FOREST AND STREAM 
June 15, 1912 
The true plan, as outlined to me by an old 
and successful man long ago, long before I had 
ceased to think as a child, is for an inexperi¬ 
enced person to hire himself out for a year or 
two, regardless of the rural wage. This amounts 
to going to school. It is getting experience at 
minimum cost. 
Heretofore this course has been followed ma n- 
ly by foreigners; not much by Americans. Re¬ 
sults are visible on every hand. Former laborers 
or tenants now own land. 
But a change seems to be at hand, and it is 
not now uncommon to see good American 
families moving into such localities as certain 
of the fruit-producing districts of the West, 
where every grown or half grown person may 
find suitable employment at immediate wages. 
Taking the country as a whole, the movement 
of population is still toward the cities, but the 
counter current, even if smaller, is becoming 
more and more significant. Upon that counter 
current—the return to the soil—rests no small 
part of the hope of the nation. 
The matter of rural loneliness, so often men¬ 
tioned by city visitors to field and forest, can¬ 
not be altogether ignored, though of less moment 
than in by-gone times. Recent improvements in 
the way of both communication and transporta¬ 
tion are doing away with this drawback or ob¬ 
jection to life in the country. 
As to lonesomeness, in the sense of depression 
or apprehension caused by solitude, there need 
be small concern felt. It is a ghost or spook 
with no reality beyond a name and an abiding 
place. It is often caused by poor newspapers 
or sensational books. It can be cured by call¬ 
ing in wholesome visitors — human or literary. 
Lonesomeness is a sort of habit, and a bad one. 
It is mental or moral dyspepsia. 
Fear is somewhat more reasonable in its 
nature, whether grounded or groundless, because 
it leads to caution. Having been a timid person 
myself when a city worker (why not confess 
it?), I used to read out-of-doors artxles with 
an eye always open for personal testimony con¬ 
cerning the safety or danger of places remote 
from centers of human population; especially 
the wilderness where wild animals exist. It was 
not hard to find such testimony, and it was a 
pleasure to observe its cheering and assuring 
nature. There seems to be a decreasing tendency 
toward romance and sensation and an increas¬ 
ing tendency toward accuracy of statement. In 
the past there have perhaps been too many per¬ 
sons going into the wilds for fame as well as 
for game. Such observers would not be likely 
to underrate their hardships nor the ferocity of 
their real or imaginary foes. But when science 
entered the forests and the waste places, a dif¬ 
ferent report was made. Science, which is both 
humble and truthful, brings stories of tran¬ 
quility, peace and safety; not that there shall 
be no more fear and no further caution, but 
the simple message that the wild creatures sel¬ 
dom or never attack man; in most places abso¬ 
lutely avoiding him. 
The writings of one fearless man (who never 
attacks and is never attacked) showed me even 
while I was of the city that the waste places 
of the whole world are comparatively safe, so 
far as evil beasts are concerned; safer, indeed, 
in a statistical sense than are the cities and 
towns in respect to human injuries. 
Once death or injury came close to me in the 
forest, but it was not in the form of a beast 
or a serpent. It was a falling tree trunk. It 
fell between two of us who were not a man’s 
length apart. It came without warning, so far 
as my ears were concerned. But the old woods¬ 
man who was my comrade, heard, saw and acted 
on the instant. His signal gave me time to 
move back a little. He was himself pinned 
down, as his foot caught in some twigs. 
After the dull crash of the heavy, half-rotten 
mass I peered over the log. “No, I'm not hurt,” 
said a cheery voice, “but please get the cant hook 
and ease the weight off my leg.” He was on his 
feet in a few minutes, entirely uninjured. He 
had been saved by a slight depression or hollow 
in the ground. 
“Do you know,” he said, “that it was lucky 
this leg and not the other one was caught? The 
other one always breaks.” And with that he 
left me, laughing as he went. But I got hold 
of his right hand and shook it before he went 
away. A brave man, surely; just like others of 
his occupation. Bravery calls for judgment as 
well as for sacrifice. 
Another tree-fall may be mentioned. An 
enormous cedar, several centuries old, but long 
dead, went down with a roar one mid-April day. 
