811 
Oct. 14 , 1905] FOREST AND STREAM. 
ture. The sun poured upon us like fire close overhead, 
dust filtered over us and into us until we looked like dis- 
placed fragments of the road itself. 
Leaving Basin Hollow our road ascended to compara- 
tively level table land that extended for some miles, fol- 
lowing the valley of Cow Creek — that is to say, Old Cow 
Creek. There are North Cow Creek, Old Cow Creek 
and South Cow Creek — perhaps more of them somewhere. 
These three streams would be rivers if they were not so 
rapid and their waters had a chance to loiter a little be- 
tween wider banks. They come rushing from the snows 
of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas— cold, clear 
and silvery, to contribute to* the Sacramento. I have no 
reverence whatever for people who gave such names to 
such streams ; they are not entitled to any. They would 
not know what it was if they had it. California, 
and America for that matter, is full of natural grandeur 
disfigured upon maps and in our literature by names that 
disgrace human expression, oral, printed and pictured. 
The very nomenclature of a region is often morally, 
spiritually and everlastingly corrupt and derogatory. It 
is all right to call towns what you like, they deserve it 
generally, but the more appreciative barbarians should be 
permitted to christen natural features of the land. They 
usually evince some culture and taste. Where names are 
scarce, streams, mountains, valleys, etc., might be num- 
bered, or distinguished by signs or hieroglyphics. Any- 
thing would be an improvement upon cows. Go over a 
list of names upon any map and then try to feel senti- 
mental or patriotic. 
My country ’tis of thee, 
Sweet land of Bberty — 
Of thee I sing; 
But of the names I , hear and see 
' For half thy majestj' — ■ 
Oh, dinky ding! 
This upper valley, and for many miles north and south, 
the land is strewn with fragments of lava rock. The soil 
is so full of it that it is in the main adapted to little but 
grazing. The roads crossing this lava belt are a continu- 
ous jolt. On our route we got across in five or six miles 
and reached the bridge over Cow Creek late in the after- 
noon. The clear, cold, foaming and roaring stream re- 
freshed us to look at it. We drove aside into the shade 
of a mighty oak, still green, although a hundred profane 
pampers from time to time had built their pot fires 
against its trunk — burning it almost through. This is a 
popular and despicable custom. 
i Jack was panting and somewhat irritable, as were we 
all. I let him free and we all stopped for a rest._ After 
a little the water became too much of a temptation for 
us, and finding a swirling eddy with sandy bottom we all 
stripped, except Jack, and went in for a swim. Jack had 
nothing to strip and was the first in. It was the largest 
body of water he had ever had a chance at, and he went 
into it like an amphibian. He swam well, and so rapidly 
that none of us could avoid him in the water. When he 
swam to one of us we had to .steer him about so as to 
avoid his claws, for they were sharp to the bare skin, and 
he was likely to scratch us unintentionally in his maneu- 
vers. His tail, of course, was a fairly good -rudder — 
when we could .get hold of it in time. He was greatly 
(delighted, and it w-as with considerable reluctance that he 
came out, some time after we did. When he finally came 
lunging and cavorting up the bank he proceeded to dry 
himself by chasing and being chased with the dogs in 
wide circles. There was more variation to his antics than 
to those of the dogs, for he could climb up trees, slide 
down them, and overturn boulders. He investigated the 
bridge from end to end and from top to bottom. This 
way of gamboling after his swim was the cause of ex- 
citement the next day. 
While we were resting at the bridge a man came along 
driving a team of four mules attached to a load of lum- 
ber from a mill above us some miles. Jack was loitering 
at the roadside near, and when the wagon came along the 
man watched him awhile, drew up, and asked pleasantly : 
''Hew^d}- do? Is that your bear?’’ 
We said it was, and he was about to say something else 
when the lead mules deciphered Jack or scented him. Im- 
mediately they began to stick their ears out at various 
acute angles and move about restlessly. Then the wheel- 
ers began to get nervous. The team next decided that 
they would either turn and go back or branch off to one 
side, regardless of the fact that a wagonload of lumber 
icould not follow at that place. The driver had all he 
could do to manage them, but he managed to keep them 
dined up in the road. The mules then decided that the 
-next best thing was to go ahead, and they began to snort, 
he-haw and twist their tails, but they took that load up 
the hill from the bridge with a display of enthusiasm that 
was excellent. They acted as though they were afraid 
Jack would steal the lumber. As far as we could see them 
■ they were rushing it along to a place of safety, with 
much anxiety. Mules have no confidence in bears, not 
any. 
