li-OREST AND STREAM. 
[5Gt. to, 1963, 
Animals of Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey. 
In a new country like ours, rapidly filling up with 
restless and energetic people, the face of nature is con- 
stantly being disturbed, and changes take place almost 
without being noticed. Forests are cleared off, swamps 
dried up, the courses of brooks changed, animals ex- 
terminated or driven off, plants once numerous cease 
to grow, even the climate is changed. To earlier Ameri- 
can naturalists it seemed enough to give general state- 
ments concerning the distribution of mammals, birds, 
reptiles and plants, but in these later days, when so much 
attention is being given to the geographical distribution 
of the life and the causes which influence that distribu- 
tion, we need information that is specific. In many cases 
such information cannot now be had; the time when it 
was accessible has gone by, the people familiar with 
conditions as they existed at or soon after the settlement 
of the country are dead and buried, and no records re- 
main of the facts we desire to learn. 
Modern naturalists are now working on the life of old 
and well settled regions, as well as of deserts and moun- 
tains still far from the haunts of man, but often it is 
most difficult for them to secure the information that 
they want. As we have said, recorded facts are wanting, 
and it is necessary to appeal to individuals likely to be 
informed on the points in question; naturalists, trappers, 
hunters, aged men living in or near the region to be in- 
vestigated, and tlie descendants of old hunters who have 
passed away. All this entails great labor in the way of 
travel and correspondence. 
A large and singularly interesting volume on this sub- 
ject has just been published under the title, "The Mam- 
mals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey." Mr. Samuel N. 
Rhoads, its author, here gives us, in more than 250 pages, 
the results of eleven years' study of the mammals found 
in the States in question, including in this list not merely 
the native mammals, but those introduced by man, su 
that as a matter of fact the work "treats of both living 
and extinct, recent and fossil, land and sea mammals 
found in Pennsylvania in the feral state," for there were 
many cases where horses, sheep, s\yine and cattle ran 
wild, and were hunted and slaughtered; in fact, it is 
said that at certain points in New Jersey wild cattle and 
sheep have ceased to exist only within the past decade. 
In making his list and in drawing the zqogeographic 
map which accompanies it, Mr. Rhoads has endeavored 
to conform as nearly as possible to our knowledge of 
primeval conditions, though no one recognizes better than 
he how difficult it is to reproduce these conditions, so 
changed from what they were by the deforestation of the 
land. "Fire, ax, flood, summer sun and winter frost have., 
made the famous hunting grounds and natural game pre- 
serves of the Pennsylvania Alleghanics a wilderness in- 
deed. Where once the Canada lynx, wolverine, fisher, 
martin, Canada deer mouse, woodland jumping mouse, 
northern hare, and marsh shrew found a congenial home, 
the average midsummer temperature may now be roughly 
said to have risen twenty degrees ; drought and flood 
quickly succeed each other, winds become tempests and 
winter takes on an Arctic severity. Instead of white 
pines and hemlocks we have scrub oaks and briars; in- 
stead of fern beds, sphagnum and moist shade, we find 
bare rocks, glaring sun and withered vegetation. The 
grinning opossum sneaks up the south slope as the last 
snowshoe hare hops down the northern one, and the low- 
land cottontail forthwith jumps her ancestral claim. 
While the rifle and the trap remain their greatest ene- 
mies, the beasts of the earth and the fowls of heavens 
have an even chance. But the era of ax and fire and 
commercialism has doomed them unless the era of for- 
estry soon rescues them from extinction." 
The life zones found in the two States considered by 
Mr. Rhoads are the Canadian, the Transhion, and 
the Austral. According to laws laid down by 
]\Ierriam, these zones are limited by temperature ; the 
southern boundary of the Canadian zone being defined 
by an isotherm showing a normal mean temperature of 
six hottest consecutive weeks of 64.4 degrees, of the 
Transition zone a temperature of 71.6 degrees, and of the 
upper Austral 78.8 degrees. 
While the food habits of many of our birds have been 
quite fully investigated, comparatively little has been pub- 
lished as to the food of our mammals. Mr. Rhoads has 
given attention to this in his studies, and declares that 
there is only one species of native mouse in Pennsylvania — 
the underground meadow mouse (M. pineionim) — 
whose food habits are so noxious as to make its exter- 
mination desirable. Moles, shrews and common meadow 
mice are greatly misunderstood from an , economic point 
of view, while the rapacious carnivora still found in 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey have an importance far 
greater than is generally supposed. Thus the trade aris- 
ing from muskrat trapping in the Delaware Valley 
amounts to many thousands of dollars annually, while 
the muskrat is commonly eaten in portions of New Jer- 
sey, bringing from five cents to eight cents each. 
