Nov. 37, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
425 
asylum, would endure such danger and hardship for such 
a reward. However, if I were younger— ahem! 
Hermit. 
SEALING FACTS AND CONDITIONS. 
The Bering Sea conference of representatives of the 
United States, Great Britain and Canada, in Washiogton, 
closed Nov. 16, with an agreement as to the facts relative to 
the seals. The results were announced in an official state- 
ment made public by G-en. Foster, as follows: 
"The delegates to the fur seal conference have agreed 
linanimously on cettam propositions touching the fur seal 
herd of Bering Sea. The report contains sixteen propositions 
which are briefly epitomized as follows; ' 
"That the Pribilof herd has declined in numbers from 
1884 to 1897; that the number was formerly three to flVe 
times that wh'ch now exist; that the death rale among pups is 
great, not more than one-half to one-third surviving to the age 
of three years; that the number of breeding females in 1896 and 
1897 was between 160,000 to 130,000; that the decrease from 
1896 to 1897 was notable, though its extent could not be 
definitely determined; that land killing of males, as now 
practiced, does no harm to the herd; that the pelagic sealers 
respect the limitation of the law; that pelagic sealing in- 
volves indiscriminate Jiilling; that the catch at sea contaios 
a marked excess of females; that the killing of males on land 
is the cause of this; that among the females killed are not 
only those both nursing and pregnant, but also many who are 
immature, or who have alreadv lost their pups; that the fur 
seal being polygamous, a large number of males may be 
killed with impunity; that females cannot be killed in 
similar numbers without checking the increase of the herd or 
brmging about an actual decline; that a small number of 
females, less than the annual increment of breeders, might 
be taken without producing actual decrease; that excessive 
pelagic pealieghas led to a reduction in the herd ; that pelagic 
sealing bas of late fallen oflE in greater ratio than the herd 
has, thus producing a tendency toward equilibrium in 
numbers; that in estimating the future conditions of the 
herd, there must be taken into consideration the reduction in 
the number of surviving pups caused by the pelagic catches 
of 1894-1895; that the herd is not in danger of actual 
extermination so long as its haunts on land are protected 
and the protected zone is maintained ; that both land and 
sea killing now yield an inconsiderable profit either to the 
lessees or to the pelagic sealers themselves." 
The delegates signing the agreement are Charles Sumner 
Hamlin, Divid Starr Jordan, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson 
and James Melville Macoun. 
idni^ B^3 §un. 
Some latroduced Birds. 
In the year 1879 twelve dozen Eastern quail [Colinvs 
nrginianus) were brought to Idaho and turned loose in 
the Boise River Valley, near Boise City, Idaho. The 
mild climate of this region, and the extensive grain fields, 
furnished these birds precisely the surroundings which 
they required. They did well from the first, and have so 
greatly increased that they are now by far the most abun- 
dant game bird in the vicinity. Some species of grouse 
which used to be very abundant there have almost been 
exterminated, but Bob White continues to thrive and to 
hold his own. 
A number of California Valley quail, introduced there 
some yeai-B later, did not do well, and ultimately dis- 
appeared entirely. 
It is reported that the European skvlarks turned out in 
Oregon, in the vicinity of East Portland and at other 
points, have done remarkably well and are firmly estab- 
lished there. They migrate each year about October, re- 
turning to the vicinity of Portland in February. Here 
they spend the summer and breed in great numbers. It 
is understood that the European song thrushes and star- 
lings, introduced about the same time, have also done 
well. 
A "Virginia Lynx. 
Pine View, Va., Nov. 10— Editor Forest and Stream: 
There was killed near this place on the 6th an animal of the 
cat family. There are so many different opinions in regard 
to the class of cats he belongs to that I write to get you to 
identify it for ua. The cat is 26in. from end of foot to top 
of back; would stand about 24in. ; a little over 4ft. long; tail 
ii'in. long, and weight 2z\ha., but, seemed very thin in flesh; 
is a grayish white on back, sides and head, a dirty white 
under belly and throat, long hair on legs, with a few black 
hairs on end of ears about l^In. long. We are forty-five 
miles from the mountains, and cats of any sort are rarely met 
with A little bob cat was killed near here some twenty 
yeais ago. One of our local hunters says it is a catamount, 
me-t with in the mountains of West Virginia. W. L. C. 
[Evidently a lynx of one species or the other. The de- 
scription reads like the Canada lynx {Lyn;v canadensis), which, 
however, would hardly be looked for so far south. It Is 
more likely to be a bay lynx {Lynx rufus), though as we say 
the deRcription of the animal, if from a more northern local- 
ity, would lead one to think the animal a Canada lynx. 
