May i8, 1901.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
S88 
frolic; while robins and sparrows sat about disconsolate 
with siirugged shoulders, the redheads were chattering 
in lively fashion, and the starlings took advantage of 
every gleam of watery sunshine to say — forget it! forget 
jtl sunlight! sunlight! forget it! These jolly fellows must 
be made of waterproof stuff to rejoice amid such weather 
conditions as then prevailed. 
May 4 saw a great rush of travelers ; vireos arrived over 
night, the white-eyed being well represented as to num- 
bers. Hundreds of A'arious warblers came along during the 
niorning, numbers of the yellow-crowned among them, 
their bright and jatmty suits of feather cloth being spe- 
cially pleasing to the eye as they moved gracefully among 
the twigs. 
May 5 the clear voice of the purple fmch caused envy 
on the part of smidry swallows, who responded with a 
gurgle of twittering notes as they sailed about overhead. 
Numerous hawks appeared in the afternoon, mostly 
sharp-shinned and sparrow hawks, all flying strongly" 
against the northwesterly breeze. 
May 7 swamp robins (niustelinus) chewinks, hermit 
and brown thrush and the yellow-breasted chat were 
on hand. The foliag'e was behind time in coming out this 
season, consequently the birds were much more easily 
seen. This lack of concealment may account for the 
seeming increase in numbers, for I have not seen so many 
familiar forms among the trees for years. Well-known 
varieties were largely represented and favorite localities 
were alive with many unidentified migrants. There was 
evidence of hurry in this crowd of travelers; an impa- 
tience hardl}'^ concealed appeared to drive them on in 
waves as it were. To-day the thickets would be crowded, 
to-morrow comparatively empt}', the greater number hav- 
ing gone over night, in order to avail themselves of the 
prevailing southerly winds. 
There were but few arrivals on May 8. I heard a 
contest of musical ability on this date between a wren, 
who sang from a clump of rhododendrons, and a brown 
thrush perched high on a leafless magnolia near by. Of 
course the result was never in doubt for an instant, 
though it was a delight to listen to such experts, both in 
tine voice and each determined to outsing the other. 
Orioles and tanagers came to us on the 12th of May. 
The former must have met with some unus.ual detention, 
as they were much behind time. In '98 they arrived on 
the 6th; in '99, the 8th; last year, on the 7th. However, 
they are here at last and in their arrival I find the meas- 
ure of spring loveliness is filled. At this writing all the 
air is filled with the soft rustle of new-born leaves that 
serve to screen many a bright form from careless eyes, 
but though one may not see them the cheery calls and 
subdued twitter of the glad little voices tells uS the birds 
have come. 
WrLMOT TOWNSEKD, 
Bay Ridge, Greater New York. 
}Htn^ ^Hg Hud ^mu 
Proprietors of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Forest and Stream. 
Maine Panthcts Again. 
Boston, May 4. — Editor Forest and Stream: Having 
started the discussion as to the occurrence of the panther 
in Maine, I presume I am entitled to "close the debate"' — 
i. e., "if no one else wishes to speak." 
My inquiry called forth two claimants for the panther, 
and their letters were duly presented in your columns. 
The writers were evidently sincere in the belief that they 
had seen Maine panthers. I gave also the recollection of 
my old and trusted guide, T. W. Billings, of two animals 
seen by him many years ago playing on the ice of a lake in 
the northern part of the State, and which he always be- 
lieved __were panthers. I nevertheless remain incredulous 
and think it easier to believe these witnesses mistaken than 
to believe the animals they saw were genuine panthers. 
The testimony of Mr. Manly Hardy— the great fur 
buyer — that he has in all his experience never, seen nor 
heard of a panther skin derived from Maine, seems to 
me of very great weight, and almost conclusive. If there 
were any truth in the abundant stories of Maine panthers 
would it not be certain that some one would at some time 
be able to produce a skin of the animal? 
Is the Maine panther so far superior to his kind in all 
other localities as to be able to forever escape capture ? 
Are we not justified in applying as a rule in the case ■"no 
pelts, no panthers" ? 
The question is not one, perhaps, which just now "most 
urgentlj' confronts the laboring man."*' btit it has a certain 
amount ef interest not only as one of natural history, but 
also in the histor}^ of popular mj'ths and delusions. 
