Aug. II, igoo.1 
FOREST_ANDlSTREijvI. 
heads alid ten horns — a work oi art which tascinated me 
at the same time that it half-frightened me. I mention 
these trifling details because they are among my earliest 
iind deepest impressions. 
Another point of contact with the Blacklick was Lich- 
enthaler's Ford. We took this ford on the way to Hope- 
well, a little country church painted white, which stood 
on a low hill in the midst of a quiet pastoral region, witli 
a churchyard adjoining it, where the rude forefathers 
lA the hamlet slept in peace, each under his grassy knoll, 
while overhead swam the hawk on . noiseless pinions in 
v^ast circles through the azure depths. Lichenthaler's 
Ford was noticeable as the site of an ancient Indian . 
village. The dark soil showed where the Indian women 
had cultivated their fields of maize through many years, 
while flint arrow heads and fragments of rude pottery 
were mingled with the soil. In the adjacent forest w^ere 
low lumuli, which were believed to be the last resting 
places of the primitive inhabitants; but there had not 
yet developed among their successors enough of anti 
nuarian zeal or curiosity to lead aiiybody to explore 
tiese mounds. The red man was still too near in point 
uf time. The chief impression of him which remained 
was that of a troublesome customer whom people were 
glad to have got rid of and whom nobody wished to 
have anything more to do with. 
A third crossing of the Blacklick in oiir neighbor- 
hood was . by a white-painted bridge near the mouth of 
the creek. A small stream called Altman's Run comes 
in here from the north, and on it stood a sawmill. It was 
a little old-style sawmill, open on all sideSj and wath an 
vipright saw. It was important to me in one way. be- 
cause it iilu.strated the modus operandi by which the bear 
in the story in' McGuffey's old "Third Reader," who 
hugged the saw while it was in operation and clung to 
it until he was sawed through and "fell off into the 
tiood," was killed. At tlie farmhouse here was a spaciou.s 
orchard. How vividly it all comes back into memory! 
The rich fruitage pendent on the boughs and the fallen 
apples, all golden and red-checked, lying in the grass. 
Sub arborc poma. And walking among the trees, I 
recall the owner, a venerable white-haired and" white- 
shirted man with whose appearance my infancy was 
familiar. He was a devout Lutheran, very dull of hear- 
ing, and a principal prop in the denomination. In order 
that he might hear the sermon, he always stood in tiic 
pulpit cheek by jowl with the preacher. The top of his 
head was bald and shining, the long white locks about the 
sides and back of his head fell down over his wide white 
collar, and his calm demeanor as he leaned forward upon 
the pulpit and scanned the congregation I recall per- 
fectly well. His presence in the pulpit had become so 
customary that it excited no remark, and his absence 
from his post would have been as noticeable as that ot 
the minrster. I remember going once into his orchard 
when he. was there, and picking up an apple I bit it, but 
not liking the taste of it I threw it away, upon which he 
reproved me for my wastefulness and remarked that in 
the winter I might be glad to have that apple. I did not 
think to ask him if my chance of having it then would 
be any better if I ate it now. 
A short distance beyond the farm of which I write were 
the traces of an old, long-deserted village, which was 
known as Newport. What the history of Newport was 
I never heard, but it would seem to have been one of the 
many villages that sprung up along the line of the once 
famous Frankstown road. This highway was authorized 
by the Legislature of Pennsylvania as early as 1787. 
Some parts of it yet remain, and are still known by that 
name. But the construction of the great northern turn- 
pike about the year 1820 diverted much of the travel 
from the Frankstown road, and Newport succumbed 
to the rivalry of Blairsville, at the crossing of the 
Conemaugh, ordy two or three miles away. 
In my early days a ruined tenement, a solitary stone 
chimney and several excavations and dilapidated founda- 
tion walls marked the site of this abandoned village. 
