March ^g, iSgg.] 
FORfiSl^ AND jSTREAM. 
iirst spell. VVIiei) the firsl gia.y light appears, vvbefi you 
hear the honk of the wild goose and the quack of the mal- 
lard and see not, when single dark objects come slatting 
by in the mist like shots from modern ordnance, when 
whole flocks of ducks come upon you like the rush of 
cavalry and break to the right and left and you rise up to 
juggle your fowling-piece for their destruction, then does 
your blood tingle, your deep breath come and go quickly, 
and you feel the spirit that has animated man from 
primeval times to the present and will continue lo sd stir 
them till long after the last sparrow falleth. 
The guns boomed again and again in the dense fog 
and canvasbacks, mallards and redheads struck the water 
with a sloping splash, never again to travel north or 
south with the changing seasons. The sound of oars 
crealdng in their locks and of broken waves slapping un- 
der the bow of an approaching boat warned us that we 
were called in for breakfast. Ten handsome birds satis- 
fied my desires, and I did not enter the battery again. At 
other times have I lain fliat in the battery and stuck up 
a foot to attract the ducks; times when far away could 
be seen some hurrying bird flying low and with tremen- 
dous speed, ready to alight among supposed kin- 
dred. When the bird discovered the nigger in the, wood- 
pile the attempt to back-pedal or to fly off on i tangent 
was ludicrous. 
My companion drank much of the Chesapeake Bay 
water, contrary to advice. He was reminded that he was 
not in the best of condition and that such water was 
usually saturated with deleterious substances. 
Climbing the hill that night to the railroad station my 
foot unearthed a stone tomahawk, a relic of the fierce 
tribes whose habitat was the Susquehanna. Tt may be 
that the relic split the head of some good Fcnnimore 
Cooper Indian, or was the first implement used in a 
feast of boiled dog. 
Having but little time for a change of cars at Phil- 
adelphia, we employed the Pullman porter to transfer the 
ducks. In doing so he was chased by a Philadelphia 
bobby, who evidently tliought the goods were hypothe- 
cated. Maybe he liked ducks. It took some persuasion 
to convince him that we had shot them; it took more to 
convince him that he had displayed a wonderful burst of 
speed considering his locality. 
Part II. 
With those who sneer at the lovers of the rod and gun 
and the associations therewith, I will not quarrel. 
With those who from preference reach for a "high ball" 
before the bar rather than on the diamond, or with those 
who prefer the seclusion of a beer tunnel to that of a 
woodland glen, I am not in touch. I am sitting beside 
and talking to such of your readers as have in boyhood 
days known and can recall some companion with whom 
they have scaled some lofty cliff or by whose r;ide they 
have wandered along with the purling brook in the 
meadows below — meadows where the bobolink sang to 
them long years ago, where the daisies, fleur-de-lis and 
wild honeysuckle lifted their blossoms in friendly nods — 
I am in sympathy with those of mature years who, racked 
•with care and worry, have sought the fellowship of some 
kindred spirit and have roamed among the trees of a 
hillside or by the sunny shores of some pond or river. 
As the sick dog seeks darkness, so had my friend and 
myself sought quiet in nature's solitude many times. 
They tell me that he had his faults; I have been l eminded 
of my own by interested parties, and yet, while together 
we never allowed our actions to offend. A man is bad 
if others say so, and often the judges are spiteful be- 
cause the victim is not plastic in their hands. 
The time required for the germs of typhoid fever to 
propagate had elapsed since our return, and my friend 
was tossing upon a bed of fever. The turning point was 
not in his favor. If I record that I liked him, that I 
had found in him all the essential characteristics of a 
gentleman, and that I grieved at my loss, am I senti- 
mental or is there "milk of human kindness?" 
As the disease progressed, so did he depart from his 
former self. With parched tongue, burning skin and 
racking pains he passed the weary hours. Huge un- 
known shapes moved down upon him as though to 
crush him. Again was he dropping from some great 
height into bottoms that were not reached. One day a 
few lucid moments were allowed him, as though in pity 
for his sufferings. He called the nurse to his bedside 
and requested that his gun be given to me, and with it 
came a message of regard and hope. 
Anon in his delirium he thought us fishing together. 
He called my name, saying: "You have a bass; strike! 
