64 
caves, sea lions and landing places. Landing on the first 
island was quite out of the question. Its sides rose pre- 
cipitously from the water, and even to leeward the wash 
of the swell was dangerous, while on the exposed side the 
seas came roaring in over sunken rocks, foaming against 
the cliffs, and sending showers of gleaming spray high 
in the air. The second island was more promising, but 
even here it did not seem best to risk the boat, so taking 
in sail we rowed slowly toward the third and sternmost 
island, which not only offered a good lee, but was pierced 
by numerous caves. Making a short cut directly through 
the island, which terminates in a natural arch some 50 
feet in height, we found ourselves temporarily in smooth 
water, and stopped to rest at the mouth of a little cave. 
Two cormorants, perched above the entrance through 
which the water gurgled in and out, as the swell rose 
and fell along the wall of rock, and a sea Hon rising high 
in the water to gaze at us as he passed by out of range, 
were the only signs of life, and our rough trip seemed to 
have been made to little purpose. 
Looking backward, we could just make out the 
Chinchas, enveloped in a dun-colored cloud of guano 
dust, on the southern horizon the steep sides of distant 
San Gallan rose sheer from the sea, and close at hand 
was the southernmost point of our island, above which 
sheets of spray leaped into the sunlight. 
Proceeding onward once more, a few strokes brought us 
around a Corner of the cHff and in full view of a goodly 
host of sea lions. There they were at last! The stony 
floor of a lofty cave that opened in the face of the cliff 
was fairly black with them, while nearer by on a shelving 
rock at least a dozen burly bulls lay sprawling in the sun. 
Oh, if they would only wait a little! But no — as we 
gradually drew near, slowly forcing our heavy boat 
through the choppy seas, first one, then another, slid into 
the water and disappeared, until only two, the boldest or 
the laziest, remained. Another moment, and they too 
would be gone, but before that moment passed Lowe 
cried, "Let them have it !" And let them have it we did 
with such good effect that both dropped at once. At last 
success was ours ! One huge beast lay quite motionless, 
while the other, whose life blood dripped frim his mouth 
and trickled down his side, required but another shot to 
make him ours. Even while pressing trigger I wondered 
how we would magange to get the huge brutes off the 
rock, around whose base amid the swirls of foam we 
now and then caught a glimpse of sharp fangs of stone, 
eager to crunch into the sides of our boat. The "how" 
was soon decided. One lion raised his head, lunged 
heavily to his feet, swayed aimlessly to and fro a moment 
and then plunged headlong into the water. The second 
followed, his huge bulk disappearing beneath the water, 
leaving naught but a small dark stain on the rock to bear 
witness against us. There was small time to mourn our 
loss, for the sea lions, but a minute before slumbering 
quietly in the cave, aroused b}^ our shots, came scrambling 
down the strip of shingle, and splashing into the sea swam 
boldly toward us, furnishing the life for a picture not 
easily forgotten. The scene indeed was of the kind oftener 
found in books than beheld in nature, and while the actual 
danger was slight enough, it might to an imaginative ob- 
server have seemed very real. 
Fully 200 feet above our heads hung a projecting shelf 
of rock, so thin and fissured that it seemed ready at a 
touch to fall upon us. Beneath our boat lay tossing on 
the swell that rushed foaming into the cave whence the 
sea lions issued by scores, tossing their heads and uttering 
harsh, barking cries. The breakers crashed upon the 
point near b);-, the pent-up air boomed from a subterranean 
passage, and the Avind whistled over the the island, the 
combined din being perfectly indescribable. As the lions 
came onward, showing their teeth, and rearing their heads 
defiantly, it seemed as if, emboldened by numbers, they 
had thrown aside their customary timidity and were 
gong to attack us. The odds were certainly in their 
favor, but a shot at the nearest changed the aspect of 
affairs, for at the report of a gun a hundred pairs of 
flippers flashed in the air, and every animal disappeared 
as if by magic. A moment later all were up again, only 
to be dispersed anew by another shot. Then, one by one 
all save a few sought shelter in the cave or retreated to 
some locality equally safe from our pursuit, while the 
remainder kept well out of gunshot. 
The chase was at an end. There was nothing to do but 
to wait for wind and waves to subside a little and then re- 
turn, as usual, empty-handed, A little before_ sunset we 
ventured out, and although the sea still ran high, set all 
sail and ran for home, "seeking the shelter of the hollow 
ships." 
