902 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Dec. 23, 1911. 
Alta California Notes. 
Alleghany, Cal., Dec, 10 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Recently I returned from another ex¬ 
tended trip into adjacent counties among the old 
placer camps situate upon the Big Blue Lead 
system of ancient dead river gravel channels on 
the west slope of the Sierra Nevada; a visit of 
some weeks with an old bachelor friend in an 
isolated lodge in the vast wilderness of Plumas 
county was combined with professional work, re¬ 
lieved with occasional hunting excursions and 
prospecting “hikes.” It was all like a long drawn 
out vaudeville camping-out performance, so 
varied, continuous and interesting were the ex¬ 
periences. The writing of these I shall reserve 
for some inclement day in winter. 
My mail contains half a dozen numbers of 
Forest and Stream accumulated during my ab¬ 
sence. A careful perusal of them followed the 
attention to the letters. It's like getting into 
a circle of congenial old friends, is the reading 
of the able exponent of American hunting sub¬ 
jects. I want to enter the conversation before 
the current topics get stale. 
A word as to “natatorial” squirrels: Moun¬ 
taineers tell me that the enterprising little ani¬ 
mals in their migrations do not hesitate to boldly 
plunge into the water to cross the rivers, and 
that it is sometimes a common sight, in migra¬ 
tory years, to see a dozen or more at one time 
afloat where the water is shallow, narrow and 
placid. They select spots, apparently, that mini¬ 
mize risks, and they are not venturesome navi¬ 
gators. 
I have been trying to get a line on the pas¬ 
senger pigeon subject from some former old 
residents of the middle West. When in South¬ 
ern Illinois twenty years ago I was told, by the 
pioneers, of the great flocks of passenger pigeons 
that visited the prairies, feeding on the wild 
strawberries during the summer, and then going 
into the forests of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania 
and Michigan to feed on the beech mast. I re¬ 
member seeing when I was a boy, in Detroit, 
the game dealers so overstocked with the pigeons 
that carloads had to be thrown into the river, 
the birds having spoiled. Hunters told how the 
pigeons, arriving in the forests, would settle to 
roost in the trees in such large numbers that 
their weight broke the limbs down. 
There are so-called wild pigeons in this re¬ 
gion, but they are seemingly a non-migrant dove. 
A few weeks ago I saw a flock of about 500 in 
an oak grove ten miles west of La Porte on the 
Lumpkin ridge, and I was told by residents of 
the locality that there were many other flocks, 
and that in the aggregate they were so numer¬ 
ous that they were causing an acorn famine 
among the Indians, The latter said the deer 
would also suffer this winter, as the birds were 
robbing them also of a portion of their main 
article of existence. The dove is voracious and 
can “get on the outside” of a big acorn with 
almost magical avidity. 
California is furnishing its quota of casualties 
in hunting and outing. A guide shot at a mov¬ 
ing bush, seriously wounding the two men he 
was guiding. The accident is one which needs 
no comment except that it calls for a reiteration 
of the caution to hunters to hire no guide who 
is a novice in the business, especially in Cali¬ 
fornia. The proneness of precocious young Cali¬ 
fornians to accept positions and tasks of respon¬ 
sibility, for which they have had no training or 
experience, makes them a dangerous element in 
the professions and vocations, as I have had 
cause more often than once to know. One mild 
instance a few years ago: A “guide” undertook 
to show me a mine twelve miles away from a 
camp in the northern part of Sierra county. We 
had to walk, as saddle horses were unobtain¬ 
able. The guide in an effort to be sociable and 
entertaining got to punning and joking, seem¬ 
ingly wilfully oblivious to my tactful maneuvers 
to discourage undue familiarity, however. After 
an inspection of the claim we started for the 
home camp on another route. Despite my ef¬ 
forts to keep the conversation limited to busi¬ 
ness, the native renewed his efforts in smartness 
to impress the Easterner. Finally a too personal 
remark, purely intended for mistaken cleverness, 
called for a rebuke, and it was promptly ad¬ 
ministered. When “the joke was on the other 
feller,” it was a horse of another color, and in¬ 
stead of acknowledging the corn, my guide took 
umbrage, and as I stopped to fasten a loosened 
boot lace, he increased his pace with the remark 
that if I could not walk faster I would be left 
behind. 
