July 6, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
11 
The moose came with a rush, and gave us a 
lively few seconds. Tom lost his head and 
begged me to shoot at them, one and all, back¬ 
ing desperately away with his paddle and 
trembling with fright. As a matter of fact the 
animals, two of which were bulls, had horns 
about the size of a buck. Most of that night 
Tom sat on the bank of the lake blowing 
terrific blasts from his horn until finally we told 
him as discreetly as possible that we thought 
he ought to rest from his exertions. 
Now this prolonged digression from the 
subject in hand was started to show that a great 
many sportsmen must enjoy being bossed by 
filthy breeds and they must like to eat dirt and 
camp in dirt, for a short time at least. If they 
didn’t, there would be several Indians missing 
around Lake Edward. Haven’t we all noticed 
greenhorns in the woods who were dirtier and 
slacker in their habits than the guides who 
were with them. As Leacock says, in his 
“Literary Lapses”: “Men are only animals 
anyway. They like to get out in the woods and 
growl round at night and feel something bite 
them.” That is all very well, but it is poor fun 
on an extended trip. 
I met an Englishman up there. He said he 
could only stand it five days. The temptation 
to commite murder was too great and he had to 
leave. This gentleman was over here especially 
after moose, and he had hunted in India and 
traveled extensively in the Soudan. He was 
perfectly astonished at the filth and laziness he 
encountered. 
Now, of course, an Englishman expects, as 
a rule, a little more than he can even get in 
this country, but it seems to me it is up to our 
sportsmen to set a little higher standard, to 
boss, to a certain extent, their own outfits, and 
to insist on a measure of order and cleanliness. 
Perhaps it is the short vacation sportsman 
who doesn't care to make trouble, and often 
doesn't know good from bad that lowers the 
standard. In a way you cannot blame him. He 
is out for two weeks and he must make the 
most of it. He will have a “good time” at any cost. 
Leacock says: “They (the sportsmen) get 
back to the city dead fagged for want of sleep, 
sogged with alcohol, bitten brown by the bush 
flies, trampled on by moose and chased through 
the brush by bears and skunks—and they have 
the nerve to say that they like it.” There is 
some truth in this. 
The Rowley Bros., of Lake Edward, told 
me, and still tell me that Joe, who left us on 
the Rat River, was one of their best hunters 
and always got lots of moose. They seemed 
surprised that no brotherly affection had been 
wasted between us, and here another trouble 
suggests itself—the great American moose in 
the calling season is apt to breed a type of 
hunter that knows it is just as well to sit in 
camp and let the game walk in, as it is to go 
foraging for it. This is unfortunate. Too many 
moose are killed by merely chance encounters, 
practically by accident. 
Personally, I would rather have a moose- 
less trip with a willing crew than a sixty-mile 
trip with Joe or any of his ilk, but I may be 
hippy on this point. 
In a place like Lake Edward the trip is 
gauged entirely by the spread of the head you 
get. If it is forty inches you have had a 
medium trip; if sixty, a fine one, etc. No 
attention whatever is given to contributing 
causes. 
I think again that this state of affairs has 
been brought about mostly by American 
sportsmen bound on ten-day trips, with full 
rations of whiskey and the characteristic atti¬ 
tude of not wishing to find fault. Add to this 
the petting and perhaps bribing of men who, 
unlike the best type of Maine and Adirondack 
white guide, must be kept on a less intimate 
footing, and you have the inevitable result. 
Now, I do not doubt that if we had allowed 
the pampered and rum-fed Joe to sleep in the 
morning and look carefully after his own 
stomach, we should have seen more moose and 
got a larger trophy. Would we have had a 
more enjoyable trip? I do not think so. 
Zoological Expedition to Altai Mountain Region 
T PIROUGH the liberality of a friend, the 
Smithsonian Institution will be enabled to 
participate in a zoological expedition to the 
Altai Mountain region of the Siberian-Mon- 
golian border, Central Asia, an exceedingly in¬ 
teresting territory, from which the United States 
National Museum at present has no collections. 
Ned Hollister, assistant curator of the National 
Museum, will represent the institution and make 
a general collection of the birds and mammals. 
He will have as a field assistant Conrad Kain, 
of Vienna, Austria, a noted Alpine guide. The 
party has gone direct to London, whence the 
field will be reached by way of St. Petersburg 
By RALEIGH RAINES 
and the Siberian railway. The scene of the sur¬ 
vey and exploration, the Altai Mountain region, 
is a particularly wild country and quite unset¬ 
tled, although it is well stocked with game, and 
especially rich in its fauna. These mountains 
are inhabited by the largest of the wild sheep, 
which with the ibex will form the principal big- 
game animals sought by the party, but a com¬ 
plete and general collection of smaller mammals 
and birds will also be made. At present it is the 
expectation of the party to remain in the field 
for four months, hunting and collecting, return¬ 
ing to the United States next October. 
Another Smithsonian expedition is now 
under way for Borneo, under the direction of 
H. C. Raven, who will make a collection of 
vertebrates and ethnological material for the 
National Museum. The field work will be car¬ 
ried on in East Dutch Borneo, the natural his¬ 
tory of which is practically unknown. Nothing 
relating to it has been published, and there are 
no collections from this region in the United 
States, although the National Museum has a 
few specimens from the west and south coasts 
of Borneo. . It is understood that a friend of 
the institution is also financing this expedition, 
which is fortunate in having this opportunity to 
study a country which is practically unknown to 
