54 
permitting the killing of these splendid birds 
must necessarily open the way for all sorts of 
flagrant violations. No bird of similar size will 
be safe while the “season” is on. 
Except perhaps during its short sojourn in 
the rice fields of the south, the bobolink's ser¬ 
vices are of inestimable value of the agriculturist. 
The bird destroys many varieties of noxious 
weeds by eating their seeds. While rearing its 
young it also destroys a vast army of insects 
and grubs. Unfortunately the rice belt seems 
to be directly in the path of the bobolink’s 
migrations, and the birds arrive in the south just 
when the grain is ripening. They do consider¬ 
able damage, and it is only right that the rice 
planter should be allowed to drive them from 
his fields with the shotgun. It would seem that 
for the rice growing sections a law modeled 
after the deer and rabbit laws of some of our 
New England states would solve the problem. 
Whenever bobolinks invade a grain field the 
owner should have the right to protect his crops 
with his shotgun. The birds will eventually learn 
to shun such perilous localities, and the slaughter 
will cease. As a safeguard against such a law 
becoming a loop-hole for the market gunner, 
there should be a heavy penalty for offering 
“reedbirds” for sale in any market. 
It seems improbable, in this age of efficient 
game protection and conservation, that the pub¬ 
lic will stand by and allow one of our most 
gifted songsters to be offered up for annihila¬ 
tion. Already blacklisted in Maryland, the Dis¬ 
trict of Columbia, Virginia and South Carolina, 
it would be a shame to extend the “dead-line” 
into the bobolink’s breeding range. Let us hope 
that the sentiment against adding this charming 
In the May number of the Oregon Sportsman 
is an interesting article with this title, which 
gives some captures for that State in 1913, and 
is thus a useful contribution to the history of the 
wolf in Oregon. 
It seems more or less curious that it was only 
after the natural conditions of wolf life had 
passed away that people began to write about 
this animal. The early settlers brought over 
from the old world all sorts of traditions and 
folk beliefs about the European wolf, and these 
became so mixed up with actual observations on 
the American forms that it is often difficult to 
sift the true from the false. The story told by 
Stanley G. Jewett in the Oregon Sportsman deals 
with facts, and is thus of high interest. It gives 
a table of the number of wolves on which 
bounty has been claimed from October 1st, 19x3, 
to April 27th, 1914, and this is a splendid thing 
to have on record. 
Mr. Henry W. Shoemaker has recently written 
a more or less extended account of the wolf in 
Pennsylvania, but this is chiefly historical and 
has to do more with the people by whom the 
wolves were killed than with the habits of the 
wolves. On the other hand, in the third volume 
FOREST AND STREAM 
songster to the list of “game birds” will prove 
so strong that in a short time protection will 
be extended to the bird in all parts of the 
country, with the possible exception of the rice 
growing sections. Surely there is nothing about 
this little field songster, which would tempt the 
skill of the genuine sportsman. Imagine shoot¬ 
ing at the bird of which Mr. Frank M. Chapman, 
the noted ornithologist, says: “In June our fields 
and meadows echo with the bobolink’s ‘mad mu¬ 
sic’ as, on quivering wing, he sings in ecstasy 
to his mate on her nest in the grasses below. 
What a wonderful song it is! An irrepressible 
outburst; a flood of melody from a heart over¬ 
flowing with the joy of early summer.” 
We have a sufficient variety of true game 
birds, without recruiting from the ranks of our 
songsters. By all means accord the bobolink the 
same protection which is given to the bluebird, 
the robin and the thrush. Once weaken the bar¬ 
rier about our insectivorous birds, and most of 
our songsters will speedily be annihilated. Why 
protect some species of a family, and offer other 
species for slaughter? The proposed amend¬ 
ment should be killed. Bird lovers and sports 
men should combine to kill it. There still is 
time. Write to the department of Agriculture, 
and to your representative in Congress. Talk 
to your friends and ask them to fall in line. 
Surely the real sportsmen and the great army 
of bird lovers are stronger than the market gun¬ 
ners. The amendment will not be adopted untill 
September 1st, 1914. and if there is strong op¬ 
position it will probably be withdrawn. Rally 
to the aid of the little meadow songster, and let 
its song be your reward! 
