Aug. 8, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
108 
which is well understood by its species. The circum- 
stances of the case make it impossible to entertain for a 
moment the idea that it has received a knowledge of that 
language by instruction." 
It seems strange to me that a writer of the ability 
which I. W. G. possesses, will neglect to do a little think- 
ing before committing a theory to paper. It is not lan- 
guage but tone that brings the herd to the rescue of the 
calf. Even I. W. G. could recognize the note of terror 
in the calf's cry, although he might be wholly ignorant 
of the bovine language. Nearly all of the lower animals 
possess the power to modulate the voice, to express many 
of the emotions which are common in the human family, 
'rhe shriek of a frightened woman does not cany a word 
in any language, but it is immediately understood by the 
startled hearer. Terrors can be expressed without lan- 
guage, and the young of most mammals arc born with 
this power. It is nature's provision for the protection of 
lier helpless children. All the mammals inherit an im- 
pulse to seek food, which is another of nature's ways to 
tide the helpless atom of life over the danger period. 
These inherited functions are out of place in this dis- 
cussion. There is no dispute on this line, and the writ- 
ers who waste time and space over the subject are 
knocking down men of straw which they first set up. 
Most birds, at birth, arc as far along on the journey of 
life as a child would be when three years of age. The 
birds that arc covered with down when born, such as 
the chicken, quail, grouse, etc., are checked by a few hours 
only of helpless bab3'hood. The birds that are born naked 
and blind, such as the robin, thrush, sparrow, etc., have 
to pass several days of helpless babyhood. My observa- 
tion has proved to me that fear is inherited, but its action, 
does not begin until the bird is beyond its bab3diood. 
The birds that are born naked and blind do not show 
fear until they are able to fly. The young birds, while in 
the nest, show intelligence in some ways. When it is 
cold i'oung birds will snuggle down in the nest. When 
they feel the heat they will separate. I have seen young 
catbirds call the mother bird's attention to the attached 
excrement sack, while its mates were being fed. The 
bird did this by elevating its body in such a way as to 
make it evident to an observer that it desired atten- 
tion. 
Sixty feet from my new cabin there is a catbird's nest 
containing four young birds, nearly ready to fly. To-day 
I passed one hour at the nest to observe the old bird's 
method of feeding her young. She fed them twelve times 
in fifty minutes. Five limes she fed on doughnut from 
the dooryard. Twice young wood mice were dis- 
sected and fed to the birds. Insects were fed five times, 
mostly large winged ants, I don't know where the bird 
got the two wood mice. When the mother bird ap- 
proached with food four yellow mouths were thrust up on 
long necks, but two each time receiA'ed food, and no more. 
The mother did not make a mistake in feeding her babies. 
All were served in turn, although four open bills stared 
the mother in the face each time. The old bird did not 
feed doughnut until the young were ten days old. The 
towhee buntings feed doughmit to their young the second 
day, one meal in five. How do these little mothers know 
the nature of the strange food, so that one will not feed 
it for ten days, while the other begins at two? These 
birds feed their young on the same insect food. There is 
reason back of such intelligent discrimination. While I 
remained at the catbird's nest the mother bird inspected 
the nest three times. Twice she found and carried away 
a sack of excrement. An hour's observation of the 
.thoughtfid care of this little mother ought to convince 
anyone, not inoculated with the views of instinct, of the 
Ijird's ability to think and to shape action thereon, 
A year ago three young towhee buntings were reared 
and brought to my dooryard. This was the second brood, 
the first was destroyed by crows. The adult buntings 
were old friends of mine. The young brood consisted 
of one female and two males. All returned in the spring 
migration, which was unusual, for these birds are shot 
in the Southern rice fields. The first nest, which the 
crows looted, was under a dumb of viburnum shrubs. 
The second nest from which the three birds were reared 
was placed under a patch of catbrier, where the crows 
would not seek it. The young birds were kept under 
jthe catbriers until their wings were strong enough to fly, 
ithen they were brought to the dooryard for food and 
^protection. As the birds had been confined in close quar- 
iters, and could not practice their wings, their ability to 
'fly was limited. The little mother saw this as soon as 
lier brood was established in the dooryard, and applied a 
iremedy. She would take a piece of doughnut and fly to a 
low bush and call the little ones to follow. Before they 
had time to alight the mother would fly to a higher bush, 
keeping up the game until the young birds would no 
longer follow. In this way they soon got to be fair flyers. 