Darkness had fallen and we were still six miles 
from the home camp, and my guide had taken 
such an advance that after twenty minutes of 
sharp hiking I found I was unable to catch up 
to him. If he heard my calls, he ignored them. 
There I was, on a rough mountain road in a 
strange and sparsely settled country in the fall 
of the year, when storms were liable to come 
up suddenly, and with but an indefinite idea as 
to my direction, to make my way as best I could. 
The night was dark and cold, the way tortuous, 
rocky at times and steep, but I made it all right, 
an hour and a half behind my guide. His leav¬ 
ing me was told by him as a joke on me. Now, 
if that had happened in small towns in the 
Rockies, the guide would have been severely cen¬ 
sured by the community. Later this same young 
man was elected to an important public office of 
the county, and when I now recall how on our 
trip he told me that the game laws were not 
intended for observance by Californians, but for 
restriction to outsiders, I do not wonder at the 
Babylonian status of some of the laws, and the 
failure of game wardens to see to their fair en¬ 
forcement. 
The shooting of a hunter appareled in red, 
back East, is, in my opinion, an illustration of 
the unwisdom of wearing red or any color of 
clothing that is conspicuous. Neutral tints I be¬ 
lieve are best, even in fishing. Red may be all 
right for a uniform in following the hounds 
after a fox, but the chase is expected to be 
spectacular, and the costumes of the disciples 
of Nimrod and Diana are intended to add to the 
picturesqueness, but I doubt its efficacy on the 
still-hunt. While the red-appareled hunter should 
or might become conspicuous to a fellow hunter, 
he also draws attention to himself by the game, 
a feature that he wishes to avoid. Red comes 
out in bold relief to the vision of most all brute 
creation. And it may not merely serve to warn 
wild animals of the presence of a human foe, 
but also to draw an attack not only from infuri¬ 
ated bovines, but cervines, ursines and others. 
And do not place too much dependence in khaki, 
unless it is green, for it is a moving object or 
form that a deer will observe regardless of color 
sooner than a change in tint. A deer swings his 
head; his eyes take a photograph of the vista 
within his range; he swings his head back; a 
new object may have come into the vista in the 
interval of the swings; he may not have seen 
you move into it and you may be stationary, but 
he senses the fact that you have come into the 
picture since the first photograph. Then his sus¬ 
picions are aroused and he is off. The deer’s 
eyes will more often serve the cervine than his 
ears and nose. 
The old fashioned forester’s green suits that 
were worn by the German jaeger in the Schwarz- 
wald are, I think, the safest, except of course 
against any hunter who would shoot at a moving 
object without having the latter clearly in sight. 
Most all animals have a protective or conceal¬ 
ing coloring, but you seldom see one with a red 
coat, except a wild bull, and he is able to take 
care of himself should anyone or thing chal¬ 
lenge his right to wear it. 
A lobster will change his green armor for a 
red one when he gets into hot water. I speak 
literally as well as figuratively. 
And take it from the hermit of Jungletown, 
that a man who wears green while on a hunt 
need not necessarily be a greenhorn. 
Just after writing the foregoing and getting 
up to light the camp-fire for supper, two typical 
young mountaineers on black bronchos rode to 
the head of the trail leading to my shack to bid 
me welcome back and exchange the usual cour¬ 
tesies that Western men know so well how to 
executive. The descent from the bridge is only 
twenty feet, but the bronchos bucked at taking 
the steep trail, and for several minutes there was 
a scene of action that I feared might result in 
somebody getting hurt. The judicious use of 
spurs, however, made the animals attempt the 
trail, and it was finally negotiated without mis¬ 
hap. The visitors had been to town and just 
stopped in to tell me of a couple of buck deer 
that had been bagged by one of them last Fri¬ 
day, and that I was expected to be their guest 
at their shack at Moore’s Flat at a feast of veni¬ 
son with trimmings with a post prandial devo¬ 
tion to the calumet at not later than Tuesday 
afternoon. William Fitzmuggins. 
New Publications. 
Under the Roof of the Jungle, by Charles Liv¬ 
ingston Bull. Decorated from sketches and 
paintings by the author, 271 pages. Boston, 
L. C. Page & Co. 
It was in British Guiana that the artist col¬ 
lected the material and made the sketches and 
paintings that illustrate this volume, which com¬ 
prises fourteen stories of animal life, some of 
which have been published in the magazines. 
The pictures, done in the peculiar Bull style, are 
exquisite, and the narrative is pleasing. 
