THE OUTDOOR WORLD 
Tame Pigeons Alighting in Trees. 
Washington, D. C. 
To the Editor: 
Some of the facts included in a re- 
cent correspondence I have had with 
Mr. J. H. King of Beaver, Pennsyl- 
vania, may interest the ornithologists 
among your many readers, and fuller 
comments upon it from others prove 
to be worth the while. 
It seems that, not long ago. Air. King 
was practicing out on a rifle range near 
his home, when some tame pigeons 
passed, one or two of which lit in the 
top of a tree not far off. Now it has 
always been a question as to whether 
tame, domesticated pigeons ever alight 
in trees. Mr. King referred the fact to 
Mr. Dan B. Starkey, Editor of “Outers- 
Recreation,” who in turn referred it to 
me. Mr. King also interviewed Mr. 
W. E. Clyde Todd, of the Carnegie 
Museum of Pittsburgh, on the ques- 
tion, and the latter informed him that 
he had never, in all his life, heard of 
such a thing as a tame pigeon alighting 
in a tree. I wrote Mr. King that I per- 
sonally had observed only one instance 
of it, and it occurred during the sum- 
mer of 1862. The bird — a white one — 
lit on the top of a tree in the woods 
near “Horse Pond” at Stamford, Con- 
necticut, apparently from sheer fright, 
having been greatly alarmed at the 
firing of a fowling piece in its near 
vicinity. 
This may have been the case with 
Mr. King’s pigeons, though he does 
not say so. Should I see a tame, 
domesticated “blue rock” pigeon de- 
liberately alight in a tree, of its own 
volition and for no other reason than 
that it chose to do so, as a wild mourn- 
ing dove would do, I would say that it 
was an instance of reversion to the an- 
cestral habit, common to all species of 
wild, arboreal pigeons. Such examples 
are to be frequently noted among other 
domesticated animals. Nevertheless, a 
record of them is always of some value, 
not to say interesting to many ; and I 
am sure that Mr. King would like to 
hear of other instances of tame pigeons 
alighting, of their own will, in trees, as 
being confirmatory of his personal ob- 
servation on that point. 
Faithfully yours, 
Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. 
Hunting Foxes in the Spring. 
BY L. B. CUSHMAN, NORTH EAST, PENNSYLVANIA. 
Not many hunters would knowingly 
and willingly cause the death by starva- 
tion of a litter of from five to ten pretty 
little puppy foxes in their home in the 
ground. The killing of a mother fox 
after the first of March will in all prob- 
ability cause just that result. 
Some years ago the writer was hunt- 
ing foxes with a younger brother (H. 
F.) on the woodsy, rugged banks of 
Elk Creek, south of Fairview, when 
the hounds located one in the trunk 
of a hollow fallen maple. A shot was 
fired into a hole in this prostrate tree, 
and with an ax borrowed from a farmer 
several openings were cut, finally ex- 
posing to view a mother and ten woolly 
little fellows nearly black and just old 
enough to be real beauties. The mother 
and some five of the baby foxes lay 
limp and dead from the charge of shot. 
As though stricken dumb, we stood 
there some time without saying a word. 
It taught me a lesson. I said, “Never, 
never again,” and from that day to 
this, though I have bagged several 
foxes during the time, I have never 
hunted them on the snows of March or 
April. 
Poison Ivy. 
There is one evil for which more 
remedies are suggested than there are 
cures for the high cost of living. We 
refer to poison ivy. that green villain 
which from now until frost will waylay 
its victims beside trees and fences in 
almost every part of this country. W. 
L. McAtee of the United States Bio- 
logical Survey says in an article in the 
Medical Record that he has tabulated 
244 recommendations relative to ivy 
poison, as follows: 
For preventing 
- - 19 
Internal remedies 
27 
External remedies 
198 
Persons who believe 
they have found 
ways to make the country wanderer 
immune have suggested coating the ex- 
posed parts of the body with sweet oil, 
cottonseed oil, grease and soap suds ; or 
taking prescriptions made from lady’s 
slipper or the ivy itself ; or drinking the 
milk of a cow that has been fed on 
pdison ivy. 
Doses that have been taken inter- 
nally after the poison has its work in 
