406 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Pronghorn's Horn Sheaths. 
Editor Porest and Streatit: 
Exact observations on the shedding of the horn sheaths 
in prong-horned antelope, made upon the same individital 
through a series of years, are so scarce, that the following 
note will doubtless interest many readers: 
On Oct. 29, 1899, a fine buck antelope, apparently about 
four years old, was received at the Zoological Gardens 
from North Dakota. A few days after arrival, it shed 
the horns it was then carrying, y^i inches in length on 
the exterior curve. It shecf again about the same period 
in 1900, this pair measuring gVz inches. On Nov. i, 1901, 
and Nov. 3 and 4, 1902, the process was repeated, both 
of these pairs being about 11 inches long. The animal 
remains in perfect condition and health, and it is my 
hope that it may live to add to the series. 
In December, 1901, three other bucks- were received, one 
being a kid with horns an inch or so long, which were 
dropped abotit the middle of the month. The two others 
appeared to be three 5'ears old. One of them shed horns 
8 inches long on Nov. 5, 1902; the other on Nov. 9, the 
horns in this case measuring but inches, and having 
a strong outward inclination, both in the horn-sheaths 
and covers. 
Every observed fact so far indicates that ^he shedding 
is a regular annual occurrence, but so few observa- 
tions have been recorded from those in a wild state, that 
room is still left for the possibility that it rnay not always 
occur in each individual with exact regularity — as is now- 
known to be the case with some species of deer. I may 
add that I once saw a fane head of a freshly killed buck 
early in November, on which the sheaths were loose and 
about ready to drop off. 
Arthur Erwin Brown. 
Zoological 'G.A.RDENS, Philadelpaia, Nov. 11. 
[Mr. Brown's observations on the horns of the prong- 
horned antelope are interesting, and it is desirable that 
others who have the opportunity shpuld tnake similar ob- 
servations on this species now growing so rare. 
The testimony of the old-time Western hunters is 
practically universal that in buck antelopes killed in 
November or JDecember, the horn sheaths are always 
either loose or recently shed. More than once, when 
taking a buck by the horn to turn him over or drag him 
to a more convenient place for attention, we have had 
the horn sheaths come off in the hand, and a friend told 
us of a case where, havig shot a buck antelope, he found 
on going up to him that the horn sheaths had become 
loosened and had partly slipped off as the animal fell.] 
but will wind and avoid him if but one snif¥ of his 
breath be wafted toward thenl?-=-Londarl Field. 
Sand Dttnes of the Atlantic Coast. 
Washington^ D. C, Nov. 14, — For several years the 
sand dunes of the Atlantic coast have been made a sub- 
ject of study by the Bureau of Plant Industry of the 
Department of Agriculture, and a number of papers have 
been issued in regard to sand-binding grasses. During 
the past summer a study has been made by the Bureau of 
Forestry to determine what trees and shrubs are most use- 
ful in reclaiming the shifting dunes. Considerable dam- 
age has been done by dunes, especially in Virginia and 
North Carolina, and large dunes in several places along 
the coast are threatening life-saving stations, residences 
and club houses. 
Dunes are formed hy the drifting inland of sand washed 
up on the shore by high tides. The direction of the pre- 
vailing wind determines the course of dunes. They ad- 
vance with the wind, or, if the wind changes its direc- 
tion, as in New Jersey, they retreat and are blown back 
into the sea. 
Dunes which are advancing on valuable property may 
be diverted Jrom their course by building on top of them 
fences placed at an angle to the direction of the prevail- 
ing w^nd. Further drifting of the dunes may be pre- 
vented by planting on them beach grass, waxberry, or 
wax myrtle, which hold the sand together, and the per- 
manent retention of the land can be best accomplished by 
obtaining as soon as possible a dense stand of forest trees, 
such as pine and oak. 
I Black Oupmunfc and White. 
Waterford, Oxford County, Me., Nov.' 10.— Mr. Geo. 
W. Porter shot a few days ago a jet black chipmunk, first 
one seen or heard of about here. Nash, of Norway, is 
mounting it. A pure white one was shot in Bridgton 
recently. A red squirrel- partly gray with almost white 
tail is seen 'a&ify at Sottth W%terford. 
