Tay S. I9<»-I 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
847 
Tianner. As it emerged from the cavity it crept along 
he wall, which to all appearances was almost perpendicu- 
ar, and continued straight on for 25 or 30 feet. It then 
urned around and came back to the edge of the cavity 
md leaped down, falling as it struck the rock below ; but 
t was immediately up and away, seemingly as game as 
ever. The Indian, who was within a few feet of the 
mimal at the time, said that he could not see anything in 
:he shape of a projection on the face of the rock for the 
animal to walk on, nor could any of us do so at a distance 
of perhaps 200 yards with the aid of powierful field 
glasses, 
^ stood carefully watching every movement of the ani- 
al, and how it was possible for it not only to walk the 
side of such a wall, crippled as it was, but actually to turn 
round and walk back, is beyond my conception, for I am 
sure there was no place on the face of the wall to which 
I could have clung for even a moment. 
The Indian again went in pursuit, finishing the animal 
Jsoon after with a lucky shot. I went down to measure and 
I, skin the animal, but found the greater part of its coat so 
thoroughly filled with blood, much of which had dried 
and set fast, that I only saved the head. 
The shot the Indian first gave it had completely smashed 
the left thigh. My shot had entered the left side just 
back of the shoulders and a little above the heart, ranging 
downward and upward, and passing out at the right flank, 
tearing a fearful gash, through which I could thrust my 
fist. It had bled much, internally and externally; had 
lived nearly twenty-four hours after its thigh was 
► smashed ; four hours after the wound I gave it, suffering 
from the loss of blood, making wonderful climbs on three 
The moose, in the regions within the Arctic Circle, will 
be the last to succumb to its enemies, for the reason that in 
this great interior country it will be but little pursued east 
of the Rockies by the white man. The atmosphere in this 
country is comparatively dry in winter, and the snow- 
fall consequently light, and owing to the shelter from the 
winds afforded to a great extent by brush and woods, the 
snow does not crust or acquire a firm enough surface to 
admit of a wolf running on the surface, except on lakes 
and rivers; and without this aid the wolf can make but 
slight inroads upon the numbers of an animal so wary 
and cunning, of such wonderful endurance, and so capable 
of self-defense. 
It is also well known that these animals, in the North 
and Northwest; do not gather together in herds, nor do 
they "yard up." as do the moose of Maine and New 
Brunswick, but constantly roam about, either singly or 
in small bunches, rarely exceeding five individuals. The 
natives cannot, therefore, locate and surround them in 
bands, but must pursue them .singly, which forbids at all 
times any considerable slaughter. Then, too, this animal 
generally haunts the very worst thickets, tangles and 
brushy localities; its hearing is acute, its scent the best, its 
movements rapid, and it is so universally on its guard that 
the unusual snapping of a twig is sufficient to cause it so 
quickly and silently to quit the locality as to be totally 
unobserved by the average hunter. \ have passed through 
sections of country where whole tribes of natives have be- 
come extinct, but the moose lives and flourishes in num- 
bers, the rugged country drained by the Nahanni River 
being an instance of this kind. The headwaters of the 
Stickine River, occupied by the Tahltan tribe, may also 
The Wcasellon the Trail, 
Editor Forest and Streatii: • ,• 
A leaf from memory of my own experience mclmes me 
to agree with your correspondent S. S. N., of your issue of 
April 7, conceiTiing the tracking abilities of Putorius vul- 
garis. Many years ago — more, indeed, than I care to 
enumerate — I was a farmer's boy in the Old Bay State, and 
one day when busilv engaged in the first hoeing of a corn- 
field I was surprised to see a half-grown cottontail spring 
' out of the thick brush that formed one of its boundaries, 
and after describing a half-circle in the field disappear 
in the brush about 50 feet from his point of exit. 
The movement was executed at the top of his speed, and 
as he passed within 3 feet of where I stood without ap- 
parently being aware of my presence, I could see that his 
little bodv was trembling with fear and his eyes seemed 
starting from his head. I stopped work. What boy 
under the same circumstances would not? And while 
wondering what could possibly be the cause of his extreme 
agitation a weasel glided like a snake out of the thicket 
at the same spot where the rabbit had appeared and 
began making the same circuit, coming directly toward 
me. If my memory serves me, he did not appear to nose 
the trail, but ran with his head in its usual position, or as 
a hound would run upon a very hot scent. 
