B6A 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May U, 1^1. 
— ^ — 
The American Ornithologist a 
Hundred Years Ago and 
Now. 
When the ornithologist nowadays decides upon an ex- 
pedition to any remote or outlying section of the country 
he gets up comfortably at 8 o'clock, takes a hansom to the 
railway station and boards a luxurious train which whisks 
him at the rate of fifty or sixty miles an hour to his 
destination. Arrived there, if he have not a well-ap- 
pointed inn to put up at (and the chances are he will), he 
(with the aid of one or more henchmen) pitches a tent 
proof against wind or weather and spreads out his equip- 
ment, including a sleeping bag, a repeating shotgun, a 
binocular iield glass, a tele-photo camera, an ornithological 
"key," a specimen case, a stylographic pen, a barometer, a 
compass, and last, but not least, a miscelleanous collection 
of tin cans and boxes. Having inspected all these and put 
them in order, he sits down in a calm and pleasantly an- 
ticipatory frame of mind to smoke his pipe. At night he 
gets into his sleeping bag and woos Morpheus as success- 
fully as he might in a feather bed. When morning comes 
he goes forth appropriately clad for the season and accom- 
panied by an experienced guide. Safely he wanders over 
the country, nothing occurring to mar the pleasure of his 
pursuit except a possible shower. When the day begiris 
to decline he strolls back leisurely to camp, changes his 
clothes, refreshes himself with a Martini (ready made) 
and then sits down to a meal which would have caused 
epicurus to wonder. Finally, when he returns to town, he 
sends his specimens to a taxidermist to have them set up 
and then to an artist, who draws and colors them. The 
only thing that remains for him to do is to dictate to a 
stenographer the story of his experiences. 
Contrast this with the ordeal of Alexander Wilson, that 
pioneer of American ornithology, a hundred years ago. 
With practically a virgin field to explore, he lacked, we 
may say, every aid or adjunct of those we have enu- 
merated. Even if he had money he would have lacked 
them, but he had no money, at least as we understand the 
phrase. A poor schoolmaster, his whole possession may 
be summed up in this: Mens sana in corpore sano — 
a sound mind in a sound body. We say "a sound mind," 
but it may not be amiss to mention that in his day there 
were' many of those who knew him — the great majority 
perhaps — who considered him downright crazy. And 
why? Because he loved birds. Had he set his heart upon 
good, fat swine he would have passed for a man of sense ; 
but birds !— clearly the man who loved anything so useless 
must be crazy. Heigh ho ! Is the world so very much 
different to-day? But no matter. The man devoted to 
science or an ideal cares little for the opinion of the world. 
So it was with Wilson. He gave himself up to the love 
and study of the feathered tribe perfectly regardless of 
what his neighbors thought or said. In the hours before 
or after school he would stroll out through the fields and 
woods and there use his eyes and ears with unalloyed 
delight. But he aspired to be more than a mere amateur 
ornithologist, and at length fortune favored his aspiration. 
Falling in with a publisher in Philadelphia who was bring- 
ing out a natural history, Wilson suggested that it be 
made as complete as possible in the ornithological depart- 
ment, and offered to make expeditions through the coun- 
try in search of knowledge. The publisher agreed vnth his 
suggestion and accepted his offer, but he does not appear 
to have advanced poor Wilson much money, for we find 
him setting out on his first expedition with hardly more 
in the way of equipment than a horse, a shotgun, a couple 
of blankets and a little provision of dried meat and 
biscuit. 
Think of this man, equipped in the manner stated, set- 
ting out to penetrate the wilderness of North America! 
Not to speak of the danger from wild beasts and wilder 
men, there were the mysterious hazards of the unknown 
facing him — and there was solitude, with possible hunger 
and sickness ; but he faced all with a light heart from 
sheer enthusiasm or devotion to his ideal. 
We can picture him, then, making his way laboriously 
through the trackless wilds, but always on the alert to 
seize whatever knowledge presented itself in connection 
with his beloved quest. Let us hear himself speak of 
some of his experiences : 
"This day I passed through the most horrid swamps I 
had ever seen. These are covered with a prodigious 
growth of canes and high woods, which, together, shut out 
almost the whole light of day for miles. The banks of 
the steep and sluggish creeks that occupy the center are 
precipitous, where I had often to plunge my horse seven 
feet down into a bed of deep clay up to his belly, from 
which nothing but great strength and exertion could have 
rescued him; the opposite shore was equally bad and 
beggars all description. For an extent of several miles on 
both sides of these creeks the darkness of night obscures 
every object around. 