Excepting the black bear and the deer, the larger wild 
animals have long been exterminated from Penn.sylvania ; 
yet the Canada lynx is perhaps still to be found by indi- 
viduals, while beaver has been reintroduced. Ihe last 
Pennsylvania elk or wapiti was killed in 1867, and the 
last cougar or panther of which there is definite and 
satisfactory proof was killed in 1871. The date of the 
extermination of the wolf is much more uncertain, and 
Mr. Rhoads tells us that native wolves apparently ex- 
isted in Pennsylvania as late as l8go. 
Of the marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins and 
porpoises, no less than eighteen species occur on the coast 
of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, while three species 
of seals, the common harbor seal, the harp seal, and the 
hooded seal, have been reported from the New Jersey 
coast. 
Mr. Rhoads gives the typical Virginia deer as well as 
the northern Virginia deer of Miller as found in the 
region under consideration, but states that the first has 
been exterminated from Pennsylvania, but still exists in 
some numbers in New Jersey. Perhaps one of the 
earliest deer laws of the Northern States was that 
enacted for New Jersey, December 21, 1771, providing 
a fine of 40 shillings to be paid by anyone who "shall 
kill destroy, or take any Roe Buck, Fawn, or any sort of 
Pecre" between January i and September i. Through- 
out much of the wilder portion of Pennsylvania, how- 
ever, the northern Virginia deer is common, and this also 
exists in New Jersey. 
Of the great animals of North America formerly 
covering a transcontinental range, the wapiti or elk is 
the greatest, and has been exterminated over the greatest 
extent of territory. It is thus with extreme interest that 
we read the very full account printed by Mr. Rhoads 
concerning the former range and distribution of the 
species in Pennsylvania and New Jersey which shows 
that up to the beginning of the 19th century elk were 
common in the entire Pennsylvania Alleghanian 
mountain systeni of the Alleghany River, but were rare 
m the Blue Ridge and Cumberland ranges, while once 
they were numerous on the Pocono Plateau. It formerly 
was found in the valleys of the Alleghany, Susquehanna 
and Delaware rivers, as shown by its remains. He says : 
The favorite haunts of the Alleghenian wapiti in 
Pennsylvania were in the forest-covered mountain ele- 
vations where open glades or savannas and old beaver 
meadows were surrounded by the primeval forest. 
Where these features were combined in the vicinity of 
a "lick" or saline spring the greatest numbers of these 
animals congregated, and it was in such localities that 
the last representatives of this noble deer vainly 
sought to escape their final destruction. From accounts 
received from numerous correspondents, it appears 
that the "Flag Swamp," situated in the eastern part 
of Elk county, near the Cameron county line, and 
forming one of the headwaters of Bennett's Branch 
of the Susquehanna on the east and of a branch of 
the Clarion River on the west, was the last refuge of 
the wapiti in Pennsylvania. A few are recorded as 
living there in 1850 in a History of Elk County of 
that date. Between the dates of i860 and 1867 I have 
secured records of the capture of two or tliree which 
are each claimed to be the last taken in the State. To 
one of these undoubtedly that distinction belongs, so 
far as can be discovered. The one recorded by Roose- 
velt for 1869 is the same as the one stated by Captain 
Clay to have been killed in 1866 (see records). It is 
probably the same as the one stated in the Utica Globe 
article to have been killed by an Indian in 1867, and in 
the History of Elk County the same date is given 
for its extinction in that county, reference no doubt 
being made to the same individual. This "Flag Swamp 
Elk," taken in November, 1867, in Elk county, by an 
Indian of the Cattaraugus Reservation, named Jim 
Jacobs, appears to have been the last of its race in the 
Allegheny Mountains, unless it shall be proved that 
some existed later in the mountain wilds of West Vir- 
ginia. In the northeastern Alleghenies of Sullivan, 
Luzerne and Wyoming counties they seem to have 
totally disappeared in the second decade of the nine- 
teenth century, although a few remained in a favorite 
haunt called "Elk Forest" in the Pocono range of 
Wayne county until exterminated between 1830 and 
1840. In Tioga, Lycoming and Potter counties they 
haunted the headwaters of Pine Creek and the Black 
Porest until 1862, when the last was killed. The veteran 
pioneer, Mr. Austin, saw their tracks as late as 1857 
in Potter county, and near the same time a party of 
hunters captured three alive in Tioga county. In 