Only three deer shot so far in town and reported; are 
seen frequently. Planted ten cans of fine salmon fry 
yesterday from Auburn. A wildcat (bobcat) was shot at 
by one of our gunners recently, a rare thing about here. 
More partridges than for some 5'ears, very wild and shy. 
Woodcock scarce. Some foxes taken in traps, also fat 
'coons. E. Porter. 
Odd Ttees. 
— ^— 
Proprietors of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them m Forest and Stkxau. 
Imported Pheasants in Tennessee. 
Knoxviu.e, Tenn., Nov. lo.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
I am unable to state the progress of this bird in other 
portions of the State, but in East Tennessee I have 
been very much interested, and there are but few people 
even in this .section who are familiar with what has been 
and is being done to encourage this noble game bird in 
what is a natiu-al home for them, and those who are 
really interested do not realize that with the proper pro- 
tection, we should within the next few years have the 
greate.';t reserve in the United State if not "in the world. 
In 1894 the question of introducing English ring-neck 
pheasants in this territory was discussed by the Knox- 
ville Gun Club, at that time among the most active gun 
clubs in the country, <ind as a member of that organiza- 
tion, I purchased from Dr. Verner De Guise, Mahwah. 
N. J., one liundred eggs, eighty per cent, of which 
hatched; all the young chicks but three died within a 
month, however, probably for the i-eason that we were 
not familiar with caring for them. Of the three that lived, 
there were one cock and two hens. This was in the 
spring; in September these three birds were put out in the 
foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Severe county, Tenn. 
The following winter we had a very heavy snow and 
freeze, which lasted for five weeks, and which largely 
destroyed the small game in this territory, quail and 
other small game being frozen out to a minimum. 
The next spring, however, a full-grown ring-neck cock 
cock pheasant was seen near the place where these three 
birds were put out, showing that they had wintered safely; 
which I think was due to their great strength and heavy 
feathering. 
Being encouraged, I as president of the gun club then 
purchased from Mr. John A. Durrell, Pleasant Ridge, O., 
seventeen English ring-neck pheasant. These birds ar- 
rived full, grown and in fine condition, and were put out 
in the foothills of the Smokies in Severe county on pro- 
tected land, the birds being placed in separate valleys that 
were closely watched, and the first season one nest was 
found containing forty-two eggs. The hen was sitting, 
and two weeks later the nest was visited again. Appar- 
ently every egg had hatched, there being nothing but 
shell i to show for it. A short time afterward the brood 
was seen with two old birds, and counted by three parties, 
one making forty-two, one forty-one and one forty young 
chicks. Since that time a great many broods have been 
seen, with from fifteen to forty birds each. 
Later on nine more full-grown ring-neck pheasants 
were secured; one cock and two hens were put out in 
Blount county and two cocks and four hens in Grainger 
county. One of the hens in Blount county was killed 
while on nest by a mowing machine and one by a dog, the 
old cock soon associated himself with the farmers' 
chickens, and while he was very shy, at last reports he was 
still with them. Over in another county, twenty miles 
from where the first birds were put out, a gentleman found 
a nest at the corner of his field, and built a temporary 
fence across the corner, so the hen would not be molested. 
This hen hatched out twenty-two chicks. I could cite 
many other similar finds. The birds have scattered over 
a rather large territory ; a great many are now seen in the 
big mountains where they associate themselves with the 
native mountain pheasants, of which there are a good 
many. 
In 1896 the gun club succeeded in getting a law passed 
through the Legislature protecting these birds in the 
various counties in which they were placed, for a period of 
five years, with a penalty of $25 for any person caught 
with one of the birds dead or alive. A boy caught a finely 
plumed cock in a trap three years ago, a'nd immediately 
brought the pheasant to Knoxville and offered it for sale, 
he was told of the offense and an officer accompanied him 
back home and saw the bird liberated just where he was 
trapped. The report Avas circulated around the country 
and had a good effect; the boy thought it a very rare 
specimen of mountain pheasant and expected to realize a 
fancy price. 
In the 1900 Legislature this law was renewed until 
1905, at which time we expect to have the greatest pheasant 
reserve in the country, and I think if any person who 
reads this will stop and figure a little, he will agree 
with me. 
