LY 9, I904.I 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
SI 
■ will not attempt any description of the almost heart- 
■aking sorrow of that parting. It was the greatest grief 
■my life up to that time, and remains in my memory 
■ as something most pathetic and pitiful. 
It is beyond question that after we had gone, grief for 
■ and my family very nearly killed my loving and faith- 
1 dog. 
Way after day he would go out to the top of the hill 
■r my old home and lie all day looking down the road 
■which we had disappeared — waiting and watching tor 
■-and only at nightfall coming back to the house, and 
lep with a groan under a sofa, whence no one could 
Ix him. He refused food, and lost flesh to such an ex- 
It that the friendly people who occupied the house and 
led his suffering thought he would surely die. After 
■ months he left the old home to live with a boy in the 
fehborhood who had been my playmate, and who, doubt - 
1;, most suggested to my poor Watch his young master. 
If my devoted dog "was not capable of mental pain," 
In I was not, and no one is. C. H. Ames. 
scrambling, and we no doubt would have been obliged 
to testify that gray squirrels can fly — when they have to. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
Squirrels and Mulberries. 
hile on my way with a party to the Fair, as we were 
^hining along one of the avenues in Forest Park, I 
ed ahead of us in a large mulberry tree a great com- 
Ition. The branches were alive with moving objects. I 
w it was too early for robins, wax-wings, and other 
it-loving birds to have begun to flock, and what those 
ving objects were that made things so lively among 
branches was a mystery to me, until I got near the 
and then the whole matter was explained. Squirrels ! 
der the tree were many of the little fluffy tails gorging 
tnselves upon the ripe fruit dislodged by the squirrels 
:he limbs, and as the sweet morsels fell to the earth 
y were quickly rescued from between the grass roots, 
thought the squirrels upon the ground were larger 
older than those up the tree, repeated trips at various 
rs to this tree educating them to the fact that one 
Id fare quite as well without doing any climbing and 
tjing. ' ' ■■ •. • • 
was an interesting sight, and we had the machine 
}ped still to enable us to enjoy it. I don't know when 
ive seen birds thicker in a cherry tree than were those 
irrels. And I tried to imagine what a clearing of the 
ks there would have been had a strenuous cat essayed 
climb that tree! There would have been some tall 
The Yellowstone Geysers. 
A resurvey of thermal activity after a five-years' 
absence, convinces the writer that no; appreciable diminu- 
tion has taken place, either in the volume of hot water 
discharged or the force and energy displayed. Naturally 
with all this surface evidence of underground disturb- 
ance, the question is not infrequently asked if earthquakes 
occur in the Park, and since the catastrophes of Mar- 
tinique and St. Vincent, such inquiries are made even 
more often than before. Earthquake shocks have been 
reported, but they are probably due to slight detonations 
near the surface, caused by the condensation of steam 
upon coming in contact with cool waters in underground 
chambers or channels, the explosions being heard for a 
distance of a mile or two, accompanied by more or less 
of a tremor. Within recent times there is no evidence 
of an earthquake in the sense of any real movement of 
the earth's crust, other than that noted at Silver Gate, 
which bears proof of considerable antiquity. The reason 
for this absence of earthquakes is to be found in the 
presence of so many natural safetly valves, furnishing 
sufficient vents for pent-up steam. — Arnold Hague in 
Scribner's. 
Eagle, Rofcin, Pelican. 
Brewer, Maine. — Editor Forest and Stream: A notice 
of a book on natural history which the publishers adver- 
tise is designed as a supplementary school reader for the 
fifth and sixth grades, contains the following : 
"The eagle, Mr. Pearson fells us, can easilv cover a dis- 
tance of one hundred miles an hour. This statement of an 
eagle's speed of wing is a specimen of the many remark- 
able facts brought to light in this volume." 
"In dry seasons, when robins cannot find ready-made 
mud to daub their nests with, they have been known to 
carry water in their beaks to a road, and there mix the 
mud for themselves." 
"Into the pouch beneath the lower part of a brown peli- 
can's bill the author once poured fifteen quarts of water, 
and it held them, all." 
If you think it worth while, will you ask the opinion of 
your subscribers regarding the accuracy of these state- 
ments. As to robins carrying water to the road to mix 
mud, if they ever carried anything, they would carry the 
dirt to the water. But I have never seen any instance of 
their needing to do either. Manly Hardy. 
