FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 25, 1908. 
132 
specimens shows a mixture of gray, but at a 
little distance this is not visible. In the average 
specimen of Peary’s- caribou the whole head and 
legs are uniform white, while some specimens 
are nearly pure white all over. Others have a 
grayish brown mantle, which varies without ap¬ 
parent reference to sex and age from drab gray 
to drab brown. A feature of the coat in this 
species is its extreme softness and fineness, in 
comparison with any other known caribou. 
In this species the antlers seem to be directed 
more upward than in the Arctic reindeer in pro¬ 
portion to their length, and the spread of the 
antlers is much less. “According to the ex¬ 
perience of most travelers on the Arctic main¬ 
land the so-called barren ground caribou is a 
migratory animal, leaving the coast at the ap¬ 
proach of winter and moving southward in great 
• herds to return northward again in spring. 
This, however, does not appear to be the habit 
of the Grantland caribou according to Com¬ 
mander Peary’s notes on them in his ‘Nearest 
the Pole.’ ” References are given showing that 
his hunting parties found both males and fe¬ 
males commonly associated in the same herd 
both in autumn and in summer, and that in 
winter as well as in summer caribou were met 
with practically to the northern border of the 
most northern of Arctic lands. 
Spring in Manitoba. 
Carman, Man., July t8.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: We recently found some broods of 
prairie chickens and grouse in our hunting 
rounds, also some young spoonbills, mallards 
and pintail ducks, but no blue or green-winged 
teal, or partridge young or old. They are very 
scarce here. 
C. P. Forge, our taxidermist, got some eggs out 
of nests of the sandhill crane and the loon or 
great northern diver, of which he got three or 
four nests of eggs. Mr. Forge found the loons 
in isolated lakes on the tops of muskrat houses. 
I once found a wild goose nest on top of a 
muskrat house in the center of a lake of about 
seventy-five acres. It was a Canada goose. I 
did not interfere with the goose or her nest. 
The old crows around here, whose nests were 
recently robbed by crow hunters, are very busy 
again making nests, and quite a lot are laying 
eggs again. 
My son George and the other schoolboys 
recently went out to hunt crows’ eggs, and in a 
thicket of bushes a jumping deer got out and 
ran away through the prairie to the northwest 
of the town. Mr. Henry Armstrong saw a large 
bull moose on his farm only six miles northwest 
of here. It is raining hard here to-day and the 
gardens and fields are looking beautiful, and if 
no damage such as mist, frost or hail comes to 
hurt the crop, we are in for a bumper crop all 
over our province here. 
I regret to inform you that from reports from 
the farmers coming into town both grouse and 
prairie chicken are not plentiful this season. 
Quite a lot of nests were broken up owing to 
the extra large breaking of new wild prairie 
lands. The farmers say that even if they put 
the nests and eggs on the plowed ground, even 
though they fix and put the nests very carefully, 
the hen bird will not return to the nest any 
more, and so the eggs spoil. W. H. R. 
Died After Rattlesnake Bite. 
Under the title “Rattlesnake’s Bite Was 
Fatal,” the St. Augustine Evening Record, of 
June 30, contains the following item: 
While cleaning his watermelon and potato field of 
weeds and grass yesterday afternoon about 2 o’clock 
Mr. Lewis Short was struck by a rattlesnake, the wound 
being inflicted just under the knee and causing death 
in a few hours. 
Mr. Short was working the Barnard Masters place, 
some two cr three miles north of town and was accom¬ 
panied by Florence Snowden. He realized his danger 
as soon as the reptile struck him, and endeavored to 
save his life by preventing the poisoned blood from 
circulating above the knee. He made a tourniquet and 
used what crude remedies he found available. Florence 
Snowden rushed away to secure medical assistance, and 
Mrs. Snowden was also notified. She hastened to the 
stricken man and applied chickens, split in twain to 
the wound, also giving Mr. Short liberal doses of 
whisky. A physician was summoned and practically 
everything, except cutting out the flesh was tried with 
a hope of saving the man’s life. The heroic measures 
proved futile, and Mr. Short passed away at 8 o’clock 
last night. 
The facts are as stated. 
Since deaths from rattlesnake bites are un¬ 
usual and are always interesting, Dr. De Witt 
Webb, at our request, made inquiry into the 
case, and interviewed the attending physician. 