In the tropics darkness follows short upon the setting 
of the sun, and ere long we were tearing through the 
gloom over a sea whose black hollows were succeeded by 
sparkling crests of foam, while our wake was marked by 
a dancing train of phosphorescent sparks. Soon one after 
another the twinkling lights of the vessels at anchor came 
into sight, and a few minutes later we were making the 
customary explanations for not having secured our game, 
F. A. Lucas. 
The Eel's Keen Scent. 
The eel is one of the most inveterate salmon egg and salmon 
fry poachers that exist. We have talcen fifty fry of about 1 inch 
long and from eight to ten weelcs old out of the gullet and stom- 
ach of a 12-ounce eel, which appeared among the fry as they were 
being turned into the river out of the hatchery, and all these were 
gobbled in the seven minutes or so it took us to fetch a landing^ 
net to capture it. So intent was it on the feed that its capture was 
easily effected, but not before it had accounted for half a hundred 
salmon fry. 
The eel hunts with its snout down over every nich of ground and 
works more by smell than sight. He bores into the sand even to 
half his body when he comes upon a redd covered up. We have 
again and again proved that he hunts by the smell. A burn mouth 
is a famous spot for the eel. It was our sport of an evening to 
hang a tassel of lob worms over a wooden bridge fully 60 yards or 
so above the moiith-of a burn, and watch the eels as they gradually 
began to move when the first taint of the current brought them 
up from the bottom and out from the sides on the hunt for the 
worms; and then a good dish would be killed in due course, when 
wanted, or as many of the "brutes" destroyed as would attach 
themselves to the worms or other tackle in order to rid the river 
as much as possible of the pest. — G. M. in London Fishing 
Gazette. 
Has Read It for Over Twenty Years, 
Wyncote, Pa. — I am going there for black bass and may stay 
five Of six weeks, and I just can't do without my paper, that 1 have 
■^een reading for over twenty years. I am over sixty-eight years 
old, but still hold my own pretty well with the younger sportsmen. 
•That remmda me." 
Animal Prospectors* 
It was at one of the select meetings where theoretical 
and applied science get together and read papers. To 
the merely casual person who is somewiiat in doubt as to 
where to draw the line between theoretical and science 
at best, it might appear that the be-all and end-all of 
these meetings is to read a paper. As a inatter of fact, tke 
best lies in the discussions which follow under more 
social conditions. Then the whole range of science may 
be covered conversationally without the necessity of stick- 
ing to any text in particular. Sometimes it is beyond 
the power of the listeners to discuss the subject on 
which the paper has been read. That was so on this 
evening. The title of the paper was "On the Attune- 
ment of Certain Harmonies in the Physical Constants," 
and there were only two men who knew what it was 
about — the author of the paper and a professor over in 
Germany. Under such circumstances any following con- 
versation must be general. 
"It is with the greatest pleasure," said the Professor, 
"that I have found since our last meeting a very positive 
piece of evidence going to prove a contention which I 
have for a long time been incHned to make, namely, that 
despite the impediment of general education and tnuch 
printing, the myth-making tendency remains still racial. 
Take the sun myth for an instance. You can trace it from 
the childhood of our Indo- Germanic race through all 
antiquity and the Middle Ages. And from the latter 
period of great fertility iii finally shaping many of our 
stories we get it among other guises in the fable of the 
goose that laid the golden egg. Now I find a charming 
proof that the same tendency is in continuous operation. 
It is contained in this small clipping from one of the 
newspapers of recent date. It is to the effect that a house- 
wife discovered a nugget of gold in the craw of the bird 
she was dressing for the table — a hen, I believe. The 
report continues that the butcher from whom she bought 
the hen is making a great effort to trace its prior history 
in the hope of finding the gold deposit. This was 
somewhere out in the Rocky Mountains, which is a 
country that I have heard some of our geological mem- 
bers describe as quite rich in auriferous strata. Now 
this trifling domestic incident is little in itself, but to a 
mind trained to watch for such things it is a beautiful 
demonstration of the vivid force even at the present 
day of the solar myth. It is my purpose some day to 
elaborate this theine in a memoir which I shall present 
to the National Academy of Sciences." 
