494 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 29, 1906. 
The Black Squirrel. 
It is always a matter of regret to see any 
beautiful game bird or animal totally annihi¬ 
lated. And it is for this reason I write a word 
of warning. 
The big northern jet black squirrel, once so 
common, has no living representatives now out¬ 
side of a very small part of the Province of 
Ontario, and they are so very scarce that after 
a year’s advertising I could only get three pairs. 
Some years ago I recognized the fact that they 
were becoming extinct, so I gathered a few pairs 
together and bred some sixty odd pair, but un¬ 
fortunately my neighbor’s stable got on fire and 
the smoke” from it smothered the whole lot. This 
was in June, 1900. Since then I have found it 
almost impossible to> gather a few together for 
the reason that there are hardly any left. _ Now 
the reasons are not far to seek for their dis¬ 
appearance. In the first place the large timber 
has been cut down and there is no place for them 
to retreat. Then the nut bearing trees have been 
cleared away. The perpetual shooting has so 
frightened them that they are unable to breed; 
and that pest, the little red squirrel, has a vicious 
habit of castrating them. 
The above means have so reduced the most 
beautiful of all the squirrel family that unless 
some one who cares for them comes to their 
aid there will soon be no more. 
The large jet black squirrel is such a lover of 
home that once domiciled he will stay around 
like a tame pigeon, and they are possessed of 
such non-combative habits that many will live in 
the same box placed in a large tree together. 
As many of the readers of Forest and Stream 
must live in Ontario and some of them must 
own bush land, I would adivse them to wake up 
and save from extinction this beautiful game 
animal before it is too late. G. H. Corsan. 
Balmy Beach, Toronto. 
Hawaiian Sharks as Man Eaters. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your correspondent “F. A. L. ’ inquires if I 
have actually seen a person bitten by a shark. 
No, I am glad to say I have not, but I am firmly 
convinced that our man-eating sharks live up to 
their reputation. I have no desire to test the 
question, nor would F. A. L., if he had caught 
as many of these terrible monsters as it has been 
my good fortune. Even here we have people 
(new comers) who doubt the credibility of man- 
eating sharks. One of this class accompanied me 
on a trip. He scoffed the idea beforehand, but 
came home convinced that they were not to be 
trifled with. This particular trip we captured 
during the night three huge sharks, ranging be¬ 
tween twelve and fourteen feet. Their jaws, 
when propped open, revealed an opening that a 
man could pass through without touching the 
teeth. Upper and lower, jaw were set with three 
rows of teeth, sharp as a razor, and no buzz saw 
could do' cleaner execution. While they are 
plunging, thrashing and biting in their death 
throes alongside a yacht on a dark night, illu¬ 
minating the waters with phosphorescence by 
their struggling, they appear to be magnified, and 
the curtain of night lends its aid in making the 
scene one long to be remembered and the writh¬ 
ing monster dreaded. 
Some years ago I was living at a seaport about 
ninety miles from Honolulu. One day a boat 
from a coasting schooner, lying about a quarter 
of a mile from the shore, got adrift and went 
sailing down the wind. When the sailors ob¬ 
served what had happened, they ran aft and 
jumped overboard and swam toward the run¬ 
away tender. One, two. three and four jumped 
into the water, disappeared for a moment and 
then the kanakas! heads appeared. We could 
only count three heads swimming to the boat. 
Where was the fourth ? They were all excellent 
swimmers and we wondered what had happened. 
The three men climbed aboard the boat and 
rowed back. They were some time rowing about 
the schooner in an aimless way and then came 
ashore. They told the sad story of the loss of 
their mate. They had seen bloody water near 
the schooner and an enormous shark swimming 
about. So, unconsciously, I had really seen a 
man jump into a shark’s mouth. Evidently, 
the men jumping into the water attracted the 
shark's attention and he took the last man as he 
hit the water. 
