Aug. 26, 1965^ 
FOREST AND STREAM 
suited eventually in what? Why, the utter annihilation 
of all, yes, I will say all life, from the tiny crustacean to 
■ the great buffalo or catfish then occupying that water, 
■ for no animal life can live without a supply, a modicum 
of oxygen. But bear in mind that I do not hold but that 
such life as buries itself deeply in the mud in autumn 
and completely hibernates, may have escaped, but I do not 
■ believe that it did. The weaker and more tender of ani- 
mal life died first; soon this dead animal matter be- 
gan to putrefy, adding its poisons to the deadly waters. 
As the river began to close up with the ice, the more 
completely, day by day, the poor smothering fish crowded 
in myriads to the few air holes left. So thickly did they 
pack themselves around such places to imbibe the life 
sustaining oxygen that they could be thrown out on the 
ice by thousands with pitchforks. But soon the intense 
cold sealed over hermetically nearly all of these holes, 
with the result, of course, of the death of all exposed 
animal life in the river, undoubtedly our bullfrogs went 
with the rest. 
Is there any proof of this being the fact? Yes. An 
abundance of proof, for we who were out on the river 
in the early days of the following spring fowling, found 
floating on the surface millions of dead fish, turtles, frogs 
and species of water insect life. No creatures seemed to 
escape this general fate except the very few that had 
passed the winter near large springs whose thermal 
waters did not freeze over. The fish were all killed. 
“You are mistaken there,” speaks up old Joe, a fisherman 
of thirty years’ standing on the river. “Fish were more 
plentiful in the Illinois River the summer of 1882 than 
they had been for several years before.” 
Correct, old' man, but you must remember that most of 
our fishes are somewhat migratory, and that our little 
river here is a part and parcel of the greatest river sys- 
tem in the world, and that these fish of 1882 had good 
reason for ascending our river that spring because they 
'found it so thoroughly stocked with fish food, the dead 
life floating down. 
But what proof have we that a similar destruction of 
-life occurred from the same causes about 1853 tO' 1855? 
The proof of this hangs on a very slender though a 
strong thread. It is this : One March, near those dates, 
after a very long period of extreme cold weather, I went 
on the river skating with a party of boys. After the 
violent exercise we became very thirsty. Having an ax 
along we concluded to chop through the ice for water. 
The ice was very thick. When we reached the water it 
came bubbling up, but gave off a fearful stench, so strong 
that none of us cpuld drink of it. This smell was ex- 
actly the same as that of the river water in 1881-2, and 
T have no doubt that the effect on the life in the water 
was the same. 
The people of Peoria in particular, and others along 
the river in 1882 • gave the Chicago sewage the entire 
credit for the pollution of the waters of the river. The 
city of Chicago, to free the Chicago River of its smells, 
.established huge pumping works to pump the water from 
'the Chicago River into the Illinois and Michigan Canal, 
■from which it flowed into the Illinois River, and this 
"gave color to the idea that our river was contaminated 
Avholly in that way; but the water thus pumped into our 
river had but very iittle effect if any on the river, as I 
think I could, and have, clearly demonstrated. I have 
given the bullfrog the post of honor for the reason that 
his habits are eminently sedentary, as the Irishman said 
about him ; “See the dhirty, slimy craythur, when he 
■slitands up he sits down.” Byrne. 
Lacon, 111. 
Depredations of the Cow Bunting. 
Syracuse, N. Y., Aug. 18. — Editor Forest mid Stream: 
The following notes, taken in leisure hours, regarding 
that parasite, the cowbird, may prove of interest to some 
of the many readers of your estimable journal. 
I have come to the conclusion that the cowbird is a 
greater cause of the decrease in our song birds than 
either the bluejay or red squirrel, or even domestic cat. 