"Can I say a word on the subject?" asked the Guest, a 
mining engineer who had been introduced by one of the 
School of Mines members. "Because I just want to 
say that while the Professor's sun myth explanation may 
be' the correct one, and I don't doubt it is, the facts upon 
which he bases his argument have all been published long 
ago. You may not know it, but it's true just the same, 
that when we get out into the mining country the mine 
superintendents who have graduated from the pick and 
shovel and pan rather affect to slur those of us who have 
graduated from the polytechnics — ^I'm a Freiburg man 
myself. Well, there was one of these self-made super- 
intendents who was hunting about for some_ way of 
hinting his disapproval of my methods of mining^ re- 
search — you know they are of decidedly direct and positive 
speech — and he assured me that he had 'an old hen that 
could locate a better gold claim than any tenderfoot en- 
gineer.' That was my first introduction to these ornitho- 
logical prospectors that the Professor here explains as a 
sunburst or some such thing. I've been interested in 
them more or less ever since, and I've kept tabs on the 
different stories as they have come out." 
"How very interesting," said the Professor. "I had 
no idea when I mentioned the subject that it would pos- 
sess any interest for any present. Perhaps there are 
others who share my desire that the mining gentleman 
supply us with a few more instances of this nature of 
phenomenon." 
"Why, certainly, gentlemen," replied the Guest from 
the mining country. "I had no desire to intrude in your 
social discussions, but seeing you're all interested, I can 
give a few more instances. The Professor here calls it 
a phenomenon. Well, it is certainly a phenomenal some- 
thing, but what that is I must leave you to determine for 
yourselves or else wait until the Professor writes that 
memoir for the National Academy. Now for some other 
instances. I've got the more recent ones jotted down in 
my pocket book, and they're all arranged according to the 
natural system according to the particular animal. Let's 
see — ^the Professor began the subject with a hen. I've got 
that same hen in my book. Cost the woman $1.25 for 
the hen at the butcher shop in Denver. Nugget weighed 
$1.15. Balance in favor of the hen, 10 cents. That's 
your hen, Professor, ain't it? I thought so. At any rate 
there hasn't been a hen for some time back. A little odd 
that we should both have become interested in the subject 
through the same kind of a bird. 
"Now, there's the turkey. That's a bird that's worked 
pretty hard at this kind of prospecting. The freshest 
one i have on the- turkey comes from Tucson. A poor 
prospector ottt on Carrizo Creek almost starving and en- 
tirely penniless knocks over a wild turkey with a club — 
most men can't get close enough to those wise Arizona 
bronze wings to knock them over with a Mauser — and 
finds three nuggets in the craw weighing, all told, $2.86. 
The chump finds he cannot eat his ttirkey without two 
loaves of stale bread and sage and onions and a whole 
lot of chicken fixin's to stuff' it with, so he goes to town 
with his gold, tanks up a little, I guess, gives the snap 
■away, the whole camp swarms up the Carrizo, and by 
the time the man gets back to stuff his bird the creek is 
so completely located that he can't find a square foot to 
build his fire on to cook the animal w-ith." 
"Remarkable, remarkable !" said the Professor. "Only 
to think t)f the unthinking action of one of our wild fowl 
being the means of bringing prosperity to a whole com- 
munity. It is wonderful indeed !" 
"Prosperity to what whole community?" ejaculated the 
Freiburg man who was the Guest. "Oh, I see> You're 
just gathering material for that sun myth memoir. Do 
you know, I thought at first you really meant it. 
"So much for the turkey bird. Now let's tackle the 
goose. You see I'm not attempting to be complete, I just 
want to run over the different animals that are engaged in 
this industry. Ah, this is pretty good for a goose ! It is 
credited to Idaho, and the human agent in this case is set 
down as a farmer. That shows the absurdity of/it. Do 
you think any sane man would take any Idaho man for 
a farmer? Well, this farmer away out in Idaho saw one 
day that something was wrong with his pet gander — the 
old bird that led the docile flock. When he first noticed 
it the gander had a most haughty air — neck curved back 
and generally like the swan. But at every attempt to 
move the bird simply slumped forward and dug his bill 
into the ground. Why, even to hiss, and that, you know, 
is the only delight in goose life, this gander had to build 
up a falsework of rocks and chips under his breastbone 
to hold him up. When the farmer came to investigate the 
difficulty he found that the gander's center of gravity had 
been brought unduly forward owing to a heavy lump in 
his craw, and that it was sufficient to overbalance him. 
The usual cause, but with a conditioning difference 
appropriate to the nature of the bird. Instead of nug- 
gets, the gander's craw was filled with flour gold. Being 
a water fowl, he had discovered a placer. 
