Oct- to, 1903.1 
FOREST AMb STREAR 
round the bend," asserting that "not one canoe-pole in 
a thousand in either the United States, India (outside 
of army equipment), Norway, British Columbia, or 
any of the maritime provinces of Canada, is 'shod'; 
and when it is, it does not 'click'; and if it did, even its 
impact on rocks 'round the bend' would not be heard 
along quiet water, much less in the tumult and uproar 
of that 'racing stream.' " The odd circumstance here is 
that Mr. Kipling is right and Mr, Brown is wrong on 
every point. I have seen hundreds of setting-poles in 
Maine, and I have yet to see the first one which was 
not shod, except in cases where a shod pole had been 
broken and a makeshift was used till a better could be 
procured. In the Provinces I have seen poles both 
"shod" and "barefoot," but the latter were used only 
because their owners were too poor to buy irons. Then 
the "click" of a pole telegraphs like the rattle of rail- 
road iron. It can usually be heard from fifty to a hun- 
dred yards at the least, unless there is a strong wind 
blowing, or it is very rough water. I have hundreds 
of times heard the click of the poles long before the 
canoe came in sight round the bend. It can often be 
heard above the roar of the water nearly as far as one's 
voice could be heard. To any one who has been in a 
canoe in quick water the "click" of a shod pole is as 
familiar as the sound of an oar in a rowlock is to a 
boatman. 
Mr. Brown objects to the Indian being called 
"smoky"; it is the precise word. In my early child- 
hood we used to haA^e from ten to twenty Indian vis- 
A MAINE LOG JAM. 
itors in a day. Living in smoky camps as they did, 
their clothes were saturated with the smoke, and, with 
one's eyes shut, one could have told when there was 
an Indian in the room. In another way, too, they 
were "smoky." The smoke darkened their skins. I 
have often seen white men who, from living in smoky 
camps, had grown much darker from the smoke-tan. 
"Real canoeists and anglers would go to the stream 
and not to the Indian." But if the Indian was needed 
to handle the canoe they would probably have to go to 
the Indian. My experience with Indians has been like 
Brigham Young's when he sent for Ben Simonds to 
come and see him, and got for an answer: "When 
Indian want Brigham, Indian go Brigham. When, 
Brigham want Indian, Brigham come Indian." If one 
wants an Indian he goes to the Indian. 
As for the statements that a "bar is always a deposit 
of alluvium earth-sediment," and there "never was a 
'bar' of 'shingle' * * * to which the word 'bar' 
cannot be correctly applied," I must sorrowfully assert 
from much experience in running upon them, that we 
have the thing even if we do not know the name of it. 
But as for that matter, the Century Dictionary, if it 
may be fairly pitted against the Standard — which seems 
to be Mr. Brown's authority — not only covers this 
ground by definition 2 of "bar," as "anything which 
obstructs"; but under 4(a) expressly states that a bar 
is "a bank of sand, gravel or earth forming a shoal in 
any body of water." In our swift streams and rivers 
a bar of mud or fine sand cannot form in most places; 
only the heavy pebbles can withstand the current. The 
idea of basking and dreaming "on the bar of sun- 
warmed shingle" which Mr. Brown ridicules brings 
up very pleasant recollections to woodsmen. It is a 
very common thing when tired of poling upstream to 
haul the canoe out on a gravel bar and lie and bask in 
the warm sun. "Neither do campers sleep on a couch 
(bed) of hemlock twigs if they can get spruce boughs; 
and when they do there is no 'starlight on their faces.' " 
Now, no man but a greenhorn ever uses spruce boughs 
to bough down with if he can get anything better; and 
every other evergreen is better. Fir is most generally 
used' because it is commonly the easiesi to get; but 
hemlock is fully as good. Fir, hemlock, cedar and 
even pine are preferred to the stiff boughs and prickly 
needles of the spruce. And as to the "starlight on 
one's face," one has missed something out of life who 
does not know what it is to lie out without cover. I 
can recall many nights when I had no tent above me 
but the stars. 
I would not wish to make any animadversions upon 
Mr. Brown's criticisms of woods life if I understood 
that he was confining himself to the region he knows; 
but I thought it was a general criticism of Mr. Kip- 
ling's poem, and I have yet to hear that Mr. Kipling 
was writing about Sand Lake, Michigan. 
If Mr. Kipling had been foresighted enough to label 
it "Maine" or "Canada," there is no question but he 
might have been passed smmna cum laude on every 
point. Manly Hardy. 
Prbwbr, Maine 
The Advent of Josiah. 
