S92 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[May 14, i8g8. 
TIie][Name Dolmiett, 
Washington, D. C, April 29. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Perhaps few of your readers remember me as 
formerly a frequent contributor to your admirable paper, 
and possibly not one of them now recalls the fact that I 
Avas Charles Hallock's assistant editor of Fokest and 
Stream in the beginning — in the summer of 1873. This 
mutually agreeable arrangement was made with the best 
of intentions on the part of each of us, and duly an- 
nounced; that it never went into full force was owing 
to circumstances neither of us controlled. From that 
day to this I have never ceased to feel a friendty interest 
in the paper, and I am proud of its long, honorable, and 
highly successful career — ^very slight though be my own 
contributions to this result. During these twenty-five 
years I have seldom failed to read Forest and Stream, 
and always enjoj-ed the reading. I admire its tone, 
tenor, and spirit. I hardly see how it could be improved. 
May its prosperity and usefulness be perpetual! 
I do not write this letter either to recall old personal- 
ities, howsoever pleasant these be, nor to make the 
editor blush at praise, however well deserved; but to say 
how much I am enjoying Mr. Mather's fish stories now 
running in your columns. A man who can tell fish 
stories with as much truth in them as Mr. Mather in- 
dulges is evidently no ordinary mortal; and the way he 
makes his points is a caution to callow penmen who yearn 
to write before they know how. I am moved to these 
reflections by No. IV. of Mr. Mathei-'s series on the 
black bass, in this week's Forest and Stream. This 
is a model — ^text and pictures alike — even to the poly- 
onymous helgramite. T have nowhere, not even in the 
works of a Gill or a Jordan, a Goode or a Bean, seen the 
distinctions between the two species of bass so clearly, 
so intelligently set forth, Mr. Mather has the art of 
putting things, as when he says that "the size of the 
mouth is not determined by opening it," but by the size 
of a certain bone of the upper jaw — which a glance at 
the picture shows. There are three kinds of men I like 
— the man who knows what he knows; the man who 
knows how to tell what he knows, and the man who 
knows enough to say "I don't know" about things he 
doesn't know. Perhaps Mr. Mather is all these three 
kinds of a man. I should judge so by the way he writes. 
There is one point he might elucidate for readers of 
Forest and Stream. This is that queer word dolmieu. 
the specific name of the small-mouthed black bass. I 
happen to know about it myself, but do not tell all 
I know in one letter, and do not wish to steal any of the 
good bait with which the veteran fisherman fishes for 
readers in the pearly and purling columns of Forest and 
Stream— columns which I hope "will run on forever," 
like Tennvson's brook. Elliott Coues. 
nm^-^m bickerings. 
"That reminds me." 
The Natttralist and the Bear. 
I TOLD you once about Billy and the bald- face. Billy 
was scared and the bald-face was mad. But this is a 
different bear story. 
In olden times, before the city of Vancouver was even 
dreamed of, New Westminster, on the Fraser's River, 
was the principal city of the mainland of British Co- 
lumbia. The site of the modern Babylon, Vancouver, 
was at that time covered with a dense forest of mighty 
Douglas firs, mixed with hemlock and a ragged under- 
brush of devil's club, vine maple, salmon berry, and 
other stuffs, while here and there and everywhere flour- 
ished the odoriferous skunk cabbage, the whole de- 
scribed as a "sure dandy spot fer bear." 
Away back in those times two men, on a nice spring 
morning, took a walk from Gostown towaf d New West- 
minster. One of these was Capt. Van Bramer, afterward 
of Cocos Island fame. The other was already famous 
as a coon hunter, bird stuffer, and all-round naturalist, 
not to mention prank player, and may still be found 
any day (except when he is wanted, which is not often) 
in the museum in Victoria, where he is continually going 
into abstruse calculations as to the number of pounds 
and cubic inches of tow and plaster it takes to fill some 
poor wretch of a coon's skin or mountain goat's pelt, 
in place of so many pounds of flesh, bone and sinew 
which have been skinned out. • 
After going a mile or so the naturalist, thinking he 
saw some rare mammal looking at him, stepped off the 
road a short distance among the logs and rampikes of 
a wndfall through which the road ran. In wandering 
about among the logs it became necessary for him to 
climb over one which stood rather high up, it being that 
of a large tree. Just as he began to hitch himself up on 
the rugged bark he became aware of the fact that some- 
body was climbing up the other side of the tree; pre- 
sumably it was Van Bramer. On the instant there rose 
above the log the head and shoulders of a two-year-old 
black bear, and looked at John with his little beady 
eye, his tongue lolling out with heat and exertion. 
