386 
guarded against letting any one know of their plan to 
go on a bear hunt. They believe firmly that if they 
should speak of such intention these animals would 
know it at once and lie in ambush to attack them. Bears 
figure largely in the folk-lore and ceremonial dances of 
the Eskimos on the lower Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers. 
About the Arctic coast the polar bear is a regular win- 
ter visitor, and a half-grown individual was killed near 
St. Michael in August, i88q. They are common on the 
pack ice of the Arctic Ocean north of Bering Strait, 
and many were seen during the cruise of the Corwin in 
i8Si. The accompanying illustration represents a female 
is to_ be greatly deplored, but cannot well be avoided, 
and it_ is altogether probable that within two or three 
years it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to 
secure specimens for scientific purposes. The U. S. Na- 
tional Museum in Washington is the proper repository 
for a full representation of the animals indigenous to 
our territory, for exhibition purposes as vvell as scientific 
stu.dy, ?nd it will be a great loss to science if any of the 
large Alaskan mammals become extinct before a proper 
series of skins and skulls is in the possession of this in- 
stitution. I wish to impress this upon settlers and others 
going to Alaska the present season, in the hope that, 
his head resting on them. When we came even with 
him he raised his head, slowly and just a little, and 
remained in that position until the birds took wing two 
rods in front of him. Four loads of shot followed, but 
only one bird stopped. Away they went through the 
open Woods, two dropping behind a big log and the rest, 
some fifteen or twenty of them, kept on to the dense 
willow thicket on the creek bank. We got one of the 
two that stopped in the Woods, and went on into the 
thicket. Here quail got up one, two and three at a time, 
and flew for the four corners of creation. We shot and 
shot, and quail fie\v away and quail fell dead. We 
SEA OTTER. 
POLAR BEAR. 
killed by the writer near Wrangel Island, while with 
the Corwin. In suinmer these animals are usually well 
fed and avoid encountering men whenever possible. In 
winter, when hunger presses, they become dangerous, 
and I have heard of several Eskimos who were killed, 
and have seen others who were badly scarred from en- 
counters with them. 
In the fall, as the pack ice comes south through Bering 
Strait, it brings great herds of walruses and many white 
bears. The latter sometimes reach the Fur Seal Islands, 
but only at rare intervals. Some years many of the bears 
fail to retreat beyond the strait early enough in spring, 
and are left stranded on St. Matthew and St. Lawrence 
islands. During the summer of 1874 Mr. Elliott and 
Lieut. Maynard found them on St. Matthew Island to the 
number of several hundred. When these gentlemen 
landed on the neighboring Hall Island the same season 
sixteen white bears were in sight as the boat approached 
the shore, ten of which were together on the beach. 
Quite a number were killed and none showed fight. 
They were fat and when asleep were easily approached. 
When aroused they stood up and sniffed at the party 
as if to learn whether they were friends or foes, and 
when the men were scented the bears ran back into the 
hills. At this time they were seen feeding on grass and 
roots, with motions like those of a grazing hog. 
Aside from the whales the walrus is the largest Alaskan 
mammal. Formerly it was very numerous around the 
islands and along the American coast of Bering Sea 
and the Arctic Ocean. During the cruise of the Corwin 
we saw thousands of them on the border of the pack ice. 
The Eskimos report the female walruses to be very dan- 
gerous in April and May, when they have young. At 
that time they saj'' an old female will attack a m.a,n in a 
kyak on sight, and become as fierce and dangerous as an 
old bear. An Eskimo living at Cape Vancouver once 
tpld me of an encounter he had had with a walrus while 
seal hunting in the drift ice off the cape, in which he 
and a companion had a narrow escape. They met and 
killed a young walrus without having seen the female. 
A moment later she arose in the water, and catching 
sight of the hunters uttered a hoarse, bellowing cry, 
and dashed at them. The men paddled for their lives 
and reached a cake of ice just in time to escape. Several 
times, supposing she had gone, they launched their 
kyaks, but the moment they did so she appeared and 
drove them back on the ice. During our cruise in the 
Arctic we saw many females with young, and the watch- 
fulness of the old ones was very noticeable. The young 
nearly always swam directly in front of its mother, and 
the latter in diving always carried the little one under 
with her by resting the points of her tusks on its shoul- 
ders and forcing it down. 
