ULY IS, 1905.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
48 
North Carolina. 
Points of View. 
Boston, Mass. — Editor Forest and Stream: The 
oints of View” published in recent numbers of 
REST AND Stream have interested me very much, 
•ticularly that one from the pen of Mr. John C. 
mball. 
Vhile it was presented as a quasi scientific argument, 
vas confined to the scope of the faddist. Mere as- 
tion or reference is not science, 
t is quite a common occurrence in argument that 
aan, wedded to a fad by the association of years, and 
mental trains of thought limited accordingly by long 
)it, comes to believe firmly that his pet idea is a 
versal fact. Time invariably refutes him. 
'he main point of view presented by Mr. Kimball is 
follows: “It is a great law of nature set forth by 
rwin, Haeckel, and other leading scientists, with 
nderful significance, that the individuals of each ani- 
1 species, including man, pass normally, in reaching 
ir maturity, through all the preforms and phases, 
:e physical and mental, that their tribe in its evolu- 
1 has passed through. * * * As infants, they go 
all fours and utter only inarticulate sounds; in boy- 
)d, have their anthropoid stage of climbing trees and 
ulging in all manner of monkey tricks; arrive later 
the period of savage superstitions and a savage’s 
ight in the use of weapons and in killing other 
atures; and only in their full maturity reach the 
le of the highest civilized humanity, that of love for 
of God’s creatures and of finding their highest en- 
ment in the pursuits of peace.” That applied solely 
physical and mental development, not moral. 
' respectfully submit that the learned gentleman has 
apprehended Darwin and Haeckel, and others, and 
t he has read into their writings some ideas which 
not be found in them. If there are such ideas in 
se authors’ works, I would be very glad tO' know- 
ere in them they can be found. They cannot be 
■duced. 
In the contrary, those authors describe in detail the 
rciless, incessant and world-wide destruction which 
taken place in past seons, is taking place and un- 
ibtedly will take place while there is life, animal or 
etable, on the earth. They are histories of destruc- 
1 and reproduction. 
n civilization, man takes to agriculture from neces- 
I', not from choice. The animal life on the earth 
.nsufficient to supply his necessities, hence he must 
ive sustenance from other sources or perish. But 
civilization, man’s instincts are not changed in the 
St. Agriculture and civilization denote a radical 
nge of environment, not a change of human nature. 
;refore man likes to go hunting when he can. 
'hat civilization has eliminated superstition is con- 
dicted by the success of hordes of palmists, astrol- 
:rs, fortune tellers, card readers, etc., which flourish 
;t in our great cities where intelligence is at its 
best, but where money is most abundant and there- 
e more available for the rapacious maws of the 
rlatans. The wearing of charms, amulets, etc., is 
common alone to savages. But his citation con- 
ning superstition is irrelevant. 
t will afford me much gratification if Mr. Kimball 
1 designate just how much civilization has done to 
inge human nature from what it was. Also, if the 
best enjoyment is in the pursuits of peace, what is 
. significance of the civilized wars, our national wars 
luded, whose destructiveness far exceeds anything 
petrated by our savage ancestors? 
dan reverts to the environment of savage life with 
i'mptness and delight. He gains health and strength 
I such life far surpassing the potency of the doctors’ 
f trums. Such life is in accord with his true nature, 
[ his true nature is that inherited from his ancestors, 
from that faulty code thought out by the parlor 
losopher, who, by the beneficence of civilization, 
not, neither do they spin. 
o join the killing of wild animals equally with rob- 
y and murder as a capacity of man’s nature is to 
og and pettifog the question and argue unfairly. 
:ying upon each other is a trait of many different 
cies to-day, and man himself is a victim to the needs 
many species. The tiger uses him for food On op- 
i tunity, as do some other species. Yet the tiger is 
a killer from malice. He acts and lives according 
his nature as it came to him from creation. Yet 
jire is no doubt but what some tiger who has lost 
)) teeth might hold that teeth were not fashionable as 
t the fox hold concerning tails once upon a time, 
i 'o pursue and kill wild animals was and is a pleasure 
sbI a necessity of man’s nature. Without the power 
1 passion for the chase man himself would have been 
nminated long since. Thus such pursuit was and 
benefit to the human race, both in respect to ob- 
ing a food supply and protection, 
obbery and murder are harmful to the human race. 
