fOm.m AND S^xrxr:AM. 
when the vf^nins tins ootjid foi the oldest experlencc^f 
toxcs nn' mcbby she w ondeied why the world wa'n't wid*; 
'noiigh for both tu live in wi'aout them big critturs 
elainally parsecutin' the small itns an' thought what a 
pieasaiU place 't would be it it only was. 
"But she'd come tu the eend on 't, pleasure, trouble 
an' all, an' you an' me won't hev no more fun watchin' 
her an' her young mis. Ta' keer. Bub, you don't cut that 
tar off tew long an' spile the looks o' the pelt." 
"Oh, dear, Uncle Lisher, I 'most wish I hedn't shot 
her!" Sammy cried out in contrition of spirit. 
Rowland E. Robinson, 
[to be continued.] 
Tour of a Cowpath Inspector. 
Having taken the inspectorship of cowpaths for my 
district, I started out with conscientious promptitude, be- 
ginning my rounds on a charming day in March. Jt 
could do no harm to see what sort of byways awaited 
the tread of the herds that were still yarded and stabled, 
it would be odd if they did not already lead to scenes of 
beattty and objects of interest. The day was more than 
inviting, it was urgent. I sallied forth with a light rille 
in hand to enforce my official authority; it may be ad- 
iriitted that 1 had a mental eye upon a promising flat a 
couple of miles out, Avhere the ducks sometimes call dur- 
ing their migrations. • 
The cowpaths were .still there. Beaten trails are not 
soon effaced. The forms given to the soil, whether ele- 
vated or depressed, are strangely durable for so soft a 
material, if once shielded with a little vegetation. Who 
knows how many centuries' rain and frost have attacked 
the structures of the mound builders, and left them to 
carry forest trees and foil the speculations of a later race? 
fragranrc, Klj^^wbpie lb" h»?mlof'ks cHsl th^'i.i' p<3rci>ulftl 
gloom. 
Hawks were circling above the forest and sending" 
down their piercing but not unmusical cries. A scream 
from a lower altitude called my attention to one in a 
treetop. His attention was also called; ne was on tlie 
wing before 1 got an a.m to suit me, and 1 concluded 
that he I'epi-eseuted neither oi: the three species con- 
demned by the Agricultural Departmeat. lue nawks are 
not the easiest or the t'eatnerecl lamilies to distmguisli 
and recognize; a near view of a hving specimen is the 
exception. 1 was glad to be sure oi an acuiiaintance in a 
brisk little dark brown bird ttuttering near tne ground 
and then gliding along a log. it you have seen such a 
creature, standing m such a place, repeatedly bobbing 
down and up with an abruptness that would make a 
courtesying schoolboy seem graceful as a dancing mas- 
ter in comparison, you have seen the winter wren. 
Another wood lay in my way, and I set out to cross 
the intervening field. On northward slopes and in shad- 
ed hollows the remnant of snow was last tuawing, and 
through an old turf-lined dead furrow a swilt rill of ice 
water glided where in summer a cricket could not wet 
his leet. My first glimpse over a ridge showeu me a crow . 
loraging in tne succeeding hollow. Here was anotner 
rival inspector, and tne rule was hastily leveled, ine 
bullet that spattered the mud beside him as he walked, 
at least ser\ed as a hint that I eouid do all the inspect- 
ing required in those pastures, auu the hint seemed to 
be promptly taken. It has been denied that the crow la 
as black as he is painted, but he has hardly been suc- 
cessfully whitewashed. He has merit as. a worm-eater 
and bug-catcher to offset his ravages upon the corn- 
fields, but his propensity for the eggs aad young of 
smaller birds turns the trembling scaie against him and 
makes him a legitimate target, though one, I must say, 
from which a bullet seems to slip as w^ater from a duck. 
