£46 
and sat crouched for a second, straightened tip and held 
his right hand over his wildly thumping heart. His eyes 
were wide staring and every nerve atingle. Then he 
made a single interrogatory sound, pressed both hands 
to his bosom like a prima donna awaiting her cue, and 
listened intently for a reply. The man moved not a 
muscle. The squirrel jumped to the log, took three rigid 
hous toward the man and retreated to his limb to listen 
again. 
He was a handsome squirrel, distinctly marked with 
two heavy black stripes running along his sides, from 
foreshoulder to flank. On his back the tawny fur was 
soft and fluffy. His brush was well shaped and nicely 
groomed. In fact, he was a young beau among the 
squirrels of the beech ridge. 
Quick as a flash, powerful, self-conscious, brave to a 
degree of recklessness, he was also woods wise and able 
to take care of himself as long as he kept his temper. 
The squirrel could not long remain silent, and he again 
approached the man until but two feet of the log re- 
mained between them. Then something unforeseen hap- 
pened. A white miller, fluttering about aimlessly, struck 
the man in the face, nearly in the eye. He raised his 
hand and the squirrel gave a great spring sideways, land- 
ing in the leaves and dashed for his life into a small 
tree near by. 
"Murderer I" he shrieked as soon as he caught his 
breath. "You would kill me, would you? I'll have your 
life. Br-r-r-r rrr — chut, chut, quee, queee," and his teeth 
rattled and crackled like a rusty coffee grinder. The 
moth fluttered, drifted away and the man again sat passive 
and silent. 
"You robber and destroyer of homes. You come here 
and steal all my beechnuts. If you don't leave I'll — 
br-r-r-r-rr — quah, quee, queee 1" 
The man sat calmly watching the squirrel work him- 
self into a white heat of rage. After he had exhausted his 
surplus of excitement the squirrel began gathering beech- 
nuts. With comical dives he went under the brown cov- 
ering of leaves in search of nuts, only to pop his head 
out the same instant and look for possible danger. 
Finding a nut, he sprang upon a moss-covered stone, 
tried the nut with his teeth to test its soundness, placed 
it in his mouth just right and carried it down the log to 
a spot within ten feet of the man. Here he had dug a 
small hole in the ground, and in this leaf-covered cellar 
he was storing the ripened harvest. It must have been 
a temporary store, for in a few days it would be frozen in 
and covered with two feet of snow. He was careful and 
systematic in his work, jumping on the log at the same 
spot every time he had a nut to bury, looking about be- 
fore he had placed it in the cellar and jamming it in with 
a final punch, into which he put all the force of his small 
but muscular body. Then he would pull a couple of 
leaves over the spot and pat them down with both hands 
and hop back to the log, stopping every time to snarl at 
the man. At times he would prolong the snarls into 
angry barks and squeaks, and it seemed as if he was 
about to break into one of his long tirades. After work- 
ing stead ly twenty minutes he brought a nut up on to 
the log and approached to within a yard of the man and 
laid it down so as to have free use of his jaws, and, as 
near as the man could translate, said : 
"Now, sir, will you clear out of this? Your intentions 
are not just right, and I know you are here to steal. You 
have stolen from me before, and you'll try it again." 
The man moved somewhat uneasily, as it was growing 
late and he wanted peace and quiet, for he expected some- 
thing to come out of the black growth between sunset and 
darkness. The squirrel made a broad jump and shrieked 
wildly : 
"You would, would you? Now you have got to go. 
You robbed me of all my spruce buds I had stored 
"Spruce buds! Great junipers, that's a good one! 
Ha, ha ! Where on earth did you ever get a spruce 
bud?" 
The interruption came from the direction of a giant 
hemlock about 30 feet away. The man turned and saw, 
perched on a Hmb 25 feet from the ground, another squir- 
rel, very old and very gray. He was fat and sleek, and, in 
spite of his age, his eye gleamed with a merry twinkle 
and his sides shook with laughter. 
"You never owned three spruce buds in all your short 
life. Why, you're afraid to go into the black growth to 
get them," the old fellow continued, addressing the 
youngster below him. Then he went into another fit of 
senile laughter. 
The younger squirrel's rage was boundless. He turned 
about nervously and aimlessly two or three times, seem- 
ingly at a loss for words. Finally he spluttered out : 
"You old villain! You never earned an honest bud, 
berry or nut in all your life ! For three beechnuts I'd 
come up there and thrash you. You know your gray hairs 
protect you. Brr-r-r-rrr, quee, quee," and without further 
noise he quit the spot and went away in the direction of 
the black growth. 
The old squirrel went slowly up the hemlock, still mut- 
tering and chuckling to himself. At the entrance to his 
sanctuary he turned before disappearing and said : "Spruce 
buds, forsooth !" and he laughed again in a whistling, 
toothless manner, and then dropped into the solitude of 
his hermitage. 
The younger squirrel ran furtively up a cedar tree just 
at the edge of the hardwood ridge, where, for a minute or 
two, he searched about and then found, wedged in the 
fork of a limb, a big, fat spruce bud. 