This method also made them proficient in dodging an 
er>emy, I thought that placing the nest under catbriers 
v;as a cute thing to do. Perhaps the birds got the idea 
from the rabbits. On the south side of my new cabin, be- 
ginning not six feet away, is a dense patch of the cat- 
brier. Rabbits have cut a path to the center, and when 
pursued by dogs dive into this retreat. One rabbit ven- 
tures out when my visitors bring dogs, and many a fool 
dog has met his Waterloo in that patch of catbriers. 
When the buntings returned this spring the young female 
•was not mated. At the end of two weeks a strange young 
•male appeared in the dooryard and he proved to be wife 
lumting. Before three days had passed the pair were 
mated. 
The two young males disappeared during the nesting 
.•season. I suppose they had found mates at a distance. 
The females select the home, and it is usually- near their 
jnothers. Within a week one of the males has been to 
the dooryard three times for food. Some w^retch had 
shot away one of his legs, and he found it difificult to 
procure food, so intelligently resoi'ted to the dooryard, 
where he knew that he could find an unlimited supply. 
Soon after the young female was mated I saw her and 
her mother hopping in and out of a brier patch, Evenl- 
ualiy the young bird established her nest in this patch, 
advised, as I believe, by her mother, who fully under- 
stood the need of protection. The old bird did not select 
a nesting spot for some time. The spot selected at last 
was in a valley under a patch of catbriers. The young 
bird hatched out four chicks. She fed them in the same 
way, and on the same kind of food that , her mother had 
fed to her. When the little ones were large enough to 
fly they were deprived of a mother's care and teaching. 
The mother was captured in my dooryard by a chicken 
hawk, Accipiter cooperi. The foolish bird darted be- 
hind some boards that stood by the cabin, but instead of 
remaining there, she made a break for the thick shrub- 
bery on the south side of the cabin. The hawk caught 
her, and she cried pitifully to me for help as he bore 
her away. It all happened so quickly that I had no time 
to render assistance, and, besides, i had seen the birds 
escape so many times that I deemed it impossible for a 
hawk to catch one in my dooryard. I carried food to 
the motherless birds and hoped that they would remain 
under the protection of the catbriers. The next day I 
found them scattered about in a blueberry patch. The 
third day the crows got sight of them, and before the 
end of the week they had disappeared. 
The old bunting during that week had brought out four 
young birds, three females and one male. The birds are 
about my dooryard while the mother is laying eggs for a 
second brood. The young birds were taught to fly as 
those were last year. Besides this innovation, the mother 
bird has adopted another. Before the crows were dan- 
gerous the first brood, when large enough to fly, was 
turned over to the male. Now the female will not trust 
the young to her husband's care, but looks after them her- 
self and teaches them how to fly and eat before she de- 
serts them. 
Not far from my new cabin a pair of chestnut-sided 
warblers made a neat nest in the forks of a clethra bush. 
There was a lai'ge patch of these shrubs which protected 
the nest from view. The severe storm that ended the 
drought taxed the powers of these little birds to the 
limit. To feed the babies during a whole week of storm 
was bad enough, but when the gale prevented feeding" 
and required the full strength of both birds to protect 
the nest it seemed a hopeless case. I visited the nest 
when the gale was at its height. Some trees were up- 
rooted, and the air was filled with great and small 
branches from others. I found both birds on the nest. 
They stood on opposite sides with their wings spread 
and locked so as to protect their babies from the pelting 
i-ain. A fierce gust of wind would level the clethra 
shrubs to the ground, but the little birds bravely clung 
to the nest, chirping encouragingly to each other. I re- 
turned to the shelter of my cabin, and that night while 
the .gale increased, my heart was filled with sorrow for 
the two dainty beings that were battling with the ele- 
ments, not to save themselves, but to save and protect 
their dear ones, fired by the same love and devotion that 
thrills the human mother's heart. 