At Cleveland, O., in May of this year, I made a care- 
ful study of this subject. In five nests of the wood 
thrush I found on examination in each nest three 
thrushes’ eggs and one cowbird’s. I removed the cow- 
bird’s eggs. On visiting the nests a second time I again 
found in each nest a cowbird’s egg, and again for the 
third time this was repeated. I am glad tO' say that at 
length, in this case, the thrushes were successful in hatch- 
ing and rearing their young. Had I not taken the cow- 
bird’s eggs, there would, of course, been no young 
thrushes. I have always found this lovely thrush _ a con- 
spicuous sufferer in this respect, but more so this sum- 
mer than in other years. 
A remarkable thing about these same thrushes’ nests, 
every one of them had, as a sort of foundation, rnore or 
less old newspaper, which I did not like to see, as it made 
the nests too conspicuous, and liable to be pilfered by 
boys or other mischievous persons; so as gently as pos- 
sible I removed the paper, the birds sitting close on their 
nests all the time; they were most gentle and confiding. 
And here, I think, is where the cowbird makes her mark, 
selecting to deposit her egg those nests whose owners 
are least likely to object. 
I came to Syracuse in June and renewed, as time and 
inclination permitted, my bird observations. I found 
every pair of thrushes feeding and caring for young cow- 
birds, but not one young -thrush have I seen. I regret to 
say that the beautiful scarlet tanager is also a sufferer 
from this pest. Every pair of tanagers coming under my 
notice were accompanied by young cowbirds. The yellow 
warbler also, and even the friendly little chipping and 
song sparrows do not seem to escape. Here, also, I found 
the Wilson thrush, very numerous in swampy woods, but 
did not find any nests — this thrush being more secretive 
than its cousin, the wood thrush. I am unable to say, 
therefore, whether it is also a sufferer from the cowbird. 
In Ohio the beautiful rose-breasted grosbeaks were 
quite numerous, and were. nesting when I left. I wonder 
if the cowbird molests this species? 
The red squirrel is generaly condemned for its destruc- 
tion of birds’ eggs and young. My observations do not 
bear out this statement. They were quite numerous, as 
also, the striped chipmunk, where my thrushes’ nests were 
situated, but not in a single instance was a nest molested. 
I am told by a well known authority that the cowbird 
lays its egg in the nest. I cannot see how this bird can 
enter a tiny nest like that, of the red-eyed vireo, or yel- 
low warbler. I have never seen the operation performed, 
but I have noticed a cowbird standing on the edge of a 
nest and gazing with interest at its contents. 
In these thrushes’ nests I found but three eggs. Now, 
my observations are that this thrush lays four; therefore, 
I conclude that the cowbird removes one in order to 
make room for her own. I have also noticed on other 
occasions that the 'cowbird’s egg is hatched at least twO' 
or three days before its victim’s, giving the young cow- 
bird that much start, and as it is therefore stronger it 
ejects the rightful occupants in course of time. 
The warbler family were well represented in the spring 
migration in Ohio; the myrtle and black and white creep- 
ing varieties leading the van, followed a few days later 
by the black-throaied blue,, black-throated green, chest- 
nut-sided, Canadian and hooded species, the bay-breasted 
bringing up the rear. The northern water thrush — a 
warbler — -was by no means rare and v/as in full song. 
The goldfinches and cherry waxwings are unusually 
numerous here this summer. Owing to their late nesting 
habits they undoubtedly both escape the unw'elcome^ visi- 
tation of the cowbird. This waxwing seems a persisterit 
hawker for flies — which I think is not always the case- — ■ 
darting from and returning to same branch after the 
manner of the flycatchers. 
If only the cowbird would pay some attention to the 
English sparrow what a blessing it would be. But, alas! 
no. It must forsooth select our brightest songsters. But, 
Mr. Editor, I must conclude these notes ere you will be 
after me with the “big stick.” John M. Coates. 
A Hawk’s Revenge. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., Aug. 4. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The following little incident may interest some of your 
readers ; 
I was walking near a piece of woods recently, and 
noticed eight or ten crows pursuing a hawk. The hawk 
was sailing along a little below the noisy crows and 
came directly toward me. Suddenly he seemed to have 
lost patience with his tormentors, and in a flash he- 
darted up, grabbed one crow by the vitals and came to 
the ground within a rod of me, clutching the crow so 
tightly that when I ran toward him he seemed to have 
some difficulty in getting loose from his quarry. The 
other crows all flew off, amid tremendous cawings, and 
the hawk finally sailed away, while the unfortunate crow 
made a feeble effort to fly and then expired. 