As he passed I struck a vicious blow at him with my 
hoe, but he evaded it with the greatest ease, this little, 
albeit unexpected, digression having apparently no more 
effect upon him than a log in his path would have occa- 
sioned, and returning at once to the trail he vanished into 
the brush at the exact spot where the rabbit had entered 
it hardly one minute before. He certainly could not have 
seen the latter while he was in the open or he would have 
cut the chord of the circle instead of following it, and 
with this, to me, new revelation of the weasel's capacity 
for pursuing its prey, I felt convinced that the days of 
poor bunny were numbered. 
The incident made such an impression upon me and so 
worked upon my sympathies for the innocent and help- 
less victim that before I went to bed that night I had a 
steel trap set upon the lower rail of a fence that abutted a 
stone wall at right angles close to the spot where the 
incident occurred. I used no bait, but the selection was 
an ideal one for the purpose, and three days later I had 
the skin of the murderer, or one that looked precisely 
hke him, stretched over a board in the barn. 
Forked DEEit, 
LADY BEMIS, THE CAPTIVE MAINE MOOSE. 
legs, and performing feats hardly to be believed even by 
those who witnessed them. The animal was a four-year- 
old ram, and a magnificent specimen. 
From my experience with these animals I believe they 
seek quite as rugged country in which to make their homes 
as does the Rocky Mountain goat. They brave higher 
latitudes, and live in regions in every way more barren 
and forbidding. 
Although they are a very wary animal where hunted, 
they are rapidly dwindling in numbers, for their white 
bodies in summer can be seen at a great distance by the 
keen eye of the native, and very few of our best natural 
history collections will be graced by their beautiful forms 
before the last of them have disappeared. 
The females, with their lambs, generally keep to the high 
tablelands, well back in the mountains, and are often 
much more difficult to locate than their mates. Broken 
jawbones, reunited, were so frequent among the females 
killed as to excite comment. 
Oreamnos montanus (Ord). Rocky Mountain Goat. — 
The Rocky Mountain goat is found in limited numbers 
throughout the Rocky Mountain Range as far north as 
lat. 63° or 64° 30', but are here nowhere so plentiful as in 
the coast ranges. They frequent many places in the Cas- 
. cades, the coast range of southeastern Alaska, and the 
Alaskan Mountains as far west as the headwaters of the 
Sushitna River. 
Alee americanus, Jardine. Moose. — ^The moose is the 
best known of the deer that inhabit the vast extent of 
country comprising British Columbia, the Northwest Ter- 
ritory and Alaska. It can be safely asserted that every 
wooded section of this immense area is. to a more or less 
degree, frequented by these animals. It ranges westward 
almost to the limits' of the Alaskan Peninsula, and it ap- 
proaches the Arctic coast throughout to the very limits 
of tree growth. • _ ' • •. 
The Upper Liard River, with its tributaries, the Dease, 
Francis, Highland, Black and Coal' rivers (long. 125° to 
130° W. and lat. 58° to 60°), includes, perhaps, the most 
prolific moose range in America. The tributaries of the 
Upper Yukon, Pelly, Stewart, Macmillan, White and 
Tanana rivers also drain a country well populated with 
moose, and the Kenai Peninsula and the region about the 
head of Cook Inlet is another large area that seems to 
abound with them. 
The native and the wolf are Its most aggressive enemies; 
but it is highly probable that it will outlive the former, 
regardless of the fact that maderp firearms may be found 
in the posse'^sion of members of almost every native tribe 
in the North, 
be cited as another fair illustration. The tribe is so 
rapidly dying out as to be perceptibly less in numbers 
every year; while the moose is far more plentiful in that 
country to-day than it was at the time when modern fire- 
arms were first introduced among these people twenty- 
five years ago. 
Records of the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Norman, 
65° N., give the weight of a dressed animal, with hide, 
head and lower limbs removed, at 676 pounds, and Fort 
McPherson (67° 30' N.) records claim that the meat of an 
animal received at this post weighed between 1,100 and 
1,200 pounds. 'i 
The Indians claim that the moose of the headwaters 
of the Koyukuk River and the headwaters of the Peel 
River range high in the mountains, and differ in some 
respects from the animals inhabiting lower levels, but I 
was unable to verify such statements through personal 
observations. Mr. Hodgson, for many years in the service 
of the Hudson Bay Company in that country, assured me 
that this was known to him to be a fact, stating they were 
often killed high in the mountains, that their feet were very 
different from those of other moose, and that they differed 
in other particulars. As the moose of the Kenai Peninsula 
are now considered to be a distinct form (Alee gigas, 
Miller) from those of eastern Canada, it is most probable 
that the animals referred to as inhabiting the mountains 
of the headwaters of the Peel River, and thpse of the 
Kojaikuk and Colville further north, will prove to be a 
third variety. 
