286 
FOREST 'AND STREAM. 
[April ii, 1963. 
songs^ or anxious-like calls as they fly from tree to trfee. 
Later in the evening the frogs, a couple of weeks since the 
first one was heard, fairly make the air ring. To stand 
close to a pool and listen to them is almost deafening. 
Vet frogs of different pitch of tone can be, distinguished. 
In three pools observed there was a single frog in each 
whose voice was an alto, and was varied at times from the 
regular, chant of the, others to a song quite different and 
truly pretty. 
And here, close to the 15th of April, the phoebe, the 
field sparrow, the tree swallows and the yellowhainmer 
come north on their migration. The first leaf of a tree or 
shrub to show is that of the fetid currant, a wild shrub 
growing on high ground. In the line of flowers spring 
beauties, blood roots, violets, addertongues, and a few 
hepaticas are seen. 
, A trip to the main woods now is a surprise. The snow 
is, about oft" in the patches of woods at the edge of . the 
big woods, but if you go back in the ground, on the 
northern slopes of hills and ridges or in swaihps where 
it has been protected from the sun and warm air by the 
evergreens, is found covered with snow two or three feet 
deep. Big chunks of ice, dripping with water, hanging 
dc-wn from ledges of rocks, are seen. And these in shaded 
ravines, in some cases, last well along into the summer. 
Deer tracks lead off over the snow, sinking in only an 
inch of so, but occasionally way in, and now and then a 
bear track is noticed, with the edges thawed around so 
much that you would think that you had struck 
a grizzly's. The air is cool, especially on the snow, for 
there it is usually shaded, but on the southerly sides of 
ridges there is a warmth in the sun which is agreeable 
to most animals, including man. 
But nothing green is found, or no birds seen or heard 
save the chickadee, bluejay, pine grosbeaks, nuthatches 
and goldfinches — all of them winter birds. Even the buds 
cf the underbrush are but slighth^ swollen in the most 
favorable places. While out in the clearings fifteen or 
twenty miles away, the robins, the song sparrow's and the 
flowers remind you that warm weather for good is not 
far distant, here it seems as though you were way back in 
March instead of close to the fair month of May. The ice 
in the lakes is not all gone. Some coves are entirely 
covered. 
About the 20th of April the first egg is laid. The 
butcherbirds have the distinction of having the first nest. 
■ In April the first deer is generally seen out in semi- 
civilization. The March rains makes the crust so hard 
that they can easily travel on trop, and they at once do so 
in search of food that might have been hard to get in the 
winter. As the spring advances and the leaves begin to 
come out, more and more of the animals are seen. 
The first part of May or last of April brings the white- 
throated sparrows, a bird whose song is as sweet as any 
bird's in the whole region. Each of these birds has a tone 
or pitch of its own, and one never sings its little song 
like that of another. They are a bird truly of the back- 
woods. They do not often nest near a house, but make 
their homes in wild clearings, old burnings, beaver 
meadows, edges of lakes, and one seldom fails to hear one 
about an old abandoned lumber camp. In the first part of 
May the clearings and burnings at the edge of the main, 
woods are filled with the music of this bird. They stay 
with us a couple of weeks or so and then most of them 
leave, a few remaining throughout the nesting season. I 
imagine that they, as well as other birds, remain outside 
the woods till spring has further advanced within. 
With the white-throated sparrow come the white- 
crowned sparrow, the bird of the far north; the. great 
crested flycatcher, a bird whose song might sound sad to 
some people. Later, about the middle of May, the cat- 
bird, the ruby-throated hummingbird, and the Baltimore 
oriole, a tolerably rare bird here, make their appearance. 
About this time the partridge has her nest. In the latter 
part of the month the cedarbirds come. They are in 
small flocks of four or five, and are among the last 
arrivals, though some less conspicuous birds come in 
June. 
The flowers to blossom about the first of May, when the 
white-throated sparrow arrives, are the trilliums, red and 
v/hite ; the white violets, which are about two weeks later 
than the yellow, and violet; and the soft maples whose 
blossoms give the trees a color of fiery red. The leaves of 
the hard maples, poplars and cherries have protruded 
a little way from their winter covering and make a beau- 
tiful greenish background for the dashing red of the soft 
maple flowers. About the middle of the month the wood- 
sy shrub which the deer hunter hates, the witch hopple, 
blossoms. This flower spreads its petals of a dark green 
color, when in a few days they fade to a pure white, and 
then later drop off. 
