[July 30, 104. 
inches long; (4) a full-grown star-nosed mole, intact 
with hardly a rumple on his fur. I found the above 
collection in the stomach of a bittern, shot at Prince- 
ton some years ago by Prof. W. E. D. Scott. The 
bird was mounted, and is at present, I believe, in the 
university collection. Wm. Arthur Babson. 
The Skylarks at Rugby. 
When I read in Forest and Stream that there were 
English skylarks within easy reach of New York, I 
rubbed my eyes and asked myself if the news could be 
true. However, I was determined to find out for myself, 
and so lost no time in making my way to Rugby, where, 
sure enough, I found the little brown enchanters sing- 
ing away as though they were on their native heath. 
There is something which appeals strongly to the im- 
agination in the translation of this classic singer of the 
©Id world to the new. To think that the music beloved 
and celebrated of Chaucer and Shakespeare and Shelley 
should now be ours to hear under our own sky ! 
In regard to that music I am quite sure we have noth- 
ing native to compare with it — be it said without any 
abatement of patriotism. The mellow notes of the thrush 
echoing through a wood on a calm summer's evening 
are fine, and finer still are the thrills of the mockingbird 
under the moon, but the song of the lark up among the 
clouds has something positively celestial ip it. And I 
mean by that that the utter joy expressed seems rather 
to be of heaven than earth. 
It will be interesting to note if the song will undergo 
any change in the bird's new habitat. Your correspond- 
ent, Mr. Wilmot Townsend, thought he detected some 
imitations of our native songsters, and I thought so, too ; 
also, I thought that there was an acceleration of the time, 
but substantially the song was the same as that which 
I had heard beyond the sea. 
So devoted to his art is the little minstrel that he is 
given to springing up at any hour of the day (even when 
the stin is broiling hot, as I proved), but his best efforts 
are reserved for morning and evening. Just as the sun 
peeps above the horizon he brushes the dew from the 
grass and mounts up with his loudest, most joyous 
strains. Referring to this habit of his, Shakespeare 
wrote : 
"When merry larks are plowmen's clocks." 
His evening song is calmer — more suave and flute-like, 
although, judging by his actions, the bird appears to be 
Squirrel Barking. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I am much gratified, and I confess somewhat elated, 
that my shooting at a noise in the brush went so straight 
to the mark. For- — to drop shooting metaphor — it was 
beyond my wildest anticipation that the author of the 
squirrel-barking article should so speedily have been put 
on the defensive by what I wrote. I admire Captain 
Kelly's frank declaration of himself as an ambitious 
would-be myth buster. However, while assuring him of 
my most distinguished consideration, I will, with your 
permission and his indulgence, retain to the bitter end 
as my own signature the name of Rifleman. It can make 
no difference to Captain Kelly or your readers who I am, 
since I do not profess to speak as a sharpshooter, nor to 
have had any personal experience in barking squirrels. 
The issue is not between Mr. Kelly and Rifleman, but 
between Mr. Kelly and Audubon. _ For after all what does 
the whole thing amount to but this : 
Audubon says that he saw Boone bark squirrels. 
Kelly says that he has tried to bark squirrels and could 
not do it. 
Therefore Audubon did not see Boone bark squirrels. 
What a delicious non sequitur that is. 
Your correspondent appears himself to recognize the 
weakness of this argument, for now he would dispose of 
the whole matter by questioning Audubon's veracity. 
The naturalist records that he saw Daniel Boone in Ken- 
tucky. Put on the defensive, Captain Kelly pleads an 
alibi for Boone. I have not at hand any other authority 
to show where Boone was or was not at any specified time, 
but Audubon is good enough authority for me as to 
this particular point. Audubon says that he saw Boone 
in Kentucky. That always has done for me, and it does 
now. I believe that he did see Boone when he says he 
saw him. If Captain Allen Kelly is to destroy our faith 
in "squirrel barking," he must do it by good and sufficient 
proofs; if he is willing to go on record as accusing 
Audubon the naturalist of uttering a "flawless finished 
fib" when he describes something that he has seen, he 
must give us the evidence to sustain the charge. The 
burden of proof is on him. 
It will not do for Captain Kelly to throw doubt on the 
naturalists of other days by making light of the romantic 
school of pseudo-naturalists with which we are now all 
$0 familiar. As a rule the men of the nineteenth century 
worked up into a perfect frenzy. Shelley, his other great 
poetic celebrator, alluding to this, wrote : 
"In the golden lightening 
Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are bright'ning, 
Thou dost float and run, 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun." 
