426 
ward bound, as if for observation. This they con- 
tinue to do, bounding upward at regular intervals as 
long as in sight, running always at great speed. The 
appearance of those animals in their flight was rather 
comical to niy unfamiliar eyes. 
Ih returning from California, the southern route Was 
taken. After leaving the irrigation oasis in the vicinity 
of Los Angeles, the route traversed some two thous- 
and miles of unbroken desert of most desolate and 
forbidding aspect. There was no bird life visible, ex- 
cept a few sparrow hawks and a few crows. I felt a 
concern for these poor birds, as I was unable to con- 
jecture how they obtained a livelihood. 
The welcome sight of an expanse of forest was not 
presented until after Houston, Texas, was passed. Our 
approach to the crossing of the Pecos River was 
heralded by the announcement that we were to cross 
the highest bridge on the continent, 365 feet down to 
the water. As the train approached, there was nothing 
in the appearance of the country to indicate the vicinity 
of a river, but we popped suddenly upon a deep chasm 
incised beneath the desert plain by the flowing waters 
of past ages, the desert features reaching up to the very 
brink of the canon. The train paused some minutes 
on the bridge, where there is a foot-way from which 
the passengers were allowed to toss stones down into 
the rather insignificant stream at the bottom. 
Coahoma. 
Some Animals I Have Studied. 
XV.— The Troth About Sqairrels— Qjeer Doings of Deer. 
Someone many years ago published an extravagant 
eulogy of the squirrel, picturing in poetical prose his 
beauty, grace, lithesomeness, strength, and concluding- 
somewhat like this: "Lithesome as a bird, free as air, 
and innocent as the angel that, walks by your children." 
Innocent? Perhaps. That is, if hawks, -eagles, tigers, 
lions, and all other carnivora are innocent. 
In reality the squirrel is fierce, rapacious, not at all 
squeamish about violence or bloodshed. He is not 
merely prompt and brave in defense, but is mercilessly 
aggressive. Not that I condemn him for these propensi- 
ties, for it is as easy to find excuses for them as for 
man's similar practices. But let us be right, even when 
sentimental. 
Nevertheless the squirrel possesses many admirable 
qualities after taking the fullest measure of his common 
and uncommon faults. It is asserted by some that he is 
not wholly vegetarian or granivorous, but that he com- 
monly eats insects, and occasionally mice also; and pet 
squirrels have been known to kill rabbits that were put 
in with them. One of our neighbors built a beautiful 
little house with fine wire netting sides for a menagerie, 
and put in, first, two or three fox squirrels, which soon 
became so tame that they would eat peanuts from the 
hand of even a strange man. Then some rabbits (I for- 
get how many, but I think they were full grown) were 
added. One day in passing I missed the rabbits, and 
inquired what had been done with them. Mr. Gillen, the 
proprietor, sadly informed me that they had been 
slaughtered by the innocent-looking squirrels, every one 
of them. 
I have known wounded squirrels to whip big, cowardly 
dogs — temporarily. A squirrel's teeth cut like a pair of 
scissors or like a saw, for the jaws move right and left 
with a sawing motion instead of up and down. His 
movements are quick, his strength is marvelous, and his 
cunning is probably unsurpassed. Many species of ani- 
mals move the jaws in nearly the same manner, but 
probably no other can bite so severely in proportion to 
size. And certainly no other (excepting possibly moun- 
tain sheep and allied cliff-jumpers) can fall from so great 
a height with so little injury. 
Squirrels not only fiercely fight general enemies, but 
one species fights another, just as one tribe of men fights 
another. Indeed, I have cause for suspecting that they 
sometimes fight individuals of their own kin and species 
— generally from jealousy. And in that sort of battle 
they are supposed to perform a certain malevolent act 
scarcely mentionable in a polite journal like Forest and 
Stream, and unthought of by other animals lower than 
human; though others have, at very rare intervals, ac- 
complished the same by accident— i. e., without choice. 
The endurance of a very old male sq«urrel is almost be- 
yond belief. Once I saw one driven from his hole by 
fire emerging with his eyes almost burned out, his 
whiskers gone, and his whole body singed, and ascending 
to a great height in a tall pine. There he was shot twice 
with a rifle, at last falling upon the rocks in a rough 
gorge below the root of the tree, where he "stood off' a 
pack of hounds and won a yelp from a large, cross 
brindle farm dog, until I put my foot on him, which I 
would not have done had I not wished to end his misery, 
for my sympathies were now with the squirrel, for which 
interference the said brindle dog attacked me! Judge 
C Floyd Huff, of Hot Springs, can attest this story. 