Though small patches of snow can be found in the most 
shaded places in the mountains, leaves of the trees are 
now taking shape on the sunny slopes. They are about 
two weeks behind those at the edge of the forest. It is 
cL-rious how they leave out. The lower limbs develop 
their leaves first. Here the shape has formed, while, as 
you look up along the tree, the leaves are smaller and 
smaller till at the very top you cannot see that the buds 
have swollen at all. It is due to the fact that the cool 
wind strikes the upper buds while on the lower ones the 
buds are more sheltered from the breeze, yet getting full 
benefit, of the warm rays of the sun. This feature is more 
noticeable in the hard maple and birch. Now to pass to 
the shaded side of the ridges is like going into another 
climate. The buds here are merely swollen and you can 
see why, for the air is cool and damp. The dandelions 
and cherry flowers in the fields and grown up burnings 
are very beautiful, and a great many birds have their 
nests in them. The last year's leaves and the twigs arc 
very dry, so that now a match will set a fast-spreading 
fire. Some lazy backwoodsmen clear their potato patches 
just in this way, and consequently destructive fires ai-e 
started. 
At the last of May we almost cease to fear frosts. We 
get them, however, quite heavily sometimes in this month, 
and even real snow storms. Throughout the spring the 
prevailing winds are from the southeast, and whenever 
they turn to the northwest the thermometer lowers. 
One observing the first birds and the first flowers of 
spring will hardly fail to notice that certain birds will 
come with certain growths of vegetation. Thus: the 
Jpngfisber about the time of the sktink cabbage ; the bluet 
with the yellowhammer; the white-throated sparrow 
with the trilliums, etc. 
But then you cannot nail nature to any strict rules. 
No spring is like another, nor does the bird always come 
w the same part of month. He is just likely to do so. 
Eldridge Spears. 
The Story of a Bird Lovefr^ 
LTnder this title the Outlook Company has recently 
published in a handsome volume of nearly 375 pages an 
autobiography of Mr. W. E. D. Scott, well known as 
Curator of the Department of Ornithology in Princeton 
University, and the author of a great number of papers 
on birds. 
The volume has an especial interest for all nature 
lovers, because ever since his childhood days Mr. Scott 
"has been an enthusiastic lover and student of birds, and 
his investigations have carried him over a very consider- 
able part of northern North America. Mr. Scott is now, 
and for years has been, studying wild birds in captivity, 
having in his house at Princeton a laboratory of six 
rooms where are confined about 500 live birds, native and 
foreign.* Some of his observations and conclusions have 
been published within the last year or two in Science, 
and about five years ago he published a volume of "Bird 
Studies" giving an account of the land birds of eastern 
North America. 
The present volume begins with the author's first child- 
ish recollections of nearly fifty years ago. The boy from 
childhood was interested in living things, and during his 
student days at Harvard fell in with Henry Henshall, 
William Brewster, Ruthven Dean, H. A. Purdie and 
others, who afterward formed the Nuttall Ornithological 
Club. He studied with Agassiz, Wilder, Morse, and 
others at Penikese Island, and not long after that started 
west, to set on foot natural history collections for a 
normal - school in Missouri. This accomplished, he re- 
turned to New York and took up the work of skinning 
birds for John Wallace, the taxidermist, in North Wil- 
liam street, well remembered by many of our older 
readers. A little later he was engaged to arrange the col- 
lections at Princeton, where he has been ever since. 
Mr. Scott's volume takes us, as we have said, over 
much of the country. The Atlantic Coast as far south 
as Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, and the 
island of Jamaica are all visited, and concerning each 
section through which he went Mr. Scott gives us full 
and most attractive detail. Where all is so good it is 
hard to say what in the book is most interesting, yet we 
are inclined to prize most what he tells of Florida and 
Jamaica. 
There is perhaps no one who has done so much to 
present to the public the terrible destruction of Florida 
birds as Mr. Scott. At the time of his first visits to 
Florida in the early '70's, the business of plume hunting 
had hardly begun. At the time of his later visits most of 
the plume birds had been destroyed, their rookeries, or 
nesting places, had been broken up, and Florida, from 
the greatest of our resorts for tropical birds, had becom.e 
almost barren of birds. 
