Feb. io, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
171 
“She’s doin’ close to forty-five an hour, now,” 
Williams shouted across to where the front-end 
man clung to a convenient handle. “Great road 
bed, ain’t it?” 
“Whoop-ee!” yelled Bert, suddenly pointing. 
“Look at him go!” Thirty yards away the last 
rabbit fled before the swaying car, the white puff 
of his tail rising and falling, rising and falling 
in the headlight’s glare. Barely in time to avoid 
the forward trucks he turned aside with a twist¬ 
ing bound, and the Limited tore on through the 
darkness. 
New Publications. 
Home Life of the Osprey. Photographed and 
described by Clinton G. Abbott, B. A. Illus¬ 
trated by thirty-two mounted plates. $1.00. 
London, Witherby & Co. 
Uniform with the interesting books telling of 
the Home Life of the Golden Eagle, and of the 
Spoon Bill, this volume of the Osprey now 
comes to us. Clinton G. Abbott is well known 
as a writer and lecturer on birds of America 
and Britain, and here writes interestingly about 
one of our very familiar birds. I he osprey has 
often been figured as a type of honest industry 
among birds, and probably the only American 
hawk that has no enemies. Itself a fisher, it is 
regarded by fishermen as a friend. 
Along the Atlantic coast this bird is still 
abundant and in many places builds its great 
nest close to the home of man. Years ago— 
and according to Mr. Abbott, even at the 
present time—ospreys nest, or at least attempt 
to nest, each year within the city limits of New 
York. At points on Long Island and in south¬ 
ern New England and again in New Jersey and 
to the southward, the osprey still breeds in 
considerable numbers, and there is every op¬ 
portunity to study carefully the summer habits 
of the bird and to photograph it during many 
of the operations of its life. 
Of these opportunities Mr. Abbott has taken 
abundant advantage, and in conjunction with 
Howard H. Cleaves, of the Public Museum, of 
New Brighton, N. Y., he has brought together 
T HOSE who are fortunate enough to be able 
to visit the Panama Canap and who per¬ 
chance have a predilection for hunting and 
the strange freaks of nature, would find it most 
instructive and interesting to take a few side 
trips off into the jungle provinces, adjacent to 
the Canal Zone. 
In the Province of Chiroqui, the next 
Province to the canal on the north, and reached 
by Pencil steamer in six hours, is to be found 
a virgin range for shooting—deer, mountain 
cow, picori, wildcats and scores of other ani¬ 
mals, which give first-class sport to the hunter. 
The deer of Panama is about the same size as 
the antelope, that is, about three feet high at 
the shoulders and is easy to detect in the brush 
by its spotted coat. It has a short tail and pal- 
mated horns. In the dry season both buck and 
a great number of interesting facts and a beau¬ 
tiful series of photographs. These last natural¬ 
ly have to do largely with the nesting habits 
of the bird, and the photographs show nests, 
often tenanted by young, in a great variety of 
situations, on the ground, on a weather-beaten 
old rock on the beach, in marshes, on a fence 
and on a telegraph pole. At some points in 
Rhode Island, where the osprey is carefully 
protected, nesting sites are made by raising an 
old cartwheel on top of a pole to form a foun¬ 
dation for the nest. 
Attention is called to the well known habit 
of the osprey of breaking off dead branches of 
trees for nesting material, somewhat as the 
chimney swift collects its twigs for the nest, 
save that the osprey breaks the dead branches 
by grasping them with its talons. Many years 
ago a nest-building osprey was seen to do this 
in what is now Van Cortlandt Park, New York 
city, where for years a pair raised their young 
without molestation. 
Mr. Abbott’s book should be read by every 
bird lover. 
The Department of Agriculture has just issued 
a bulletin on leaves and herbs used as medicine, 
which is also a useful handbook for all outdoor 
people. Nor is this the first publication put out 
by this department on the subject of medicines, 
the others being Weeds Used as Medicine, Root 
Drugs and Medicinal Barks. 
Collectors of medicinal plants have made such 
insistent demands on the department for a guide 
in their work that a description of thirty-six 
medicinal plants, including only such as are in 
most common use, has been prepared by direc¬ 
tion of the secretary, fifteen of these being men¬ 
tioned in the Eighth Decennial Revision of the 
-U. S. Pharmacopoeia. 