Of course the old house was said to be haunted. The 
local Ichabod Crane was prepared to see a spook sitting 
upon the roof-tree in the gloaming, and looking in at the 
cashless windows at certain hours some such sight pre- 
sented itself as Tam O'Shanter beheld in the "'auld 
Kirk of .\lloway": 
"Warlocks and witclies in a dance." 
I came across there late one night with two or three 
companions returning from Liver more; but none of us 
saw any ghost. T think none of us tried to see one. I 
know t did not. It was a remark of that shrewd old 
philosoplier Dr. Samuel Johnson that many men deny 
with their tongues their belief in ghosts, but confess it in 
their fears. 
Very pleasant to me are the memories of the Black- 
lick — its clear waters gliding over the dark, moss-covered 
stones in the channel; the occasional glimpses of fishes 
in the pellucid depths, their whhe sides flashing for a 
moment in the sunlight as they balanced themselves on 
ii new course; the forest-lined banks, cool and quiet, 
where wild pigeons, partridges, pheasants and squirrels 
lived in comparative safety; the cultivated fields along 
the shores, where the harvester swung his primitive 
cradle among the standing grain, while wotnen and boys 
followed in his wake and bound up the sheaves. No 
such streams flow elsewhere. I am not surprised that 
Maaman, far from home, should think the rivers of 
Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all 
the waters of Israel. T. J. Chapman. 
Pbm.n'SVLVANIA. 
A Buried Toad's Long Sleep. " 
Wliile niaking excavations in connection with the pre- 
liminary work of widening Forest Hills Square, West 
Roxlittry District, a workman digging at a depth of about 
S c i g feet noticed a peculiar ball of dirt. He picked it 
up and broke it open and was greatlj' surprised to find 
that the crust of clay contained a toad. He called the 
attention of the boss to his "find," and as they examined 
it the toad began to expand; it then began to extend its 
legs, opened its eyes and in a few minutes Jumped from 
the laborer's hand. The boss .said that the road at that 
point had not. to his knowledge, been opened in fifteen 
years and how the toad had lived in its comatose condi- 
tion all tliose years was a matter of the greatest wonder 
tu all who witnessed its revival. 
The White-Footed Mouse. 
Editor forest and Stream: 
The white-footed mouse has taken possession of "my 
cabin. Until a year ago the mice were kept in check by 
stoats, but for some reason the stoats have failed to ap- 
pear, and the mice are increasing rapidly, I^ find their 
nests in every nook and corner. I go bareheaded the 
most of the time, so it happens that when I do need a' hat 
1 find It occupied by an enterprising mouse and her 
family. Now a few mice lor company in the winter 
evenings would not be objectionable, but I draw the line 
when they become so numerous that I am forced to 
cat and sleep with them. They are too cunning and in- 
telligent to be kept in chock by traps. I have tried all 
kinds of traps, only to find them useless. Last winter 
I bought a wire rat trap— the kind with a trencher thai 
tips and slides the rat into the space below,. The trap 
was a failure. The mice were highly delighted with the 
contrivance, and from the first used the trencher as . a 
door leading into and out of the trap. 
How does it happen that these shy inhabitants of the 
woods are more inteliligcni than the cunning cit rat? 
Some writers tell us that the lower animals cannot 
reason. In such case it ought to be an easy matter for. 
man to outwit a lot of fnoli.sh little mice. I tried the 
experiment by fixing a wire to the trencher in such a way 
as to give me Itill control. When the mice were engaged 
AT CHIPMUNK LODGE. 
on the food in the trap I pulled my wire and made it 
fast. The next morning my prisoners numbered twenty- 
eight. I was about to drown the lot, when several pets 
i lung to the upper wires of the trap, and the mute ap- 
peal in their great wild eyes softened my foolish heart, 
and I thought it would be more humane to lose them in 
the woods. I carried them nearly a mile from the cabin 
and turned them out near some' big boulders. I left a 
.supply of food and promised myself to feed tliem from 
time to time. Two nights later they were all back in the 
cabin. Upon investigation I found that they had followed 
my footsteps. I could see their tracks in the snow where 
they had trooped ;dong in short journeys. At the end 
of each journey the tracks would disappear under a 
boulder or a tree, only to appear again, but always head- 
ing for the cabin. 
