f^ORESr AND STREAM. 
[May i3i 
We built a fire, flattened the top of a log for com- 
bination seat and table, and \spread thereon our 
provender. The table did not groan, even when com- 
pletely set; for it showed two doe's kidneys, two 
rabbit legs, two bacon sandwiches, two sticks of 
chocolate, two russet apples. 
This abundant display was flanked by two rubber 
cups filled with water, cold enough to chill harrow teeth. 
When the fire had burned down to a good bed of 
coals we skewered the kidneys and the rabbit's legs 
on hardwood switches and set about cooking them. 
And then there was borne in upon us the full force of 
the fact that we had no salt. We made an ineffective 
attempt to supply its savor by fastening the paltry 
strips of bacon from the sandwiches on the meat as it 
cooked, but with doubts, which were justified by the 
event. The abundant fat encircling the kidneys enabled 
us to keep both them and the rabbit legs nicely basted. 
The fire was jusf right and the cooking beautiful, as 
a mere visual spectacle. The rabbit legs browned 
nicely, with little jets of imprisoned steam bursting 
out in a most appetizing way. The kidneys accepted 
the ministrations of the fire and transformed themselves 
from mere organs into a viand worthy of those who 
know what it is to kill and to cook in the open. 
When they had reached this point of absolute per- 
fection we bore them to our log table, and learned 
the difference between appearance and reality, or 
rather between appearance and taste. The kidneys 
were not merely tasteless— better if they had been. I 
do not know how to describe them; but if there is any 
word or expression for the opposite of "salty," it is 
the one I need. And to sharpen our sorrow we could 
see that salt alone was needed to give them that per- 
fection which we had anticipated. The rabbit legs were 
about as bad, though, being of a coarser texture, the 
lack of salt did not, as it were, create such an active 
and persistent absence of taste. Still they were bad 
enough to cope successfully with anything in their line. 
And so in the end, after all our exalted anticipations, 
we dined upon sandwiches bereft of their bacon, 
chocolate and russet apples, gnarled and weazen by 
long life and the privations of a remote youth. 
The Counselor and I now each carry on all occasions 
a small box containing a teaspoonful of salt, artfully 
conipounded with red pepper. If the fates can catch 
us in that trap again, they will be entitled to their 
qua;rry. H. K. Tenny. 
Chief Parker of the Comanches. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I notice that Charles Christadoro asks in the current 
number, May 6, if my chief and Parker, who went to 
Washington to attend the inauguration (I do not know 
if he met the President later on his hunting trip) are the 
same Indian. No, they were not; my chief was Asa 
Rabbit, a full Indian. Parker, whom I used to know well, 
is head chief of the Comanches, he is really only a laalf 
Comanche. His mother was a white woman who was 
captured by his band when she was a young girl, and 
Parker's father, the then chief, married her. 
A year or two before the Civil War (I forget the 
exact date now, but the officer who was in command of 
the troop that recaptured her, went to the Confederate 
Army afterward) a troop of cavalry raided this band of 
Parker's father and took the white woman, Parker's 
mother, off with them, returning her to her friends, where 
she died in a year or two of a iDroken heart at not being 
allowed to return to her tribe again. She had forgotten 
the English language years before this, and could only 
speak Comanche. Parker is the most intelligent of all 
the Comanches, and I always gave his mother the credit 
for it. He was a young man about twenty-one years 
of age when his mother was taken from them. 
Cabia Blanco. 
Wants Somebody to Start Something. 
Washington, D. C, — Editor Forest and Stream: It 
may strike you with a feeling of newness and surprise 
to see my once more familiar handwriting again; but 
the surprise need not be as great as that occasioned by 
the reading of the inclosed slips from a West Virginia 
newspaper and from the Cincinnati Enquirer, showing 
that in the region where I used to hunt a good deal years 
ago, hunters have killed a white black bear. The story 
is told by the Montgomery, W. Va., correspondent of the 
Cincinnati Enquirer, and says : "Two hunters, who were 
driven by rain to take shelter in a cave in the mountains 
of Nicholas county, roused a perfectly white bes 
pink eyes, which had quarters in the cave. Wheii 
from its slumber the bear attacked the men with 
and severely injured one of them. Mr. Wilson 
who fired the shot that killed the animal, has 
and will have the same properly prepared and tn 
The hide has the texture and the head the app; 
of the common black bear, except that the skin i 
white and the eyes pink." 
