FOHfiST ANft STREAM, 
[Oct. m, ml 
Commentaries in Camp. 
Where the Trout Bite, Maine, Sept. 29. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: I have just had two heavenly days 
in the woods and on the lake, and am therefore trying to 
be thankful instead of grumbling because one of my two 
remaining days for trouting is one of pouring rain. 
I sit in my little cabin alone and read Forest and 
Stream of September 17 and September 24, and venture 
to send you a few notes and queries suggested by them. 
The discussion about the ignis fatuus interests me. 
Once when a small boy I thought I saw some dancing, 
flickering lights above a meadow and stream as I was 
riding past at distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile. 
I wanted to see just that phenomena. I had read about it, 
and had long had a hope, not unmingled with a little 
creepy dread, that I might be permitted to see it. As I 
think of it soberly now I would not make oath that I 
actually did see the will o' the wisp of my dreams. Cer- 
tain I am that if I did see it, then it was my only sight 
of it, though I have always been on the look out for it. 
I have come to believe that it is one of those things 
which, as Emerson says, are 
"Seldom seen by wishful eyes." 
This doesn't mean that I am altogether skeptical of their 
sometime real occurrence. But I do wonder if it is seen 
half as often as reported. 
Mr. Chapman's clear recollection and circumstantial ac- 
count of the one he saw, leaves only one thing to be de- 
sired, viz., a rational theory of its possibility. If the 
ignis fatuus be, according to theory, only a puff of gas 
igniting by spontaneous combustion, it is difficult to 
understand how it could go sailing away from its source 
and maintain itself in combustion, to say nothing of it 
being, as Mr. Chapman says, "not bright and shining like 
a flame, but a round well-defined ball of light," "white 
but not bright," and of feeble illuminating power. Such 
a thing as phosphorescent gas might possibly account for 
such an appearance. Is there such a thing? But even 
then how can we account for its retaining its globular 
form and not spreading and dissolving in the air as an 
ordinary puff of gas or cigar smoke would do ? 
It reminds one of the "balls of fire" of which we. every 
now and then hear which are said to enter rooms and 
circle about in a marvelous way; sometimes exploding 
with great noise, and said to be examples of the "globu- 
lar form of lightning," whatever that may be. 
I once proved that a series of bubbles coming up from 
the mud of a Maine pond were of an inflammable gas, 
for I caught a lot of them in an inverted and water-filled 
bottle, and on releasing the gas upon a lighted match it 
burned with a quick flash. Let us have more accounts 
and as definite and circumstantial as Mr. Chapman's, of 
the ignis fatuus, and we shall begin to know more about 
it perhaps. 
Mr. A. D. McCandless's "Boyhood Days in Illinois" 
was a delight to me, and all because of my own memory 
of very similar boyhood days in that State. His descrip- 
tions of the marvelous flight of blackbirds, pigeons, and 
prairie chickens are true to the life— but, alas! the life 
now gone forever. I am glad he has raised again the 
question of the sudden disappearance, about 1865, of the 
countless myriads of pigeons which we saw in their 
spring flight. I have raised this question several times 
in these columns, and have contributed my conjecture 
as to the cause of this sudden disappearance of the 
pigeon. As Mr. McCandless pertinently says, "Had they 
dwindled down in numbers year by year, and finally 
ceased to come altogether, I could understand that man, 
in his destructiveness, had caused their extinction, but as 
they stopped coming all at once, I have been at a loss to 
account for it. Did they take some other route, or were 
they exterminated by some disease, or other catastrophe ?" 
In my humble j udgment that last phrase, "other catastro- 
phe," and that alone, explains it. I believe the great body 
of the passenger pigeons perished in a cyclone while 
migrating across the Gulf of Mexico. I have seen a 
definite, and I believe still verifiable, statement that once 
after such a cyclone the waters of the Gulf were covered 
for leagues on leagues with dead pigeons. Let someone 
prove that the passenger pigeon never migrated beyond 
the limits of the United States, and I must admit my 
theory untenable. Does anyone know anything whatever 
as to the former winter habitat of the pigeon?- 
To support the theory of destruction by catastrophe— 
and particularly by just that kind of catastrophe— I have 
cited the circumstantial account, printed in a Canadian 
paper last year, of an enormous mortality of pigeons once 
caused by a storm while a great flight of them was cross- 
ing Lake Michigan. The writer of the account affirmed 
that after the storm the lake shore (above Milwaukee, I 
think), was covered with dead pigeons which he said 
were washed up in "windrows." I reassert that the prob- 
lem of the disappearance of the pigeon is one of great 
interest, and should receive attention before the event 
passes from the memory of living men. 
