Sept. 29, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
493 
The latter were both from the State of New 
Hampshire, and one of them, Bennet, was a re¬ 
markably good and succesful shot, very muscular, 
and noted for his adventures with and killing of 
grizzly bears. The latter were quite plentiful 
then in mountain regions about the Santa Clara 
Valley, in a region now taken up wholly by set¬ 
tlements, from which the grizzlies have been 
pretty effectually eliminated. 
“In the early days grizzlies were very plenti¬ 
ful about the valleys in the State, and John Bid- 
weli, an early settler in the Sacramento Valley, 
gives frequent mention of them in his diary, lately 
published, and of often seeing from eight to ten 
in a single day. These grizzly monarchs, once so 
fierce and tenacious and disputants of the regions 
they inhabited, are now but rarely seen, except¬ 
ing in menageries or parks, where they humbly 
accept peanuts and sweets from well-protected 
visitors. 
"Elk have entirely disappeared, and deer are 
restricted to comparatively limited ranges. An¬ 
telope,- once so plentiful, are about gone. It was 
not uncommon in those early days to see large 
bands of elk frequently, and deer were so plenti¬ 
ful as to occasion cessation at times from shoot¬ 
ing by the party I accompanied, from inability to 
transport to Alviso, the shipping station to San 
Francisco. 
“Our system comprised three pack mules, 
carrying six deer, and required two days for the 
trip, one day to Alviso, and one for return. 
These trips were taken by the hunters in se¬ 
quence, in which I took part. I remained with 
this party for three months until the shooting 
season ended. When it terminated I had a small 
pot of money as my share, which constituted my 
commencement capital for the business of my 
life, and I had the pleasure at a later period of 
making a gift of $25,000 to my elder brother, 
whose wants were greater than mine.” 
Returning to San Francisco, he met the cap¬ 
tain of a ship just returned from the East In¬ 
dies, who had several hundred canary birds on 
board which young Whitney purchased, together 
with their bamboo cages, these he sold at a profit. 
“Somewhat with the air of a capitalist,” he 
says, “I then proposed to the market-man whom 
I had had dealings with in game that I should 
associate with him in his branching out in a more 
extensive business; that he should attend to the 
business in the city and I would go up to the 
alluvial lands in the bay, at the estuaries of the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers where they 
debouched out over the flat tule lands, a great 
field for aquatic birds and salmon, and supply 
him with such products for sale. He was a 
pretty clever business man, but intemperate and 
inclined to various dissipations which put me on 
guard, but he was willing, so we engaged. 
“Although the game season was practically 
over, no laws existed for preservation—or at 
least were not regarded—and eatable birds of all 
kinds were freely sold. Salmon were running, 
and were extensively seined by Italians and other 
fishermen, and a miscellaneous lot of fishes were 
netted, and birds were plentiful. I purchased 
and forwarded freely, and my man seemed cap¬ 
able of getting away with all I sent him, and 
generally at large profits. Salmon at times were 
so plentiful that I would occasionally buy them 
at ten or fifteen cents apiece and the city markets 
would become so glutted that the sales would 
be slow at five cents a pound, though the retail 
price would be a bit, or twelve cents. 
“One day I met a Scotchman looking for em¬ 
ployment who claimed he was an adept at smok¬ 
ing salmon, and could at a moderate expense put 
up a smoking-plant. I engaged him and pro¬ 
ceeded in this line, to great advantage, as it 
opened a market in the mines where fresh sal¬ 
mon could not reach; but others soon caught 
on, and on a more extensive scale than mine, 
and selling prices fell off. In fact, the business, 
of my associate began to diminish in profits, and 
considering his habits, as prosperity seemed to in¬ 
crease his extravagances, I concluded to pull out, 
which I succeeded in doing with my full share 
of profits, which augmented my capital consider¬ 
ably. I concluded to retire and return to Boston 
by the Nicaragua route, where I arrived after a 
stay of a little less than a year in California. 