John drew himself up to his full height, and holding 
up an admonitory forefinger, said quietly, but firmly: 
"N-n-now g-g-go away — ^y-y^ — ^I-I d-don't want you!" 
This the bear immediately obeyed, with great speed and 
decisive action, while John at once withdrew to the road, 
Avhere he found Van laughing insanely and making sun- 
dry stupid remarks about shooting, carrying a gun for 
fun, etc. It was useless for John to explain that the 
fur was no good at that time of year, and that it would 
only deprive some poor hunter of a chance of making a 
few dollars when winter came if h6 had shot him. But 
then some men cannot appreciate a great and good act. 
Mazama. 
CoMOx, B. C. 
The FoEEST AKD Steeam is put to press each weeh on 
Tuesday. Correspond&nce intended for putMcation 
should reach us at the latest hy Monday, and an much 
earlier as practicable. 
Dogs ih the Arctic Regions* 
Some of ray readers will remember that rather over 
twenty years ago there was a great scare throughout the 
country side between Winchester and Southampton 
Water. A wolf had made its appearance in a mysterious 
moment, and soon became the terror of the timid. And 
when it fell to worrying and killing the sheep, the farm- 
ers banded themselves together and sallied out, armed 
to the teeth, in search of the wild beast; so it was not 
long before they found and killed it, and restored peace 
and confidence to that beautiful part of England. More- 
over, by^ showing the body of "the last wolf killed in 
England" at prices varying from 6d. to id. a head (ac- 
cording to discretion) they were able to repair to some 
slight extent the loss they had suffered. 
Now this wolf was no wolf at all. It was simply an 
Arctic dog, which had escaped from Sir Allen Young's 
yacht, the Pandora, then lying in Southampton Water. 
The mistake made by the people in their ignorance 
would serve one well for a peg on which to hang a long 
and "instructive" article about the nature and breeds, 
the habits and diseases of the dogs that are native to the 
Polar regions. 
There are practically three great breeds or races of 
Arctic dogs — the Eskimo or New World breed (Eskimo, 
■mikki); the Samoyad or West Siberian breed (Samoyad, 
voinaikn) ; and the Lena or East Siberian race. The last 
is the best, but at the same time the most difficult to ob- 
tain, and when obtained the least tractable to employ. 
The better of the remaining two kinds is the Samoyad 
dog, and it is this noble beast which our own country- 
man, Frederick George Jackson, is using in far-away 
Franz Josef Land in his attempt to reach the North 
Pole. The same dog too was taken by Fridtjof Nansen, 
the Norwegian, on his daring, though terribly rash, 
venture in the Fram. Peary, the intrepid explorer of 
Greenland, used Eskimo dogs, and used them with the 
most satisfactory results; yet, for' pulling power and 
for comparative immunity from cold mania, the Samoyad 
dog is superior. 
Mr. Jackson, in his entertaining book on "The Great 
Frozen Land" (Macmillan & Co.) describes the Samoyad 
dogs thus: 
"The dogs (voinaika) of the Samoyads have a strong 
resembance to the familiar Eskimo dog of Greenland, 
but in several points they are superior. The most strik- 
ing characteristics which they have in common are the 
thick, woolly coats, which enable them to withstand such 
a rigorous cliinate, and the wild and savage temper they 
display toward each other. If you chained a number 
of these dogs together and left them to their own devices 
I am confident that they would speedily develop a feel- 
ing so grimlj' fraternal that cne-half (the weaker half) 
would be absorbed with the least possible delay into the 
bosom of the other half of the family. When trained 
and educated, however, even by that unskillful peda- 
gogue their master, they become exceedinglj^ useful, and 
on the whole well-behaved, members of Samoyad soci- 
ety; and as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so 
I may fortifjr this certificate of good character bj^ the 
assertion that while you may buy a wild young puppy, 
and welcome, for a rouble and even less, you may have 
to give sixty, seventy, and sometimes a hundred roubles 
for a trained adult. But it is such hard work for the in- 
dolent Samoyad to bring his dog to the stage required 
for driving large herds of reindeer in the best manner, 
that I very much doubt your being able to persuade him 
to sell such a dog at all." 