The squirrel barking question in its ups and downs has 
interested me. I am on the side of Audubon and the 
"barkers." Though I never barked a squirrel, I know 
a veracious man who tells me he has several times done 
it. He is one of Forest and Stream's most accomplished 
writers and trustworthy observers of nature, and I sin- 
cerely hope he will contribute to its columns the interest- 
ing chapter which I know he can write if he will. I differ 
from Mr. Allen Kelly on this point, though agreeing with 
him emphatically as to "The Imoroved Wilderness," and 
must think that the "myth busters" have the poor end of the 
case. It reminds me of Mr. Brown's attempt to make a 
"myth" of Kipling's "shod canoe-pole." I am reminded 
of this afresh by having j ust read in an interesting article 
entitled "A Trip to Ripogenus," in the September number 
of The Maine Sportsman, the following: "The shod 
canoe-pole is the warmest friend the riverman has to lean 
on during the times when be must run the rips of the 
Penobscot, and were it not for the iron point his hold 
must often have slipped, and, if not causing an upset, at 
least made his work doubly arduous, for it is no trick 
for a tenderfoot to handle a canoe in such quick water 
with a powerful gale ? winging his craft just where it 
should be steady, and making the work of managing it as 
hard as the most expert care to tackle." 
It isn't negative, but positive testimony that counts. 
Another instance of this is furnished by Mr. Brown in his 
disquisition on "Sleeping Wild Ducks Awakened by 
Telepathy." Simply on negative evidence, Mr. Brown 
makes the sweeping and absolutely universal statement, 
"No man ever saw two or more dusky mallards (Aims 
THE LOCKED ANTLERS. 
With portraits of Mr. Laight and Tacobstaff. 
obscura) that were all actually sleeoing together." Now, 
unless the thing is contrary to the laws of matter and 
motion, and unless Mr. Brown is the only man who ever 
observed dusky mallards, his expression "No man ever" 
is illegitimate. 
I do not know that all the members of a group of dusky 
mallards ever did actually sleep at the same moment. 
. Possibly such a thing never did occur ; but certainly it is 
not within the province of a single observer to- affirm it, 
despite his boasted twenty years of observance and in the 
dozen places he cites. . In his criticism of Mr. Burroughs, 
he queries how any man could "know" that ducks riding 
on river ice were "actually asleep," and even "sleeping 
soundly." The question is a pertinent one. How, indeed ! 
But if Mr. Brown will but sneeze, he will find that his 
own head has been cut off by the same sharp blade; for 
he had in only the previous paragraph affirmed as posi- 
THE ANTLERS FROM ANOTHER ANGLE. 
tively true of all men in all time what he could not pos- 
sibly have known to be absolutely true of every one of 
even his own observations. 
Brethren, let us have less dogmatism about these ques- 
tions which interest us and much more of careful obser- 
vation and particularly of careful testimony. 
Two more articles in your issue of September 24 espe- 
cially interest me. The first is the one by Charles Cris- 
tadoro on "Cyclones." The doings of the cyclonic wind 
are so various and curious that the verifiable accounts of 
them would constitute a chapter of marvels. I hope 
other readers of Forest and Stream will follow Mr. 
Cristadoro's example, and relate what they have seen of 
the work of cyclones. I can add my own chapter upon 
occasion, but will not so prolong the present letter._ If 
anyone is inclined to doubt any feature of Mr. Crista- 
doro's account, it must be one who has never seen the 
effects of a real cyclone. 
The other thing I wanted to mention was U. S._ Com- 
missioner Skinner's mention of "hummingbirds" in the 
list of birds of Abyssinia in the article entitled "Abys- 
sinian Game." Must not Mr. Skinner have in mind some 
other bird than the genuine hummingbird, which I have 
always understood was found nowhere in the world but 
on the American continent? C. H. Ames. 
Locked Antlers. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
With this we send you views of an interesting and 
unique specimen of locked horns in a fight with bucks. 
The two bucks were found by a hunter and guide, Mr. 
Brown, in the Province of Ontario, about forty miles 
from Peterborough, in October, 1902. Hunter Brown 
sent the heads to> Mr. Robert Marron, taxidermist, who 
mounted them in September, 1903. Mr. Marron is one of 
the best artistic taxidermists, and not second in his work 
to others, as a visit to his rooms in Palisade avenue, 
Jersey City Heights, will give ample testimony. Mr. 
