24 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Jan. 8, 1898.] 
A Requiem, 
I WENT home the other night, pulled off ray shoes and 
traded them for a pair of slippers, got comfortably set- 
tled in a big chair hy the fire, and started in on a new 
book. The first chapter told about New Year's Day — 
it didn't say a word about the Old Year — and here I was 
living in the last days of one that was dying, and dying- 
fast. Out of doors I could hear the wind hustling the 
falling snow here and there, covering the unsightly spots 
and blotting out the scars of earth that the Year's' glass- 
ing eyes might close in peace. I fell to -wdTiderifig how 
the Old Year felt about dying. It bad lived its allotted 
time; did it grieve: to go? At its birth the h&ur of its' 
passing had been decreed. Unlike the various iife that 
quickened its existence, it knew to the hour its final de- 
cease. Was the Old Year leaving a heartache? Was there 
sadness and a longing for a few more days of life— or 
did the world make merry over the birth of days to' 
follow — was it off with the old, on with the untried new? 
Finally I resolved oh the morrow to see how the Old Year 
felt about it. It was to be the last day. Where could I 
get the nearest to old '97? Not in the crowded walks of 
the busy town. There there was no sorrow; the bdlls too 
quickly pealed out the new King's birth. No, I would 
watch for once under the shadow of the pines; and 
mourn with nature in the midnight hour. 
So on the following evening, just as the shadows crept 
in and settled on the busv streets, I started for the woods. 
Out through the paved walks of the city, just as the lights 
began to show, just as the day of toil was ending. How 
cold it was; how blue the sky, with its dancing lights — 
worlds that had seen the birth of centuries. Now I was 
out of the city; the woods stood sentinel on either hand; 
the white carpet was laid; the moon furnished the shad- 
ow dancers; the wind plaj'^ed a weird tvme, and moved 
to the music the birch and maple balanced to their shad- 
ow partners on the snow.- 
I climbed the fence at the roadside and struck out 
across the field, resolved to climb the mountain side, 
now showing dark against the sky. Just here in this 
little clump of birches one day last fall a woodcock met 
an untimely end ; it was such a woodcock as artists put 
on canvas. How different the spot Icoks by moonlight. 
I was standing just where Rex had stood on that day 
when the leaves were falling. Just there was where the 
woodcock flushed. I could almost hear again the whistle 
and the wings; but alas! it is now only a memory of '97. 
I -climbed the hill and at last stood under a giant pine, 
Avho had stood so well his winter vigil that the snow 
found no chance to thrust beneath his guard, and the 
ground was bare. Beneath me the lights twinkled in 
answer to the stars. The little lake shone like an opal 
at the foot of the mountain. Not a sound broke the still- 
ness of the night, and save for the sad face of the moon 
I knew of no mourner but myself for the Old Year. 
Woods and fields where my dogs and I had spent 
led-letter days lay at my feet. I could see here a spot 
and there another where the heart had quickened; I 
could almost fancy the dull boom of the double barrels, 
the rush of wings as the bird went on. T heard the 
music of the hound on a far-away hill, and I followed 
my own footsteps home with the red pelt. And '97 was 
dying; these were but .memories. What of '98? It 
was a hazard of fortune. Then from field I turned to 
fireside, and my heart failed me — how could I let the Old 
Year go; only I could see the face that saw the year be- 
gin; what to her or me was '98? But now as I pondered 
the shadows fled. The moon hid her fair face behind a 
cloud, I heard the sharp bark of a fox on the hill behind 
me. The pond at my feet flung to my ears a dull boom as 
the ice settled; and a sudden chill came on the air as the 
forest sighed a gentle breeze. I took out my watch; the 
hour stood midnight. I knew the Old Year was dead, 
and as if to mock the jangling bells from the city told 
me the Child was born, the King was dead. Long live 
the King. Nox-all, 
FixcHBURG, Mass. 
Podgers' Gommentaries. 
San Francisco, Dec. 29. — I have no bear stories to 
relate, because there are no bears nowadays hereabouts 
except Monarch, the big grizzly out at the Park zoo, 
although when first setting foot on these shores I 
might have found his counterpart in a wild state on the 
very ground this. big fellow now occupies. as a captive. 
