Dec. i6, 1899. J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
487 
of an infant by an eagle in the mountains near Nice. 
Why any one should doubt that a golden eagle could 
lift an infant is difficult to say. Their common food is 
the mountain hare, which weighs from 6 pounds to 6^ 
pounds, and one has been seen in the Island of Reay 
carrying one oi these at a great height from the ground, 
while mobbed by carrion crows. They can also carry a 
brown hare, the weight of which is 7^ pounds. 
There is at the present moment at the Natural History 
■ Museum a model of the skull of an eagle so gigantic 
that the imagination can scarcely fit it into the life of 
this planet at all. 
The whole head is larger than that of an ox, and the 
beak resembles a pair of hydraulic shears. Unlike most 
of the giant beasts, this eagle, which inhabited Patagonia, 
appears from its remains to have differed little in form 
from the existing species. Its size alone distinguishes it. 
The quills of the feathers which bore this awful raptor 
through the air must have been as thick as a walking 
stick and the webs as wide as oar blades. It could have 
killed and torn to pieces creatures as large as a bison, 
and whirled up into the sky and dropped upon the rocks 
the gigantic carapaced animals of prehistoric Patagonia 
as easily as a modern eagle of California does the land 
tortoises on which it feeds. 
A Rather Aquatic Hog;. 
'Editor Forest and Stream: 
Mr. H. B. Griffith, of Tornado, W. Va., a man who 
bears the best of reputation for truthfulness, related to me 
the following story : 
"One day as my companion and I were baiting a trout 
line on Cold River, I saw something moving in the 
water about 30 yards from us, but owing to poor eye- 
sight I could not make out what it was. I called my 
partner's attention to it, but his sight being also defective, 
he was unable to inform me. I quickly put on my glasses 
and saw it was a sow with a pig on her back which she 
was ferrying across the river. As she neared the shore, 
the pig slid off its mother's back and reached the land 
first, when it turned and faced its mamma, as if to say, 'I 
beat you out.' 
"We told some of our neighbors what we had seen ; but 
they said it was not news to them, as thej' had seen the 
performance of the hogs. Then I concluded to watch 
them, and was soon rewarded by seeing a repetition of 
their aquatic feat. The old hog w^ould wade from shore 
until her back was nearly covered, stop and wait for 
piggy, which was prompt to accept the offer b}^ immediate- 
ly mounting the animated ferryboat. The sow and pig 
had been transferred from one side of the river to the 
other, and either the sow's inhabitiveness or its desire for 
the food it had had while on the opposite side, awakened 
in her the instinct to swim the river. A Mr. Pickens, who 
last owned the hogs, endeavored to keep them from the 
water with his dogs, but with the usual porcine 'con- 
trariness' the}' would plunge into the river, in which case 
the pig W'Ould seize the mother's ear and thus be towed 
safely to the opposite shore." N. D. Elting, 
l§Hg mid 
The Moose Country of Maine. 
And for one the lakeside vigil where the bull moose leads the cow, 
*********** 
Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilght? Who hath heard the 
birch bark burning? 
Who is quick to read the noises of the night? 
Let him follow with the others, for the young men's feet are 
turning . 
To the camps of proved desire and known delight! 
— Kudyard Kipling. 
Last September I determined to take a hunting trip to 
Maine for a bull moose, as soon as the season should 
open. As I had not hunted in Maine for more than 
twenty years I knew not exactly where to go, nor to 
whom to apply for information respecting favorable 
districts and good guides. After tmsuccessfully trying 
several of my friends, from whom I hoped to get the 
desired information, the idea occurred to me to write 
Mr. S. L. Crosby, the well-known taxidermist of Bangor. 
It seemed reasonable to expect that he was, of all others, 
the one iparticularly interested in the shipment out of the 
woods of fine game heads, and that he naturally knew 
where these had been procured in previous years, and 
that he probably could, .if he cared to do so, recom- 
mend CO a sportsman the most likely places to visit. 
Although a stranger to Mr. Crosby, he was kind enough 
to send me a courteous reply, and he advised me to go 
to Nesowadnehunk Lake (pronounced by the natives 
Sowr-day-hunk), and at the same time he highly recom- 
mended as guides Luther Hall, Jr., and William A. Mc- 
Lain, who own the camp at the lake. 
