FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May i6, 1903. 
Do you think that she is the same Jennie Wren that 
was with us last year, and that she has been thinking 
during the winter of this little house on top of the grape 
arbor that was waiting for her, and that she has flown 
from her southern home to spend the summer with us? 
Surely it must be so; for Jennie returns to the same 
nesting place year after year; she knows the little box 
that you have placed in a tree for her, and if once you 
irduce her to take it, this friendly little bird will make her 
home with you every year, if you treat her kindly. 
But how do I know that this is our last summer's Jen- 
nie? I will tell you. 
Last summer, after weeks of tender coaxing, our Jennie 
became so tame as to fly to a long slender pole, which 
was raised in the air, upon which she lit and ate the 
■ft"orm or spider which we offered to her; then, after rais- 
ing two broods of little ones, she flew away to her home 
in the south. Last week we determined to try to make 
this new little Jennie as tame as our last summer's pet; 
so the old bamboo fish pole, about ten feet long, was put 
into service again ; a nice fat spider was placed on the end, 
and the pole was carefully raised toward the little bird ; 
nearer and nearer it approached and still little Jennie did 
not fly. Imagine our astonishment to see the dear little 
bird suddenly fly to the pole, alight upon the perch 
fastened to the end, and take the spider. There is not the 
slightest doubt that this is the same little bird that spent 
kist summer with us, and that she. has returned, full of 
confidence and love, ready at once to take up the old life. 
Mrs. B. W. Loring, Sr. 
A Robin in Extremis. 
MoRGANTOWN, W. Va., May 5. — Do birds commit sui- 
cide? It would seem from circumstantial evidence that 
they do. This morning while passing a large sycamore 
tree in the State University grounds, I happened by some 
chance to look up into the tree, and there I saw a robin 
about twenty feet from the ground hanging to a string 
by the neck. Each end of the string was wrapped around 
limbs about eighteen inches apart, and the middle was 
wound around the robin's neck, so that it was hanging 
about midway between the two limbs. I at first thought 
it was dead, but while looking at it, I saw its wings move, 
when I rushed into one of the buildings, got a ladder, and 
soon had it rescued. 
Its life was nearly gone, but after a little while it re- 
vived and flew away. A partly built nest in the tree 
would indicate that it was carrying a string to put in 
with its building material, and in some way became en- 
tangled in the string with the above result. 
Emerson Carney. 
— ® — 
Proijrietors of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Fokxst and Stkkam. 
Hunting Deer With Hounds. 
Albert, W. Va., April 26. — Editdr Forest and Stream: 
T am glad to see that the number of sportsmen who 
favor hunting deer with hounds is on the increase. I 
have never been able to understand why so many Northern 
sportsmen were opposed to that way of hunting. I have 
always believed that their opinions were not based on 
any. very extensive personal experience. One sportsman 
says the hounds catch and kill too many deer. They may 
do this in Maine, or New York; I have never hunted 
there, but they do not here. We have good hounds — 
hounds that can catch a red fox, but I have known of but 
one deer killed by dogs. This, a very small one, became 
entangled in a wire fence just before reaching the water. 
Last fall I asked Mr. Isaac Van Meter, of Old Fields, 
W. Va., how many deer he had ever known to be caught 
by hounds. He thought for a moment, and then replied : 
'Very few, very few, indeed." Mr. Van Meter is a very 
truthful, honorable gentleman, a sportsman in the very 
best sense of the word. I know of no one better qualified 
to speak on the subject. His hunting experience covers a 
period of at least fifty years, and he has owned literally 
hundreds of hounds. He had no idea why I had asked 
the question, so could not be biased in any way. Some 
writers in Forest and Stream seem to believe it a dead 
sure thing for the hunter when hounds are used. The 
hounds are bound to start a deer, the deer is hound to 
come straight to the hunter, and so close that it cannot 
be missed ; a sure-enough cinch. This may be true else- 
where, but it certainly is not true in West Virginia. I 
should say the chances are about 16 to I in the deer's 
favor. 
I would not for a moment underestimate the skill 
necessary to successful still-hunting, but, "whether it is 
nobler in the mind" to shoot your deer running at full 
speed, or to shoot it while lying in its bed, as is often 
done by still-hunters, I leave to my readers to decide. 
