144 
voung antelope in, commenced lookmg ovel ilie ground 
very carefully. I had not gone far before I found one 
that looked rather large, but I got it safely in my hands. 
While putting it in a sack it bleated a few tmies.. Len 
started off on a run, and looking to .see what he avijs 
after, I saw the other young one getting up. It dropped 
again, but started oflf before Leo got to it. I did not stop 
to put the one I had in the sack, but with the sack in one, 
hand and the antelope under my anr, I started after the 
other, encouraging Leo to catch it. It ran around a bit 
and the mother, coming down the hill on a run and going 
close to the dog, tried to attract his attention from her 
little one to herself. The little one soon fell, and Leo 
commenced to lick it and nose it all over. The poor 
thing was making the most pitihil noises. Its mother 
vyas running around frantically and trying to get Leo to 
go for her. I got hold of the frightened animal and put 
it and its mate in sacks. I felt very sorry for the poor 
mother antelope, but consoled myself for my cruelty to 
her in robbing her of her young by telling myself that 
the coyotes would have gotten them if I did not, while 
they would have a chance for their lives with me and as 
good treatment as man could give them. Yet it was 
rough on the poor things to deprive them of their babies. . 
They seem to feel so badly about it, too. 
Whenever I was after antelope I always saw coyotes, 
prowling around. It appeared to me that there were 
very few chances for any number of the young ever to ; 
reach maturity, there were so many of these despicable 
little wolves. 
I took my two antelope to the ranch and put them with 
others we had captured. Sam had found quite a number, 
once getting one while he saAv a lynx going off with its 
mate. We had ten to care for, which were almost as bad as 
ten human young. We had to gauge the quantity of milk 
for each one, reduce it with boiled water, and later with rice 
water, sterilize the milk, wash everything we used about 
T felt as bad over the lobS of Little Boy Blue as if it had 
been a child, T found I was becoming so attached to 
I hem Hi at I would not want to give them up to the Gov- 
ernment, so I thought best to give them up at once. 
Teams came from the Springs and moved all my family 
to new quarters. Tliere I left them in Sam's care until 
my return from a hunting trip late in, November. Then 
I took them to Washington, D. C, turning them over 
to Dr. Frank Baker, Superintendent of the National 
Zoo. I hope they will like their new home and thrive 
there. While they were in the Yellowstone Park they 
were photographed hundreds of times. Many of the 
pictures have been published and some are very interest- 
ing, two particularly, taken by Sergt. Van Buskirk. Sain 
i? filling their bottle, and the babes are as much interested 
as so many children. 
I hope one or two of the pictures I have taken will be 
good enough to be reproduced for publication. Any 
reader or friend ofthe Forest and Stream will see the 
little fellows — now more than two years old — by calling 
at the National Zoological Park. Please don't feed them 
peanuts or -tobacco. I don't wish them to learn bad 
habits. E. Hofer, 
.."saiiSStj 
Midsummer Bird Notes* 
These humid days are trying alike to men and birds. 
The "'bird-bath" on the lawn — always kept brim full — is 
thronged ' from dawn till dusk with hundreds of panting 
woodfolk, whose splashes and sputt.erings arc good to 
see, so plainty do they testify to the intense delight of the 
little bathers. A robin with open bill , deliberately squats 
on a convenient bit of flagstone and proceeds tb soak him- 
self in the shallow water that covers it, while all about 
him are his fellows, together with a motley horde of 
starliogs.'sparrOws and ■od'ds and ends. The somber duns 
gambols wil! be, At present li6 seems to hare evervtlnny; 
his own way. But "'ait! Evidently he has not m.ei 
im.perturbable English starling yet. I m.ust try and i' 
there when this occurs, for I fancy my nervy yoiing frn nd 
ha$ a surprise in store for him. * * * 
i left him' j^esterday at sundown, singing on his 
trembling perch of clustered berries. 
WiLMOT TOWNSEND, 
Bay Ridge, N. Y., Aug. 7. 
A Nest on a Swing. 
