]\Iarch 6, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
373 
stand in this medium that I have ever known. 
I have heard the Indians themselves admit that 
he was one of tlie few individuals who used 
it correctly and fluently, while in Garrick Mal- 
lery’s paper on the sign language in the first 
annual report, Bureau of Ethnology, Tendoi is 
frequently cited as authority, and several pic¬ 
tures of him appear. 
One day as he sat looking at the mountains he 
pointed to an isolated fir tree and said he re¬ 
membered when he was a child it looked just 
the same; it had not changed. When the white 
men dressed like Indians, had long hair, painted 
their faces and wore eagle feathers, and the 
Blackfeet came and fought with the Shoshones, 
that tree stood there just the same. 
I had a copy of Lewis and Clark and some¬ 
times asked Tendoi his opinion on certain pas¬ 
sages. It will be remembered that these travel¬ 
ers were deterred from taking the southern 
route largely by the Shoshone account of the 
fierceness of the Broken Moccasins, a people 
who lived in holes in the mountains within seven 
days’ journey to the southwest, and who would 
certainly destroy them, and I made inquiry in 
regard to this. Tendoi said he had never seen 
the Broken Moccasins, nor had any of the living 
Indians ever seen them. They had been dead 
a long time. He had heard the old people tell 
of them, but thought thej' had perished in a 
great flood—or the flood—I do not know which 
he meant—but I gathered that they were a purely 
mythical race. If they had existed in 1805, Ten¬ 
doi, who was born about twenty years later, 
should certainly have been able to give a more 
definite account of them, or at least should have 
known some old man who had seen them. He 
stated explicitly that the Broken Moccasins were 
not the Bannacks nor any other tribe that exists 
to-day. They were distinct from all these. 
De Cost Smith, 
[to be concluded.] 
The Cat Island Project. 
Florence Vill.a, Fla., Feb. 21.- — Editor Forest 
and Stream: We had been informed that there 
was one claimant to one hundred acres on Cat 
Island, whose claim was clearly worthless before 
the law. But now we find that there are three 
such and living on the island at that. The prob¬ 
lem of the disposal of their claims or ejecting 
them would be very serious and unpleasant. 
Under these circumstances I feel that it is 
wise to drop the undertaking of the proposed 
purchase of the island. 
This does not mean at all that we may not 
hope in some other way to accomplish the main 
purpose of protecting the great host of migra¬ 
tory shore birds and waterfowl which pass by 
the island and its environs. When the title has 
been cleared it may be possible to add the island 
to the Audubon Reservation under the protec¬ 
tion of the warden. 
I trust that our effort, through calling atten¬ 
tion of the friends of the birds to this neglected 
spot, may result in more adequate legislation, 
especially to abolish spring shooting in Missis¬ 
sippi, and thus in other ways prove not to 
have been in vain. Herbert K. Job. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any nezvsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
The American Museum Bird Groups. 
On Thursday, Feb. 25, a reception was held 
at the .'\merican Museum of Natural History to 
give the first private view of the new bird 
groups which for some time have been in course 
of preparation for the public eye. The museum 
has long been gathering material for these 
groups and has spent large sums of money, and 
for eight years has sent out expeditions to col¬ 
lect the needed specimens. 
Each group of birds is mounted among the 
surroundings of its natural home. The painted 
backgrounds of the cases blend insensibly into 
the actual objects in the cases, with the result 
that the observer, looking into the case, sees 
apparently a group of living birds in their native 
haunts with all the surroundings of their wild 
and undisturbed life. Each group of birds is 
by itself, and is shown in its own surroundings. 
Just how these groups appear will be recog¬ 
nized by many readers of Forest and Stream 
who, within the past few months, have seen on 
the front cover of the paper photographs of the 
groups. Such are the wild turkeys, sandhill 
cranes, a group of prairie chickens dancing, or 
a collection of desert birds living amid the flora 
of the desert. There are groups of terns, skim¬ 
mers, oyster catchers and plovers, gulls and 
rails, with many others. 
An interesting picture is the nest of a duck 
hawk, representing the old breeding place on 
the Palisades, where for many years a pair of 
these birds have been known to nest. Another 
very interesting case is a representation of the 
Hackensack meadows. Here the grass and reeds 
are full of birds; gallinules, rails, grebes, bobo¬ 
links, red-winged blackbirds and woodducks. 