A true sportsman will always jump a rabbit or quail 
before shooting. Why not a deer? When hounds are 
used, very few wounded deer escape, while in still-hunt- 
ing a large proportion do escape. 
There is one reason for using hounds which to my mind 
overcomes all that can be said against them. I refer, 
of course, to the appalling loss of life to those engaged in 
still-hunting. Dozens of hunters are killed every fall. 
Where hounds are used, these fatalities do not occur. 
To change the subject, I have been much struck with 
the bill of fare encountered by Northern sportsmen in 
logging camps. Beans and sow-belly seem to be the 
mainstay. I assure you a very different diet is served to 
the West Virginia logger. I have eaten in a number of 
camps in the last five years, and have uniformly found 
the fare good, an abundance of it, and always well cooked. 
The cook has to be a good one or the men will not stay. 
A few days ago I took dinner at Eyth & Fravel's camp 
near this place. We had roast beef, excellent bread, baked 
beans, stewed apples, potatoes, boiled cabbage, tomatoes, 
and stewed peaches; oleo, coffee, some kind of small 
cakes, doughnuts, sponge-cake, and pies. All of this, and 
the greatest abundance. The cake and pies are on the 
table at all meals. Sow-belly is practically unknown. 
Fresh beef is always on hand, so are bacon and eggs. The 
wages paid are about as follows: Sawyers, $1.50 per day; 
swampers, $1.15 to $1.50; drivers, $1.35 straight time 
(straight time means every day, work or no work). In 
addition to the sums mentioned, all receive their board, 
rain or shine. Eyth & Fravel's camp is equipped with 
spring beds. This, however, is not usually found in other 
camps in this section. 
In regard to game, will say that we have in this section 
bear, deer, pheasants, foxes, red squirrels. No gray squir- 
rels, no turkeys, no quail. Plenty of brook trout; very 
small, however. A. P. Butt. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
An Arkansas Gobbler. 
Mr. Geo. L. Babcock, now of Warren, Ark., wites : "I 
was quite surprised to find game so plentiful in this State, 
which as a game country has had little advertisement. 
There are numbers, really legions, of quail, ducks, rabbits, 
squirrels, deer and turkey — not to mention 'coons and 
'possums. The streams also have good supplies of fish, 
some of them of the game variety — notably the black bass, 
called trout in local idiom; and, wholly from hearsay, I 
am inclined to believe that there are trout in the State, 
probably in the Ozarks. 
"There are game laws on the statutes, but they are suf- 
fering from a bad attack of inanition. In fact, the open 
and closed seasons on game and fish are not definitely 
known to one person in ten. 
"Now, although I am a native of the old Gopher State, 
it has never been my fortune to get within rifle shot of a 
deer; so when I found that there were deer all around 
me down here, out came the rifle. I went to a cosy club 
house on Boggy Bayou, near Arkansas City, fully per- 
suaded that a deer would soon be mine. Being from a 
deer country, I am not wholly a fool about the methods 
obtaining in their pursuit. I know that brass bands are 
not good company, but was surprised to learn that a cow 
bell was. T'is said that the deer are used to cows, which 
is understandable since I met many wild looking bovines 
in the woods, and that any ordinary noise, if accom- 
panied by the clank of a bell, would not disturb the 
beauties. However, I refused to burden myself with any 
such contrivance, and contented myself with the slow and 
stealthy tactics of Deerfoot. Armed with a .30-30 Marlin 
and a bad cough, which seriously disturbed the serenity of 
my stalking, I spent many long and ear-strained hours in 
the woods. The diy leaves and exasperating growth of 
vines and briers were also not strikingly conducive to my 
slinking success. I hunted faithfully for two days with 
no loss of determination or enthusiasm, because I had 
several fleeting — very fleeting— glimpses of white flags, 
which I knew belonged on the stern end of my elusive 
quarry, but secured no shots until Saturday afternoon. 
It was an ideal day, cool, clear, and with a very slight 
drift of air from the northwest. This seemed to be the 
squirrels' 'at home' day, for I was annoyed occasionally 
by being subjected to some wholly unprovoked attacks of 
villainous squirrel billingsgate. I'll bet I would have felt 
bad if I could have understood what those bushy-tails 
said to me. It is a pet idea of mine that the woods in- 
habitants understand each other's remarks better than we 
do, so I made haste each time to escape from the vicinity 
of the angry little chaps — didn't want them to tell any 
tales on me to the deer. 