The same vices earn for red squirrels a like fate, and 
they have no such compensating virtue. I was thinking 
of them as I entered the woods, and rather wondering 
OK ii.sual, autl pair of hairy \Voodpeck'eTs permittetl A 
clo.'^e approach. J was pleased to see how indifferently 
they glided up or down the . tree trunks. The wooti- 
pecker s foot is a double-ender, so to speak, two toes pro- 
jecting forward and two back, and the bird seems to 
move with equal convenience either way. 
I approached the flooded flat cautiously through a bit 
of second-growth woodland, but the caution was vain, 
Part of the water was covered with ice, but no part 
with ducks. The nearest thing to gaihe was a pair of 
killdeer plovers cruising overhead and uttering their 
shrill cries, sometimes bringing out the "killdee" very dis- 
tinctly. 1ms bird is well fitted with the specific name 
h'ociferus. It is no singer, but its clear call was musical 
after hearing for months no bird notes sweeter than the 
caw of the crow and the tiresome chirp of the English 
sparrow. They are a rather gamy family, these plovers, 
but not in equal degree. While the golden plover, for 
example, is welcomed to the table, the killdeer is not so 
much as mentioned by Gurdon Trumbull in his vahiable 
book on "Birds Which fnterest Gunners," and I do not 
know that it is anywhere praised as a dehcacy. All the 
same it -is a handsome and interesting bird. 
The air was full of the music of flowing water, but I 
could not locate the stream until a foamy line down a 
little ravine beyond the flat revealed the source" of the 
murmur. 1 carried the pleasant sight and sound with 
riic as I turned homeward. Bristol Hill. 
Field Columbian Museum. 
The report of Mr. Frederick J. V. Skiff, Director of the 
Field Columbian Museum, for the year closing Sept, 30, 
1899, has just been received. Like its predecessors, it 
is an interesting document and shows the continued prog- 
ress of the museum. During the year a greater amount 
of new material has been placed on exhibition than dur- 
ing any preceding twelve months. This is true of all the 
depariiiicnts, though perhaps most evident in those of 
aiuhropology and zoology, _ _ . ,^ 
The path worn through some tiny ridge ankle deep may 
be abandoned, but it does not fill up; it becomes grass- 
grown and holds its own against everything but the 
plow. Not grassy was the one that now led me along the 
Jlank of a high rough hill toward a tempting piece of 
woods, but well worn, as its makers left it when they 
shambled off to the barnyard at the end of last year's 
pasturing. Below ran a boisterotis brook swollen to a 
torrent of clear snow water. Beside the way a song 
sparrow was skipping back and forth through a brush 
heap like a shuttle in a loom. If the sparrow carried a 
line, like the .spider, what a tangle he would weave among 
the brush. 
Not far off a woodchuck had begun his housecleaning. 
The earth he had brought from under a boulder was still 
damp on the chips of stone that came with it, and prob- 
ably 1 interrupted him at his work. It was as well for 
him that he saw me first. The woodchuck is himself a 
cowpath inspector in his way, and two of a trade never 
did agree. He is also a rival of my bovine constituents 
when he sets himself down to pasture on their grass. 
H there were enough of him the pasture would be ruined, 
as by the rabbits in Australia. Perhaps it will come to 
that if an occasional groundhog be not cut off by a well 
planted bullet, and with him some possible millions of 
hungry posterity. Only the other day a farmer told me 
how the woodchucks prematurely harvested his bean crop, 
and I believe they have shown themselves addicted to 
cabbages. Surely a man with no more important con- 
cerns may well give a glance to the future of the pasture, 
the bean and the cabbage, and such a glance may be ad- 
vantageously taken through the sights of a rifle. 
