AY 4, I907.I 
seen the tracks of their following the 
her. 
■st it seem impossible that a fisher should 
k a deer I may cite an instance. Some 
i s ago, when I was at Lewey Ketchum’s camp 
jjahmakanta Lake, Lewey showed me a place 
e a game track ran along under the side 
long, high ledge. He said that once when 
; was snow on the ground he saw where a 
; buck had been brought down by some 
ial leaping upon him from the ledge. There 
much blood on the snow and the buck had 
11 several times. Then he had cuffed the 
ure with his forefoot and thrown him off 
ided so badly that it dragged itself off into 
first hiding place. Lewey studied the signs 
determined that it was a fisher which had 
■erately tackled a large buck and had come 
near making an end of him. I have known 
; where they had succeeded in killing deer. 
Manly Hardy. 
Frogs Catching Birds. 
:w York, April 22. — Editor Forest and 
! i m: Your recent letters on this subject have 
ested me. Large bullfrogs are, in my opin- 
more destructive to waterfowl than most 
le have any idea of. 
■ring the summers of 1904 and 1905 a large bull- 
made his home right in front of Stag Lodge 
ag Lake, and became so tame that he could 
andled and picked up by anyone. When 
:ed on the back lie would grunt like a child, 
f he had to go through regular performances 
i 1 there was company. One of the frog’s fore 
i was gone and nothing but a stumpy arm 
ined by which he could always be identified. 
; were losing a number of young ducks and 
1 cions were directed against this bullfrog, but 
e had been a pet, we did not want to kill 
and in order to make him harmless took 
1 across the lake and liberated him nearly a 
ij mile from his old haunts only to find him 
ng for us at his old stand the next morn- 
He thereupon was taken overland to a 
pond hole over a quarter of a mile from 
ake, but he again turned up within fortv- 
i hours. Owing to his crippled arm there 
jl 1 not be a mistake as to correct identifica- 
He was shot by my youngest boy while in 
ct of swallowing a young duck a full month 
■ nd which was the runt of the brood. Frog 
1 duck raised such a commotion off shore 
1 it was noticed from the lawn, and when 
j tht in it was found that the frog had head 
j neck and the uppar part of body swallowed 
[ his mouth. 
another time I have seen a bullfrog turn 
1 ables on a snake, getting a neck hold and 
ming across the brook with the snake wrigg- 
1 and squirming. 
1 dng to the hard rocky shores of Stag Lake 
the almost total absence of soft swampy 
s, we have but a few frogs comparatively, 
;ince we have the proof of their destructive 
j 5 the boys keep them down by shooting them 
j small rifles. We also go out in canoes on 
I 1'ffht nights, and scoop them up with a 
| ig net. This is lots of fun and it takes 
j to do it successfully. The large frogs are 
j ,( 1 by their booming calls and carefully ap- 
1 bed from a side so that the reflection of 
tght of the .moon on the water makes it 
j to see their heads among some lily leaves 
xt to a rock or stump, 
j night three one evening and placed them in 
: ’ell under the seat of a fishing boat alive. 
'! lex t day there was a great hurrah when the 
i brought in one of the frogs, the largest of 
1 10, which had swallowed one of his com- 
ns > only the hind feet sticking out of the 
r [ r his. mouth. T caught hold of the two 
;i n ° by lifting the frogs off the floor of the 
and shaking them vigorously the smaller 
\vas pulled out of the other’s mouth alive. 
When dropped both frop-s went in different 
10ns in five , foot bounds apparently nreatly 
■j I am satisfied that bullfrogs are respon- 
u ^ OSc; a ^ ar ff e percentage of our 
1 ducks each season. 
1 Justus von Lengf.rke. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Passenger Pigeons. 
W. B. Mershon, one of Forest and Stream’s 
well known contributors, has taken so deep an 
interest in the fate of the wild pigeon that he 
has spent a great deal of time during recent 
years in collecting such material as would throw 
light on the subject. This material he has com¬ 
piled and it is now available to the public in 
book form. “The Passenger Pigeon,’’ a volume 
of 225 pages, may be had of the publishers, the 
Outing Publishing Company, New York city. 
Air. Mershon holds the belief that these birds 
were exterminated gradually. “Many theories,’’ 
he says, “have been advanced to account for the 
disappearance of the wild pigeons, among them 
that their migration may have been overwhelmed 
by some cyclonic disturbance of the atmosphere 
which destroyed their myriads at one blow. The 
big ‘nesting’ of 1878 in Michigan was undoubt¬ 
edly the last large migration, but the pigeons 
continued to nest infrequently in Michigan and 
the north for several years after that, and until 
as late as 1886 they were trapped for market or 
trap shooting. Therefore the pigeons did not 
become extinct in a day; nor did one tremendous 
catastrophe wipe them from the face of the earth. 
I hey gradually became fewer and existed for 
twenty years or more after the date set as that 
of the final extermination.’’ 
Aside from Air. Alershon's own testimony he 
has incorporated that of the following persons: 
Alexander Wilson, Audubon, Cooper, Chief 
Pokagon, Alajor Bendire, William Brewster, 
Prof. Roney, E. T. Alartin, Sullivan Cook, C. 
H. Ames, Robert Ridgway, John Burroughs, G. 
E. Atkinson, Ruthven Deane and Dr. Gibbs. The 
frontispiece is a beautiful plate in colors, done 
by Louis A. Fuertes, showing the male and fe¬ 
male passenger pigeons. Those of our readers 
to whom the story of the one-time abundance of 
pigeons does not seem like a myth will find much 
in Air. Alershon’s book to pleasfe and entertain 
them, and not the least are the old pictures that 
are reproduced to show how the passenger pig¬ 
eons were netted and made ready for shipment 
to market. 
upper specimen, passenger pigeon ( Ectopistes migratoria). 
lower specimen, mourning dove ( Zenaidura marroitra ). 
Frequently mistaken for Passenger Pigeon. 
Courtesy of Outing Pub. Co. 
