Kov. 22, 1902.1 
406 
will begin soon^ Chief William L. Hall, of the Bureau 
of Forestry, impressed on his recent visit to the State 
by being shown growth four feet high froin seed of the 
Pinus tuberculata sown two years ago on the north 
San Gabriel, has sent here C. O. Sparks, of his depart- 
ment, to co-operate with P. T. I^ukens, of Pasadena, in 
further work of this kind, and declares this to be the 
beginning of an extensive effort toward restoring the 
timber. W. H. Mills, of the Southern Pacific Road, 
who is now drawing up a memorial to Congress setting 
forth the forestry conditions, will advocate liberal ex- 
penditure for this purpose. 
A report that Santa Cruz Island, twenty-eight miles 
off the town of Santa Barbara, said to be the gem of 
- the coast group, would soon be made a resort like Cata- 
lina, has been contradicted by the capitalists supposed 
to be interested, but the place must be developed in the 
near future. It has been n-ierely a sheep range, and 
twelve thousand of the flock were slaughtered in 1876, 
twenty-five thousand in 1887. just for the pelts and tal- 
low, and to reduce the number. The island is nine miles 
wide and thirty miles long. The eastern shore is said to 
be low and permit landing at many points. Western 
and northern sea cliffs are rich in caverns, where escap- 
ing sealions must be avoided. Sheltered coves about 
the island with smooth water in them, show sea ga-- 
' dens at great depths ©f brightly colored growth with 
brightly colored fish swimming above it. Admitted day- 
light into Painted Cave discloses for fifteen hundred feet 
back of a brilliant fresco of green, red, golden, or other 
surprising hue. 
A number of California road-runners, with tails a 
foot long, appearance otherwise and their "cra-i-i-i-ks" 
not unlike those of the bittern, though in fact ground 
•cuckoos, comical beyond description, for a month have 
been racing about the common and with passing vehicles 
on our streets, greatly to the amusement of all the 
neighbors within view, and even enter our premises to 
exhibit. One creature just escaped a Cooper hawk 
through maneuver and swift disappearance. Another 
has become a cripple since we first saw it. All of them 
understood on sight the construction of our chicken- 
wire fence, and either have used the gate or passed 
around the end. A side-hunt, to take place on Thanks- 
giving Day, avowedly to kill game and rid the Ojai 
■ of rabbits, beside destroying a great many larks and 
other attractive birds, must result in the death of many 
road-runners, for these tempt seriously the thoughtless 
hunter. Contumacious remarks or other ridicule wouki 
^follow advice to the contestants. 
A wild pigeon that lit immediately above our veranda 
on Oct. 20, the first bird of the season, escaped with 
magnificent speed from a shot aimed at its head. None 
of these creatures rnust stop near. Upon our arrival 
here we placed as drinking pool in the front 3'ard for all 
kinds of birds a shapely Indian mortar, and for awhile 
we were grateful for the chorus of song, but the small 
boy with miniature rifle discovered what shooting he 
might have at the fearless singers and compelled us 
also to^ seek cover, for here as elsewhere, the usual 
coroner's jury will acquit if the murderer be careful to 
kill his victim through accident. Shots of hunters in 
the canon near our yard, neighbors tell us. one season 
made life very uncertain about these premises, hence 
pigeons must be destroyed— or scared off. The flocks 
this year appeared in the valley three days before the 
first rain. H. R. Stetgjjr. 
NOKDHOKF, Cal. 
— « — 
How to Attract the Birds.* 
In his report on ""Insect Enemies of the Spruce in the 
Northeast," Dr. A. D. Hopkins says that, "In hundreds 
of infested trees examined, at least one-half of the beetles 
and their young had been destroyed by birds, and in 
Uiany cases it was evident that even a greater propor- 
tion had perished from this cause alone." These beetles 
are able to overcome the resistance of a healthy living 
tree only when present in large numbers, and Dr. Hopkins 
estimates that on an average infested tree one hundred 
beetles exist for each square foot of the bark. As an 
average tree has about sixty square feet of infested bark, 
it may stipport 6,000 individual beetles. This gives some 
notion of the number of possible insects in an infested 
spruce forest. The destruction of our woods by un- 
checked work of such insect pests is enormously costly, 
.'tnd only the birds can protect us from this loss. 
In summer, when bird life is most numerous, whevi 
the young are being reared, the food of the bird is almost 
roofs of our houses, night hawks and whippoorwills 
through the open country, all plying the air for hours at 
a time." A little lower down, the large family of the. 
flycatchers, including king birds, peewecs and their allies, 
■^land as sentries at various points, snapping up each 
luckless insect which shows itself, and thus do their 
share. To the tribe of the warblers and the vireos has. 
been assigned the duty of taking care of the twigs at the 
extreme ends of the branches of trees and shrubs. They 
go over them with care and the vireos even inspect the 
under sides of the leaves, so that none of the insects may 
get away. These tiny birds deal only with the smaller 
forms of insect life. The thrushes, blttebirds, robins, 
mockingbirds, catbirds, thrashers, wrens, orioles and 
tanagers are searching for food all day long during the 
whole of their stay, dealitig with the larger insects, and, 
Ahile helping themselves, are helping us as well. As 
many birds will not cat the large hairy caterpillars, they 
seem to have been turned over to the citckoos, who may 
often be seen at \vt3rk about the nests of the tent cater- 
pillars, wdiich disfigure the apple tree and the wild 
cherry. 
The woodpcckens are the great enemies of the beetles 
about which Dr. Hopkins writes, but they have faithful 
allies in those tiny little birds which spend the season of 
The Record of the Old Missouri. 