Did space permit, it would be well worth while to- in- 
troduce here the whole of Shelley's ode, which is un- 
doubtedly the best appreciation of the lark in the English 
language. 
There is a certain mystery about the appearance of 
the birds in such numbers at Rugby. Where have they 
been hiding away during past summers, and especially how 
have they survived our terrible' winters ? Is it possible 
that they have acquired, or are acquiring, the migratory 
habit, and are erratic in their comings and goings? 
However this may be, there is now strong ground to 
hope that they have been securely acclimatized. 
It is not likely that the present denizens of the meads 
of Rugby will be allowed to remain long in possession, 
for the "improver" is around. Soon those beautiful 
green and ruby-tinted meads will give place to long rows 
of modern suburban "villas ;" the air will resound with 
the cries of street vendors instead of the notes of the 
lark, and Philistia will rejoice. 
I should record that during my visits out there I never 
saw a soul except those who were being whirled by on 
a neighboring trolley line. Thought I, a little bitterly, 
if only a find of gold instead of skylarks had been made, 
what a crush and weltering of humanity there would be 
here ! And yet the finding of those skylarks was of in- 
finitely more consequence than would have been the find- 
ing of a gold mine. I say that in all seriousness. For 
a day will come (it may be remote, but it will come), 
when the average American citizen will think that to 
make money, eat big dinners, and wear fine clothes is not 
the only object worthy of a man, and then the skylark 
will be hailed and esteemed as one of our most precious 
possessions. Frank Moonan. 
New York, July 21. 
A Captive Eagle in Boston. 
A South Boston woman who heard a mysterious 
noise at a window the other day, found perched on the 
blinds and wildly flapping its wings, a young eagle. She 
managed alone and unaided to secure the bird, and to 
immure him in an improvised cage, where he is gradually 
becoming reconciled to captivity and mutton. 
set down the things they saw. They were chiefly gather- 
ers of facts, and did not broadly generalize. The ro- 
mantic school of to-day is built on very different _ lines. 
One of its members runs of of doors and sees a bird or 
an animal do something, and with that as a text, he gives 
free range to his imagination and writes a book in which 
he makes a goose or a swallow very little — if any — lower 
than the angels. Worse than that, they call themselves 
"naturalists," something ■which eauses the true naturalist 
to pluck out his hair by hands'ful, and to wonder how 
anybody can believe these advertising romancers. 
It is ' a little difficult to reply definitely to Captain 
Kelly's letter, for it contains_ a good' deal that is ex- 
traneous, and that has ho particular bearing on the point 
at issue. I do not think, for example, that it would be 
possible for anyone to bark a squirrel with a .44 caliber 
revolver. I do not think one could commonly hit close 
enough to the spot. 
If Captain Kelly wishes my individual views as to the 
report that the Boers commonly killed antelope at a 
thousand yards, or that Morgan's men hit squirrels at 
300 yards, I will give them readily. Neither would be 
possible, in my opinion, except with a rifle fitted with 
telescopic sights, and even then the feat could be per- 
formed but seldom. On the other hand, I can conceive 
that Natty Bumppo might quite frequently send a rifle 
ball through two potatoes thrown in the air, provided he 
had someone to throw them in such manner as to give 
him a fair chance to do" this. 
I have shot a rifle a few times myself, and have seen 
rifle balls do very curious things. 
I am interested and gratified to see that two corre- 
spondents have come forward to show that squirrel- 
barking is not yet wholly a lost art. Rifleman. 
Wymore, Nebraska, July 18.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I was very much interested in the article on 
"Squirrel Barkers and Myth Busters," by Rifleman in the 
•current number of Forest and Stream. While the myth 
buster, according to his own story, is not worthy of no- 
tice, still he questions the veracity of Audubon, and for 
that reason should receive attention. In my reading I 
have always been st'rucK with the fact that those who 
have studied the birds and woods of America have uni- 
formly found Audubon to have been correct in his 
descriptions^ and truthful ' iff his statements. But 
Audubon never -described the barking of a squirrel by 
A Quail Thinning Out Theory. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Several shooters in this vicinity are under the impres- 
sion that a brood of quail which have survived the shoot- 
ing season and the rigors of winter, should be broken up 
and thinned out before the breeding season or they will 
not breed. Is there any foundation in fact for such a 
ridiculous contention? R. L. E. 