Catamount is a general name often applied to both species of 
lynx and sometimes to the cougar or panther.] 
Mutilated Squirrels. 
Jacjbsta-J'f writes of red squiirels mutilating gray ones. 
There are no red squirrels here, but it is often asserted and 
generally believed that such mutilation is practiced among 
the gray squirrels, and almost any squirrel hunter will say 
that he has killed many that bore unmistakable evidence of 
mutilation, and I have shot many that looked that way. 
jBut close examination never failed to show that the glands, 
which appeared to be missing, were still there, but for some 
reason had not grown with the rest of the squirrel, and 
were so small as to be easily overlooked, being frequently 
but little larger than a grain of wheat. 0. H. Hampton. 
The art of avoiding a conversational uopleasantness by a 
graceful way of putting thinj^s belongs. 1 suppose, in its 
highest perfection, to the East. When Lord Dufferin was 
Viceroy of India, he had a "shikarry." or sporting servant, 
whose special duty it was to attend the visitors aifthe vice- 
regal court on their shooting excursions. Keturning one 
day frooQ one of these expeditious, the shikarry encountered 
the Viceroy, who, full of courteous solicitude for his guests' 
enjoyraent, asked, " Well, what sort of sport has Lord 
had?" "Oh," replied the scrupulously pohte Indian, "the 
The "Briers" Pictures. 
There are twenty-nine illustrations in the current edition of Game 
Laws in Brief, most of them full page half-tones, and all admirably 
printed. The book is a beauty, and weU worth having for the illus- 
trations which, Mr. Charles Hallock says, so well represent America's 
wilderness sports. The Brief gives all the laws of the United States 
and Canada for the practical guidance of anglers and shooters. As 
an authority, it has a long record of unassailed and unassailable ac- 
curacy. Forest and Stream Pub. Co. sends it postpaid for 25 cents, 
or your dealer will supply you. 
THE PARTRIDGE. 
SSoT of the wood, from thy ambush low. 
Bolt off the dry leaves flying, 
With a whirring spring like an Indian's bow. 
Thou speed'st when the year is dying; 
And thy neat, gray form darts whirling past. 
So silent all, as thou flyest fast. 
Snapping a leaf from the copses red, 
Our native bird on the woodlands bred, 
I have trembled a thousand times 
As thy bolt through the thicket was rending, 
Wondering at thee in the Autumn chimes, 
When thy brother's soft wings were bending 
Swift to the groves of the spiey South, 
Where the orange melts in the zephyr's mouth. 
And the azure sunshine humors the air, 
And Winter ae'er sleeps in his pallid chair. 
And thy whirring wings I hear. 
When the colored ice is warming 
The twigs of the forest sere, 
While the Northern wind a-storming. 
Draws cold as death round the Irish hut 
That lifts its smoke in the railroad cut. 
And the hardy chopper sits dreaming at heme, 
And thou and I are alone in the storm 
Brave bird of my woodland haunt, 
Good child of the Autumn dreary, 
Drum of my city and bass of my chaunt, 
With thy rushing music so cheery, 
Desert not my bowers for the Southern flowers. 
Nor my pale, Northern wood for her ruby hours; 
Let us bide the rude blast and the ringing hail 
Till the violets peep on the Indian's trail. 
Editor Forest and Stream: The foregoing poem is from W. E 
Channing'9 "Life of Thoreau," and is by Channiog. If you have "not 
printed it in Forest and Stream it will fill a niche about this time of 
year, and your readers will be glad to see it. E. M. Macdonald 
WE HAVE THE RED SQUIRREL. 
The conditions under which most sportsmen live are so 
commonplace that they cannot expect any very strikine ex 
periences or successes. In the long-settled regions the bio- 
game is gone, and the small game and vermin are so nearly 
gone that to get any shooting we need to make the most of 
every bird and beast that the law permits us to '^hoot at 
For the average gun-lover there is no special car to take him 
to the Dakotas and the Rockies. He must find his snort 
within the limits of a day's tramp or a few hours rowing 
There may be near him lands or waters that invite the tarrv 
ing of the migratory game birds, and if by studying his 
neighborhood and working it shrewdly, by good hunting and 
good shooting, he can pick up a few snipes or ducks or a 
brace of woodcock, he considers himself lucky, and 'reallv 
has not much to complain of. Three or four gray gquirreis 
or rabbits will send him home pretty well satisfied. 