Accordinglv, just before the open season for moose 
in October I left New York with a friend and sporting 
companion, en route for Nesowadnehunk Lake, having 
previously made all arrangements by letters and tele- 
graph for our guides. 
Our start was from Patten, a town on a branch of the 
Bangor & Aroostook R. R., where our guides met us 
by appointment. Here we procured such necessary sup- 
plies as wc lacked from the excellent stores in town, 
and misht have procured our whole outfit had we cared 
to leave its purchase until wc reached this point. A 
fifty-two-mile drive in buckboards is necessary over about 
the' rouschest road in the whole of Maine before Ne- 
sowadnehunk Lake is reached from Patten. This drive 
takes two davs. Much of the distance cannot be made 
at a faster rate than two miles an hour. But when the 
lake is reic-hed the sportsman v.'ill be well repaid for his 
pains, for he will find there a most luxurious camp, sup- 
plied with unexpected comforts, and he will soon learn 
to his satisfaction that he is in the heart of the moose 
country. . , , ^ 
Nesowadnehunk Lake is situated north and a little west 
of Mt. Katahdin. and is located upon the ridgepole of the 
waiershf-d of Maine. Its own waters run south into the 
west branch of the Penobscot River. Two miks north 
of tlie lake the waters drain into the east branch of the 
Penobscot, while about four miles north and west begins 
the slope from which the waters flow northward and 
empty into the St. John's River. 
Ihe lak£ itself is a beautiful sheet of water fed by 
springs, and is filled with .speckled trout. There are 
only two kinds of fish in the lake, the brook trout 
{Salvelinus fontinalis) and a small lish which serves for 
its food. The trout are singularly regular in size, aver- 
aging about a pound in weight, yet some have been 
caught, it is said, weighing over 3 pounds. Although 
in October they are on their spawning beds, and may 
not lawfully be caught, yet we were informed that they 
will rise freely to the fly at all seasons of the year when 
Ihe lake is open, and that they are fished for most suc- 
cessfully with any red fly. It was an easy matter to catch 
them in the hands, and I saw many fine trout so caught, 
but only for experiment, and for the incident's sake, ■ 
however, and these were immediately returned to the 
water. One of the Maine game wardens, Capt. Pollard, 
whom we met in the camp, informed us that in his opin- 
ion this lake contained the best trout fishing in the whole 
of Maine. But all this is incidental; I did not start out 
to tell a fish story. 
The game warden just above mentioned, a capital 
fellow and a good sportsman by the way, also informed 
us that he believed the country around Nesowadnehunk' 
Lake to be the best moose country in Maine, and our 
subsequent experience convinced us that he had good 
reasons for this opinion. We were fifteen days in camp. 
During this time I personally saw seventeen moose in 
the woods, not reckoning those that were brought into 
camp by other sportsmen. Of these seventeen, only 
four were bulls, however. This disparity in the numbers 
of bulls as compared with the cows furnishes proof that 
the law of Maine prohibiting the killing of cow moose 
has accomplished the object aimed at, and has well pre- 
served th.is game. The cows so far outnumber the bulls 
at the present. time that it is much more difficult to "call" 
a moose than has been the case in previous years. This 
is particularly true in Iste October and November, when 
it is generally found that each bull is provided with a 
plurality of cows. The bull moose that we saw were 
young, and none had a particularly fine head. I do 
not mean to claim that there are no more splendid 
moose heads left in the Maine woods, but it is apparent 
that while the gaTne laws serve as a whole to preserve 
the species, tViey work to the particular disadvantage of 
the old bulls, which are now the more eagerly hunted 
by the ardent sportsman; and possibly also to some 
fiiture disadvantange of the race itself, because the species 
will not henceforth be increased necessarily through the 
survival of the fittest of the male animal. In former 
years, when the sexes were more nearly equal, the young 
"bulls were driven from consort with the cows by their 
older and stronger brethren, but now every young bull 
is provided with at least a single mate, and some in- 
deed have a following of tw^o or three cows. 
As for deer, they are plentiful enough. The first day 
we paddled about the lake we counted seven, and we saw 
deer every day, while altogether we saw some scores 
during oiir stay in the woods. But in October prac- 
tically only does and fawns are in evidence, as the bucks 
conceal themselves in the swamps or on the hardwood 
ridges until the snow flies. After the first or second 
snow, the does and fawns seek the recesses of the thick 
woods, while the bucks then disclose themselves. 
