20B 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
approaching, and this last method was the eqmvalMit of 
the English term stalking. It meant to draw near 
stealthily, usually under covei-, or in sdm_e disguise. As 
has been very often said, the buffalo paid little or no at- 
tention to the report of a rifle, or even to the fall of their 
companions. If the great animals had had more alertness, 
and suspicion in their make-up they would have lasted 
far longer than they did. This whole subject is treated 
with more or less fullness in an article entitled 'In Buf- 
falo Days," published in the Boone and Crockett Club's 
volume, "American Big Game Hunts," p. 155.] 
Maine Gull Destruction. 
The Portland Evening Express of March 5 contains an 
interesting article on bird destruction from the pen of 
J. Merton Swain, a writer well known to most ornitholo- 
gists._ Mr. Swain, like many others,, is urgent for the 
creation of a better sentiment arriong women with regard 
to the wearing of bird plumage for ornament, and he 
gives some facts with regard to the destruction of bjrds 
on our northeast coast from which we quote the followitig 
paragraphs: 
What would the scenery of our rugged Maipe coast be 
without the presence of the gulls and terns? 
^ It would be bare and desolate to a great many who 
live along the coast and watch for the coming and going 
of these ever- restless wanderers of the briny deep. The 
terns are now protected by law in this State, I believe, 
but protection in some cases came too late. For years, the 
common and arctic terns bred in numbers on Outer 
Green Island, Casco Bay. A short time ago the writer 
made a trip to Green Island to see how the terns were 
living. To my great surprise, not a, bird , bred upon the 
island. The terns and petrels, that had bred in large num- 
bers only a few years ago, had gone, and now only a 
. song sparrow or two, that had flown over from . the 
mainland or some adjoining island, was left to break the 
monotony of the restless waves that beat the rocky sides 
■of the island that onV serves as a resting place for the 
weary wanderers of the deep. 
What has transpired on the island is only a repetition 
of what has happened to many islands in our Maine 
waters. And now the gulls are in great demand. Look 
into the windows of the millinery stores, and see the work 
of slaughter that has been done. Then go into the rooms 
of a taxidermist and see the number of birds he has had 
brought in. to prepare for such purposes. ■ 
Last fall I visited John Lord's rooms. The floor .was 
literally covered with dead gulls,' arid they were being 
brought in by the hundreds. This is only one among 
many. ; ^ 
Letters and even agents were sent the whole length of 
Maine coast, ofifering a good price for every gulf, by large 
New York and Boston houses. The Indians, "down east," 
were urged to get them and ship them, through an agent 
they made arrangements with, in many of our seaport 
towns. 
At the annual meeting of the Maine Ornithological So- 
ciety held at Brunswick last month, Capt. H. L. Spinney, 
first assistant keeper of the Seguin light, closed a very 
interesting article on our shore birds, by saying, and very 
truthfully too: "And now man [he should have Siid' 
woman] demands the gulls. All who have visited our 
coast are acquainted with these beautiful birds. A^ fevy 
more seasons of slaughter like the one now nearly past, 
and only a few will remain to lend their presence to the 
storrns which spend their fury on our coast," 
This traffic is not carried on intentionallv to destroy, 
and the ladies who help to carry on such saughter do not 
realize what it means. They have not given it thought. 
Their kind, motherly hearts are warm toward God's 
happy creatures, and they do not really intend to aid this 
slaughter, and it is to be hoped they may realize before it 
IS too late the sad havoc that is being wrought among 
our feathered friends, and that when they become aware 
of It they will join us, as protectionists; in saying, "Long 
live the birds;" - ' ^ ® 
The Creeping Forward of the Forest. 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
Among the changing scenes of the forest the sportsman 
may hnd a study that carries him away from business 
cares and brightens the mind and exhilarates and freshens 
up^the blood, and sends him back, to his , work feeling 
and looking like a new man. How often in the depths 
oi the forest do they learn lessons that send them back 
to the town thinking over the conditions that prevail over 
the country at Jarge. How many are there there who 
tind in Nessmuk's writings things more interesting than 
the plays at the theaters. Such study and investigation 
makes them brighter and better citizens, and at the same 
time clearer headed business men. 