Why don't you strike? Ah, you have lost him. We'll 
pull up and try another place." As the long days and 
nights passed he became weaker until, worn out and 
emaciated, he no longer spoke, and the fingers that had 
so often toyed with the reel were now picking at the 
blankets. The last spark of life's camp-fire died away and 
he went out on that long trail called "Death." Silence — 
oblivion — closed about him for awhile until he emerged 
higher up and in broad fields, into the presence of that 
true Guide, of whom it is said, "He maketh me to lie 
down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still 
waters." W. W. Hastings. 
North Carolina Wildfowl Law. 
MoREHEAD City, N. C, March 14. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have put myself to no little trouble and some 
expense to have our duck laws made so the sporting men 
of the North could come and kill some of the many ducks 
that use in our waters during the winter season. I inclose 
you a copy of the law as it now stands, and hope you give 
it space in your valuable paper. It lias been so for the 
last eight years that we could not use the battery in 
our county, but I am glad to say that we can now use it, 
which is the only means of kilhng the redhead ducks that 
use in our waters. 
The law relates only to Carteret county, and provides 
that it shall be unlawful for any person to shoot wild- 
fowl from a battery or sneak-boat on Sundays, Mondays, 
Wednesdays and Fridays of any week; or to use a battery 
or sneak-boat before Dec. i of any year ; or to shoot wild- 
fowl with fire or light between an hour after sunset and 
before the hour of daylight; or to use any other than a 
shoulder gun. E. D. Arthur. 
Told at the Sportsmen^s Show. 
\Contin*ied Jro*n last wecA-Pi 
A Man who Sees Bears when he has a Gun. 
W. S. "Win" McKenncy, of Patten, has the reputation 
of being a lucky man for running across bears in the 
woods at times when he has a rifle witli him, and pump- 
ing them full of lead with a repeating rifle. McKenney 
generally finds his bears when htmting other game. 
Last fall a year ago he was on the west branch of the 
Penobscot and got so close to an old bear and two cubs 
that he could have touched any one of the three with his 
rifle barrel. The scene of the incident was in the "beater 
piece," lying in the angle between the West Branch and 
Sardnahunk Stream. Most of this triangular section of 
land has been burnt over in time past, and is grown up to 
birch. At one side, however, is a belt of black growth, 
with a springy, moss-carpeted floor that a man can walk 
over without hearing himself step. McKenney followed 
the edge of the black growth in the hope of finding a 
deer or moose feeding on the succulent young growth in 
the adjoining burnt ground. Before he had gone half 
a mile he heard an odd noise. He stopped and listened. 
He could distinguish subdued grunts and whimperings 
that seemed to come from a point only a few feet away at 
his elbow, but crane his neck as he would he could see 
nothing. The hunter knew that the sounds could come 
from nothing else than an old bear and her cubs, but there 
was a ventriloquistic quality about the cries that was 
very puzzling. 
"Seemed 's though the bears was close enough to spit 
on," says McKenney, in telling the story, "but rhough I 
worked first this way and then that, and peeked around 
among the little cat spruces, I couldn't see nothing at 
all. I just made up my mind there wasn't going to be 
any more suspense about it, and I took a run and a jump 
right out into the burnt ground where the sounds came 
from. 
"An old pine-tree stub had fallen over, with its roots 
sticking up in the air, and as I landed beside that I see 
the old bear shoot out from under my feet. She just 
made one bounce and shifted ends in the air and came 
down facing me. She was so devilish close she didn't 
dare put, otherwise, I guess she'd run for the black 
growth. 
"1 see out of the corners of my eyes a big cub at each 
of my elbows, facing just the same that their mamma 
was, and it kind of occurred to me that I might have 
got too much bear, and I wished I was just about 2sft. 
further off, for I couldn't face three ways at once. 
"I opened up on the old lady, and gave her a shot 
through the back of the neck. The blood spurted from 
both nostrils, but she managed to make one damned good 
iunge, and my pants was in danger, so I gave her another, 
and then switched around and begun to operate on the 
cubs. I fired twice at the first and fetched him, and 
wounded the second, but that one managed to get to the 
black growth, and then it was anybody's bear, for I 
couldn't follow it there. The whole thing was over in 
about the whisk of a cow's tail, and then I begun to look 
around to see why I hadn't been able to locate the bears. 