Now, I don't want the classification of animals rear- 
ranged,' yet I sometimes think the squirrel should be 
given to the quadrumana instead of the quadrupeds, even 
though a rodent; for his feet are all practically hands, 
very flexible, very prehensile. In climbing, he does not 
depend at all on his claws (indeed they are often blunt 
as an old dog's), as does the cat; but clasps rough pro- 
jections, however small or undiscernible, between the 
cushion-like knobs under each joint of every, toe or 
finger. He cannot climb a solid, smooth, upright surface 
as a cat can; but give him a tree with rough bark or 
numerous limbs, or a soft, dead, rotten surface, and he 
can run all around any cat. Another proof that his claws 
are not needed, is the fact that he comes downward 
head first, instead of slowly and painfully backing down 
cat-fashion. . 
Exercising stealthy, Indian-like tactics, I have otten 
concealed myself in favorable locations and studied the 
habits of wild squirrels; and no one who has not done 
so can realize what a wealth of entertainment he has 
missed. The study of tame or captive squirrels cannot 
inform one fairly of the complex character of those in a 
state of nature. They have their heroic, noble traits, as 
well as their selfish and cruel habits. Many a time I have 
known an old sire, suddenly approached and startled in 
his home tree, to refuse to dart into the secure hole con- 
taining the female and young; and not only bark warn- 
roHEST AND STREAM, 
ingly to his mate, but expose himself plainly to the 
hunter, as if to draw his fire, and even leap into another 
treej at great risk, and thence into another, and still an- 
other, leading the enemy entirely away from the nest. 
And sometimes his exposures are so sudden, so unex- 
pected, and his leaps from cover to cover so swift and 
bold, that it is no shame to the ordinary rifleman if the 
little schemer g^fe lost in the woods without a wound. 
I have even known a "father squirrel" to jump to the 
ground after being shot at, defying two men and a dog, 
and escape. Yet such is their understanding that they 
seldom risk coming down when a watchful dog is near. 
They seem to know that they cannot outrun a dog; at the 
same time they evidently feel assured that the dog can- 
not climb or shoot. Their idea seems to be that while In 
the tree they must dodge the man, and while on the 
ground the dog is most to be dreaded. But while in the 
tree trying to dodge bullets, they are so afraid of hawks 
that if any large bird, even a crow, flies over, they will 
frequently forget, or ignore, the gun below, and come 
scampering wildly down in search of a hole. 
I have seen squirrels of largest size run out upon limbs 
so slender that they curved like a rainbow with them; 
then, nothing daunted, continue on outward over twigs 
small as slate pencils, at last hanging by a mere bunch 
of leaves, till, mirabile visit! by a tremendous effort they 
leapt over toward the nearest foliage of a neighboring 
tree, several feet distant horizontally, but far enough be- 
low to enable them to slant within reach as they fell, 
sometimes catching by a hold as frail as that just left. 
Our neighbor Armon once helped saw down a tall pine 
which broke off about the middle as it struck the ground, 
revealing a nest of young squirrels in its ample hollow. 
The mother escaped. Fearing the dogs might kill or 
injure the little ones (there were three, I think, yet blind 
and helpless), Mr. Arman transferred them to the hollow 
stump and covered that with a chunk that would have 
weighed about fifteen pounds, intending to remove the 
covering when ready to depart. He forgot it, however, 
and left it so. But next day when he returned, ihe chunk 
was moved slightly aside and all the squirrels were gone. 
He has 110 doubt that the mother wedged herself into the 
stump and rescued her babies. He does not think they 
were taken by an enemy. 
There are comedies as well as tragedies in squirrel 
life. Sometimes they miscalculate and get ridiculous 
falls, at which even the jays seem to laugh. They laugh 
merrily themselves if they don't fall into water, and are 
not menaced by an enemy. They seem at peace with 
hornets along the Little Wabash, else, with their rude, 
rash ways, they'd get into many a "funny" scrape with 
them. But with all their skill and cunning they are now 
and then the victims of certain little inanimate things — 
burrs. A big red squirrel came dancing along toward a 
shock of corn where I was only half concealed with a 
large rifle. He, or others of his kind, had been there be- 
fore, for there was a peck of shelled corn with the germs 
all eaten out, by the shock. He saw me too late to 
escape to the woods, so he started to run up a dead tree 
near by. But, ere he had risen twelve feet, he stopped 
with a wry face — there were burrs on his "elbows !" He 
bit one of them — one of the burrs, not the elbow — off. 