I do not know whether or not this is a common pro- 
cedure by hawks, but in the scores of times I have 
seen crows pestering them, I never before saw the 
hawk assume any other attitude toward the crows than 
a sort of mild toleration, and I never supposed that 
they cared any more for eating crow’s meat than the 
unsuccessful candidate does. _ F. H. C. 
[To “eat crow” b.as, of course, passed into a proverb, 
and many are the changes that have been rung on the 
theme. Perhaps the most common of these allusions 
is the political one referred to by our correspondent. 
Nevertheless, it is a fact that young crow ds quite good 
eating — about as good, for example, as young pigeon. Of 
course, the excellence of any viand depends on the 
taste of the eater. One man regards onions as delicious, 
while another cannot eat them; some people are re- 
pelled by green peas, green corn, eggplant, and so on. 
On the other hand we have always been taught that in 
England rook pie was a most dainty dish; and the rook 
is a not distant relative of the crow. 
However, all this has nothing to do with the interest- 
ing observation made by our correspondent. We have 
occasionally seen a hawk when pursued by crows make 
a dash at one of his tormentors, but the crow always 
seemed perfectly well able to avoid the attack. We 
have found the remains of crows that had evidently been 
caught and partly eaten by hawks or large owls, and 
once saw a marsh hawk dart at one of three crows which 
were sitting on the top rail of a fence. The crows, 
however, showed no fear, but threatened the hawk with 
their bills when he came too close, and his courage was 
not equal to making a serious attack on them.] 
Autobiography of a Shooting Coat. 
It is a far cry to the days of my youth. I am old now, 
the end is not far off, yet I look back to my young days 
without a sigh of regret for their vanished delights. Mine 
has been a well filled life, full of incident and adventure. 
The scars I wear are honorable scars. 
My earliest connected recollections are of a time when 
I reposed with dozens of my fellows, stacked high on the 
shelves of a gun store. I was a stout youth, fashioned of 
crisp olive drab ten-ounce duck. I remember rubbing 
elbows with a very conceited chap in the stack next to 
mine. He was a corduroy lad, and held aloof from us 
-ugly ducklings, though to be sure we had corduroy col- 
lars and cuffs, and were undoubtedly entitled to claim 
.cousinship with him. 
It was a dull and sleepy existence, enlivened only when 
a ^roup of gunners idled away an occasional hour of the 
••close season, telling of sport they had had, of trips they 
had taken, of bags they had made. Sometimes a rat-tailed 
pointer would leap on top of us, and curl down for a nap. 
From my shelf I could see the long rows of guns in the 
racks Thus early in life I was' introduced to the talk of 
the field and to the things of the field. The long summer 
passed. Crisper nights and shorter days proclaimed the 
approach of autumn. Then one day a clerk called: 
“Here’s a 38,” and I was snatched from my stack and 
tried on by a ’chap I had often noticed among the gunners 
who sometimes gossiped there. It was a fit, as those 
things go, and then my life began in earnest. 
My new owner tossed me into a chest containing a lot 
■of other canvas duds— and such duds 1 I will never for- 
get the faintness that came over me at my first scent of 
blood for the other duds were streaked with stains of it 
here ’and there. And the awful gamy smells and oily 
■smells. At least I thought them awful at that time, but I 
have since learned to love them. I shrank back in a cor- 
ner of the chest, aloof in my crisp spotlessness. “Hello,” 
said a pair of flhaki trousers, gruffly. They were a 
sight “He’s been getting a new coat, eh?” the trousers 
•fWtinued, “WeU, youngster, you need breaking in, and 
you’ll get it soon enough. I’ll warrant.” Then silence. 
