applied he would throw his head down between 
his forelegs and place his paws over his eyes, as described 
by Mr. Warner. 
My first experience in letting him climb was up the in- 
side of the woodshed door frame, and he stationed himself 
above the door. AVhen I proposed to have him come 
down from his perch by pulling on the chain, he objected 
to an J' such arrangement. I finally pulled too hard and 
he fell to the floor, and you can judge of my surprise to 
find that he was not killed, but I was astonished when I 
saw both his eyes protruding from their sockets; my 
younger brother, who in after years became a surgeon, 
proposed that I push them back. I did so with my 
thumb, and that coon went about his business as if noth- 
iuK had happened. 
I kept him for two and a half years until he met with a 
more serious accident. At the time I got him we had a 
large white dog, a mongrel of bull, and half a do>!;en of 
other dog?, iu town, and he was the best coon dog in the 
count}'. We had to keep "coony" away from him at first, 
hut they finally got to be good friends and played together 
like two dogs. When a year or more old he was the 
largest coon I ever saw, and sometimes while playing with 
the dog he would play a little too rough and the old dog 
M'ould give him a shaking and drop him; when the coon 
would make for his kennel, and the dog would lie down 
and take a nap. But the coon had his eyes on him, and 
when he thought the dog had forgotten him he would 
creep up to him with his ears laid back and pounce upon 
him, and they would go to playing again as if nothing had 
happened and repeat the performance until the dog would 
retire beyond the reach of the coon. 
They often followed us in the woods together, and some- 
times we would take only the coon, which would follow 
all right until we came to a brook that crossed the wood- 
road, when he would stop and look for frogs. At such 
times we would go ahead and get behind trees and let 
him find ue; we would hear him coming, making the 
peculiar purring noise of the coon that I can only Uken to 
that of the tree-toad. 
My fat'ier smoked a pipe, and when it had burned out 
he would hold it down to the coon to clean out the ashes 
while they were still hot, and they would burn his fingers, 
when he would rub them on the ground and put them 
back in the pipe. He would take plums and apples from 
our pockets as handily a child. Given anything hard and 
round, that he would not eat, he would roll it between his 
paws, and at the same time would be looking around as 
unconcerned as if he did not know anything about it. 
He was very mischievous, and we had to make sure that 
he was shut up nights, as sometimes he would manage to 
get the chain loose from the strap, and if he could not get 
into the house he would go to the barn for the hens, and 
that is what caused his downfall. It was near Thanks- 
giving time, when we had had bini about two years and a 
half, that he got loose one night, and started out fbr his 
Thanksgiving dinner; .and instead of getting it at home, he 
went to the upper part of the village, where he was not 
well acquainted with the man on whose hen-house he pro- 
posed to forage. The owner, hearing the hens, hastily 
dressed and went out to see what caused the commotion. 
As the man was very small (weighing less than lUOlbs.), 
the coon probably mistook him for a good-sized rooster, 
left the hens, and started for him. The man retreated into 
the house; when next he appeared before that coon he 
had his old musket loaded for bear. Mr. Coon was brought 
up among guns, and knew they were dangerous, and he 
did not propose to expose himself, but was content to put 
hie nose through a knot-hole in the board and wRtch ttie 
enemy; but the gun got onto him, and when I saw him the 
next day I did not recognize that nose; it looked as if it 
had been too inquisitive as to the working of a threshing 
machine. 
If Mr. Warner can get any satisfaction from this screed 
about "Conn Instinct," I shall be more than pleased. 
Will Mr. Warner kindly explain why the instinct to 
hibernate did not develop in this coon?J 
J. L. Davison. 
LocEpoRT, Oct. so. 
BARNYARD PLUMAGE. 
Charlestown, N. H., Oct. 19. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Is it ever allowable to "laugh in meeting"? I feel very 
much incUnod to do so, but yet do not want to hurt any- 
body's feelings by the expression of my risible propensities. 
The fact is, that I have been laughing to myself for a fort- 
night over a letter from one of your correspondents, in which 
he suggests the improvement of the breed of barnyard fowls, 
so as to raire "egrets' " crests on them, and thus prevent the 
slaughter of the herons, 
Now I should as soon think of growing a horse's tail on a 
muskrat as of trying to raise the real plumage of an aquatic 
fowl on the tail of one of the OalKnacece! Your correspond- 
ent truly says that great changes have been produced by 
selection and careful breeding, and speaks of some bird on 
which tail featbers 28ft. long have been grown! Does he 
not mean inches? and are not such plumes the natural growth 
of some of the "birds of Paradise" of the Eastern Archipel- 
ago, and not the result of cultivation? 