Cat's Queer Nursing-. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have been much interested in the accounts of queer 
eating habits of certain cats. I have "had the pleasure of 
the acquaintance" of several cats with peculiar traits and 
habits. Our present house cat, and the pet of my children, 
is one of them. She has entire confidence in human be- 
ings ; her confidence has never been abused, and she seems 
absolutely without fear of man. She was taken from her 
mother when a very small kitten, and fed and cared for 
by my children. 
From the first she seemed to us to remember the act of 
nursing, and to want to draw nourishment in the way 
natural to a young kitten. She likes nothing better than 
to lie upon soft cloth and to gather a little bunch of it 
and suck it precisely as in the act of nursing — pressing the 
cloth with alternate movements of the fore feet, purring, 
and showing every evidence of earnest effort and expecta- 
tion of reward. This she will do for long periods, and as 
sedulously now as when a little kitten. Every one remarks 
the seemingly pathetic character of the performance. Can 
any explanation of it be suggested? C. H. Ames. 
Curritucfcers say Ducks Smell. 
Currituck, N. C. — Editor Forest and Stream: If you 
will accept at this late date some testimony to back up 
Mr. Cristadoro's duck smelling story, I have it to submit, 
on the authority of a score or so of old Currituck duck 
shooters. 
It is a well-known fact at Currituck that mallards, black 
ducks, sprig-tails, green and blue-wing teal, gadwalls, 
spoonbills, and all kinds of ducks that do not dive for their 
food, can smell, and seem perfectly to distinguish the 
scent of a human being from other animals. The fact is 
that it is next to impossible to get any of these birds to 
come to decoys if the decoys are placed directly to lee- 
ward of one's blind or point. No good hunter in our 
sound ever thinks of doing so, if it is possible to. avoid it. 
On the other hand, canvasbacks, redheads, blackheads, and 
other kinds of divers do not seem to possess this power. 
More Anon. 
Protection for Wildfowl. 
Philadelphia, Pa., June 20. — Editor Forest and 
■earn: Forest and Stream has already done so' much 
game preserving by insisting upon the principle "No 
e of game;" the United States Government has done 
much in the way of preserving the large game animals 
the Yellowstone Park, and establishing game refuges 
different parts of the West; and we have seen such 
:cess attend the efforts in New England to preserve 
:r, that I am anxious that something should be done 
my game — the quail, wildfowl, plover, snipe, and 
eh birds. . I am particularly interested in the preserva- 
1 of quail, but we will let that question pass for the 
sent, because I think they will have to be taken care 
by the different State governments, 
t seems to^ have been found comparatively easy for the 
ited States Government to undertake the preservation 
the large animals— deer, buffalo, and elk— probably be- 
ise they attract attention from the general public, are 
iposed to be wonderful and valuable, and are often the 
)jects of books and newspaper articles of romantic 
ating adventures which amuse the ordinary reader, 
t to my mind — and I think to most mature and ex- 
■ienced sportsmen — the game birds — quail, ducks, 
ver, snipe — are in many ways more important, afford 
re genuine sport to a larger number of people, and, if 
reased in numbers, would contribute more to the gen- 
1 health and happiness as well as to the wealth of 
:ry community. Even if the large animals were bi- 
ased to the greatest number possible there would still 
comparatively few who could afford to hunt them, 
i the number allowed to be killed would be consider- 
y restricted. Game birds, moreover, can be preserved 
i multiplied in settled or other regions unsuited to the 
ge animals. 
: am not, of course, opposed to preserving the large 
mals. I am heartily in favor of it. Let us develop the 
mal and bird life of nature in every form. All I am 
empting in writing this letter is to see if the interest 
i effort which has been so successful with the animals 
1 be extended to the birds, 
ittle or nothing has been done to preserve the wild 
id, and I shall speak of these alone, because the 
thcds that will preserve them apply equally well to the 
ich birds. I am somewhat familiar with the duck- 
DOting resorts along the coast from New Jersey to 
uth Carolina, and am free to say that any attempts at 
bservation have heretofore been a farce, and some of 
them are worse than useless. The laws are seldom, if 
ever, enforced, and the few that are enforced are en- 
forced in a way to do more harm than good. 
