July 30, 1904-] 
FORE ST_ AND^STREAM. 
8 7 
mile gait rapidly lessens the distance to camp. Suddenly 
the texture of the carpet changes, and its color from a 
light gray to a beautiful dark green hue. You step on it, 
innocently enough, and immediately sink to your waist in 
a dense tangle of scrubby spruce. You cannot pass 
through it, you cannot walk on top ; and unless a friendly 
"deer" lead lends its assistance, a long detour will be 
necessary. Then you are in the "tucks." _ ; 
I once missed a fine chance at a bear all due to these in- 
fernal "tucks." He was on a huckleberry barren near "Ole 
Christoph's" Pond, sleek and black, wholly unconscious 
of my presence. Half a mile away across the valley I 
watched him through the glasses for some time, slowly 
slouching along, busily engaged with the berries, and 
occasionally overturning a stone in search for the succu- 
lent ants that lurked beneath. The wind was favorable, 
and the bear was gradually working his way in a circle 
to a point where a successful stalk could be made. So 
pumping a cartridge into the chamber I prepared for a 
long crawl over the moss. A hundred yards went well, 
but then, alas ! a hundred rods of impenetrable spruce 
growth stretched out ahead, and the best chance of a 
summer was lost. That bear still roots with satisfaction 
among the ant hills, and safely roams the country back of 
Christoph's Pond, but no safer is he than when I stood 
upon the edge of the tucks and watched his fine black 
pelt disappear over the ridge on the other side. 
The sun stood, by this time, high in the heavens, a 
good time for a rest, and an excellent opportunity for 
boiling the kettle. So while William cut down a supply 
of wood for the fire, I brought out an old envelope and 
jotted down some notes on the birds observed during 
the last few days. 
Bird life throughout the interior is just as different 
from that near the coast as are the species found at the 
coast different from our well-known friends of the Middle 
States. The nature and topography of the inland country 
are not favorable to the sustenance of many species, but 
the few which do occur may be counted upon with some 
degree of frequency and regularity. Crows, ravens, 
thrushes, and foxsparrows, were seen very infrequently, 
while no terns were recorded at all. On the other hand, 
horned larks (Otocoris alpestris), and pipits (Anthus 
pensilvanicus), ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus alleni), and 
Canada geese (Branta canadensis) were abundant on the 
barrens, while nearly every pond sheltered its brood of 
sheldrakes (Merganser americanus), and a pair of loons 
(Gavia imber) or herring gulls (Larus argentatus smith- 
sonianus). The latter were just commencing to depart 
for the ocean, and had already diminished considerably in 
numbers since our arrival at the falls. Every patch of 
forest contained its full quota of titmice, nuthatches, and 
jays of both species, although Perisoreus canadensis ap- 
peared to be the much more abundant of the two. Great 
horned owls (Bubo virginianus) were observed on several 
occasions silently flapping over the wet marshes; bald 
eagles twice, and once I saw a single individual of those 
rare nomadic wanderers, the Bohemian waxwings 
(Ampelis garrulus). I tried my best to secure a speci- 
men of the horned owl of Newfoundland for purposes of 
identification, as the birds seemed quite dark in colora- 
tion, approaching more closely B. v. saturatus of Labra- 
dor and the north than B. virginianus of eastern United 
States and lower Canada, but Jim's old seal gun, loaded 
with buckshot, made but a poor substitute for a collecting 
gun, and all my efforts were futile. 
Sand Pond, nestling in a valley among surrounding 
hills, one end a bog, the other shrouded in sombre forest 
gloom, is a typical pond of the Newfoundland interior. 
