FOREST AND STREAM. 
£87 
him literally eat the impudent little interferes Woe to 
any other dog hereabouts that had dared so insult him! 
But when he turned to look at his captor, who stood 
bristling, with head held high, chest expanded, growling 
in a low, authoritative way, he bowed as to a superior — 
a lawful ruler, and quietly went away. There were more 
than a dozen men present, and I think half of them wit- 
nessed the incident: At another time I saw this insolent 
little monarch chase a large young hound, who was howl- 
ing in ridiculous terror, into his own yard, into the very 
faces of three more (grown) hounds. And then he re- 
treated, slowly and in good order, as they stood growling 
helplessly. In both instances the punished clog had 
started to "get after" something in the street, which 
Terry would never allow. He seemed to consider him- 
self a peace officer. 
In my next I shall tell about a pig more remarkable 
than any I ever heard of. L, R. Morphew. 
[TO BE CONTINUED.] 
"Sleeping" Wild Ducks "Awaken- 
ed" by "Telepathy." 
Populus vult decipi. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
When some "students of natural history" who ' write" 
are at a loss for some topic, a standard means of seeing 
themselves in print is to loudly deny as critics, various 
statements about animal intelligence that have been made 
by Mr. W. J. Long or Mr. Seton. These attacks, in- 
augurated by Mr. John Burroughs, whose especial an- 
tagonism to Mr. Long's books is well known, enable the 
smaller critics to call Mr. Burroughs the "dean of our 
natural historians," and to speak in reverence (in which 
the writer joins) of his old age, which is somehow sup- 
posed to clinch the truth of their "criticism" of Mr. Long 
and Mr. Seton. 
I have seen the famous swinging bird's nest that hangs 
by its twine string over the table in Mr. Long's study at 
Stamford, Conn., and also two or three written certifi- 
cates : that the nest was actually so fashioned and sus- 
pended by the parent birds, whose movements, the certifi- 
cates say, were watched from day to day as the nest was 
constructed by them. There were further certificates 
that .Mr./ Long's equally famous woodcock with a broken 
leg actually did make, adjust and wear a clay jacket or 
cast around that leg while it was healing; and that the 
bird had brothers elsewhere that had done the same 
thing. 
Without venturing an opinion on the merits of these 
somewhat amusing controversies, and the judgment and 
taste with which they have been waged in various maga- 
zines, it may be stated that some very instructive side- 
lights have been thrown upon them. 
For example, a certain sporting club invited Mr. Long 
to speak before it at a club dinner. He talked to the 
hundred or more diners over an hour, paid his own ex- 
penses to and from New York to do this, and received 
no compensation other than what must have been most 
desired by him — the gratification of knowing that he had 
been honored by the invitation, and that his courtesy 
had been much appreciated by brother sportsmen who 
expressed to him their interest and delight. 
More, several members of that. sporting club have stated 
to me that they were present and heard Mr. Long's ad- 
dress, and that they are positive that it contained no 
direct or implied reference to Mr. Burroughs, much less 
any mention of his (Mr. Burroughs') name, and that Mr. 
Long was not aware that soon, at the next dinner of the 
club, Mr. Burroughs would speak, and attack Mr. Long's 
books. . ' . 
Mr. Burroughs did speak at the next dinner, although 
he stated in opening that he had not expected to do so. 
Mr. Long, who had been invited to be a guest at the 
second dinner, was finally quietly advised that he had bet- 
ter not be there. 
I was present at the second dinner. The first half of 
the speeches consisted of a carefully prepared attack on 
Mr. Long, and the lauding of Mr. Burroughs, 
who was preceded by a student of the behavior of 
monkeys in cages. Their observed conduct while thus 
imprisoned Was supposed, by implication, to enable that 
speaker to say whether birds could build swinging nests, 
and wear their broken legs in clay casts. At least, 
"monkeyshines" was about all he mentioned. That speaker 
smoked eight cigarettes during his talk of one hour: I 
counted them. Then he retired in favor of Mr. Bur- 
roughs, who mentioned Mr. Long by name at least twenty 
times as one who had published as facts, what he must 
know were not facts. 
Result, a feeling of revolt On the part of a considerable 
percentage of the members and diners, who in some "cases 
did not hesitate to stigmatize the speeches as the height 
of bad taste, as showing grievous lack of courtesy 
and appreciation to a speaker whom they had asked to 
be their guest, and who had gratuitously journeyed to 
town arid furnished them with a free talk. And several 
were very bitter, asserting that no one man owned a 
monopoly of bird lore, and should not be encouraged to 
believe he did. 
