184 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[StPi. 1898. 
this head I must refer the curious inquirer to his 
snakeship himself. I have a way of thinking, however, 
that inasmuch as the snake was quite a small one — not 
more than 2ft. in length — he may have doubted his abil- 
ity to "get away" with the catbird, which was a full- 
grown adult. 
I have now given a fair statement of the facts in the 
matter as they occurred, from which ye gentle reader 
is at liberty to draw his own conclusions and inferences. 
I only wish to suggest, however, in conclusion, the 
probability that reptiles may possess the same hypnotic 
power over birds that some men are known to exer- 
cise over their brethren who are the unfortunate pro- 
prietors of weaker wills than their own. 
Wm. A. Wall. 
Bloombry, W. Va. 
The Cave Roller Identified, 
San Francisco, Aug. 19. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
It is generally admitted that there are occasions in al- 
most every man's experience when energetic language 
of a positive nature is excusable and admissible. • Such 
an occasion presents itself to me now, and I am 
tempted to go to the extreme length of the privilege. 
In reading over my chapter on "Animal Pets No. 2" 
in the last number of Forest and Stream received, I 
was disgusted to see that the compositor had managed 
to knock out what little sense there might have been 
in the closing sentence of the chapter, touching upon 
the dilapidated condition of the dog after his fight with 
the wildcat. What I wrote was, "Tige might have said 
with the footballer: 
"Now that the game is o'er, and the field is clear, 
Straighten up my nose and help me find my ear." 
Instead of footballer it was printed "cave roller," and 
what the deuce that word means puzzles me, and prob- 
ably all who read it wondered also. No doubt many 
contributors to newspapers have had similarly provok- 
ing experiences, and have felt like punching the head of 
the compositor, but on reflection the fault often lies 
in the illegible copy, and possibly it was so in my 
case, and I am disposed to give the compositor the 
benefit of the doubt, especially as my chirography is 
nothing to boast of, so on the whole I have con- 
cluded to let him live. 
Podgers. 
mrye |?#fj mxA %nn. 
The "Brief's" Pictures. 
The illustrations in the current edition of Game Laws in Brief, 
Mr. Charles Hallock says, 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 
accuracy. Forest and Stream Pub. Co. sends it postpaid for 25 
cents, or your dealer will supply you. 
Indian Modes of Hunting:. 
Martens. 
There are three kinds or qualities of martens recog- 
nized by the trappers. 
First. — The pine marten that is found in the country 
covered by soft woods, such as pine, spruce, white fir 
and birch. This is the most numerous and consequently 
the skins are of least value. They are of yellowish brown 
color on the back and orange on the throat, changing 
down to pale yellow or white on the belly. 
Second. — The rock marten; this is found in a country 
with stunted growth of spruce timber, a very moun- 
tainous district, the chief features of which are great 
crevices and boulders. Some of the skins of this variety 
are of great beauty, being dark on back, and throat and 
sides of gray or stone color. 
The third kind, which is the scarcest, and consequently 
of most value, is the marten found in the black spruce 
country, or swamps of northern Labrador. The fur 
of this variety is of a deep brown color throughout the 
pelt, and at times the tips of the hairs on the -rump are 
silver gray or golden brown. The latter are very rare, 
and such skins have been sold in the London fur market 
for £5 a piece! They afe also much larger that the 
other kinds, the skins of the male often being from 24 
to 3oin. long, exclusive of the tail. 
The proper and most successful time for hunting ?s 
in the latter days oE November and the whole month 
of December. They are hunted again in March, but by 
that time the sun has bleached out the color of the hair, 
which causes a depreciation in value. 
As a business, trapping is the only mode of killing 
martens. They are rarely seen to be shot at, as they pass 
the days in thickets or hollow stumps, only emerging 
after nightfall to hunt their food, which consists of mice, 
birds, young partridges, etc. 
Wooden traps are made in the well-known "figure-of- 
four" shape, and are set either on stumps or on the 
snow, flattened down with the snowshoes, and the trap 
built thereon. 