“I established my residence in Boston for a 
series of years, though I made five round trips 
to California before i860, and have since made 
those journeys over a score of times, besides 
eighteen round trips across the Atlantic to 
Europe. I crossed the great plains from the 
Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains four 
times from 1865 to 1867, before the completion 
of a railroad there. 
“After my return from California I found a 
great difficulty in reconciling myself to the quiet 
of town life, however much the necessity existed 
for application to business pursuits, as my incli¬ 
nations were strongly for adventurous ramblings. 
Always a constant reader, I found quite percept¬ 
ibly to myself that my tendency was directed 
largely to the perusal of sporting articles, which 
conflicted with my resolutions to follow business 
affairs. This determined me to give up entirely 
the perusal of books treating of sporting and ad¬ 
venturous affairs, which inflamed my imagination 
with longings, and for several years adhered 
strictly to this resolution. 
“In 1858 I made in the winter an excursion in 
Maine to the Rangeley Lakes near the Canada 
line, which set a color upon my sporting horizon 
which has never been effaced, and since that 
period I have never failed, amid the cares of 
an active business life, to visit that region an¬ 
nually. Those trips at times have been difficult 
to arrange when I have been absent in distant 
places, but I have not failed in some month of 
each year since 1858 to rendezvous at the Range- 
leys for from one to four and six months.” 
It was in San Francisco that Mr. Whitney 
made the acquaintance of Edwin Booth and saw 
his father, Junius Brutus Booth, playing the last 
engagement of his life at the American Theater. 
Later on he again met Edwin Booth in Boston, 
and there made the acquaintance of Edwin's wife, 
mother, sister and his brothers, Joseph and John 
Wilkes. All those mentioned save John, together 
with Walter M. Brackett, the famous artist, and 
his wife and family, went to Lake Umbagog in 
New Hampshire. Of Edwin Booth Mr. Whitney 
relates the following anecdote: 
“In fishing he would exhibit the impetuosity of 
a Petruchio, and this cost me several rods, which 
broke into smithereens over small trout. He got 
in one day from a neighboring town a new fairly 
good bamboo fly rod, which I assisted him in set¬ 
ting up, arranging the reel and line and pliable 
soaked leader, and left him afterwards noosing 
on a scarlet ibis. The rod was lying on the din¬ 
ing-room table. I was no sooner out of the 
rooms on the porch, when I heard a tremendous 
rumpus in the dining-room, and entering found 
Booth flying about the room like a madman. He 
had left his fly hanging over the side of the 
table, which the half-grown family cat present, 
seeing, struck at with its paw, which the sharp 
hook caught in, and the frightened cat bolted 
under the table with rapid speed, breaking the 
rod tip and dragging the rod after, while Booth, 
crying “scat, cat,” had no effect on the now 
crazed feline, which he was following after in 
great excitement at high pressure with adjec¬ 
tives of singular note. The sequel of this was 
the escape of the cat with the gaudy fly well 
hooked in its foot, and a well smashed-up rod. 
I was too much convulsed, with the others drawn 
in by the commotion, to render any aid, and 
Booth soon joined in with our laughter, confess¬ 
ing that his fishing experience was a failure, and 
that he would not have any. more of it.” 
The Rangeley Lakes in Maine early attracted 
our sportsman’s attention. But unlike many of 
his fellow-sportsmen of to-day. he was fond of 
winter camps and hunting. As he says: 
“The method of camping out was very simple, 
and consisted of breaking up primarily the snow 
crust over a space of ten feet by seven, in a 
sheltered place where firewood was favorable, 
and then shovelling out the loose snow with 
snowshoes to within a foot or two of the bottom. 
Then a good mattress of hemlock boughs is laid 
unon the soft bottom snow, and a supply of dry 
pine and green birch or maple wood secured at 
the side of the pit, and a fire made at the end 
braced up against a good-sized log of green wood. 