The reason was plain enough. There was a hole under 
that fallen stub, and they'd been in there out of sight. 
That mossy ground in the black growth gave me the 
chance to get right up on them before they heard me, 
and then they didn't have time to get away." 
Last October McKenney went up on the ridge to the 
north of Dwelly Pond, which lies among the foothills of 
Katahdin, in search of moose. Just as he came to an 
open space 60 or 70ft. across, from which all the spruce 
had been cut and hauled away, he heard a grunt, which 
sounded like the grunt of a young bull moose. McKen- 
ney advanced cautiously to the very edge of the opening 
and peered across. He could hear a rustling of the dry 
leaves on the ground at the further side, and knew that 
the game, whatever it might be, was close at hand. 
While he stood waiting for something to tiirn up a 
shift in the wind or some slight noise which he made 
alarmed the game. He heard a crash, and the next in- 
stant a large bear appeared, running unwittingly directly 
toward him. McKenney waited till the bear got within 
ten paces, and then raised his rifle and fired. As luck 
would have it, the bear saw the hunter the second before 
he pressed the trigger and made a sudden leap sideways, 
with the result that he was only slightly wounded by the 
bullet creasing across his chest. He swung around in 
the direction he had come, and then McKenney saw that 
the first bear, which he judged to be an old male, had 
been followed into the open space by a she bear and 
two cubs. 
"The male bear ran directly back to the others," says 
McKenney, "and then stopped. They let out a few of 
those little grunts they was making when I first heard 
them, and the first thing I knew the old she bear humped 
herself and started right across the clearing in my direc- 
tion. I think it was the smell of the blood on the wound- 
ed bear that made her savage. She came straight for me, 
and I figured that the straighter she came the better it 
suited me. I thought that when she got so far she'd stop 
and set up, same as they do when they first come out with 
their cubs. But that setting-up business wasn't in her 
head for a cent. She came right on, and when she got 
2qft. away she had full steam on still and her ears was 
laid back and teeth a-showing, and I see that she meant 
business and no mistake. I hollered, thinking that 'd 
stop her, but she never let up a particle. And about the 
time I got that holler finished I tried it again, but it 
didn't work any better, and then I thought the old gun 'd 
holler best, 
"There was a windfall right in front, not over 8ft, away, 
and when the bear got her front feet on that, right up to 
my nose, I let her have it. The ball struck her fair, and 
she turned a somersault and landed t'other end to, right 
at my feet, and before she had time to think about I got 
another into her and pumped her so full of lead she had 
to give it up; but she made some awful struggles to get to 
me, and after it was all-over .1 kind of felt as- if I'd been 
a-monkeying a little too close to the buzz-saw. 
"The. cubs had gone off somewhere, but all the time 
I was dressing the she bear the old he fellow that I 
wounded kept traveling steady around the edge of the 
clearing. I could hear him snarling, but I couldn't get a 
sight of him. Bet your boots I was quite a time dressing 
hef, too. 1 had to spend so much of my time watching 
the other one. 
"When I got the job done I went down to Dwelly 
Pond, and there at the big sprmg I met my brother 
Frank. ' Nothing would satisf;? Frank but we must go 
back. We went up on the ridge again, but the old he 
bear *d found out he wanted to know, and he'd cleared 
out. He wasn't quite so crazy for fight as his mate,- and 
perhaps I'm just as well satisfied that he wasn't. By the 
time I got to skinning the she bear my nerves was acting 
kind of treacherous, and if the old he fellow 'd been a 
mind to make a good dash like the .first bear be might 
have had better luck and put my folks to the expense of 
providing a new suit of clothes to bury me in.'' 
Bear C«bs in CaptivUy. 
In a cage erf wire chicken netting near by were two of 
the tiniest imaginable specimens of black bear cubs. They 
burrowed down among the leaves, with which the bottom 
of the cage was thickly covered and hugged themselves 
into little spherical nonentities about the size and shape 
of croquet balls. Anyone with half an eye could see that 
they were orphans, and that they were having poor suc- 
cess in their puny efforts to get from the leaves the 
warmth and comfort they had reason tg expect from their 
shaggy mother bear. 
