^ 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
But I do not propose to compile the beauties of Emer- 
son, I might as well republish the book at once. But T 
would call attention particnlarly to his sketch of his 
friend Thoreau, in "Woodnotes." A finer tribute was 
never made to a man : 
"And such I knew, a (oresl SeCf, 
A minstrel of tlie natural year, 
Foreteller of the vernal ides, 
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, 
A lover true, who kuew by heart, 
Each Joy the mountain dales impart." 
It is, of course, too long to quote in fulL I onty desite to 
direct the attention of the lover of nature and of poetry to 
this great man's tribute to one who was well worthy of it : 
"In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberer's gang, 
Where from a hundred lakes young'rivers sprang; 
He trod the unplanted forest floor, whereon 
The all-seeing sun for iges liatli not shone; 
****** 
Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed, 
He roamed, content, alike with man and beast— 
Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; 
There the red morning touched him with its light." 
Such was Thoreau, the man who surveyed lands for a 
living and read the Iliad in the original for recreation; 
but above all, one who worshipped in nature's inner sanc- 
tuary, and who seemed to have entered into a league with 
the iDirds of the air, the creatures of the forest, and the 
denizens of the streams. The squirrels came down from 
the trees and climbed over his shoulders, and he could take 
up fish out of the water in his hands. See how he justi- 
fied his employments : "Bending my steps again to the 
pond," he says, "my haste to catch pickerel, wading in 
retired meadows, in sloughs and bog holes, in forlorn and 
savage places, appeared for air instant trivial to me who 
had been sent to school and college; but as I ran down 
the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow 
over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to 
my ear through the cleansed air, from I know not what 
quarter, my good genius seemed to say, 'Go fish atid 
hmit far and wide day by day — farther and wider — and 
rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without mis- 
giving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. 
Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. 
Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night over- 
take thee everywhere at home. There are lio larger fields 
than these, no worthier games than may here be played. 
Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and 
brakes, which will never become English hay. Let the 
thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' 
crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under 
the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to 
get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, 
but own it not." 
Hawthorne was the intimate friend of Thoreau, and in 
more than one place in his "American Note Books" and 
"The Old Manse," he introduces him. "He is a keen and 
delicate observer of nature — a genuine observer — ^which, I 
suspect," says Hawthorne, "is almost as rare a character 
as even an original poet ; and nature, in return for her 
love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows 
him secrets which few others are allowed to witness. He 
is familiar with beast, fish, fowl and reptile, and has 
strange stories to tell of adventures and friendlj' passages 
with these lower brethren of mortality. Herb and flower, 
likewise, wherever they grow, whether in garden or wild- 
wood, are his familiar friends. He is also on intimate 
terms with the clouds, and can tell the portents of storms; 
and, strange to say, he seldom walks over a ploughed 
field without picking up an arrow point, spear head, or 
other relic of the red man, as if their spirit willed him to 
be the inheritor of their simple wealth. With all this he 
has more than a tincture of literature— a deep and trtie 
taste for poetry, especially for the elder poets, and he is 
a good writer. I find him a healthy and wholesome man 
to know." To hold intercourse with Thoreau._ he says, 
"is like hearing the wind among the boughs of a forest 
tree." 
Nessmuk should have known Thoreau. 
T. J. CHAPMAIf. 
Pikas and Marmots. 
For several years past- I had a strong desire to invade 
the haunts of the pikas, to study their habits and collect 
specimens, but it was not until the close of July, 1898, 
that my brother and I found ourselves snugly camped in 
the Canadian National Park, Alberta, Avithin a few miles 
of the beautiful Lake Minnewonka, or Devil's Lake, and 
within close proximity to the haunts of the little chief 
hare. The weather was extremely hot in the daytime, and 
made climbing hard work, but my intense interest to be- 
come acquainted with the pika was the foundation for 
the necessary energy, and early in the morning of Aug. 
6 we started for the base of Mount IngesmakUe, at the 
southeast corner of the lake. 
