Aug. 22, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
293 
Comment and Query. 
Glenmore, Essex County, N. Y., Aug. 8.— 
,* Editor Forest and Stream: Not a number of 
Forest and Stream but suggests a bunch of re¬ 
flections and questions which one would be glad 
to air in your columns. 
Your issues of July 18 and 25 have reached 
me here, and as I mark a half dozen articles 
in each, preparatory to sending them to my 
oldest boy in camp on a lake in Maine, who in 
turn will send them to my youngest boy in camp 
on a lake in New Hampshire, I am moved to 
send you a word suggested by an article in each 
number. 
Your “Notes on the Golden Eagle,” in issue 
of July 18, make me wish to hear the bald eagle 
discussed again and with special reference to 
his powers and habits as a fisherman. All are 
familiar with accounts of his forcing the osprey 
to do his fishing for him, or rather to yield to 
him the fish which the osprey has caught, and 
I myself once saw this performance skillfully 
carried out on Moosehead Lake in Maine. 
But till last summer, while in southeastern 
Alaska, I did not know of the bald eagle as 
himself a fisherman, nor yet as a bird socially 
inclined. I had always seen bald eagles in pairs 
but never before in flocks. At one place I 
counted sixteen .bald eagles circling together 
over a point on the coast, while many others 
were perched here and there on the trees along 
the shore. I am curious to know if this gather¬ 
ing in flocks is the habit of the bald eagle else¬ 
where. 
Then as to his fishing. I not infrequently saw 
one of these birds fly low r over the water and 
now and then seem to touch the surface with 
his talons, though I never saw one capture a 
fish in that way. Possibly I was too far away 
or the fish too small for me to be certain on that 
point. Once, however, I was certain that the 
capture of fish was the eagle’s purpose. The 
surface of the water for perhaps half a mile 
was disturbed by an immense school of some 
kind of small fish. Back and forth over the 
school and close to the surface flew many eagles, 
making frequent clutches at the wriggling fish 
below, but here again the deceptive distance was 
! too great for me, even with a glass, to be sure 
I of a capture in a single instance. I could not 
doubt, however, that the industry had its occas¬ 
ional reward. 
Perhaps fishing on his own account is the 
common habit of the bald eagle, and I may be 
alone in supposing it otherwise, but I hope this 
will prompt someone to say a word about it. 
L; B ’- 
In your issue of July 25, under the heading 
! of “On the Shores of the Arctic,” you comment 
on the discovery of “curiously inlaid pipes of 
brass and steel, evidently of Chinese workman¬ 
ship,” among the ruins of huts on the North 
American shores of the Arctic ocean, and the 
belief of Captain Stefansson that long before 
the time of Columbus the Eskimos had trade 
with the natives of Asia by way of the Bering 
Strait. The suggestion is given that these pipes 
{ were used in smoking a weed which answered 
the same purpose as tobacco. 
The whole affair raises the question whether 
tobacco was the gift of America to the world, 
as is commonly supposed, and if so how its use 
spread so rapidly over all the rest of the world. 
How much smoking was there in the rest of 
the world before Columbus; "and, if any, what 
different substances were smoked? 
Possibly reference to any good cyclopedia 
would settle the whole matter, but I am far 
from cyclopedias, and moreover I imagine that 
an answer to the question would have general in¬ 
terest. 
I have often wondered if Abraham, as he 
“sat in the tent door in the heat of the day,” 
and even more when he sat there, as we must 
suppose he did, in the cool of the day, knew the 
pleasure of a pipe, and I have felt that if he 
did not “the Father of the Faithful,” and prob¬ 
ably the sages of the olden time generally, missed 
something by being born so early in the history 
of the world. C. H. Ames. 
[In these latter days, too, many of the firmly 
grounded beliefs of our childhood are shat¬ 
tered, but we decline to give up those about 
tobacco, and especially the delightful legend of 
the returned commander who, having sent his 
servant for a drink and in the meantime lighted 
his pipe, was deluged with flip by the return¬ 
ing servant who, seeing smoke issuing from his 
mastdr’s mouth and nose, supposed that he must 
be on fire, and dashed the drink into his face 
to extinguish him. 
We believe that there is no evidence that 
tobacco was known in Europe until after the 
discovery of America. The first explorers found 
the Indians all smoking and greatly wondered 
at it. The herb was first brought to Europe by 
a Spanish physician who took it into Spain and 
Portugal, whence its use spread to France and 
Italy. It was introduced into England about 
1585 by Sir Francis Drake, and smoking soon 
became common there, and tobacco taverns 
sprang up in numbers. 
