FOREST -^ND STREAM. 
[May 20, i8<j9. 
Nicarauguan Experiences. — IL 
Befoek coming here I knew enough of the general 
diaracter of the country not to expect much shooting. 
The whole Atlantic Slope of Central America is primeval 
forest, so densely matted with every variety of tree, bush 
and vine that, although there is a great deal of game, the 
dififiiculties and discomforts of going for it are almost pro- 
hibitory, and the chances of surprising it are very near to 
nil. In paddling through creeks and bayous and walking 
a f»w wood paths, I have found a few doves and pigeons 
and two or three curasson, but the chances are too slen- 
der to cut much figure. I had heard, however, that wild 
dfscks were abundant, so I came prepared. To make a 
long story short, I am almost prepared to say that there 
are no ducks in Nicaragua. That is, there are no difck.-« 
that 2,iiy white man can go hunting for, except a few 
blue-wing teal in late September and early October. 
There is a native wild duck, the muscovj^ and it is a 
very large and line one, but I have never seen one out in 
open water, nor hav^e I seen any flying about anywhere, 
passing and repassing. I killed one while walking an old 
railroad embankment, which ran through a sw^amp of tall 
grass and silico palm trees and a few forest trees. It tlew 
up and lit upon « dead tree, and let me approach within 
shot. The natives tell me that the only way to hunt them 
is to go prepared to wade these swamps neck deep, and 
occasionally one Avill scare up some of these ducks, and 
tltey will generally light upon trees and let one approach 
within shot.- Bitt though there are men here w'ho occa- 
sionally bring peccary or wild hog to market, no wild 
duck is ever brouglit in. 
But the strangest thing to me about wild ducks here 
was to find httie bunches of blue-wing teal all along our 
beach ponds, late in September and early in October; 
and at the same time several snipe in adjacent mar'shy 
places, for the blue-wing teal and the snipe always ap- 
pear together, and exactly at that time, on our Carolina 
rice fields. How do they get here. 1.500 miles further 
south, at the same time, and why do they wish to come 
so far south, anyhow? I don't think there is any special 
attractiobu in the Avay of food, for there seems to me very 
little — certainly nothing approaching our rice or the wild 
rice, either. And they do not come here to remain, but 
only rest a few days and then disappear, and the snipe 
go with them. On their return trip in the spring' I have 
never seen them, and I do not think they stop at all. It 
would be interesting to learn the limits of their migra- 
tii3ns. I have looked in vain for a single specimen of any 
duck but the blue-wing teal. Beside that and the mus- 
covy I've seen evidence of buL one other duck in this 
country. Thai was a domesticated specimen of what I 
take to be a native woodduck. with red bill and feet and 
very beautiful plumage. But I think tliey must be rare, 
as I've not met a single wild specimen, and but one tame. 
In answer to my inquiries I was always told that I would 
find great quantities of ducks on Lake Nicaragua. Re- 
cently I had an opportunity to go there, and to go along 
the margin of the shore for about twenty miles. Very 
soon after I got out on tlie lake I began to see flocks, ap- 
parently of a very large, black duck, flying about. I 
counted twenty flocks in an hour, containing from ten to 
two hundred. In fls'ing they often formed lines and 
angles, reminding me a little of geese. At last I drew 
moderately near a large flock upon the water and noticed 
with great interest how the flock acted as blackbirds fre- 
quently do — the rear birds of the flock continually ris- 
ing and flying- over the others and lighting- in front. In 
tlmt way the flock as a whole is always traveling about 
as fast as a man walks. I carried my boat toward them 
and they were not shy, and I was soon within 40yds of 
the flock. There was not a duck among them! They 
Avere all the anhinga, or snake-bird, often called in Flor- 
ida the water turkey, because their flight resembles a 
wild turkey's. The}^ are, I believe, the most at-home 
bird in the water of all the birds in the world. They swim 
at whatever depth they wish, and their favorite depth is 
to have the Avhole bod}'^ submerged and only the long, 
curving neck out of the water, with its tapering head and 
bill, looking far snakier than snakes could look to save 
their lives. Some weak-minded sportsmen m.ay think that 
11 crippled duck is a good swimmer, or diver, or hider, 
but he simply is not in it at all with anhinga. When the 
latter is wounded and dives, he goes under to stay some 
days, and the hunter had as well go about his other busi- 
ness. They W'ill dive from the limb of a tree 20ft. above 
the water if wounded, and never reappear while any Qhris- 
tian can afford to wait. It was really a beautiful sight to 
see several hundred of these birds in the water together 
splashing, swimming, diving and flying. Each of these 
birds kas the two middle feathers of its tail beautifully 
fluted, or crimped, and I once heard of^ an exquisite fan, 
made entirely of these black fluted feathers for one of his 
sisters by Gen. Hampton. There would be no trouble 
in making these fans about Lake Nicaragua. But as for 
wild ducks, I doubt if there was ever a Avild duck on the 
lake, for I examined near twenty miles of grassy edges 
and went into everj' little creek and bayou — ^the places 
where they would be if there w^ere any — and in January, 
the most likely month of the year. The muscovy may be 
called a Avoodduck, as it lights in trees, and frequents 
marshy forests only, and not open waters, judging from 
what I see and hear of it. And the only open-water 
ducks ever to be found here arc the blue-wing teal in the 
fal. 
