94 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 21, 1906. 
I know them because they know me. The cock 
grouse will drum when he knows that I am look¬ 
ing' at him, and the hen will allow me to stroke 
her head while on the nest. At such times, the 
hen holds her head down and shuts her eyes, but 
does not offer to leave the nest. 
When the wind is favorable, I can hear two 
other drummers. One pair nests in a swamp, and 
these birds usually rear their chicks. 
Food is plentiful, and shelter unexcelled, so 
that if there were no enemies, grouse would in¬ 
crease rapidly in this locality. 
It seems to me, from my observations, that the 
drumming of the grouse follows the same natural 
law that governs the song of birds. The male 
drums when his mate is on the nest,, and does not 
drum when she is with him. When the hen is 
sitting, the cock drums through the day, resting 
only when his mate is off for food and drink. 
When the chicks are nearly ready to break shell, 
the cock drums all night. When the chicks are 
out, the drumming stops, but the male grouse 
keeps near the flock. Three times I have seen a 
male grouse fly to the rescue of a chick caught by 
a snake, showing that he was not out of hearing. 
In late summer, before the families are separated, 
the males drum to give the young males a lesson. 
I often hear the drumming on moonlight nights. 
The young make feeble attempts at first, but in 
the end become expert, just as young roosters 
learn to crow by practice and precept. 
I have made frequent efforts to photograph the 
cock grouse while drumming, but so- far have met 
with failure, because the background is made up 
cf foliage. I have hung up a background of can¬ 
vas several times, but my grouse always changes 
the boulder. Some time I may be lucky enough 
to find a drumming grouse with a bit of sky for 
background. Then I shall try for a picture with 
hopes of success. 
Prof. Hodge tells how his grouse slipped off 
the wall while drumming. I have had the same 
experience, not with walls, but with boulders. 
Near my old cabin there is a flat topped boulder 
which was used by a grouse for five seasons, or 
until a woods fire destroyed the cover. I bushed 
a path to this boulder, so had a good chance to 
observe the drumming. I noticed that the grouse, 
while drumming, often moved three feet or more, 
as if the strokes of his wings buoyed him up, and 
gave him a forward movement. 
I find that the hen grouse selects a nesting site 
near some path through the woods, nine times 
out of ten. It is good judgment on the part of 
the grouse, for wild animals pass along a path 
without doing much hunting. 
A new nature book makes the statement that 
the barberry does not afford food for anything 
wild. On Cape Ann, the fruit of the barberry 
affords the grouse and quail the most of their 
food supply during late fall and early winter. 
Rabbits, mice and robins also eat the berries. 
Snarers use a bunch of barberries to bait 
grouse, quail and rabbits. Hermit. 
Gloucester, June 18. 
The Wild Pigeons. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The search for the wild pigeon, and the stories 
of what became of them told in the Forest and 
Stream these days, are most interesting to- those 
who are in love with wild life and the way of the 
wild. To the pigeon lore I can add only two 
things, for my time in the woods came long after 
these birds ceased to be of the common animals. 
Some time in the early ’90s, and I suppose 
about 1890, I was hunting above Northwood, 
Herkimer county, N. Y., when my untrained eyes 
discovered a flock of large and beautiful birds. 
They were only fifteen or twenty yards away and 
were on low, almost leafless shrubs at the foot 
of a beech tree in a beech-flat forest. One bird 
in particular, I remember as being the most 
beautiful that I had ever seen, his “dark blue 
and bright red” and slender figure remaining to 
this day plainly seen in my memory. I saw five 
or six of the birds. What happened after that, 
I have forgotten. I see them now as looking 
at a photograph, but when I describe the birds 
to my father, who came from the beech mast 
country of the back woods of Ohio (Van Wert 
county) he said, “Wild pigeons! I wish I could 
see another flock of them !” 
This longing to see something which has de¬ 
parted is, perhaps, the saddest thing in the life 
of the nature observer. Think of the tens of 
thousands of people who, hearing 1 that wild 
pigeons have been seen lately, step out doors and 
turn their eyes toward the sky hoping to see the 
darting forms of a race of birds now well nigh 
extinct! 
One other note on the pigeons came to me on 
the Holston River below the forks of the Big 
and Little Holston in Tennessee. Somewhere 
along the river a man told me that wild pigeons 
nested there every year—this was in the winter 
of 1901-02. 
1 presume that it will be found that the sur¬ 
viving pigeons, few in number and scattered over 
thousands of square miles, finally found sheltered 
places in the Appalachian back countries where 
they have bred without being observed by re¬ 
porters. There are vast tracts of the land where 
nature events are never recorded—and here the 
searchers may find their flocks of pigeons. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
The Man Eater, A Query. 
I should like to ask Mr. Delmar, or any reader 
of Forest and Stream, if he ever saw a man 
bitten by a shark, or actually knows anyone who 
has been bitten? I plead guilty of never having 
seen a man bitten, nor ever met a man who had 
been bitten, nor do I even know any man who 
knows a man who was bitten. Some years ago, 
a skeptical Englishman offered a considerable re¬ 
ward for a well authenticated case of shark bite, 
but I believe the reward was never claimed. Dr. 
Gill will correct me if wrong. F. A. L. 
There is no question that sharks will bite human 
beings; but it w r ould be perfectly possible to find 
4,000,000 persons right here in New York who 
had never seen a man bitten. Here are two prin¬ 
ted reports of sharks biting men; they might be 
supplemented with others ad infinitum; and it is 
more credible that at least some of the reports 
should have been true than that all of them 
should have been inventions. 
From the Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Sept. 6, 1905. 