It is considered a very good day's work in December 
for a trapper to construct, bait and set up twenty-five 
such traps. A real marten hunter (nothing to do with 
my name) camps each night at the end of his day's work 
until he has from 150 to 200 traps set! He generally 
visits them once in ten days or a fortnight, and if the 
catch averages one marten to ten traps it is considered 
very fair. 
It takes the hunter two full days to rebait, clean out 
and freshen up such a line. When small steel traps 
are used instead of the deadfall, the hunter can coyer 
more ground in a day and do better work than by making 
all wood traps. The steel traps are much more fortunate 
than the wood ones. In the "figure-of-four" traps, be- 
fore the animal is caught it must seize the bait with its 
teeth and pull strong enough to set off the trap, whereas 
with the steel trap the mere fact of his coming to the 
doorway to smell insures his putting his foot in it, and in 
a moment up hangs Mr. Marten or Mr. Mink, as the 
case may be! 
Of course the steel traps have this disadvantage — they 
are weighty; that is, when you have fifty and over on 
your back, but the man who follows trapping as a busi- 
ness can very easily overcome this difficulty by placing" 
caches of traps at different places by canoe near where 
he proposes to have his line in the winter; and he can 
then branch off now and again for a new supply as he 
is setting up his trap road. 
This leaving the main road at right angles once in a 
while might even be a source of profit to the trapper, 
for he might come across a bear den or a beaver lodge, 
or fall on deer tracks, and if he succeeded in killing a 
deer some of the sinewy parts would come in to bait 
his traps. 
The taking of the skins off these little animals is very 
simple. The knife is used only about the head; once 
back of the ears the skin is drawn steadily until the tail 
is reached, the core of which is drawn out, either by 
a split stick or by the stiff thumb nail of the trapper. 
The skin is then dried on flat (three) splints, and when 
dried sufficiently to prevent it spoiling is tied up with 
others to the number of ten in each bundle, and are 
thus taken to the trader or fur dealer. 
The first purchaser from the trapper generally buys 
them at an average price, but he sells them to the manu- 
facturer selected; that is, getting a high price for the 
dark and a low price for the yellow or pale. 
Martin Hunter. 
A Morning's Hunt in Florida. 
"Now, my dear Paul," said the Doctor to me the day 
after my arrival at Waldemere, which is on a large lake 
in Florida, "if you want to do your share to provide 
for the table, you may unpack your gun to-night and go 
to bed early, for to-morrow morning at five I will wake 
you, and we will go hunting." 
So to bed I went, and it did not take me long to fall 
asleep, nor to wake up either, when I found the Doctor 
shaking my elbow. "Get into your things, have a cup 
of coffee and come along," he said, "never mind putting 
on those fancy hunting goods you laid out so nicely. 
They'll do when you go back to civilization; while you 
are here, when you go hunting, you must put on the 
worst things you have, the worse the better, and the 
strongest the best." 
"What are we going to hunt?" I asked, as I got into 
some old clothes my friend brought me, and which, when 
I had put them on, made me look like a New York street 
cleaner before Col. Waring's time. 
"When we go hunting at Waldemere," he answered, 
"we do not go for quail or rabbit, nor any specified 
game, nor do we go hunting for a whole day. We do 
not go for the purpose of beating records. We are 
what you may call pot hunters. The fish we catch and 
the game we shoot constitute all the animal food we de- 
pend upon, milk and eggs excepted. The game is not 
slaughtered for the purpose of showing a big bag when 
we come home. We know that if we shoot more to-day 
than we can eat, it will be spoiled by to-morrow, and 
we would rather have a rabbit run in the woods until we 
really want it than to know that we killed it when we 
had no use for it whatsoever. Take a few 4s, 6s, and 
8s, and a couple of BBs if you have them. If not, take 
anything you have, 6s in preference. I carry different 
sizes in the different pockets, and can chahge my shell 
pretty quick when I want it, but generally I carry 6s or 
7s in my repeater. Now remember, season is open for 
everything, so you can shoot anything you want, only 
remember it is nearly 6 o'clock and we want to -be back 
by 9, and have enough game for the whole day, but no 
more." 
