Sept. 7, lyoi.j 
f UJrlEST AND STREAM 
I laughed, he cuddled down closer, and his off eye plainly 
told me that it was all a jolly good joke. 
Such a lazy beggar was Patch in his moments of re- 
pose, with the bridle off. When anything was doing, he 
was all alert and alive, from the tip of his snub nose to 
the end of his rat tail. 
In the wagon and on the box seat before the driver had 
gathered up the reins; in the water before the stick had 
left the thrower's hand. If a stone flew in place of a stick 
he dove for it and brought it back, quivering with de- 
light — and, dancing backward to the water's edge, he 
would turn like a flash, plunge in and catch it again al- 
most as soon as it sank. He dove through heavy break- 
ers with all the easy grace of a champion s\Vimmer; and 
no doubt if he could have held a cigar in his teeth would 
have emerged in the trough of the waves with the end 
still lighted. 
His name came to him from the patches of brindle that 
splashed his white coat and covered one eye, but the 
great ^bridge jumper'? name was not belittled by Sam 
Patch's own exploits in diving. A header, in pursuit of 
a stick, oft a bridge twenty feet out of water at half tide, 
was a mere nothing to him. 
But all these feats and frolics were merely those of an 
amiable little dog of possibly more than the average in- 
telligence. It was the grit with Avhich he met his death 
that raised him above the general plaiie of dogs and men. 
He went for a stroll one day, toward dusk, with a mem- 
ber of the family. The man returned, and, seeing that 
the dog was not at his heels, left the front door ajar, and 
sat down by the fire to read the evening papers. Soon 
he was aware that Patch had come in and was lying at 
his feet, and he spoke to him without glancing up from 
his paper. Twenty m.inutes or more slipped by, and I 
entered the room. From the hearth rug, two great eyes 
stared at me above a horrible mass of blood and bones 
that covered the poor dog's breast. His lower jaw was 
broken in four. I tied it up to ease the strain, and he did 
not utter a sound, though his piteous eyes never left my 
face. They asked for help, and help came in in the only 
form we could give it — a merciful pistol shot in the base 
of the brain. 
Try how we would,, we could never learn how he was 
hurt, but probably his fighting blood and his undershot 
jaw were the cause. A fight forced upon him — a human 
brute interfering to stop the fight, and a kick in the jaw 
for the under dog. M, W. M. 
— • — 
The Mammoth. 
Fossil elephants are found !n America as far south, at 
least, as the Middle States, but in no great numbers, and 
their tusks are usually so changed by exposure to the 
weather that they have no commercial value, and are very 
perishable. They are found generally in northern 
regions in some numbers, and in Alaska there is 
a tall bluff, which is known as Elephant Point, from the 
great numbers of elephant remains buried there. 
Certain little islands north of the Kolima River in 
Siberia are celebrated for the great number of mammoth 
bones found there. In fact, travelers have stated that 
the islands seemed to be made up entirely of the bones and 
tusks of mammoth. On other islands on the coast of 
Siberia, the remains of these mammoths are enormously 
abundant, and they often are found frozen in the tundra. 
This is the case with one just discovered — said to be very 
perfect— to secure which an expedition was recently sent 
from St. Petersburg, to the town of Kolymsk, on the 
Kolima River, near which the find was made. The party 
left St. Petersburg early this s'ummer, and reached 
Yakutsk, about two months ago. It is altogether prob- 
able that before now they have secured the specimen, and 
may be on their way back with it. 
Kolymsk is one of the coldest regions of the world. It 
lies about 600 miles northeast of what is called the winter 
cold pole of the Northern Hemisphere, and is, so far as 
known, one of the places of lowest temperature of the 
north. Its mean temperature for January is 56 degrees 
below zero, and it sometimes goes much lower. 
In a small town, in Moravia, in Austria, there exists a 
great deposit of mammoth remains. With these are found 
remains of man and other animals, and also evidence of 
fire, as well as tools and implements, evidently made by 
man. This has been taken as" evidence that in this par- 
ticular place man hunted the mammoth and destroyed him. 