A sign on the cage gave the information that the cubs' 
names were Tom and Jerry, and that they were eighteen 
days old on March 8. Bazile furnished some additional 
facts bearing on their history. "Dey was born between 
big pine stomp," he said. "A lumbermans throwed a big 
pine on the other pine stomp, and that made a noise, and 
the lumbermans heard the old bear make noise on the 
snow. The lumbermans killed him with his axe." After 
that the man heard the cubs whining and he enlarged the 
opening into tlie den and captured them. At that time 
their eyes were not open, and they were so small that 
the man put one in each side pocket of his coat and car- 
ried them home that way. 
Feeding the Cubs. 
Bazile acted as wet nurse for the cubs, and his atten- 
tions were not received with favor by Tom and Jerry. 
Nature had intended them to get their dinners and sup- 
pers and little lunches in between in a much easier way 
than Bazile provided. Consequently, when meal time 
came there was much squawling. 
Bazile took the cubs in turn, lifting them from the cage 
by the napes of their necks, and afterwards clasping the 
little balls of black fur around the forward parts of their 
bodies with one hand, whereupon the cubs would brace 
their hind feet against the hand and push with such good 
effect that their unpopular wet nurse was obliged to take 
them again by the nape of the neck and get -a new grip. 
When at last Bazile had the cub's legs doubled up so that 
he could in a measure control its contortions, he put the 
index finger of his free hand in its mouth and held it 
open, and then dipped the cub head first into a can of 
milk. For a second or two no sound would be heard. 
Then there would be a convulsive spluttering, followed 
by the wildest kind of squalling, as the cub's head was 
raised to give it air. One of the cubs had a very human 
cry. Ladies from all parts of the Garden were attracted 
by the sound. They said the cub said, "Mamma," just 
like any baby. 
When the bears had eaten enough to satisfy th^ir un- 
sentimental nurse, Bazile wiped their wet little noses with 
a wad of leaves and put them back in their nest to dream 
of the warmth and comfort that should by rights have 
been theirs. ■ ' ^ 
Bear Weights and Growth. 
At the present time Tom and Jerry apparently each 
weigh about 2lbs. In another place in the Garden is the 
boxing bear, Pete, in his cage with the bull pup. Doctor. 
This bear is estimated to weigh a hundred and eighty or 
two hundred pounds. It was raised in captivity from a 
cub, and its owner, Sam Castle, of Ottawa, says that it 
is only eighteen months old. Warren Wing, of Flagstaff, 
Me., who is a bear trapper of long experience, says that 
black bear cubs when they first come out of the den with 
their mother in the spring never weigh more than 5lbs. 
Here are some interesting facts showing the rapid 
growth of young bears. They emphasize the economy of 
nature in caring for the mother. No other large wild 
animal gives birth to ofi:3pring in the depth of the win- 
ter's cold or under similar conditions. In the den the 
mother bear gets no food, and her vital functions are nec- 
essarily at a low stage of activity. To bring forth large 
cubs or a large litter would undoubtedly be a tax upon her 
system greater than she could respond to. She would, more- 
over, be incapable of supplying nourishment to offspring 
that made large demands upon her. Consequently she is 
given the tiniest of progeny. Their wants are so trifling 
that the mother is capable of supplying them from her 
reserve of fat, though she partakes of no food whatever 
herself. The cubs grow very slowly up to the time of 
leaving the den. As soon as other food is to be found 
they make up for lost time, and increase in size with sur- 
prising rapidity. 
Number of Cubs in a Litter. 
Forest and Stream recently recorded two instances 
where four cubs were born to a litter in captivity. In one 
instance, at least, and no doubt in both, the mother bear 
did not regularly go into hibernation, and was supplied 
with food all through the winter. These bears existed un- 
der very much more favorable environments than if they 
had been at large and dependent upon their individual 
exertions to provide for the coming of their offspring. 
Apparently this condition was directly responsible for 
the large size of the litters. 
To find the number of cubs which the mother bear rears 
in a wild state, a number of representative hunters and 
woodsmen were interviewed at the Garden. The result 
is given below. 
Nessadero, the Stony Indian from the Rockies, says 
that he has never seen or heard of more than three cubs 
with an old bear. He has had a long experience both 
with grizzlies and black bears. 
Fred Lavoie, who has been all over eastern Canada, 
says that personally he has never seen more than two cubs 
with one mother bear. 
Warren Wing, oi^ Flagstaff, Me., and John Cushnian, 