I have also seen in the fall a very few shore birds, Span- 
ish curlew and yellow legs, beside the regular game snipe 
which came in company with the teal, as before told. 
The natives have domesticated a bird, which is very 
fnteresting, and I hope someone can identify him for me. 
They calk it al caravan. Its body is about the size of a 
crow's. Its plumage is inconspicuous gray, about like 
a plover's, and its'bill and legs, are proportioned like 
a plover's. ' Its head is large and its eyes very large, and it 
is serai-nocturnal in its habits. It has a habit of crying 
or cackling, something like a marsh hen, at irregular 
times. The natives naturally say that it marks the e.xact 
moments of noon, midnight, sunrise, sunset, high water, 
low water, even hours, etc., and sometimes call it the 
hour bird. They become as tame as chickens and are 
prized for destroying every kind of insect, beetle, scor- 
pion or reptile, even to the snakes, about the premises. 
They run almost as swiftly and gracefully as a chapparal 
cock, and show no more disposition to fly than chickens 
do. They would make very interesting pets about a coun- 
try place anywhere. 
Of all the animals in the menagerie, the sloth is one of 
the least popular, for he is always asleep, and one is not 
permitted to poke him up, thougli it would not do him 
any harm, either. But here I have been on terms of inti- 
macy with one, studying his personal equation for many 
days. For instance, I would put him on a low tree and 
shoot him rapidly with an air gun, to develop his best 
bursts of speed in climbing. But it scarcely paid. A foot 
in five minutes was near about his highest record. Evi- 
dently his whole interior is geared down to very low 
speed — about that of the minute hand of a clock, and with 
some sort of escapement, insensible to stimulation. But 
I did not thoroughly solve his whole equation for two 
reasons. First, he did not appreciate the interest I took 
in him and basely absconded to the bush on'e night when 
I had scarcely had him a week. Second, from the small 
insight I did get into it, is is surely the strangest, most 
unique equation in all natiire's algebra. Most animals 
are scarcely more than simple arithmetic. Watch the alli- 
gator alligate. or the tiger tige, for even an hour or two, 
and one can figiire their ancestry and posterity for remote 
generations. But the sloth is higher mathemetics. Tran- 
scendental powers are clearly implicated in his variables. 
He was never made from any blue print, as all other ani- 
mals are. He is something changed from something else. 
Like the equation, perhaps, of some old man, affected by 
some malign influence and differentiated, instead of being 
allowed to die of old age. Every one knows what a 
queer looking thing it makes of any equation to go and 
differentiate it. Imagine this done to the old man's by 
some fantastic power, and there you are. Everything 
about him suggests "that as the solution of his strange en- 
igma. His ossified joints, his crooked and enormous, 
nafls, his almost toothless mouth and weak jaws, his with- 
ered hair, his querulous and feeble cry, his torpid muscles 
and his cradle-like swinging under the limbs of trees, all 
indicate second childhood incarnate. Either ancestry or 
posterity seem alike preposterous. And deep down in 
his yeflow eyes, too, one sees a sub-consciousness of it 
all. Vague memories lurk and stir below, though hope, 
and even resentment, have long died out. His look ex- 
presses no animosity, only hopeless estrangement, as if it 
said, "You, too, are one of them." 
.\fter I began to suspect what he might be, and espe- 
cially after I read that in his e3'es, I stopped trying to 
make him climb against time. In fact, I hope he does 
not know, and never will know, that it was I who, with 
the air gun, used to assist at the races. For my position 
was directly behind him, and he had no habit of looking 
back. I bring him into this narrative for two reasons. 