"Then here's one in which ducks took a part. The San 
Joaquin marshes in California are all cut up into game 
preserves, and although there's any quantity of duck and 
teal in the proper season, it's about as much as your life 
is worth to get a shot. But at some point in their migra- 
tions, and it may be thousands of miles away, the ducks 
of the flight spend some time on a gold outcrop, just 
enough to accommodate them with a few pieces in their 
digestive organs. So, some bright chaps managed to 
poach on one of these preserves up the San Joaquin and 
got a few dozen birds. Then they got a qualified assay 
office to certify that the ducks ran on the milling average 
in gold a 'bit' to the bird — that's twelve and a half cents, 
you know, in that country. Armed with this certificate 
they entered up locations for mineral claims all over the 
slottghs. Of course title to mineral land is away ahead of 
any marsh land title, and it busted up the close preserves 
and gave everybody a chance at the birds." 
"My dear sir," commented the Professor, "that is a very 
valuable instance as showing that these cases of the finding 
of gold in birds are not sporadic, but may under proper 
conditions become of regular occurrence. It is most 
remarkable." 
"Well, yes," said the Guest who had been introduced 
bj-- the School of Mines man, "you're quite right ; in some 
respects that is rather remarkable. But we may expect 
much more remarkable data from South Africa when 
the characteristic bird of those parts begins to develop 
his possibilities in that line. Just stop and think of the 
magnificent possibilities when the ostrich begins toting 
gold specimens about. If a simple ordinary Colorado 
hen can assay $1.15 in gold, any medium-sized ostrich 
ought to be worth in the neighborhood of .$500 easily. It 
would be worth while to train a flock of ostriches to go. 
prospecting. There must be more in it than there is in 
grub stakes." 
"May I ask," said the Professor, who saw his great 
memoir right within his grasp, "I should really like to 
know if you have formed any theory as to why the avi- 
fauna of the United States has become so selective of the 
precious metals and as to why the ostrich does not share 
that selectivity?" 
"Oh, I guess my theory's about the right one. The^ 
reason is that the intelligence of the inhabitants of South^ 
Africa, both Boers and British, is not exactly as sprightly 
as that of the very ingenious men out West who have 
mines to sell. That will abundantly account for it. And 
it's not restricted to birds either. There was one story 
Lyin' Jim Beckwourth used to tell about a grizzly." ^ 
"How much we do miss, to be sure," interrupted the' 
Professor, "in our formal societies. It's mister, or at 
most professor or doctor, with us; but out West they* 
retain the right to call a man by something personal. 
There was an instance in our friend's narrative. 'Lion 
Jim' Beckwourth, he said. Does that not recall to you 
some man of valor as unshaken as the noble beast whose 
name is linked with his by his appreciative companioris? 
Pray excuse my interruption ; I could not help it," 
"Don't mention it. While Lyin' Jim wasn't named- 
exactly for the reason you suggest, the epithet was well 
earned and freely given by all who knew him. Well, he 
had a story about a big silver-tip grizzly that he'd hunted/ 
a long time in vain. They were pretty well matched, the"" 
pair of them, and if there were any tricks of grizzlies, Jim^- 
knew those tricks, and if there were any tricks of men 
your Uncle Ephraim. was onto them. That was what made 
it interesting between the two of them, and it was going 
to be a pretty big feather in the cap of whichever 
one it was that downed the other. Now one morning 
there was everything to show that the bear had been in 
Jim's corral, and Jim got warm again and swore it was 
time for one or the other of them two to get out of 
that region of the high Sierras. So he out after the bear, 
and the trail being so fresh, was very easy to follow. 
After some miles the trail was lost, but that never 
bothered Lyin' Jim. He picked it up all right as muchi 
as three miles further on, but it was different — there was* 
a blood mark that there had not been before in the right 
hind paw, and it could be seen that old silver-tip was 
favoring that paw. Pretty soon Jim caught up with 
Uncle Ephraim, looking might}' sick and making only- 
slow time hop and go fetch it. That was bigger luck than 
had ever happened to Jim before in connection with his 
king bear, and he lost no time in getting in the shot that 
finished him for good and all. Come to skin the bear, 
Lyin' Jim says that he found imbedded in the pad of th'=: 
lame foot a hunk of quartz with as pretty a specimen ol 
flaky gold as, he evgr saw. Somewhere in the gap of 
the trail the bear had jumped down on this piece of float 
and lamed himself. Now, some men would have kept V 
thing like that to themselves, but that was not the sort of 
man Lyin' Jim was. He was no hog; he didn't want the!| 
whole thing; he was willing to let as many as possible 
have a chance at a fortune if only they'd put up at his. 
house while they were hunting for it, and he didn't charge 
them more for 'their board than was reasonable. 
"I don't know, Professor, if that story of the bear and 
Lyin' Jim Beckwourth is exactly what you want fpr 