Another citizen of the great West has taken up his 
abode in New York. Events such as this are not un- 
common. The newspapers are constantly telling us 
of millionaires, who, having accumulated fortunes in 
Cahfornia, Colorado, Montana or New Mexico, have 
hied themselves to New York, believing — we may pre- 
sume—that in no other place on this side of the 
Atlantic Ocean, can the surplus revenue be so quickly 
and easily disposed of. This belief, we think, is 
founded on fact, for New York City is full of strug- 
gling rich who are doing their best to keep their 
financial noses above water, and to let their wives and 
children have all they want while they themselves still 
preserve their business credit. 
This _ new citizen of the town, however, hardly be- 
longs in the category of millionaires. The interest 
that attaches to him is less financial than political; less 
economic than ethical. We do not say that he is a 
statesman; what we do say is that he has associated 
with statesmen, and Avho can tell how much of states- 
manship he may not have absorbed in this assoocia- 
tion? 
Let us begin at the begimiing. Where was he born? 
What his parentage? What the struggles of his early 
life? Here is the tale as it come to us from the news- 
papers. Last spring when the President of the United 
States was passing through Kansas, he delivered an 
address from the car platform to the 
people of Sharon Springs, who had 
gathered there to meet him. Just 
as he concluded his address, a little 
girl in the front rank of the spec- 
tators offered him a basket, which 
proved to contain a tiny badger. As 
the train moved out, the little girl, 
anxious to be helpful, shouted to the 
helpless President, who still held the 
badger, "Call it J. R." 
"Who is J. R?" the President 
shouted back. 
"He is my brother Josiah 
The New St» Petersburg Mammoth. 
Frequent reference has been made in Forest an 0 
Stream to the carcass of the mammoth discovered in 
Siberia some years ago, and from time to time we have 
noted the progress of the expedition, organized by the 
St. Petersburg Imperial Academy and led by Dr. Otto 
Herz, which set out for the scene of the discovery with 
the purpose of securing the carcass and transporting it to 
St. Petersburg. 
It will be remembered that the mammoth was found on 
the banks of the river Beresowka, a tributary of the 
Kolyma, in the Province of Yakutsk, after a landslidCy 
v/hich entirely exposed the great head. Soon after its 
discovery the inhabitants of the village near by took away 
one of the tusks, while foxes, dogs and other carnivorous 
animals gnawed away the flesh. As soon as the Governor 
01 the Province learned that the carcass had been found, 
he protected it until the arrival of the St. Petersburg ex- 
pedition. The carcass was partly buried in ice and partly 
in sand and gravel, and was so covered with earth that 
it did not thaw at all. 
Dr. Herz began his excavations from the front, and 
found the fore legs widely spread and bent at the wrist, 
and the hind legs turned forward under the body. The 
mouth was filled with grass, and the well preserved 
tongue was hanging out of the mouth. The chest cavity 
of the animal was full of clotted blood, and it has been 
concluded that the animal fell into a hole, and, while 
striving to escape, burst a blood vessel near the heart. 
It has been ascertained that the ice surrounding the 
carcass was not of a river or lake, but was formed from 
compacted snow, and it is concluded that the mammoth, 
while grazing over a meadow which formed the thin 
but the last name was lost in the 
rumble and puffing of the moving 
train. So it is that Josiah is Josiah 
plain and simple, and lacks a pat- 
ronymic. 
Being a badger, Josiah naturally 
has the ways of a badger, and a few 
people know what that means. If 
he had happened to be an elephant 
or hippotamus, this might have been 
different, and he would perhaps act 
differently. Now, he is simply a 
plain badger, who, under other and 
less favorable circumstances, would 
have devoted his life to waddling about over the prairie, 
digging deep holes in the ground in pursuit of prairie 
dogs, 13-Iined squirrels and other gophers, and 
robbing the casual bird's nest when he came upon 
it. But Providence had other plans for Josiah. 
After extensive wanderings through the West in the 
Presidential car, he was brought back to Washington, 
and for a time lived in the White House. Thence he 
moved to Oyster Bay, and for many months was 
guarded by secret service men and others. Incidentally 
he was a playmate of the children of the President and 
of their playmates, and all this seemed to agree with 
him so well that he is now almost a full grown badger. 
He is absolutely tame, and perhaps as good natured 
as any badger can be expected to be. Even the most 
cheerful of badgers always appears to be a pessimist, 
and acts as though life were going wrong with him; 
and Josiah, like all his kind, even when playing with 
the children, wrinkles up his face, turns his flexible 
nose threateningly in one direction or another, and 
makes sounds suggesting the suffering of considerable 
pain. Occasionally, too— when he thinks he has rea- 
son for doing so — he grasps the nearest human leg 
and sinks his teeth into it so deeply as to make marks 
that last for quite a long time, but we believe he has 
never drawn blood. 