I baited and fixed the trap, while the mice scampered 
abotlt, evidently celebrating their return. I told them 
plainly that this was their last night on earth; that I had 
outwitted them once and would now outwit them again. 
But all my boasting came to naught. Not a mouse 
would enter that trap while the wire was on the 
trencher. The third night I removed the wire, and the 
mice entered the trap without fear. 
Vainglorious man had pitted his wit against the wit 
of these little rodents and the rodents had triumphed. 
Every sportsman knows how it is. He finds the wild 
things just as intelligent and crafty as man with all his 
boasted 3>uperiorit3'. 
The white-footed mouse, unlike the house tiiouse, is 
a handsome fellow. He sports a chestnut coat, a white 
vest, reddish brown trousers and white stockings. His 
eyes and ears arc uncommonly large, causing his head to 
resemble a deer's in miniature. This resejiiblance has 
bestowed upon him the name of "'deer mouse.^' He is also 
called "wood mouse," but is known to science as Hesper- 
umys kucopiis. 
My object in writing about these mice is to call atten- 
tion to their pecidiar method of communication. I have 
summered and wintered them over fifteen years, ' and 
never have I heard one of them utter, a vocal sound. 
They communicate with each other by drumming with 
their fore feet, or, rather, they drum with their toes, for 
ihe foot in the act is held rigid while the toes move. 
If any writer has called attention to this peculiar 
niethod of communication it has escaped my reading. I 
am well satisfied that the habit has never been published 
before, so it must prove interesting to those who pry 
into the secrets of Dame Nature.- 
Some time in the future I will write about the dififer- 
ent calls of these mice, . and of their food, intelligerice, 
etc. _^ Hermit. 
At Chipmunk Lodge. 
The portrait is of Forest and Stxieam's long-time con- 
tributor, Hon. Win. N. Byers, of Denver, Colo. It is a 
snap shot at Chipmunk Lodge, his country home near 
Colorado Springs, where Mr. Byers tells us. and the 
picture attests, the .squirrels are most friendly and confiding. 
Persistent Nestings. 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
Mr J; Merton Swain in thcjiily 28 ntimber of ForesI' 
AND Stream, gives 'a very , interesting narrative of his 
experience with two red-shouldered hawks, in relation 
to their breeding habits, covering a period of seventeen 
years of uninterrupted observ'ation. Aside from the 
.generally interesting character of Mr. Swain's weli-told 
narrative, the occurences related by him of the second 
breeding of these birds, and one season a third breeding, 
after being deprived of the first and usual laying of eggs 
suggests some reflections, about the exercise of mental 
faculties and functional activities by these hawks, to meej 
extraordinary and accidental exigencies, that sfeem quite 
wonderful. " 
This is, of course, not a new thought by any means 
as the subject has doubtless engaged the attention of 
-students of natural history many times before now. Still 
it seems to merit a passing notice in your pages. 
There are many kinds of birds whose habit is to breed 
oftener than once during a season when conditions are 
favorable. There are other kinds whose nests are so 
exposed to chances of being destroyed Ijiat bountiful 
nature make_^s provision for supplying such losses when 
sustained. Such birds undoubtedly have a store of em- 
bryoiiic ova ready for use in such contingencies. But I 
take it that the hawks do not belong to either category 
and it seems strange that nature should supply a reserve 
store of eggs for ready use to meet such a remote con 
tingency as the destruction of the first set, in the case 
of the hawks. But the second, and even third, arousing 
oi the procreative instincts in response to so unusual a 
demand seems to indicate a certain power of mental 
initiative in them that is still more wonderful 
There are many birds and other creatures whose pro- 
creative functions are excited into activity at a certain 
ever-recurring period year after year, which process has 
continued for so many generations as to have acquired 
all the force of hereditary instinct in its periodicity. But 
in the classes of creatures here referred to the exceptional 
demands upon them us the result of accident would 
seem to be too infrequent to bring into action faculties 
that belong to the domain of implanted instinct, which 
IS the product of persistent experience. 