One of the most interesting States in which to carry 
on this line of study is the grand Old Dominion— Virginia 
famous for her statesmen and her orators- vet as we study 
the physical condition of this State we come to fear that 
she IS falling by the wayside, and that at. the present rate 
she will soon have nothing left but memories of the 
past on which to base her reputation. Her fields are 
.ast becoming haunts for the deer and other wild game 
and true to the prophecy of a man who Iwenty-five vears 
ago made the statement that where then stood wavihe 
fields of corn and wheat the deer and bear would roam 
again, year by year the timber and brush are crowdincr 
upon the farmer pushing him back, until in places where 
five years ago there could not be started a single deer 
last fall seven were seen, and in face of continual hound- 
ing by hunters and negroes they do not seem to leave 
the cover being sufficient for them to. elude the doo-c 
and hunters. ... * 
Any one who may have made the trip from Richmond 
-to Danville, and from the car window noticed the fields 
five or SIX years ago. would be surprised and alarmed 
at the view that to-day will meet his gaze. Briers brush 
and scrub pme are on every hand; farms and farm- 
houses generally are going to decay, and in the face 
of the great improvement being made in farm machinery 
as m every other hne of mechanical art, the general 
run of tanners seem to take Z oadcward yezr by 
year. ^ ' 
It IS hardly possible for one to believe that within 
seven miles of a city of 115,000 inhabitants deer are seen 
almost every day in the year on a plantation where there 
is no more _ protection than is usually given to game. 
True, the Dismal Swamp in the eastern part of the State 
is an almost unexplored jungle; still we can hardly expect 
that it will act as a breeding ground and source of supply 
for the entire State. 
The main cause for this wonderful change will be 
found in the fact that agriculture is unprofitable, and 
does not give the inhabitants sufficient remuneration to 
allow. them to improve their places. This fact accounts 
for the downfall of such places as Red Hill, the home of 
the illustrious Patrick Henry, whose barren red hills 
make a strange contrast when compared with Home- 
wood, - Creel's Neck and other places that have had 
fortunes spent on them in the last few years by men of 
means, who wish a handsome home, away from the noise 
and din of the city, where, with their family, they can 
rest in peace. 
• it may seem strange, but is nevertheless true, that even 
the finest old Virginia homestead is not to-day worth 
half the cost of the mansion, and in fact the mansion 
housc,_ with a few acres of ground, is all the value that 
there , is to it at all. Even these are an expense, and 
stand on the wrong side of the ledger, 
H. Prescott Wilder. 
In the Old Days. 
WoKMLEYSBURG, Fa.— Editor Forest and Stream- I 
have been a reader of the Forest and Stream for fifteen 
years or over, and have not missed one copy yet. I have 
taken- it through a regular newsdealer. I am now almost 
ready to pass my sixty-fifth mile stone of life; and what 
have I seen m all that time? The wild pigeon, the buffalo 
have all passed away. I can remember in 1846-47, about 
the time of the war with Mexico, that the wild pigeon 
tiew from east to west across the State of Pennsylvania 
m such numbers that I thought at the time that if they 
would stop in Pennsylvania there would not be trees 
sutficient for them to light upon. 
Forty years ago I was on the Philadelphia & Erie Rail- 
road when they were building that road from Williams- 
port, Pa. to Erie. From Harrisburg to WiUiamsport 
we went by railroad: from WiUiamsport to Lock Haven 
by packet;' from Lock Haven to Saint Marys, Elk coun- 
ty, by wagon. In those days that part of the countv was 
thinly settled, and the deer were without number There 
were^bears, black squirrels, foxes. Wildcats, wild pigeons 
and I have seen the track of the elk in our own Pennsvl- 
vania forty years ago. 
Have fired all kinds of rifles from the old flintlock 
to the present magazine rifle. John S. Wolfley. 
Wild Pigfeons in Illinois. 