V have always been so regarded. They are con- 
;red as being the worst of offenses and are accorded 
worst punishment. On the contrary, prowess in 
chase is a theme of song and story. 
'he meaning of the word nature is not now as limited 
Mr. Kimball. Its meaning is as understood now by 
glish-speaking peoples. Peoples make their own 
guage to express thejr own idps, and a word is 
.nged in meaning, rejected entirely, or coined to 
et the needs of the present. But human nature is 
: denendent on a word. 
Ir. Kimball makes the mistake of dealing with nature 
if it were a thing apart from man, something so dis- 
:t that he can contemplate it without being involved 
’^nself. As a matter of fact, man is a part of nature 
ike as much as is any other form of life, animal or 
slgetable. 
That Mr. Kimball can study nature best with the aid 
of a camera is much as if he were to declare that he 
could study mankind merely by gazing in his own 
mirror. To me it seems that is a very narrow view 
of nature which is obtained via camera. If we accept 
it as the true view, then no one had a true vie'w of 
nature before the camera was invented. No one has a 
true view now who views without a camera, and yet 
there are many very good people who do not own 
cameras, and who do not care for them. 
Nevertheless no camera gives a true view even as a 
view, because the perspective, owing to the convexity 
of the lens, is always distorted, and such things as 
colors, variable expression, etc., all so essential to the 
beauties of nature, are impossible with the camera. Yet 
that perhaps is emblematic of the camera faddist’s point 
of view. 
When a man reaches the stage of life wherein he can 
study and_ enjoy nature with a camera, he should not 
deceive himself with the declaration that such idea is, 
a universal concept. It is a personal idiosyncrasy 
merely. There are groups of faddists innumerable who, 
by assurances to each other of each others’ excellence 
and worth, come to believe that they and their fads 
are true and universal; but fads and faddists come and 
go quickly without any marked effect on life or jolt 
to the world, while human nature and all nature remain 
the same forever. If all the freaks and fancies had 
been tagged to human nature according to the dictum 
of the heads which were in a stage of arrested develop- 
ment, or over-development, or hollow, human nature 
at the present time would be a motley exhibit indeed. 
Nature is all right as she is. James H. Douglas. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As I never was a sportsman (except in deer and fox 
chasing) I may have a “point of view” your various 
correspondents have not taken. 
_ Now why not look at killing of wild animals from the 
view point of facts, as they are? Admit fully that ab- 
stractly, and from the viewpoint of pure reason all kill- 
ing of any wild animal, not for some purpose of use, or 
by necessity is abstractly cruel? Is there any_ other con- 
clusion to be reached by any process of pure’reason? I 
think not. 
But the world does not, never has, nor do I believe it 
ever will, be guided by pure reason, nor should it be in 
practical directions. Even mathematics is not a science 
of pure reason, when we come to use it; if it were, I 
would not remember sO' much of conic sections in matters 
wherein I have had use for it, and have utterly forgotten 
how to arrive at the “least common multiple.” 
Now there is no denjdng the fact that there are, and 
have been, thousands of men of the kindliest, tender 
hearts, men of “Uncle Toby’s” type, who were most ar- 
dent sportsmen. I need only cite one most eminent ex- 
ample— the late Hon. Felix R. Brunat. The man who 
staid far in the front in the bloodiest battle in the Civil 
War, aiding and succoring the wounded, who unshrink- 
ingly performed the most revolting offices of field hos- 
pitals, who took his life in his hands and visited the camp 
of the Modoc “Captain Jack” after that treacherous 
scoundrel had murdered General Canby, under a flag of 
truce; and whose whole life was one of self-sacrifice. 