Neither have I any tales of fishing or shooting to tell, 
the obstacle, to the pursuit of the same being that metal- 
lic attachment to the ankle and the other end to that 
oaken conscience set forth in a cut in the Forest and 
Stream's "Chained to Business." Fortunate friends ag- 
gravate me by sending me a pair of canvasbacks or a 
20lb. salmon, and I fear I am not properly grateful. It 
does stir one's most diabolical fiendishness to have word 
sent with the birds: "If you want any more say so. Jim 
and I did very well on our two day.s' shoot— 300 between 
us and mostly canvasbacks." This is no Idle talk either; 
for the boys have universally made good bags so far 
this season, and the market-shooter has got in his work, 
resulting in our market being heavily stocked, reducing 
mallards and canvasbacks to 50 cents a pair. And to 
think that a man whose weakness is the gun and rod has 
to sit by and endure all this, and all within a couple 
of hours' reach, is enough to make a person swear or get 
some one to swear for him. That became my duty once 
when fishing on a stream one time up in old Connecti- 
M'hen fishing on a stream one time in the State of Con- 
necticut with a clerical friend who stood on a slippery 
log. Just as he had a strike of a big trout his feet went 
out from under him and in he went, ker souse. I hauled 
him out and said: "Parson, don't you feel like swear- 
ing?" "Indeed I do," he sputtered, "and if you don't 
mind doing it for me, T shall feel obliged. There are oc- 
casions when the relief it brings is justifiable." Try 
cracking a hickory nut and hit your thumb instead, 
and see. . ,, . 
We have had, and are havmg, an exceptionally good 
season for game, thanks to the efforts of our game war- 
dens and the consequent restrictions of the usual slaugh- 
ter by market hunters, although by no means entirely 
eflf active. 
Netting and big-bored guns still get In their deadly 
work, as demonstrated by the piles of ducks — wagon- 
loads, I may say — to be seen in our markets almost any 
day. It is a wonder that there is a duck or quail left in 
the country. 
Now comes in our salmon fishing, fine sport being 
had with rod in all our streams emptying into the ocean, 
into which the fish run after the first rains, and here 
your humble servant, who claims to have been the first 
person to take a salmon on the coast with a fly, must sit 
by and see the fishermen coming home; of an evening 
with a back load of So-pounders, the result of the day's 
sport. The fish are generally caught with a feathered 
spoon, however, as most of them do not even yet believe 
salmon in our waters can be caught with the fly, and do 
not try it. The spoon is more reliable, 
California is a pretty good country yet for the spoits- 
man, although nothing to what it was in early days. 
The march of improvement and great increase in popu- 
lation and shooters has in a measure driven the game 
away or exhausted it. In the early days, say forty years 
ago, there were elk by the hundreds within twenty miles 
of the cit}"-, and a deer or a grizzly could be bagged 
where roses and japonicas are now perfuming the air. 
An old schooner captain tells me that on one occasion, 
in sailing up the straits where the Navy Yard now stands.' 
he struck a band of elk swimming across the straits, so 
numerous tliat he could not get through them, and had 
to lower sail and wait for them to pass. Of course this 
was before the advent of the hateful Gringo and gold- 
seeker had spoiled one of the most beautiful countries of 
the Lord's footstool. Talk about Africa! it could not 
hold the proverbial candle to what this country was be- 
fore the discovery of gold, with its millions, of elk, deer, 
mountain lions,, and that king of beasts, the grizzly, 
compared to which the African lion is a pigmy. There 
are but a few left now — now and then one back in the 
inaccessible mountain ranges. He has retired before 
civilization, like every other good thing. 
_ I have referred several times to the numerous expedi- 
tions that have fitted out here to search for buried treas- 
ure on Cocos Island, which, legend hath it, was .the 
favorite resort of gentlemen pirates. I think I gave an 
account of six or seven. Since then two more have 
joined the ranks of the credulous, and even a British 
man-of-war. Altogether they must have dug over nearly 
every foot of poor old Cocos and put it in good farming- 
condition. Many of the expeditions declare they almost 
found it, but just as they were certain of success provir 
sions gave out and they had to abandon the search. . 
All sorts of expeditions coritintie to be fitted out to sail 
to the South Sea Islands. One consisting of 100 men 
bought a vessel and sailed for an island reported to be 
inhabited entirely by women who were crazy to get 
married and sighed for the male element. In due time 
the island was found, but so far from the ladies being 
languishing- maidens, they were found to be provided 
each with a gentleman with a ring in' his nose and a 
spear in his hand, and showing a lively disposition to 
boil, fry and roast such of the expedition as they could 
induce to land. In this the females joined. The story 
that they were glad enough to welcome white men was 
true enough, but they wanted them grilled or in an Irish 
stew. The expedition was finally shipwrecked and 
straggled back by ones and twos, as they could 'beg 
passage from occasional vessels. 