Chicago.— Editor Forest and Stream: I saw a request 
in a late issue from one of your correspondents asking 
al to report any knowledge of the wild pigeon. On last 
Chicago Day I went out to Fox River, about forty miles 
\Yest of here. After supper I got talking to the farmer 
about game, past and present, and among other birds the 
wild pigeon. His son, a man of forty, said that he had 
seen- quite a flock last summer back in the big woods. 
. the next evenmg when we were pulling back up the 
river about dusk a bird passed within about 40 yards 
of our boat When I saw it coming I stopped rowing. 
It flew about 100 yards below us, turned to the right and 
alighted in a large tree near the bank. I turned to the 
larmer and son m a boat, about 10 yards behind us, and 
asked, "What kind of a bird do vou call that?" Thev 
said It was a AVild pigeon, and I said. "Correct." That 
was the first wild pigeon I had seen in seventeen years 
Last July, about lorty miles northeast of that point I 
met a boy. of seventeen who had shot the last one seen 
around there two years before, and he knew wild pigeons 
Edw. Ryan. 
Maize in Japan* 
The question of the introduction of tobacco and Indian 
corn or maize to the old world has always been one of in- 
terest, for It has been believed that both these plants were 
indigenous to America. In a recent number of Nature a 
Japanese writer, Mr. Kumagusu Minakata, gives an in- 
teresting reference in Japanese literature as to the date 
when our corn was introduced in Japan. He says that 
according to a native work, maize was introduced into the 
islands about the beginning of the period Tensho (1=57-?- 
91.). It was called Chinese millet in the eastern provinces 
and Nambam millet in the western. The Nambams were 
the Spaniards and Portuguese who were entirely ex- 
cluded from the empire after 1639, which would thus 
stand as the latest possible date of the introduction. 
Bird Migffation. 
In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the 
California Academy of Sciences, Mr. Leverett M. Loomis 
continuing his obser^^ation on California water birds, has 
much to say about their migration and especially about 
that of the shearwater. He believes that these birds are 
guided in their migration by obser^'ation of landmarks and 
ufu'^ young are brought from the place where they are 
nfiSf;.?^ w "^'"^^^""^ experience of 
older birds. He concludes that, in birds, migration is a 
habit evolved by education and inheritance, originating 
in and kept up by the failure of the food supply which 
takes place in winter. 
Tlie Linnaean Society of New York. 
At the meeting of the Society in the American Museum 
8 .M^ 1 ^"^'^^y ^^^"'"g- March 27!^ 
80 c ock, Mr. R. L. Ditmars will speak on "The Car^ of 
Captive Snakes." Illustiated by livL soecWnV 
Arthur H. Helme. "Notes on Som^ Long"^IslaSrMam: 
The FomisT and St^am h put to press each week on Tuesday 
Con-espondence intended for publication should reath ue at tte 
late* by Monday and aa much earU«r u tfratticable. 
"That rmkida me" 
Those Old Stories. 
Several weeks ago J. P. T. (I wish I knew the wh 
name) asked Pine Tree, myself or some other of 
old boys to tell the remainder of a bear story. I rera™ 
bered about as much of it as he did, and was struggl 
to locate the balance when la grippe got a grip on niy b( 
and choked up my lungs and throat until I could neitt 
talk nor think, and the poison of la grippe clouds 
mmd and leaves one weak mentally and physically 
soon , as I could I hunted among the old school book^ 
the trunk in the dark store room, but could not find 
story. I found Mayne Reid's "Headless Horsemen " v 
this gave me a clue, and I was about to tell all that I kr 
when some one cut in ahead and made the shot. But 
visit to the store room was also a visit to the store ro 
01 memory, and the old books that I took from the tr< 
and piled into the baby carriage that had been idle for 
many years, took me away back. I piled them up u 
their weight was greater than the strength of the c 
nage springs and the whole mass slipped and slid ; 
carried down the trunk cover with it upon my na] 
head. The lamp went out and then I did. I blamed J. 