But Steenstrup has expressed the opinion that the mam- 
moth did not live there at the same time with man, but 
must^ have perished long before human beings reached 
them, and was preserved intact in the frozen soil — ^just as 
the mammoth to-day exists in Siberia — until the men 
of the later reindeer period found it, cut it out of the soil, 
used its teeth and bones, and perhaps left its flesh as food 
to the wild animals. 
Nevertheless, the bones of the mammoth have so often 
been found with man's weapons among them, that it has 
long been believed that man and the mammoth lived to- 
gether on the earth. Still better evidence is the drawing 
of the mammoth on a piece of ivory found with bones of 
pre-historic man, in the caves of southern France. It can 
hardly be doubted, in view of all the evidence that has 
accumulated, that man and the mammoth were coeval. 
The Ways of an Owl. 
there I saw on the floor what first appeared to be a Ply- 
mouth rock hen just expiring. A second look showed 
that it was no hen, but some bird with its head pushed 
under a nesting box and making violent efforts to do 
something; it seemed to be trying to get beneath the 
box. Really, it was eating a duck, and did not mistrust 
my presence until I had firmly grasped its wings close to 
the body. It struggled fiercely on being drawn out, and 
then I discovered that it had a steel trap on one foot, the 
jaws holding two toes, but otherwise loose, there being 
no chain. It had evidently been caught some time pre- 
vious and had broken the fastening. Afterward I found 
an owner for the trap, and heard his story. He had had 
a hen killed, and suspecting an owl, had watched the 
following evening, gun in hand, but darkness and cold 
drove him in before the robber came. However, he tied 
the hen's body so it could not be carried off, and set a 
ti'ap. During the night the owl came, sprung the trap and 
dragged the body about, but was not caught. Determined 
to catch the owl, the man got three more traps and set all 
four in a square about the bait. That night the bird 
came and mussed around some, disturbing the arrange- 
ment and working about the hen. Two of the traps were 
large and heavy, but he got into the smallest one, and got 
away with it. 
In a week or ten days he entered my hen roost nod 
was caught. I took him into the house, and with tongs 
freed him from the trap. In the evening we fed him 
with raw meat out of hand. He _did not seem very 
savage, and never offered to strike with his feet. This 
was surprising, as both hawks and owls are very ready 
with their talons, which must be dulled at once if one 
means to handle them. We have him now ; he lives in the 
wood house, and has never been tied, or confined, except 
by the door. He has a perch, which he can fly up to, but 
sits on the. edge of the coal bin or on the wood itself much 
of the time. He will bear to have his head scratched, and 
will accept food from one's fingers, but a person unused 
to hini would be shy of oft'ering a small piece, for he 
grabs as though it were escaping prey. However, he will 
take tiny pieces of meat from one's fingers and not pinch. 
His capacity for swallowing is great, almost snake- 
like, and is accomplished with effort, a succession of 
violent jerks, during which he gasps for breath, being 
necessary to engulf a chicken whole. We call him the 
Sexton, because he saves us the trouble of burying the 
unfortunate chicks that meet with' untimely deaths by 
accident. He also disposes of the bodies of such skunks 
are are caught while trying to get into the hen house, and 
what muskrats the junior catches. These are skinned, and 
in the case of skunks, the objectionable feature is re- 
moved before they are given him. We place the carcass 
on the chopping block and he does the rest ; if it is heavy 
for him to handle, he takes it on the floor and stays until 
nothing is left but the bones, and these he can tear to 
pieces in most cases. The skull of a muskrat he reduces to 
bits that can be swallowed. ^m.ter B. Savory. 
Pocaca and the Panther. 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
I have read with much interest the various experiences 
of hunters and others with our wild animals, and now 
beg to offer my mite to the general collection. 
So far as personal experience goes, I must say that I 
never yet, in the course of many years' hunting in this 
country, have had occasion to tear the attack of any of 
our wild animals I have come in contact with, and I do 
not think for an instant that the 'least danger is to be 
feared from them save, of course, in instances where 
one is wounded, has very young offspring, or is brought 
to close bay. A mouse will attack under these circum- 
stances sometimes. 