For many years there was a one-armed native 
working at odd jobs about the wharves. One day 
I inquired of a native friend how the man be¬ 
came maimed. “Mano,” was his significant reply. 
This is the word for shark in the Hawaiian 
language.' The man had been a great diver. One 
day he and a companion were diving for squid 
near the reef. A shark attacked him, and as he 
tried with his outstretched arm to shove him¬ 
self clear of the monster, his arm was bitten off 
nearly up to his shoulder. 
There is an old native living not far from me 
who got the worst of an encounter with a shark 
and lost a huge piece of one of his buttocks. I 
have often heard the natives telling the story and 
have no doubt of its being authentic. 
A island schooner was capsized in the channel. 
The schooner's boat was cut adrift, but was 
bottom side up. The native crew and a white 
skipper clung for hours to the last hope they had. 
The skipper, while in the water endeavoring to 
right the boat, had both legs bitten off by a 
shark. Although he was gotten on the boat 
again he soon expired from loss of blood. 
To my mind there is no question that certain 
sharks will eat humans. I don’t think they are 
exactly lying awake nights watching for a man, 
but one will make a supper on a goat, horse, 
seagull, dead or alive, if he is hungry and these 
temptations come his way. But sharks are not 
always hungry. One day I was drifting off the 
island in a yacht and the weather was very 
clear. We noticed a large shark swimming under 
the boat about twenty feet below. With nothing 
else to do we set out to capture the fellow. Bait¬ 
ing a hook with half a chicken, loaf of bread 
and a ham bone, all tied on the hook with marlin, 
we lowered the attractive morsel right in front 
of his nose. All stood ready to take a quick 
turn around the bitts when he made off. Well, 
this unappreciative monster refused to notice it 
even when we lowered ff on his nose and care¬ 
fully slacked it down over his nose within easy 
reach of his mouth. Soon he slipped away into 
the blue depths. Then another came. It seemed 
to us they enjoyed the shadow the yacht made. 
Again we tried, but with the same luck as with 
the first. I had never seen a shark before re¬ 
fuse anything in the eatable line. 
From what I have written one might get the 
impression that our waters were alive with man- 
eating sharks. One might go sailing about our 
islands for a week without seeing one. There 
are cases where people have been hours in the 
waters of our channels without being molested 
by sharks. A case happened a fe»v weeks ago 
where a half-cast was drifting in 'he Molokai 
channel from nine o’clock one morning until two 
A. M. the next morning. He was entirely sub¬ 
merged, with the exception of his head, being 
floated by a couple of oars from the capsized 
boat he had been in. He was carried over twenty 
miles by the current during the interval. There 
are many more cases like this which are authen¬ 
tic. In fact, the prowess, fearlessness, and ability 
of the Hawaiian in the water is simply marvelous 
and he is without a peer. Albert Delmar. 
Honot ulc, August IS. 
Some Common Insects. 
BY CLARENCE M. WEED. 
IV.—Crickets, Katydids and Walking Sticks. 
The grasshoppers belong to the great order 
called Orthoptera. because of the straightness 
of their wings. This order includes also the 
crickets, cockroaches, katydids, walking sticks 
and mantids. Of those members of the order 
commonly found in the United States, the walk¬ 
ing sticks are among the most interesting. 
These curious creatures will at once be recog¬ 
nized, even by persons seeing them for the first 
time, for their common name is at once sug¬ 
gested by their form. The long, slender, 
cylindrical body, with the loosely fitting legs 
and antennae, remind one of a twig or bit of 
stick. This resemblance is so striking that one 
is likely seldom to find a walking stick by merely 
looking for it, though often one can get them 
by beating branches over an open inverted um¬ 
brella. 
The body is two or three inches long, the 
A SECTION OF THE JAWS. 
Of this formidable exhibit Mr. Delmar writes: "This row of teeth is from a 12-ft. shark. Run the edge 
of a tooth along some paper and you will note It cuts through several thicknesses, showing its sharpness. 