Each plant is listed under the name in most 
common use, but synonymous common names, 
and the pharmacopoeial name, if any, are also 
given, that no one should have difficulty in recog¬ 
nizing the plants familiar to him, or in identify¬ 
ing an unknown one if of the series, from the 
description given. 
doe have the back, flank and thighs of a light 
brown color with numerous white spots, and in 
the wet season, or winter, these parts change in 
color to brown. The buttocks are always brown 
with a black streak, and a dark line passes along 
the back, the belly and the insides of the legs. 
The deer of Panama, or Ciervo, as the natives 
term it, is not very wild, owing probably to the 
fact that it has been hunted so little. The 
native mode of taking the deer is by stalking 
it with a lantern and knocking it on the neck 
with a machete. They only use the two horns 
and the skin, leaving the rest of the carcass to 
the wildcats and the aerial fleet of garbage re¬ 
movers of the tropics, the vultures. 
Panamanian deer are to be found during the 
wet season for the most part on the hills and 
high lands, feeding on herbs and palm scrubs 
indigenous to the tropical highlands. But in 
the dry season—from about Jan. i to April 20— 
the deer go down to the plain to feed on the 
rich pampas grass and palmetto. This is the 
season when most of the deer are killed. Ihe 
white hunter usually shoots from a cayuca or 
light skiff. The deer is very fond of the water- 
cresses which grow on the banks of the rivers, 
and, in the early morning, while it is feeding 
on this cress, the hunters drift down with the 
stream and shoot from the cayuca. Strange as 
it is, the deer invariably returns to the same 
place from which it took flight, and within an 
hour you will find him at the same spot. 
The deer of the tropics do not travel in herds 
as do some of its cousins of the North, such 
as the antelope, etc., but go in small groups of 
fours and fives, and in the rutting season, as a 
rule, one buck and three or four does. Deer in 
this climate, like everything else, are very pro¬ 
lific. The deer rut twice a year and the period 
of gestation is but eleven weeks. 
Another fine sport is the hunting of the cari¬ 
bou or mountain cow, which is to be found 
aplenty on the Isthmus; but the hunter (to use 
the vernacular) “must hit the high spots.” for 
the cow will follow the most inaccessible trails 
over the hills, and when once it takes fright, 
it will go for twenty miles before it takes a 
stand, which it does by climbing to the top of 
the loftiest crag. It is very slow to the scent 
and depends on the eye to give it warning. The 
flesh of the caribou is highly prized by the 
Spaniards and Panamanians, and is hunted 
mostly by the natives for the market of Panama 
City. The meat of the cow caribou is good all 
the year round, but that of the bull is not very 
good during the rutting season, as it has a very 
strong taste, savoring of the goat. 
The caribou of the tropics is a wonderfully 
strong swimmer and spends much of its time 
in the rivers. About sunset they will always 
go to the river and stand in the water, about 
withers deep. They undoubtedly do this to cool 
the sting of the insect bites, and to protect 
themselves from the vampire bats. The vam¬ 
pire always attacks the flank, and is capable of 
killing the yearling. While the blood-drawing 
of the bat, which is about a pint and a half, 
will not kill a full grown bull or cow, the teeth 
cause blood poisoning, and the animal shows 
all the signs of distress and wasting. It is most 
fatal to mules and horses. Unlike some other 
bats, the vampire is entirely sanguinivorous, 
and while drawing the blood from the animal it 
holds to the hide with its extremities and at the 
same time keeps fanning the victim with its wings. 
In the Canal Zone shooting clubs are very 
popular; that is, for target shooting, but as 
hunt clubs they are looked upon as huge jokes, 
and the following story is told of the hunt club 
at Torro Point, Canal Zone. 
The boys left at dawn one Sunday morning 
for a day’s hunt, accompanied by a pack, 
fifty-seven variety hounds. After a long day’s 
hunt, the hunters were rewarded by the sight 
of a deer, about a mile away, and all hands 
started in full cry. On their return home, they 
were asked what luck they had had. The hunt 
captain said they had treed a deer and almost 
lost it, because no one had an ax, but one of 
the boys climbed the palm and brought it down. 
The deer proved to be a sloth, which indicated 
the speed of a Canal Zone hunt club. 
Shooting in the Canal Zone 
By A. A. BEECROFT 