1 . for It all, but now forgive me. Some one else has si 
referred to a partly told tale. I have another for y 
Let some one tell the rest of this. I know it not: 
Two men, maybe brothers, were out either in forest 
held and coming to a burrow on a hillside, large enoi 
to admit some good sized animal or man, listened i 
heard the young of wild animals inside, and believ 
that the parents were aAvay, one of the hunters crawled 
while the other stood watch upon the outside, and tl 
with that instinct which a mother possesses when 
young are in danger, there came rushing back, seeking 1 
entrance, the devoted parent. I don't know whethei 
was a bear or something else. It does not make as mi 
difference to us as it did to the man "inside." The ri 
was so sudden that Donald on the outside had no time 
intercept it, but as the form disappeared in the hole 
inade a grab at the disappearing tail, and sitting do 
with braced feet, hung on like a leech, and his mate 
the inside, noticing the sudden darkness, said, "Don? 
mon, Donald, what stups the light?" and Donald on 
°".^ii<]f-.^etween his gasps for breath, and with a strugj 
^^\xTi °" t^'e tail breaks " 
Where was it? Who were they? Or is it just a st* 
told in as many languages as the tale of the jumping fi 
of Calaveras county? w. W. Hastings 
Frozen on Point. 
It is quite the conventional thing for a dog to "free; 
on point, or to turn into a marble statue. Here is a sti 
from Beverly, W. Va., as told in the Philadelphia Bu 
tin and sent along with this comment by Mr. W 
Lowry; "This is a 'new one to me,' Possibly it n 
provoke some comment in your columns and thereby 
terest us more. -vv. C. Lowry.' 
There is on exhibition at a store in Marlinton a ti 
Jeau group of a setter dog and a dozen quail, and in ■ 
attitude usually assumed by birds and dogs when broui 
into close quarters in the woods. 
The exhibition has attracted much attention, thou 
the warmer weather may spoil it soon. The dog belons 
to Judge William Green. 
During the very cold weather just after the beginni 
of l-ebruary, Judge Green took a young setter out to 1 
woods to give hira an outing, thinking he might se( 
lew birds and further the work of training the sett 
He took no gun. It was the closed season for game bir 
While going up a valley between Peterson's Mount; 
and a short ridge, where it was extremely cold on i 
count of the sharp wind, Judge Green missed the di 
He hunted for half an hour, but could find no trace 
the animal. He returned home, thinking the dog h 
preceded him, but the animal was not there Nothi 
was seen of the dog until Thursday, when the Judge w<. 
back into the mountains to make another search. 
In the thicket where the dog had last been seen, I 
securely hidden by the evergreen, the Judge disco\ er' 
the animal, standing, with his noise pointed lairiy aht 
and as natural as if alive. Half a dozen varrls away wt 
about a dozen quail, all of them frozen. The setter h 
scented the birds and stood waiting for his master 
come. 
The dog, in his instinctive effort to locate the g^^ 
tor his master, and the quail, in their fear to move in t 
dog s presence, had all frozen to death. There has be 
no thawing weather under the lowering brow of t 
mountain since the day the animal met the quail T 
judge gathered up the frozen dog and quail, broug 
them to town and placed them on exhibition. 
"Mighty Poor Btjsiness/' 
In the canal between Lockbourne and Shadville C 
there were many good places for fishing, the fish beii 
supplied from Big Walnut Creek and the Scioto Rive 
Along the banks of the canal or feeder were large farn; 
which afforded rare sport for hunters of small game su( 
as quail, rabbits, etc., and manv of the farmers h'avii 
friends living in the city of Columbus and elsewhere wl 
loved to hunt and fish, gave them a roval welcome. Oi 
of these weli-to-do farmers, one spring, to break tl 
monotony of farm life and longing for a mess of fre< 
fish, gathered his fishing tackle and was soon perd ' 
upon the stump of an old svcamore tree. He had r 
been angling very long before a canal boat, drawn ' I 
two very large mules, put in an appearance, and the c v 
tarn, salutmg the farmer, inquired: 
"Say. old man, have you a family depending upon vi 
for support? .> 
"Yes, captain." 
"A large family?" 
'3'^f,■,/"°^^f and seven children." , 
/Well, said the captain, I think you are doin<^ 
iJilE L?i'°'' ^"«'"ess^ toward supoorting them, sittiri 
mfei* holding a vf&rm in thte v^'atterl W. ' 
i 
11 