When is the next discussion due to begin in yq 
umns?— one of those delightful interchanges of i 
by a lot of good fellows, some of whom do n 
whether they know am^thing about the -subject i 
Can't you think of a good subject that will run al 
a month or two? I got such a lot of pleasure out c 
ing the Kipling criticism of a year or so ago that 1 
Lo take part in it, which was thoughtless. I wou 
backed up Kipling all right, however, if I had chii 
I have seen and heard the things he describes, loi 
Indian canoe poles and the rest, and his descriptici 
ned me^in imagination miles away to the numerou; 
in the "brule" where I sought moose and caribc 
after year, and to the streams where, in search oi 
the "raw right aiigled" jam opposed, the shod 
sounded, and I basked on the sunny bars. It is t 
some of your correspondents to start something. 
Cecil (j 
The Primer of Forestry Completed^ 
As A source of positive information about wli 
estry really is, and to spread a knowledge of its rr 
a book has been prepared by Mr. Gifford Pinchc 
ester of the United States Department of Agri 
and Chief of the Bureau of Forestry, entitled "A 
of Forestry," which is published in two parts, 
issued in 1899, deals with the life of a single trel| 
trees as they exist i 1 a forest, with the life of a 
and with the enemies of the forest. Part II. l 
Primer has just been published. It deals with "P 
Forestry," the purpose of Avhich is defined as "h 
the forest render its best service to man in such 
as to mcrease rather than to diminish its useful i 
the future." In other words, it means "both tjf 
and the preservation of the forest." 
The Brass-Eyed Duck. 
BY MARTIN HUNTER. 
The whistler, whistle- wing, great head, garrot or brass- 
eyed is one of the few ducks that, to my knowledge, 
builds its nest in trees. 
The Indians, who are noted for giving appropriate 
names, call this duck "arrow duck," on account of its 
quick passage through the air. They fly very swiftly, and 
it is only an expert gunner that can bring them down in 
succession. 
I once had the rare opportunity of watching the doings 
of a female brass-eyed from the building of the nest to 
the time she placed the young ones on the waters of the 
lake. To watch the industrious little builder was a most 
interesting pastime and afforded me much pleasure. The 
tree selected was not, as one would suppose, immediately 
on the shore, but a bit back in the thick growth. Prop- 
erly speaking, the tree was a stump, although a strong 
live one grew rubbing sides with it. The stump was on 
the south side of the green one, and thus protected from 
the north, and was about twenty feet in height. 
On examination shortly after the duck began to lay, I 
found that the concave top had been lined with dead 
leaves, hay, clay and small sticks. After this one peep in 
at the architecture and the couple of eggs therein, I re- 
frained from anproaching the stump again, but continued 
my observations from a distance. ^ 
When the duck took to steady setting I could just see 
her head and bill over the edge of the nest. Regularly 
each evening during the period of incubation she would 
fly out on to the lake to feed, drink and plume herself. 
These absences from her duty lasted from twenty min- 
utes to half an hour. 
When the young were hatched I kept a strict and steady 
watch on her movements, for the thought occurred to me, 
"How would they get to the ground?" But, like a good 
many other things, this riddle of the forest was made 
clear to me one evening near sundown. 
I sat motionless in my canoe a little to one side of the 
direction of the stump. The lake was as calm as oil, and 
in a little while, after taking up my position, out flew 
the mother in a slanting way to the water, and hanging 
from her bill was one of the young ducks. This she 
quickly deposited on the lake and flew back to the nest, 
and made trips tO' and fro, until she had brought the 
whole of her brood, which numbered seven. 
A hen is a proud mother even with one chick; well 
this was a transported one with seven. She swam through 
the midst of them, around them, away from them and 
toward them, exhibiting the utmost delight. Finally she 
led them in toward the shore, the shadows of the woods 
shutting them out from further observation. While daily 
visiting my nets about the lake, I often encountered the 
brood, or saw them at a short distance and they continued 
to interest me. 
One day the number of ducklings appeared fewer than 
ought to be and on counting them I found there were 
only five. Next day this was reduced to four, and a few 
days after, when next I saw them, there remained only 
three. However, the mystery of their disappearance was 
made clear to me on that same day, for while trolling 
past the ducks' feeding grounds a big maskinonge struck 
the hooks savagely- 
Being alone in the frail and small canoe I had the ut- 
most difficulty to successfully play and kill him, but was 
amply paid, for on cleaning the big fish we found in its 
maw one of my young ducks. 
Thus was their mysterious disappearance explained, 
this, or some other large fish, was accountable for the 
brood's diminution. 
While on the subject of the brass-eye I would wish to 
set the reader right in regard to the whistling noise they 
niake, that is the male. . The author of "Wild Fowl and 
Their Habits" asserts that this noise is made by their 
short sharp wings cutting the air in rapid flight. Were 
this the case the female would make the same sound, but 
no one ever heard this whistling from a lone female or a 
number of females. 
It is from the male we get this; not from the wings, 
however, but from a gristly sac attached at the end of the 
wind-pipe, much the shape of the bag of the bag-pipes. 
