S04 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
IMaxch i6, igot. 
say, "Come on, I've got the buck now." And while I 
was going to her she leisurely went into a pond, bathed 
and drank, came out and took the track and led us 
straight to the buck's lair. He must have been sleep- 
ing soundly in the saw palmettos by the little clear pond, 
for Ida led me within ten steps of him. I dropped my 
bridle reins, and the pony went to nipping grass, while 
Ida, with her ears raised, crept on to the deer, put him 
up, and, although the "rip" from the rattling palmetto is 
no tame noise, the pony never looked up while I was 
sliooting, nor did he flinch when the buck was tied be- 
hind my saddle. Neither men nor dogs wanted for fresh 
venison from thence on. 
In our attempts, to recross Lake Winder we had to 
camp, on its shore for forty-eight hours on account of 
hard winds before we made the attempt. This was not 
unpleasant, as quail, turkey and ducks were near in 
abundance. Near by our tent was a huge live oak, about 
10 feet above the roots of which put out four large limbs, 
themselves trees. Branching out with a great 
stretch these limbs came together at the top, thus 
forming a graceful and perfect globe, all tasselated 
with long hanging gray moss. As our great fire of rich 
pine illuminated this tree, how spooky and wierd its rays 
appeared among the pendent moss! Now and then the 
glinting leaves of the magnolia, which thrust its branches 
among the moss, shone like a hundred little mirrors. 
Well, well, this is a semi-savage life, but who of the 
active among us wishes the lingering basic element of 
maii— the savage— civilized out of him? The dazzling 
sparkle of the electric chandelier has taken the place 
of the camp-fire and the goblin moss strands, but I leave 
it to the world to say which of the two inspires most 
the stirring manhood that the world relies on. 
S. C. Graham. 
Welsh Indians. 
Editor Forest and Stream: . ^, , 
In reference, but not in answer, to Mr.' Chapman s 
query in Forest and Stream of Feb. 2, "What became of 
these Welsh-speaking Indians, that they have not been 
discovered by modern travelers?" I would refer him to 
George Catlin's "North American Indians." 
Catlin spent eight vears, 1832-9, among the Indians then 
located west of the Mississippi and in the "hospitable and 
gentlemanlv Mandans," to quote his words. He seemed 
to feel quite sure that he had found the last relic of the 
blood of Madoc. At the time he wrote they comprised 
only some 2,000 souls in two villages, though their tradi- 
tions all pointed to a former state of great numbers and 
po^'er. They had apparently been gradually forced up 
the Mississippi, until they had reached a point on the 
Missouri near what is now the boundary between North 
and South Dakota. • . • 
Catlin laid great stress upon the difference in their 
dwellings, manners, customs, and, I think, particularly 
the variations in the color of the hair, comprising every 
shade but red or auburn, and the fact of their having hazel 
gray and blue eyes. His idea was that at some time 
after the settlement of Madoc and his followers the Welsh 
were all massacred, while the half-bloods had been al- 
lowed to live, and that this Welsh blood still showed 
faintly after the lapse of centuries in various ways m these 
Mandans. They had no tradition of ever having seen 
white men before' Lewis and Clark visited them, yet Clark 
described them to Catlin as "a strange people and half- 
white." , ^ ,. , i-r ^• 
The tribe entirely disappeared during Catlm s life time, 
but I do not remember that he states the cause. 
San Francisco, Cal. 
One Buck that Was Dangerous. 
Camp R. S. Mackenzie, Near Puerto Principe, Cuba, 
Feb ig— Editor Forest and Stream: You sometimes 
have a column headed "That Reminds Me," and having 
just completed the reading aloud to my little son Mr. 
Wells' more than interesting article on the subject of 
dangerous wild animals, together with your pertinent re- 
marks on the same subject, I am moved to give my 
personal experience to aid in the demonstration that a 
deer is a dangerous animal, and that he doesn't have to 
be so terriblv wild either. 