First, I wish to point out what I believe is an error in 
the books; at least in the only book I have accessible, 
Baird's "'Dictionary of Natural Llistory." This says, and 
repeats again, that sloths feed upon leaves. Evidently 
their equation has been too deep for Baird. I doubt 
whether any sloth ever tasted a leaf. Thej^ live upon ants, 
and my friend was a sort of living ant trap. His coarse, 
shaggy, mildewed-looking hair seemed to be full of some 
sticky substance which was attractive to the ants. The 
natives said it was honey, and that he had regularly baited 
himself with it at some bee tree in the woods. At any 
rate, he would wrap his long arms around himself and 
bury his long claws in the hair, and bring them out with 
ants adhering to them, which he would eat. The natives 
say that his favorite tree is one called the trumpet tree, 
which is always hollow and infested with ants. There 
is a wood ant, too, which builds nests in trees, something 
like a hornets' nest in appearance, and they say that a 
sloth will sometimes stay by one of those nests for weeks, 
living on the inmates. 
Second, I wish to have someone identify if possible for 
me a relative of the sloth, as I believe, of which I have 
a skin, but can only get very conflicting accounts and 
names from the natives. The skin is Sin. from nose to 
root of tail, 3in. wide across body, tail Sin. long, and both 
body and tail clothed in a dense, fine, gray, silky wool, 
covering the short legs and everything, lin. thick oyer 
the back and half as much over the under parts. I think 
it must be a sloth, from the enormous development of 
lore claw, one great big hooked claw and one about half 
the size, on each front foot, and four medium-sized claws 
on each hind foot. 
The books speak of a two-toed sloth, but Baird says 
it is larger than the common, or three-toed. The native 
who gave me this skin called the animal chameleon, and 
described it as hanging by its claws underneath branches 
and living on ants. Other natives call it miko-leon, or 
monkeys-lion; and still other miko-la-noche, or night- 
monkey, and say it lives upon fruit, and claws and 
scratckes fearfully when handled. And still another na- 
tive, from my description of the fine fur, calls it perro de 
aqua, or water dog, and says it is aquatic. And still an- 
other, a man who can .write, and who brings me nice 
snakes, recognizes the existence of all the other aiiimals, 
but says this is none of them, but is "guatuza," and is 
related to the squirrels. 
Wil! not some kind scientific party identify some of 
these things for me and give me a few botanical names 
to retaliate upon the natives with. I don't mind encoun- 
tering a single strange creature or two. but I am demor- 
alized by stirring up a Avhole menagerie at a time. 
One experience with my ammunition is worthy of 
being noted. Smokeless powder shells, even where the 
brass case extends over the whole powder space, are ab- 
solutely ruined in this damp climate within a year, and 
sometimes will not even blow the shot through the bar-' 
re1. In the States I have suspected them of losing 
strength, but here the effect of dampness seems to soon 
reach an extreme. But why do not the army and navy 
complain of their smokeless powders deteriorating? Per- 
haps at some future time I will write something of some 
interesting snakes I have met here. 
Jack Hii.dtgo. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reacTi us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
Types of Sportsmen. — IL 
OoTSiDE of a Middlesex county village in Massachu- 
setts, there lives a man without an enemy — an anoma- 
lous condition perhaps when it is conceded that he i.s 
successful in all tuidertakings. Children run to him and 
birds and animals fear him not. Mentally, he has a lange 
like a modern machine gun, and shots fly off with a like 
rapidity and penetration ; from fish w^orms to book worms, 
from the Iliad to the almanac, from political economy to 
abstract poverty, from religion to science, and from gun- 
powder to glory, his mind runs, and when with some 
friend on a shooting or fishing trip an incident occurs to 
touch off his magazine of imagination or information, one 
gets an entertainment well worth the price of admission. 
You are dead-headed in usually, and get a ticket something 
like the following : 
''Dear H : 
"You know that I have purchased the old homestead 
and that I intend to pass my remaining days in this good 
country, in peace and comfort, interspersed with some 
pleasure. Your hilarity may conflict with the former, 
but I think it will conduce greatly to the latter, so I 
wish you to come up here and pass a few autumn days 
with me. There are many grouse about, and I think 
that with the aid of my pointers, we can secure a few. 
Anyw-ay, there are now some in my cellar, and you need 
not return empty handed. What your friends don't 
know about you won't hurt them. [He delights in 
nagging me.] You have expressed doubts as to the ex- 
istence of Longfellow's 'Wayside Inn.' Well, we will 
drive over to Sudbury behind as neat a mass of horse 
construction as you ever saw, and then you may be- 
lieve that there is at least as much truth as poetry in 
some things. Take a trolley car from Worcester, and 
after an hour's ride I will meet you with open arms where 
the track crosses the turnpike which leads to my place. 