The first few miles we had comfortable walking along a 
good road, but soon we found it necessary to strike east- 
ward, and here our troubles began. In the course of 
fifteen or twenty minutes we were seemingly, hopelessly 
entangled in a swamp, surrounded 133' a small but very 
businesslike crowd of mosquitoes, and firmly convinced 
that we must retrace our steps and try some other way. 
A high dry ridge a little further to the south proved 
much better "navigation," and another hour found us at 
the base of the slope, my brother suggesting that a flying 
machine or a balloon would be very useful. 
However, two and a lialf hours' hard climbing, with 
the sun's rays scorching our faces, and. incidentally, nu- 
merous halts to take breath and admire the vast panorama 
of mountains and valleys with streams like silver threads 
in the distance, and we near a large spur of volcanic 
rocky ground, with a thin growth of stunted pines, from 
whence loud and echoing whistles come, and instill more 
energy into us. 
As I expected, the hoary marmots were the animals 
that made the sounds. T shortly caught sight of the first 
one as he sat bolt tiprjght upon the top of a rock, send 
ing his shrill whistle echoing across the canon, to be 
replied to by others scattered everywhere amongst the 
rocks. They were often seen by us progressing by a 
clumsy gallop from point to point. I found it extremely 
difficult to advance near enough to use a shotgun with 
effect. The animal generally plunges out of sight, just 
as you imagine he is close enough. Thej' also seem to 
possess the knack of seeing you at the other side of the 
biggest rock you can skirmish behind. 
This day not a specimen was obtained, but upon an- 
other occasion, I marked a fine grizzly old fellow as he 
disappeared into a btirrow under a large rock, and en~ 
sconsing myself securely from view, behind a gnarled 
old pine tree, about ,35yds. from his doorstep, and fight- 
ing my pipe, I settled down for a siege. A Rocky Moun- 
tain jay found me out, and was very attentive for some 
time, viewing me from every point, and occasionally 
venturing within a very few yards. My thoughts were 
wandering from hoary marmots, and the hot sun making 
me drowsy, when a sudden subterranean whistle, and in an 
instant I was all eyes and ears. Another moment and the 
marmot's gray head protruded from his burrow as he sur- 
veyed the landscape with a keen eye, everything was silent 
and still, He presently walked to the top of his rock, 
sat up on his haunches and sent a shrill whistle vibrating 
through the air, blissfully ignorant of his fate, for my 
old i2-bore stretched him lifeless on tlie rock the next 
moment. 
But to return to Aug. 6.; as we advanced and the mar- 
John. 
John first .saw the light m the heart of the Canadian 
forest. He had a mate of about the same age and of the 
other sex. Both were captured while very young, and, 
against their will taken to the main camp of "the Lauren- 
tian Club on the shore of Lac la Peche. They were given 
ample accommodations — a suitable house and spacious 
grounds, sheltered by trees and inclosed by a high stock- 
ade of logs; for John and his companion were caribous, 
and if unrestrained would have bounded away to their 
native haunts. 
Here for three or four years they lived and grew and 
thrived, and were an interesting part of the camp life. 
In summer they seemed to be best satisfied when 
browsing on the tender leaves of the trees, especially of 
the maple that grew luxuriantly all about in clumps. In 
the winter the guardian fed them with dried grass and 
cereals. 
One spring morning John's mate, who apparently had 
not forgotten her early free life, forced a way through the 
stockade and escaped, and John was left alone, a de- 
serted husband. Whether he forgave and forgot he never 
told, but he soon recovered his spirits and ate and 
flourished and frolicked. He became somewhat more 
docile, and when called by name, would cross the deep 
stream that flowed lazily through his park and come to 
take the clover and the boughs from the hands of his 
friends. 
Each autumn when the leaves fell his antlers fell ; and 
BEAVER DAM IN THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK IN VVASHINGTOTJ, 
nots disappeared, our attention was drawn to another 
and more peculiar cry, somewhat like cc-cc, repeated 
quickly and at short intervals. 
