d84 
FOREST AND > STREAM. 
[May i6, I90j. 
After breakfast T took him all over the ship, then to 
my cabin and gave him a handful of smoking tobacco. 
I did not know at that time that tobacco was tabooed 
here. It was, though, lie told me that the governor 
did not allow it to be used, but the men wanted it. 
"I have several pounds of it here that I meant to 
give you men," I told him. 
"I can take it to-morrow and give it out when the 
governor is not around. He does not watch me as 
close as he does the rest; I am his son-in-law." 
"I have a lot of knives, iish hooks and lines and the 
like that I want to give your boys; will he object?" 
"Oh, no; you can give them what you please, he 
don't care; and the boys may ask you for these things, 
if they do don't let him know it, or he will whip them." 
"He won't whip more than a dozen of them if he 
waits until I tell him about it, then." 
The man told me his name, and asked me to come 
ashore in time to take dinner with him; then he left us. 
I wanted to go ashore now, but the captain always 
held church service on Sunday morning at ten o'clock; 
he merely read the morning lesson out of the prayer 
book, using the capstan for a pulpit, while his mates 
and a few of us who knew the Episcopal hymns, sang 
one or two of them; he never compelled any of us to 
attend; but most of the crew did. I meant to wait 
until after church, then ask for shore liberty, I had 
always been given it when I asked or it. But at nine 
o'clock the second mate, Mr. Robinson, canie on deck 
to go ashore and asked me to go with him; he did 
not Avant a boat's crew. The anchor watch dropped 
our boat into the water and the mate and I taking each 
an oar began to pull ashore. Cabia Blanco, 
[to be continued.] 
A Word ffom Samoa. 
Pago Pago, March 30— Editor Forest mid Stream: 
As one of your subscribers I feel that I want to say a few 
words regarding your interesting publication. Forest 
AND Stream is always good, and your Christmas number 
was particularly so. . 
I quite agree with Mr. Charles Cnstadoro m his Em- 
barrassment of Literary Riches," and I particularly agree 
with him in regard to Mrs. Churchill's work m Fore.st 
AND Stream, and her work on Samoa in general. It is 
certainly the best that has ever been written of Samoa, 
and she has proved that she has brains, an observant eye, 
and a fluent pen. She gives us the real Samoa just as it 
is, and without favor. All her Samoans are real people, 
just as they are here in reak life. I speak as one who 
knows what he is talking about, for I have lived in 
Samoa twenty years and have been Vice Consul of the 
United States under every Consul from 1888 up to the 
present time. 
Mrs. Churchill's "Samoa 'Uma" is a beautiful volume, 
and it is a pleasure to read it, for it is the real Samoa— 
"the real thing." The book is a credit to the author and 
a credit to her publishers, and the moderate price of this 
valuable work places it within the reach of everyone who 
ought to read it and get a clear idea of this little corner 
of the United States away off here in the South Pacific. 
I can safely say that "Samoa 'Uma" offers us the first 
glimpse of the real Samoa. 
May other books of the same sort from the same author 
and the same publishers follow "Samoa 'Uma," and then 
we shall be sure of the real thing. 
W. Blacklock. 
A Bird's Education. 
So FAR as regards the current discussion as to how ani- 
mals learn, whether by instinct or instruction, my study 
of birds leads me to take a medium position; perhaps I 
would better say to take sides with both parties. Birds 
acquire knowledge partly by instinct and partly by tute- 
lage, and the same is no doubt true of all other animals. 
This statement will be borne out by several concrete cases. 
Some years ago I made a number of experiments m 
rearing young birds taken as early as possible from the 
nest. Among them were meadowlarks, redwinged black- 
birds, brown thrashers, bluejays, woodthrushes, catbirds, 
flickers, redheaded woodpeckers, and several other species. 
Nearly all of them were secured some time before they 
were naturally ready to leave their natal places. Without 
any instruction from parents or older birds they soon left 
the nests I had improvised for thein, hopped about on 
the cage floor for a while, and presently insisted on clam- 
bering upon the perches, to which they clung in the regu- 
lation way. Indeed, I noted again and again that the 
impulse to seek a perch was so strong that the birds 
seemed to be moved to it by an imperative command. 