Essex, N. Y,, Aug. lo. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The hummingbird's nest on a wire illustrated in Forest 
AND Stream some time ago had its counterpart in the nest 
which a barn swallow constructed in our carriage house 
this summer. Ignoring available sites under eaves and in 
open outbuildings, this swallow selected a piece of doubled 
3-i6in. cord suspended from the ceiling and used to sup- 
port the tongue of one of the carriages, and built its nest 
from that. The nest was attached at a point about i8in. 
from the ceiling, and part of the time, when the carriage 
was used, there was nothing to steady the cord, and the 
nest swung backward and forward something after the 
manner of a pendulum. The cord passed through one 
side, and the hollow of the nest was in no way obstructed; 
yet the nest was perfectly balanced and did not tip. It 
would have proved a safe repository for the eggs if they 
had ever been deposited, but unfortunately some one 
passing through the building accidentally knocked the 
nest down shortly after it was completed. 
The male and female swallow worked at the nest al- 
most continuously, and showed no fear of the men who 
were going in and out of the building all the time. I have 
stood watching them with my head within 3ft. of the 
nest withoiit iinterrupting their work. The tongue of the 
BRINGING THEM UP ON THE BOTTLE. 
IN THE WASHINGTON ZOO. 
the milk with soda water, wash the babies' faces, jaws and 
mouth, and dry them carefully to keep them in a healthy 
condition. Each antelope, as we got it, we marked with 
a string around its neck. They got names, too, from their 
marks and actions. The one with a green ribbon became 
Pat, the one with a black string was Nig; then there was 
Old Two String, Blue String and Mike and Wild Bill. 
Wild Bill never became tame — he killed himself. All the 
others soon learned to know us, and came around as soon 
as we called. They would crowd around for their turn at 
the bottle, try to push each other away and get hold of a 
fellow's buttons, watch chain, fingers or ears while he 
was busy with the one he was feeding. Both Sam and 
I became very much attached to them. Either of us 
would wake up in the night if one of them moved about, 
and often we would get up, light a candle, count them 
and see that they were all well and comfortable. We used 
to feed them from six to eight times a day — early in the 
morning and late at night. 
In hunting for elk there was not so much trouble to 
find the young. We got hold of six and could have 
taken any number up into the hundreds had we wished. 
They cache themselves, the same as all young animals of 
the deer kind, but are not so well provided by nature to 
conceal themselves unless thej^ are in timber in the kind of 
-country they blend with, while an antelope is very hard 
to distinguish from almost any objedt. I photographed 
an antelope and two rocks on smooth green sod where a 
mother would never hide or attempt to hide her young. 
Hundreds have seen the picture, but very few ever see or 
notice the animal, even when their attention is called to 
the fact that there is one there. A photo of a young elk 
shows much better, only if it were at the foot of a large 
tree it would be hard to see. The elk did not give us 
much trouble in caring for them. They were very stupid 
about learning to drink, but at last I found a way to 
teach them at once, so I had no further trouble about 
that, only I bad to hold the pan out of which they drank 
with all my strength, for when they butted they would 
throw milk all over me. We carried the young elk in 
in pack bags, hung from the pack saddles. Some of them 
weighed 6olbs. or more, and a horse with two j^oung elk 
on looked like some new kind of three-headed animal. 
We never had the affection for them we did for the ante- 
lope. They are ugly and show no affection for their 
keepers. 
We did not lose dne elk, but after we had had the 
antelope a few weeks one of them became ill. I did 
everything possible, even sendin.g to Foi't Yellowstone to 
the doctor for something to help the poor thing. The 
stage brought out some medicine, but it gave no relief, 
and grays that prevailed in the coverings of the be- 
draggled bathersiare occasionally relieved by the gorgeous 
livery of an oriole, as he sprays himself in the genteel 
manner of a bird swell. Again a highholdcr puffs and 
sputters in clumsy fashion, while his rich colors show in 
pleasing contrast among the bobbing heads and fluttering 
wings that crowd the "'bath.'" Save at their bath the 
birds seem listless. Vireos swing about the twigs with a 
querulous chirp, while orioles show their discontent in 
harsh chatterings as they peer about the leaves in search 
of insects. A near-by mountain ash whose berries are 
just beginning to turn to gold serves as a lunch counter 
for the fruit eaters, and at all times of day I am sure to 
find thrush, robin, highhple, in company with lesser 
friends of several kinds, gorging there. 