"From Portland, Me., I directed my course across the 
country among dreary, savage glens and mountains cov- 
ered with pines and hemlocks, amid whose black and half- 
burnt trunks the everlasting rocks and stones that cover 
this country 'grinned horribly.' 
"The general features of North Carolina where I 
crossed it are immense solitary pine savannahs, through 
which the rojad winds among stagnant pools, swarming 
with alligators; dark sluggish creeks, of the color of 
brandy, over which are thrown high wooden bridges with- 
out railings, and so crazy and rotten as not only to alarm 
one's horse but also the rider, and to make it a matter of 
thanksgiving with both when they- are fairly over without 
going through; enormous cypress swamps, which to a 
stranger have a strikingly desolate and ruinous appear- 
ance. 
the water to allay the burning thirst, and putting on my 
hat without wiping, received considerable relief from it. 
The wa,ter in these cane swamps is little better than 
poison, and under the heat of a burning sun and the 
fatigues of traveling, it is difficult to repress the urgent 
calls of thirst." 
After describing his voyage down the Ohio, he writes: 
"In this lonesome manner, exposed to hardships all day 
and hard berths all night, to storms of hail, rain and 
snow — for it froze severely almost every night — I perse- 
vered from Feb. 24 to Sunday evening, March 17, when I 
moored my skiff safely in Bear Grass Creek at the rapids 
of the Ohio, after a voyage of 720 miles." 
In others of liis letters he describes his nightly bivouacs. 
It would be well worth while to quote these descriptions, 
but the limitations of space forbid. It will be easy for 
the reader, however, to imagine the outlines at least of 
some of them — the lone figure by the fire in the gloomy 
recesses of the forest, alive with prowling beasts and 
echoing with dismal or hideous sounds; or again, a circle 
of sinister painted savages, with one white man among 
them, and that Wilson, not knowing how soon he might 
be the object of treachery, but knowing only too well 
what that meant. 
However, it must not be supposed that the ornitholo- 
gist's journeyings we're one series of laborious or painful 
experiences. Far from it. Possessed as he was of an 
adventurous spirit and an intense love of nature, we may 
reasonably conclude that his moments of pleasure, if they 
did not outnumber, certainly counterbalanced his mo- 
ments of pain. The joy of the miner on discovering a 
diamond or a nugget of gold is keen, but we fancy it 
hardly deserves the name of joy when compared with 
Wilson's sensation on discovering a new species. 
At length, having amassed a great store (3f knowledge, 
he ceased his wanderings and devoted himself to the com- 
pletion of his history — doing all his own drawing and 
coloring, as well as writing. As he had proved himself an 
enterprising collector, so he no\vj proved himself an ex- 
cellent artist. Especially in his writing did he prove this. 
It is true that much of his nomenclature or classification 
was faulty (as was indeed inevitable), but the grace and 
sympathy of his descriptions have rarely been equaled and 
never surpassed. 
Like many another unselfish worker, he did not live long 
to enjoy his well-earned fame. Hardy as he was, the 
hardships and privations he had endured were too much 
for him, and in less than two years after the completion of 
his history he set out, alas ! to explore a country "from 
whose bourne no traveler returns." As we contemplate 
this son of old Scotia (for to the latter belongs the honor 
of his birth), the figure takes heroic proportions. To an 
undoubted 'faculty of genius he added a tireless energy, 
an indomitable perseverance and an intrepid courage, and 
to this again he added a constant and unselfish devotion 
to science as rare as it is admirable. For that beloved 
mistress he was ready to suifer any and everything. There 
is many a general who has a statue erected to him that 
less deserves one than he. But the wor'd takes small 
account of the soldier of science as compared with him 
whose business is carnage. However, W'lson needs no 
statue. In his history he has left a memorial which, while 
sufficient to his fame, is more honorable than any mere 
erection of bronze or stone. F. Moonan. 