The man climbed quietly down from his perch on the 
poplar and dug a handful of beechnuts out of the squir- 
rers cellar and returned to his seat. He was glad the 
squirrel had gone, for it would soon be time for that big 
buck to come out for his evening meal, on the beech 
ridge. 
The sun was setting in a glorious halo of crimson. 
Great streaks of red and gold were spread far north 
and south behind Whetstone Mountain, and as the man 
watched the dying day his thoughts went far over beyond 
that mountain, on west and west, till they saw another 
valley, and another blue river. Then the sun dropped 
suddenly behind the mountain, its last rays sharply cut- 
ting through the trees on the skyline and the broad bands 
of crimson paled into delicate pink, then narrowed into 
thin ribbons and lavender, and finally the gray crept over 
all. Another day had lived and died, and the cold settled 
all around the valley. 
Suddenly a twig broke in the direction of the black 
growth, and the watcher aroused himself from his reverie. 
He slid silently off the log and knelt facing the top of the 
ridge. He gripped his rifle and his eyes swept the edge 
of the dark woods. He tried his sights and saw that 
perhaps fifteen minutes more light remained for him. 
"He'll come out to-night and he is mine," the man 
said to himself, and he waited. 
A loud smashing in the leaves to his left startled the 
man, but he did not jump. Slowly and with infinite care 
he shoved his rifle on top of the log, and then moved his 
body with the same caution tintil he faced the spot whence 
came the sound. His eye fell on the red squirrel return- 
ing with the fat spruce bud in his widely distended jaws. 
With a rustle of the leaves louder than a bull moose 
should have made, the squirrel gained the log. Within 
six feet of the man he halted and sat up, and beginning 
at the big lower end of the bud he began to strip off the 
lichenous scales to get at the tender morsel at the inner 
end of them. He turned the bud quickly in his hands 
and hulled it out with nervous rapidity, all the while 
staring at the man with his big round eyes. In a minute 
he had finished his bud, leaving the heart and the scales 
in a little brown heap on the log. Then the squirrel be- 
thought himself of his store of nuts, and decided that he 
might add a few before bedtime. 
The first sound nut he found was brought to the cellar. 
He removed the leaves, discovered the robbery, and in 
his amazement allowed the nut to fall from his mouth. 
He gave vent to a couple of prolonged squeaks that 
sounded like "Che-e-e-e-e, che-e-e-e-e," and without so 
much as a look at the man started for the big hemlock 
tree, clearing the space by a few swift long jumps. When 
he reached a point about half-way up to the top he be- 
gan to chatter wildly, and the man understood him to 
say: 
"You old scoundrel, I'm coming up to whip you and 
throw you out of this trees. You took my beechnuts and 
now I'm going to finish you." 
The old squirrel poked his head out of the hole near 
the top and looked inquiringly down for an instant, and 
. then, as if realizing his danger, he came out and fled 
incontinently down the other side of the tree. The irate 
voungster attempted to head him off, but. missed him, and 
down they came in a spiral course, scarcely two feet sepa- 
rating them. The old fellow forgot his rheumatiz and his 
years, and seemed only to realize that his safety was in 
flight. He did some very clever dodging, but was foiled 
in an attempt to jump off and catch the limbs of a smaller 
hemlock, but a second later he came around and made 
the jump. It was a long and difficult plunge for him, but 
he made it by clasping both arms around the small end 
of the limb when he landed. For a moment the limb 
bent down and swayed wildly, until Uncle Rube hung on 
upside down and badly frightened. He quickly righted 
himself, however, and scrambled to the trunk of the 
tree and came to the ground with a noisy scratching of 
bark. As the limb flew back into position the young 
belligerent leaped and cleared the space, catching the limb 
further up, where he got a firm grip and ran to the trunk. 
He had lost two yards by the transaction, but when he 
reached the ground he was but a few feet behind his 
quarry, and the old chap had to go right back up his own 
hemlock.. 
Up they went, round and round, the pursuer never 
ceasing his angry barks and squeaks. At the top there 
was some side-stepping and ducking, but soon they came 
down again. The man was somewhat displeased with all 
this at first, but soon became much interested, and specu- 
lated some as to the outcome of the chase. 
The old squirrel was about exhausted and must soon 
stand and give battle, as but few inches now separated 
them. Within ten feet of the ground it looked as if one 
more jump and they would be clinched. 
Then an awful tragedy occurred. 
Down through the tree tops in slanting flight came a 
goshawk. Straight as a lance and with marvelous swift- 
ness he darted against the hemlock with such force that 
he fell to the ground stunned and dishevelled. In his 
talons the goshawk held the writhing squirrel that an 
instant before had been pursuing his aged neighbor with 
murderous intent. The bird shook himself, straightened 
" out his feathers and looked fiercely about, but did not seem 
to see. the man who sat in silent amazement twenty feet 
away, rifle in hand. 
The squirrel continued to wriggle, but made no sound, 
and the h.iwk ended his struggles with a tweak that prob- 
' ably crushed the small skull. 