The story that I wish to relate, therefore, is in con- 
nection with an Indian who lived in Saanich, near Vic- 
toria, in the '50s and early '60s. He was chief of the 
tribe of North Saanich Indians, a man of splendid pro- 
portions and physique, standing 6 feet 4 inches in his 
bare feet, and with the strength of two ordinary men. 
A story is told of him as having happened some years 
before I first saw him in '62, to the effect that one day, 
while out hunting for sandhill cranes among the little, 
brushy meadows which abounded in the vicinity, he was 
spnmg on and seized by a panther. As he told it, he 
was creeping through the brush, stalking a bunch of 
cranes, armed with bow and arrows, and if I remember 
aright, with a fur robe over his shoulders, when he felt 
himself seized from behind. He at once saw and felt it 
was a panther. So, firmly grasping each fore paw, and 
shrugging his shoulders so that his neck and head were 
fairly protected from bites by his long, thick hair, he 
carried the brute a half mile to the sea, where he held 
him under water until drowned. He then carried the 
dead animal another mile home in triumph. 
He was, of course, badly lacerated, but his body had 
been partially protected by the robe. But what a 
strength of arm and grip it took to perform the feat! 
Now, in this case, we have a reliable account of a 
panther deliberately hunting and springing on a man, 
but there is no doubt in my mind that it was a clear case 
oi mistaken identity, and that the fur robe worn by the 
Indian deluded the animal into the belief that he was 
hunting another wild beast, possibly a deer. 
Poor Pacaca (Tobacco) ! Some years after this hap- 
pened he went one day to the north side of the peninsula 
to a small island lying in the strait near the caj^oe pas- 
sage to and from the north. He was accompanied by his 
wife and several girl relatives, and their object was hali- 
but fishing. As they did not return at the appointed 
time, search was made, and the dead bodies of the party 
were found in their camp, murdered as they slept, by the 
savage Yokwiltulths of Cape Mudge. The women lay 
with cut throats all agape. He, the chief, had had his 
head severed from the trunk and the member taken away 
by the marauders. 
I shall never forget the feeling of horror I experienced 
as a child when hearing of this, and long did I miss the 
chief's familiar presence. That was the last blood feud 
between the tribes, and was never avenged. Civilization, 
with her iron hand, soon after pervaded the land, and 
savage customs faded away. Mazama. 
CoMOX, B. C, Aug. 21. 
In the early days of the last century a native of Siberia 
detected in a great ice cliff on the banks of the Lena 
River the shape of a vast creature, which seemed to look 
out at him through the thin film of ice, and which held 
him spellbound by its monstrous appearance, and its stony 
glare. Day after day the fascinated man returned to the 
spot to gaze and to be stared at by the monster, until one 
morning when he went there, he found that the front of 
ice that had partly screened it had fallen away, and the 
gigantic head and tusks of a frozen mammoth were plain 
to the view. 
We all remember how the man treasured his secret, and 
how, when at last it leaked out and the knowledge of 
the find had penetrated westward to Russia, and scientific 
men were sent to preserve the specimen, it was found 
that its discoverer and others had fed their dogs on the 
meat of the monster, and that little was left of it save the 
bones and a quantity of the long, red hair that had c®v- 
ered its body. 
Of all the extinct creatures, the mammoth is, perhaps, 
the one which most appeals to the imagination of the 
average man. It is one of the nearest to us in time, and 
we can understand pretty clearly that it is a great elephant, 
clad in long, reddish, woolly hair, and with tremendous 
East Wareham, Mass. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
What a pity the meadow starlings have not the beautiful 
song of the Western variety ! The lark of the prairies has 
a compass and power of voice second to none of our 
singers. It is hardly to be distinguished from our bird 
except by its voice — and. the same may be said of the 
Western towhee. only the sexes are not so unlike, male 
and female being very dift'erent looking in our species. 