The sportsman who is willing to cheerfully undertake 
the hardships of the trip from. Patten to Nesowadnehunk 
■ Lake during October or November may visit this sec- 
tion with the reasonable certainity of getting a shot at 
a bull moose, and he may also possibly do as one sports- 
man did while we w^ere in camp, namely: In addition, 
get his lawful limit of deer, which is two, in the morning 
"before breakfast. There were altogether eight or ten 
different sportsmen at the camp during some portion of 
our stay, and eight bull moose were shot. There were 
three who got their bull moose on the first daj^'s hunt- 
ing of the open season, including my friend Mr. Alfred 
Lauterbach, of New York, and I believe no one failed 
to get a fair shot at a bull. There was only one sports- 
man who denied when he left camp that his luck had 
given him the chance, but there were some reasons for 
believing he sincerely wished to forget one or two op- 
portunities which he missed. 
My object in writing this letter to Forest and Stream 
is to" give such information > to brother sportsmen as I 
would gladly have had myself when I first determined to 
go into the" woods for a bull moose. Full particulars 
regarding this section of Maine may be had by any one 
who will write to Hall and McLain, at Patten, Me., or 
to John Jackman, at the same address. But let no one 
imagine that it is an easy trip to reach this hunting dis- 
trict. Its inaccessibility indeed has been the means of 
preserving it as perhaps the best moose country in the 
whole of Maine. 
And now in conclusion I propose to relate two little 
incidents of our trip. One early morning I was being 
paddled about the lake, when my guide first discerned a 
mile or more awa}^ a moose wading in the water near 
the shore. We paddled as rapidly toward it as we could, 
hoping that it would prove to be a bull. It turned out 
to be a cow. We easily approached within 100 yards, 
when the moose stopped and examined us suspiciously. 
Presently she started off on a rapid trot in the water 
and along the shore. There w^as a meadow here, and 
before she might hide herself from sight in the woods 
she had to traverse an open space of quite 100 yards. 
Just where she reached the edge of the woods there was 
a big fallen tree, about 4 feet high. Upon this she jumped 
and trotted along it as lightly as a squirrel for 15 feet 
or more, and then she sprang off on the other side and 
disappeared in the thicket. That night at supper I told 
the story. We found that some of the guides were po- 
litely incredulous, but my own guide indorsed the ac- 
curacy of my statement. Now let me suggest that 
field glasses be not forgotten by him who goes into the 
woods to hum moose, as happened in my case. There 
will be need of them every day. If we had had glasses 
we would have been saved on this particular occasion a 
long, hard paddle after a bull moose as we supposed, 
which on nearer approach proved to our disappointment 
to be a cow. 
The second story regards a deer and its. tail, Almost 
every night the camp was visited by deer, as was evi- 
dent by their tracks in the morning. One moonlight 
night my friend Mr. Alfred Lauterbach sat up to shoot 
one from the window of our cabin. At 2 o'clock in tne 
morning three deer duly appeared, and he shot the 
largest one and knocked it down, but it presently arose 
and bounded off. In the morning the trail was easily 
followed into the woods. At about 100 yards distance 
the trail led beneath a fallen tree trunk. The deer had 
chosen to crawl under the log. which was about 3 feet 
high, rather than to jump over it. This proved to be an 
error in judgment, and the deer thereby lost its tail, for 
on the fiu-ther edge of the log was a sharp projecting 
knot, which caught the tail and tore it clean off. We 
found the tail, but we never got the deer, though it had 
been sorely wounded with a soft-nosed bullet from a 
Savage rifle. 
Do you know the blaClcened timber— do you know that rasing 
stream, 
With the raw, right-angled log-jam at the end; 
And the bar of sun-Warme,d shingle whei-e a man- ra'ay b.ag'fe ?ti4- 
dream, 
To the click of sharp canoe-poles round the bend? 
Is it there that we are going with our rods and reels and traces? 
To a silent, smoky Indian that we know- 
To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on our faces, 
For the red gods call us out, and we must go. 
And we must go— go— go away from here! 
On the other side the world we're overdue! 
'Send, the road is clear before you when the spring-fret comes 
o'er you, 
And the red gods call for you. — Rvidyard Kipling. 