I am aware that in some localities— notably on the 
coast of North Carolina — there has been a certain kind 
of very successful preserving. A club, owning a large 
tract of marsh, will appoint private wardens for that 
marsh during the season and carry out what is certainly 
a perfect instance of game preservation. That is 
to say, the marshes are faithfully guarded ; no 
one but members of the club will fire a shot 
there during the season, and a hundred or a 
hundred and fifty bushels of corn will be scattered in 
the marsh to feed the ducks. The ducks being thus un- 
disturbed, will resort to the marsh in great numbers, 
and the members of the club will have excellent shooting. 
I know of several clubs of this sort where two or three 
members have killed over a hundred ducks in a day, and 
I know of one club where the number killed by only 
about a dozen members in one season amount to 5,009. 
But I do not call this real game preservation. It is 
simply building an ingenious trap to bring the few re- 
maining ducks into a small, quiet space, make them tame, 
and slaughter them wholesale. The whole stretch of the 
Atlantic seaboard, the lakes, rivers, and other duck re- 
sorts of the far West, are left unpresefved, and shooting 
goes on indiscriminately. There is very little use in 
isolated duck preserving, either by individuals or by a 
single State. 
Of what use would it be if Virginia alone really ex- 
ecuted good game laws and preserved the ducks 
within her borders, while the indiscriminate shooting 
went on in all other States throughout the Union? The 
citizens of Virginia would say that their State was, simply 
making a fool of itself and gaining nothing by it ; and 
as a matter of fact, that is what the people in different 
localities always feel, namely, that there is no use in their 
executing their own laws and preserving wildfowl, so 
long as indiscriminate "shooting is carried on throughout 
the rest of the country. 
I have lost all faith in any preservation of the wildfowl, 
by action in any one State. If we could get them all to 
agree to execute laws at the same time, something might 
be accomplished; but to attain such an agreement among 
the fifteen or twenty States which practically control the 
duck region, will be quite difficult ; and yet we must solve 
that difficulty or turn the whole subject over to the gen- 
eral Government. The conditions of State government 
are all against wildfowl preservation, The State politi- 
cians and the State officials are afraid of the classes who 
are interested in duck slaughter and the sale of, ducks. 
The laws are never executed, and it is often difficult to 
get even good laws on the statute books. 
North Carolina has been able to pass rather stringent 
laws regulating duck shooting by non-resident sportsmen 
who come into the State. But she has not been able to 
get on her statute books any laws restricting the shoot- 
ing by her own native market-gunners. If I go to North 
Carolina to shoot, I am restricted to certain days in the 
week, and I can shoot only from blinds where my 
chances are extremely limited. But the native market- 
gunner can shoot from a battery with 250 or 300 decoys, 
with the best chances in his favor, and ship all of his 
game out of the State. _ . 
North Carolina has fortunately succeeded in passing a 
law preventing the shipping of email out of the State, but 
so strong was the market-gunning interest that they did 
not dare to put on their statute books a law prohibiting 
the shipping of wildfowl out of the State; and everyone 
knows that if such a law were passed it could not be 
enforced. 
It seems as if we would never be able to do anything 
to check the destruction which will soon exterminate all 
the wildfowl, unless we get the matter taken up by the 
United States Government, regulated by an act of Con- 
gress, which will be uniform throughout the whole coun- 
try, and enforced by United States marshals and officials 
who are not afraid to execute laws, _ and have the full 
force of the general Government behind them. 
I regret to say, however, that if there were now^an act 
of Congress regulating the preservation of wildfowl 
throughout the United States, it would in all probability 
be held unconstitutional by the courts except in certain 
districts, like the Yellowstone Park, belonging to the 
National Government. Possibly eminent counsel might 
devise legislation of this sort that would not be unconsti- 
tutional, but at present I see no way of doing it. An 
amendment to the Constitution giving Congress jurisdic- 
tion for the preservation of wildfowl, or certain classes of . 
game, will probably be necessary to accomplish our pur- 
pose. An amendment to the Constitution is difficult to 
obtain, but by no means impossible. We have obtained 
fifteen of them in the course of our history, and can ob- 
tain one more if we go about it in the right way. 
We must make up our minds which is the better course 
—to obtain an amendment and Congressional legislational 
which would probably settle the question permanently, or 
pbtain uniform laws and uniform execution of them in 
