Aug. 196:2. j 
AND STREAM. 
88 
ac 
pasture next week, and he also contemplates closing a 
gain for a half-dozen elk. In his pasture are eight 
ead of Polled-Angus cows, with which he intends trjang 
rossing the buffalo, and is promised several results of the 
scperiment next season. W. F. Laidley. 
The Parrot and the Crows. 
Staunton, Va., July 25.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
have not fired a gun since forty j-^ears ago, when, as a 
onfederate soldier, I used to chase, and be chased by, 
- brother Americans over the Virginia fields. I have 
cast a fishing line since the days of "Tippacanoe and 
ler too," when the Richmond boys of that day used to 
quent Blakey's mill pond on the outskirts of that now 
stone city. And as for boating, I can't remember ever 
ng on anything smaller than a passenger steamer, 
'hat on earth, then, does he subscribe to Forest and 
PREAM for? you will ask. Well, I get my natural history 
om Its columns, where it is served up in the most un- 
Eected, intelligible and informatory style of any source 
at I have yet found. Especially do I get a good idea 
the annnal, man, from its correspondence, for of all 
urces where that animal is exhibited with unaffected 
turalness, the sporting camp is the best place to see 
tn. It is there that he exhibits his true self— his good 
d bad traits. 
What I write you now is in the natural history line, and 
IS resurrected by seeing in Forest and Stream some 
:eresting specidations about crows talking. I live oppo- 
e to a large college for girls, on the grounds of which 
2 many trees. Next door to where I live lives an aged 
rrot, with nothing very brilliant about him except his 
image. He cannot talk English, and makes no effort 
that line that I can see. He can imitate no sound that 
recognizable, except the gleeful laughter of children at 
ly, and their cries to each other. Over the house where 
t parrot lives there sailed every morning during the early 
mths of the past spring a flock of crows, going from 
; college trees, where they had spent the night, to a 
le mountain called Betsey Belle, a half-mile from town, 
night they sailed back by the same route. Their 
:s on the passage were incessant. In less than a week. 
Gh to my surprise, my dull parrot had caught, and 
lid and did, reproduce those cries so exactly, that I 
lid not tell which was which. By the end of the first 
ek the crows plainly noticed it. At first one or two 
,uld drop from the flock to a tree near the parrot, re- 
im a few seconds, rise, and rejoin the flock. Gradually 
• number increased, until I have seen as many as from 
een to twenty crows in the tree, apparently chattering 
3Ut their imitator, who was on the porch only a few 
t off, and who replied in what seemed to me the very 
ae chatter. This went on as long as the crows roosted 
the college— say about six weeks. It was in the early 
ivn only; for in the evening the cautious crows saw 
many people astir to venture down. So much for the 
rot's ability as an imitator; he could fool the very 
ws themselves. 
Tow for the parrot as the imitated. At the house I live 
^here is a very clever quadroon cook, Alexander Jones, 
0 is also a clever imitator. He often opens a conversa- 
1 with the parrot by imitating the bird's attempt at 
nng. He can make the bird "talk" just as long as he 
nts to, and when the bird is silent can start him up 
any time with his parrot jargon and keep him going. 
imitates the bird as' exactly as the bird does the 
ws; and it is impossible to listen to the two day after 
without being -convinced that Poll thinks he is talking 
mother bird. 
-ike_ all wise professors treading on new ground, I 
3t either draw no conclusion at all, or draw so many as 
jewilder the student. I -prefer the former and safer 
I, and will leave it to the class in natural history with 
simple assurance that the statements are fates. 
H. C. T. 
Pike and Potholes. 
,HARLEST0WN, N. H., July 25.— Editor Forest and 
'am: I am very glad to see in this week's Forest and 
EAM your correction of the typesetter's blunders of 
week, in the cuts of the "pike family." If there is any 
ect on which I have preached persistently for more 
1 twenty years, it has been' the continual" perversion 
lames as applied to this race of fishes. Not only are 
names of the different species misplaced, but the 
thern and Western correspondents insist on writing 
atching- "pike," when they mean "pike-perch," but the 
thern ones call them jack salmon, or Susquehanna 
ion. 
they wottld Temember that neither the pike nor sal- 
families have any spiny fins at all, and the pike, no 
)er dorsal fin, what answers for that purpose being a 
small fin; set nearly back toward the tail, they would 
themselves from some erroneous descriptions of their' 
t. 