Roughly speaking, any Polar dog will pull a sledge 
with half a man's load, but he will take it twice as far 
in a day as a man can. A man's load may be reckoned 
as 20olbs. And though the Polar dog is accustomed 
to raw meat, and to carouses long and deep on newly 
killed game, he adapts himself to circumstances, and 
will do such work as I have stated on a ration of lib. 
of pemmican a day. What is pemmican? It is simply 
dried and pounded beef, enveloped in a greasy coat of 
fat and suet, and then slowly heated and poured in a 
molten condition into can or skin. For human tempta- 
tion, currants, sugar and spices are added, which just 
place this dry and tasteless food above the insuperably 
unpalatable. It is the experience of Mr. Jackson thati 
the Samoyad dogs take kindly to the biscuit. In addi- 
tion to ordinary meat fibrine biscuits, he took out about 
six tons of Spratts cod liver oil biscuits, and these have 
proved a very successful diet with dogs that had never 
previousl}' known what a biscuit was. 
But the power of the Arctic dog varies, and the larger 
kinds are capable of doing really formidable work. 
Peary, for example, occasionally used only three dogs 
to drag a sledge load of soolbs.. and'we have it on record 
that he traveled at considerable speed behind only two 
dogs with a similar load. , 
On the other hand, when sledging is to be prolonged, 
it is necessary to have full teams, for dogs, like reindeer, 
soon degenerate with regular work. Moreover, the mor- 
tality is very high. It will' be remembered that Peary 
started on the first of his long journeys with twenty and 
-returned with five dogs. That in a subsequent year no 
fewer than ninety dogs were taken, and only twenty sur- 
vived. 
As to the savage nature of these Arctic dogs, I attrib- 
iite it almost entirely to their food. It is frequently stated 
by Eskimos, however, that in West Greenland the bitches 
are visited when on heat by prowling wolves, which 
might well tend to keep the temper of the offspring tm- 
certain; but some svispicions have been cast on this 
statement, and in these brief notes I have no room for 
going into the question. On the other hand, the animal 
food on which they almost entirely subsist has much to 
do with it. 
I remember a case in Norway, where cattle in a cer- 
tain locality became most violent and wild. The cause 
was found in the fact that the owner had accustomed 
them to a fish diet — fish being more plentiful than grass 
in this particular part. 
Now the dogs, having fed well for years on raw and 
blood-charged flesh, become extremely savage, and es- 
pecially among themselves. Both Jackson and Peary 
have found that muzzles are necessary if they would pre- 
serve their packs from gradual extinction. For the Arc- 
tic dogs are demons at fighting, and although they rec- 
ognize among themselves a leader and chief, that posi- 
tion has to be won by personal strife and retained by 
personal prowess. 
The Samoyad dogs, in fact, had to be chained apatt 
from each other, in what was, to all intents and purposes, 
"a hollow square." On one occasion, when several dogs 
were coming home from exercise, a quarrel broke out 
between a couple of the most refractory, and on one of 
them being pinned to the ground the rest immediately 
set upon him and tore him to pieces. This would have 
frequently happened had not precautions been regularly 
taken. We must not forget, however, that "hitting a 
fellow when he is down" is a trait not entirely unknown 
in the human animal. 
Neither is this solely attributable to a heredity which 
has accumuulated under severe climatic conditions, for 
a large retriever, which Mr. Jackson took with him to 
Franz Josef Land, has developed similar ferocity. In- 
deed, Mr. Jackson writes home of this beast: "Carlo, by 
the bye, has developed into a shocking blackguard, and 
is the sole representative of the criminal classes in Franz 
Josef Land. He now constantly wears a muzzle, which 
he usually has cocked over his left eye, giving him a 
very Bill Sykes-like appearance. He is the terror of the 
Windward people, and would kill every dog in the 
neighborhood if allowed to go about unrestrained." As 
a matter of fact Carlo killed two of the Siberian dogs be- 
fore he was put under restraint. 
