Feb. 25; 1899 ] 
FOREST AJND STREAM. 
147 
tine life, such as a bee leads, and rats rise superior to 
their environment at anj'' time when the environment 
proves to be a misfit. 
The brown rat, like the old sailor, has adapted himself 
to steel ships and is at home in them, but it is in the cit- 
ies that he gets in his fine work on gas fittings, lead 
pipes, cement floors and brick drains. He chews cement 
floors in the weakest places and he taps leap pipes for 
water. "Sewer rats" have achieved a reputation on par- 
allel lines with sanitary plumbing, and under the New 
York end of the great Brooklyn Bridge rats are earning 
a frigid living in the cold-storage warehouses and shar- 
pening their teeth on frozen fish and game where a man's 
breath will turn to snow on a summer's day. He is 
enough of a philosopher to take life as he finds it: he is 
a genuine "man of the world." 
As the burglar keeps abreast of the safe-maker, so the 
intelligent rat steps to the march of civilization and cold 
storag;?. This is not "instinct," it is the result of thought, 
and thought implies reason. 
Another Dog Reasons. 
A dog is moved by instinct to withdraw his foot from 
a coal of fire, and does it before he can think of it; a 
man does the same. A man reasons that a pole across 
a stream may break and let him down; an elephant 
plants one foot to test a bridge, reasoning that it may 
not bear his weight. The dog, in its highest form, the 
most intelligent of all animals except man, reasons out 
a whole lot of things which he cannot explain and which 
only those who love and make companions of dogs ever 
have an idea of. Bungo, an intelligent cur which I 
had on my farm in western New York to keep down rats, 
.skunks and other vermin, always wanted to go on fox 
hunts with my hounds, but was not wanted because he 
was liable to head off a fox. He was shut in_ the barn 
and the two hounds were taken. It was winter and 
Mort. Locke and I were going to the Mendon Ponds, 
south of Rochester, some tea miles away. Mort. was at 
my house with his hounds, and I piled a lot of straw in 
the wagon, put the hounds in, and off we went. 
At the ponds we stabled the horses and put out the 
hounds. About two hours afterward Bungo came to 
me, crouching and begging not to b.e punished. He 
was a short-haired dog, but was wet with perspiration. 
This was what I learned: Four hours after we started 
he %vas let out of the barn; he went a mile east to the 
village of Honeoye Falls, to Mort's house. Then on two 
miles south to the "Parker Boj'S," men sixty to seventy 
years old who hunted with us sometimes, but we had 
gone north from my place. 
The dog had gone a mile east and two miles south,_ to 
my usual haunts when fox-hunting. He cared nothing 
for the sport, but may have been jealous of the hounds 
and wanted to be near his master. "Frank Forester" 
said: "Man is the God of the dog," and Bungo was 
jealous and Wanted to be the sole pet. Three years before 
he had gone to Mendon Ponds wdth the hounds. I be- 
lieve he reasoned it out in this way: "Master is running 
foxes; he has not stopped at Mort. Locke's and has not 
been at the houses of the Parker brothers; perhaps he's 
over at the ponds, where he went before, and I'll try it." 
He reached us in two hours less time than the horses 
made and traveled six more miles, doubling the first 
three. The dog thought it all out, and if there is any 
difference between thought and reason it is too subtle foi' 
my comp^ehensiott. 
As I understand instinct it is independent of thought. 
The horse which lifts a latch to let him into a gate or 
a pasture has figured it all out in his brain, ; without a 
blue print, and that is reason. When an animal flinches 
from physical pain that is instinct, and there , you are; 
but when my dog has thought, "My master is not at 
this place, where he often goes, nor at another, perhaps 
he may be where he went three years ago, because he 
had foxhounds with him," and then follows this line 
until he finds me, there is no "instinct" in it. 
"Von W." covers the ground of the fear of man by ani- 
mals, based on their experience and the transmission of 
that experience to their young, and this is what all ob- 
servers have seen. The late Dr. Romaines proved to the 
satisfaction of many, myself included, that the mind of 
a dog differs from that of man simply in degree and not 
in kind. The power of speech and thereby the transmis- 
sion of intelligence of an abstruse or abstract nature 
gives man the power to argue questions and explain his 
individual views, and he uses it to its full capacity. The 
dog, having no speech, cannot hand down legends of his 
race nor of his personal experience. His acquired knowl- 
edge dies with him. 