"On Saturday I passed a number of most execrable 
swamps ; the weather was extremely warm and I had been 
attacked by something like the dysentry, which occasioned 
a constant burning thirst and weakened me greatly. I 
stopped this day frequently to wash my head and throat in 
Experience with Wild Animals. 
Alma^ Ark. — Editor Forest and Stream: In a recent 
number of Forest and Stream one of your contributors 
takes the ground that the wildcat of our forests will not 
. under any circumstances attack a human being. 
While I have no personal knowledge to the -contrary, I 
had from T. A. Wood, now deceased an account of an 
instance when they did attack persons, and I am morally 
certain that both accounts were true, Mr. Wood was 
raised on what is known as Big Piney in Pope coun.y, 
Ark., and in one of the most fertile valleys in the State, 
but one surrounded by mountains wild and rugged to a 
degree, and which even at this late day are the home 
of many wild animals, and the base of operations for some 
of the boldest moonshiners who ever defied Uncle Sam 
in Arkansas. But to the cat story. 
Mr. Wood told me that in his young days, some time in 
the period prior to 1849, one of the old citizens of that 
section died, and the body was taken some fifteen miles 
across the mountains to a cemetery for burial ; and that 
as the party proceeded along a dark ravine a large bob- 
cat, or catamount, as' they are called in this country, 
leaped from a tree upon the back of a lady on horseback 
and knocked her to the ground. The screams of the 
woman frightened it away. She remounted and had only 
gone a short distance when this was repeated, and again 
ihe cat ran away. Then Bert Doolin, who was the father 
of Bill Doolin, the famous train robber who was killed in 
Oklahoma recently by Heck Thomas, placed himself in 
advance of the corpe with a good knife, and the cat sprang 
on to Doolin, who fell to the ground and succeeded in 
killing the cat with the knife. 
At another time, Mr. Wood said, some hogs belonging 
to Ben Howard (who married a sister of Mr. Wood and 
lived in the valley of the Big Piney), just after dark be- 
,gan to make a noise in an-unusual way, and when Howard 
and his two sons went out to see what the matter was 
with the hogs, leaving Mrs. Howard standing in the door- 
way, a large catamount leaped upon her, fastening its teeth 
in her shoulder, and held on until Mr.,Howard killed it 
with a club. 
Mr. Wood was for many years a resident of Alrna, and 
died here in 1899 at the age of seventy-seven years, and 
I am sure these incidents are true. 
And again, Mr. L. B. Byars, one of our best citizens, 
tells me that a neighbor of his in the State of Mississippi, 
where Mr. Byars was raised, found a large catamount 
trying to catch a young pig from a litter on his farm, and 
that when it saw him it crawled under some brush in a 
pile near the pigs, and that the gentleman got a pole and 
pushed it, when it came out and jumped on his head, 
knocking him down and holding on until a negro ran up 
and caught the cat and pressed it to the ground and 
choked it to death. 
At another time I'll tell your readers about a famous 
encounter with a panther by a man nanied Hudson. 
J. E. London. 
The Florida Ra^orback. 
St. Augustine, Flar.— Editor Forest and Stream: The 
inclosed is from a speech delivered in Jacksonville at the 
Marshall banquet by Mr. Fildes, and it certainly ought to 
become the classic description of the "razorback." Put 
it into Forest and Stream for preservation. 
I ani of the opinion that the wild pig is a descendant 
of animals brought over by the very earliest Spanish set- 
tlers, and that it has reverted to the wild type both in 
color (red or black) and in speed and s'hape and-.JB dis- 
position. 
The marsh ponies, or "tackiesi," as they are called, have 
been pronounced by a New York horseman to be without 
doubt of Arabian stock, and the ancestors of the present 
razorbacks may'^also have an equal long line of ancestry. 
DeWitt Webb. 
This is Mr. Fildes' description : 
"The 'Florida razorback' is the hog indigenous to this 
climate and soil. He is usually large of limb and fleet of 
foot, being the only known porker that can outrun a darky. 
He has a tail of wondrous length, which, while he is in 
active motion, he twists into the tightest corkscrew, but 
with which v/hile quietly feeding he raps his leathery sides 
much in the same maner that the docile cow uses her tail." 