It is quite certain that of all man's aids, apart from 
food and clothing, the Arctic dog has been the most 
valuable to the explorers of the Polar regions. By the 
help of this plucky Httle beast, with his single trace of 
raw reindeer hide (fastened to collar and saddle of simi- 
lar strips), man has accomplished the greater part of 
those discoveries which now appear as lands and seas in 
our maps of the Polar area. Over 100 miles have been 
covered by these dogs in a single day, which is aston- 
ishingly good, seeing that snoAV is not continuously hard 
or smooth; that a full sledge load was carried; and that 
the additional weight of the explorers must be reckoned. 
It happened, as most of my readers will remember, 
that the S. Y. Windward, instead of returning here in 
1894, was delayed by the unusually early set in of the 
winter, and consequently spent nearly a year in the ice 
off the coast of Franz Josef Land. Now it chanced one 
day that the ship's carpenter was walking about a mile 
from the ship. He was taking a constitutional, and 
somewhat imprudently lost himself in thought — most 
probably he was thinking of home. Suddenly he looked 
up and saw a large white bear, also thinking, and evi- 
dently thinking of him. Discretion being the better part 
of valor, the carpenter looked anxiously round for a 
refuge, and found it in a neighboring ice hummock, about 
9ft.' high. To the top of this he very promptly climbed. 
But I may mention that this particular polar bear was a 
large one, and his skin, for I have seen it, is exactly 9ft, 
long. It is easy, then, to imagine how near his snout 
must have come to our friend "Chips" when he stood 
up on his hindlegs and made preparations for an affec- 
tionate embrace. The carpenter drew his revolver and 
fired, but, as is the way sometimes with revolvers, it 
missed fire, and then "Chips" was in a very awkward 
corner indeed. 
Just at this moment, however — in the very nick of 
time — two plucky little Samoyad dogs (shown in the 
picture), who had scented Bruin when prowling near the 
ship, came up with their game and began to attack the 
bear after their manner, yapping and snapping at his 
heels and then retreating as the big beast turned round, 
Bruin, annoyed at the intrusion, turned savagely round 
upon the newcomers, while the carpenter availed himself 
of the opportunity to return to the ship! I do not guar- 
antee it, but believe that it is an article of faith among 
his shipmates to this day that he covered that mile within 
record time. 
All I can say is that here was a man's life saved by the 
timely intervention of two small dogs, who not merely 
helped him in his dilemma, but gallantly held the bear 
until my friend Frederick Jackson was able to come up 
with him,- and convert him into the raw material of a 
handsome rug "with a reminiscence." — A. MonteHore in 
Kennel Gasette. 
National Beagfle Club. 
The regular quarterly meeting of the National Beagle 
Club of America was held on Thursday, May 5, at 
3:30 P. M., at IS Broad street. Members present: Geo. 
B. Post, Jr., John Bateman, H. L. Kreuder, A. J. Purin- 
ton, Wm. G. Rockefeller, Jr., Jas. W. Appleton and G. 
M. Wharton. Treasurer's statement was accepted and 
ordered placed on file. The chair appointed Mr. H. F. 
Schellhass on the auditing committee in place of O. W. 
Rogers. Committee on standard reported progress. 
Resignation of Jacob Zalt, Jr., accepted. Mr. Appleton 
proposed Mr. H. P. Whitney's name, who was duly 
elected. It was decided not to offer a special prize at the 
show to be given by the New England Kennel Club at 
Braintree, Mass. After an informal discussion in regard 
to the coming field trials, the meeting was declared ad- 
journed. G. Mifflin Wharton, Sec'y. 
POINTS AND FLUSHES. 
The Eastern Field Trials Club announces its stakes 
for its trials of this year, full particulars of which are 
given in our business columns. The prizes amount to 
$1,700. The members' stake will be run on Nov. 12, open 
to all members. Entries close the night before the run- 
ning. On Monday, Nov. 14, the Derby commences; $300 
to first, $200 to second, $100 to third; first forfeit $10, 
second forfeit $10, payable Sept. i; $10 to start. Entries 
close June i. The aU-age is open to all setters and point- 
ers which have not won a first prize in an all-age stake 
in the United States or Continental clubs' trials. The 
prizes are the same as in the Derby; forfeit $10; $20 
additional to fill. The last stake is the Eastern sub- 
scription stake. Simon C. Bradley, Secretary, Greenfield 
Hill, Conn. 