M. A. Walton (Hermit). 
Intelligence of Chicks. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your issue of June 6 M. A. Walton (Hermit) takes 
me to task severely for owning chicks that do un- 
natural things and for saying various other things 
which he does not believe, 
Mr, W. first takes me to task for bringing my chicks 
into the house, after asserting that the mother does not 
teach in any sense of the word. Well, I did not do it. 
I never raised a chick in my life; it is the other mem- 
ber of the firm that does these sort of things. Still I 
believe I know more about chickens than Mr. W., judg- 
ing from his own account, notwithstanding his long ex- 
perience. Young chicks require warmth and food; 
hence the mother's natural instinct to hover and feed 
them. A hen is liable to leave the nest or trample on 
some of the chicks before the eggs are all hatched if 
the young chickens are not taken away. To avoid this 
the chicks were brought into the -house. Mr, W. ac- 
cuses me of having a super-intellectual breed of chicks 
because they eat the first day and without teaching. 
The charge is groundless. All chicks will eat the first 
day, and without teaching. While it is undoubtedly 
true that chicks do not need food for 24 hours after 
being hatched, yet they will eat and pick up anything 
dropped before them, even if they do not eat it, to the 
extent of picking- at each other's toes and causing many 
an upset. They will also notice and pick up a very 
small bug, but a larger one caused them to back ofi; 
and "cheep" in some alarm. 
A calf must be taught to drink out of a bucket, be- 
cause it is an unnatural way for it to get its food, but 
dropping things before a chick is nature's way, hence 
requires no teaching. Some broods at hatching are 
brighter than others, but all will do all the things de- 
scribed within a few hours if they are healthy. This is 
not a case of "It's that way in my book," but chickens 
all over the world will do it . 
Fad and fashion control a great many things, but 
they can't control bird nature. Mr. W. doubts that a 
bird flew by the window just in time to prove a state- 
ment that was to appear in Forest and Stream. To 
prove that this was not a miracle, I will state that the 
boys have counted upwards of sixty bird nests on the 
place, mostly clustered close round the house. Add to 
this 100 English sparrows that are crowding in every- 
where, and it is apparent that a bird flying by the win- 
dow is not an uncommon thing. Even now a Texas 
orchard oriole sits just outside the window, not two 
yards off. He is pulling at a string put there for the 
morning glory vines to climb. 
As to old roosters teaching the young to crow, Mr. 
W. admits that the old roosters do fight the young 
away at first, but later teach them to crow. I still 
had the paper in my hand after reading this when a 
rooster crowed. I went out to see the teaching pro- 
cess. I found the old rooster occupying the center of 
the field, teaching, while the young received the lesson 
from the far outer borders. If the young made an 
attempt to crow they immediately moved further out. 
This state of affairs will prevail until the young rooster 
has grown spurs long enough and sharp enough to 
maintain him in his proper place in society. Roosters 
crow at all times of day, more noticeable just before 
daybreak; but they, will crow at midnight if a match is 
struck in the kitchen or other sound made to indicate 
that people are astir. 
In a recent issue of Forest and Stream Mark Hop- 
kms suggests that my country is too closely settled 
to make the study of a wolfs tail a success, but that in 
his country it is an easy matter. Now let us see. 
Thn-ty years ago, commencing this fall, I spent six 
months u^ the Nebraska sand hills (Sandy Griswold's 
country. How I would like to pat his head and bless 
hnn just for the memories he has raised). The nearest 
settlement was at Loup City, more than a hundred 
miles away, and that was only a few weeks old, I had 
heard ol the sand hill country and what could be found 
there through Major North, then of the Pawnee scouts, 
and (mdu-ectly) Buffalo Bill. The information thus 
gamed resulted in the six months' sojourn there. 
Wolves were very plenty and we got a great deal of 
music from them, but 1 have hunted day after day with- 
out seeing one. Mr, Hopkins speaks of seeing wolves 
huntmg cottontails in a plum thicket. Out in the 
Dismal River sand hills I saw a similar sight, only that 
the game was elk. They got one, too. I had a good 
chance there for rather close observation, but the wolf 
tail question had not come up then, and I was too ex- 
cited to note that they had their tails with them until 
I found one on the hide of the one my companion shot. 
That was the one event of that kind in a lifetime. 
In T896 I visited that countiy and found the wolves 
still there in increased numbers. They howled more 
and I saw them oftener than I ever did in the old days; 
but the chance for close study was "small." 