Nor were they long satisfied with a low perch, but in- 
stinctively mounted to the highest one they could find. 
The same was true in regard to flight. No feathered 
adult was present to tutor them in the art of using their 
wings, yet they soon acquired that power of their own 
accord. It was inborn— the gift of flight. True, they 
were awkward at first, and gained skill only by degrees, 
but the original impulse was in their constitution. It is 
no doubt true that parent birds in the outdoors do teach 
their young to fly, but if the bantlings were left to them- 
selves", they would acquire that art through their original 
endowment, although more slowly and with many more 
hard knocks. 
As everyone knows, juvenile birds at first open their 
mouths for their food. Proof may not be at hand for the 
opinion, but I am disposed to believe that they never need 
to be told by their parents to do that; their instincts 
prompt them. It must be so, I think, for to suppose that 
the bird baby only a day or two from_ the shell could 
understand a parental command to open its mouth would 
be to presume that it has the instinct to grasp the mean- 
ing of such a behest, and that is more difficult to believe 
than that nature simply impels it to take its food in that 
way. 
Now, when young birds are taken from the nest and 
reared by hand, they insist for a long time on being fed 
in the juvenile manner. However, by and by they begin 
of their own volition to pick up food after the manner 
of the adults. At first they are very clumsy about it, 
but they persevere until they acquire skill, and presently 
they refuse entirely to open their mandibles for food. 
Here again nature is their sole guide. Without human or 
avian suggestion they also learn to drink in the well- 
known bird fashion; also to bathe, chirp, froHc, and do 
many other things. In drinking who has ever seen a pet 
bird try to leap like a dog, or take in long draughts like 
a cow or a horse? No, nature made them birds, and 
birds they will be. It is noticeable, too, that when birds 
begin to peck, or bathe, or seek a perch, they do not 
usually act as if they were deliberately planning to do so, 
as if they were carrying on some process of thought lead- 
ing to choice, but rather as if they were naturally im- 
pelled. 
The chirping of birds is mostly, if not wholly, a matter 
of inheritance. I'or instance, my little wood-thrushes, as 
soon as they reached a sufficient age, called just like their 
relatives of the sylvan solitudes ; my brown thrashers 
uttered the labial chirp of the species; my redwinged 
blackbird exclaimed "Chack! chack!" after manner of 
his kind ; my bluebirds expressed their feelings in the sad 
little purr of Sialia sialis; my flickers did not borrow the 
calls of the redheads, but each clung to its own language; 
my catbirds mewed like poor pussy in trouble ; and so on 
through the whole list. True, these pets may have heard 
their parents' calls before they were taken from the nest, 
but it is not at all likely that they would have remembered 
them, for at first they only "cheeped" after the manner 
of most bantlings, and only a good while afterward did 
they fall to using the adult chirp. Besides, while still in 
the nest, they must have heard many other bird calls; 
why did they not acquire them? Heredity has laid a 
strong hand upon birds, and has drawn a sharp dividing 
line among the various species. 
Instinct also plays a large part in moving the bird to 
sing and to render the peculiar arias of its kind. For 
instance, a pet woodthrush of mine, secured at an early 
age and kept far away from all his kith of the wildwood, 
became a fine musician. And what do you suppose was 
the tune he executed? It was the sweet, dreamy, some- 
what labored song of the woodthrush in native wilds. He 
never sang any other tune. I think he sang it better than 
any wild thrush I have ever heard. It was louder, clearer, 
more full-toned, but the quality of voice and the technique 
were precisely the same. Who was his teacher? No one 
but nature, heredity, instinct, whatever you choose to call 
it. There was no wild thrush within a half mile of his 
cage. 
The case of a pet thrasher was almost as striking. It 
is true, he may have heard several of his kin singing about 
the premises during the first spring of his captivity, but 
it is not probable that he learned their melodies so early 
in life. As the next spring approached, he began to sing 
the very medleys that the wild thrashers sing with so 
much earnestness and skill, and this was long before any 
thrashers had come back from the South. 