Massachusetts. 
[The belief quoted by our correspondent is widespread, 
but we know of no evidence to support it. The theory, 
we believe, is based on the assumption that the quail, be- 
ing very pugnacious, the males of any brood are likely 
to fight all through the mating season, and so the opera- 
tions of reproduction to be interfered with. On the other 
hand, we have heard the belief expressed that the birds 
simply continue in a flock and apparently have no wish 
to breed, remaining together all through the summer. 
It is supposed that where a country is shot over, the 
males, being the strongest and most vigorous of the 
brood, will first take to flight, and so will be first killed. 
There will thus be a dearth of males, and each male will 
secure a mate without fighting for her. Have any of our 
readers evidence tending to establish such a supposition? 
Even if the theory were founded on fact, we do not 
see what remedy the gunners have. The law says that 
quail shall not be killed between certain dates, and we 
conceive that there can be no exception to this law.] 
Bull Elk Sees Town Sights. 
Seattle, July 12. — A big bull elk paraded the main 
streets of Port Angeles the other day, and after chasing 
around until he had worked up a nice sweat, jumped 
into the salt water and regaled himself with a swim 
across the narrow arm of the Sound from the sand pits 
to the mainland. 
The inhabitants of Port Angeles were surprised to see 
the elk so friendly and unafraid, for not for twenty years 
before had an elk — of the four-footed kind— been so so- 
ciable and friendly. A number of small boys tried to 
make up to the visitor from the forest, but he was rather 
proud and offish, and continued his inspection of the 
streets of the city alone. 
Game Warden Harry Daniels, of Clallam county, can- 
not help but feel a little proud of the occurrence. To 
him the visit of the elk means that the game protection 
under his supervision is a great success. Daniels says 
the game is more plentiful in Clallam county now than 
for the last fifteen years. — San Francisco Call. 
shooting the bark from under its belly, or under its fore- 
feet, or under its hindfeet. To- bark a squirrel, 'the shot 
must pass directly under the heart; and that it can be 
done, and was a common thing fifty years ago, can be 
testified to by hundreds of men now living. I have seen 
it done many times. 
Those who attended the last Grand American Handicap 
at Live Birds at Kansas City, will remember one of the 
contestants, R. W. Cool, from Aledo, Illinois. He was 
described in Forest and Stream at the time as a very de- 
liberate old man, and was one of the ten men who scored 
up on the last morning to shoot off the tie, and went out 
on a bird dead out of bounds. I have seen R. W. Cool 
bark a squirrel many times; and I have seen his father, 
Jacob Cool, do the same thing dozens of times. There 
was a man — Robert Woods— living at Aledo in the win- 
ter of 1862-3, and I believe he is still there. On pleasant 
days that winter he hunted squirrels in the timber south 
of our house, and I generally followed him, and saw him 
bark dozens of squirrels, and at that time I was past 
thirteen years of age, and could kill a squirrel without a 
stick. My father used a long Kentucky rifle, and fre- 
quently hunted squirrels, and I have seen bunches of 
squirrels brought home by him of which one-half 
did not show a bullet mark. They were barked. I never 
barked a squirrel myself, because, from the time I was 
thirteen until I was twenty-three, I did all my shooting 
between the handles of a plow, and after that time I 
used a shotgun. 
Dr. H. A. Given, of this city, can testify to the barking 
of squirrels, and can give the names of many men now 
living in Illinois who did it, and saw it done, many times. 
Squirrels do not always lie in a tree in a position so that 
they can be barked, and when I was a boy these were shot 
through the head, and when a bullet "carried away the 
front of his skull and a part of his brains" he always 
came down, but of course that was a long time ago. 
Jacob B. Lininger, of this city, is another man who can 
testify to the barking of squirrels being a common prac- 
tice when he was a young man. He lived at Peru, on 
the Illinois River, from 1846 to 1870, and killed more 
deer with the rifle than any other man in that part of the 
State, and continued to kill deer in Nebraska after he left 
Illinois. When I first knew him, twenty-five years ago, 
he was an expert with the long rifle, and within the past 
few years I have seen him do fine work with a shotgun 
in the field. He says the barking of squirrels required no 
