June 29, 1907.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
JOI I 
in last winter, which the reporter made weigh 
htty pounds, weighed on the Crosby Company’s 
scales exactly twenty-six and one-halt pounds, 
io show the inaccuracy of newspaper reports, 
from which I think many writers get their “per¬ 
sonal observations,” an Irishman one evening 
brought me a half-starved kitten wildcat. The 
next morning I saw in the paper with' great ■ 
headlines Terrible Battle With a Wildcat. 
Last night as Mr. D. was crossing a field in 
rewer, his dog was attacked by an immense 
wildcat. Mr. D. rushed to his dog’s assist¬ 
ance, but both were on the point Of being over- 
come when fortunately Mr. Silas F. came to 
their help and the animal was ’ dispatched The 
monster weighed sixty pounds.” 
After reading the article I weighed the cat 
accurately and it weighed just eight and a quarter 
pounds, not so much as a good-sized house cat. 
It was nearly starved to death and was not to 
blame for not fighting. In order to know the 
true story I hunted up the dog and his owner. 
1 lie dog was a small, smooth-haired dog. not 
weighing over twenty pounds, and I failed to 
I find a Scratch on him. His owner said that the 
[ cat was dead when he got to the dog. The most 
: ridiculous part ’of the story was that Mr. Silas 
T 1 ., who rushed to the rescue, was a man one of 
whose legs was off at the hip and he had never 
I * e ft the load he was riding on. 
) The only case I ever heard of where either a 
|!,lynx or a wildcat “ever really attacked a man 
> was one my father told me of, when a man wear- 
mg a gray coat was following a deer in a snow¬ 
storm through a thicket. The lynx jumped down 
from a tree and bit the man’s coat on the side. 
As he was too close to use a gun the man killed 
it with his hands. Every year, however, there 
are more or less newspaper accounts of won- 
B derful escapes from being killed by lynxes or 
wildcats. I have known of a good many cases 
where both have sat in logging roads and re- 
1 fused to leave until they were either killed or 
jjdmen out. I have had several wildcats brought 
, to me that were killed with clubs or axes by 
men in my employ. In no case was there any 
fight and the cats killed were half starved Year¬ 
nings. 
j While usually the lynx travels alone, or at 
(most with two or three, I have known of -two 
cases where there was quite a large drove of 
t them. In one instance some men saw a drove 
near a camp, mostly on trees. On getting a gun 
j seven were killed and they thought that more 
; escaped. I saw the skins. All were small. 
1 1 hese lynx did not make any more fight than 
ja drove of rabbits. In another case two men 
i were crossing a piece of woods after dark, hav- 
! ng a gun and a dog with them. The dog treed 
something, and, on lighting a torch, a large lynx 
, was shot, and as fast as one was shot another 
j.was treed, which was repeated until eleven were 
j <illed. In this case they were all large, old lynx, 
j Tere were eleven large lynx against only one dog, 
| md y et they preferred to run. I have never known 
j t lynx to fight a dog unless forced to do so by 
leing pushed out of a tree or so cornered that 
; ie could not escape. It is said tfiat all things 
{ re possible, but I think that an exception should 
I ie made ; n the case of getting a lynx or a wild- 
at to fight, when he can avoid it. 
f A lynx has a long reach and sharp claws, and 
4 -f backed against anything, can often scratch a 
‘ og of poor courage so that the dog will leave; 
tit any dog of forty or fifty pounds that has 
ny grit can- kill any lynx ever made and not 
et hurt much. In proof of this, my father once 
utfitted two hunters who hunted on the Aroos- 
00k. Lynx were plentiful that year and when 
ather visited them in March they had over 
wenty. A light dog had killed nearly all of 
lent when in a trap. My father saw him kill 
everal. He would turn tail and back up to 
ie lynx. When the lynx jumped on his back 
e would wheel and catch the lynx by the 
iro’at, he seldom got scratched in killing one. 
I have been acquainted with several hundred 
j uppers, white men and Indians, and can count 
P over sixty fur hunters whom I have traveled 
1 nd camped with, among them some of the best 
j miters who ever trapped in Maine, and I have 
to hear of anyone being either bitten or 
scratched by lynx or wildcat. I have killed quite 
a number of both when in traps and they do 
not amount to anything. A lynx is the easiest 
ki led of any animal 1 know except a snowshoe 
rabbit. One or two blows with a stick an inch 
through will kill one. A wildcat is somewhat 
harder to kill, about like a house cat. Last win¬ 
ter I killed several wildcats, using a hatchet 
handle or a small stick. I should be ashamed 
to take a large club or an axe head to strike 
either with. I hese cats made no attempt to get 
at me, although two had been in the trqp but a 
short time and both were in very light traps with 
long chains, and one of them in by the hind 
foot. They just tried to get as far off as the 
chains allowed. Nevertheless, though so re¬ 
luctant to fight, lynx and wildcat will kill deer 
and sheep. 
It is a very rare thing to see a lynx in the 
woods unless treed by a dog of in a trap. They 
are the easiest to trap of any of our fur-bear- 
utg animals. As I have the exact measurements 
of several I will give those of one: Length, 
fiom nose to tip of tail, 3 feet 9 inches; from 
•\XV£ 
m. 
yJT 
4 
>y- : 
, A. ■ 
--TV 
J. 
