412 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 12, 1908. 
tuition of the dangers of the open field, as each 
year we find more nests in the rabbit brush un¬ 
der the wire fences. Both bobwhite and the 
mountain quail are learning also that a certain 
protection is accorded them when they locate 
their nests near the farm buildings. I have 
known of several instances where they have laid 
their eggs in hens’ nests. 
We have no open season for quail here, and 
the law is rigidly observed by the residents, but 
travelers along the roads in the fall kill great 
numbers, as the unsuspecting birds appear in 
flocks closely around the camp grounds. 
The Arkansas flycatcher is a regular summer 
resident here in increasing numbers, and he is a 
valiant protector of all feathered life; in fact, he 
has made life so miserable for the hawks that we 
used to have in great numbers that I have been 
unable to find a nest of these birds this season. 
As I do not know that I have rightly named this 
bird, I will give a description of him: Upper 
parts of body, head, neck and upper part of 
breast olive gray; belly yellow; tail square and 
black with outer feathers white; dark line from 
eye to mouth. 
The brown thrush that in Eastern States build 
their nests in the thickets and brush piles, here 
select a location about fifteen feet from the 
ground in a tangle of grape vines clinging to a 
cottonwood tree. 
The mocking bird, our leading song bird, 
which sings incessantly throughout the day and 
night during the nesting period, build their nests 
in the orchard trees and sometimes fifty feet 
from the ground in the cottonwoods. 
d hat non-aggressive, careless bird, the turtle 
dove, indifferently selects a place for its nest on 
the ground, or on an exposed limb of a tree, and 
the eggs in the last contingent are often shaken 
out of the nest by the wind or destroyed by 
predatory birds. They make no effort to protect 
themselves or nests. I have often been aggra¬ 
vated by seeing these doves driven from their 
nests by the smallest of the feathered tribe. 
F. T. Webber. 
Black Snake and Mocking Bird. 
Alma, Ark., Aug. 17. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Ed Neal and his sister. Miss Jesse 
Neal, of Alma, tell a strange story and vouch 
for the truth of it. They have been spending 
the past month with their father, Mr. Younger 
Neal, at their old home in the country near 
Alma, and one day last week they were out 
driving when they saw in the road in front of 
them a large snake of the kind known as coach 
whip. 
Stopping the horse in order to kill the snake 
they discovered that a pair of mockingbirds were 
flying at and striking the reptile with their beaks 
first from one side of the road and then from 
the other. They watched the battle, as they call 
it, for something like a half hour, when the snake 
entirely ceased to attempt to avoid the angry 
onslaughts of the enraged songsters. 
Ed Neal got out of the buggy, and going to 
the scene of conflict found that the snake’s head 
was almost severed from its body. The neck 
just back of the head was cut down to the skin 
on its throat and when he picked it up the head 
fell down limp. The snake was dead. It meas¬ 
ured five and one-half feet, and seemingly had 
just swallowed a half grown rabbit, which was 
in the stomach, undigested. 
I do not remember to have ever read or heard 
of anything like this and have always looked 
upon the mockingbird as one of the most timid 
of birds. There are many of them in this coun¬ 
try, and they build their nests and rear their 
young every winter. For several years a pair 
have built their nest in the writer’s yard, select¬ 
ing some vines that grow on and are supported 
by a yard fence not twenty feet from the parlor 
windows and almost in reach of the end of a 
porch. They do not seem to fear the occu¬ 
pants of the house, and one of them sings con¬ 
stantly. At night through May and June the 
song begins with the setting of the sun and ends 
only with its rising. The male bird finishes the 
music and he imitates every bird in the place 
where he lives. Even the piping of the quails 
in the meadow is so nearly imitated that only 
the most careful listening will discover the 
deception. A near neighbor has guinea fowls 
and their clack is imitated to a nicety. But 
when all is quiet and the Southern moon bathes 
the world in his soft seductive light, it is then 
that this king of songsters is at his best, when 
from very excess of happiness he pours out his 
soul in song while his demure little mate sits in 
her vine-covered nest and listens to this lover 
of hers as he sings and sings. He will perch 
in an elm that shades the nest, from this he 
goes near by to a maple, and not content to 
remain in one place, away he flies up and up, 
singing as he rises, to pitch all at once down to 
the ground, and perhaps away to an old fence 
and back again. How he can do this night after 
night and never weary is one of the mysteries 
of nature and one of the evidences of the effects 
of the love that was implanted in the heart of 
His creatures by the great Creator to the end 
that they might multiply and replenish the earth. 