A few years ago I was stationed at Fort Meade, m 
South Dakota. One exceedingly cold day I had occasion 
to go to the neighboring town, and as it was so unusually 
cold, I concluded I would walk, for the distance was but 
a few miles, and I thought I Avould be more comfortable 
in going that way than by either riding or driving. I 
was warmly dressed and wore German socks and enor- 
mous arctics upon my feet. I was well enough adapted 
to walking along, but as there was a few inches of snow 
upon the ground, I was not exactly tricked out in the 
best manner for a scuffle, as events proved. As I wa.s 
leaving the house, my wife called out to me, askmg it 
I couldn't bring her a few eggs, as she was entirely out 
and could get none elsewhere such cold weather. I 
told her I guessed I might probably bring a half-dozen m 
my overcoat pockets. I attended to my affairs in town 
in due season, purchased the eggs, putting three in each 
pocket, and had gotten about half-way honje, \yhen I saw 
coming toward me in the road a pretty fair sized white- 
tailed buck. I had heard that one of the men had recently 
gotten a tame deer, and I inferred at once that this was 
the; one and that he had broken out of his yard, so I 
walked along, paying no further attention to him. My set- 
ter was with me, and as he trotted on ahead, of course he 
couldn't resist the temptation to bark a little at the deer. 
The deer apparently paid no attention to the dog, but as 
I approached he made quite a semicircle in order to pass 
me on the road, holding his head down and facing to- 
ward me all the while in a most peculiar manner. In 
fact, his threatening aspect as he passed me awakened my 
suspicions, and I turned around to see what he was up 
to. It was doubtless well for me that I did so, for I dis- 
covered the rascal within a few feet of me, his head still 
lowered, and in the act of charging me from the rear. 
There appeared but one thing for me to do, and that was 
to seize him by the antlers. 
I lost no time in acting upon this inspiration, and as I 
weigh about 175 pounds and am fairly vigorous, I had 
no great difficulty in holding his head so close to the 
ground that he was unable to use his forefeet upon me. as 
he was evidently attempting to do. We scuffled and tore 
around in the snow, my great arctics and German socks 
preventing me from getting any foothold whatever, where- 
by I could get tlie better of him, and though he bruised 
me in good shape with the points of his antlers with every 
rush that he made upon me, nevertheless I dared not let 
go of them for fear I should be attacked in the face with 
his sharp hoofs, so we kept up the struggle. 
I have said that the day was cold when I started out, 
but after a few minutes' engagement with this partner I 
didn't find it cold at all; and even yet, after two years' 
service iif Cuba, I can still remember how hot it was in 
Dakota that February morning. I was also getting pretty 
well out of breath, while the deer's courage appeared as 
good as ever, and I was beninging to wonder how I was 
going to excuse myself from so objectionable a partner. 
In the story books the hunter's faithful dog frequently 
rescued him from such perilous positions by bravely rush- 
ing in and seizing the foe by the throat, but mine dis- 
creetly kept at a distance, and though I believe he brought 
the whole mischief on by barking at the deer in the first 
place, instead of coming to my relief like a good story 
book dog, he made matters worse by continuing to irritate 
the deer by his barking. I had hitherto remained quiet to 
preserve my strength, but I recalled seeing some men 
cutting ice at no great distance away on my way to town, 
though the pond was screened from my present view by a 
fringe of bushes. I saw no prospect of getting the better 
of the deer myself, and the only way out of it seemed the' 
chance of making those men hear me if they were still 
there. I called as lustily as I could, and in course of 
time three men came and relieved me of my troublesome 
antagonist. Perhaps it is needless to say that my wife 
never made any cake out of those eggs. 
I found upon subsequent inquiry that this buck had 
been raised as a pet upon a large cattle ranch, and the 
herders had constantly irritated him for the purpose of 
making him show fight, until they had gotten him so cross 
that it was dangerous to have him around, and the man- 
ager had gotten rid of him on this account. 
I trust no one will assume that I am discussing the 
general question of the danger from wild animals. I am 
merely writing for the columns of "That Reminds Me." 
Wm. F. Flynn. 
Another Maine Panther. 
In our issue of Feb. 16 was printed a letter from Mr. 