The ability of dogs, cats and horses to return to their 
old homes from long distances and across a country un- 
known to them may be termed instinct. In the case of 
the homing pigeon it is memory, for they often get lost if 
they lose their bearings; still with all these animals there 
is a mental process which may not be far from reason. 
Perhaps it may be that subtle "sense of direction" which 
some men seem to have. 
Communication among Animals. 
We, who notice such things, have seen ants meet and 
spend some time in exchanging touches with their an- 
tennae, and we never doubt that they are conveying in- 
telligence in some kind of sign language. Beavers have 
some sort of signals made by flaps of the tail on water. 
M}' Longfellow is not at hand, but I remember of Hia- 
watha that "of all the beasts he knew the language," if 
those are the words, and there is truth as well as poetry 
in it; for we know what the muskrat means by its 
'"smacking" at night, and we've heard the red-headed, the 
golden-winged and the big ivory-billed woodpeckers 
drum on dead stubs and on barns where there were no 
grubs, apparently for the music or the fun of the thing; 
but when they stopped to listen for a reply, we knew 
that it was a telephonic arrangement beyond our ken. 
Men know by the voices of their hunting dogs what 
the game is, provided they have hunted with those dogs 
many times and are observant. I have spoken of 
Joker, a skye with enough Scotch in him to be an 
active ratter; I had at the same time a fox terrier named 
Trouble, and while living on Long Island I used to 
let these dogs out about midnight before retirin;g. The 
rasal^ were, .as good forl^ats and possum? a| Jot rats. 
and they ■would circle the garden, and if there was no 
game would come back; but they usually put up some- 
thing. Sitting in my den I could tell by their voices if 
they had a cat or a 'possum in a tree. I can't explain 
the dift'erent tone they used any more than I can tell 
how I distinguished the tone of a banjo from that of a 
guitar, but I did. If the animal was a cat I stepped on 
the back piazza and ordered them to come in; if It was 
a possum the lantern was lighted and down I went. 
When they saw the light, which meant reinforcement, 
they would 3'^ell with delight, and keep it up all the while 
the pear tree was climbed and the tail of Misser Pos- 
sum was uncurled from the limb and he was brought 
dow*n to be put in a barrel for a festive dinner on State i 
Lsland, or to be given to some colored man. 
I believe that those dogs changed their voices in order 
to tell me "cat" or "possum," for they knew more than 
some men I have met who could yell those names loudly. 
They reasoned that these different animals must be 
known to me by different names, just as different dogs 
were, and they tried to tell me those names. It is too 
much to expect that all readers of this will agree with 
my conclusions, and I only ask them to believe that I 
believe that animals can reason. Fred Mather, 
Services of Familiar Birds. 
Very interesting observations on the food of two of 
our most familiar birds have been carried on at the Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station of New Hampshire Col- 
lege by Dr. Clarence M. Weed, the entoviologist of 
the station. The birds discussed are chickadee, one of 
our most cofnmon winter birds, and the chipping spar- 
row, which is a summer resident as well known. 
Throughout New England and the Middle States, the 
chickadee or black-capped titmouse is an abundant win- 
ter bird and may often be seen in the woods or along the 
hedgerows hunting for food. Dr. Weed's studies were 
carried on for the purpose of determining what this food 
is, in order that the economic status of the bird might be 
more definitely determined. The results of these studies 
prove that more than half of the food taken by the chick- 
adee during the winter months consists of insects, of 
which the greater portion are taken in the form of eggs. 
.Vegetation of various sorts contributes a little less than 
one-quarter of the food, but of this two-thirds consists 
of buds and bud scales, which are believed to have been 
taken in accidentally along with the eggs of the plant 
lice. In the specimens examined, these eggs made up 
more than one-fifth of the entire food, and as they are 
usually taken from crevices beside the buds of deciduous 
trees and shrubs, it must commonly happen that the bud 
scales are to be pecked away before the eggs can be got 
at, and in devouring the eggs a large proportion of such 
scales might very well be swallowed. 
By this destruction of the eggs of the plant lice which 
infest fruit, shade and forest trees, the chickadee no doubt 
renders to man its most important winter service. Dr. 