J. E. Loudon. 
Wild Pigeons—Snake Bite Cure. 
St. Augustine, Fla., Aug. 2 7.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: While in Franklin, N. C., on re¬ 
turning from a climb to the summit of Cowee 
Bald, I am certain I saw a pair of passenger 
pigeons in flight; something I had not seen for 
many a year. I do'not think I could have been 
mistaken. They were quite near. 
I was told while in these mountains of the 
Cherokee Indians’ cure for the bite of a rattle¬ 
snake which is at once so common sense and 
scientific as to merit a widespread acceptance. 
Its common sense lies in the fact that the victim 
has or ought to have the necessary implement 
always at hand, there need not be an instant’s 
delay, and that it is the scientific plan goes 
without saying because it carries away the poison 
at once. 
1 he Indian at once when bitten drawing his 
knife, pinched up the part bitten and cut it out, 
then seeking the nearest stream—not often very 
far away—plunged the leg in the running water 
and kept it there until all bleeding had ceased, 
and as my informant—an old man—told me, sel¬ 
dom suffered any ill effects. 
Usually, as we know, no physician can be 
reached or reliable remedy had until the case 
is too far gone for any effort to avail, but with 
a knife, and if not a running stream, water 
enough to keep the wound well washed and the 
blood flowing, I believe there would be fewer 
deaths following rattlesnake bites. 
DeWitt Webb. 
Deformed Buffalo. 
We often see accounts of monstrosities sui 
as six-legged cats and two-headed calves, b 
cases are rare when such extraordinary frea 
of nature live long after birth, and still mo 
seldom do they reach maturity. Nevertheless 
story is told by the Kiowa Indians that one 
long ago, on the head of the North Fork of tl 
Red River in the Panhandle of Texas, one of tl 
tribe killed an adult buffalo cow with two head 
Both heads were perfectly developed. The 
were horns on both. So far as the Indian 
story goes there is no reason for thinking th 
both heads did not take part in furnishing sust 
nance to the animal. 
When the Kiowas killed this cow they coi 
sidered it so mysterious that they were afra 
of it and did not take the meat, but left it lyir 
there on the prairie. As has been explained 
earlier issues of Forest and Stream, the san 
feeling existed about white buffalo among son- 
tribes of Indians. 
The man who had killed the cow at once begj 
to signal with his robe to other Kiowas wf 
were in sight to come up and see what he ha 
killed, and after all had looked at it and di 
cussed the matter they went away and left i 
In 1867 Small Eyes, a Blackfoot who ha 
come down from the North and joined the Ar; 
pahoes and lived with them, told Black Kettle, 
Cheyenne in George Bent’s lodge, about ha' 
ing killed, between the Cimarron and Beavf 
Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of tl 
Canadian, a buffalo* bull which had only one hini 
leg. According to Small Eyes’ story it did m 
appear that the bull had lost one of its hin 
legs, but rather that it never had had more tha 
one. The hind leg was very large, seemed t 
be in the middle of its body instead of at on 
side, and there was no sign of any missing lef 
It looked as if the two hind legs, which th 
buffalo ordinarily has, had been in some wa 
fused together. 
The war party with which Small Eyes wa 
traveling was passing along near a hollow whe 
the bull came up out of it and some of the me 
ran ahead, got around it and shot it with a gut 
It was not able to run fast, but rather hobble 
along. G. B. G. 
Bees in Cornice of House. 
Olcott Beach, N. Y., Sept. 4 .—Editor Fores 
and Stream: I read with much interest Mr 
Lyons’ article, “1 railing Wild Bees,” in you 
last week’s issue. 
I showed it to my daughter and she said tha 
a colony of bees had located in the attic of Dr 
Kittenger (a neighbor of ours) and they ha< 
taken forty or fifty pounds of honey from it 
I met Dr. Kittenger yesterday and asked hin 
about it. He said the bees were in the cornici 
of the house and that a Mr. Pattison had taker 
out about sixty pounds of honey and that then 
was more that he could not get at. 
About sixty-five years ago I distinctly remem 
ber (as I had an ocular (?) demonstration 
from one of the occupants) a colony of bee; 
was found in a large pine tree on my father’s: 
farm in Theresa, Jefferson county. Father wa: 
also a doctor. The tree was cut down between 
two working days, hence the old adage, “The 
better the day the better the deed” applies, and 
a half dozen pails of dark comb honey taken. 
J. L. Davison. 