When the President left Oyster Bay this autumn, he 
made up his mind that Josiah was getting to be too 
large for the White House; that there was not room 
enough for him in the edifice unless the President's 
family should move out. It was determined, therefore, 
to transfer him to the New York Zoological Society's 
Gardens at the Bronx — since these grounds are more 
roomy than those of the White House; so Josiah was 
turned over to one of the attendants of the Zoological 
Park and was transferred to quarters there, which he 
will continue to occupy. 
It may be questioned whether Josiah's life at the 
Bronx will be what it has been for the last six months, 
and we imagine that often as he is running around his 
cage, gazed at by thoughtless and not too intelligent 
visitors to the Zoological Park, his mind will revert 
sadly to the happy days on the pleasant hills at Oyster 
Bay. when he was the pet of the President's children. 
'-t-l 
Audttbon Society Annual Mectingf. 
The following notice has been issued by the chairman 
of the American Ornithologists' Union committee for 
the protection of North American birds : 
The annual business meeting of the National Commit- 
tee of Audubon Societies will be held Wednesday even- 
ing, November 18, at 8 P. M. at the residence of Mrs. 
Edward Robins, No. 114 So. Twenty-first street, Phila- 
delphia, Pa. 
The joint meeting of the American Ornithologists' 
Union and of the several State Audubon Societies will 
be held on Thursday afternoon, November 19, at which 
time the report of the National Committee will be pre- 
sented. The place of the meeting will be announced 
later. Wm. Dutcher, 
Chairman. 
THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH. 
covering of a glacier, fell into some crevasse that was 
hidden by the loose earth, and perished at once. 
The remains, which have now been mounted in the 
Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg, show the animal' 
as he died and was found. The frozen skin has been care.-^ 
fully prepared, the skeleton and all the soft parts that 
could be saved have been taken from the skin and pre- 
served separately. The skin of the head and ears, which 
had been destroyed, has been copied from the specimen 
obtained from Siberia about one hundred years ago, but, 
apart from the head, the skin is nearly perfect, and it was 
found necessary only to add in one or two places wool 
and hair from other specimens. It is to be noted that the 
tail was well preserved, and that it bears at the 'ip the 
tassel of long black hair. The mammoth is a jnoiwtr male 
and not a large one. 
The discovery and subsequent inspection of this speci- 
men at the Zoological Museum at St. Petersburg has led 
the director, Dr. Salensky, to make a careful scientific in- 
vestigation of this specimen, as- well as to show all that 
is possible of it. His studies will be published in the 
series of memoirs which will appear from time to time; 
the first — that dealing with the skeleton — having already 
been issued. Unfortunately these memoirs are written in 
Ru.ssian. 
Qtfail in Town. 
MoRGANTOWN, W. Va., Oct. I. — Editor _ Forest and 
Stream: Yesterday a flock of quail came right into the 
heart of our city of ten thousand population, and, be- 
coming scattered, alighted on shade trees along the prin- 
cipal streets, and for quite a while amused and interested 
throngs of people by their calls to one another, being 
scattered over a whole block. They could be seen in the 
trees not over ten feet above the pavement where people 
were passing continually, and seemed to have little fear. 
Many people did not recognize the call which they utter 
as being that of quail, being only farniliar with their- 
Bob White call; thus many had a practical lesson in or- 
nithology right at home. To-day the same flock, no 
doubt, were scattered through the campus of the uni- 
versity, making the autumn air ring with their calls, 
which almost made one feel that they were away out in 
some good quail cover, and it produced a pleasing sensa- 
tion and diversion in city life. It suggested to the writer 
that if those who shoot could only forego the gratifica- 
tion of killing, such pleasures as this might become every 
day occurrences, but when the first day of November 
dawns our little friends which would help to make life 
pleasant for us will be eagerly hunted and shot on sight; !_ 
What queer mortals we be, anyhow! , ' ■ ;■' 
The Recreation Rod and Gun Club, of this place; btift'' 
recently organized, has been active in getting game war- ' 
dens stationed at different points, and have had the game 
laws of the State printed and posted at all the post-offices 
and conspicuous places in the county offering liberal re- 
wards for any violations of the game and fish laws. 
^ Emerson Carney. 
All communications intended for Forest akd Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
New York, and not to any individual connected with the paper. 