The dusky ducks breed on West Island. Last spring 
one was shot on Ram Island with a fidly developed egg 
in it, and that duck would no doubt have nested on West 
Island, if, indeed, it might not already have had a nest 
there. There are a number of large reservoirs like Old 
Tuck in Rochester, East Head in Carver, ponds in Ply- 
mouth and down the Cape, with some on Martha's Vine- 
yard, near which these ducks breed. The wood duck 
does nest to some extent here, and loons used to raise a 
brood at White Island Pond, a beautiful sheet of water 
between Wareham and Plymouth. 
Mammoth drawn on mammoth ivory by the man of the Reindeer 
Era. From Dana's Manual of Geology. 
tusks, which turn upward and backward as the tusks of 
no elephant ever did. Moreover, because it has been seen 
in the flesh, the mammoth seems almost a creature of our 
own day. The dwellers in Siberia believe that it still 
lives, but dwells underground, as a huge mole, and that 
it lives forever, djring only when by chance it comes too 
near the surface of the earth. 
It is easily within the memory of each of us, when 
stories concerning the occurrence of the discovery of 
the mammoth in Alaska were current and credited, and 
but two or three years since, when a popular magazine 
published a bit of fiction about the killing of the last mam- 
moth in Alaska, it scored a tremendous success, and made 
a deal of trouble for the authorities of the Smithsonian 
Institution. By inany people the story was taken to be 
fact, and not fiction, and many letters were sent to the 
Smithsonian Institution asking for information as to the 
supposed occurrence. 
Northern Siberia is the locality where the remains of 
mammoths are most abtmdant. So numerous are they in 
certain places, that the trade in fossil ivory is the most 
important of the industries of the district. There is said 
to be a regular traffic between the Arctic and the South, 
and mammoth tusks are transported on reindeer sledges as 
far south as Mongolia, where they are traded for articles 
brought from the South, and then taken on to China. 
Birds of prey have been quite plenty. Some weeks ago 
one of my brothers put up and shot a Cooper's hawk. It 
had just killed a Mongolian pheasant, and had only eaten 
a little of the neck. This pheasant was an old 
bird — a male — that had been raised under a 
hen, as it had scaly leg developed about and 
below the heels, extending half-way down the 
tarsi. Wading through snow and slush had 
checked the progress of the microscopic-insects 
which produce this disease, and the bird's feet 
were in a normal condition. I have never seen 
any of our native wild birds attacked by this 
parasite, and its presence on a pheasant would 
show that care should be taken to have healthy 
hens for foster mothers, for this disease, when 
once seated, is persistent and requires treat- 
ment. It is a matter of note that a Cooper's 
hawk should kill so large a bird — ^about three 
times its own weight. A pheasant in the open 
is noticeable, and would be sure to attract "the at- 
tention of any hawk. This would be a serious 
matter in pheasant raising, for Cooper's hawk breeds all 
th rough New England, and as far south as Virginia, by 
my own observation. When located and nesting this 
hawk will come daily to a poultry yard, and every time 
take a chicken, and to stop Its visits it has to be shot. A 
brood of pheasants under a domestic hen inclosed by 
wire would be safe, a brood in the fields would disappear 
one by one. The sharp-shinned hawk is just as bad, but 
too small to kill adult fowl. The marsh harrier is a 
rabbit hunter and will chase meadow larks; it is an in- 
defatigable mouser, but is hardly likely to take gatne or 
chickens. 
Most owls are mousers, because their time of hunting 
brings them in contact with mice, rats and rabbits and 
other furred animals. The great horned owl is an ex- 
ception to this rule in the matter of prey. I had a visit 
from one last January; he came in the early morning 
and entered my hen house. I had failed to latch the inner 
door, which separates the roosting room from the scratch- 
ing shed, as the windows of the latter were raised; this 
allowed him to fly in. When I came out to open up, the 
fowl were in a great commotion, and I saw that some- 
thing was wrong. On looking in I perceived that the 
intruder must be still there by the way the ducks and 
hens were avoiding the locality of the nesting boxes, and 
