2 I 2 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 8, 1908. 
to get out of the house, he carried off with him. 
When he shook himself clear of the chair and 
looked round and found that the house had not 
fallen, and that the dog was perfectly quiet, 
he put on a look of utter disgust and skulked 
off into a corner of the yard where he lay down 
in a clump of weeds and remained out of sight 
till the dog was clear of the premises. 
“As a general rule he was quiet; in fact, 
mopish, but when he did break out in a play¬ 
ful mood, some of his tricks were simply ludi¬ 
crous. One day I was sitting with a friend in 
front of my house when the goat, which had 
been cutting up pranks, evidently for our 
amusement, came and lay down at my feet. 
The cutting for the stage road, which ran past 
the house about fifty feet away, had left a steep 
bank of five or six feet high; that is, the road 
was so much lower than the plot on which we 
were sitting. Presently the goat got up, and 
walking over to the edge of this bank, stood 
looking down this miniature precipice to the 
road. Suddenly he sprang into the air and 
pitched headforemost down the bank. I ran 
across, expecting to find the little brute with 
its neck broken, instead of which he was stand¬ 
ing at the bottom shaking the sand out of his 
eyes and nostrils. When he got through he 
climbed up the bank, and turning round per¬ 
formed the same act again, turning a complete 
somersault on the way down. He did this about 
half a dozen times, occasionally throwing him¬ 
self on his side and rolling down, covering him¬ 
self from head to tail with dirt and sand. 
“I allowed him the full liberty of the house; 
in fact, I could not control him, and it was this 
unlimited freedom that cost him his life. He 
was always with me in my work shop, and would 
always jump up on my bench, and stand sagely 
watching every movement I made. He had a 
great habit of picking up and chewing every¬ 
thing he came across, and one day he did this 
with one of my poisoned bird skins. He had 
taken the skin outside the house, and the first 
I knew about it was when the little fellow came 
running through the door toward me and fell 
before he quite reached me. I suspected what 
was the matter, and lifting him up poured some 
sweet oil down his throat, but he died in about 
half an hour.” 
Many years ago, just exactly when we have 
never learned, for the dates were variously 
given as from 1869 to 1871, a number of white 
goats were caught alive in the mountains near 
Deer Lodge, Montana. 
One of these animals was photographed while 
in captivity, the picture being taken on one of 
the little old-fashioned carte de vislte negatives. 
This was probably the first photograph ever 
made of an animal of this species. One of these 
prints was sent to Prof. Spencer F. Baird, then 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at 
Washington. A pencil drawing was made from 
it and about the year 1872, when the Smithsonian 
Institution received what was perhaps its first 
specimen of a white goat, the skin with this 
pencil drawing was sent to John Wallace, the 
old taxidermist in North William street, as a 
guide to show how the animal ought to be 
mounted. Previous to that the few mounted 
skins of white goats had always been put up 
with the head high in air and showing little or 
no hump. It is our impression that this mounted 
white goat is still on exhibition in the National 
Museum at Washington. 
We are able to reproduce, slightly enlarged, 
the photograph of this goat—which is said to 
have been a very large one—measuring 4Hi feet 
at the withers. The photograph we owe to the 
kindness of Hon. N. P. Langford, of St. Paul, 
Minn., who is one of the most famous of the 
early Westerners. 
In 1879 David Dobson, with two others, with 
dogs, ran a band of goats up on some peaks at 
the head of the Big Hole near where Phillips- 
burg now is and captured eight of them. The 
adult goats in their efforts to escape, killed 
themselves before very long, and the young 
ones were lost sight of after a time. In the 
early eighties there were some captive goats 
in the hands of Mr. Frank Dickson, of 
Butte City. These animals were perfectly free 
and often wandered through the forest and 
over the rocks to quite a distance from the 
house. Usually they were docile, playful and 
good natured, but at times would attack calves 
and dogs, inflicting severe and often fatal 
wounds with their sharp horns. So trouble¬ 
some did they become in this way, and so ex¬ 
pensive to their owner, that he had brass knobs 
put on their horns. 
In May, 1889, Thomas Bird killed a goat on 
Red Eagle Mountain, in Montana, and caught 
its little kid and brought it into camp. There 
happened to be a mare with a colt in camp at 
the time, and for some weeks they fed the kid 
on the mare’s milk and it seemed to be doing 
very well. However, the little thing lived only 
until June n. 