How can we say that such a man was “cruel”? Or re- 
member the late General Bristow, who left us the noblest 
exarnple of official purity and honor, not merely in act, 
but in thought? 
What is the use of ratiocination that would stamp such 
men as cruel ? 
What breed of men stand higher for all the best attri- 
butes of kindly manliness than the English country gen- 
tlemen of the true type, and who are keneer sportsmen? 
It may be amusing to trace out (or imagine we are do- 
ing it) hOw such men and such a race of men can enjoy 
“killing things,” but guessing matches at that teach noth- 
ing, and solve no problem, while the fact proves a lot. So. 
it seems to me to be the reasonable thing to settle down 
to it being a fact that killing wild animals for the pleasure 
given cannot be cruel per se when such men do it. 
I fancy that Mr. William H. Avis wrote of “the tor- 
tured animal” in a vivisection in a lack of exact knowl- 
edge of how vivisections are conducted. All physicians 
I have talked with have said that they never saw a vivi- 
section when the animal was not rendered insensible to 
pain. It is evident that the operator would not have the 
animal squirming from pain, while operating. I think 
that in cases of vivisection of the brain, an anesthetic can- 
not be used, as the brain functions would be interfered 
with, and that in such cases cocaine (I guess, that is the 
agent) paralyzes the nerves in the scalp, which is then 
cut off, and the drilling of the circle of holes in the skull 
is almost painless. 
I think it probable that (being a layman) I have not got 
all the details correct, but I know I am near enough for 
a layman, and for my brother laymen I also know that 
for heartless cruelty, the ravings, in entire ignorance of 
rvhat they are shrieking about, of anti-vivisectionists are 
doing great work for- Satan, and his tail must wag itself 
crooked whenever he reads anti-vivisection literature. 
As for the fellow who called President Roosevelt “an 
educated bulldog,” he wrote that the lady whose neck 
vertebra were crushed in a chase after a tame deer was 
“served exactly right”; in self-sufficient ignorance of the 
fact that the deer was safely in its stable before the 
hounds were loosed, and that it was the deer’s trail that 
was chased. 
However, to one who knows the noble, affectionate, 
I)ut indomitable character of the true bulldog, it is no 
insult to call President Roosevelt one, as I know of no 
animal which comes as near our honored President. But, 
of course, an “angel” is not expected to know the dis- 
position of bulldogs, nor the customs of a “carted” deer 
chase. Wm. Wade. 
Raleigh, N. C., July. — Curator Herbert Brimley, of the 
State Museum, has returned from a visit to the little 
known lakes in eastern North Carolina. There are five 
of these, three being in Jones and two in Onslow county, 
and all are remarkable. Tradition says that all these 
were once great beds of sphagnum, moss and peat, and 
that during very dry seasons this was burned, in the de- 
pression water settling, coming in not from streams, for 
there are none flowing into the lakes, but from the sur- 
rounding country. Mr. Brimley says the stories as to 
this mode of formation of the lakes appear to him to be 
well founded, for upon examination he found the sand 
which covers the bottom of the lakes to be the finest he 
ever saw, and he is convinced it is sand which was blown 
upon the beds of sphagnum by gales of wind during the 
course of many years and which has made the bed of the 
lake of infinite smoothness. The water is extremely shal- 
low in these lakes and one can wade out a great distance, 
at 200 yards from the shore the water not being more 
than neck deep. The lakes are several miles in width, 
and one of them has to be waded in order to get at the 
most important one of the number. In one lake there 
is a large colony of Florida cormorants, the most north- 
ely one known of this species, there being said to be an- 
other in a county in the extreme southeastern part of 
North Carolina. Secretary Gilbert Pearson, of the Audu- 
bon Society, who visited the lake in question not very 
long ago, counted 150 nests of the cormorant, and allow- 
ing two old birds and three young to each nest, there are 
750 in the colony, which, Mr. Brimley thinks, is a very 
close estimate. These lakes mark also what may be 
termed the northern limit of the alligator, and some of 
these saurians are of great size, almost as large in fact as 
the biggest in Florida. The alligators keep a very close 
eye upon the cormorants, particularly the young ones. 