Gardiner Cram, of Brunswick, Me., relating the occur- 
rence of a Maine panther, as within his personal experi- 
ence. That letter Mr. Ames now supplements with the 
subjoined one from another correspondent: 
Skowhegan, Me. — Mr. C. H. Ames. Dear Sir: You 
say that Mr. Gardiner Cram, of Brunswick, Me., tells you 
that an animal that I saw near the Forks of the Kennebec 
River last fall was a panther, or that it was my strong im- 
pression that it was such. I am absolutely certain that I 
saw a panther, or catamovint, which I understand to be 
the same thing, the first of last June about four miles 
above or north of the Forks of the Kennebec River, 
I was coming from Parlin Pond toward Skowhegan, 
my home, on the stage that runs from the Forks to Parlin 
Pond on the only highway which leads from Skowhegan 
through the forests of Maine and Canada to Quebec. The 
highway leads generally north and south; we had ridden 
or passed through a strip of forest ten miles from Parlin 
Pond to the West Forks Hotel, and had^ssed the 
hotel about a mile. No one -was on board thr'stage ex- 
cepting Charles York, the driver, and myself. I was 
looking into a field lately cleared and covered with grass 
to get sight at a deer, with which the country abounded. 
As we passed down by the field and struck the evergreen 
bushes, with which the road on both sides was skirted^ the 
driver, Mr. York, called my attention to the fact that he 
saw a deer jump into the bushes on the east side of the 
road. I immediately turned and looked carefully. I dis- 
covered nothing in the bushes, but happening to look 
down the road over which we were traveling, I saw an 
animal trotting along ahead of us in the road. I could 
see nothing but his rump as he was going from us. The 
driver remarked that that was not the animal that he 
saw, because that one had jumped into the bushes, but 
that it looked just like it. 
Both of us watched the animal with a great deal of 
interest, for Mr. York was an old woodsman^ and I have 
always had a great deal of interest in the wild animals of 
our State^. We saw him for several rods plainly, and we 
also approached nearer to him, as our horse was trotting 
at a pretty smart gait. Finally the creature turned and 
sprang into the woods. As he did that I saw him plainly ; 
his neck and breast were much lighter in color and he had 
the catamount head and form. 
As near as I could estimate he was about 7 feet long 
from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail; his tail was 
something less than half his length, and curved upward 
toward the end exactly like that of a panther or cata- 
mount. While I never saw a panther in the woods be- 
fore, I have seen them in menageries, and I have no doubt 
about this animal being a panther. It certainly could not 
have been anything else. It appeared to have an enor- 
mous development of the muscle in the hind leg and the 
hip, and when it sprang into the woods it scarcely seemed 
to make any effort. Mr. York, who has been a woodsman 
all his life, remarked to me that he had seen all sorts of 
wild animals in the woods, but had never seen anything 
like that before, and he expressed the opinion that from 
what he had heard of the appearance of such animals it 
was a catamount. Evidently there was a pair of those 
animals near together when we came down the road. One 
of them sprang into the woods and the other trotted down 
the road, as I have already stated. There was a school- 
house a short distance below where we saw those aniinals, 
where several small children attended summer school. I 
requested the driver to notify the parents what we had 
seen, so that they might protect their children, and he 
promised to do so. When we reached the Forks, where 
there is a small settlement, I notified every one that I 
met what we had seen. We afterward ascertained that 
the people at the West Forks Hotel that we had just 
passed when we saw the animal had both seen and heard 
these creatures. Mrs. Davis Purse, the landlandy, had 
seen her husband's cattle running out of the woods chased 
by some large animal, which she took to be of the cat 
kind, although it was a long distance away. They had 
also heard the cry of some animal, which in their way of 
expressing it they called a "screech." The landlord had 
also sent hi's little girl to school in the charge of one of 
his men. 
These people had said but little about this before we 
saw these animals, for the reason that, even in that wild 
country, any one who tells a story outside of ordinary 
occurrences is accused of "drawing the long bow," or in 
the words of your letter, they are "skeptical of the occur- 
rence of a panther in Maine." There are no settlers in 
this country except occasionally a woodsman or river 
driver who lives along on the Canada road before men- 
tioned. The country is full of deer, and I did not think 
it at all strange that we should discover these animals as 
we did. Any further information I can give you I vdll 
cheerfully furnish. Very truly yours, 
S. J. Walton. 
til 
jThe Fear of Snakes. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In a late number my attention was arrested by an 
editorial paragraph in which I am called upon to ex- 
plain the fear that manifests itself in -the minds of 
children toward snakes at an age when such fear can 
not have resulted either from teaching or experience. A 
little further on in your pages I come upon an article from 
the hand of my esteemed and gifted friend, Col. E. P. 