C. H. Ames. 
Derattlingf a Rattler. 
Umatill.\, Ore., May 5. — Editor Forest and St}-eain: 
Reading Mr. Charles Cristadoro's story of, "Cutting the 
Rattles Off a Live Snake," brings to my memory an ex- 
perience I had with a rattlesnake, which I will relate if the 
Forest and Stre^vm will think it worthy of publication. 
Several years ago I was walking across a portion of my 
ranch on the north bank of the Columbia River in 
Washington in the sage brush. I saw a rattlesnake. 
There was neither a stick nor rock near with which to 
dispatch it. and as the snake was .slowly disappearing 
down a squirrel hole I thought that by seizing it by the 
rattles I could throw it out on solid ground and perhaps 
get time to find something to kill it with. Accordingly I 
grabbed its rattles between thtunb and first finger and 
with a vigorous pull and backward motion of the hand 
and arm I expected to throw the snake out some 10 'feet on 
the grotind. Instead of that the rattles easily parted from 
the snake, and as I threw my arm back I released the 
rattles, thinking, of coiirse, the snake would come with 
ihem. The consequence was the snake went on his way 
down the squirrel hole and the rattles went I know not 
where, nor could I find them. I never saw the snake nor 
rattles again. J. W. D. 
X 
I 
i 
Take inventory of the good things in this issue 
of Forest and Stream. Recall whet a fund was 
given last week. Count on what is to come next 
week. Was there ever in all the world a more 
abundant weekly store of sportsmen's reading f 
In the Upper Blackfoot forJDucks. 
"Oh, confotind that alarm clock!" 
"I told you so when you said you would be all ready 
at 5 o'clock." 
"Well, yes; but a fellow feels worse than he thought 
he would when he has been working as hard as he 
thought he possibly could, and then tries to do double 
work to get every little extra about the oflice cleaned up 
so as to be spared a few days. Worked last night until 
12 and then have to turn out at 3; it's a guess whether 
1 live through it or not." 
This seemed rather a discouraging conversation to 
pass between man and wife on the morning I was to start 
on our annual trip up the Blackfoot after ducks. 
The first of September is the open season for ducks. 
Sixty-five miles away are the breeding grounds, but 
sixty-five miles is nothing for Montana horses to travel. 
At 5 o'clock the rig, with three of the boys in, came 
around as agreed upon, and with two of us in a 'single 
rig, leading a saddle horse with which to do errands 
arotmd camp, such as looking up hunting gi^ounds, we 
were ready to start. 
In the double rig was the tent and camping outfit and 
the grub. After taking an inventory to see what we had 
and to. see that nothing was missing that would add to 
our comfort, we are off. We pass throtigh Bonner, 
severi miles away, just as the sun is coming up. Here 
we enter the Blackfoot Canon, which is dark and so cold 
we have to btitton our coats and draw our wraps closer 
to be comfortable. The scenery here repays one for the 
trip, and although I have seen it inany titnes I never tire 
of looking at those piles of rocks. Away above, the sun 
is lighting the mountain tops thousands of feet above us, 
while the river, whose water looks dark and cold and 
blue and white, is still wearing away at the rocks, and 
one cannot help wondering at the time it must have taken 
to cut so deep a channel. The road, though good, is 
dangerous enough to keep the driver always on the 
lookout. Several miles of the road has been blasted 
from the solid rock. High above the river is another 
place where it crosses a piece of slide rock, and has 
been walled up on the tipper side; but the ever moving- 
slide, although slow, is always throwing down rock in 
the road. Here the road is so narrow that save for the 
turnouts one could not pass a team. I haA'e some very 
pretty bits of this road on paper, taken at different times 
during the eight summers we have driven up there, either 
camping, httnting or fishing, all of which are good. 
About ten miles and the mountains to the north seem to 
break away like clouds ift April, while to the southeast 
they are still high and dark. One more bend in. the river 
and we come into sunshine again, and one feels like 
wishing to be a bird, so that he could fluff his wings 
and take it all in. 