After a few seconds' wait, as if to recover from the 
shock, the hawk flew silently away out through the tree 
tops, westward toward the mountain. 
The man saw the survivor, older and grayer, he thought, 
slowly crawling into his hole near the top of the hemlock. 
Then a great silence fell over the woods. The man 
arose stiffly from his position behind the fallen tree, took 
the beechnuts from his pocket, spread them out on the 
log and turned slowly down the ridge into the deepening 
shadows of the valley. • Frank E. Wolfe. 
"Wild Geese on the Upper Ausable Lake. 
Friday evening, March 7, a flock of thirty large wild 
geese alighted on the ice in the middle of the Upper Au- 
; sable Lake. The geese were headed toward the north 
when they came down and immediately arranged them- 
selves in a row, extending from south to north. J. W. 
Otis, game warden for the Adirondack Mountain Re- 
serve, was in the closed camp near the inlet on the Upper 
Ausable Lake, and hearing the geese squawking, took a 
lantern and went down on to the ice to inspect the visitors. 
He approached within a few feet of the geese before they 
began to rise. He says they were arranged in fine form, 
that their line was straight from south to north, that there 
was no open water near where they were, and that they 
were exchanging ideas at a great rate when he arrived 
upon the scene of action. He says they were so interested 
in their discussion that had he left his lantern on shore 
he thinks he might have taken a club and walked up close 
enough to have hit some of them before they got out of 
reach. As it was, he had a good opportunity to observe 
them as they arose, standing as he was right under them 
with a lighted lantern. The geese continued down the 
valley and north.— Elizabethtown (N, Y.) Post 
— 
« A Naturalist in the Arctic* 
Comparatively little biological work has been done in; 
the frozen north until the past few years, and the ArcticJ 
naturalists have been few in number. Much of our knowl-j 
edge of the life of that distant region has come to us'j 
incidentally, in connection with attempts to reach the-J 
Pole, or to find a northwest passage; and it is only late- J 
ly that collectors have begun to turn their faces to-] 
ward the frozen sea to learn of the animals that dwell,] 
there, and of their ways of life. 
Since the extensive work of Richardson, who, over I 
eighty years ago, accompanied the expeditions of Sir ' 
John Franklin, no connected studies had been made of ) 
northern animal life until recently. A few of the em- 1 
ployes of the Hudson's Bay Company had reported ob- ] 
servations on the birds and mammals of certain districts, ] 
and a few naturalists had penetrated the once distant , 
regions of Alaska, which of late years have become so 1 
much more familiar to us. 
Among those who in recent years have applied them- 1 
selves to the work of wresting from the lonely Arctic : 
the secrets which snow and cold, for eight or nine months 1 
of the year, held so long safely locked away, is Mr. An- ' 
drew J. Stone, whose work of collecting material for the 
American Museum of Natural History has frequently ' 
been referred to in these columns. Mr. Stone was the 
discoverer of the well-known Stone's sheep — the "black 
sheep" of the northern interior — and of the interesting 
and remarkable Stcne ! s caribou, from the Kenai Peninsu- 
la of Alaska. His work in the Arctic has been far greater 
in amount and in length of time than that of any man 
of modern times, and he recently returned thence to 
New York, bringing with him valuable collections of 
birds and mammals from that country. 
Mr. Stone is a native of Missouri, and has long been 
interested in the study of animal life, and the many 
problems involved in that study. For four or five years 
previous to 1896 he had been engaged at his home in the 
study of zoology, and in the spring of 1896 he started 
for the north by way of Alaska, with a view to learning 1 
something of the life of the north by actual experience. 
It had seemed to him, after careful thought over the 
whole subject, that the greatest opportunity in the world 
for new discoveries lay in that lonely country, sparsely 
inhabited by Indians and Esquimaux, and rarely traversed 
even by the fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
His early journeyings were successful. He brought 
back collections which, when shown to the naturalists of 
the American Museum, at once attracted their attention, 
BRINGING SPECIMENS DOWN OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS. 
and gave them a faith in the man who had collected this 
material, and in his ability to do the things he talked of. 
He was urged to return to the north, and did so; and 
after other years of toil and suffering, he once more 
returned to civilization with other collections of interest 
and value. Later, through a special contribution o£ 
money from the late Mr. Jas. M. Constable, he went 
north again, was again successful, and finally, last year, 
supported by funds contributed by a number of gentle- 
men interested in the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, the Boone and Crockett Club and the New York 
Zoological Society, he made this last trip, which has 
yielded about 350 specimens of northern mammals, and 
300 birds. These specimens are now at the American 
Museum of Natural History. 
They include a large number of small mammals which' 
have not as yet been worked up, one new caribou of (he 
barren ground type, but of large size, and with remark- 
ably long and slender antlers, which has just been de- 
scribed by Dr. J. A. Allen as Rangifer granti; a large 
bear, that is beyond question new to science, together, 
with a great deal of other material of the highest in- 
terest. The caribou and the bear are both from the 
Alaska Peninsula. _- 