"I had managed to thread my way into a dense brier 
patch, further complicated by overhanging vines and 
creepers pendant from the trees. While carefully crawl- 
ing under an unusually heavy bunch of this, some pyschic 
influence caused me to look to the right — plumb into the 
startled eyes of a beautiful doe, who was lying down not 
four yards from me. As I close my eyes I can still con- 
jure up a picture of that deer. The surprise was mutual, 
and our scrambles simultaneous — I to get from under 
those vines, she to get away. Well, she got away, thanks 
to the vines, for I was neatly snared long enough to give 
her the needed start. I tried one shot, but missed. 
Knowing that my shot had frightened all deer within 
hearing, I hastened, as it was growing late, to a runway 
between Boggy Bayou and a branch of Boggy laboring 
under the gruesome name of Dead Man's Bayou, where 
I sat upon a stump with my ears and eyes as wide open as 
nature would permit. 
"After about an hour's wait and rumination on how I 
missed that doe, I was very nearly startled off my stump 
by the sudden roar of heavy wings in my rear. Turning 
cautiously I saw what I supposed was a buzzard folding 
his wings in a tree across the bayou. After some 
moments' blank staring, it dawned upon my benighted 
Northern intelligence that I was rudely spying upon a 
regal wild turkey in his boudoir. Since the twigs between 
him and me precluded all possibility of a certain shot, it 
was up to me to do some tall and crafty crawling in the 
brush. After some twenty minutes' display of my .wood- 
craft, interspersed with numerous breath-holding pauses, 
occasioned by the uneasy movements of the suspicious 
bird, I had an obstructed view of his highness at about 
sixty yards' range. He was craning his neck and using 
first one eye and then the other, trying to discover what 
manner of beast I was. Due to the increasing darkness 
and my nervousness, a bead was a mighty hard thing to 
draw, but, after some seconds' wavering, the foresight set- 
tled on the breast (no head shot in that light and with the 
head abobbing, too), and I pulled trigger. If I had 
missed that turkey! But I didn't. He toppled — ^it was 
so satisfactory to see him topple instead of fluttering — off 
his perch and hit the ground with a thump fit to scare 
all the deer in the county. Of course it was my luck to 
be on the hither side of the Bayou Dead Man, and it was 
a matter of some twenty minutes before I reached the 
gobbler, and you can imagine that I didn't stop to pick 
any flowers, either. I lugged him to camp over my shoul- 
ders — a proud and happy chap, although the bird was 
heavy and the woods dark. I'll remember that walk back 
to the club house for some time. I located many trees, 
stumps, logs and bushes by personal contact — was 
scratched by briers, torn by thorns and tripped and thrown 
by creepers, but with all, my elation was not abated one 
jot. The gobbler weighed seventeen pounds — was 'an old 
booster* — and had to be parboiled before roasting ; but the 
game flavor remained, and was fully up to the advance 
notices. Beats tame turkey. The little .30-30 ball had en- 
tered in the V of the wish-bone, and torn a large hole in 
his back, breaking the 'elbow' joint of the left wing. On 
cleaning, no vestige of the heart could be found. 
"Fine quail shooting is plentiful in the vicinity of War- 
ren. We were out many times during the winter and had 
grand sport. The birds seem to be a trifle smaller than 
our Minnesota quail, and are certainly as quick. Since 
the cover they use is almost a jungle, a good bag is a 
prideful achievement. But the deer do not have a fair 
show. They are hunted with hounds and fire hunted — 
otherwise by jack light. Nevertheless they are numerous, 
especially in the bottom lands along the rivers, 
"The Saline Fishing and Hunting Club was organized 
here in Warren April 2 with a membership limit of fifty — 
membership full already. It is the declared intention of 
the club to prosecute all violators of the game and fish 
laws, and it has already posted a reward for the convic- 
tion of anyone violating the laws. A neat little club house 
is in process of construction on the Saline River, 3^ miles 
from town. Some of the members are fond of fox hunt- 
ing, but, contrary to the usual custom, they run at night. 
The town is full of hounds, and a few blasts on a horn 
will immediately collect a very respectable pack of eager 
dogs. 
"The duck shooting is fine if one can strike them in 
January when the water is low. At high water the birds 
are far back in the woods, where it is almost impossible 
to get at them, and they seem to have no regular morn- 
ing and evening flight, nor any regular route. All the 
shooting is done through the tops of the trees as the 
birds come flying over the forest from all directions. 