The moose of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska 
do not inhabit the Pacific slope of the Coast Range Moun- 
tains, but west of the Copper River, Alaska, they range in 
many places to the neightjorhood of salt water. 
Alaskan Moose Heads. 
Mr. C. F. Periolot, of Chicago, sends us photographs 
of two moose heads obtained in Alaska, of which illus- 
tration are given. They, are large and massive and note- 
worthy for both size and symmetrj'. 
The specimen indicated as No. i is the larger of the 
two. It has a spread of 73^ inches. Points of right 
blade 24. left 14— total 38. Width of right blade 23 
inches, left 17H inches, around the burr 10 inches. 
The second (No. 2) has a spread of 703^ inches. Points 
on. right blade 10. left 11 — total 21. Width of right 
blade 16 inches, left I4>^ inches, arou^-i the burr 9^ 
inches. _ _ 
Oakland, Cal. 
The Finest of the Zebras. 
Not long ago the Emperor Menelek of Abyssinia pre- 
sented to Queen Victoria a pair of Grevy zebras, which 
were received in London last summer. They were _de- 
po-^ited with the Zoological Society and were at the time 
in bad condition rfom their long voyage. They have now 
completely recovered, and are described as splendid ani- 
mals, by far the finest of all the zebras, both as to size 
and beauty of markings. The Zoological Society of 
London is thus able to exhibit three species of zebras, 
leaving only the extinct quagga unrepresented in its col- 
lections. . ■' 
A Tough Gfouse. 
Fox- Lake, Wis., April 26.— While strolling through the 
grove, 200 yards from the house, last Sunday I flushed a 
ruffed grouse. She flew direct to the house and against 
the bay window of the plant room, breaking both outside 
and inside glass. She stopped herself when half through 
the window, backed out and flew off, apparently uninjured. 
There was a covey of ten left over in this grove last 
season, and I am in hopes there will be a few to show 
next fall. W, E. Warren. 
Rhode Island Game. 
Providence, R. L, April 2S.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
The amendment to the laws relating to birds, which was 
introduced the past week in the upper branch of the Rhode 
Island Legislature by Senator Nicholas F. Reiner, of 
North Providence, was referred to the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of the Senate, and a hearing will be given by the 
committee next Tuesday at 10 o'clock. This bill has the 
approval of the Commissioners of Birds and a committee 
of the Audubon Society. All lovers of birds should 
attend the hearing and express their approval of the pro- 
posed changes. The bill proposes to shorten the season 
during which game birds may be killed, and extends 
greater protection to other wild birds. 
All snaring is prohibited. No other State permits 
snaring, and it is believed that by this practice the ruffed 
grouse or partridge has been nearly exterminated. It is 
thought by sportsmen generally that if all snaring was 
abolished there would be a marked increase, as it is. im- 
possible to exterminate this wary bird with dog and gun. 
The ruffed grouse if once exterminated can never be re- 
introduced, as they cannot be captured alive and trans- 
ported to the depleted covers. If the abolishment of snar- 
ing does not result in an increase in numbers, it will be 
necessary to prohibit the sale of partridges or put on a ' 
close season of several years. 
One favorable feature in the proposed bill is the specific 
mention of the birds which may be killed at any time. 
They are as follows: W'oodcock, ruffed grouse (cdm- 
monlv called partridge) and quail, from Oct, i to Dec. 15 
inclusive ; the duck species from Oct. i to Feb. 28 in- 
clusive; peeps, plover, snipe, sandpiper and yellowlegs, and 
all the so-called shore birds, from July IS to Dec. 15 in- 
clusive. All other birds have continuous protection, ex- 
cept crows, hawks (except fish hawks) and crow black- 
birds, and these can be shot only on owner's land. 
The destruction of bird life in the United States dur'ng 
the last fifteen years has been verv rapid. It has 
diminished in nearly, if not in all, States. In Rhode 
Island it is estimated at more than 65 per cent., and is 
rapidly increasing. This destruction has resulted in serious 
injury to the agricultural interests. Crops that were 
formerly easily raised now require the use of poisons ia 