ELMER RUSSELL GREGOR. 
of the Boone and Crocket Club books, “Trail 
and Campfire,” there are two rather long articles, 
one entitled “Wolves and Wolf Nature,” by 
George Bird Grinned, the other “On the Little 
Missouri,” by Theodore Roosevelt. Each one of 
these deals at some length with the life and 
habits of gray wolf and coyote, and the two 
present a rather full account of these animals. 
Mr. Jewett’s account of the timber wolf in 
Oregon is so interesting that we are glad to re¬ 
produce it for the benefit of a considerable por¬ 
tion of the public that may not see the Oregon 
Sportsman. 
From data now available, the range of the 
Northwestern Timber Wolf (Canis gigas) in 
Oregon is restricted to the west slope of the 
Cascade Mountains from Clackamas County on 
the north to Jackson County on the south. No 
record has been obtained of this species occur¬ 
ring east of the divide in the Cascade Mountains 
or west of the Willamette Valley. The North¬ 
western timber wolf is the only species of true 
wolf found in the State of Oregon. It should 
never be confused with the coyote, which ranges 
over the entire State. 
Mr. F. N. Robeson, of Oregon City, reports 
that he has trapped three of these wolves dur¬ 
ing the past winter and has seen a good many 
more signs of them on the headwaters of the 
Molalla River in Clackamas County. Mr. Robe¬ 
son caught these wolves in traps, using four 
traps to the set. During the early part of No¬ 
vember, Mr. Robeson saw where two wolves had 
trailed a deer down to the river. These tracks 
showed that the two wolves ran very much as 
dogs do; running close together part of the time, 
and at other times spreading apart about fifty 
yards. The wolves disappeared from that lo¬ 
cality for about five days, then returned. Mr. 
Robeson had his traps set and baited with moun¬ 
tain boomer. He caught the male wolf first and 
a few days later caug’ht the female in the same 
trap, baited with the same meat. One of these 
wolves carried the trap-drag, which was a heavy 
stick about three inches in diameter and seven 
and a half feet long, for nearly a mile. On 
February 28th, Mr. Robeson caught a third wolf 
in Section 33, Township 5 South Range 4 East, 
which was only a short distance from where he 
caught the first two. This wolf was caught in 
a set of three traps, which were baited with 
chunks of bob-cat and coyote meat. 
On February 25th, 1914, Mr. N. W. McMillen, 
of Cazadero, caught a large, black timber wolf 
near Three Links camp on the Clackamas River, 
twenty-four miles above Cazadero. In making a 
set for this wolf, Mr. McMillen tied the body 
of a rabbit about six feet up in a fir tree and 
placed two traps close together under it. One 
of these traps was well concealed, while the other 
was left partially exposed, and, of course, the 
concealed trap was the one that caught the wolf. 
The bait was hung in such a way that the wolf 
in jumping at it would cause it to swing in the 
air, thereby making it difficult for him to get a 
firm hold. Number 14 off-set jaw Newhouse 
traps were used. On March 16th a large female 
wolf was caught in the same trap, at the same 
set and with the same bait. The first wolf was 
a male, and this was probably a pair that had 
been hunting in that locality. Mr. McMillen esti¬ 
mates that there are about a dozen wolves that 
range over the territory in the vicinity of his 
winter camp, about twenty-five miles above 
Cazadero on the Clackamas River. During the 
winter he found the remains of a deer that had 
evidently been killed by wolves. The meat was 
entirely gone, nothing remaining but the bones 
and hide. 
Mr. W. L. Tison and brother, who live ten 
miles above Tiller, on Elk Creek, poisoned three 
wolves on February 15th. A band of wolves had 
killed about a dozen goats belonging to Mr. 
Jaques. Some of the meat was not eaten and 
this was poisoned with strychnine. The wolves 
returned a few days later and ate the meat. Mr. 
Tison and his, brother followed the wolf tracks 
for half a mile and found where three of the 
wolves had died. They think there were two or 
three more wolves that got away. 
The Northwestern timber wolf was first de¬ 
scribed by Townsend in the Journal of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania in 1850, from a specimen killed 
near Vancouver, Clarke County, Washington. 
There is a skull of one of these wolves in the 
U. S. National Museum at Washington that was 
taken from a wolf killed on the shores of Puget 
Sound a good many years ago. This skull, so 
The Timber Wolf in Oregon 