His report seems to show the causes of death 
to have been not the bite of the snake, but the 
remedy taken for the bite. Dr. Webb says: 
“The patient was bitten about two o'clock in the 
afternoon, and it was about two hours after¬ 
ward when the first physician arrived. He 
found the wound showing the marks where both 
fangs had entered below the knee over the 
tibia—shin bone—where they could have pene¬ 
trated only a little way. They had bandaged 
the leg tight above the knee, but had made no 
attempt to bleed above the wound. There was 
very little swelling and no pain, but the circu¬ 
lation was already flagging, and for very good 
reason. As soon as possible after he had re¬ 
ceived the bite, two Navy plugs of tobacco had 
been steeped, and four tea cups of the decoction 
had been given him! This, in the opinion of the 
physician, was the real cause of his death. 
Such a dose would certainly have killed any 
ordinary man. He might have died anyway 
from the bite, but from the situation of the 
wound, where the fangs could penetrate but a 
little way, and from the absence of swelling, 
it was the opinion of the physician in attend¬ 
ance that his chances of recovery might have 
been good. As it was, whisky and the injection 
of solution of permanganate of potash were 
without avail. He died within five hours after 
being bitten.” 
We are disposed to believe, with the attend¬ 
ing physician, that the patient died of tobacco 
poisoning. 
Philadelphia Zoological Society. 
The thirty-sixth annual report of the Board 
of Directors of the Zoological Society, of Phil¬ 
adelphia, shows a membership of 1,830, of which 
nearly 1,300 are life members. The attendance 
for the year amounts to 391,000, and the receipts 
for admission $34,230.10, an increase of more 
than $2,500 over the previous year. There were 
2,536 living specimens exhibited during the year, 
of which 487 are mammals, 852 birds, 1,012 
reptiles and 75 amphibians. 
I he accessions to the collections were about 
as usual. Among the animals bred were 8 lions, 
8 pumas, 1 brown bear, 3 black bears, and a 
number of ungulates. Wild turkeys, Amherst 
pheasants. Reeves pheasants, Canada geese, 
redhead ducks, mallards and black ducks were 
also bred. The health of the collections seems 
to be better than ever, and it is gratifying to 
observe that under the preventive measures 
which have been developed .since the opening 
of the laboratory of pathology, the relative mor¬ 
tality from tuberculosis, the dread disease of 
tropical animals, has been reduced to a point 
below that of the human records for Philadelphia. 
Dr. Herbert Fox’s report on the deaths and 
diseases among the collections is extremely in¬ 
teresting. 
The report closes with a list of the additions 
to the menagerie during the year ending Feb. 
29, 1908. 
On the Shores of the Arctic. 
Captains V. Stefansson and R. M. Anderson, 
who last May left Edmonton for an Arctic trip 
of exploration and survey, expect to travel east 
along the shores of the Arctic Ocean as far as 
the Coppermine River, where they will winter. 
Captain Anderson will study the birds and 
mammals of the region, and Stefansson the peo¬ 
ple, investigating especially their folk lore and 
traditions. 
Ruins of houses which extend all along the 
coast afford valuable glimpses into the past his¬ 
tory of these people, relics of a past age, in 
many cases showing traces of a higher civiliza¬ 
tion. Among other interesting things which 
have been discovered in long-since abandoned 
dwellings are included curiously inlaid pipes of 
brass and steel, evidently of ancient Chinese 
workmanship and similar to pipes at present in 
use in Chinese opium dens. It is supposed these 
were used by the natives of the North for smok¬ 
ing kzhumar, a stringy weed which answers the 
same purpose as tobacco, but for which no crav¬ 
ing is ever felt by habitues. 
Stefansson believes that long before Colum¬ 
bus or Cook set eyes on the American continent 
there was intercourse between the Eskimos and 
the natives of Asia, and that there was a regu¬ 
lar trade established betwen the two continents 
by way of the Bering Straits. 
Death of a Pronghorn in London. 
In the London Field of Feb. 8, the arrival of 
President Roosevelt’s gift to Dr. Chalmers 
Mitchell for the Zoological Society was re¬ 
corded, and in the issue of the following week 
an illustration of the small herd, from the pencil 
of Mr. Frohawk, was given. The herd has un¬ 
fortunately lost one of its members—a female, 
which recently dropped two dead fawns, and 
died two days afterward. The material will 
probably form the subject of a valuable paper 
by Mr. F. E. Beddard, the society’s prosector, 
during the next session. The survivors (a pair) 
are doing well. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