have been intending to write you for some days in 
rd to^ Mr. Stewart's very interesting letter describing 
holes" in North Cardlina, and especially as to the 
ry that they are due to glacial action, which I do 
believe in. 
have been familiar with both potholes and glacial 
ivings, since my childhood, though it was not till many 
s later that Prof. Agassiz explained the true cause 
ie groovings and scrapings with which the rocks of 
Connecticut River Valley are furrowed. There are 
i very fine and large potholes in the granite rocks at 
3WS Falls, eight miles below here, and another set 
Linoskeag Falls, on the Merrimac, about forty miles 
east of here; but the rotary action which produced 
I could never have been given by the slow downward 
i of any glacier, such as has scored all the rocks of 
valley with furrows leading down .stream, and left 
e collection of what he called roches moutonnees, on 
top of one of the ranges of hills between here arid 
ipee Lake, about 1,000 feet above sea level. I used 
3te when a boy a fine show of these groovings by the 
of a hill road, leading to a neighboring town, and in 
(oyish ignorance attributed them to wagon wheels and 
ninnei-s, getting out of the road; but when the rail- 
road was built up the valley some fifty years ago, wherever 
the old sod and soil was taken off the rock, a beautifully 
planed and polished surface was revealed, corresponding 
exactly with the old marks by the roadside, which I had 
seen twenty years before. Now it is easy to see how a 
slowly moving mass of ice loaded with stone and gravel 
could do this planing, but it could not stop to bore 
"auger holes" in the rock ! That required an eddy below 
a waterfall to give the necessary motion. 
One of the largest potholes at Bellows Falls has the 
lower edge split out, leaving a semicircular cavern, as if 
it had been thrown out by the freezing of the water which 
once filled it,, and the same thing is shown in the largest 
and most remarkable pothole I have ever seen. This one, 
known as "The Devil's Pulpit," it located on Shirley Hill 
m Goffstown, N. H., about six miles west of Amoskeag 
Falls, in the valley of the little trout brook which comes 
down from the Uncanoonuc Mountains, and must be 700 
or 800 feet above the level of the Merrimac River. It is 
many years since I saw it, but I should say from memory 
that It was ten or twelve feet in diameter, and as much in 
visible depth. The bottom was covered with forest debris, 
and a pme tree six or eight inches in diameter had fallen 
mto it, top down, so that it was not convenient to get at 
the bottom. The brook fell into it, over the upper 
nm, and escaped through the wedge-shaped cleft, which 
had been split out of the lower side. It was, when I saw 
it, a very diminutive brook, with no such volume of water 
as would be supposed necessary to bore out such a hole, 
but all the visible rocks above it, for it was in a thick 
forest, were smooth and waterworn, and it seemed as if 
the whole Merrimac River might have flowed up at that 
Potassittm Foi? Snake Wounds. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your paper of the rgth instant Horace Kephart, in the 
course of an article about rattlesnakes, asked for the ex- 
perience of others in regard to the efficacy of potassium 
permanganate injected subcutaneously as an antidote to 
the poison of the rattlesnake. 
The only-occasion on which I ever met a rattler on his 
native heath was many years ago, when as a small boy I 
ventured into the brush on the banks of the Genesee 
Kiver^ north of this city, for the purpose of cutting a 
pole wherewith to yank from the placid stream the 
perch, rock bass and sunfish which in those happy days 
did much abound in the river below the falls. This par- 
ticular snake was comfortably coiled on a site where he 
could enjoy the sun rays and the balmy breezes of spring, 
and as I had no quarrel with him, and no weapon of at- 
tack or defense, I thought discretion the better part of 
valor, and did not disturb him, but cut a rod at another 
point and caught a good "string" of fish. This incident 
sheds no light on the value of permanganate in snake 
wounds, but it tells of one way to treat snakes when one 
has a choice. However, if I was never stung by rattler, 
one of my fellow citizens of Rochester was, and he has 
had experience enough with the reptiles to illuminate the 
subj ect. 
Peter Gruber, better known as Rattlesnake Pete, has an 
extensive collection of snakes in his restaurant and mu- 
seum on Mill street. I am not sure that his knowledge 
of snakes is deeply scientific, but there can be no doubt 
that It is practical. He has them in all forms and sizes 
dead and alive. On special occasions he dresses in a' 
A MASSACHUSETTS NESTING WOODCOCK 
Photo by H. A. Mower, May 23, 1902. Photo copyright, 1902, by H. A. Mower. 
level at some previous prehistoric time. I am almost in- 
clined to think that these holes are pre-glacial, and that the 
downward thrust of the ice cap broke out the lower edges 
ot the nm of both this one and the big one at Bellows 
Falls. 