It stuck to his lips. Oh, what a face he presented ! He 
grinned good-naturedly as he looked toward me, seeming 
to say: "Old fellow, don't shoot just yet. Don't you see,, 
it wouldn't be fair !" He took one hand and pulled the 
burr off his lips. It fastened itself to his fingers. He 
tried to shake it off, but it adhered. Then what? Why,, 
he reasoned; and with the same result as I have fre- 
quently observed in dogs and cats, namely : turning both 
lips back and carefully nipping the burr with bare teeth,, 
it drops to the ground as soon as the jaws part again.. 
t Simple enough, apparently, but requiring undoubted fore- 
thought and great are. Dogs and cats soon learn this.. 
And so did this squirrel ; or else, if it was not his first 
trial with burrs, he suddenly remembered a former ex- 
perience and promptly resolved to profit by it. After that 
he rapidly ridded himself of the burrs. 
While talking of the many-sidedness of squirrels, I ami 
reminded, by my own experiences with deer, that they,, 
' also, have not the simple, unvarying habits most people: 
suppose, although their average intelligence is evidently 
very low in the scale of animate beings. (1) Instead of 
being always timid and alert, they are sometimes the most 
stupid and careless animals I know of (excepting rabbits)' 
for a few minutes at a time. (2) They are not entirely 
herbivorous nor vegetarian, but eat a little of almost 
everything they come in contact with that they can at all 
chew. I believe they would eat meat, fat or lean, if the 
animal odor were completely disguised, even if the de- 
odorant happened to be some nauseous substance. I've 
seen them at least nibble at punk, rags, leather, paper,, 
hair, minerals, greasy things of various sorts, tools of: 
men, bits of household furniture etc. (3) The buck is; 
not entirely selfish, but sometimes tries to defend the doe,, 
or even a fawn. 
I will endeavor to illustrate 1 and 3 : 
1. I have often placed myself within well-nigh arm's 
length of sound, wild deer without the exercise of any- 
unusual or difficult caution. They were asleep? Well,, 
not always ; for on one occasion, at least, I walked up to» 
two, one of which was feeding. She had her tail to- 
ward me, was in full view, in low grass, and I was walk- 
ing on a hard, gravelly road, with a sack of meal on my' 
shoulder. My approach could not have been noiseless,, 
either, for I wore coarse, heavy shoes. I was so amazedt 
that I stood still, within about twelve feet of her, won- 
dering if I could pass on without arousing her notice- 
After what seemed like a long while, and as long a look: 
at her as I desired, I went yet nearer, somewhat more- 
cautiously than before. I believe I could have touched- 
her with an ordinary walking cane (I hope Mr. Brown 
will not ridicule this, for I am "with him" on the dusky- 
mallard question), but_ I had none. I stood there,, 
trembling and panting with excitement, until the situation 
became tense and uncomfortable. Was the doe be- 
witched? Ahem! Still I was not noticed. I coughed. 
Then she looked back. Next she gave a startled jump. 
And in a moment I was startled, too, for up sprang a. 
larger deer beyond her, and away they went, with a sud- 
denness which proved that neither of them was wounded,, 
sick, tame, nor in any manner disabled. 
At another time I was running along a hard road,, 
down hill, and passed within three feet of a pine log,, 
parallel with my course, behind which three deer were 
lying, not at all coacealed; and not one of them stirred! 
(NOV. 10, iSM 
until my dog (Major, the clown), who was about a rod 
behind me, came up to them, when they sprang up and 
ran away all right. About two hundred yards distant 
they stopped behind a- huge white oak and seemed to be 
fighting him, while he appeared to consider it the gayest 
lark of his life. He barked at them just as he was in the 
habit of barking at the hogs when romping with them. 
But I was on an errand for a sick man, and had to 
hasten on. 
3. One evening, soon after I settled on my homestead, 
I heard a pandemonium of barking, yelping and howling 
dogs of every voice going by west of the house. Soon 
three deer — buck, doe and fawn, I supposed — crashed by, 
northward, closely pursued by a string of assorted dogs 
which seemed endless, for they kept plunging by all 
night and till nearly noon next day. A small white-and- 
black fiste was in the lead of the pursuers, and was so 
much swifter and fiercer than the hounds, that he occa- 
sionally seized some part of the hindmost deer, causing it 
to bleat piteously ; and every time this happened, the buck 
would plunge back and scatter the hounds like chaff in a 
whirlwind, for they — or several of them — were ever close 
up at each effort of the fiste to stop the deer; but the 
fearless fiste would only turn from his intended victim 
long enough to defend himself. No retreating for him ! 