He seemed to consider all the game in the neighbor- 
hood as his, and seemed to think this part of the country 
a game preserve, where everybody might shoot all he 
wanted to eat, but no more. As he said to me, "The 
fish and game around here are all the butcher shop we 
have got, and we must see that we do not go bankrupt." 
So off we started through an orange grove, I the only 
one carrying a gun, he playing dog for me, as he said. 
Whir, up started a flock of birds, about a dozen of them; 
my right barrel dropped one, my left missed. "Wild 
doves," said he, as he picked the bird up; "wilder than a 
Texas cowboy on a spree. Look out for that barb 
wire fence. There are three ways of overcoming this 
obstacle: crawl under, squeeze through, or climb over. 
Which do you choose?" I was not accustomed to fight 
such a foe, so I did not know what to do, but wished for 
a pair of wire nippers to cut the Gordian knot. 
"Uncock your gun, and I'll help you through." So he 
held the wires apart until I managed to get through, not, 
however, before I had torn a bit of cloth out of the old 
jacket which he had loaned me. 
"Now, are you not glad that I did not let you wear 
your fine hunting suit," he remarked, and I saw the 
wisdom of his way. 
On we went, I admiring the regularity of the orange 
grove, the yellow oranges hanging on the trees, when — 
"Why don't you shoot?" my companion said. There 
was a rabbit scampering away. I pulled the trigger, but 
missed, and the rabbit had disappeared in the bushes. 
"Never mind that rabbit, we will meet others," was my 
host's consoling remark; "walk along that path and look 
out for rabbit and quail." Hardly had I made a hundred 
steps when a rabbit ran across my path. That may mean 
bad luck for anybody but a huntsman. Off went my 
gun, the rabbit turned a summersault and was added to 
my bag. One dove and one rabbit was hardly enough 
for a whole day, so on we went, leaving the path and 
tramping through a lot of saw palmettoes, seeing a great 
many little birds, woodpeckers, bluejays and orioles, 
then— up went a flock of quail — bang went my right bar- 
rel, and two birds dropped; before I had a chance to use 
my left the quail had disappeared in the bushes. Back 
we turned, and walking through the woods, were lucky 
enough to scare up another rabbit, which I missed with 
my first, but hit with my second barrel. Returning 
through the orange grove, I had three more shots at the 
doves and scored two birds. We returned with two 
rabbits, two quail and three doves. Counting my shells, 
I found that I had used just ten. We had been out just 
an hour and a half, and always within calling distance 
of the house. 
"Take a rest if you are tired," my friend said to me, 
and I admitted that I was. Walking through the sandy- 
soil and through the shrubs and palmettoes had tired 
me; but not so much as to prevent me from enjoying 
the dinner, of which the rabbits, quail and doves formed 
a part, and which were accompanied with some native 
guava wine. H. O. Ward. 
Reminiscences of an Old 
Sportsman.— XVII. 
The last time I visited the Andover covers was in 
November, 1878, in company with Dr. W. S. Webb, 
Hon. E. H. Lathrop and R. E. Sabin. We shot about 
three minutes the evening of our arrival, the whole of 
the next day and a little more than half of the day fol- 
lowing, and our score was eighty-four birds — twenty-six 
grouse, one woodcock and fifty-seven quail — which is 
pretty good evidence that this was a game country. We 
not only secured a good bag of birds, but we had a most 
enjoyable time as well. The Doctor, Sabin and I ar- 
rived at Andover a few minutes before sunset, and not 
wishing to lose any time we rigged up and started out 
to see if we could find a bird or two. The landlord in- 
formed us that there were four partridges in a small 
grove- of woods only a short distance from the hotel, 
and we decided to investigate. We had with us the well- 
known pointers Sensation, Whiskey and Sabin's Trump. 
Arriving at the grove, the dogs were sent on, and they 
had gone nearly through the cover when Sensation 
struck scent at the far upper corner and came to a point, 
with Whiskey backing him. Old Trump had worked 
out the opposite side, and had gone out into the open 
meadow, and almost at the instant Sensation pointed 
he also froze. The Doctor went to his dog, and Sabin 
walked over to Trump, while I formed the center of the 
line. As we advanced, a grouse rose near me and under- 
took to cross some 25yds, in front of the Doctor, but 
he was loaded for grouse, and brought it down in fine 
style. Three more rose from the open meadow beyond 
Trump, and Sabin got in a good double, the other one 
coming my way, only to share the fate of its companions. 