It is perfectly true that great changes in the plumage of 
the barnyard fowl and the pigeon have been produced by 
selective breeding, but they remain barnyard fowls and 
pigeons all the same; and 1 know of no changes in the char- 
acteristic plumage of the races, or the transference of that of 
an entirely different genus from its original position on the 
head to a new one on the tail of the product of the experi- 
ment! Perhaps your correspondent might raise a Manhattan 
cocktail in some way, but I doubt his getting an egret's 
crest! 
What struck me as the most ludicrous part of the letter 
was the announcement that "the discovery that silk would 
felt had saved the beaver." 
Now, as your correspondent dates from Fifth avenue, he 
probably wears a Danl'ap hat, and if he will ask any of the 
salesmen in the hat store, they can tell him that there is no 
felting process in the manufacture of a silk hat! 
The long-naoped silk plush, woven for the purpose, is cut 
to the proper shape and then cemented with shellac on to a 
pasteboard "shape" or foundation. Rain may spot and 
tangle it, so that it requires to be pressed over, but there is 
no felting about it, such as is produced by the constant rub- 
bing, while wet, of all fabrics produced from wool or fur, 
due to the imbricated or scaly character of the natural fibers, 
which work mto and interlock with each other, and which 
formed not only the nap but the body of the old-fashioned 
beaver hats or their more common muskrat imitations. Silk 
has none of these scales and will not felt at all, though it 
will snarl awfully, as every fly tier has probably experienced. 
VON W. 
MILLER ON SOME BATS. 
By the common people the bat has always been regarded 
as a mysterious and uncanny creature, neither bird nor 
quadruped, but a mixture of the two. Most naturalists 
even, until recently, have known but little about these 
mammals, whose habits are such as to make them more or 
less difficult of collection, and the study of their life his- 
tories espeeia'ly difficult. 
In No. 13 of the "North American Fauna," issued by the 
Biological Sui-ve.y of the Department of Agriculture under the 
direction of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Mr. Garrett S. Miller, Jr., 
has given us a valuable paper; entitled "Revision of North 
American Bats of the Family Vespertilionidas," in which 
forty-six species are described, and in many cases illustra- 
ted "by figures of skulls, teeth and ears. 
While a considerable mass of facts concerning the dis- 
tribution and comparative anatomy of members of this 
family have already been published, the species which 
represent this group in North America have not up to this 
time been treated from the standpoint of the systematic 
zoologist, and it has been hitherto practically impossible 
for any one not acquainted with the literature of North 
American bats to identify specimens. Mr. Miller's paper 
is intended to supply this want. He has had access to a 
great mass of material, numbering nearly 6,000 specimens, 
oi which perhaps one-half were alcoholic. These last are 
in some respects unsatisfactory, since it is learned that bats 
which have been kept in alcohol for any length of time 
change their color more or less, the tendency being toward 
a gradual bleaching, and perhaps even an ultimate entire 
loss of color. In the group studied, the range of sexual 
variation is very slight and often scarcely noticeable. 
Where it is seen, however, the female is slightly the larger 
of the two. No constant sexual diflerences in color have 
been observed among these bats. 
There seems to be remarkably little geographical varia- 
tion in size, proportions or color; specimens from Pensyl- 
vania, Virginia and the extreme southern point of Texas 
agreeing almost as closely as three specimens from the 
same locality. Mr. Miller suggests as an explanation of 
this uniformity, the habits of bats, which throughout the 
warmer part in the day live in cool, dark, and for the most 
part damp, places, and are thus exposed to comparatively 
little variation in temperature. 
An interesting point mentioned by Mr. Miller and little 
known to the general public is that many bats migrate 
regularly. In 1888, Dr. C. Hart Merriam published evi- 
dence which uhowed that two American bats perform 
regular periodical migrations. In August and September, 
1800 and 1891, Mr. Miller observed the appearance and 
disappearance of three species of bats at Highland Light, 
Cape Cod, Mass. The animals were not to be found dur- 
ing the early summer, but suddenly became numerous 
shortly after the middle of August, remained abundant for 
about a month, and then suddenly disappeared. This 
occurred on the two successive years named, and indi- 
cates that the migrations of bats are definite as to dates 
and paths. 
More than twenty-five pages of this work are given up 
to the consideratiun of the generic, subgeneric, specific 
and subspeciflc names of these bats, and authorities are 
quoted at length. Lists of the American VespeTtilionidiB, 
with the namws used by difi'erent authors at dift'erent 