In the old days, when caribou were abundant, wolves 
Avere common and ran in large packs. With the grow- 
ing scarcity of caribou the wolves decreased until, dur- 
ing my residence at St. Michael, they were uncommon 
along the coast of Bering Sea and the adjacent in- 
terior. The white and blue Arctic or stone foxes are 
common on the barrens, and red foxes are also com- 
mon and much more widely distributed. The region 
about Dawson City was formerly noted for the number 
and quality of the black fox skins taken there every win- 
ter. Canada lynxes, wolverines, land otter, American 
sable and mink are among the fur-bearing animals which 
helped make up the main wealth of Alaska until recent 
developments. 
Among the "rats and mice and such small deer" are 
many animals of more or less interest. The whistling 
marmots live in the mountains about the upper Yukon 
and Tanana rivers, and the bob-tailed little conies are 
also found in that region. The last-named animal makes 
its home in broken masses of rock, and has an amusing 
way of barking at strange visitors with a squeaking voice 
like that of a toy dog. 
The great increase in the population of Alaska which 
is now taking place cannot but have a decided effect upon 
the large game. Most of the prospecting parties will be 
provided with rifles and will take every opportunity of 
securing an addition to their scanty camp fare. _ With 
this going on in thousands of localities in the hitherto 
unvisited areas, the effect will necessarily be disastrous 
to such animals as bears, mountain sheep, caribou and 
moose. Unfortunately not a museum in the world has 
even a passable representation from Alaska of any of 
these animals. 
The threatened early extermination of such fine species 
having their attention called to the importance of saving 
specimens, they may take a patriotic interest in placing 
them in the National Capital. 
imi^ md 0m. 
Jim and L 
Jim keeps the drug store, and I don't do much of 
anything. There are several good drug clerks in the 
town, so Jim can get away whenever he wants to. Jim 
likes to shoot; same here. Jim can shoot. Well, I can 
shoot some, but you see Jim's a corker; and he is the 
sort of fellow who likes to see his partner grass a quail 
better than to do it himself, and he always seems to be 
thinking more of his partner having a good time than 
of having it himself. Then, if you can't shoot quail in 
the brush, he is awful handy to have along with you, 
because the brush don't seem to bother him a bit. He 
kills them just the same. Jim has a wonderful eye for 
squirrels too, and it's a mighty small bit of gray, way 
up in a tree, if he don't see it. Jim is bound to be all 
right, for old Joe always liked hhn, and old Joe is mighty 
particular about things. If you knew Jim you would 
want to go shooting with hfrn, and if you \ve.T\t Qnpe 
you would want to go again. 
Last September there were lots of hickory nuts, and 
there ^vere squirrels too; so one afternoon Jini and I 
drove out to the big woods, just to loaf round and see 
if ^hp squirrels were dropping any chips out of the hick- 
ories. There were abundant signs under a dozen or more 
trees in various parts of the woods; there were hun- 
dreds of hickory trees there, all of them bending with 
their weight of nuts; but the squirrels confined them- 
selves to a few particular trees, as they always do. I 
happened to get a glimpse of a squirrel's tail in the fork 
of a big ash, fully Soft. high. Nothing was visible except 
a couple of inches of gray tail. Jim went round to the 
other side, and after going back some 40yds. from the 
tree, said he believed he ''could see the white under the 
squirrel's jaws." "I'll shoot anyway, and perhaps you 
will then get a shot." (He had a .22 rifle, and I a shot- 
gun.) When he fired the squirrel jumped 2 or 3ft. high, 
turning round and- spreading its limbs and tail, and went 
sailing toward the ground at an angle of forty-five de- 
grees. Supposing it was not hurt, but frightened into 
making one of those phenomenal leaps they sometimes 
make, I fired at it while it was in midair, and saw it 
tumble over and over the rest of the way to the ground. 
We found that Jim's bullet had smashed its lower jaw, 
and its hide was riddled with shot, whereupon Jim and I 
shook hands. 
We did not see any more for a couple of hours, but 
along about S o'clock they began to wake up, and we 
heard two or three barking, and it being a very still 
evening we heard from where we sat a faint patter of 
chips in several directions; so we separated and began 
to look for meat in good earnest. A rifle is a very poor 
tool for this kind of work, for the squirrels were con- 
stantly in motion, except when eating a nut, and then 
they took care to keep hidden, and would drop the nut 
and run if they caught sight of a man; so Jim only got 
one, while four fell to the shotgun, making six for the 
afternoon. 
Late in November, when the frosts and the rains had 
somewhat beat down the weeds, and the winds had 
swept the leaves from the trees, and heaped them in the 
hollows of the woods, or piled them in the corners of 
the fences, Jim and I went itp the creek to look for 
quail. We went into a big tract of weed-grown stubble. 