But there are many men who are within reach of little or no 
game, who yet feel the hunting impulse, love the woods and 
fields and enjoy the handling of well made shootino- irons 
If they are to have any hunting career they must magnify 
then: opportunities and their discoveries. A pretty small in 
cident must serve for an adventure; a woodchuck must rank 
as a bear; a raccoon must pass for a panther; a fox will do 
for a wolf; a chipmunk may figure as a coyote, and a red 
squirrel as an antelope; a snipe must look as big as a wild 
goose, and if on some great day the shooter manages to 
worry down a grouse he must Itt himself feel as if he were 
toting home a backload of wild turkeys. 
A recent correspondent, taking a pessimistic view of this 
matter and casting a prophetic glance into a future void of 
game, foresaw the sportsman reduced to gunning for nis- 
mires. But we are not there yet. We have almost every- 
where some larger vermin still to shoot at, and this article 
celebrates the red squirrel as a substitute for game with 
some good points of his own. The best is that he is not vet 
extinct. He does not insist on the tall timber amid which 
the gray squirrel hides. Any little grove may harbor the 
red and bring him within a walkable distance of town He 
deserves death for his depredations among the birds' "nests 
the cornfields and the , nut-bearing trees, so the shooters 
of him need have no compunctions. He is hardly game 
but that has some advantages. We need not employ coun' 
sel, or even look into the Bi-ief to learn when we may hunt 
him. As Roderick Dhu might have said ; 
"Though breeding time the gray we lend. 
Ere aim we take and lead we send. 
Who ever reck'd how, where or when 
The prowling red was popped and slain?" 
As he is vermin rather than game, we need not bother to 
dress him when he is shot, but may leave him to minde 
with the elements where he fell and where he sometimes lies 
invisible under one's nose, so well does his back match the 
CDlor of the russet leaves. 
Over and above the shooting, the squirrel hunter has all 
the chances to enjoy his outing that any hunter has in the 
same region. The landscape spreads about him as broad 
aad beautiful on his way to the woods as if he were after 
the noblest game. The autumn air is as exhilarating for 
him as for the nabob who runs his hunting car away into 
the Northwest. The trees rise about him in October as eor 
geous in their ripened leaves as if he were shooting grouse and 
bagging one every five minutes. When those leaves lie 
o T-t' "C^.'^T 'J F^uic luumii, -[.ne damp with frost and rain, they are as fraerant to him oo ,-f 
young Sahib shot diviacly. hut God was very merciful to he were stalking a deer; and the bare twigs trdce^i.f «« 
he buds. -Manchester Guarduin. deJicaj.? a nelworl^ a§Hm{ tlje overarching Wue ^ 
After all, we would not recommend the hunting of the red 
sqiiirrel if it did not require, when properly practiced, enough 
skill to make it worthy of a sportsman. That, of course, 
implies the use of a rifle. Thomas Alexander well said: 
•'Shooting squirrels with a shotgun is about the dreariest 
drudgery that was ever miscalled sport. But when you ex- 
change the shotgun for the rifle, you have in your hands a 
veritable enchanter's wand that transforms a species of sport 
fit only for boys into as delightful a pastime as can well be 
imagined." 
The beginner who starts out with the idea that he is going 
to hit with a bulletevery red squirrel that he sees, may not 
have much modesty, but he is on the way to get more This 
squirrel is a small and restless mark, and harder to hit at 
100ft. than a deer's shoulder at 100yds. If you find the 
work too easy, you may adopt the heads-or-nothing rule 
and if you come back telling your friends you shot a lot of 
squirrels, all of them in the head, they may believe you if 
your general reputation is good and they never hunted 
squirrels 
As to rifles for this sport, the more powerful of the 28s 
are all right, and even the sho?t will do at a pinch. The" 25 
covers the whole ground. If you get out of factory bullets 
ot this caliber, a toler.ably accurate cartridge, costirg prac- 
tically nothing, may be made by loading a No. 3 Tatham's 
buckshot in the mouth of the shell with a muslin patch over 
a reduced charge of powder. I have killed five in successive 
shots with this load. The buckshot does not "hold up" like 
the long bullet, but it does not need to at squirrel distances 
Here as much as anywhere the telescope sight comes in play" 
and if you have it not it will pay you to slip an opera o-lass 
into your pocket. Either will often save you from losing a 
chance or wasting a bullet on a knot, a bird's nest or a dead 
1 : ■ Pl^;r!icularly will a glass help you to spy out a squirrel 
that IS hiding m a tree- top, perhaps flattening himself out on 
the upper side of a limb till he hardly makes a projection 
There is something mysterious and uncanny in the way that 
a red squirrel that was in plain sight a moment ago can dig. 
appear from a little tree that has not a leaf on it or a hole in 
It to conceal him. I have sometimes wondered if one could 
not hide himself on a telegraph wire. Next to the telescope 
come the Lyman sights. Some kind of a white bead is al- 
most a necessity. 