A. day or two since a new arrival, in the person of a 
mockingbird, appeared at the feast, and with the pro- 
verbial pugnacity of his family at once proceeded to drive 
away from the tree everything that- wore feathers. This 
done, he mounted a berry cluster, where, with drooping 
tail and head thrown well back, he burst into such an 
ecstacy of song that his unstable perch actually trembled 
under the impulse of his intense emotion. I have often 
watched these unrivaled songsters in their native Vir- 
ginian haunts go through these same performances in 
some tree or copse thej'- had pre-empted, but here, right in 
my own home, it was as pleasing as it was unexpected. 
The nerve of the fellow was absolutely refreshing. Al- 
though an unusuah visitant with u.s, an interloper I may 
say, he just took possession of everything in sight and 
made himself perfectly at home. Presently he flipped off 
into an oak that towered above, and silently watched for 
the return of the hungry crowd he had so uncere- 
moniously put to flight. Furtively the}^ began to come by 
ones and twos and settled down again to their interrupted 
feast. A fat old highhole had just alighted with a rustle 
when I saw the mockingbird raise the feathers on his 
shapely head and run swiftly to the end of the Jimb on 
which he had been silently standing. Here he halted, and 
with head to one side peered down at his unconscious 
victim, extending his wings with the quick graceful flirts 
so characteristic of the mocker in moment.s of mis- 
chievous excitement. Suddenly, with a startling squaAvk 
he dropped plumb at the poor old highhole, who fled with 
wild screams of terror from this strange attack, with the 
mocker all a-flutter close at his heels. Having once more 
cleared the tree, he again mounted the same berry cluster 
and sang a wild rollicking jumble of notes as though 
laughing in impish glee over the success of his deviltry. 
Our native birds are utterly unused to such antics, and 
I am curious to see just what the upshot of his crazy 
carriage was taken from its support at least once every 
day, but the swallows only waited till the carriage was 
out of the way to resume their work. Though they had 
been building with the cord anchored and nearly sta- 
tionary, each time the tongue was removed the nest was 
found to be in stable equilibrium, thus demonstrating en- 
gineering ability of a high order for the birds. 
J. B. BURNHAM. 
The Coon Must Subsist of Subside. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
There lingers in my memory a classical fragment that 
seems to strum as follows : 
"Came a lorn and weary printer 
With his bundle on a splinter. 
On his back " 
I would like to know where I got that, and to have 
some one either take it away or send on the balance of 
the hymn. 
I desire more particularly, however, to put on record 
that evidently the printer could not make out a word in 
my recent disquisition upon the "Coon's Whicker," The 
circumstance is in evidence, thairks to the art preservative, 
on page 83 of the journal for July 29. 
In the fourth paragraph, in the instance to which I 
refer, I did not write "The raccoon must suB^tit or sub- 
side," but that "The raccoon must subsi.st or subside," as 
must all creatures here below. 
And so, with proper consideration and respect for him 
who is most always blamed and rarely praised, the fault 
is mended. Ransacker. 
Shapta Mountains, Cal. 
The Rattlesnake^s Bite; 
Devall BltjeFj Ark., Aug. 2. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: In a recent issue of the Foee.st and Stream a 
Boston correspondent asks if it is true that the bite of a 
rattlesnake is always fatal between October and February. 
Arkansas has her full quota of rattlesnakes; indeed it is 
claimed that the home of the rattler is in Arkansas, and 
that it is located in a succession of red bluffs overlooking 
the beautiful White River, some ten miles awaj^ from this 
little city. Certain it is that countless numbers of them 
winter there. As late as the middle of November huge 
rattlers, travel-stained and dust-begrimed, can be seen 
wriggling their slimy bodies in the direction of these 
bluffs. 
Some years ago in December I was hunting bear, an^ 