St. Augustine, Sept. S -—David Curry is a 
patient at the Railway Hospital here suffering 
from a badly lacerated leg caused by a peculiar 
accident. 
He with G. J. Hopkins were fishing at Fort 
Pierce yesterday afternoon from a small boat 
near shore, when a large shark was hooked. 
After playing the monster for some time, they 
towed it in towards -shore. Upon reaching shal¬ 
low water, Mr. Curry stepped out of the boat 
and started to haul the prize in shore, when with 
an effort, it turned and seized him by the right 
leg, tearing the flesh' badly. His companion im¬ 
mediately hurried the injured man away for medi¬ 
cal attention, leaving the monster shark on the 
shore. Mr. Curry was placed aboard the north 
bound train and brought to this city. He is now 
at the Railway Hospital and is reported as rest¬ 
ing easy to-day. 
From the London Lancet. 
On Jan. 28, of this year (1886) Mr. R. of 
this towm (Port Elizabeth), engaged in mercantile 
pursuits, went with a friend to have a dip in the 
sea at about 7 A. M. Visitors to South Africa 
may remember that there are two jetties projec¬ 
ting from the shore into deep water, A and B; 
the jetty B has been only a few months in use, 
and, being in close proximity to the Malay 
quarter, offal of fish has been constantly thrown 
into the sea here, and hence the appearance of 
sharks, which up to this time have not been com¬ 
mon and no cause of fear or hindrance to sea 
bathers. Mr. R. and his friend having dis¬ 
ported themselves in their usual way, Mr. R., 
who was an expert, came out of the water, and 
resolved to have one more glorious plunge from 
the deck of the jetty; on rising to the surface, 
he felt a sharp pain in the thigh, and before he 
could cry out, received another horrid crunch, 
and down he went in the jaws of a huge shark. 
He struggled for a' moment, and felt twisted 
about and shaken, then free, and with an instinc¬ 
tive effort, as he rose to the surface, made a 
supreme attempt to reach the landing stairs, which 
were close by. 
There were some lads on the jetty who saw 
the terrible scene, and one of them stretching 
out his hand, fortunately grasped that of the un¬ 
fortunate man, and brought him to the dressing 
room; those present did what they could to 
staunch the bleeding by ligatures of towels, and 
a doctor and a cab were sent for. My friend, Dr. 
Edwards, was very quickly in attendance, and in 
the hurry of the moment had snatched up from 
his table one of, I think, Martin’s elastic rubber 
bandages and a piece of wadding; with this ap¬ 
pliance, he quickly and effectually stopped all 
hemorrhage. 
Poor R. was at once conveyed to the 
Provincial Hospital, and when I arrived, which 
was in less than an hour, he was on the operating 
table. Pale, of course, but wonderfully collected, 
and with a fair pulse, he consented to an imme¬ 
diate amputation, which was performed by the 
surgeon of the day, Dr. Leslie; Dr. Uppleby, the 
assistant surgeon, administering the chloroform 
in a careful and watchful manner. * * * 
It is very rarely, I imagine, that a human being 
who has once been in the terrible jaws of a shark 
has been saved, and more rarely still saved by 
surgical aid. * * * On examination of the 
part removed, there were the distanct marks of 
the serrated edge of the shark’s teeth on the 
outer condyle of the femur, two-thirds of which 
had been, as it were, sawn through; the monster 
must have caught the poor fellow’s leg 
obliquely, crushed through the condyle, and 
wrenching the leg off, going obliquely across the 
joint. There were also three wounds of the skin 
on the same side just below the rim of the pelvis, 
where the shark first caught him. These healed 
kindly, being dressed antiseptically at the time 
of the operation. 
March 1.—Met Mr. R. this morning near 
his house, making his first essay with the 
crutches ; he was looking well, but still troubled 
with pain in the absent foot. I advised him to 
try to do without morphia. The brain by and 
by would cease to remember. 
F. Ensor, M. R. C. S. 
Provincial Hospital, Port Elizabeth. 
The Sad Penguins. 
^ New York, July 15. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: What I said in your issue of June 30 
about Mr. Mocnan’s views on the Sad Penguins, 
hardly justifies his remarks in your issue of July 
14. I did not intend to take Mr. Moonan to task 
for having said that the penguins of the Antarc¬ 
tic wear a sad expression, but I did and do criti¬ 
cise his conclusion that they are sad, and the 
reason that he gives for this sadness. I do not 
think he knows anything about their feelings. 
He said, “Can we wonder they are sad, seeing 
they are doomed to live among such scenes.” 
Those words seem to- me to mean that Mr. 
Moonan believes that the look of profound sad¬ 
ness—as it appears to a human being—is an ex¬ 
pression of the real feeling of the birds. I be¬ 
lieve nothing could be further from the fact than 
this. 
Of course environment has its effect on man 
and animals, but a prairie that is “lonesome and 
wind swept” for Mr. Moonan, may be cheerful 
and breezy for an Indian, a cow puncher or a 
hunter. A New England village, which for Mr. 
Moonan may be “humdrum and narrow,” for its 
residents may be picturesque, cosey and culti¬ 
vated. 
As for the Eskimo, the general testimony of 
travelers is, I believe, that they are a particularly 
light-hearted and merry people, and my some¬ 
what limited experience among them goes to con¬ 
firm this. Cynic. 
Beater—“ ’Ere you are, Mr. Bags, ’ere’s another 
one, but ’e bain’t too fresh. I don't think ’e were 
killed to-day.” Keeper (sotto voce)—“'Old 
your row, stupid! Of course he wasn’t. We 
always puts a few down where the gov’nor’s goin’ 
to stand !”—Punch. 