That is one side light. It is submitted without 
comment. 
Another side light may be found in a communication or 
article by Mr. Burroughs in the July issue of Outing. 
See second column of page 497 : 
"For some years I have noticed that ducks can seem 
to 'feel' the presence of the hunter when asleep. Cer- 
tainly I have found sleeping ducks more difficult of ap- 
proach than ones whose minds were occupied in feeding, 
watching, swimming, _ etc. Here is one example among 
many that come to mind. Hunting one day on the Hud- 
son, I saw four black ducks (Anas obscura, or dusky mal- 
lard) asleep on a large ice floe. When I paddled slowly 
near I found the ice so placed that I had great difficulty 
in getting within gunshot, and only succeeded in so doing 
after working around the ice, requiring half an hour or 
more. During this time •my mind was most active in 
getting through these obstacles, hardly thinking of the 
ducks, who slept soundly without ever looking up. Then 
all changed; my mind turned on the ducks, so to speak, 
a furious current as I dropped the paddle for the gun. 
Instantly up went every duck's head — not one, but all 
four at the same instant. Time and again, with but one 
exception, I have had the same thing happen. And this 
Without showing myself above the battery, or making any 
noise or rocking the boat or even checking its slow for- 
ward movement." 
No man ever actually saw two or more dusky mallards 
(Atias obscura) that were all actually asleep together. 
I studied and followed ducks during portions of my 
angling vacations and summers for over twenty years, 
and not only on the comparatively duck-deserted waters 
of the Hudson River, but at Currituck, Albemarle, and 
Pamlico Sounds, -in Virginia and North Carolina, and at 
Monroe Flats, Michigan, Campbell Lake on Vancouver 
Island, Mabel, and Sugar lakes in British Columbia, and 
along the Seymour and Anesty Arms of the Shuswap 
lakes. Dusky mallards were at all these places. They 
swarmed on the east shore of James Bay and along the 
north shore of Lake Nepigon, flying in separate bands 
as a rule, but sometimes with myriads of other ducks. 
I have seen at least fifteen acres of ducks, with many 
dusky mallards among them, on Devil's Lake in southern 
Michigan; and there especially, as well as at most of the 
other places mentioned, I watched the birds through field- 
glasses from blinds, masked boats, shore thickets, from 
among tall water-weeds and reeds, and behind bars with 
my head scarcely above the marsh grass. Often groups 
of them would come, swimming or propelled by wind, 
close to shore, around points or into coves ; and dozens 
of times carried right along within from 20 to 150 feet of 
the field-glasses and the man behind them. I assert with 
utmost emphasis that I never saw even one group of 
dusky mallards whose members were all asleep or that 
?11 really seemed to be asleep at the same time. Al- 
w: ys at least one of the immediate company of ducks, 
even while burying the end of his bill or part of his head 
under feather or wing, or while resting his head down 
ciose to his back, kept a very keen peep-eye open and 
busy, watching, acting as sentinel, looking for possible 
danger signals. 
More, how cov'.d ?r.y man, be his years and observa- 
tions many or few, know that ducks riding on either sta- 
tionary or drifting ice upon or along a river, and that he 
had "great difficulty" in approaching within gunshot, 
were actually asieep ; and not only that, but "sleeping 
soundly?" No man could tell that, even when within 
ten feet of them, much less when trying to "approach 
within gunshot." And what shall we say of the model 
sportsman and naturalist who, "time and again," drops 
his paddle and reaches for his gun to shoot at ducks who 
are not only sitting at rest upon ice, but are believed by 
that would-be shooter to be asleep? 
Does not the above extract from Outing demonstrate 
that Mr. Long is not the naturalist who should be 
charged with lack of accurate observation and correct 
statement, and as asserting something he never knew? 
I have seen ducks literally by hundreds of thousands 
right in their best homes, on floating ice in rivers, lakes 
and streams, feeding in sedges and among aquatic vegeta- 
tion, or squatted down on shore or bars, singly and in 
couples, companies, flocks and groups ; .ducks that were 
quiet, with heads laid back and with half-closed or shut 
eyes; and hundreds of times these birds were dusky mal- 
lards, or, to be pedantic, the Anas obscura.. And always 
without fail, even casual scrutiny through field-glasses 
showed one or more vigilant members of that duck party. 