Now we have another expedition of miners bound for 
the Solomon group to search for gold. It is surmised 
that if they land none will live to return, as the Solomon . 
Islanders are known to be about the toughest lot of gen- 
tlemen of the whole South Seas. Their appetites are 
wonderful, and thej'- pick the bones of a white man so 
clean that a crow would starve on what they leave. 
PODGERS. 
Nelson's Mountain Sheep* 
Some time ago Dr. C- Hart Merriam, chief of the Bio- 
logical Survey, described under the name Ovis nelsoni a 
new species of mountain sheep from Mexico. The speci- 
men on which this description was based was a female 
secured by Mr. E. W. Nelson, of the Biological Survey, 
a well-known explorer, who seems equally at home 
whether voyagihg in a kayak along the shore of the 
Arctic Ocean or penetrating the densest tangles of the 
swamps of Ceiitral America. 
There are many sportsmen who, on general principles 
only and without any definite knowledge of the subject, 
deride this new species, ahd are disposed to lump all the 
native mountain sheep of North America under the 
single na.me Ovis canadensis, instead of counting as four 
different species 0. dalli, 0. stoni, 0. canadensis and 0. 
nelsoni. 
The male of Ovis nelsoni is not known to the natural- 
ists of the Biological Survey, yet we believe that in the 
head of a remarkable ram, killed in 1894 in the peninsula 
of Lower California by Mr. George H. Gould, a mag- 
nificent example of this form is to be seen. 
Readers who attended the Sportsmen's Exposition in 
1895 will recall a superb sheep's head exhibited in the 
space of the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 
This was the specimen referred to. The committee of 
the Boone and Crockett Club, consisting of Theodore 
Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell and Archibald Rogers, 
who measured the heads of big game on that occasion, 
gave the girth of the horns of this head as 16%'m., the 
length 42;^in., and the spread 25^in. They said of it, 
"It is on the whole the finest head of which we have any 
record." It will be observed that for their length these 
horns were somewhat slender, and further, that their 
spread' is greater than is usually seen in the mountain 
sheep, although it is well known that in these animals 
individual variation is quite marked. This, then, seems 
to be characteristic of this head— light, slim horns, with 
an outward twist greater than is commonly seen in the 
mountain sheep of the middle Rocky Mountains. It may 
be that this is characteristic of the male of 0. nelsoni. 
The country where this specimen was taken is the vol- 
canic desert of Lower California, far south of the United 
States boundary line. In that country there are said to 
be not a few sheep, but it is a region almost waterless, 
and on that account very difficult to penetrate. 
It is this sheep whose head is the cover stamp of the 
second volume of the Boone and Crockett book, en- 
titled "Hunting in Many Lands," in which volume is 
found a delightful account of Mr. Gould's Lower Cali- 
fornia hunt. The cover stamp referred to gives a better 
idea of the lightness and outward sweep of horns on 
what we are disposed to believe to be the only known 
male head of this nelsoni than does the accompanying 
illustration. The two figures should be studied together. 
We reproduce from Mr. Gould's article entitled "The 
Gulf of Cortez" the following description of the country 
in which this sheep was found, and of the incidents im- 
mediately connected with its capture. Mr. Gould says: 
"We were now approaching the true desert. This term 
is not restricted to the broad level sand wastes along the 
Gulf, but includes the arid and waterless mountains ad- 
jacent, and this must be borne in mind when the Mexi- 
cans, tellyou that sheep are to be found in the desert. 
"We passed the last of the brushy hills, and crossing a 
small divide came over slopes of volcanic cinders to a lit- 
tle water, spot with dwarf willows and grass. This was 
our hunting camp. The country through which .our 
route had lain heretofore was altogether granitic, though 
one cGiUld see hills apparently of stratified material in the 
distance. Toward the desert we met beds of conglom- 
erate and trachyte and mountains covered with slide- 
rock ringing flinty-like clinkers from some great volcanic 
furnace. 