I must now describe several cases in which inherited in- 
stinct did not prove so true a teacher. A young robin was 
once given me by a friend, and was kept by myself and 
others until the following summer. Strange as it may 
seem, he never acquired the well-known robin carol. 
Sometimes there were vague hints of it in his vocal per- 
formances, but for the most part he whistled runs in a 
loud, shrill tone that no wild robin ever dreamed of in- 
flicting on the world. They were more like crude human 
efforts at whistling than anything else. Indeed, I think 
they were picked up from the whistling he heard about 
the house. Some of his strains were very sweet, and all 
of them were wonderful for a bird. A friend played 
"Yankee Doodle" on a cornet, and Master 'Rastus— for 
that was his name — gave a very fair and funny imitation 
of part of the air. There were many robins carolling 
in the trees about the premises, and 'kastus was often 
left out of doors among them, but he never acquired the 
redbreast minstrelsy. 
A similar instance was that of a pet redwinged black- 
bird, which, instead of whistling the labored "Grook-o- 
lee" of his species, learned to mimic all kinds of sounds 
in and out of the house, among them the crowing of the 
cocks of the rear yard. These two instances would indi- 
cate that some birds must at least be associated with their 
kin in order to learn the songs of their species. 
My comical pet bluejay gave proof of the need of paren- 
tal training. While he intuitively called like a jay, he 
never was able to sing the sweet, gurgling roulade of the 
wild jays. On the contrary, he treated us to all kinds of 
odd, imitative, mirth-provoking performances, that no self- 
respecting jay in the open would think of enacting. After 
several months of cage life he was given his libert}'. 
Now, indeed, he showed his lack of jay bringing up, and 
how little, in some respects, mere instinct can be relied on. 
When evening came he perched on a limb of the maple 
tree before the house in a place as exposed as he could 
well find, not knowing that there was more danger in an 
outdoor roost than in his shielding cage. I could not 
induce him to come down, nor could I climb out to the 
branch on which he sat, and so I was compelled to leave 
him out of doors. 
The next morning he was safe, the screech-owls of the 
neighborhood having overlooked him in some way. The 
next evening he went to roost in the same exposed place, 
and that was the last I ever saw of my beloved pet. He' 
was undoubtedly killed and devoured by the owls. Had 
he been reared out of doors in the usual way, his parents 
would have taught him to find a roosting place that was 
secure from predatory foes. No one has ever seen a wild 
jay sleeping in an exposed place. 
In her charming little book, "True Bird Stories," Mrs. 
Olive Thorne Miller says that she "once watched the 
doings in a crow nursery." I quote : 
"The most important things the elders had to do was 
to teach the youngsters how to fly, and every little while 
one or both of the parents would fly around the pasture, 
giving a peculiar call as they went. This call appeared to 
be an order to the little folk to follow, for all would start 
up and circle round for a minute or two, and then drop 
back to the fence or the ground to rest. 
"Once, while I was watching them, this cry was given, 
and all flew as usual except _ one bob-tailed baby, who 
stood on a big stone in the middle of the field. He was 
perhaps so comfortable he did sot want to go, or it may 
be he was afraid, and thonght mamma would not notice 
him. But moLliers' eyes are sharp, and she did see him. 
She knew, too, that b.aby crows must learn to fly ; so 
when all came down again she flew right at the naughty 
bird, and knocked him off his percii. He squawked, and 
fluttered his wings to keep from falling, but the blow came 
so suddenly that he had not time to save himself, and he 
fell flat on the ground. In a minute he clambered back 
upon his stone, and I watched him closely. The next 
time the call came to fly he did not linger, but went with 
the rest, and so long as I could watch him he never dis- 
obeyed again." 