No swoop of eagle or osprey, approach of beaver, otter 
or fox, bear, seal, hunter, or other danger, would have 
been unnoticed. I have fifty times reached for my own 
gun before putting dusky mallards to flight before I 
shot, and that act merely, with my "mind turning 
furiously on the ducks," never budged them. But show- 
ing myself to the sight of the sentinels raised thetri in- 
stantly. This was the experience of other hunters also. 
These watch birds of the dusky mallards may always 
be known by the slight jerks of their wings at inter- 
vals of five to ten seconds, by their sinuous wriggles 
slowly passing through body and wings ; by slower, de- 
liberate expansion and contraction of the feathers of the 
lower neck and body, by a low quacking that cannot be 
heard by a human being more than thirty feet distant, and 
by slow change of the position of the head. 
That was the only way in which the four dusky mal- 
lards on some ice floe of the almost duckless Hudson were 
"sound asleep." Yet they were buried in defenseless 
slumber, with consciousness lost, a prey to dangers, and 
with "minds not _ occupied !" Their wakefulness when 
swimming about is asserted to be a less sure protection 
than their "sound sleep;" for when an unseen shooter 
reaches for his gun, no matter how silently, on the same 
and next instant all wake! 
This is asserted to be duck-and-man telepathy ! 
Numerous other inaccuracies in the writings of Mr. 
Burroughs could be mentioned. The above is merely a 
sample. 
No sport could be more full of fascination and harmless 
joy than the pursuit, with field-glass and camera, of web- 
footed wildfowls in their really remote, undisturbed 
haunts. Success with the field-glass will then be easy. 
But real results with the camera will be difficult to ob- 
tain. This means careful and patient concealments, alert 
observation, and availability of the direction, shifting, 
and power, of the wind and light. Best results mean abso- 
lute banishment of the dog and ,gun, and becoming a 
harmless part of the environment of the birds that are to 
be watched and studied. Only such observers as are, in a 
certain sense, the unintruding guests of the ducks, can 
secure closest knowledge of them. "Studying" them from 
parlor-car windows and steamer portholes when a guest 
of exalted personages, or while using club houses at Cur- 
rituck Sound or steamers on the Columbia River, and 
then coming back to New York and writing, "When I was 
in Alaska" or "At Currituck Sound," etc., means practi- 
cally nothing of actual truth or knowledge of these birds. 
Later, space will orobably be requested by me for men- 
tion of personally watched conduct of these same dusky 
mallards ; of their pride in the white color of the feathers 
on the under coverts of their wings, and their display of 
that ornament during the selection season, when they 
coquette and mate ; and how and from where they gather 
feathers and down for lining their nest and for covering 
the eggs when the female temporarily leaves it, the males 
already having deserted the female right after incubation; 
and two photographs, secured after several fruitless at- 
tempts to snapshot other couples, one of a pair of these 
birds engaged in building a nest, the important male 
bird bossing the job, and indicating to the working female 
what dry sticks, twigs, dead bulrush and plant stalks, 
withered marsh grass, etc., it was his lordly pleasure that 
she should use ; and the other photograph showing another 
pair very busy punishing, with dilated neck- feathers and 
partly extended wings, a too inquisitive muskrat strenu- 
ously defending himself while beating a hasty retreat. 
Also mant ion of the slight variations in size and faint 
green tinge, of the usually grayish-white eggs; and' how 
these dusky ducks turn their heads to look and watch 
from side io side when in flight; and how, while among 
thousands of other ducks, they yet as a rule feed and fly 
in their own groups, doing this also at night while swim- 
ming about with surprising restlessness and sleep- 
destroying quacks, when most of the other ducks are com- 
paratively quiet, the dusky mallards being identified by 
llveir own well-defined cries. And specific instances will 
be added of actual observation in widely separated re- 
gions, and not from club houses and trains and steamers, 
of some other kinds of ducks that either drive away, or 
will flee from, dusky mallards ; and how, when their duck- 
lings are hatched, at the very first alarm the coward 
father, solely concerned about his own safety, and having 
already deserted the female, leaves by limited express, 
while the mother bird remains to share the danger of her 
little balls of brown fuzz, measuring her own speed of re- 
treat to the swimming or flying strength of her ducklings. 