Eighteen miles from Missoula we cross the Blackfoot 
River, pass by a high rockj^ point to the south of the 
road, where the bighorns used to winter as late as ten 
years ago. But, alas! they and the white man cannot 
occupy the same ground, and they have gone. One mile 
and we are at Camas Prairie. We leave the river and 
start up Camas Prairie, so named by the Indians on ac- 
count of the large beds of camas which they dig, this 
being their potato crop: but the camas, like thp bighorn, 
is mostly gone, and no longer does its pretty blue flow-er 
wave in the June breezes. The prairie, so called, is a 
large meadow, about eight miles long by four miles in 
width, and is set ttp on a tilt to the west, all fenced iip 
now and dotted with neat farmhouses, hay ricks and 
corrals. This is a good stock country, as theix is good 
grazing on the hills, and they grow fine haj' and oats, 
which they are just beginning to harvest oii the first of 
September. This prairie is at so high an elevation that 
fruit nr.d vegetables will not grow; cabbage may get ripe 
encugh to eat, but there is good money in stock and 
oats, so they can buy what other things they need. So 
people in this quiet mountain retreat seem to be well of¥ 
and contented away from the busy world. 
But we are dreaming too much, so whipping up our 
horses we are soon on the divide between Camas and Sun- 
set Prairies. The road is steep here and much washed by 
the mountain rains and melting snow. Where the road 
comes to the foot of the mountain and out on the 
prairie is a nice cold spring, with horse feed close by. 
We are now thirty -five miles from Missoula, and stop 
for dinner. The sun is so hot now we have to hunt 
shade, and could never imagine it was below freezing 
when we started this morning. We only take a half-hour 
to eat, when we hitch up and start across Sunset Prairie, 
which we soon cross and descend to the river once more. 
The road now seems almost level, and the driving is fine. 
Going up tile river we see a flock of green-wing teal 
on the river, and one of the boys gets three of them be- 
fore they get out of range. The river is very swift here, 
and although in a bad place my water spaniel brings 
them all out. We cross the river again j-ust above where 
the Clearwater empties into the Blackfoot, go up the 
Clearwater a few miles (another prairie as smooth as a 
driving park) and come to where the mountains narrow 
dow-n to the river, and crossing, through this we are at 
the mouth of the Cottonwood River. Beyond this, as. 
far as the eye can reach, about twenty miles awaA\ are 
small buttes and meadows, and here even oats grow a 
good crop, and stock is to be seen in large bands. There 
are small natural ponds everywhere, and there are ducks 
on all of thein. They rise as w^e pass, and circle around 
or sit still and watch tis. One bunch looked so tempting 
I tried the old pump Winchester, and si.x stopped behind 
to furnish us meat for. supper. Nine teal ducks are 
enough for any five hungry tnen. 
Six miles up the Cottonwood we leave the creek for the 
buttes, pitching our camp on the bank of a lake which 
must be over a mile long by a quarter of a mile in width. 
About half of this lake reaches among the pines at the 
foot of the mountains to the north. It is a. beautiful 
camping place by a cold spring, with plenty of grass and 
wood, and shelter of pine and quaking aspen. We hear 
the ducks on the lake, and occasionally hear their wings 
as they pass over, for there seem to be ducks every- 
where, and we can hear the boom of guns, several miles 
away, as we arc pitching out tents and getting supper. 
One flock of ducks in going over seemed to stop in the 
air to see what we were doing. Lemley said he didn't 
think that kind of foolishness would pass,' and began to 
load his gun just in time, for they came back to get thp 
second look. Two quick shots brought down two mal- 
lards. "That is toll," he remarked, which pleased Joe 
f^eebe. It was his first trip out since he came to the 
mountains. .Although he can run a locomotive as gOig^d 
as the best of them, he cannot cook nor even help, so lie 
was detailed to take the horses back to the pasture, whde 
v/e finished the camp. Joe said he was a horseman 
through and through, and proceeded to throw himself 
into the saddle like a cowboy, taking the three horses in 
hand to lead. As he passed by where Frank McHafiie 
was cleaning ducks he jolted in the saddle, saying, 
"Don't I ride like an old-timer?" But there was trouble 
for Joe, One of the horses swung off of the trail and a 
yellow jackets' lodging house as large as a peck measure 
was knocked from its mooring on a bush, Every horse 
went into the air except the one Joe was riding, which 
was only \ept from lying down by Joe's frantic efforts 
to keep it moving. 
"Lots of flies there," says McHaffie. 
"Flies? They are bees!" replied Joe. 