This was capital work all around, and we returned 
well satisfied with our good beginning. When Ave ar- 
rived at the hotel the landlord threw up his hands when 
he saw the birds and exclaimed, "Great Scott! you've 
got them all! If I had thought that you would have 
killed one of them I would not have told you where they 
were, for there is where I send all the shooters that 
come here, and now you've spoiled the fun." 
The next morning Mr. Lathrop joined us with his 
well-known setter Dick, and we at once made a break 
for the woods. Dick was a wonderful dog. fast as a 
ghost indeed; he was widely known as "the black 
whirlwind of the East;" he also had a good nose, was 
perfectly staunch, and was gifted with lots of intelligence. 
Mr. Lathrop had never seen Sensation in the field, 
but had been outspoken in condemning his appearance, 
and I waited with no lit.tle interest to see what his 
verdict would be when he had seen him at work. I had 
not long to wait, for the grand old dog soon had a bevy 
of quail pinned in his very best style. Mr, Lathrop 
gazed at him a short time with a loolc of wonder on 
his face, then he exclaimed, "I'll take it all back; a 
dog that can do that is above criticism." 
When we flushed the birds in front of the dog I was 
somewhat surprised not to hear the Doctor's gun, but 
he informed me that this was his first introduction to 
these birds, and he wished to get the hang of them 
before sailing in. The birds settled in some fairly open 
cover, and when we were through with them it was the 
unanimous opinion of all three of us that the Doctor 
had got the hang of them all right. 
Dick gave us a taste of his quality here that was very 
amusing" Mr. Lathrop signaled a point some ten rods 
to my left, and I started toward him just as Whiskey 
came past and pointed not more than 6ft. in front of me. 
I at once signaled a point, and as I took a step or two 
to one side to get clear from an overhanging branch 
the bird flushed from under my feet. When I brought 
the gun to my shoulder I saw Dick coming at his best 
gait, and I dropped the bird just in front of him. With- 
out slacking his speed he picked up the bird and swung 
around and disappeared in the direction from which 
he came. When I joined Mr. Lathrop I asked him 
where Dick was, and he told me that he was pointing 
in the middle of a thicket a few steps beyond us, and 
he bade me go on the opposite side and kill the bird 
which he would drive out to me. When we came to the 
thicket there stood Dick on a staunch point, with the 
quail that he had stolen in his mouth. Mr. Lathrop 
had not seen him leave the place, and was greatly sur- 
prised at the performance. Dick dearly loved to retrieve, 
and very often went for birds that did not belong to him ; 
but this was the first time he had been known to leave 
his point for such a purpose. He knew what the signal 
for a point meant as well as we did, and was bound to 
have his share of the fun. If this was instinct I for one 
would very much like to know where the believers that 
dumb brutes do not reason draw the line. 
Evening found us gathered around the cheerful fire 
in the bar room of the hotel, jolly and disposed to enjoy 
ourselves. Our success during the day had been all that 
sportsmen could desire, both in the way of birds and fun, 
and as my companions were all jolly good fellows, and 
peculiarly fitted to make such an occasion an enjoyable 
one, the time passed most pleasantly. Our pipes were all 
going, and we had just settled back in our chairs, when 
the door opened and a youth of some sixteen or seven- 
teen years entered, closely followed by a dog that partly- 
atoned for his rather plain appearance by the intelligent 
and wideawake expression of his countenance, and he 
completely won our esteem by the very cordial manner 
in which he approached each one of us in turn and 
saluted us with a friendly wag of his tail, then with 
a hail-fellow-well-met air he paid his respects to each 
of the dogs, and was greeted by all as though he were 
an old and cherished friend, even old Trump, greatly to 
our surprise and amusement, raised up on his haunches 
and reached out his paw to shake hands in the most 