On sunny hillocks spiders were crawling over the film 
of dead grass and leaves which the deep snow had pressetd 
thin and wind and sun had dried into a crisp fabric. At 
the edge of the woods a butterfly hovered in the genial 
light. The sun shone warmly down among the trees, trac- 
ing a network of slender shadows where the leaves lay 
matted toge*^her. and thp moist earth reeked with woodsy 
GROUP OF ALASKA tLACK SHEEP, 
rrom the Report of the Director oi the Field Cohimbian Museum, 
that they were not more active on a day fine enough, one 
would say, to start all animal life Avith a rush. Presently 
one appeared, but immediately lost himself among the 
dense foliage and thickset limbs of a hemlock top, where a 
squirrel may always be safe if he will. Another sjt 
stupidly on a low limb until a bullet snuffed out his un- 
profitable existence. I saw still another perched in a 
dead hemlock, but, not wishing to bombard the neighbor- 
ing village, shifted my position to put the target in a 
safer direction, and upon that he betook himself to more 
retired quarters. No animal in the woods has a better 
faculty of disappearing than the red squirrel. These are 
cute and pretty creatures, and a neagazine contributor has 
published an interesting article describing the ways of a 
pair that he kept as pets. He reflected somewhat severely 
upon those who shoot them, and his remarks would have 
force if the squirrel were naturally immortal. But death 
waits for all squirrels, as for all inspectors, and the inspec- 
tor would be glad to be guaranteed as easy and painless a 
passage out of life as the bullet brings to the squirrel. 
One shot with a rifle is usually killed instantly, and it would 
gain nothing on the score of comfort by being left to 
die of disease, or to be torn to pieces by some hawk, owl 
or cat, or swallowed alive by a snake. A similar remark 
might be made in regard to other hunted creatures. Man 
is but one of their hunters, and the most humane. It 
is probable that the kilHng of animals with well-adapted 
weapons prevents more suffering than it causes. Each 
species is part of a "nature red in tsoth and a claw" with 
the blood of the prey, and the hunter properly armed in- 
tervenes rather to rescue than to torture. The squirrels 
are undeniably pretty and interesting, but probably we 
infer too much as to the character and disposition of 
animals from their appearance. Another magazine con- 
tributor found a gentle and charming companion in a 
garter snake, which he taught to haunt his pockets and 
his desk. The snake may have as fine a character as 
the squirrel, : 
In these woo4s the chickadees made themselves familiar 
The illusltdied icv ..c courses which have become such 
a feature of the spring and fall of the museum year have 
been largely attended, and usually the demands for ad- 
mission have exceeded the capacity of the hall, ihe 
choice of subiecls and of lecturers has been so wise and 
it is not surprising that the attendance is large. 
Among the ptiblications issued during the year by the 
museum are five based on collections made by Dr. D. G. 
KlL\>tt during his explorations in the Olympic Moun- 
tains of Washington, and on others which came to him 
from Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. A special edi- 
tion of Mr. Charles B. Corey's "Birds of Eastern North 
America, Water Birds, Part I.," was printed for the 
museum. 
The work of the library and of cataloguing, inventory- 
ing and labeling has gone on as usual. There is a large 
list of accessions in all the departments, those in anthro- 
pology and zoology being especially noteworthy. 
The field work has, been continued with more than 
tisual success. A botanical expedition was sent to the 
West Indies, zoological material collected on the Pacific 
coast and in Indiana, fossils brought from the. well-known 
locality in the Freezeout Hills in Wyoming, while Dr. 
Dorsey has brought together ethnological rriaterial from 
southern Illinois, Cahfornia, Puget Sound and Vancouver 
Island. , . 
The exhibition halls continue to receive additional in- 
teresting material of many sorts. In the ethnological hall 
there is a great amount of material, including groups of 
Eskimo, m.odels of cliff dwellers and Pueblos, and a great 
deal of material concerning our southwestern peoples as 
well as some from beyond the sea. A number of groups 
pf large mammals h ive been prepared by Mr. Akeley, of 
which three have be :n placed on exhibition and others are 
well on the way to completion. One of these last, repre- 
senting a beautiful .group of Stone's sheep, is here pre- 
sented by the kindness of the museum. 
If the accessions to the collection have been large, 
the same is true of the additions to the library. The 