Marron had several offers for the heads from European 
collectors and sportsmen from abroad, but for patriotic 
reasons he preferred to have them remain in America, 
and they were recently secured by Mr. Wm. K. Laight, 
one of our enterprising citizens. Mr. Laight does not 
claim to be a sportsman, as the saying goes, but is a 
genial, whole-souled gentleman of wealth and leisure, and 
a great traveler, having been around the world more than 
once. He has filled his luxurious house on Pavonia ave- 
nue with choice collections of antiques, paintings, Japanese 
ware, pottery, and exquisite specimens of woodwork. He 
is an enthusiastic collector. But in our opinion (as a 
sportsman, of course), the locked horns are not the least 
among his treasures. 
The larger buck was of six prongs, the lesser of four 
prongs, seven years and five years. One of the prongs 
of the larger deer had entered the side of the head and 
penetrated the brain of the other deer; this is the deer 
with the tongue protruding, and it must have been dead 
some 72 hours before discovered by Mr. Brown. The 
larger deer was still alive, though exhausted from starva- 
tion and the strain of dragging around its dead adversary. 
The ground for many yards was torn up, large saplings 
broken down and smashed into splinters in the struggle 
of the monarchs. We regret that, owing to the way of 
mounting, we could not get a photo showing the contact 
of the prong in the brain of the vanquished. 
The views were taken at our request by Mr. Edward 
Ingram, an amateur photographer, an all-round sports- 
man, a good shot, and great judge and lover of horses 
and dogs. Jacobstaff. 
The Corbin Herd of Buffaloes. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As I sit here in my home in the mountains of New 
Hampshire, I see through my study windows, to the east, 
the wondrous blue hills of the Croydon Range, stretching 
away to the north and south as far as the eye can reach. 
Along the nearer slopes there are great belts of hard- 
wood trees, clothed in all the beauty of New England 
autumn foliage — in raiment of crimson, of purple and of 
gold. Running through them in places there are strips of 
dark evergreen forest, mostly spruce and pine and hem- 
lock, which extend upward and cover all the peaks and 
ridges. And above all there is a sky of heavenly blue, 
across which is sailing a fleet of white and fleecy clouds. 
This side of the mountain slopes, and extending to the 
very border of my garden, there are great stretches of 
rolling land, almost bare of trees, covered with grass 
which at this season is light brown in color, and divided 
by living, leaping trout brooks, whose liquid music comes 
to me through the open window of my study. This is the 
view I have of The Blue Mountain Forest, known to 
many as Corbin Park, the largest and finest fenced game 
preserve in America. 
In this vast inclosure of 24,000 acres there are hundreds 
of deer and elk and moose, and there are wild boars, too, 
by hundreds, but what is of far more importance to the 
people of this country, is the fact that in this great park 
is preserved the largest herd of pure-bred buffaloes to be 
found in any inclosure in the world. This fact is of 
special interest at this time, when our Government and 
the intelligent people all over the country are being urged 
to take the last chance to save from total extinction one 
of the grandest, if not the very grandest, hoofed animal 
which ever trod the earth. That the millions of buffaloes 
which darkened the plains of the West less than thirty- 
five years ago were shamelessly butchered to swell the 
purses of a few unscrupulous men, is one of the darkest 
blots on the history of our country, and it has disgraced 
us in the eyes of the other civilized nations of the world. 
For years it was supposed that the buffalo was gone; and 
in truth there seemed to be no possibility of his survival, 
and that we now have one more chance to save this 
splendid creature from total extinction is due entirely to 
the efforts of a handful of able and public-spirited men 
like the late Mr. Austin Corbin, the founder of The Blue 
Mountain Forest Game Preserve. 
People are so used to thinking of the buffalo as belong- 
ing peculiarly to the West, and the owners of Corbin 
Park are so modest concerning their own achievements, 
that comparatively few people even know of the existence 
of this great herd. Of course the United States Govern- 
ment and all authorities on the buffalo know all about it, 
but within the last week I have read one magazine article 
and one newspaper article concerning the last surviving 
buffaloes, and in neither was there even the briefest men- 
tion of the Corbin herd. 
In the year 1890, the late Mr. Austin Corbin, who had 
just fenced his large game park near Newport, New 
Hampshire, established there a herd of about thirty buf- 
falo of the finest stock, with a view to preserving some 
of the last survivors of a fast-vanishing race from total 
extinction. They were taken off the cars at Newport 
and driven between five and six miles along the country- 
roads to the park, to the great astonishment of many of 
the farmers, who had never seen buffaloes before, and 
who mistook these huge shaggy beasts for some new 
breed of cattle which Mr. Corbin had imported. 