Every one who is familiar with English ring-neck 
pheasants, will, I think, agree that they are very hardy 
birds ; being large and strong, they are far more capable of 
protecting themselves than are quail and other similar 
game birds, and are large breeders. Now just to give 
you some idea of the probable reserve at the end of the 
ten j^ears' protection, we will not consider the last nine 
birds put out, but will assume that each of the ten hens put 
out in 1895 will hatch a brood of twenty chicks each, which 
is really a small hatching for these birds. We will allow 
fifty per cent, for destruction by hawks, foxes and 
other natural causes. This should give us a balance of 
I.17 birds the first year. Losing the same proportion of 
seven cocks and ten hens, when the law protecting them 
expires Jan. i, 1906, we should have no less than twenty- 
one million ring-neck pheasants, which if placed twenty- 
five birds in every square yard, would be enough to cover 
12,000 acres of land. Now, if any gentleman thinks we are 
going too high, we will take five birds as an average brood 
and still have ten and one-half million birds, or enough to 
load three thousand 30,000-pound freight cars. 
These pheasants are in a territory that would largely be 
under control of the proposed Appalachian National Park 
in Tennessee. This great movement and its consummation 
by the National Government will be its greatest gift to the 
South in its history; and the benefits to all the States 
lying east and west of the Appalachian range, from Penn- 
sylvania to Florida and from the Mississippi River to the 
Atlantic Ocean cannot be estimated. We want this Ap- 
palachian Park, and we want it bad, and if Congress will 
authorize this great movement, with the protection 
afforded by the Government, within ten years East Ten- 
nessee and western North Carolina will be the greatest 
game, bird preserve ever known to the world. If you 
How Do They Know? 
The instinct whereby wild creatures d,etect those of 
the human species who are likely to be hostile to them, 
and those who may be regarded as harmless, is of so 
subtle a quality that it almost appears to partake of the 
nature of metaphysics. Rooks will follow and feed^at, 
the very tail of the plow, and will take wing if a passer- ^ 
by but lifts a stick to his shoulder as if it were a gun. 
These same rooks are unmolested by fire arms all the 
year round, save for some forty-eight hours of sprmg 
rook shooting, and even that persecution does not pur- 
sue them in the open fields, but when it does occur it 
invades their homesteads, and assails them from under 
the foliage of their actual domiciles. In the nestmg sea- 
son plovers will actually buffet the angler who is fisfe-.* 
ing too close to their broods; but by the date of the 
shooting season they would not allow him to get within 
two fields of them. The woodpigeon seems to know 
exactly the range of the modern fowling-piece, and will 
flash boldly past at an interval of 100 yards and up- 
ward, but is careful quickly to put a tree between him- 
self and a sportsman if disturbed at any range within 
gunshot. The fox knows that he is sacred from guns, 
and will sometimes stand by and watch a covert beaten, 
and will audaciously seize a fallen pheasant and decamp 
with it within twenty paces of a retriever; he is quite 
aware that the latter is no foxhound. The wild ducks 
on the Thames seem to have fully mastered sections of 
the Thames Act of sixteen years ago, and to have 
abandoned their former sh}mess, in view of the _statu|tiry 
protection now awarded to them against prowling gun- 
shot from boating parties. They will turn out to take- 
stock of the practice of a university crew on Henley or 
Nuneham reaches, and rock serenely in mid-stream to 
the swell of a coaching launch that rushes past them; 
nor do they acknowledge any panic at the sound of a 
megaphone. 
In the current partridge season many a covey will 
continue to breakfast on the stubble undismayed by the 
plow and team that are at work breaking up that same 
stubble only sixty yards away, and they will treat with 
contempt the voice of the teamster addressing the team 
at the turns; but let a party of guns enter that stubble 
at the far end, well out of shot, and hold an injudicious 
council of war, sotto voce, or let an inconsiderate keeper 
rate his dog loudly with " 'ware fence" as the party 
climb the first hedge, and the old cock will sound the 
alarm and the birds be flushed and away well out of shot. 