Only a few years ago I traveled all over the Kiowa 
and Comanche country and over the line into Texas, 
perhaps to the very ranch where Mark saw those 
wolves hunting. In that trip of three or four weeks I 
heard wolves howling often, but I never saw one on 
the trip. Of course, I see how it is possible to take a 
close look at a wolf that is acting natural by the aid of 
a good glass and good luck, but I would not engage to 
do it in six months' continuous effort, and where I fail 
in that line there are few that succeed. Wolves that 
see the hunter or know of his presence before being 
seen, of course don't count. No, some other theory 
for the disappearing wolf must be brought out. 
E. P. Jaques. 
DoBHAM, Kansas. 
— m — 
Proprieton of shootuc reaorta will find it proit^lc to advartii* 
them in Fokbst aits Stexjul 
Teal Hole. 
Perched on the edge of a bluff, and overlooking a 
broad expanse of marsh that wound in a green and 
sinuous ribband between stubble-grown mesa lands, 
stood a small rough-boarded cabin, of a size just suf- 
ficient to contain a bunk room, gun room and kitchen. 
Seated at a table in the gun room (which served also 
as living room, smoking room, library and the rest of 
it) on a certain winter's evening were five jolly good 
fellows and the Duffer. All six a unit when it came 
to wild fowl shooting, and all able to give a good 
account of themselves in a duck blind. The day had 
been a successful one, as the laden boughs of a tree 
near the cabin proved, where bunches of mallard and 
teal swung in the afternoon breeze. 
The team was at the door to drive us to the station, 
and one by one the boys arose to gather their guns 
and traps together. Kenneth and the Duffer walked 
to the door and looked out. Far down in the west, 
almost touching the horizon, the flaming sun was sink- 
ing into the blue Pacific, the distant booming of whose 
breakers, dulled by the distance, sounded like the music 
of a sea shell held to the ear. At the foot of the bluff 
the marsh spread, its mass of high tules breaking into 
graceful billows beneath the press of the ocean breeze, 
and lighted here and there with a touch of gold, where 
the dying sunlight lay upon a field of ripened cuckle- 
burr and dead marsh grass. Close by the bluff a lake, 
irregular in outline, its shores lost among promon- 
tories and islands, of tall waving tules, its surface rip- 
pled and dimpled by the breeze, lay like some rare 
pearl dropped on a bed of moss. Dotted here and 
there on its surface flocks of ducks sported and called 
in liquid notes to their mates wheeling in from the 
sea. It was a picture to delight the lover of nature, 
and make a wildfowler's blood tingle. 
The same thought was present in the minds of Ken- 
neth and the Duffer, and the latter voiced it by saying: 
"Shall we stay another night, Kenneth, and have a 
tiy at the teal hole in the morning?" Kenneth's an- 
swer was affirmative and prompt. We sent our birds 
home by the boys, and after waving them adieu as they 
drove off over the mesa on their way back to town 
and pavements, we turned back to the bluff to watch 
the evening flight of the birds. 
Bands were coming in from the ocean, where our 
early morning bombardment had driven them, for their 
evening nip on the lake, and their nightly feed on the 
stubble fields. The ascent from the marsh to the top 
of the bluff was steep, and as the bluff was perhaps 
150 feet above the marsh, the birds came in about on a 
level with us, before dropping to the water. 
The west was a curtain of flaming red, with the in- 
coming flocks silhouetted against the fast fading light, 
when we turned to go back to the cabin, where, after 
a dinner of broiled teal and freshly gathered mush- 
rooms, and a pipe or two, we gladly tumbled into the 
bunks, tired after the day's shooting. But not to 
sleep until Billy, the keeper, had detailed another 
chapter of his experiences as a man-o'-warsman, Billy 
was an Alsatian, and had put in at nearly every port 
of the Seven Seas at one time or another, and h'is ac- 
counts thereof furnished a sort of modern Arabian 
Nights entertainment. The Duffer left Billy wandering 
about some port of Brazil and having troubles with th^ 
water-front police, when sleep put an end to the tale 
Breakfast over next morning, Kenneth and the Duf- 
fer, with ample rounds of nitros tucked away in shel) 
vests and pockets, slipped and slid down the steej 