The horse was bucking furiously now, and Joe was 
seen to go up in the air until he said he was above the 
tops of the trees, looking into the lake, and the horse was 
50 feet away when he struck the ground. (Of course this 
h overdrawn, but we made Joe helieve it.) A few willing 
hands soon caught the horses. 
The next day we all took things easy, as there is not 
much shooting until the evening flight. McHaffie and 
Beebe went fishing, while Lemley, Woody and I wan- 
dered among the hundreds of buttes. Between each of 
these is a small lake or pond, some of quite good size, 
and there are ducks on all of them. But as there are no 
shrubs nor brush, and you are in full view, of course you 
can only get long shots. When they rise they may 
circle and give you a second chance, but to say the least 
there was much shooting and few ducks, and at 3 o'clock 
we returned to camp. McHaffie had a hard luck story 
to tell. He had fished with Beebe until he w^as sure no 
one cotdd catch any fish, when he came back to camp 
only to find a deer right in camp. It ran, Mac grabbed 
a gun and ran to get a shot at it, and running into the 
first clump of brush there stood the deer. Mac pulled 
the trigger, but the gun was empty, and on trying^ to 
load he found he had a .32 Winchester gun in his hand, 
having grabbed Lemley's gun, and had .30-30 cartridges 
in his pockets. The deer got away. But while looking 
for the deer he saw -a covey of ruffed grouse, and had 
twelve to show us. ■"Well, what's the matter with 
grouse fried in bacon grease, Mac? Don't covet the 
earth," said Woody. Everything was ready for our meal, 
but no Beebe showed up. We got our guns ready for 
the evening shooting, but no Joe yet. We were about 
ready to believe he had got lost, when his familiar whoop 
gove the signal ; and he came into camp, and in his hand 
was as fine a string of trout as any one could wish to 
see, twenty-three in all, some of them coming pretty 
near the pound mark in weight. Mac had just been 
assuring us before Beebe came in that the fish would 
not bite. Mac sells fishing tackle, trnd told us no tender- 
foot could catch fish when he himself gave it up. "How 
did you get them, Joe?" we asked. "Oh, I just went 
after some grasshoppers, and Uien after that I never 
flagged by a pool but caught a. passenger at every 
station." 
Mountain trout are very good, but we were after 
ducks, and now to the duck pass. The ducks go out over 
the fields and sloughs to feed during the day, and as the 
sun begins to sink low they come back to the large lake. 
At the upper end of the lake are several patches of bul- 
rushes, with from one to five acres in each. This is the 
breeding ground, and to see the number of ducks that 
go in there of an evening would give the impression that 
the rushes could not hold them. They came in pairs and 
in flocks. — there were hundreds of them. I believe a 
thousand ducks passed over our heads in about fifteen 
minutes. The ducks are high in the air, and we are out 
of practice, and Joe says they fly on passenger train time. 
We are stationed far enough apart so that there is no 
danger of shooting each other: four of us with pump 
guns and Joe with a double-barrel lo-gauge. I have 
seen wild shooting, but this partictflar evening took the 
palm over anything I have ever seen. Two of the five 
had never shot ducks, while one had not used a gun for 
three' years. There were ducks hit that -were never shot 
at, but the greater majority were ducks shot at that w^ere 
never hit. Some one at the lower end of the lake with 
a black powder gun seemed to be firing at regular intervals. 
That seemed to drive the ducks, for they began to go 
back to the reeds for the night. For fifteen minutes there 
was no .time when there was not a flock of ducks within 
gunshot, and close shooting at that, but verj' quick, so 
the destruction to the duck crop was light. Had there 
been good shots wanting to make a killing we could have 
killed a large number. As it was, we shot away 1,250 
shells during the three days we were there. We had all 
the ducks we could eat, gave some away to the people in 
the neighborhood, and had eighty to distribute among 
our friends when we returned. 
There were others who went out from Missoula and 
brought back more ducks, but none enjoyed himself as* 
we did, and there are very few places where the condi- 
tions are as favorable for a good time — good roads, 
plenty of fish and game, kind people who live there, no 
restrictions as to Avhen and where to hunt and fish, good 
camping grounds, pure water and mountain air, and 
some very fine scenery. 
All combined make the upper Blackfoot Valley one 
of the' finest places a true sportsman can find to enjoy 
himself, with but few draw'backs to mar his pleasure. 
Bert Stevens. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable, 