Fort Atkinson, Wis., Nov. i^.—Editor Forest and 
■Stream: A recent number of the Forest and Stre.\m 
gave an interesting account of the finding of a stone in 
North Dakota, marked with the names of a number of old 
trappers and hunters who ranged that region in the days 
long gone by. 
Thinking it would interest an old friend of mine, Mr. 
Theodore Louis, of Louisville, Wis., who was m the em- 
ploy of the American Fur Company as a hunter and scout 
in the early fifties, I sent him a copy of the paper. Mr. 
Louis is a German, and one of the rare old type. He was 
hunter and scout for the Prince of Nassau, who spent five 
years, I believe, in hunting large game on the plains about 
1853 or '54. Mr. Louis for a number of years has been 
one of the most noted and skillful breeders of swine in 
the United States, and he is full of most interesting 
reminiscences of the days when the Indian and the buffalo 
held joint sway over all of that region west of the Mis- 
souri. 
I send you his letter, in which you will note he recalls 
one of the names inscribed on the stone. I do this, think- 
ing that it may be of interest to you. 
W. D. HO.^RD. 
Mr. Louis' letter to Mr. Hoard, dated Nov. 12, 1902, 
reads as follows : 
Dear Sir : Your postal card and marked copy of Foijest 
.\>;d Stream came duly to hand. Yes, it recalls years of 
yore in a land where we were monarchs of all we sur- 
veyed, no matter how broad the vision from the moun- 
' tain's dizzy heights. I recall the name McCarthy. I met 
him in Fort Pierre, and later once at Fort Union,' both old 
posts on the Afissouri River. Like myself, he was in the 
service of the American Fur Company. I met him in 1852. 
but I was stationed at Old Fort John, below Fort Laramie, 
and my field of operations was southwest of there, with 
the Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes in Colorado Territory, 
where the city of Denver stands to-day. 
We boys had a habit of scratching gmr initials or names 
on any smooth-faced prominent rock, but I should think 
that before this time would have wiped out all these 
■ records. 
I have a few relics left. The pipe and kinikinnick 
I pouch that Mimilusa, a chief of the Cheyennes, gave me 
- on Cherry Creek, in a winter camp, near where the city of 
Denver now is ; a pair of moccasins and a few other 
I trinkets; and my young ones sometimes say, "Father, you 
1 know you willed to me that powder horn made out of 
luffalo horn," or this or that. 
While 1 was reading tlie story of this stone it drew my 
(.houghts away from the gloomy and lonesome part of life. 
With best wishes, your friend, Theo. Louis. 
A KURILE ISLAND TREE. 
wholly insects, and the value of their services to gardener 
and farmer is so verj^ great that it cannot be computed. 
The statement that a few years of unchecked ravages of 
insects would render tbe earth uninhabitable is no doubt 
true. 
The value of birds' services to mankind, how to Ijrinjf 
them close to our homes, and a number of other interest- 
ii.g talks about bird neighbors, form the subject of a new 
volume by Neltje Blancban, whose books. "Bird Neigh- 
bors." "Birds which Hunt and are Hunted" and "Na- 
ture's Garden," have had so wide and .so well-deserved a 
popularity. The subiects treated are, "How to Invit.' 
Bird Neighbors," "The Ruby Throat's Caterers," "Bird 
Architecture," "Home Life," "Nature's First Law," 
"Songs Without Words," "Why Birds Come and Go." 
"What Birds Do for U.s" and "Some Naturalized For- 
eigners." 
To those who are familiar with the author's happy 
style, little need be said concerning the pleasing presenta- 
tion of the various subjects wWch make up the book. In 
its matter, its illustration.s, and its admirable mechanical 
constrtiction, it is extremely attractive. In the eighth 
chapter, in which we are told "What Birds Do for Us." 
i:n interesting review is given of the division of the labor 
of insect destruction among the different groups. Thus : 
"One class of tireless workers is bidden to sweep the 
air, and keep down the very small gauzy-winged pest.^ 
such as mosquitoes, gnats and midges. Swallows dart 
and skim about shallow water, fields, and marshes ; purple 
martins circle about our gardens ; swifts around the 
•Doubleday, Page & Co.. Price, $1.25 . 
cold climbing up and down tree trunks and hunting along 
iheir branches for the eggs and cocoons of the insects 
which next spring are to do their pernicious work. Nut- 
iiatches. brown creepers, titmice and kinglets are the little 
fellows thai by their destruction of insect eggs perhaps do 
as much good as .any other birds. 
Whe:n the sparrows at the end of the suiTtmer have 
finished tlif work of feeding their young on insects, they 
lind the harmful weed seeds beginning to ripen and feed 
on them. Many of them stay with us al'l winter, and all 
through the season are at Avork at seed catipg, just -^s the 
chickadees are at insect egg eating. 
It is interesting to learn that a peach grower in Georgia 
has .so high an appreciation of the value of the purple 
martin in keeping down the curcidio beetle that he has 
set up on poles all around his orchards, gourds for the 
martins to nest in. They do nest in them, and well do 
iliey pay their rent. 
Hawks and owls arc .shown to be far more useful than 
harmful, and vultures and gtills and terns each to do their 
\ariou.s_ works in helping to make life pleasanter and 
easier for us to live. 
The book is full of ii\fnrmation most attractively pre- 
sented, and is beautiful in illustrations and make-up. 
Though the pictures are mostly of the smaller birds, 
there are included woodcock, grouse and very many pic- 
tures of nests and nesting sites. 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
alwayg be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., New 
York, and not to any individual coanected with the paper. 