The case of the turkeys stands near this one, 
and not far off are groups of herons, water tur¬ 
keys, sandhill cranes and the brown pelicans of 
Pelican Island. 
All the accessories of each group are modeled 
with extreme care, the foliage being in wax and 
made by taking plaster casts of the actual plants. 
High art is shown in the painting of the back¬ 
grounds of the cases, for it is quite impossible 
in many instances to tell where the contents of 
the case ends and the background begins. 
Readers of Forest and Stream within reach 
of the American jMuseum of Natural History 
should not fail to inspect the wonders here 
thrown open to the public, and those too far off 
to reach the museum may profitably study the 
representations of these groups which have ap¬ 
peared in Forest and Stream. The wonderful 
exhibition here shown is due to the energy and 
careful thought of the director of the museum. 
Dr. H. C. Bumpus, to Frank Chapman, the ac¬ 
complished curator of ornithology, and to J. D. 
Figgins, chief of the department of preparation. 
They have prepared a wonderful educational ex¬ 
hibit as well as one of great beauty. 
One of these groups is pictured c® the cover 
of this issue. 
Spring Visitors. 
Milhurst, N. J., Feb. 27 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: While strolling around through the 
woods and the swamps last Saturday and Sun¬ 
day I found the spathes of the skunk cabbage 
as well developed as they generally are by the 
latter part of March; also I found well devel¬ 
oped leaves of marsh marigold and white helle¬ 
bore, and many bushes along the brooks and 
in the swamps were well budded for this time 
of the year; among these was the alder. 
I have seen and have heard the notes of the 
robins, bluebirds, song sparrows, redwing and 
the crow blackbirds. Their presence and the 
sweet spring notes of our feathered migrants 
cheer the nature lover. They seem to revive 
one’s spirits and make him feel again that life 
is really worth living. I also saw two cardinals 
and a buzzard; the latter is seldom seen in this 
section much earlier than the first of April. 
By what I have observed and what I have 
learned from farmers, woodchoppers and local 
gunners, rabbits and gray squirrels are more 
than ordinarily numerous, but all speak of the 
scarcity of quail. In my wandering I myself 
have come across but two flocks, one of seven 
or eight and the other of some ten birds. Par¬ 
tridges or pheasants there are none. 
In going through both copses and heavily tim¬ 
bered tracts of chestnut trees I noted that a 
great many of them are either dead or dying, 
caused by a kind of blight. I find that trees in 
all conditions of growth and environment seem 
to be affected—old, young, seedlings, sprouts, 
trees standing alone, in thick woods, in groups, 
or among other species all seem to he affected 
by it. In chipping the bark with pocket axe or 
knife I found that the blight affects the inner 
bark and cambium, killing the wood in places, 
then spreading, until it surrounds the branch or 
trunk. With some it affects only the branches, 
with others the trunk, but the tree that is af¬ 
fected anywhere soon dies and a great loss it 
must be in both an aesthetic and a commercial 
sense if this goes on unchecked. Farmers and 
woodsmen think that all of the chestnut trees 
throughout this section are doomed, since there 
seems to be no way of checking the disease. 
I find that it does not affect any other species 
of tree except the chestnut. A. L. L. 
Capture of a Whale. 
Raleigh, N. C., Feb. 27 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Last week a fin-back whale went 
ashore at Cape Lookout, near Beaufort, and 
Curator Brimley and Mr. Adickes, of the State 
Museum, went there to get the skeleton. There 
is one skeleton of a sperm whale, taken near 
the same place thirty-five years ago, now in the 
museum, this being complete, and the neiv 
skeleton will be placed in another room. Its 
length is forty-six feet. The whale ran ashore, 
the water being very deep close in, and got 
upon a sand ledge. Two weeks before another 
one met the same fate at the same point, but 
the museum people were not notified of the 
fact in time. F. A. Olds. 
An Elk Described. 
In 1773 a fine young elk was exhibited in New 
York at sixpence for a grown person and three¬ 
pence for a child. The advertisement stated 
that it is “an animal hardly before seen in this 
city, his colors are gray, yellow and black, he 
is twelve hands high, his horns are two feet 
long, hoof like a cow, his back like a deer and 
hind parts like a horse. He is well worthy the 
attention of all lovers of natural history and 
every other curious person.” 