The conclusion seems inevitable that hawks are en- 
downed with those mental faculties that we call reason- 
ing powers. 
On the other hand, we are frequently reminded that 
111 the unfathomable profundity of nature's laboratory 
there are resources that lie without the channels of our 
ordinary contemplation. This is exemplified in the in- 
genuity displayed to supply substitutes for defects and 
remedies for injuries in living organisms; in the phenom- 
enal acuteness of the' auricular nerves when the optics 
are wanting, and vice versa; in. the astonishing sensitive- 
ness of the organs of touch when all the other senses are 
gone; in the readiness with which one of duplicate vital 
organs assiunes the burdens of both, after one has been 
destroyed; in the immediate enlargement of collateral 
veins in the human body when a principal vein (the 
jugular, for instance) has been severed. These examples 
may not be "pat to the purpose," but are suggestive of 
nature's resourcefulness in regions beyond our ken, 
Charles Darwin, in his industrious and untiring re- 
searches, discovered that the roots of plants are pro- 
vided at their terminals with a highly specialized "tip," 
possessing a- degree of sensitiveness and powers, of dis- 
crimination akin to consciousness. With the "tip" cut 
off, the root has lost its eyes, as it were, and proceeds 
blindly m a straight line, in any direction that it happens 
to lie in. 
When a new "tip" has been restored, it proceeds with 
seeming intelligence — if a tap root it becomes again 
geocentric, pursuing . its way downwa:rd, but turning 
aside from obstacles before actually encountering them, 
etc. If a lateral root, through the guidance of the "tip" 
moist regions are sought, and selection is made from the 
soil of those particular ingredients that are needed for 
the growth of the plant and the perfecting of its specific 
generative germs. 
Perhaps these hawks are provided with one of nature's 
mysterious "tips." . Who can tell? Coahoma. 
Missis-sippi. 
South Sea Crayfish. 
It is not to be supposed that the white resident in 
Samoa goes entirely hungry because of disinclination to 
eat the tasteless messes of the native co'okery. One can 
always fall back. on provisions in tins, and the palate, 
through much suffering, acquires a fine discernment of 
the delicate shades of flavor as between tin and tin. But 
too much tin is apt to pall, and the epicure is driven 
to seek something fresh to eat. 
No fault can be found with the crayfish of the Samoan 
rivers. It is fresh, it cannot be spoiled in the cooking 
and it has as fine a flavor as any crustacean even in the 
country which ha, the double blessing of the soft-shell 
crab and the Newburg kind of lobster. When fully 
grown they average 4 inches in length of body, and are 
about as thick as a man's thumb. The males, which 
possess the finer flavor, are to be distifiguished by the 
extreme length of the very slender first pair of claws 
which not uncommonly attain the length of a foot These 
crustaceans fairly swarm in the mountain streams, and 
particularly affect the rock pools of their upper courses 
They are so common and so easily taken that the 
Samoans, whose ideas of prices are decidedly magnificent 
peddle them in cocoanut baskets of fifty crayfish for six- 
pence. 
In catching tliem, dams of stone are thrown across the 
stream with a small net stretched across the gap left for 
the passage of the water. Beginning far above the dam 
the fishermen wade down the stream at the break of 
day, beating the water with saplings and prizing over the 
large stones in the watercourse. Daybreak is the favorite 
feeding time of the crayfish, or, at least, as they are of 
nocturnal habit, the morning twilight is the most con- 
venient time for the fishermen to find them out of their 
hiding places under the rocks. The disturbance of the 
water drives them down stream, and there they crowd the 
net to bursting when they reach the dam. 