W. N. Amory. 
New York, Dec. 8. 
On Snake Creek, 
We hacl talked of an Indian Territory deer hunt all 
summer, and there were at least a round dozen that 
seemed eager to take part in it until the moment of 
starting arrived. On Dec. I W. W. Mcllhaney, Brady 
Crowe and the writer "laid down our pens" and declared 
that "now is the accepted time," but we were alone, the 
other having "flunked," 
The weather was pleasant but cool at the time of 
starting, and from the word received from our friend 
Harris, at Wagoner, I. T., we learned it was the prime 
season of the year for sport. 
At 6 o'clock. the next morning we were in Wagoner, and 
our friend was present to meet us, and when everything 
was taken care of he conducted us to his residence, where 
we sat down to an elegant breakfast. By 9 o'clock we 
were on the road, bound for Snake Creek, south of We- 
a-lac-ie Mission on the Arkansas River, in the Creek or 
Muskogee country. Our driver and cook was a negro, 
black as a rubber comb, named Bill Coe, but the gang 
soon shortened it to Calico, and by that name he is known 
to this day. Three months before he had strolled into 
Wagoner from a Red River plantation, where he had spent 
his entire life of forty-five years, in ignorance of the 
size or ways of the world, until this, his first departure, 
from the "reservation." He was the most amusingly 
ignorant specimen of the genus homo that we had ever 
met, and during the whole trip furnished us with good 
grub, good driving and an excellent show. He was as 
afraid of an Indian as he was of a blue gum nigger's 
voodoo bag, and he believed implicitly everything a white 
man said. 
At late dinner we ferried the Verdigris and struck 
camp at sundown on the banks of the Arkansas, at the 
Childers Ferr3^ A ferry boat was tied up to the bank 
near our camp, but we were not able to raise any one to 
operate it. 
It was a slab affair, propelled by push poles, and 
seemed about as dangerous to tackle for a crossing 
as the quicksands themselves. No one could be found 
iivXt morning to ferry us over, and although we knew 
nothing of the art of navigation, as applied to the push 
pole on the Arkansas, like the boy who dug for the ground 
hog, we needed meat and must cross. So, after a council 
of \\?ar, we decided to tackle the boat for a crossing. 
Calico's was the only dissenting vote. "Wot if dem 
Injuns wot owns dat boat injects to yo' takin' it?" he 
asked. "I didn't hire to youse to be skulped." 
Mcllhaney then asked him if he chose to take his 
chances of an Indian massacre or preferred to be killed 
and eaten by us. That settled him. He sullenly mounted 
his wagon and w^e were soon on the boat. When we 
pushed off the bottom was easilj'- reached with the poles, 
but when we had reached the main current we found that 
our poles would not touch the bottom, and we lost control 
of the vessel. Round and round it whirled, and down the 
river we went at terrific speed, and the black face of 
Calico became aRh}^ Do what we could the down stream 
progress of the scow could not be checked, until finally it 
struck a sand bar with such force as to throw Mcllhaney 
overboard, throw the balance of us flat, and scared what 
was left of Calico to death. 
A mile stretch of sand and freezing Cblti water lay 
between us and the south shore. While we were working 
to get off the sand bar, an Indian, the owner of the 
boat, came along, and with his assistance and knowledge 
we soon got awajf- and were landed all right. The Indian 
was a little out of humor, and his murderous looks and 
evident displeasure at the appropriation of his property 
set Calico to praying. We gave him a silver unit and 
thanked him and went on our way, while Calico fully made 
up his mind that we were hunting trouble and fast get- 
ting him into a scrape. 
That night we put up permanent camp on the Snake at 
the junction of Duck Creek, and fixed ourselves for a 
two weeks' stay. Our tent was pitched on the north 
bank of and near to. Snake Creek, and the team was 
"stabled" nearby. 
Harris was so easily lost that his work was confined to 
quail and prairie chicken hunting near the/camp. And 
there was plenty of the sport to be had. Calico was all 
the time bevvailing his fate that brought him into "sich 
a owdacious" country, and insisted that something "bad 
was gwine to happen." 
The next morning before it was light, we started out 
for game. It began a drizzly rain about g o'clock, and 
it certainly was an ideal still-huptirig day. 