Evidence this not only of parental teaching, but also of 
parental discipline. Here is another bit from the same 
volume bearing its lesson on its face: "A lady told me 
a funny story about a robin. He was brought up in the 
house from the nest, and never learned to sing the robin 
song, for he had not heard it. He plainly tried to make 
some sort of music, and one of the family taught him to 
whistle 'Yankee Doodle.' He whistled it perfectly, and 
nevci iried to sing anything else. Once this Yankee 
Doodle robin got out of the house and flew up into a tree. 
When the wild birds came about him he entertained them 
by whistling his favorite air, which sent the birds off in a 
panic." 
Do not facts cited in this sketch prove that birds know 
axid acquire some things through the promptings of in- 
stinct, while other things they can learn only by avian 
teaching? Leander S. Keyser. 
Our Batrachians and Reptiles. — II, 
As WAS stated in the first paper on this subject, the 
class of Batrachians is divided into two orders, the 
Caudata, including the tailed forms, commonly known as 
salamanders, and the SaUentia, including the tailless 
forms commonly known as frogs, toads and tree toads. 
As both of these orders are well represented among our 
animals, a chapter will be devoted to each, the present 
one to the salamanders, and the next to the frogs and 
toads. 
_ Of liie species belonging to the order Caudata, about 
sixty are now known to inhabit the United States. They 
are fairly abundant in most parts of the country. The 
dry, hot deserts of the west and the cold, bleak northern 
Fig. 1. — Necturus maculatus. 
boundaries offer them but little chance for life, but even 
in such places they are occasionally found. In favorable 
situations from New York southward they abound, and 
rnay almost be regarded as the commonest form of animal 
life, but their nocturnal habits and their rather repulsive 
appearance has prevented most people from becoming 
intimately acquainted with them. 
As an entire group they cannot well be discussed, for 
the reason that all we know about their structure, appear- 
ance, and habits shows them extremely variable in these 
particulars. We must therefore divide them into smaller 
groups, and for this purpose we can use to advantage 
first the external characters furnished by the legs and 
gills. Proceeding in this manner we will have: 
I. Those species which in adult life develop two pairs 
of legs but retain the bushy external gills (suborder 
Proteida^. 
II. Those species which in adult life develop two pairs 
of legs but lose these external gills (suborder Urodela). 
Fig. 2. — The Blind Salamander (Typhlomolge ratkbuni) from Texas. 
III. Those species which in adult life develop only the 
front pair of legs but which possess external gills (sub- 
order Trachystomata) . 
So far as members are concerned, this division is a 
very unequal one, for only three species belong to the 
first group and two to the last, while all remaining sala- 
manders, the only true salamanders, in fact, belong to the 
second. 
A common representative of the first group is the 
spotted necturus, perhaps better known by the names of 
water-dog, alligator, water-lizard, or_ gilled salamander. 
It is a large species, sometimes attaining a length of two 
feet, and in color varies from black to ashy brown. The 
lighter colored specimens are rather handsomely spotted 
above with dark brown or blackish. As is shown in the 
figure, the three sets of bushy gills stand out on the sides 
of the neck like plumes; in life they are bright red. It is 
a widely distributed species, having been reported from 
the territory extending from Montreal to Alabama, west 
to Wisconsin, Kansas, western Arkansas and Louisiana. 
It seems to be wholly aquatic, but that it does not depend 
entirely upon its gills for respiration is shown by the fact 
that it has also well developed lungs, and has been ob- 
served to come to the surface for air. It has seldom been 
seen to go on land. In habits it is for the most part noc- 
turnal, but will occasionally cOme from its place of con- 
cealment during the day time and move about by crawl- 
ing over the bottom or by swimming rapidly by means of 
its broad, oar-like tail. Its food consists chiefly of the 
smaller water animals, fish, insects, crustaceans and mol- 
lusks, but it is voracious enough to bite at almost any 
promising morsel, and as a consequence is often taken on 
the angler's hook. In some places it is exceedingly 
abundant. It is recorded that at Ecoise, Michigan, 2,000 
were taken in a minnow seine at one haul, and near 
Evanston, Illinois, a fisherman who had out 900 hooks 
caught 500 of these animals in one day. Although one 
has been cooked and eaten and pronounced excelleiat by 