The priests and rulers alike opposed the use 
of tobacco. Two of the Popes threatened those 
who used it with excommunication, while the 
Moslem priests and the Sultans of Turkey pro¬ 
nounced smoking a crime, and decreed the most 
cruel death as punishment for it. In the early 
part of the seventeenth century in Russia, the 
noses of smokers were cut off. James the First, 
of England, issued a “Counterblast to Tobacco" 
in which he compared the smoke of tobacco to 
that which rises from “the pit that is bottom¬ 
less.” Nevertheless, in the face of all oppo¬ 
sition the use of tobacco in various forms be¬ 
came more and more popular, so that for many 
generations there have been men ready to join 
in the praise of 
Sublime tobacco, which from east to west 
Cheers the tar’s labor or the Turkman’s rest. 
Tobacco is grown in many lands, especially 
in warm climates, but also in Russia, and now 
in Ireland, where formerly its cultivation was 
forbidden because of possible injury to the 
interests of the colonies. 
The first known mention of the practice of 
smoking tobacco is found in the Journal of Co¬ 
lumbus during his first voyage, 1492, and reads 
thus: 
“There came, however, a principal man of the 
village and his son. with a servant. The Ad¬ 
miral conversed with them, and showed them 
much honour. They made signs respecting 
many lands and islands in those parts. The Ad ¬ 
miral thought of bringing them to the Sover¬ 
eign’s. He says that he knew not what fancy 
took them; either from fear, or owing to the 
dark night, they wanted to land. The ship was 
at the time high and dry, but, not wishing to 
make them angry, he let them go on their way, 
saying that they would return at dawn, but they 
never came back. The two Christians met with 
many people on the road going home, men and 
women with a half-burnt weed in their hands, 
being the herbs they are accustomed to smoke. 
They did not find villages on the road of more 
than five houses, all receiving them with the 
same reverence.” 
An old world origin for tobacco has been sug¬ 
gested, but we do not know that it is supported 
by any evidence. 
This leaves untouched the question of whether 
smoking was practiced in the rest of the world 
before Columbus, and if so what different sub¬ 
stances were used for smoking. 
The pipes of the Eskimo, whether of brass, 
steel, ivory or bone, are curiously suggestive 
of Chinese pipes. They are very wide at the 
top, but the orifice for the tobacco is very small, 
sometimes hardly larger than the quill from a 
fowl’s wing, and never, so far as our experi¬ 
ence goes, greater in diameter than a goose 
quill. It has been suggested that this small 
capacity of the pipe is a result of the difficulty 
of obtaining tobacco in that Northern country. 
Some of the pipes made of walrus tusks are 
wonderfully engraved with representations of 
hunting scenes.—E ditor. 
Louisiana Bird Islands. 
The annual visit of inspection to the bird 
islands of the coast of Louisiana reservation, 
which are in charge of the -Louisiana Audubon 
Society, of which Frank M. Miller is presi¬ 
dent, shows a vast number of birds breeding on 
these islands—a number which is continually in¬ 
creasing. Of these hordes, a very few are snipe¬ 
like birds, such as oyster catchers, willets and 
small plover, but by far the greater number are 
gulls and terns with a few, and only a very few, 
black-crowned night herons and snowy herons. 
Perhaps the laughing gulls are the most numer¬ 
ous birds breeding on these islands, known as 
the Breton Island reservation, but there are also 
royal and Cabot’s terns in extraordinary num¬ 
bers. Another bird very numerous is the black 
skimmer, which breeds in small colonies on the 
sand beaches of the outer keyes; also there are 
some brown pelicans and frigate birds known 
also as “man-o’-war” birds. 
Protected from man as these various species 
are, they are still always in danger from the ele¬ 
ments and from natural enemies. Not seldom 
high tides or terrible storms sweep over many of 
the nesting grounds of the colonies and destroy 
eggs and young; and on some of the islands the 
raccoons eat the eggs. Efforts have been made 
to destroy these last named vermin, but without 
complete success. 
The work done by the Louisiana Audubon So¬ 
ciety on this Breton Island reservation is one 
which is greatly to its credit. Always it has the 
backing of the National Association of Audubon 
Societies, and the joint work of the two has ac¬ 
complished great things. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
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supply you regularly. 