Alexander, who, it seems, has been sharpening a knife 
for me for a good while past, and who, while patting 
me on the back with one hand, with the other impales me 
upon the keen point of his logic, all unmindful of the 
squirms and wriggles that must ensue from such an 
ordeal. 
Col. Alexanders adroit fencing demands my first atten- 
tion, and I must even set my lance in rest to maintain 
my side of the controversy, with such puissance as I may, 
trusting to find some weak joints in the Colonel's armor. 
As I understand Col. Alexander's argument, his scheme 
of philosophy assigns to one domain various more or less 
incongruous elements. The causes and activities that 
combine to make variety of species — in other words, the 
processes of organic evolution; organic functional proc- 
esses, and that which lies back of all these, the great im- 
penetrable mystery, the fundamental life principle — he 
combines under the general designation "sub-ego," which 
he holds as equivalent to my "mysterious tip." 
Col. Alexander's bete noir appears to be the assumption 
that the "variation of species" in the Darwinian scheme 
of evolutionary development rests upon "blind chance" or 
unguided accident. I believe this is a "straw man" that 
the Colonel has set up for the satisfaction of exercising 
his astute reasoning, powers in buffeting and discom- 
fiting him. 
In the language of one of Mark Twain's interesting 
characters, "There is no such thing as accidents; it's a 
special providence," with which doctrine the Colonel seems 
fully in accord. But in the language of science also, 
"There is no such thing as accidents." While the words 
"accidental" or "by chance" may have been used in a 
conventional sense, it is recognized as a basic principle of 
scientific philosophy that no phenomenon can occur except 
as the result of an adequate cause, and the two elements — 
cause and effect — are mutually interdependent for exist- 
ence, and consequently inseparable, both causes and effects 
being absolutely under the dominion of inexorable law. 
So the "chance variations" in the development of species 
result from the operation of natural law, the causes 
being found in the environment. There are many such 
so-called "chance variations," all caused by peculiarities 
of environment. Some_ of these confer advantages on 
individuals or races, giving them a superiority over their 
less fortunate rivals in the struggle for existence, enabling 
the better endowed to survive while those less favorably 
equipped perish, according to the universal law of the 
"survival of the fittest." 
There does not appear to be any inscrutible mystery 
about this process, and certainly no "chance" in the strict 
meaning of that term; but all is in obedience to law, and 
the relations of cause and effect are not difficult to per- 
ceive. This gives an impetus to the further development 
of such advantageous variations, thus giving rise to the 
differentiation of species, all such phenomena being con- 
trolled by natural law. This is the plain story that evolu- 
tion tells. 
But Col. Alexander's "blue print" scheme, as I appre- 
hend it, makes his "guiding intelligence" play the role of 
a yard master in an extensive railroad yard, who, sitting 
in a tower, by the manipulation of levers directs the 
movements of a multitude of cars, and having made a 
"blue print" of the train he is making up, controls by 
means of his system of levers the detailed movements of 
each car in the process. According to this^ theory natural 
laws are not self-operative, but must await the initiative 
of the guiding intelligence." 
If the stem of the apple is detached from the tree, the 
"guiding intelligence" must release the law of gravity by 
pulling a lever before the apple can descend to the 
ground. 
If I have misapprehended Col. Alexander's meaning as 
to the role of his "guiding intelligence" in the work of 
evolution, I must crave his pardon. 
Organic Functions. 
So far as human insight is able to penetrate, the 
activities that are involved in the exercise of organic 
functions present a mystery as unfathomable as that en^ 
shrouded in the life principle itself, of which, indeed, they 
seem to be part and parcel. 
The two little microscopic specks of matter that consti- 
tute the germs of two distinct species of organic life, 
while perhaps chemically identical in substance, embody 
within their small compass potentialities of the life prin- 
ciple, and functional differentiation^ of such stupendous 
import as to cause the vast orbs of inorganic matter that 
revolve in universal space, notwithstanding their mere 