Along the fences that surrounded it, and along the two 
brooks that ran through it, were plenty of sumach and 
thickets of briers and bushes. Old Joe sailed into the 
weeds in a style that said: "I'll get 'em for you;" but 
he didn't get 'em, for they were not there. It was a long 
tramp that yielded nothing but great expectations. Then 
we went to a big weed field over on the creek bottom, 
and saw old Joe way off yonder some eighty rods, stop 
galloping, come to a full stop, snuff the air a moment, 
trot a few steps, then walk a couple of rods, stop, and 
presently sink slowly out of sight into the weeds. The 
old fellow was too tired to remain standing and had 
"lain down on 'em." When we came to him he was 
crouched flat on the ground with forelegs extended and 
didn't know how many times we shot,, nor how many got 
away, nor how many we killed; but old Joe gathered 
seven and then caught a winged one, which he was carry- 
ing so tenderly that it flirted itself out of his mouth and 
started into a muskrat hole. We got it out of the hole, 
and it got into the thick brush of a fallen tree top, with 
Joe tumbling and plunging through the brush in a chase 
that ended in the capture of the quail. 
Then we went across an old pasture field on the wa;y 
to another likely place, and Joe found a Httle bunch of 
quail right out in the pasture, and we got just one. We 
followed them and got one more. We tried to find an- 
other covey, but failed, and went back to where we left 
the buggy, Jim shooting a rabbit on the way. 
As Jim got out of the buggy at home he said he reck- 
oned we would go again, and we did; but that is an- 
other story. O. H. Hamptgn. 
St* Louis Notes. 
The commissioa mierchaints and g^me dealers of this 
city are still at work o.n their orggnigation to assist the: 
preservation of game toy the cold storage process. Al- 
though they an,tt®)Tiin<:^q that sportsmen's clubs were- 
working with then^ we note that all the officers of the- 
association are commission merchants and dealers in? 
g^fli?. So far as game is concerned the main object ofi 
this association seems to be to provide a wide-open mar- 
ket for this city. They intend to ask the coming Legis- 
lature to amend the game laws so that game not killed 
in this State may nevertheless be sold the year around 
in the St. Louis market. This means, of course, that 
the killing of game in this State will be continued irre- 
spective of any game law. There will always be a mar- 
ket for what the market hunters may shoot. Considering 
that New York has just abolished this feature of their 
game law, it would be a strange move for Missouri to 
make such a retrogression in her legislation. The com- 
mission game dealers have plenty of money back of them 
and also the indirect aid of the big hotels and restaurants, 
which would like to be able to serve game the yea.t- 
around. Unless the sportsmen of Missouri wake up a.!^^\ 
do something to prevent this change in legislation^ it ; 
may be secured by the game dealers. Another ch.9.fige-- 
which the game dealers desire is the abolishraeij£ ofy 
game wardens. Although this State has no appsopria-- 
tion for the wardens, yet good work has been accom-- 
plished by volunteer service, and many illegal hunters-; 
and fishers have been arrested and heavily fined. The-, 
game dealers intend to make a strong effort to have this^, 
"nuisance" abolished, as they term it. As a sample of; 
what they are doing to influence public opinion they in-- 
tend to print and distribute 50,000 circulars throughou.tt 
the State. 
Mr. Horace Kephart, who is well known to readers of 
Forest and Stream, is interesting himself in the forma- 
tion of a company of sharpshooters. At a recent meet- 
ing articles of agreement were drawn up, one of them, 
being as follows: 
"No one shall be accepted as a member of this com- 
pany when it is mustered into the United States service 
unless he can hit the figure of an average-sized man ten 
times consecutively with the rifle at 200yds., shooting 
offhand, not more than two re-entries being allowed." 
There are plenty of marksmen in St. Louis who can 
meet this requirement, and there will be no difliculty in 
getting up such a company as Mr, Kephart desires. 
A committee of the Castor River Fishing and Hunt- 
ing Club recently went to southeast Missouri and picked 
a site for the club house, which is now in process of 
erection, and will be completed in about two weeks; the 
members are looking forward with pleasure to its open- 
ing. This club contains some of the best anglers in St. 
Louis, a number of them being readers of your journal. 
So far this season there has been an excess of rainfall 
in this section of the country of nearly Bin. This means 
that there has been continued high water since early 
spring, and it is yet too high for fishing except in a few 
inland hdces. This also means that the game fish will 
have time to spawn and take care of their young before 
they can be caught by the fishermen. If nature would 
provide for their protection every year as she has this 
year it would he a grand thing for fish propagation in 
this State. It will be a couple of weeks before the waters 
are low enlDUgh for fishing, and if the usual June rains 
come there will not be much angling before July. 