I once made a journey on horseback from Trinity 
Center to Shasta, and had a big, dark-complexioned mule 
in tow. My horse was a good one, and the mule was a 
splendid mule, but very deliberate in his moyements. 
When I rode at a trot the mule insisted on walking, and 
when I slowed down to a walk he got sleepy. He kept 
a steady strain on the halter strap, and to ease matters I 
made it fast to the horn of my saddle. The road was 
over Trinity Mountain, at the time a great region for 
deer and bears. I frequently saw bunches of deer, and 
shortl}^ after crossing Trinity River saw a black bear 
cross the road just ahead of me and go into a little gully 
or ravine below the road. 
I presumed that both my horse and the mule had seen 
the bear as he had got out of the road but a few yards 
ahead of us. Not seeing him come out of the gully, when 
I reached it I yelled, just to see how he would strike out. 
He was apparently startled and lunged out of the ravine 
with a crash and a snort, ejaculating something like, 
‘Whosh,’’ and I think he went away, but I did not see 
him do it. All I saw for the next few minutes was the 
rear elevation and equipment of that dark and hitherto 
reluctant mule. I never knew a thing to change its dis- 
position and abandon its character so suddenly. He set 
off at a run with my horse and me in tow, reversing our 
order of march entirely. I had to whip up to keep him 
from taking the saddle away from us. As the lead strap 
was fast I had no choice but to go right along, and did 
do it, until the mule’s spasmodic impulse carried him be- 
yond his motive power, then he fell down. The strap 
stood the strain and the jolt nearly threw my horse. It 
shifted me over on to his neck, but I dismounted in a 
more voluntary manner the rest of the way. 
Both myself and my horse were dazed, and so was the 
mule. His neck was broken. It took him at least ten 
minutes to recover himself. He got up, shook himself, 
looked at me in a vacant, deprecatory manner, tried to 
remark he-haw, but only coughed. He limbered up little 
by little, but seemed to have lost his memory, and had 
forgotten about his hurry. From there to Shasta he led 
up much better, not from any apparent desire to oblige 
me, but from a vague, instinctive anxiety to get some- 
where further along and finish dying. If anything causes 
a mule to take interest in rapid transit it is a bear, but he 
reposes neither faith nor confidence in one, not any. 
Jack had climbed into- the wagon and seemed to think 
we might as well move on, and we did so. From the 
crossing of the stream (in the headwaters of which we 
caught all the trout we needed later on) we steadily as- 
cended the mountain. The white oak timber began to be 
mixed with black oaks, then with straggling pines which 
grew more and more plentiful and symmetrical as we ad- 
vanced. We had planned to reach another point some 
miles along, but when we reached the Daly place we 
decided to stop for the night. It was almost dark, and 
here was another barn full of hay — new timothy hay this 
time without foxtail predominate. We got permission at 
the house of Mr. Daly and camped at the barn, wonder- 
ing what Jack might do to stir things up at this point. 
Those whO' have not, after a trip like ours, slept in a 
stack of sweet timothy hay in the cool, bracing air of 
Sierra pineries have missed something. Ransacker, 
[to be continued.] 
Suspended Animation, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Any and everything that appears in the columns of 
Forest and Stream referring to the subject of “Sus- 
pended Animation in Fishes” gives me considerable 
pleasure. 
Many years ago it was my amusement to go into the 
kitchen, when frozen smelts or frost fish were sent to the 
house, and, taking some from the package, put them into 
a large receptacle filled with hydrant water to see them 
swim, and they did swim. I have tried to tell this story, 
I presume, a hundred times, and I have been practically 
laughed into silence. 
The perch mentioned by Mr. Davis in the current num- 
ber of the paper evidently received the same treatment, 
being frozen immediately after being taken from the 
water. Mr. Davis’ story is even stronger than any I ever 
attempted to tell, because my frost fish, although they, 
undoubtedly, did swim in front of my eyes, received short 
shrift and were soon in the frying pan, so that I could 
not say whether they would have lived half an hour or 
an hour had they been given the opportunity. In other 
words, I could not say whether their return to life was 
spasmodic and only a temporary matter. Mr. Davis goes 
on to say that he put these resuscitated perch in running 
water and they lived several months. 