“Then comes the change of footwear, and the 
three pairs of woolen socks worn in snowshoeing, 
if wet, are hung up to dry, where they will with¬ 
out scorching, and then comes the delicious 
supper of broiled bird or venison or fish, with 
which the larder may be supplied. Melted snow 
supplies the water for tea, without lacteal or 
saccharine addition, and ye gods! what feasts 
can fie taken in a comfortable snow pit by one 
who loves that sort of thing, with healthful rest, 
so gratifying to the fatigued hunter after a day’s 
tramp. Then perhaps a fragant pipe, sweeter 
than can be had amid the haunts of men, away 
and alone in the beautiful and enchanting forest. 
I liink of it: No bells, or buzzing street cars; 
no evening papers, or postman; no notices of 
servants quittance, or leaking pipes, discussion 
of gas bills or electrict lights; no engagements 
for next evening—all away and forgotten, as one 
reclines upon the fragrant boughs, and watches 
the ascending smoke and sparks rising through 
the overhanging tree limbs toward the twinkling 
stars. Perhaps it may be stormy; then a shelter 
overhead of a few sticks and boughs, and the 
home grows more fascinating in change than 
when the sky is clear, so soul filling and rap¬ 
turous that, in excess of joy, I have been inclined 
to leave it and roll in the snow and cry out in 
very fulness of heart, and as I look now nearly 
half a century backward, my soul swells again 
to fulness, and the recollection drives away the 
forcing cares which unbidden would prevail. 
Happy days were those, perhaps the happiest of 
any.” 
"In the autumn of 1865 I made another trip 
across the plains to Colorado and back. This 
time I proposed to go through the buffalo- coun¬ 
try by the Smoky River route, a hundred miles 
or more south of the stage line, and, having two 
friends who accompanied me, we bought at the 
Missouri River a stout pair of mules, with a wagon 
and saddle-horses, calculating to join a caravan of 
prairie schooners for protection, and to be a 
month or more on the road. In the wagon we 
carried bedding, provisions and necessary articles. 
Our object in taking this route and going in this 
manner was to avail ourselves of buffalo and 
other hunting, of which we had abundance. From 
the Missouri River caravans were departing 
daily, and we had no difficulty in connecting our¬ 
selves with one. 
“We had not proceeded many days before we 
came into the buffalo range, and struck the flank 
of an immense herd proceeding northward, from 
which several were killed for use of the caravan. 
The following day we were in the midst of im¬ 
mense numbers stretched over the plains in all 
directions. A marvellous sight, one which would 
impress an observer with the belief that it would 
hardly be possible to have such numbers ex¬ 
terminated in the brief space of a few years. The 
building of the Union Pacific and the Kansas 
Pacific railroads sealed the doom of the buffalo. 
With the invasion of thousands of hunters 
brought upon the buffalo grounds by these rail¬ 
roads, who sought no more than the skins of the 
slain as their reward, who found the buffalo 
defenseless, without shelter from attack, and of 
too slow and cumbrous action to escape, it is 
not surprising that they soon disappeared.” 
[to be concluded.] 
A Nebraska Bird Leaflet. 
Chief Warden George L. Carter, of Nebraska, 
has sent out to the school boys of the State a 
leaflet of the law relating to insectivorous birds, 
and giving these reasons why they should not be 
killed: Because our laws forbid it. Because 
they are of no use when dead. Because nobody 
has a right to take the life of any animal except 
for food or self protection. Because they are 
harmless and have a right to live. Because it is 
cowardly to kill them when they trust us, and 
gather about us to cheer us with their song. Be¬ 
cause they act as a police force in keeping things 
in nature balanced. Because they are objects of 
study and no other animal could take their place. 
Because in their instincts, migrations, nest build¬ 
ing, food habits, and distribution they symbolize 
the perfection of the Divine school of life. Be¬ 
cause it is estimated by the best authority we 
have, that during the stay of the birds in Ne¬ 
braska each season they destroy more than three 
million bushels of noxious worms and insects. 
Think of the consequences if the birds were all 
exterminated. 