From this he_ emits several different kinds of sounds, as I 
have; often listened to when approaching a flock on a 
calm moonlight night in the mating season. 
Another erroneous assertion by the same author is that 
the flesh is rank, fishy and hard. The old ones are, more 
or less so, on their first arrival inland in the spring. At 
the sea, as a necessity, they live on fish, but a month after 
reaching inland waters, where they feed on marine plants 
and roots, the color of the flesh changes. It also becomes 
juicy and is as good eating as black duck or teal. 
The young ones, when full fledged, just before migrat- 
ing to the sea for the winter, are excellent. 
The French-Canadians call this duck the diver and the 
half-breeds of Hudson Bay the pork duck. 
All the tricks of hiding attributed to this duck by Netlje 
Blanchan, author of the book from which I have taken 
the several names under which the duck is known to 
American readers, are quite true, and also other devices 
not enumerated. For instance, when wounded I have 
known it to dive and come up within a few yards of my 
canoe with its head under a water-lily leaf and there re- 
main, quite motionless, until I noticed the center eleva- 
tion of this single leaf and fired at a venture with the 
result that I killed the duck. 
On another occasion I noticed a wounded brass-eye 
making toward the shore in very shallow water. The 
formation of the banks was such that it was impossible 
for it to land and hide. Nevertheless, toward that shore it 
had dived, and never appeared above water. Pushing the 
canoe quietly along with my gun ready in the other hand, 
I scanned every inch as I went. Along the beach there 
was a solution of mud almost as light as the water. The 
duck had passed under this and came to the shore in about 
five inches of water showing nothing but its bill on the 
beach, the entire body being covered with mud, the exact 
counterpart of that about it. 
Although my canoe was within six feet of the bird, it 
never moved, and it was only by the closest scrutiny that 
I detected its presence. 
With a good silent dog playing in front of a blind, these 
ducks in the early spring will come within short range, 
as will the black duck and gray goose. They have keen 
eyesight and will work in from a quarter of a mile to 
investigate the dog. The dog of best color to attract ducks 
is yellow or yellow and white. A pure white is better 
than a dark colored, which latter only appears to scare 
them away. 
[This is an interesting contribution, for it brings up a 
number of points about which there has been more *! 
controversy in the past, and one at least which is 
us. That Mr. Hunter's duck brought her young 
water in her bill is interesting and agrees with stat 
made years ago in Forest and Stream by Mr. Gee 
Boardman, who quoted a Canadian informant as 
that the old birds brought their young from the r 
the water, carrying them in their bills, but that to 
port the young for a longer distance, the birds cariw 
young pressed to the body by the feet, a descfe 
which is not altogether clear. 
Mr. Hunter declares that the whistling noise m 
the brass-eye does not come from the wings and tl 
noise is never made by the female, in this his < 
differs from that of many other writers. In his be^ 
labyrinth — an enlargement of the wind-pipe found 
male of most ducks and but seldom in the fema 
plains the whistling sound so commonly heard whejSi 
birds fly near us. 
Food notoriously gives flavor to the flesh of di 
well as other animals. On the sea coast, where i 
on fish and perhaps shell fish, the flesh of the br, 
or golden-wing is notoriously bad, but Hke Mr. \ 
other authors have declared that inland the bird 
cellent eating. 
The observation of the destruction of the brood 
maskinonge is worth recording. Pike, pickerel, 
nonge and snapping turtles are notorious enem 
young duck.] 
Ruffed Grouse Propagation 
Flditor Forest and Stream: 
Professor Hodge's report to the Massachusetts 
Commission, as reproduced in your current issu< 
the accompanying photographs, takes a keen hold 
sympathies of all the lovers of this grand bird. T 
port itself, coming down no later than last Nov 
might well have been supplemented with an acco 
some of the Professor's more recent experienc- 
though it is to be presumed that these will follow 
course. My own correspondence with him this 
follows the birds till some of the hens began la 
few days ago, and he assures me that he previous 
abundant evidence that the eggs had been duly fer 
Many of the older readers of the Forest and S 
will remember that in my experiments for the pr^ 
tion of the ruffed grouse in 1884-1887, reported ve 
to the paper at that time, I succeeded in actually 
ing grouse chicks from eggs laid and incubated 
parent birds while in confinement. Circumstances 
it impracticable to continue those experiments a 
time, and it has been a matter of constant regrt 
I have never been quite in a favorable situation to 
them. But Professor Hodge's success along these 
has been a matter of much gratification to me, and 
taken much pleasure in placing at his service such 
mation and suggestions as might seem to be use 
him. 
Although all my mature grouse were originalh 
ones, they became very tame, feeding readily fro 
hand and manifesting no fear of man. In the s 
the males swelled and strutted after the turkey g 
fashion, but were never heard to drum in- the coops, 
reason for this did not occur to me till after my 
I 