I presume that many of the readers of Forest and 
Stream will think that Mr. Davis is drawing a long bow 
in making this statement, but, as far as I am concerned, 
I believe every word of k. Everything of this kind that 
I read makes me feel that I am vindicated on the ques- 
tion of “Suspended Animation in Fishes.” Whether this 
suspension of life is a matter of weeks, months or years 
I am not prepared to say. It might be a grave question 
as to whether a perch frozen and kept in cold storage 
for several years would swim off into deep water if 
placed in a lake during the leafy month of June, but the 
fact stands that fish taken from the water, in the middle 
of winter and ouickly frozen will come to life again and 
live out their allotted time if put back into the water 
within some, unknown to me, stated period. As far as I 
am concerned there is absolutely no argument on this 
question. Chas. Cristadoro. 
Dog-Wolf Ctoss. 
New York, Oct. 10. — Editor Forest and Stream: The 
remarks in Forest and Stream about the parti-colored 
fox remind me of something that I saw in Montana a 
couple of weeks ago. I was smoking my pipe in the 
cabin of an old-timer who lives on Muddy Creek in 
southeastern Montana, when I happened to look out 
of the window and saw an animal pass by that for a 
moment I took to be a red wolf. 
I said to the old man: “What have you got out 
there?” and he replied, “Yes, I am glad you spoke about 
that; I wanted you to see them pups.” Then while we 
walked out of doors, he told me that he had had a litter 
of six pups half gray wolf and half ordinary domestic 
dog, and that he had two of these puppies still about 
the house, the other four having Seen given away. 
The wolf-like animal, with four or five other dogs, 
was standing near a wagon close to the house, and when 
called galloped cheerfully to us, wagging its tail and 
twisting its body and thrust its nose into the hand of 
each of us, seeming to enjoy the pats and caresses that 
it received. In color it w-as reddish, somewhat the 
color of the summer coat of a deer, yet hardly so 
bright; there was more of a brown in it. The inner 
surfaces of the ears were blackish or dark brown, as 
was the end of the tail. On the tail the hair lay paral- 
lel to the skin and did not stand out as it does on the 
brush of a fox or the tail of wolf or coyote. On the 
other hand, the shape of the creature was that of a 
gray wolf, which it also equalled. in size. The mother, 
which stood not far off, was a common enough looking 
mongrel, perhaps a cross between a setter and a collie. 
Fler ears were small, coat long and her tail was carried 
curled up over the back. She was white with a patch 
or two of brown. 
Rowland told me that the other pup, which we could 
not find, exactly resembled a gray wolf in size and 
color. It was much less tame than the one I saw. 
h'hese pups are great thieves and things have to be 
kept out of their way or they will steal them. They 
cannot' bark. ' Sometimes they appear to try to do' so, 
;ind break nui; into a regular wolf howl. 
My host of that day is a real old-timer and one of 
the few that are left. As a boy he accompanied Gen. 
Stansbury’s expedition for the surveying of the Great Salt 
Lake, became fascinated by the Western life, married a 
Cheyenne Indian girl, trapped, traded, hunted, scouted, 
fought Indians and guided troops; and now, at the age 
of about 74, is passing his declining years among the 
foothills of Montana’s mountains. He tells some 
fascinating stories of adventure in the early days of the 
Old We, St. . G. B. G. 
Fox-Dog Cfoss. 
Washington, D. C., Oct. 7. — The trouble with Mr. 
Nelson’s freak fox, mentioned in Forest and Stream of 
Oct. 7, is that there is too much collie dog in it. A 
similar case of miscegenation may be seen at Highlands, 
N. C., at the hotel, except that the basic animal is wolf 
instead of fox. Charles Hallock. 
Rtjffed Gfoosc Vagaries. 
The New York Sun of Saturday, Oct. 7, contains the 
following note: 
“I. W. England, of 127 Aycrigg avenue, Passaic, 
president of the Passaic Metal Ware Company, was 
awakened at about 4:30 o’clock Friday morning by 
something which struck the blind of his bedroom win- 
dow. The noise was not repeated, and Mr. England 
went to sleep again. At breakfast a maid said she had 
found a dead chicken outside the dining room window. 