Also giving snecific instances to show that the scent of 
this, perhaps the most ceaselessly vigilant and cautious 
of all the wild ducks, can detect the "wind" of a human 
presence that has been and remains quite silent, and con- 
cealed entirely from the sight of the birds, but from 
whom toward the birds the wind is blowing. Further, 
how, while feeding among marsh grass or plants on low 
or even partly submerged ground, they crossed the trails 
of then absent sportsmen, detected them by a scent quite 
as keen as that of a hound on the track of a fox, and 
flew away. 
All this, however, will be another story. If detailed 
here, each allegation would probably be used as a peg on 
which to hang a dispute, and thus befog the force of the 
already demonstrated absurdity of the extract from Out- 
ing as quoted above. That method of defense is well 
known, and cannot be permitted here on the real and 
sharply defined allegation, denial, and demonstrated inac- 
curacy. What is vital here, is to emphasize the manifest and 
stern duty of Mr. Burroughs, viz., that before he criticises 
statements about bird life and conduct as made by others, 
until he reaches a condition of- antagonism to them per- 
sonally (however much he might disclaim that in self- 
deception), he should first keep himself well within the 
safe rule for the serious student of nature as laid down 
in his own admirable words in the August issue of- the 
Century Magazine, viz. : "This" (the truth) "he will not 
get from our natural history romancers." . .. 
L. F. Brown., 
Cyclones. 
We had a blow here in St. Paul two weeks or so ago. 
I was away from home at the time, as, in .fact, were all 
the family, and further than having the yard fence blown 
down and an attic window blown in, I suffered no dam- 
age. Cyclones are measurable in intensity like other 
things, and while there was certainly some damage done 
in the way of uprooted trees, distributed chimneys, broken 
windows, and uplifted roofs, I am inclined to think that 
in its severity this late blow was a zephyr as compared to 
the one experienced at Lake Vadnais, in the vicinity of 
this city, one Sunday evening thirteen years ago. . -. 
The storm cloud assumed the shape of a gigantic fun- 
nel, whirling and twisting like a top over the surface of 
the earth, bounding along and seemingly hitting the high 
spots only. : t 
I- went out to see the effects of the storm the follow r - 
ing day. As' we neared the scene of disturbance, I no- 
ticed a plowed field well planted, more or less irregularly, 
with small tombstones, which proved to be nothing more 
or less than shingles driven narrow end down well into 
the soft earth. These came from one of the destroyed 
farmhouses half a mile or so away. In the middle of, the 
field was planted an immense girder, erect, and several 
feet in the earth, like a mighty javeljn. 
Before reaching the banks of the lake, we rode by a 
tamarack swamp. Of all the inextricable tangles, that 
was one. Trees uprooted and standing upside down with 
branches and roots and trunks in one tangled mass, were 
there by the score. It seemed as if nothing short of a 
first-class forest fire would or could ever straighten out 
that mess. 
Presently we emerged from the swamp road and came 
in sight of the lake. Two farmhouses had been there, but 
now nothing was left but the bare foundations. The 
houses themselves had been scattered to the four corners 
of the earth, and the occupants whirled into the lake, 
whence their bodies were afterward recovered. 
In one corner of a demolished snake fence I saw a 
bundle made up of a bed quilt, a part of a rocking-chair, 
a lamp-stand, and a wind®w-sash, all wrapped and 
secured by some strands of barbed-wire fencing into a 
bundle that defied the hand of man to unloosen except 
with an ax. The. houses had been shaded by a couple of 
fine trees, which now stood branchless and with trunks 
naked of any bark and white as the driven snow. 
These trees had been in the w r orst of the storm, for they 
were filled with seams caused by the torsion of the 
tornado twisting the tree like unto a rope and then the 
tree recovering. Against the trunk of this tree, well up, 
were three dead chickens. One of them had been caught 
by the head, another by the leg, and a third by the wing. 
In each case the fowls had been blown into and nipped by 
the open seams of the tree as they closed when the tree 
righted itself. At the moment when the seams had 
opened, the chickens had been carried up against them, 
and the gaping seams had closed in upon the head, wing, 
and leg of each bird. There was the tree and there were 
the chickens, and — wait a minute. I have in my posses- 
sion a photograph of the tree, showing the birds hanging 
dead from the surface of the stump, just exactly as I 
have described it. 
The surrounding field of corn was standing, but only 
a foot or so above ground. The stalks Were frayed into '■ 
threads by the action of the sand-laden wind. The leaves 
of the smaller trees and saplings that bent before the 
storm showed the leaves frayed and stripped by the cur- 
rent of sand that swept over them. Many theories were 
advanced as to why and how the large trees were de- 