From the very interesting pages of Mr. Scott's book we 
may quote an interesting experience of his which shows 
how readily — what is already well known — wild creatures 
learn where they are protected and take advantage of this 
protection. 
In February, 1887, Mr. Scott took from a nest in a 
rookery not far from Tarpon Springs three young Ward's 
herons for the purpose of watching their growth and the 
development of their feathers — for when secured they 
were in the downy stage of plumage. They readily be- 
came tame, and when they had attained their full growth 
— the purpose for which the author had reared them hav- 
ing been accomplished — they were put in a coop, driven 
to a cypress swamp some three miles from town, turned 
loose in the dusk of the evening, and that was supposed 
to be the end of them. 
"Imagine my surprise," Mr. Scott says, "the next morn- 
ing on coming out of the house to see the three herons 
perched in a row on the fence, announcing with loud 
voices and gaping mouths that it was high time for some 
one to go to the fish market. Needless to say, I went at 
once. Nor was this the end. I found I could not get rid 
of them. Like Sinbad the sailor, I had taken up a load 
and could not lay it down; the Old Man of the Sea would 
not relinquish the advantage he had gained. After 
various experiments and expedients, an arrangement 
was contrived that seemed fair to all parties. There 
was a boathouse on the bayou that had a grated water 
doo^ through which the tide rose and fell, and inside was 
a spacious pool for the accommodation of various craft. 
Now, this was not in use, and here, for a time, two or 
three weeks, the birds were confined. They were supplied 
daily with food, and were able to catch many small fry 
that swam about in the inclosure, eking out a good living. 
After a time the water gate was left open, when they all 
waded out and flew to various points in the bayou. From 
that time on for months the herons were daily seen walk- 
ing about, and at any time when I had a fish I could call 
them and they would come and get it. With the arrival 
of sportsmen from the North, one by one these birds 
were sacrificed to satisfy the killing instinct that seemed 
to be rampant in the breast of every man who invaded 
Tarpon. The last one disappeared about fourteen or fif- 
teen months after liberation. 
"Fortunately, these occurrences answered a good pur- 
pose. The town authorities, of course, had noticed these 
birds, and I had frequently warned people not to kill 
them ; but this lesson was better than all preaching. Now 
a law was made that, within a certain distance of the 
town, and on the adjacent waters, no one should be 
allowed to fire a gun. As a consequence, during many 
ensuing winters many kinds of birds frequented these 
waters; wild ducks swam about in the bayou which 
reached away into the town, and became so tame as to 
approach within a few feet and pick up pieces of bread 
thrown to them, much as swans and ducks do on the 
ponds in Central Park. They soon found out that here 
they would be unmolested. 
"Nor was this the only place where similar results fol- 
lowed protective steps. There is a hotel on Tampa Bay 
located at the end of a long railway wharf which extends 
several miles out from the shore. Here passengers em- 
barking and arriving on the steamer for Key West are 
entertained. The dining room windows did not simply 
look out upon the water, but were over it, the walls of 
the house rising on piles straight from the bay. While 
taking breakfast one morning in March, the windows all 
open, I w^as surprised to see countless wild ducks, chiefly 
the lesser scaup, swimming about close to the building, 
much at home. On throwing out a bit of bread, they 
scrambled for it and tussled with one another much as 
tame ducks do. Then, as soon as other ducks at a little 
distance perceived that feeding was going on, they joined 
the group, and before long several hundred wild ducks 
vvere under the windows of this hotel, affording an un- 
usual sight. 
"The waiter, noticing my interest, informed me that 
this result had been brought about because, in order to 
prevent accidents to guests, one of the rules of the estab- 
lishment was that no firearms should be discharged in 
the vicinity, from any point on the wharf, or on the ad- 
jacent waters. Not the least curious part of this incident 
is that the same kinds of ducks, only a little distance away 
in the bay, say a mile, were so extremely wild that it was 
difficult to approach them. I believe that probalDly some 
of the individuals observed as so wary were the very 
birds that, when in the vicinity of the building, lost ail 
sense of fear. I am inclined to believe that they dis- 
criminated that danger ensued from the approach of men 
in the boats, and that in the vicinity of the inn nothing 
was to be feared." 