All sportsmen and naturalists will watch with 
interest the life of this little animal at the 
Zoological Park. 
From the Yellowstone Lake Shore. 
Gardiner, Mont., July 4. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The other day I saw a pine squirrel 
carrying a young one. She came close to me, 
running along a log and an old tree top and then 
up a large tree, out on to a limb where there 
was a tangled growth. There she left the young 
one and came back the same way. I waited for 
ten minutes—all the time I could spare—to see 
her bring another young one, but she did not 
return. The squirrels are very busy now steal¬ 
ing paper and other stuff to build their nests. 
I can hardly describe how the old one was 
carrying her young. At first I thought she had 
something in her mouth, but she did not hold 
it with teeth or lips. The little chap seemed to 
be curled up under the mother’s neck or throat, 
with what appeared to be its hindlegs clasped 
around the old one’s neck, but it was in such 
a very compact ball that it was quite hard to tell 
exactly how the mother had hold of it. I thought, 
perhaps, she held it by the back of its neck, and 
the way it was curled up only the hind legs 
showed. She had no trouble in running along 
logs or up the tree. The young one was back 
down and the head and tail did not show. This 
is the first time I ever saw a squirrel carrying 
its young. 
Plenty of bears are to be seen and they are. 
troublesome. Now and then I see deer. The 
large chipmunks and the small are very abund¬ 
ant, as are the pine squirrels. 
There are lots of birds, but few camp rob¬ 
bers ; Clark’s crows take their place. Several 
crested jays are about every day. Close to the 
camp there are from ten to forty gulls. Every 
day I have all the food they will eat thrown 
on the beach. As soon as they see a man start¬ 
ing out with a garbage can they- begin to come 
toward him. Even if all are at rest on the 
water they take wing and circle about, dropping 
on the shore as soon as he is twenty-five feet 
distant. They walk up on the bank picking up 
any little food that may have been thrown out. 
In very high winds and early in the morning 
they go back in the timber to feed on the gar¬ 
bage thrown out by the hotel. This is a quarter 
of a mile back from the shore. 
Robins have nests on the capitals of the 
columns of the hotel porch. I counted three 
nests there. One had a family of young and 
the old ones are very busy feeding them. We 
hear many birds singing early in the morning 
and some music even in the evening. 
T. E. H. 
[It is interesting to learn of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tain robin choosing a breeding place that has 
long been used by robins in the thickly settled 
East.— Editor.] 
Subscriptions to Montana National 
Bison Fund. 
Mr. William Barker, Jr., of Troy, has se¬ 
cured the following subscriptions to the Bison 
fund. He proposes to continue the work: 
E. R. Cary, Troy, N. Y...$1.00 
William Barker, Round Lake, N. Y. 1.00 
William Barker, 2d, Troy, N. Y. 1.00 
J. Hull Amory, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 1.00 
Z. Mead, Jr., Troy, N. Y. 1.00 
I. H. Barker, Watervliet, N. Y. 1.00 
W. B. Perry, Watervliet, N. Y. 1.00 
J. Lindsay. Watervliet, N. Y. 1.00 
C. Whitney Tillinghast, Jr., Troy, N. Y_ 1.00 
Jas. C. Curree, Troy, N. Y. 1.00 
Total .$10.00 
Residents of Missoula, Montana, have already 
subscribed over $400 toward this fund. Mr. H. 
C. Keith, of that city, is interested and active 
in the matter of raising funds for the purchase 
of the buffalo. 
Jumping Deer. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In reply to the query of a correspondent touch¬ 
ing the status of the “jumping deer” alluded to 
by your Manitoba contributor, W. H. R., in 
Forest and Stream issue of July 25, I will say 
that this is the mule deer. A fine specimen is 
in the museum of the Minnesota University at 
Minneapolis. It was obtained in the Roseau 
district of northern Minnesota in 1881, near the 
town of Hallock, which I founded. 
Chas. Hallock. 
Bird Plumage. 
The importation of plumage bill, referred to 
in another column, has been passed by the British 
House of Lords and is now before the Com¬ 
mons. It was amended to permit the importa¬ 
tion of feathers commonly used in artificial fly- 
tying. 