Let me hear from you, saying that you have bought a 
.return ticket. Cordially yours, - 
Who could withstand such persuasion? Not myself 
surely, and so I flew to him like a moth to a candle's 
flame. He was there at the crossing sure enough, and 
with him the largest stock of geniality that one man ever 
carried. He had lumps of sugar in his pocket for his 
horse, kind words on his tongue for his neighbors ; and, 
as though to show appreciation, the horse carried us 
toward the farm at a clip that was astonishing to me, 
and the neighbors gave him more than half of the road. 
We went into the open barn door flying, and I thought 
a smash-up would follow. Not at all. "Whoa, Prince." 
and the steed stopped almost in his tracks and awaited 
the iTsual caress. 
Even the unemotional cows seemed to like him, and 
when I spoke of their attention, he said, "Don't be 
afraid, they won't bite you." 
Who knows of greater pleasure than that of visiting a 
New England barn in the autumn? There are piles 
of j'cllow corn and stacks of produce on the barn floor, 
apples, pumpkins and sweet cider galore. The odor of 
the hay blended with the exhalations of the neat cattle 
were a happy contrast to the smells of the city left be- 
hind a few hours before. The whole atmosphere of the 
place and its contents was a most agreeable change from 
the city zephyrs contaminated with gas houses, oil re- 
fineries, soap factories and gregarious oppidans. The 
hired man sang bass as he did his milking, and between 
the notes I heard the streams of lacteal fluid strike the 
bottom of the tin pail. I said to my host, "That man 
of yours has a deep voice." "Oh, yes," he replied, "it 
is way down in the barn cellar, and it makes nie think 
of Artemus Ward's criticism of a singer's ability. He 
said he did not believe there was much music in it, but 
it sounded like the rumblings of an elephant's bowels." 
Wc Avent to the house, and he shoAved me to the guest 
chamber, where I was to arrange my toilet. "Good 
gracious man," I said, "let me Avash up at the pump down 
in the yard. I am like a bull in a china shop, and I'll 
smash some of these delicate things long before I am 
half presentable." "Smash aAvay," he said, as he left me. 
A high art and high posted tobasco mahogany bed- 
stead Avas against one side of the room. Its spotless 
white counterpane and the delicate tracery of its pattern, 
and that of the pillow shams harmonized with the lace 
of the window curtains. I knew that I would sleep on 
feathers that night. On the dressing case were costly 
bits of bric-abrac, cut glass and silver implements for 
the improvement of personal appearance; Persian and 
India rugs covered the floor; the Avashstand and its 
china Avere a dream in gold and Avhite; the Avhole room 
Avas the pride of a good housewife, and I Avas glad to 
escape from its effulgence Avithout injury to it or to ni}' 
reputation for delicacy. I found my host playing with 
a host of dogs on the lawn; they AA'ere all pets and of ail 
kinds, and all had good manners; a word or a look kept 
them in obedience. I Avas introduced to the lady of the 
house, and at the supper table she said that her hu,sband 
spoke well of me often, and that she was glad to, sec 
his friend. I then told her the old story of husband 
and wife Avho visited Europe and its art galleries, and 
when Apollo Avas pointed out to her she gave him a 
critical examination and said, "Well, I h^ve seen Apollo 
and I have seen Ephraim, and give me Ephraim in 
preference always." 
In the morning Ave Avere off to historical Sudbury 
Avith tAVO English pointers and two guns in the Concord 
Avagon. The' drive over the hills in the crisp sir is 
most exhilarating, and as Ave rounded a curve in the 
road at a sharp trot the Wayside Inn was before us, and 
not a myth. Built in 1700, it has Avithstood nearly two 
centuries of storm, sunshine, M'^ear and tear. True, it 
has been kept in repair, but the shape, beams, timbers 
and most all of the woodwork are the original. Long 
years ago there stood an ancient oak at the left corner, 
and from its gnarled trunk hung the creaking sign of the 
red horse. To-day and nearby there are "great oaks 
from little acorns grown," and one of them is hollow and 
within its shaggy rind ten adults can stand; tOAvering 
and masslA^e, a regiment coifld drill in their shade as 
they stand guardians over the spot made famous by New 
England's poetic chief. We visited the low-ceiled parlor, 
AA'here gathered the Landlord, the Poet, the Musician, 
the Theologian, the Student and the Spfinish Jew. May 