While gazing intently at the top of a rock a short dis- 
tance away from where the sound was apparently issuing, 
I suddenly make out the form of a diminutive little ani- 
mal, opening and shutting its mouth at short 
intervals and emitting this e-e. In my eagerness 
to get a closer view I made a stumble, and the little 
animal disappeared like a flash, and I found I had a shot- 
gun in my hand. My brother, who had wandered away, 
appeared at this moment, with the first pika, and it was 
with great interest that I examined the specimen. Aver- 
aging from 6 to 7in. in length, with short legs, the soles 
of the feet thickly furred, large round ears, and ap- 
parently no tail. The pika is. a peculiar and interesting 
little mammal in the .skeleton. The tail vertebrae meas- 
ures less than half an inch. After this introduction, I 
found no difficulty in observing them and collecting what 
specimens I desired. The greatest difficulty experienced 
was that often when shot, they fall into the crevices of 
the rocks and considerable excavating is sometimes neces- 
sarv before the specimen is secured. 
While watching a rock slide, one little fellow sud- 
denly appeared not more than 10 or 12ft. away, and 
commenced eating a short moss that grows in patches on 
the rocks. I was watching it perfectly motionless, when 
it paused and seemed to reflect, the next moment starting 
away at a most astonishing speed, considering the nature 
of the ground, leaping from rock to rock with extra- 
ordinary agility, as if it had suddenljf remembered some 
very imnortant engagement. 
Pikas are busy and industrious creatures, traveling here 
and there over the rock slides, feeding upon the arctic 
plants that grow in patches everywhere, and storing up 
quantities of food in the rocks, proving, no doubt, tJiat 
they do not hibernate, but remain active all winter. 
The altitude of the lowest colony we discoA'ered was 
about 6,oooft.. amongst a growth of stunted pine trees, 
the marmots inhabiting the same ground. We climbed 
to afi altitude of close upon 9,000ft., and found them 
scattered everywhere, their cries being heard in every 
direction, and numerous stores of their "hay" were found 
in the spaces between the rocks. 
After an equally tedious downward climb, we reached 
the road, and then our camp, most thoroughly tired and 
hungry, but a red-letter day added to the many others of 
my field collecting experiences in NorthAvest Canada. 
G, F. DiPPiE, 
TpRONTO, Canada 
each spring when the leaves unfolded a new soft pair 
sprang magically in velvet from his head. His coat be- 
came richer in color, the white on his chest whiter, and 
the gray on his sides more glossy. 
Then happened the Sportsman's Show of the year 1899 
in the far-away city of New York. What had John to do 
with that? What interest had he, a child of the Northern 
wilderness, a Canadian caribou, in Madison Square Gar- 
den, in its throngs of people, its babel of noises, its 
blazing electric lights, its restless comings and goings? 
What had he in common with the civilization of the 
city? 
Surely nothing; but he was only John the caribou, a 
captive, and when the managing director spoke the word, 
John, with some physical protests and remnants of wild 
energy, stepped into the cage and was carried express to 
the Garden, stopping on the border line of his native 
land long enough to pay the duty of $20, Avhich the United' 
States imposed upon him as a caribou Avho came Avithoiit 
intent to retttrn. 
And now appears the interesting feature of John's 
character. Wilderness-born, wilderness-bred, half-wild, 
notwithstanding fiis period of captivity, yet Avhen he en- 
tered the brilliantly lighted amphitheater and took posses- 
sion of his inclosure^in the center of the building, sur- 
rounded by crowds of people, walking to and fro, im- 
pertinently staring at him, the air full of sounds of human 
voices, blare of trumpets, beating of drums, cries and tur- 
moil, John was absolutely undisturbed. He betrayed 
neither fear nor curiosity. He walked about quietly as he 
did in his OAvn forest close; ate, drank, laid himself down 
to rest, imperturbable and serene. What self-control and 
mastery he had ! It AA'as not that he Avas stupid or dull, for 
he Avas an alert animal, Avatchful, wakeful, full of life. 
His days passed une\'entfully at the Show. He was 
placarded as the "Bull caribou from the Laurentian Club," 
and AA'as gazed at and admired, but except to his old 
friends of the club his history was unknown, and the 
throngs only saw an interesting specimen of wild life. 
He was sold to a stranger. There is no record of his 
owner or of his new habitat, but he will always be re- 
membered as one of "the wild animals I have known." 
H. 
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