Already many does and small deer had left the protecting 
thickets and could be seen wandering about over the bar- 
rens above the lake ; but old stags, tardy as usual, were 
still scarce on the open country. At that time they 
should be sought around low swamps and heavily wooded 
river bottoms, and great precaution should be exercised 
in pitching a camp.. No fire was lit that first night at 
Sand Pond, as the fresh sign along shore showed that we 
were in the heart of an excellent stag country. It was 
rather cold, and perhaps we were foolish, but anyone who 
has hunted caribou before they have commenced to travel 
will thoroughly understand the reason of our extraor- 
dinary care. The man who goes to Grand Lake or 
Kitty's Brook after September 10 can live in luxury in a 
permanent home camp and at night enjoy the warmth of 
the largest fire, for then the deer have commenced to 
move from place to place, and one that was ten miles 
away at sunrise might well, toward evening, almost stum- 
ble upon the tent. Previous to that time, however, sports- 
men can permit themselves no such luxurious comforts, for 
then the caribou are living quiet and seclusive in their 
summer home, and then a heavy stag rarely travels half 
a mile from his bed. Absolute silence, small fire, infre- 
quent chopping, and, above all, no unnecessary tramping 
the country, are all cardinal rules to be followed ; and the 
man who hunts little and looks much is the one who will 
prove fortunate. The man who has finished his breakfast 
before daylight will be more successful than the one who 
tumbles out of his sleeping bag at six o'clock; and the 
guide who rests during the midday heat and then watches 
long after sundown is a wiser hunter than the one who 
searches industriously all day long and then returns to 
camp to finish his supper by daylight. The old maxim, 
"Early and late are the times to wait," was never truer 
than when hunting "deer" in the early autumn. Such 
hunting is. the acme of sportsmanship, and demands in a 
high degree the trained skill and quiet, stealthy tread of 
the still-hunter. 
It is difficult to understand just why the unfortunate 
misnomers "stag" and "deer" have been applied to the 
caribou by the Newfoundlanders. A caribou bull is an 
animal totally different in every respect from the stag of 
the Scotch Highlands or the historic Rot Hirschof the 
forests of Germany. But a certain reluctance to invent 
new names for new animals has always characterized 
colonists in a strange land, and it is evident that the 
early Scotch and English settlers in Newfoundland were 
no exception to the usual rule. To them the caribou has 
always been a deer, and a deer it will always remain. 
Our own early pioneers were just as reluctant and con- 
servative in their choice, selecting names for American 
game totally inappropriate and often scientifically inac- 
curate as well. Thus they christened our wapiti, which is 
closely allied to the European stag, elk,- a name as mis- 
leading as it is incorrect, for the true elk is the prototype 
of the American moose throughout the boreal forests of 
the eastern hemisphere, and it represents an entirely dif- 
ferent genus from the wapiti. The Indian cougar was 
ignored for the more familiar and conservative mountain 
lion ; yet the great cat is distinctively an animal of the 
new world. Our beautiful redbreasted thrush became 
known to the settlers under the same name as the 
diminutive European robin, while in localities our ruffed 
grouse became a pheasant. The white-tailed deer was 
called red deer, after its English cousin ; the extraor- 
dinary antelope of the West became a white goat; the 
prong-buck of the plains for a hundred years has posed 
as an antelope; while the grand old bison of the past in- 
digenous to American soil, an animal which was born and 
bred and then died on our western prairies, has passed 
into history as the buffalo. 
Sad indeed it is that a European nomenclature has 
been saddled upon American animals. But we still re- 
tain a few names thoroughly western in their origin and 
significance, and such words as moose, coyote, and 
maskinonge, carcajou, musquash, ouananiche, and cari- 
bou, will stand as perpetual monuments to the aboriginal 
Indian long after the latter has vanished from the broad 
land that was once his own. 
Early next morning William and I sat by a little barren 
at the foot of the pond, waiting for the sun to rise. A 
thick white mist hung heavy on the water, and an all- 
pervading icy dampness penetrated to the very marrow. 
Over on the opposite shore a solitary doe was dimly dis- 
cernible through the fog, and a few moments later her 
well grown fawn emerging from the bushes, frisked and 
frolicked by her side. Across the outlet, not fifty yards 
from where we sat, was a beaver house, or, more properly 
speaking, a beaver hole, at the mouth of which a great 
heap of brush had been piled by the industrious animal. 
There he lived a lonely life in solitary confinement, apart 
from all friends and neighbors of his race; for search, as 
later we did, no. other beavers were discovered at Sand 
Pond. For half an hour nothing worthy of a shot ap- 
peared on the beach; so moving back a few hundred 
yards, we took our stand on a little eminence, from the 
summit of which a view of the surrounding country could 
be obtained. The mist was gradually dissipated by the 
sun's bright rays, and soon broad, well-worn deer leads 
could be seen stretching out, crossing each other in every 
direction. It must have been about six o'clock when 
William suddenly gripped my arm like a vise, and point- 
ing across the barrens whispered, "Look! Dere's a stag 
over yonder." > I followed the direction of his finger, and 
sure enough, far down along the slope, a caribou was 
slowly clambering up the trail which turned off only one 
hundred yards from the base of our knoll. Yes, he was 
coming, slowly but surely, up the lead. Now I can 
plainly see the shaggy white neck and broad palmations 
of his antlers. He stops a moment to crop a mouth full 
of moss from beside the runway, and stands erect watch- 
ing the doe and fawn across the pond. Perhaps she once 
belonged to his harem and still femembers those fierce 
battles and hoarse challenges, of the previous autumn. 