Weed's record shows that more than 450 eggs some- 
times occur as the food of one bird for a single day, 
and if we imagine that 100 eggs were eaten daily by each 
one of a flock of ten chickadees the destruction would 
amount to 1,000 per day, or 100,000 during a single win- 
ter, a number probably far below the truth. The mitlti- 
plication of the aphides is wonderfully rapid, each egg 
hatching into what is known as a viviparous female, 
which gives birth to living young by a process similar 
to that known as budding among the lowest of animals. 
Each of these young soon gives birth to others, which 
in turn mature and produce still others. So enormously 
rapid is the increase that were it not for the numerous 
checks upon these insects found under natural conditions, 
the practice of agriculture would be in vain and all plant 
life might be destroyed. The subject is a familiar one to 
the lover of plants. 
Besides the eggs of aphides, those of many other sorts 
of insects are found in the chickadee's food. Those of 
the tent caterpillar and of the fall canker worm were com- 
mon, as well as the larvae of several sorts of most injuri- 
ous moths, such as the common apple worm and the lar- 
vae of the codling moth. Bark beetles, so destructive 
to our forests, are also eaten by wholesale. On the other 
hand, the eggs and adults of some spiders are eaten, 
creatures which, on the whole, are beneficial rather than 
injurious. The summary of these observations shows the 
chickadee to be one of our most useful birds. 
In order to get some notion of the abundance -of this 
species in a region like southeastern New Hampshire, 
where a considerable portion of the land is wooded, Mr. 
Fiske. Dr. Weed's assistant, made some observations in 
the woods and fields, recording the number of flocks of 
chickadees seen and the size of each, and observing also 
their feeding habits. In a territory estimated as four 
square miles, eleven flocks were noted, varying in num- 
mer from, four to forty, but averaging about thirteen to 
the flock. This would place the number of birds for 
each square mile at thirty-five. 
Dr. Weed remarks on the desirability of inducing these 
useful birds to remain upon the premises, where their ser- 
vices in destroying insect enemies will abundantly repay 
the slight trouble required to keep them in the vicinity. 
The subject is one that has often been brought up in 
FoRKST AND STREAM. Mr. Fiske calls attention also to 
the practice by the chickadee of carrying away surplus 
food, which they hide in crevices in the bark or at the 
base'of twigs in neighboring trees. Mr. E. H. Forbush, 
in the Bulletin of the Massachusetts State Board of 
Agriculture, has also called attention to the value of 
keeping the titmouse about. In an orchard in Massa- 
chusetts canker worms had been very abundant the sea- 
son before, and the moths of the fall canker worm had 
deposited great numbers of eggs upon the trees. Pieces 
of meat, fat and bone were fastened to the trees at the 
beginning of the winter, in order to attract the chicka- 
dees, which came and remained all winter about the 
orchard. By watching them, it was learned that they 
were feeding on the eggs of the canker worm moth, and 
a few birds were killed to determine the number of eggs 
eaten, which was between 200 and 300 for the stomach 
of each bird.. In the spring the female moths of_ the 
spring canker worm were also devoured by these birds. 
As a result of this course, through the labors of the chick- 
adees and siich other birds as feed on these injtirious ip- 
sects, the orchard was saved fnom any serious inj.itry t^v 
the canker worm. 
Dr. Weed's observations on the feeding habits of the 
chipping sparrow cover another season of the year, and 
were made by himself and Mr. Fiske during one long 
day in June, upon a family of sparrows which had three 
young ones so nearly full grow^i that they hopped out of 
tlie nest the second day after the records were made, 
The observations continued for sixteen hours, from 3:40 
A. M. to 7:50 P. M., The birds were fed first at 3:57 
A. M. and last at 7:36, and during the day 200 visits were 
made to the nest by the parent birds, which brought food 
at nearly every visit. The most abundant elements of 
this food seemed to be soft-bodied caterpillars, but crick- 
ets and crane flies were also identified, and there \vas 
much other food, the nature of which it was impossible 
to determine. It would thus be hard to overestimate the 
usefulness of this little bird at a season of the vear when 
all insect life is especially on the increase. 