Those I shot this winter were all mallards, though I saw 
a few pintail and some wood ducks, but I missed the 
lively little teal of the rice swamps." 
E. Hough. 
Hartford BuiLDiirG, Chicago, 111. 
The Sibetian Fwi- Indttstty. 
Consul-General Halloway writes from St. Peters- 
burg, April 3: "The leading market for Siberian furs is 
Irbit, 1,000 miles east of Moscow, and 150 miles east of 
the Ural Mountains and Nizhni Novgorod, where annual 
fairs are held. The fair at Irbit is held in February each 
year and that at Nizhni Novgorod in July and August. 
Ihe former is much the largest, and has just closed, the 
supply of fells consisting of bear, glutton, lynx, elk, rein- 
deer, stag, musk deer, fox, sable, marten, mink, ermine, 
polecat, squirrel, Alpine wolf, and blue, silver, and red 
fox, and one or two kinds of wildcats indigenous to Kam- 
chatka. The Siberian black hare has become very scarce, 
as well as blue fox, which brings about $50 per fell. 
"The supply was not equal to that of former years. The 
number of buyers from all the leading capitals of Europe 
and America increased and prices were higher, which is 
attributed in part to the fact that the world has adopted 
the American fashion of wearing furs outside, instead of 
as linings, which requires better skins. 
"Although a Russian company enjoys the monopoly of 
catching Alaska seals, they are all sold in London, and none 
are to be found in the Russian market. It is claimed 
by the leading experts that unless Russia, the United 
States, England, Canada, and Japan agree to put a stop 
to pelagic sealing, seal fells will disappear from the 
market. 
"Previous to September, 1902, Russian squirrel fells 
were only used as linings for ladies' shubas, but the de- 
mand at the Nizhni Novgorod fair during that year was 
so great that the price increased and the undressed skins 
(on which there is no duty in America) sell at from 10 
to 30 cents each. It requires from 100 to 250 to make a 
jacket, 60 to 150 for a cap, 20 to 40 for a boa, and s to 
10 for a muff. Pale squirrel tails are sold at $2.63 a pood 
(36.112 pounds), and dark squirrel tails at $3.13 per pood. 
White foxes are sold at $6 each. Undressed sable skins 
sell from $15 to $200 each, and it requires from 50 to too 
to make a jacket, 30 to 60 for a cap, 2 to 12 for a boa, and 
2 to 6 for a muff. 
"Sable and ermine remain the favorite furs with those 
who can aft'ord to purchase the best. 
"Local merchants at Irkutsk purchase a considerable 
quantity of furs from hunters and trappers, as do all mer- 
chants throughout Siberia, which, if not shipped direct to 
Moscow and St. Petersburg, find their way to the annual 
fair at Irbit in February, where the leading fur houses 
of the world are represented by buyers." 
Elk in Jackson's Hole* 
The following note, published in Wonderland, the 
Gardiner, Montana, newspaper, will interest many of our 
readers : 
"In a personal letter to the editor of this paper, Frank 
Sebastian, who is well known here, but at present a pros- 
perous ranchman of the Jackson Hole country, writes : 
T see "by the papers that we are all out of grub and the 
elk all starving to death, so I thought perhaps you would 
wonder how your old neighbors down in this region were 
making it. So far the only one I can hear of that is out 
of grub is the storekeeper, and of the elk, there will be 
quite a number die along Flat (Little Gros Ventre) Creek, 
but having broken into the hay stacks a few times they 
refuse to rustle and stand around waiting for another 
chance to break in again. The winter has been quite 
severe, but there are horses wintering on the hills and the 
elk back in the hills are looking all right. About 300 head 
are wintering just below here and but three have died so 
far and two of these were calves, and unless unusually 
severe weather prevails from now on, I think 10 per cent, 
will more than cover the elk loss in here.' " 
New Jersey's Game Commissioner. 
Governor Murphy has appointed Percy Hayes Johnson, 
of Bloomfield, as Fish and Game Commissioner, to suc- 
ceed William Halsey. Mr. Johnson has been Deputy 
Game Warden since 1886. He is president of the Troy 
Meadow Fish and Game Association, and was one of the 
organizers of the Brookfield Game Association in Bloom- 
field. 