CANADA LYNX IN TRAP. 
How great is his desire to fight can be seen by the efforts 
he has made to pull as far back as possible. 
nose to end of hind leg, 5 feet 4 inches; length 
of hind leg, 23 inches; length of tail, 4 inches. 
I am surprised to see that none of our nature 
writers make any mention of the only reason 
why lynx should be feared by man. Lynx are 
infested by a long, slender reddish flea peculiar 
to themselves, and, when carrying one on one’s 
shoulder, the fleas soon think it for their health 
to change partners. YV bile the change may be 
a benefit to the fleas, it is not pleasant for those 
carrying the lynx. 
I have heard two lynx using very profane 
language and telling each other what a fight 
there was soon to be, but I have never knowm 
two to really fight. A halfbreed friend told me 
that once, hearing two swearing at each other, 
he crept in and saw' two lynx, one of them a 
very large one, lying on their breasts a few 
feet apart, with their heads flattened out like 
domestic cats when about to fight. A bullet in¬ 
terrupted the story the largest was telling, and 
that is the nearest I ever knew of two fighting. 
T have seen w here snowshoe rabbits had fought 
like cats, and have shot them with bites and 
scratches on their necks. If house cats fight 
much their ears show proof of it. But though 
I have examined hundreds of lynx ears, and 
though lynx skins are commonly brought in fur 
side out so that any signs of fighting would be 
visible, I have never seen any signs of their 
having fought, and I think it is very rarely that 
they get their courage up to the sticking point 
so as to actually begin a fight. I consider them 
the meanest and most cowardly animal we have 
in Maine. 
Where is the Bobolink? 
Bridgeport, Conn., June 18. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Twenty years ago—or perhaps it was 
thirty—Tew birds were more common in the hay 
meadows of southern Connecticut than the bobo¬ 
link. J hey bred in great numbers, and standing 
in the road one might sometimes see at one time 
half a dozen males in the air, singing their 
rollicking lay. But for twenty years I should 
think I have not seen one of these birds in sum¬ 
mer plumage, or in any situation where I sup¬ 
posed it was at home. The few that I have seen 
have been in the yellow autumn plumage, and 
have been seen on the wet meadows, as reed 
birds, or as they are locally called, “reedies.” 
I have begun to think of the bobolink, in south¬ 
ern New England at least, as about as rare as 
the Labrador duck. 
A week or two ago, however, while walking 
through the fields in central New York, near 
the Mohawk Valley, I was astonished and de¬ 
lighted to hear and see first one, and then an¬ 
other, male bobolink. They were as beautiful 
and as full voiced as they had been long ago, 
and I greatly enjoyed seeing and hearing them. 
But what has become of the bobolinks in New 
England, and why, if they are found in the 
Mohawk \ alley, should not they be found in 
the Connecticut Valley? Is it perhaps the fact 
that for some reason they have worked back 
from the sea coast? I should like to hear some¬ 
thing on this point, from those who know about 
it —if any such there are. Ramon. 
Birds Eat Chilled Insects. 
, New York, June 14 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: A few days ago I was talking with 
one of America’s best known ornithologists about 
the extraordinary weather conditions that had 
prevailed during this spring and their effect on 
the birds. He gave me some Of his experiences 
during the spring migration, but one that he 
mentioned—especially interesting to me—was 
that during certain cold snaps which had fol¬ 
lowed periods of moderately warm weather that 
had brought out the insects, he had seen warb¬ 
lers, flycatchers and swallows sitting on the 
ground and picking up from it and eating in¬ 
sects so chilled by the cold that they could not 
fly! 
Conditions such as these, while quite unusual, 
are not of course unexampled. I have a vivid' 
memory of an occasion many years ago when 
traveling in the early morning in northern Mon¬ 
tana, I saw a "great number of cliff swallows 
walking over the ground and evidently feeding. 
When I rode over to where they were I found 
many insects chilled by t'he night’s frosts scat¬ 
tered about over the ground. This was in the 
month of July and the mud nests of the swallows 
were thickly clustered over the sides of a tall 
butte close under which our wav led us. The 
locality was on a wagon road which we were 
following from the" town of Carrol—which by 
die way no longer exists—and the little station, 
Camp Lewis, on Big Spring Fork of the Judith. 
It is many years since I have been in that pre¬ 
cise region and I do not know what the present 
names are. Observer. 
The Spring Warbler Migration. 
Cleveland, Ohio, June 10 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your correspondent Ramon may be 
interested to know that in this locality the warb¬ 
lers have been from two to three weeks later 
than usual this spring. More especially the 
black-throated blue, the black-throated green, the 
mongolian, and blackburni'an varieties. At this 
date the black poll is still lingering. I have no 
doubt the cold weather has checked their usual 
rapid flight. 
Another correspondent alludes to the fly-catch¬ 
ing habits of the cedar waxwing. I observed 
this two summers in New York State. 
John M. Coates. 
[A number of our small birds share With the 
flv-catchers the habit alluded tO 1 in the recent 
note on the cedar bird. Bluebirds, warblers, 
some woodpeckers, and even some finches make 
darts from their perches to seize insects which 
may pass close to them. —Editor ] 