There came a day soon after that when the khaki trous- 
ers and I, with a lot of other duffle, were dumped 'into^ a 
carryall, and put aboard a train. He was there, with a 
lot of his mates, carrying gun cases and shell cases and 
what not. The engine bell was clanging, dogs were yelp- 
ing and all was confusion. Somebody’s shells were miss- 
ing. They w'ere found at last. The train started. In the 
smoker where I was I soon learned from the talk going 
on around me that the morrow would be the opening 
of the season. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits. 
“You’ll catch it to-morrow,” chuckled the khaki trousers. 
“I detest a new shooting coat,” said my owner in the 
dawn of the next morning. No need to dwell on the 
incidents of that first day a-field, with its constant suc- 
cession of shocks and surprises. By evening my right 
shoulder was pounded to a frazzle, my skirts spotted with 
blood, and mud, and grime, my crispness gone in places, 
my pockets bulging with a motley assortment — and in my 
game pockets a lot of beautiful birds, quail they were, 
with a most pungent odor. I was beginning to like it. 
How tired I was, though. This all happened years ago. 
The friends of my youth would not know me now. My 
buttons gone, my seams ripped in places, my right shoul- 
der actually worn through. My color is nondescript. 
Originally I was an olive drab. Then came a day when I 
was dipped into a nasty hot mess, and came out like a bit 
of Erin — green, a streaked, uncertain green, for canvas 
does not take dye well. “Just the color of tules,” said my 
owner to the dyer, holding a bit of rush against my sleeve. 
Those were the days we spent with the ducks, shooting 
them from the tules that ran out in points on the lake. 
The green faded in places, and to it were added a trace 
of the muck of the swamps, the blood of game, and gun 
oil and powder grime. The year for me was divided into 
two seasons — the autumn and winter, when we, my owner 
and I, spent the days in the duck blinds, or tramped the 
marshes for snipe and the. uplands for quail; and the 
spring and summer, when we went into the rugged canons 
of the mountains, where the trout streams tumbled and 
roared over the ledges and boulders, I learned what a 
creel was (and how the willow basket frayed my side). 
I learned to love the scent of the pines, the song of the 
mountain stream, and to watch the play of the rod. I 
learned to stalk the deer, though a little of that went a 
long way. For it was too hard work, the sun was too 
hot, and the buckthorn gave me some awful rents. At 
night I was folded and laid at the head of my ownei"’s 
blankets, and served him for a pillow. 
The days I love best to dwell upon, and those that are 
indelibly impressed on my memory are the ducking days ; 
when he and I rowed out to the blinds in the starlight 
and prayed that the wind might blow. That half hour’s 
wait for the dawn, with the old briar going, and the ducks 
stringing in to the lake from their night on the grain 
fields ; the call of the geese, and the clear bugle of the 
sandhill crane. How well I recall it all. There was 
usually ice on the boats, and he always turned up my 
collar on those mornings, and buttoned my wristbands. 
^ ^ :lt ^ ^ ^ >|: 
■ Yesterday he took me down from the oeg in the closet 
where I have hung this long close season, and he looked 
me over — lovingly, carefully. I felt his eye take in every 
rip, and note each missing button. The hole on my right 
shoulder was the worst of all. I hoped he’d pass that by, 
for it is really the gun’s fault. 
He sat down and lighted his pipe, then took me on 
his knee and searched my pockets, one by one. “A snipe 
feather, this,” he mused. “'What beautiful chocolate pen- 
cilings. And this dotted one I’ll warrant is from the 
breast of a greenwing drake. * * * How good that 
sage and pennyroyal smells.” He had found some dried 
sprigs of it in one of my shell pockets. “I must have 
gotten that the day Val and_ I went plover shooting. 
* * * This is where the wire fence caught me when I 
was chasing that wounded Canada.” A long silence while 
he smoked his pipe out, a far away look in his eyes. Then 
suddenly, “I wonder if you will hang together for another 
season, old chap?” Then he hung me on the peg in the 
closet again. 
I wonder if I will? Robert Erskine Ross, 
Los Angeles, Cal. 