On one occasion Mr. Brimley was standing waist deep in 
the wonderfully clear water of one of the lakes on the 
lookout for alligators, rifle in hand, when he saw a young 
cormorant swimming some fifty yards from the shore. He 
then saw the eyes of an alligator suddenly appear, not 
even rippling the water, some yards astern of the cor- 
morant, which was about three-fourths grown. The alli- 
gator, taking the bearings of the bird, sank and then the 
eyes reappeared, this time' only half a dozen feet astern, 
again sank and in a moment there was a tremendous up- 
heaival of the water, like an explosion, and in the midst 
of which appeared the big head of the alligator, who, in 
a gulp or two, took down the struggling cormorant. 
Mr. Brimley found that the young cormorants occa- 
sionally fall from their nests and that the wily alligators 
keep on the watch for them in such a case. Of course 
it is but seldom that they get the grown ones. Mr. Brim- 
ley cannot give an idea, he says, of the number of alli- 
gators in these lakes. He shot one nine feet in length, 
after quite an adventure. Fie had waded out some dis- 
tance, there being no boats, and was standing motionless 
when he saw the eyes of an alligator. He fired and 
struck; the animal sank but reappeared and he shot it 
again. Then it sank and did not reappear and he had to 
perform the task of wading out toward it and feeling for 
it with his feet, not knowing whether it was dead or 
alive; a very uncanny proceeding. To his great satisfac- 
tion he found it dead and brought it in. It was found 
that the bullet, penetrating his skull, had at its exit torn 
out a place as large as one’s fist. 
Mr. Brimley says that at the angles these alligators 
present for shooting a bullet has to be put into a very 
small mark to kill, as otherwise he thinks even the high- 
est powdered bullets would glance. The killed alligator 
is nine feet in length and the skin is now being prepared 
for mounting in the museum, Mr. Brimley being a very 
accomplished taxidermist. He fired at the alligator which 
was swallowing the unlucky cormorant, but thinks he 
missed it, the conditions for shooting being bad, as he 
had to look at the scene through narrow spaces between 
cypress knees and trunks of those trees. He shot but 
failed to get an alligator over twelve feet in length, judg- 
ing from the distance between the eyes. He says it was 
a monster, by far the largest he has ever seen anywhere 
in this part of the country. 
In the southeastern counties, not far from "Wilmington, 
there are many alligators which attack cattle and hogs 
not infrequently and which have been known to attack 
people. Seventeen years ago one of them crawled upon 
a causeway on a turnpike and attacked a horse which 
was being driven to a buggy, in the buggy being a young 
man and young woman. The young man had a heavy 
revolver and he met the alligator at close quarters, it re- 
quiring five shots tO' finish the latter, which, it is said, 
was eleven feet in lenuth and of great girth. 
Curator Brimley was accompanied on his visit to the 
lakes by State Entomologist Franklin Sherman, the latter 
collecting many insects while Mr. Brimley applied himself 
to ' alligators ' and snakes mainly. Two very large speci- 
mens of the cotton-mouth moccasin were shot and 
brought here. This snake is as deadly as the rattlesnake, 
though its fangs are not so large. In parts of North 
Carolina it is called the “swamp lion,” and people declare' 
that it ■will attack persons who venture into the thick 
swamps, known locally as “pocosins.” Deer hunters tell 
me that early in the autumn they have had, on a number 
of occasions, to shoot these snakes in self-protection, and 
declare that the snakes advanced upon them fearlessly. 
This snake has a tail as blunt as that of any rattler and a 
very large head. 
Curator Brimley has completed the work of mounting 
and exhibiting the specimens of the beasts and birds of 
North Carolina, which fill one of the halls in the notably 
fine museum here, the latter being not even approached 
by anything in this country south of Washington, and no 
other State except perhaps two having a collection com- 