“Mr. England went out to look at it and discovered 
it was a full grown partridge, still warm and, with the 
exception of a twisted beak, without a mark which 
would indicate the cause of its death. 
“ Tt’s a very remarkable thing,’ said Mr. England 
yesterday. ‘There isn’t a partridge farm within sixty 
miles of Passaic, and the nearest woods are at Carlton 
Hills, about two miles away. The partridge is about 
as shy a game bird as you can find, and what this one 
means by dying on my lawn practically in the middle 
of Passaic beats me. I presume he was blinded by the 
peculiar half light that precedes the dawn and crashed 
against my window and broke his neck.’ ” 
To every gunner October is known as the month in 
which the grouse and quail of the Eastern and the 
Middle States indulge in extraordinary wanderings, are 
constantly found in unexpected places and very fre- 
quently destroy themselves by flying against buildings 
or fences or throug’.i windows into houses. Old num- 
bers of Forest and Stream are full of records of cases 
of this kind, which have taken place in Pennsylvania, 
Massachusett.s, Connecticut, New York and elsewhere. 
The last case of this kind which came under our notice 
was one where a ruffed grouse flew against a wire net- 
ting of about an inch and a half mesh stretched above 
a fence to confine poultry. The bird flew with such 
violence as to kill itself and to knock a handful of 
feathers from its breast. Among the correspondents 
who within the last two or three years have contributed 
accounts of such self-killing of ruffed grouse, are 
Messrs. E. H. Kniskern, J. L. Davison and M. Chill. 
While quail also suffer at the “crazy” season and are 
found in unexpected places, they do not wander nearly 
so much as do the grouse, nor do they often, so far as 
my experience goes, kill themselves by flying against 
buildings. At the same time, we have known a case 
where a quail flew ir.tO' an open window in October and 
was captured in the room. October seems to be the 
month in which the gallinaceous birds of the Eastern 
States shift from their summer to their winter quarters. 
The Hemlock and the Rising Sun. 
It is always a delight to a lover of nature to learn a 
new truth about her ways. To people of a certain turn 
of mind it is a double pleasure when the thing learned 
may at some time be of use. 
Two years a,go I spent considerable time at a lumber 
camp in the Adirondacks. Since the “boss of the crew” 
knew I was interested in facts about the woods he often 
told me things of which I had never heard or read. One 
day, while we were going the rounds to see how the men 
were getting along “skidding” the logs, he pointed down 
the side hill and said : “Do you see the tops of those 
hemlocks, how they all point to the east?” I looked 
down the slope where we could see a dozen or more 
lofty hemlocks. Sure enough, the topmost part of the 
trunks, which tapered into a slender stem, pointed with 
finger-like accuracy to the east. The lumberman said 
that nearly all hemlock trees pointed in the direction of 
the rising sun, but he was unable to tell me why. I have 
been in the woods a great deal since that time, and the 
rule is found to be true. The reason for this peculiarity 
of the hemlock cannot be explained by saying the winds 
have made them grow thus, for the prevailing winds in 
the Adirondacks are from the northwest. Whatever the 
reason, it is something worth knowing, especially if one 
travels at all in the rvoods and is in the habit of leaving 
his compass in camp. E. A. Spears. 
The Lmnaean Society of New Yofk, 
A meeting will be held on Tuesday evening, Oct. 24, 
at the American Museum of Natural History, Seventy- 
seventh street and Eighth avenue, at 8:15 P. M. E. B. 
Southwick, Ph.D., “Some Winter Tales; being the ex- 
periences of Animals in the season of frost and snow.” 
illustrated by lantern slides. C. G. Abbott, Sec’y. 
Fate of a Bronx Buffalo. 
Lady, one of the buffalo acquired from the William C. 
Whitney herd, which had been for several years one of 
the attractions of the Bronx Zoological Park, was killed 
the other day by a piece of wire which she had swal- 
lowed. It is supposed tliat the wire came from a bale of 
hay. 
THE WOULD RENOWNED MANIT.TJSE OIL. 
The best gun nil made. If neyer gums, nor separates in cold weather. 
—Ad%>. 