How is it that the big game, as also the large carnivora 
that prey upon them, retreat long before they_ are ex- 
terminated from African pastures that are within touch 
of white men's settlements, though they_ had tolerated 
the society of the colored races for centuries in the same 
district? Why is it that the song bird flits within range 
of shot in careless confidence, while the- game that is 
sought for is so shy? Not even the sound of a volley 
from the advancing line at a flushed covey seems to 
disturb the nerves of the larks on the stubble; they 
know that the hurly-burly is not directed at them, and 
they are content to move on a few paces, then settle 
again as calm as old artillery horses on a review day. 
Whence is the telepathy in fish that in a season or two, 
or less, in some hitherto unfished continental trout 
stream, alters the temper of the whole stock in the river, 
and teaches them to be shy, even though not one-tenth 
of them.ihave ever seen the lure of the British Jessee 
who has come to whip the water, and not one-thirtieth 
of them have been pricked? How is it that wild fowl .at 
a decoy will tolerate the smell of a piece of burning peat 
held over the mouth of the man who works the nets, 
The modern sportsman with his camera has one advan- 
tage over his prototype with rod and gun — he can secure 
at least the likeness of inanimate as 'well as animate ob- 
, jects. There is permanent pleasure in having in one's 
possession an exact reproduction of an odd specimen ; of a 
tree, shrub, flower, animal or bird. The value is all the 
greater if the subject of the photograph i^ comparatively 
wild, or inaccessible to the ordinary camera fiend. In the 
"Forest Flora of Japan,"'' Prof. C. S. Sargent reproduces 
many odd specimens of trees from the mountains and 
valleys of that odd country. The tree shown is a variety 
of Laria dahuricai, a species widely distributed through 
Siberia, northern China, Manchuria, Kamtschatka and 
Saghalin. It was photographed by Dr. Mayr on the 
Kurile Islands. 
Notes on Snakes. 
Clarksdale, Miss., Oct. 24. — I should like to have 
information of the dentition of cobra-di-capello. I have 
the impression that his fangs are fixed, and situated at 
the extreme front ends of the jaw bones, and that he 
strikes byi-erecting the head and most of the bodj', and 
falling forward^. I don't remember where I got that 
idea. • (^oahoma. 
The f'aijgs are fixed and are in front of the permanent 
teeth. ^ . '^'■■^ 
Coahonja further tells us that Tripod (who captured 
the two^^ij&ftlers now under observation) also encountered 
one at close quarters and killed it. "He had part of it 
cooked ^t ,%^ country hotel under the guise of 'eel' and 
bi'ought 'rtie-a piece to eat. It was scarcely distinguishable 
in srriHl and appearance from fried chicken — ^to the palate 
more like frog." « 
A cobra in a church is not conducive to a particularly 
devotional frame of mind, and the members of the con- 
gregation of All Saints' Church, Nagpur, may well inquire 
of the scalj'^ intruder, "que le diable f.aites vous dans cette 
galeref" He has taken up his abode in the roof and pokes 
his ugly head in and out of the rafters during service, and 
gets specially lively at the pealing of the organ. A local 
doctor wanted to see what a snake charmer could do, but 
the custodians of the church would not have the sacred 
edifice so profaned. The congregation have petitioned 
the padre, but we have not yet heard whether that em- 
barrassed incumbent has succeeded in circumventing this 
wild sarpint, — Indian Field. 
The Otftside Dogf. 
You may sing of your dog, your bottom dog. 
Or of any dog that you please; 
I go for the dog, the nice old dog. 
That knowingly takes his ease. 
And wagging his tail outside the ring, 
Keeping always his bone in sight, 
Cares not a pin in his sound old head 
For either dog in the fight. 
Not his is the bone they are fighting for, 
And why should my dog sail in, 
With nothing to gain but a certain chance 
To lose his own precious skin? 
There may be a few, perhaps, who fail 
To see it quite in this light; - 
But when .the fur flies I had rather be 
The ojitside dog in the fight. 
I know there .are dogs, injudicious dpgs, 
Th.at think it is quite the thing 
To. take. thV part of one of the dogs, ' 
And go' yelpihg "into the ring. ■■- 
But I care not a pin what all may say 
In regard to the wrong or the right. 
My money goes, as well as' my song," ' 
For the dog that keeps out of the fight. 
—Philadelphia Call. 