Somerset and Bedford counties, where the mountain 
glades and saline or sulphur springs were sought out 
by numerous bands of wapiti and buffalo in early 
colonial times, their extermination must have been of 
very early date, as records of them in these localities 
seem to rest upon place-names and tradition. (See 
note under Somerset county.) Even more obscure is 
the evidence of their former occurrence in the south- 
western counties of Pennsylvania, and in the parts of 
New Jersey pertaining to the valley of the upper Dela- 
ware. Elk View, Elk Mills and Elk Creek in Chester 
county, and Elk River in Maryland, are names whose 
origin I have not satisfactorily traced, but indicate the 
former presence of this animal nearer the Atlantic sea- 
board than anywhere else in the United States. From 
our knowledge of the partiality of the wapiti to moun- 
tain districts, it is very unlikely that it ever resided 
permanently in Chester county. Kalm and one or two 
historians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
record them in southeastern Pennsylvania, and Kalm 
relates how the "stags" (as distinguished from the 
common deer) were driven down from the mountains 
into the vicinity of Philadelphia and killed in great 
numbers because of a great snow. Such lowland in- 
vasions probably account for the place-names we have 
mentioned as well as for the remains of this animal 
in camp and village sites of the aborigines on both 
sides of the Delaware as far south as Trenton. Not 
only would the rigors of winter drive them from their 
mountains fastnesses, but the increased persecutions 
from the starving wolves and of the Indians, and the 
freezing of the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers, would 
induce the stricken creatures to scatter over areas 
hitherto unknown to them. It is likely that at no time 
during man's existence in New Jersey was the wapiti 
a voluntary resident of that State, even in the Kitta- 
tinny range, which is the natural continuation of their 
ancient haunts in the Blue Ridge, and in its northern 
section was in easy reach of a hunted wapiti from the 
Pocono region seeking to throw its pursuers off the 
scent in the waters of the Delaware. Only as a 
straggler, therefore, can the wapiti be considered a 
member of the historic fauna of New Jersey. It should 
be borne in mind, however, that the accounts of earliest 
historians, coupled with our knowledge of the wapiti 
in the Far West, indicate that this species may have 
roamed at will in pre-Columbian times over almost the 
entire region included in this paper. 
Regarding the habits and food of the wapiti, it may 
be stated that they are similar to those of the Virginia 
deer in most respects. They are, however, more ad- 
dicted to keeping in companies throughout the year 
and, like the moose, "yard up" during the season of 
deep winter snows. The males cast their horns in Feb- 
ruary and March, and by the month of August they 
are again renewed in all their perfection. They make 
a loud whistling snort when alarmed, and during the 
rutting season the bucks utter a loud note of defiance, 
which Godman says resembles both the neighing of a 
stallion and the bellowing of a bull. Caton says it 
sounds like the whistle of a locomotive. The young 
females give birth in May or June to one fawn, the 
older ones generally two, and rarely three. When 
wounded, the wapiti is more ready to turn on its pur- 
suers than a deer. In flight they pursue a straight 
course and will sometimes outstrip the chase of the 
most enduring hunter and hounds for two or three 
successive days. 
When deprived of their usual winter browse of elk 
grass and brake by deep snow, they subsist for months 
on the buds and branches of such trees as they would 
not touch in summer, and when a crusted snow pre- 
vents them from_ going outside their yards for water 
they do without it for a long period. 
Among the favorite trees which they seek to eat in 
summer is one called by hunters the elkwood.* This 
they attack, not only devouring the leaves and twigs, 
but denuding it of bark. By this means their where- 
abouts are easily detected, the peeled saplings forming 
a conspicuous "sign" for the hunter. Basswood is also 
much sought after, but very few deciduous trees come 
amiss at any season, the elk being a most omnivorous 
and hearty feeder. 
Audubon, in the book "Quadrupeds of North Amer- 
ica," thus speaks of a pair which he had in captivity 
(Vol. 2, 1851, p. 90): "The pair from which the figures 
on our plate were taken we purchased at Philadelphia. 
They had been caught when young in the western part 
of Pennsylvania. The male was supposed to be four 
or five years old and the female also was full grown. 