The observations recorded appear to have been made 
with extreme care and thoroughness, and are very cred- 
itable to Dr. Weed and his assistant, Mr. Fiske, 
More about Skunks* 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
Perhaps I may add a few bits of information to those 
that have been given in your columns on skunks. I have 
no experiences of my own to narrate that are not familiar 
to every country boy. Such experiences as holing a skunk 
when possum hunting at night, and setting the greenhorn 
of the party to "punching him out," are familiar to all 
possum hunting boys. But a few years since I made a 
very thorough investigation of that curious delusion that 
the bite of a skunk would produce rabies, regardless of 
whether the .skunk was rabid itself, and in this investi- 
gation I came across some rather peculiar bits of informa- 
tion. Dr. John H. Janeway, then a surgeon in the United 
States Army, stationed at Fort Hays, Kansas, made a 
very exhaustive report of the short-lived epidemic of 
rabies in Kansas and Northern Texas in 1873, dogs, 
wolves, skunks and even hogs being affected, and deaths 
having resulted from bites of all these animals ; the pecu- 
liar feature being stated by Dr. Janeway, that a rabid 
skunk invariably lost its power of .secreting (or discharg- 
ing) its odorous fluid. This Dr. Janeway states as demon- 
strated beyond doubt, and in yiew of his singular care and 
exactness in all his statements it must be accepted as con- 
clusive. 
I found that in southwestern Kansas, not remote from 
the Fort Hays locality, skunks are kept as family pets, 
first having the odorous fluid secreting glands removed, 
and in Mississippi they were often confined in various rat- 
infested buildings as vermin killers. 
I found two instances of illness resulting from skunk 
bites, in one of which the bitten person recovered after 
copious blood-letting. In the other case, the victim went 
into a .slow decline, dying a year after; of course neither 
of these cases were rabies, and Gen. .Sternberg, Surgeon- 
General United States Army, wrote me that blood poison- 
ing was undottbtedly the cause of the troubles. 
W. Waue, 
Oakmon*, Pa., Feb. to. 
The Rangfc of the Eastern Elk. 
The recent discovery of a remnant of elk in extreme 
eastern Quebec is an event worthy more than passing 
note. Unless the species has recently been reintroduced 
the specimen to be shown at the Sportsmen's Show next 
March is the second known specimen of the Eastern elk, 
the other specimen being in the Philadelphia Academy of 
Sciences. 
If any reader knows of any other specimen heads, hides, 
skulls or horns of elk taken in the Eastern States or 
Canada he can confer a benefit on science by recording 
them in Forest and Stream. 
According to Caton the elk was once found in Nova 
Scotia, New Brunswick and Labrador. If any reader can 
give any new records to prove this great range or refer 
to sources of information, I shall be glad to hear of it. 
Although the former range of the elk is given in gen- 
eral as "entire United States," I do not know of any proof 
that it was ever found in the limits of the present State 
of Florida. Does any reader know of any horns that have 
been dug up in that region, or indeed of any proof, ma- 
terial or legendary, of former occupation by the elk? 
Ernest Seton Thompson. 
A Maine Winter Robin. 
Jackman, Me., Feb. 9. — This is the coldest snap of t-he 
winter, the temperature ranging from zero to 20 degrees 
below since Jan. 27; yet on Feb. 6 a robin appeared in 
camp, rested on a tree for a moment and then flew north. 
It does not seem probable that this bird came from the 
South, and yet this is the only robin I have seen or heard 
of in this region during the winter. 
There are .several large deer yards in the vicinity of 
camp, and so far they are all doing nicely, and were all 
being killed by the lumbermen or anyone else in this sec- 
tion. Partridges are quite plentiful, and are also winter- 
ing well, although now and then I find where a fox caught 
one in the snow, however, if the strychnine holds out 
their troubles on this account will be reduced considerably. 
Williams. 
A Stray "Wild Pigeon. 
Baltimore, Feb. 17.^ — Editor Forest and Stream: Apro- 
pos of the passenger (?) pigeon, I inclose clipping from 
the Lititz Record, a newspaper published in Lititz, Lan- 
caster county, Pennsylvania: "During the cold spell last 
week a stray wild pigeon came to the farm of Henry 
Boraberger, northwest of Lititz, where it found lodging 
under the forebay, and where it has remained undisturbed 
ever since. No doubt it became separated from a covey 
of its kind, and getting lost, sought shelter at the nearest 
place." This is surely a belated passenger. 
E. S. Young. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
Utest by Mpudav ^d as much €«Uer a? practicable. 