North Siberian Mammals. 
The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, sent out by the 
American Museum of Natural History in New York, has 
been heard of by all ethnologists, and at the Congress of 
Americanists, held in New York last autumn, some of 
the discoveries made by this expedition were announced 
in the papers there read by its members, though, of course, 
the general results of the expedition have not yet been 
published. 
It is not generally so known that Mr. N. G. Buxton, a 
collector in zoology, went to the northeast coast of Asia 
with the Siberian division of the Jesup Expedition, where 
he made extensive collections. A report on the mammals, 
with his itinerary and field notes, has just been published 
by Dr. J. A. Allen in Volume XIX. of the Bulletin of the 
American Museum of Natural History. 
The present paper includes, beside the mammals col- 
lected by Mr. Buxton, those obtained by other members 
of the expedition. The chief localities represented are 
thus the west coast of Okhotsk Sea, the middle Anadyr 
River, the lower Amoor, the mouth of the Anadyr River, 
Indian Point on the extreme northeast coast of Siberia, 
and the middle Kolyma River. The collection numbers 
about 500 specimens representing 35 species, which in- 
clude 12 new forms. 
Mr, Buxton reached Vladivostok about the middle of 
May, 1900, and Gichiga August 13. This is a great place 
for salmon, which ascend the rivers of the gulf in im- 
mense numbers during July and August and are caught 
and dried and constitute the people's chief supply of food. 
They obtain also a few reindeer from the Tungus and 
Coryaks, some wildfowl, and exchange labor and furs 
with the traders for birch tea and sugar. 
In that latitude snow begins to fall in October and a 
little later the rivers and lakes freeze over. From this 
time until spring all travel is by dog sledge, and the 
abundance of fish enables each man to keep from ten to 
sixty dogs. From ten to sixteen animals constitute a 
team, the animals being hitched in pairs to a long line 
attached to the sledge and being driven by the word. Mr. 
Buxton's travels in this far northern country lasted for 
about a year, and he returned by the Transsiberian rail- 
way to Europe and thence to New York, which he 
reached the end of November, 1902. 
Among the collection are reindeer both wild and do- 
mesticated, including two races of the domesticated rein- 
deer, which are very different in size. The Chukchees, 
who inhabit the extreme northwestern corner of Siberia, 
possess the largest herd of any of the Siberian natives, 
some of them containing as many as 20,000. The Koryaks, 
Tungus and Lamuts are also owners of reindeer. These 
last possess the largest breed, while those of the Tungus 
of the interior are larger than those owned by the other 
two tribes. The animals wander at large, but a herd of 
four or five thousand visited by Mr. Buxton was accom- 
panied by twelve men and their families, who looked after 
the deer and moved along with them, frequently changing 
them to fresh pasturage. One or two men are with them 
constantly day and night, summer and winter. Many of 
the reindeer are broken to ride and drive. The animals 
are tame and are easily caught with long sealskin lariats, 
Which the men handle dextrously. In color the animals 
range from pure white to dark seal brown. It is interest- 
ing to note that in Siberia reindeer usually give birth to 
young when they are two years old, and it is unusual for 
them to have young when one year old. On the other 
hand, in Alaska the reindeer descendants of these Siberian 
animals calve at one year old, and it is the exception for 
them to wait until they are two years old. 
Wild reindeer are still quite common in the country 
about Marcova. They are smaller than the domesticated 
ones. 
The elk — ^by which is meant the elk of Europe, corre- 
sponding to our moose — seems to have disappeared from 
the region immediately about the Okhotsk Sea, but is still 
found further inland. One member of the expedition re- 
ported them as abundant in the valley of the Kolyma 
River. 
The single specimen of the muskdeer (Mosckus 
r.wschifenis Linn.) is found in this collection. It was 
taken in the Verkhoyansk Mountains in Yakutsk, Siberia. 
The bighorn {Ovis nivicol Esch.) is more or less 
abundant in northeastern Siberia, though just how com- 
mon carmot be said. It is far more nearly allied to the 
American forms of bighorn than to those of western 
Asia. 
Bears are very abundant in the country around the head 
of Okhotsk Sea as well as in northeastern Siberia gen- 
erally along the coast, but Mr. Buxton's notes tell us 
little about their habits. 