. , . They often whistled (as the hunters call this re- 
markable noise) which in calm weather can be heard 
nearly a mile. This shrill sound appears to be pro- 
duced by an almost spasmodic effort, during which 
the animal throws its head upwards and then back- 
wards." Audubon further speaks of their gregarious 
habits, congregating to the number of 50 to 100 in a 
herd under one master buck, whose movements are 
closely followed by the whole band, whether in flight 
or on the watch; easily domesticated and living to a 
great age, even 25 or 30 years in captivity; lying down 
in midday and feeding before sunrise and after sun- 
set. Caton, who had a large number in captivity, and 
hunted them in the West, gives an account of them 
in his book on "American Deer," from which the fol- 
lowing points may be summarized: The fawn is 
spotted as in the common deer; in wild, undisturbed 
country not a nocturnal feeder; more polygamous than 
any other deer except the red deer of Europe; master 
deer of the herd nearly always dangerous in captivity, 
a perfect tyrant during the rutting season, and at all 
times supremely selfish and abusive; does more cour- 
ageous than bucks against a wild enemy, giving chase 
in a body and striking with forefeet, the bucks follow- 
ing at a distance; better adapted to domestication flian 
any other deer; more healthy and hearty feeders, eat- 
ing fodder a cow or horse will reject; young- feign 
death, when picked up, lying limp; follow dam in two 
days after birth, unusually precocious in this respdct 
as compared with other deer; wallowing in summer 
like the bison; natural gait a trot, very rapid and con- 
tinued when pursued; when closely pressed into a run 
soon become exhausted; in their natural freedom in- 
habiting all kinds of country contiguous to woodland 
or forested, whether mountain or plain, ranging from 
above timberland 10,000 to 12,000 feet to the sea level, 
but preferring mountainous regions, from which they 
never stray a great distance unless from hunger or 
enemies; not as tenacious of life as deer, an ordinary 
shot soon disabling or killing them; hide of little econo- 
mic value, being soft and pliable as in other deer 
similarly tanned, but of little strength and durability; 
meat much esteemed; horns used by the Indians as 
bows; canine or fang teeth of males used as a valued 
ornament or charm. 
* Also called the moose tree. It is the Acer spicatum, a dwarf 
species of maple, growing about 15 feet high in the forests, 
[to be concluded.] 
Passengfer Pigfeon — Where? 
Prince's Bay, N. Y., Oct. 1.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: It is about the time of year that wild pigeons 
should show up if there are any at all. I am a doubter 
myself, but last of all I will believe an honest man's 
word when I cannot deny it. On Sunday morning, Sep- 
tember 20, I was talking with a man who had just driven 
through Staten Island toward the south shore. He was 
telling me what quantities of birds he had noticed along 
the route, and he said, "I saw some wild pigeons, some-" 
thing I had not seen for thirty years." I laughed at the 
idea, and got him worked up to the point where he began 
to insinuate I did not know what I was talking about. 
This gentleman is on the three-score mark, and has lived 
on the island all his life, and he told me that when he 
was a boy he had often shot them by the dozen in the 
same spot where he saw the seven pigeons that Sunday 
morning. As the conversation progressed I found I 
had no ground to stand on, and I hope they will not be 
destroyed by Italians or any other pot-hunters. *** 
[The question is not of the veracity of those who re- 
port wild pigeons, but of their competence as observers. 
Our correspondent is no doubt familiar with the fact 
that readers on the Pacific Coast, in the Central West, 
and all along the Atlantic Coast have very frequently 
within the last few years reported wild (passenger) 
pigeons as occurring in some numbers. It may very well 
be that some wild pigeons have been seen in certain lo- 
calities, but, on the other hand, we know very well, be- 
cause we have seen the specimens, that in a number of " 
cases these supposed passenger pigeons were band-tail 
pigeons, or were mourning doves. On the other hand 
reported passenger pigeons, only seen flying at a distance, 
may have been plover, since it is well known that some 
plover fly very much like pigeons, and at a distance 
might easily be mistaken for them. 
It is but a few weeks ago that it was reported to us 
that sixty wild pigeons were feeding on a rye stubble 
within seventy-five miles of New York. Cross examina- 
tion of the observers drew from them only a repetition 
of the statement, with the further declaration that the 
birds could not have been mourning doves, because they 
were too large. However, a visit to the rye stubble by a 
competent observer showed, that the birds seen were 
doves and nothing else. There was no question as to the 
good faith of those who reported the "pigeons," but they 
do not know a passenger pigeon when they see it, 