Thus armed and equipped let us approach the woods If 
there is a fence around them, of any kind but wire it will 
be a natural runway, and you will glance along it, right and 
left, to catch the form, color or motion of the enemy Many 
a squirrel is knocked ofl: from stake, rail or stump in th6 
fence before the hunter has entered the woods. Arrived at 
the fence, take a little rest there. Sitting on a fence is often 
the most pleasant and p-ofitable part of a hunt, especially a 
squirrel hunt. Some Equirrels will do their share of the 
hunting if they have a chance Young ones, with the in- 
quisitiveness and impudence that belong to young creatures 
may "sass" you to your face, within a rod or two An 
older one, particularly if he has sometime lost a streak of 
fur by misplaced confidence, you probably will have to hunt 
for and these that you look up will not expose themselves 
so freely as those that look you up. Without their unne- 
cessary exposure the hunt will be a failure, so far as the 
score IS concerned. A squirrel can always save himself 
from the rifle if he does his best. It is a base of contribu- 
tive negligence every time one is killed. 
If it is a pleasant day you may be tempted to linger on 
the fence, snilBng the woody perfume and peering through 
the vistas among the trees. If the day is dark and windv 
you may as we l have stayed at home. At such a time the 
squirrels are sluggish and silent, and the wavin'^of the 
boughs m the wind cuts you off from both sights and 
f'^A^fli^K^^u "^f^ ^"^^ '0 successfully. 
And If the falUn leaves are deep and dry, they, too will, 
thwart you, for they advertise your advance like a'brass 
As you look ard listen you become aware of a sound that 
started so faintly it hardly gained your attention. It might 
be called a grunt it it were not so fine and small. This is 
the note that the squirrel is apt to begin with when he stum- 
bles upon you be ore you have seen him. Now it comes 
DQOre loud and brisk, and broken up into syllables, alternat- 
ing with a little chirp or chmk, so totally different that it is 
hard to believe them parts of the same performance- the 
more so as they curiously sound from somewhat different di- 
rections. Listen and sta_re as you will, no squirrel can you 
see probably, where the leaves are on, though so sure of his 
position that yen could almost hit him firing by the sound 
But now he is earned away by his excitement, and comes 
scurrying down a neighboring tree trunk by fits and starts 
spread out at full length and breadth against the bark, hke a 
hide tacked on a barn- door to dry. He is almost too easy 
but you could have tried his head if you had scorned the 
full-sized mark. ° 
Let us stroll quietly into the woods, looking, listening and 
pausing now and then to let a fquh-rel proclaim himself 
Where is that one that challenged us with separate chirps 
so like some bird's that you would have paid no attention if 
you had not heard them before? There he sits, crosswise of 
a 4m. hmb, looking over at you. It is head or nothing now 
to be sure, and when the shot sends him spinning backward 
end over end, you feel a good deal as you would if an old 
buck had jumped up and tumbled in a heap at the bang of 
your .4o-70. ^ 
How did you miss that one that showed up on the stump 
there, covered with chips of chestnut bursV He must havE 
started just as you were pulling trigger There wag a rpd 
streak up the tree close by and he may be your mark again. 
But he IS in a mood to hide now, and will not stand for an- 
other shot if he knows it. Js there not a httle bulge from 
Thi r'*" away up? And has it not a rusty tingS 
The glass exposes the tricky scamp lying low in fancied 
security. The white bead creeps up against the narrow strip 
ot brown, the little cartridge snaps, and the squirreUumbS 
heels over head and strikes the ground with a d. s. t --a de- 
cidedly satisfactory thump. 
Now there sounds from over yonder the long chirr that is 
one of the commonest and p.easantest sounds of the 'autumn 
woods It seems to be the utterance that the squirrel usesX 
general principles, with nothing to alarm or excite an rl i a 
the one that most often calls attention to him Sometfmes 
runs off into whines and squeaks like those of a/oungiuppy 
it wiU test our judgment to conclude which tLlhJmZ. 
rel IS in. It will need one or two more of his calls InXnw 
the distance and the exact direction, and we sh^ not gS 
them^unless we go quietly. The squirrel is not pleased to 
find hunself hunted. Here is one of those flat topped stumns 
so conveniently provided for the sportsman, sinS it ScZp 
the fashion to saw down trees. If we sit here « h,> i^^ ^ 
U.ar frpm our tawny friend again. Itt a'S of S 