My notebook entry says: “Early afternoon; 
clear; no wind. Daughter had just passed along 
the trail.” Indeed, the girl had passed that way 
only a few seconds (scarcely minutes) before 
the crash. She suffered no harm. 
The reason for mentioning falling trees is to 
direct attention to real forest dangers and to 
divert attention from imaginary dangers from 
animals. Danger to life and limb is not to be 
wholly escaped anywhere in the world, but in 
a statistical sense the wilderness is safer than 
the town. Falling signs, bricks and scaffolds in¬ 
flict more human injuries than falling boughs or 
-trunks. 
For years I have carefully inquired about the 
behavior of wild animals in these forests, and 
have listened to the telling of a number of 
cougar tales. But in no instance has the cougar 
begun the attack. A scientific party on a moun¬ 
tain side some time ago had occasion to send 
a man back over the trail. He met a cougar, 
which sprang to one side and disappeared. The 
animal had been on the trail for miles. The 
object of the pursuit was shown when the previ¬ 
ous camp was reached. The cougar was after 
table scraps. Snow prints told the story, told 
where the animal had found food near the cook's 
tent. 
The paragraphs of this chapter are meant to 
partially answer questions that are constantly 
and repeatedly asked. Safety of purse and 
safety of person are even in the minds of peo¬ 
ple who wish to exchange city homes for coun¬ 
try homes. Many letters reach my out-of-the- 
way cabin in the course of a year, and not a 
few persons use the two trails that enter the 
valley. But this location is not widely different 
from other places. Things are pretty much the 
same in all parts of the country. Nor is any 
rural location without a special charm of its 
own. something not easy to duplicate. 
The essential part of the rural picture is not 
the geography of the spot, nor the fertility of 
the soil, nor the purity of the water; it is the 
heart that dwells there. 
In the year 1768 White, of Selborne, wrote: 
“All nature is so full that that district produces 
the greatest variety which is the most exam¬ 
ined.’’ White's words apply to the things of 
to-day. That rural home is best where things 
arc “most examined.’’ 
[the end.] 
THE TOP RAIL. 
Of course these are not true, but the writer 
says they are funny; are they? 
* * 
The voracity of fishes is very great. A re¬ 
markable demonstration of this fact was made 
before the London Zoological Society by Dr. 
Houston in 1847 when he exhibited there the 
skeleton of an angler (Lophius piscatorius) two 
and a half feet long. Inside its stomach was the 
skeleton of a codfish {Gadus morhua) two feet 
long, within whose stomach again was contained 
the skeletons of two whiting (Gadus merlangus) 
of the ordinary size, while inside the respective 
stomachs of each of these fish lay numerous half- 
digested bones of little fishes, which were, how¬ 
ever, too small and too comminuted for it to be 
possible to identify the species to which they be¬ 
longed. 
* * * 
A more recent example of the voracity of 
fishes was cited not long ago by a Tribune cor¬ 
respondent who set forth that about a year ago 
last October, Prof. Adam Bigsel, of Harvard, 
went to Cuttyhunk to fish for bass. While he 
was engaged in making a cast from the rocks 
there, he chanced to observe a mallard duck 
(Anas boschas) with its brood, swimming about. 
Suddenly as he looked, a large bass (Microptcrus 
salmoides) jumped up, grabbed and quickly swal¬ 
lowed one of the ducklings. Shortly afterward 
this fish was taken by the professor, after an 
exciting play that would have interested good 
old Izaak Walton. He took the captured fish 
home with him and placed it in a large tank for 
observation and study. About six weeks later 
he discovered a duck swimming about on the 
surface water of the tank. The bass had evi¬ 
dently coughed up, the duck having so increased 
in size by feeding on the fish’s roe that it was 
impossible for her to keep it down any longer. 
The mallard fattened up very quickly, and 
being kept under close observation, the professor 
soon saw it in the very act of disgorging a lot 
of bass fry that had developed from the roe 
eaten by the duck during its remarkable im¬ 
prisonment. 
The president of the New York Fish and Game 
Association has been able to purchase of Prof. 
Bigsel the tank with its contents and it has been 
placed on view, as Exhibit A, at the Sportsman’s 
Club, where it is naturally attracting much atten¬ 
tion on the part of members and those fortunate 
enough to obtain cards of admission. 
Grizzly King. 