Proudly tossing his head, he quickens his pace to a fast 
walk. Now I can see the vapor from his nostrils rising 
like a white cloud in the frosty air. Nearer and nearer, 
wholly unconscious of our presence ; I draw the sights on 
his broad gray chest; a quick flash; a loud report, and the 
stag crouches, trembling in every fibre, but then rushes 
onward with headlong bounds. The rifle cracks again, 
and he totters, stumbles, and falls; in a heap. We rush 
down the hill with all possible dispatch, but it is unneces- 
sary, for before us on the moss heilies dead upon his side, 
truly the noblest, the proudest creature of the northern 
wilderness. 
What a strangely powerful instinct it must be that 
drives the hunter to commit such a deed! Yet here we 
are, William and I, exchanging mutual congratulations 
and shaking hands over the prostrate form of the quarry. 
William Arthur Babson. 
[to be continued.] 
On the Amazon. 
United States Consul Ayme writes from Para, 
Brazil, of conditions obtaining on the Amazon: "The 
reports of my immediate predecessor in office were of 
such a nature as to inspire the belief that there existed 
many opportunities for the investment, by Americans, 
of moderate amounts of capital in various lines. I 
despair of finding language strong enough to express 
the utter and absolute hopelessness of success that 
awaits any of them unhappy enough to attempt to make 
even a bare living on the banks of the mighty Amazon. 
The Amazon River may be divided into three parts : 
The lower Amazon, extending as far as Manaos, where 
the Rio Negro flows into it, a distance of about 900 
miles; the upper Amazon, from Manaos to Iquitos, near 
the Peruvian boundary, a distance of perhaps 1,800 
miles, and the Peruvian Amazon region, with navigable 
rivers for a distance of 1,600 miles and more. This 
amazing river system, which empties into the Atlantic, 
through a series of mouths 180 miles wide, more than 
twice as much water as the Mississippi carries in flood, 
and which stains the ocean for a distance of 600 miles, 
lies in a broad, flat valley, elevated but a few inches 
above flood level, with an inclination of only about one 
foot in five miles. This valley, almost always flooded, 
is covered with vast forests, in which at sparse inter- 
vals are found occasional heveas and hard-wood trees 
of some value. This valley, at least thirty miles wide, 
has a swift, very deep river running through it, with 
a breadth of from two to six miles. The thick forest 
growing up out of the water forms the so-called 
'banks.' Here and there are patches of slightly ele- 
vated ground on which Indian huts are erected. To 
make this huge river and to sustain the growth of the 
vast matted forest, rain — much rain — is needed, and it 
is a fact that more rain falls in this region than in any 
other of like extent in the world. As one sails or 
steams up the great river there are seen occasional 
patches of green, level vegetation, for all the world 
like wondrously fertile meadows, and it is not difficult to 
imagine great flocks of cattle feeding on them, until 
the sight of a capybara or tapir more than knee-deep 
in the green ooze informs one of the real consistency 
of that tempting and solid-looking meadow; it is little 
better than a swamp. . 
"In these extraordinary forests there are found some 
of the most beautiful and valuable, woods in the world, 
as well as fruits, nuts, oils, balsams, and gums, but— 
and this but is unsurmountable— they are found as 
rarely as diamonds in the gravel or gold nuggets in 
the streams. There is a false impression existing that 
rubber trees, ebony, rosewood, and all the rest . are found 
m great groves or clusters, like our pine or oak forests. 
The fact is that these trees are solitary. When two of 
them are only a quarter of a mile apart (and remember 
that the quarter-mile is not open space, but thick- 
matted, almost impenetrable swamp forest) they are 
considered close together; if they are a mile apart they 
are not considered to be very far distant from each 
other. Nor does this huge forest produce any great 
quantity of food for human beings. The staple articles 
of food for the dweller on the Amazon is dried pirarucu, 
a huge, fat river fish, and 'farinha,' the starch of the 
manioc root." 
A Hail from the Gulf Coast. 
