254 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May, 1920 
^REMINISCENCES 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
S EEING your paper on the newsstand 
awakened a stream of old recollec- 
tions. Charles Hallock started the paper 
in the early ’70s, and my esteemed father, 
B. Phillips, now dead a number of years, 
helped him. Mr. Hallock I remember 
slightly; he was light haired and light 
hearted. Father used to tell me he was 
the true type of the American gentleman- 
sportsman. I was allowed to visit the 
office occasionally, then located on Fulton 
St., near Nassau. The old Dutch church 
stood on the corner occupied by the Devoe 
Paint Co. I can recall a brawny printer 
who could juggle an immense roller then 
used to make proofs. There was also a 
lady typesetter, which was quite an inno- 
vation for those days. Sportsmen from 
the frontier visited the editors, and one 
brought us the scalp of an Apache In- 
diarf, with long hair, which was a grue- 
some spectacle. Dr. Carver was the 
champion wing shot of my time. He 
called on a certain day, and, as there 
happened to be a genuine Indian bow and 
arrow lying around, the doctor picked it 
up and drove the arrow with such force 
that it lodged in the ceiling almost up to 
the feathered hilt, where it stayed for a 
number of years. Dr. Carver was a won- 
derful shot. I have seen him hit a silver 
3 cent piece, which was thrown up for 
him to shoot at. I remember he shot with 
both eyes open. John Omahondru, “Texas 
Jack,” a real frontierman, and wonderful 
shot, assisted Dr. Carver. He was the 
most perfectly formed and dapper little 
man I ever met. Captain Bogardus, a 
great wing shot, was another. He wrote 
marvelous letters in which the words 
were spelled in an original way, and cap- 
itals were totally disregarded. The paper 
took up the scientific propagation of 
fish. Dogs were also given much space, 
and many letters were received from 
Wales from Mr. Llewellyn, who originat- 
ed the breed of hunting dogs that bears 
his name. Father started the questions 
and answers. At first he wrote the ques- 
tions and answered them himself. In 
time the paper had more original ques- 
tions than they had time to answer. I 
vividly remember your old heading with 
the big Moose Head in the middle. I 
guess the paper had a hand in the first 
show of the Westminster Kennel Club. I 
attended that show and remember the 
champion pointer “Sensation.” I saw he 
was a most remarkable dog, a trifle small, 
but otherwise scoring almost 100 per 
cent. In 1886 I went to Montana to live. 
I did some little hunting — deer, antelope, 
coyote, wolf and bear; also jack rabbits, 
prairie chicken, sage hens and partridges. 
I have killed many but missed more. I 
LETTFIR^ 
question! 
little thought, in those youthful days, I 
should ever see what I had read so much 
about in the dear old Forest and 
Stream. 
H. M. Phillips, New York. 
THE GRIZZLY BEAR 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
T N the spring of 1811 two parties left 
*■ St. Louis for the upper Missouri. The 
first was the Astor party, bound for the 
Columbia river, the story of which is told 
by Irving in Astoria. Twenty-three 
days after its departure it was followed 
by a Missouri Fur Company party under 
the command of Manuel Lisa. With him 
went Henry M. Brackenbridge, a young 
gentleman who had come west expecting 
to open a law office. Upon his return 
he published a book entitled Views of 
Louisiana, together with a Journal of a 
Voyage up the Missouri River in 1811.” 
In this he notices the most remarkable 
animals and plants. 
This is what he has to say about the 
Grizzly Bear: “This animal is the mon- 
arch of the country which he inhabits. 
The African lion, or the tiger of Bengal, 
are not more terrible or fierce. He is the 
enemy of man, and literally thirsts for 
human blood. So far from shunning man, 
he seldom fails to attack, and even to hunt 
him. I am credibly informed that he has 
been known to pursue the track of a 
hunter an hour after his having passed. 
The Indians make war upon these fero- 
cious monsters with the same ceremonies 
as they do upon a tribe of their own 
species; and in the recital of their vic- 
tories, the death of one of them gives the 
warrior greater renown than the scalp of 
a human enemy.” He then quotes Mr. 
Lisa as saying that they sometimes ex- 
ceed 1,200 pounds in weight; have amaz- 
ing strength, and that they attack with- 
out hesitation and tear to pieces the 
largest buffalo. He said that they were 
not usually seen lower than the Mandan 
villages, and that they are said to be 
most numerous in the vicinity of the 
Roche Jaune (the Yellowstone) and the 
Little Missouri. The peculiar fact is 
mentioned that the Indians hardly ever 
venture into a fringe of timber in the 
region frequented by the grizzly without 
first setting up a loud and continued 
shout “in order that the bears, if there 
be any, may either come forth to attack 
them or retire if they happen not to be so 
disposed.” 
It seems now to be pretty well con- 
ceded that Ursus horribilis will attack a 
man only in extreme circumstances. Two 
reasons probably account for his change 
in this respect: the hunter with a modern 
rifle is more dangerous than the Indian 
with his bow, and again a bear fed on 
roots and fruit may not be so dangerous 
as one fed largely on meat. 
L. O. Vaught, 111. 
DUCKS AND GULLS' 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
T N connection with recent contributions, 
A I will add my observations on this sub- 
ject, and in doing so will merely state 
what I have seen and allow the reader 
to draw his own deductions. 
In 1902 while sitting motionless beside 
a Wisconsin lake and observing the hab- 
its of a Great Northern Loon, my atten- 
tion was drawn to a small flock of ducks. 
These birds had been motionless on the 
water, apparently asleep, and in the cen- 
ter of the lake. They suddenly became 
quite agitated and soon took to flight, 
circling around the lake a couple of times 
and then returning to about the same 
spot on the surface of the lake. Twice 
they repeated this performance. The 
only thing in sight, so far as I could 
see, was the loon in the water and a gull 
high in the air, who seemed to be mak- 
ing the circuit of a chain of lakes. The 
loon had several times been in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the ducks without arous- 
ing any activity on their part. 
On three different days in the fall of 
1915, while hunting in the vicinity of 
Brownsville, Texas, I observed that 90% 
of the enormous number of ducks on the 
small lake, took to the air when gulls 
circled*the lake. The gulls came sudden- 
ly into view from behind a small hill, and 
it seemed as if every duck on the lake at 
once came to “attention.” Most of them 
at once took to the air. On each of these 
three occasions I could see absolutely 
nothing in the air or on the land that 
could possibly have frightened the ducks. 
On this lake, when it was approached by 
human beings or cattle, it was the unva- 
rying custom of the ducks to merely 
change position to the opposite shore. 
This was their custom even when fired 
upon, and it required regular Sunday 
battery work to flush the whole lake as 
on these three occasions. 
It might be interesting to note in this 
connection, two remarkable sights that 
I observed, showing that the poor, unfor- 
tunate duck has a holy terror of a life. 
In 1900 while making a quiet sneak on 
a bunch of duck, feeding near a bed of 