"The 'vegetation had - somewhat changed. There were 
more cactus, particularly the fleshy kind called venaga, 
though I noticed with surprise the absence of the great 
fruit-bearing. cactuses, the Saguarro and Pitaya, all along 
our route. The Spanish daggers were very numerous, as 
were ailso Mescal plants, both of these forming veritable 
thickets in places. ' - 
"This makes the third variety of wilderness encountered 
in the peninsula: There are four: First and best, the 
pure barrens; second, the brushy hills and plains covered 
with sage,- greasewood and buckweed; third, this spike- 
bearing volcanic region, and fourth, the appalling desola- 
tion of the acknowledged desert. 
"The moment we had unloaded and watered our attimals 
Anastasio and I set out to look for deer. Anastasio wore 
the spotted and tattered remnant of a frock coat once 
green, given him by an Englishman, of whom I shall say 
. more later. He had guarachis, or sandals, on his feet, 
bare legs, a breech-clout, and on his head a reddish ban- 
, danna handkerchief in the last stages of decay, and as he 
peered over some rock, glaring long and earnestly in 
search of game, he reminded one of those lean and wolfish 
Apaches that Remington draws in a way so dramatic and 
so full of grim significance. 
"Anastasio was fifty-one years old and had no upper in- 
cisors, but the way he flung his gaunt leathern shanks 
over those mountains of volcanic clinkers, armed with 
the poisoned bayonets- of myriads of mescal, cactus and 
Spanish dagger, was astonishing. 
"T told him that I was not racing, and that he would 
scare the game.- In ifact he did start one little fellow, but 
he said he always saw the game first, and for this day I 
was quite powerless to hold him in; so I decided to re- 
turn to camp before dark.". This disgusted- Anastasio 
greatly. 'In this' way we shall. never kill,' said he-. 'We 
are going to suffer from. hunger.' I assured him t^ia-t we 
had plentiful supplies, but he -had come for -meat,- - Un- 
bounded meat had been the chief incentive for bis trip, 
and hungry he was determined to be. 
"The next day J. B. set out early with the red man. I 
arranged camp, and two or three hours later took 'what I 
supposed was a different direction, but soon encountered 
the pair returning. J. B. had a painful knee, and An- 
astasio had started his racing tactics and kept them up 
until J. B. was quite lame. 
"The Indian reported that he had seen sheep. J. B. had 
used the glass without finding them, and then Anastasio 
captured it and looked through the wrong end, nodding 
and saying he could count five, very big. This, I am 
sorry to say, was false and affected on Anastasio's part, 
and J. B. was skeptical about the sheep altogether; but I 
knew how hard it was to find distant game Avhen you 
don't know exactly how it should appear. To reach the 
supposed sheep the mountain must be climbed and the 
crest turned, for the wind permitted no other course. J. 
B. did not feel up to the task, and I directed him to 
camp. Anastasio and I climbed for about four hours, 
and reached a position whence his sheep would be visible. 
He stared long, and said he could make out one ewe ly- 
ing down under a juniper. I tried the glass. He was 
right. His unaided sight seemed about equal in definition 
to my field glass. On this occasion he declined to use the - 
glass. We could get no nearer unseen, and though the 
distance was very great I decided to risk a shot. 
"I fired in fact two or three shots at the ewe, alarming 
her greatly, when from beneath a cliff which lay below 
us a band streamed out. Two big rams started off to the 
right. Anastasio and I ran down a bit, and I tried" a long 
shot at the leading ram. The distance was great, and the 
run had pumped me a little. I missed. The second ram 
was still larger. He stopped a moment at 150yds., and I 
dropped him. Anastasio grunted satisfaction. I swung 
to the left, where the rest of the band was journeying, 
sighted at the shoulder of a young ram and fired. The 
ball passed through my intended victim, dropping him, 
and entered the eye of a yearling ram who stood behind, 
thus killing two rams at one shot — a mcst unusual acci- 
dent. 
"The rest of the band were now quite distant, and 
though I fired several shots, at Anastasio's desire — ^he 
said he wanted a fat ewe — none took effect. 
"I cleaned the sheep and skinned out the big head. An- 
astasio took one small ram entire on his back, supporting 
it by a rope passed over the top of his head, and I with 
the big horns started down. It was i o'clock. The head 
might have weighed 35lbs. fresh. It grew to weigh • 
i,5oolbs. before dark. Stumbling down through the slide- 
rock with legs full of venomous prickers, I passed below 
camp without noticing it, and was well on the other side, 
when I thought I had gone about far enough, and shottt- 
ed. J. B.'s voice answered across a small hill, and I • 