He_ is self-supporting. He earns his own living, and 
thrives equally well in the highwoods, in the flatwoods, in 
the hummocks and in the marshes. He subsists upon any- 
thing he can find above the earth or underneath its sur- 
face. He has a clear, far-seeing eye, and is very sensitive 
of hearing. Nature has equipped him with a snout almost 
as long as the beak of the wild pelican of Borneo, with 
which he can penetrate the earth many inches in quest of 
worms, snakes and insects. He is the most intelligent 
of all the hogs, and is likewise the most courageous. 
He has been known to engage in mortal combat with a 
coon for the possession of a watermelon, and to rend 
asunder a barbed-wire fence. 
"He is so intelligent that when he lives in the towns 
he becomes as familiar with the railroad schedules as are 
the train dispatchers themselves, and plies his vocation 
in great numbers about the railroad stations, and yet no 
train ever ran over a 'razorback.' Whenever the railroad 
companies are forced to pay for killing a hog, it always 
proves to be a Berkshire, a Guinea, or some other fine 
breed— never a 'razorback.' He is too active and alert to 
be caught even by a locomotive. He is nervous, restless, 
energetic, and hence does not thrive well in pens. Con- 
fined, he loses rather than gains flesh. He is always ripe 
for market, as his condition is as good in August as it is 
in January. His owner respects his intelligence, admires 
his nerve and is fond of him as food, for he may always 
be depended upon to afford the proverbial 'streak of lean' 
with a very small 'streak of fat.' He is the king of 
hogs. He can be grown more profitably than any other 
known variety, since, as has been observed, he is energetic 
and intelligent enorgh to feed and clothe himself." 
Great Fligfht of Hawks, 
Saturday. May 4, and Sunday, May 5, were great days 
for hawks in southern New York and Connecticut. A 
stiff wind was blowing from the northwest, and there 
was a great flight, all working north. 
A Connecticut farmer reports to us that he believes that 
during the day he saw over 1,000 and perhaps nearly 2,000 
hawks, Several species were represented, and it "is said 
that many tried to pick up chickens and robins, and 
chased pigeons. A sharp-shinned hawk shot by a farmer 
and fluttering to the ground was seized by another hawk 
and carried up to a fence post, where the uninjured bird 
stopped until it was shot. The gentleman who reports 
to us speaks of the killing on his farm of three sharp 
shins, one Cooper's hawk and one broad-winged hawk, 
and declares that during the day there was a continuous 
procession of hawks over his farm buildings. On Sunday 
rnorning a reader who was looking out of the window of 
his house on upper Manhattan Island saw a sharp-shinned 
hawk fly close by the window with an English sparrow in 
its talons. ' 
Telegfony, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I must acknowledge Mr. Wade's superior information 
upon the technical application of the word "telegony," my 
own being only a dictionary acquaintance. Indeed, the 
word is not to be found in the Century, and I could only 
derive its meaning by piecing together its components. 
I must also acknowledge Mr. Wade's kindness in ex- 
plaining so clearly the nice distinction in the application 
of the two words telegony and atavism, a distinction 
that appears to be most fit and proper for technical pur- 
poses, though hardly to be discerned from their deriva- 
tions. 
Having already said as much as seems profitable on the 
general subject of "heredity," I will now leave that field 
of discussion to Mr. Wade and others. 
I must confess to a feeling of trepidation in the antici- 
pation of a broadside from Col. Alexander when he gets 
"good and ready" that will "blow me out of the water." 
Coahoma. 
Starlingfs in New York City. 
The increase in the number of starlings about New 
York is very noticeable, and the birds are pretty objects, 
walking about on the bright green lawns searching for 
insects- They .seem very gentle, manifesting little fear 
of man. One may walk close enough to them to see verv 
clearly the spots upon them. 
In certain localities not too thickly settled they are 
quite abundant, breeding in church steeples and holes in 
the trees, and in nooks in the gables of old wooden houses. 
A nest recently seen was quite firmly woven of hay. 
straw and rags, and contained three beautiful unspotted 
eggs, slightly larger than robin's eggs, and of precisely the 
same color. 
The starling is one of the importations from Europe 
against whom as yet nothing has been said. He is a busy 
bird and should prove very useful as an insect destroyer. 
Whether or rio he will develop bad qualities remains to 
be seen. 