Tarpon Springs, Florida, June 7.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The winter visitors are all gone. The launches 
all snug in their sheds. The town has settled into its 
summer quiet, and we old-timers have nothing to do but 
go fishing. 
And we rather like it. It is so pleasant to be able to 
take a quiet paddle on the river without keeping one eye 
over our shoulder on the lookout for a steam launch, or 
to do a little trolling without a naphtha launch running 
across our wake and reeling up our line at the wrong 
end. To be sure, power boats are all very nice in their 
way, but I am glad their way does not last the year 
round. But I did not mean to make my short letter an es- 
cape valve, for I started in to congratulate you on the grand 
paper you are making. It's getting better all the time. 
My neighbor "Kelpie" (who I" think you know as one of 
the "Kingfishers"), remarked to me to-day how pleased 
everybody was with the "Trails of the Pathfinders." Yes, 
Forest and Stream is a grand paper, a paper no one 
need fear to put in the hands of his boys, or his girls, 
either, for that matter. One thing I like in Forest and 
Stream, it does not soil its pages with politics. May it 
live long and prosper. 
I notice from the New York papers that you are hav- 
ing some warm weather up there. Better come to 
Florida and cool off. Seated here at the north window 
of my little den I am writing in comfort. Just clear of 
my window stands a red cedar; in the boughs of the 
cedar are a mockingbird mother and her four young. 
The old lady is trying to persuade them to fly. Whether 
, they are doubtful of their own ability or are afraid of 
their surroundings is uncertain, but they are making 
a great fuss. 
We have more birds here than ever before. Mockers, 
cardinals, and jays are the most in evidence; while the 
Tallahassee vine or the hibiscus bush can almost always 
show a ruby-throat. In a walk of less than five miles the 
other day I started an even dozen coveys of quail. 
Fishing is not so good ; there is too much grass in the 
river. Tarpon are plentiful, but one soon tires of catch- 
ing tarpon; it is too much like work. Soon the redfish 
will strike in the river, and then the fun will begin; 
there is more fun in landing a medium sized redfish than 
the biggest tarpon. Tarpon. 
- — $ — 
Bullfrogs and Bitterns. 
Some observations on "The Frog's Provender," noted 
in your issue of last week, have recalled many pleasant 
memories of boyhood days spent among the ponds of 
Sullivan county, New York, and at last have satis- 
factorily explained what for years remained a mystery. 
Fifteen years ago I owned an aquarium, at least we 
called it an aquarium, such a one as probably many 
Forest and Stream readers owned when they were 
boys. It was merely an old discarded bath tub sunk in 
the ground, but imprisoned within its walls lived a truly 
wonderful assortment of little creatures. There were 
salamanders that crawled around among the pebbles on 
the bottom, in company with crayfish, snails, and small, 
black, red-spotted turtles. Three tiny water snakes en- 
trenched themselves at one end of the sloping beach, 
while at the other, just as far away as possible, were 
half a dozen little brook frogs, just learning to use 
their newly acquired legs. Out in the water swam min- 
nows, tadpoles, sunfish and whirl-a-gig bugs, all living 
in harmonious contentment. Occasionally, however, 
one of the tadpoles mysteriously disappeared, and, co- 
incident with the catastrophy, a snake would be seen to 
increase materially his girth, but, aside from these little 
tragedies, peace and quiet reigned supreme; until one 
day — an evil day — when I placed in the tub one of those 
huge pond bullfrogs. The first to vanish were the little 
frogs and tadpoles, and by the end of ten days not 
a salamander was left, and only one lone snake. The 
fishes lasted well, and only after many days did the 
last sunfish finally disappear from the tub. But the 
old fellow must have struck a snag when he tried a 
diet of turtle shells or crayfish, or perhaps it was re- 
morse for his former companions; for one morning 
we found him in the water, his ponderous white stomach 
extended to its fullest extent, lying flat on his back- 
dead — and so ended our aquarium. 
That there is little of the epicure about the frog, I 
think that we will all agree; but when it comes to 
gluttony, pure and simple, I give the palm without a 
murmur to the American bittern (Botaurus lentigino- 
sus). Many curious things does the skin collector find 
in the stomachs or gizzards of birds, but I never heard 
of anything that would beat this: (1) Fragments of 
a mouse, partially digested; (2) three small sunfish and 
a pickerel, two inches long; (3) remains of a frog:, four 