■Beside, the geologists tell us that the "ice cap" only 
reached down into Pennsylvania, and Mr. Stewart's pot- 
holes must be far bej^ond its reach. However, I am more 
of an angler than a geologist, and do not set up for an 
authority on such questions. My angling has been naught 
this year, a severe attack of "the grippe" last spring 
eaving me too weak to tramp the trout brooks, and I 
have had to content myself with reading about other 
fishermen in Forest and Stream. 
I have enjoyed the discussions on the subject of cali- 
bers of rifles, and although I never had a chance to shoot 
big game, ' and my experience has all been of the old- 
fashioned muzzleloading pea-shooters on squirrels and 
such ' small deer," I am inclined to agree with Mr. Irland 
and Henry Braithwaite that the weight of the projectile 
should be proportional to the size of the game. 
No doubt the small bullet in the right spot will kill, but 
we are not all Leatherstockings nor Robin Hoods, and 
cannot boast of such skill as Walter Scott describes, when 
he says : 
"And when in turn he shot again. 
The second cleft the first in twain," 
Speaking of squirrels, I had a good laugh a few weeks 
since at a letter in Forest and Stream, describing an 
imaginary conflict between a red and a gray squirrel, and 
I say imaginary, because in describing the red squirrel the 
writer drew a very good picture of a chipmunk, with his 
tawny back and the black stripes on his sides. 
Now, a chipmunk never chased a gray squirrel up a 
tree, and the writer's imagination played a strong part 
somewhere! " Von W. 
"We get queer men on our ships sometimes," said 
Rear Admiral Schley while he was telling stories of his 
experiences, "although they are all brave and loyal. 
"There was a landsman on one of my ships once who 
was a bright fellow, apparently, and I took him as an or- 
derly. One night I was in my cabin and a gale of wind 
came up. I called the orderly and said, 'Find out how 
the wind is blowing and report to me.' 
"The man was gone a few minutes and then came 
in and reported, 'Captain, the wind is blowing rieht 
over the ship.' "—New York World. 
suit made of the skins of rattlesnakes, and the visitor to 
his collection can see several large specimens of that snake 
any day with nothing but a plate of glass between him- 
self and the venom sack. Pete handles his snakes freely, 
and has been struck by rattlers several times. A few 
months since a large rattler drove its fangs into his 
hand, and it was doubtful for a day or two if he would 
recover. The arm became alarmingly swollen in a short 
time, and the pain was excruciating. In anticipation of 
such accidents, he has constantly within reach a supply 
oi permanganate of potassium, and on this occasion he 
attributes his recovery from the wound to the prompt 
application of the drug by subcutaneous injection. I 
believe that he also washes the wound with the antidote. 
E. R. 
Rochester, N. Y., July 22. 
A Nesting" Woodcock. 
Boston, Mass., July 26.~Editor Forest and Stream ■ 
Mr. Mower had the good fortune on May 23 to photo- 
graph a woodcock on her nest at the so-caled "Sawmill 
Privilege' of the Kettlehook system of Worcester Water 
Works. I inclose copy of an enlargement which will 
clearly show ho>v nature contrives to have birds simulate 
their surroundings for protective purposes. You will see 
how difficuk it is to distinguish the bird from the brush 
grass, etc., among which it has made its nest. This 
photograph was considered so rare by Mr. Mower that he 
had It copyrighted, but has given me the privilege to use 
It, if Forest and Stream cares to publish it. I hope it 
may be considered of sufficient importance for pubUca- 
tion, not only because such pictures are rare but also 
because this is tangible evidence of the fact that the wood- 
cock is breeding m this State. Mr. Mower says that the 
mother bird bravely stayed on her nest despite the fact 
that one leg of the tripod which held his camera was onlv 
eight inches from her. But it was a critical time for the 
little creature, as was evidenced by the fact that when the 
nest was visited the next day there was proof that her 
brood had been hatched, and she had taken her young 
^^^^y- , - J. W. Collins. 
First Rahbit— That town boy has been around here 
nearly a week and never once tried to kill us • 
Second iiabbit— Yes; he seems to be devoid of all 
human attributes.— Indianapolis Press, 