Again the noble buck would race forward, the rear deer, 
which was usually the doe, I think, the fawn seeming to 
be kept purposely in the middle as much as possible, hav- 
ing put a few rods' distance between herself and her 
merciless pursuers during the slight delay. The buck 
made so many backward charges before they went over 
the hill out of my sight, that I could not avoid thinking 
he intended to do his utmost to save his companions ; 
though I am told this is unusual for a buck. 
Here I will halt in my animal biographies. If I write 
any more about them, it will be in story form. 
L. R. Morphew. 
Hot Springs, -Arkansas. 
The Drum of the Grouse. 
Aitkins, Minn., Nov. 6. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
In a recent issue, L. F. Brown asks if partridges drum in 
the fall. To which I answer, yes. Mr. B. will doubtless 
recall the lines : 
"Hid in the woods are many subtle voices, 
In eerie cadences through shadows coming; 
Night, cloaking bashful tongues, rejoices 
In owls whoo! whoo! and ruffed grouse faintly drumming." 
Those lines were written in the deep wood in early Octo- 
ber, and were suggested by sounds of the night as heard 
in a tent. Queer place to write poetry that might have 
done credit to a literary mill in Boston, but nevertheless 
true, as was the ruffed grouse drumming. That was- four 
years ago, when for two months — September and October 
— the grouse drummed every day and all day; every night 
and all night. This year, under similar circumstances, 
with seemingly a far larger supply of partridge*, there is 
very little drumming. 
It is the old grouse that drums in the fall ; possibly the 
young, but assuredly the old. The drumming is not made 
with the wings, but is identical with the rumbling noise 
made by the strutting turkey gobbler, the booming of the 
prairie rooster, sage grouse, and so forth. This cannot be 
said to be knowledge gained from close acquaintance, for 
the wild drumming grouse is hard to get on intimate 
terms with, except by the new nature school, but from 
general observations of all animals and birds as well as 
grouse as seen from the rear end of a shotgun, or while 
drowsing in the wood on warm days, or loafing in camp 
and field, I have noticed many accurate descriptions of 
just how the grouse did up the drumming act, and have 
wondered that someone who 1 knew did not get up and 
smite the nonsense in the solar plexus; but then I re- 
flected on what S. D. Barnes said about there being ten 
witnesses to defend an old legend to where one would 
stand for simple facts, and I realized that we are still in 
the grasp of the spook story and the new nature racon- 
teurs, and herewith throw up the sponge. 
E. P. Jaques. 
Keller, Wash., Nov. 8. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Ruffed grouse drum in the fall and winter in this coun- 
try. I have killed them from their drumming logs many 
times, and have killed them from the top of a snowbank. 
This when the snow was late in going off in the moun- 
tains in the Clearwater country. 
This spring an old drummer took possession of a log 
■over a thicket about two hundred yards from my cabin. 
I went over one day and flushed the old fellow, and cut 
away the brush so that I would have a clear view from a 
little hill near, probably 75 yards; and I then left, and 
it was not long before the drummer came back, and I was 
ready to take a good look at him with my 12-power 
Zeiss monocular, which would bring him up so that he 
appeared to be not over ten feet ; I could plainly see those 
feather-like hairs around his bill. I think I went and 
w/atched him at least twenty-five times. 
When he would begin, he would stand up very straight, 
'then would ruffle up his feathers, then strike two strokes 
with his wings. Then he would begin and go through, 
■and at the finish quit with two strokes; but the wings 
seem barely to touch, and the wings do not touch the 
bird's body. I have several times shot them through the 
head, and when they fell on their back, in a depression, 
and while in their death struggle, they drummed as plain 
as they did when on the log or other projection. 
About forty years ago a party of us hunting in the 
Blue Mountains above Dayton were camped in a rail 
lean-to, and a pheasant was drumming near camp. I 
asked one of the boys to go with me and we would see if 
we could not kill it by a torch light. He laughed, and 
;said he did not care to go sniping. I then said to another, 
"Bill, let us go," and Bill said "All right." I split a 
torch, and we went toward the place from whence the 
■drumming proceeded. It was one of the darkest nights I 
ever saw. We got to within about twenty feet of the 
big log, and the bird flew up into a white fir that stood 
near. I said to Bill, "I will climb the tree and see if I 
•can't locate the bird." I got up the tree to where the 
limbs were thick enough so that I had no trouble in 
climbing. Then he gave me the torch, and I went on up; 
and when up about twenty feet I saw the bird not over 
six feet above me. I had my Colt's .36 revolver, and held 
