FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 3, 1908. 
53 2 
skinning the animal that evening I had his 
stomach cut open to see what was his food. 
Imagine my surprise on seeing in his stomach 
between 500 and 600 grasshoppers and crickets 
and nothing else whatever. Is it not remark¬ 
able that this animal subsists on this food, or 
do you consider this an unusual occurrence? 
Spencer Aldrich. 
Seals in Avalon Harbor. 
In these columns a number of accounts have 
been printed concerning the seals in Catalina 
Island waters in California. They come into 
the harbor to feed, especially at night, and be¬ 
cause they are not molested, have become quite 
bold. It is not surprising, therefore, that persons 
unacquainted with the habits of these creatures 
should feel timid when they approach a boat 
closely, and it seems an incident of this sort may 
have furnished an enterprising newspaper corres¬ 
pondent with the material for a dispatch pub¬ 
lished in the papers on Monday of this week. 
We extract a part of the story: 
He had gone fishing early in the morning and returned 
to the island with twenty-two albacore. While he was at 
lunch near the wharf in his launch, half a dozen hungry 
seals appeared on the quiet surface of the bay. In a 
moment they were struggling furiously to get aboard his 
launch. 
Defending his catch with a broom handle, the Doctor 
succeeded in getting his launch to the pier, but the 
seals renewed their attack more savagely than before, 
attempting to snap his legs and arms, and trying to 
throw themselves into the launch. An old blind seal 
recently brought to Avalon from West Lake Park, Los 
Angeles, led the attack. The Doctor struck it across the 
face a dozen times before it dropped into the water. 
That the seals were actually unable to obtain 
food in their natural way is improbable, for 
Avalon Harbor swarms with fish. But the re¬ 
porter “saved” the angler at the last. 
A Long Squirrel Tooth. 
Doniphan, Mo., Sept. 26.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I am sending a clipping from the local 
paper. I saw the squirrel head mentioned. The 
tooth had already begun to puncture the skin. 
It looked like a miniature boar tusk: 
Henry Borth, who lives out on Route No. 1, stepped 
into the Prospect-News office Saturday afternoon and 
showed us a curiosity. He had the head of a common 
gray squirrel, cut from the body of one he had killed 
near his home the day before. The left incisor tooth 
in the lower jaw had grown out of the jaw at a point 
a little lower down than it should have properly done 
so that it did not touch the corresponding one in the 
upper jaw and could not be used by the animal in 
gnawing or eating its food. Being thus unhampered 
by the usual wearing proctss, the tooth grew outward 
and upward in a semi-circular form until it reached a 
length of about one and a half inches, the point touch¬ 
ing directly under the left eye, where it had worn a hole 
in the skin by the opening and closing of the squirrel’s 
jaws. It resembled a good-sized key ring, and before a 
great while must have caused the squirrel’s death, either 
by entering the skull or by making it impossible to 
secure and chew its food. 
Loch Laddie. 
A Manatee in a Net. 
Fishermen at Ocean View, Va., brought a 
manatee ashore in their seine last week and it 
will probably be sent to some museum, as it is 
a large, healthy specimen of the manatee usually 
found in Florida waters. 
Baby Rabbits. 
Red Bank, N. J., Sept. 19.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I read with interest Ramon’s article 
on baby rabbits in a late issue, but a doubt has 
disturbed me ever since. He states he found 
the nest near the surface of the ground, hence 
my doubts. Were not they hares? All the gray 
rabbits (“moll cottons” of the darkies) of my 
acquaintance bring forth their young in bur¬ 
rows twelve or eighteen inches deep at least, 
where they are born blind in a bed of down 
stripped by the doe from her breast and stomach, 
and here she suckles them until three weeks or 
a month old, when they begin to venture out 
about the mouth of the burrow and nibble grass 
blades. Their eyes, I believe, open about the 
ninth day. 
Now, the hare, of which my experience has 
been with but one species, the so-called jack 
rabbit—though the marsh hare is not uncommon 
in our State of Texas—brings forth her young 
in a nest on the surface of the ground, usually 
in a tuft of grass. It is constructed much as 
Ramon describes, of down, and is concealed by 
a covering of grass and weed stems, but her 
young are born with open eyes, as are all the 
hare family, unless my readings on the subject 
are wrong. Here she suckles them for several 
weeks until old enough to rustle for themselves. 
The last instance that I handled a jack rabbit’s 
nest was when on preliminary railway survey in 
1902. The tents and cook outfit had been sent 
ahead to make camp and when we caught up 
with them at sunset the cook called me to his 
tent. “Look-a heah, boss; what ah goan do? 
Ah step on er sofe place unner de tent en sum- 
fin squeal, en see whut ah foun’. We dun scaih 
er ole jack er-way fum yeah when we histed 
de tent,” and he raked aside the dead grass and 
gray fur, exposing four tiny pink hares whose 
legs were not yet strong enough to support 
them, only a few days old. They squealed in 
fear when touched. 
We carefully removed them and the nest to 
a safe spot outside the tent near where the old 
doe had fled. The cook said he saw her near 
by next morning when he got up, but we could 
not determine whether she found them or not'. 
We changed camp again that day and I told 
Charley to replace the nest in its old locality. 
This also answers the query of A. D. Mc- 
Candless, of Wymore, Neb., in current issue. 
P. Crosby Tucker. - 
Berlin, N. Y., Sept. 22. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The following will perhaps answer the 
question of A. D. McCandless as to how young 
rabbits are cared for by the mother: 
The doe of a pair of white rabbits kept in a 
lattice work hutch on a lawn in this town is the 
mother of nine young ones which are now only 
a few days old. An accidental step on the lawn 
near the hutch revealed their existence. The 
end of the burrow was near the surface and the 
ground gave way beneath the pressure of the 
owner’s foot. A sod was removed and the new 
born rabbits found in a nest lined with hair 
torn from the doe’s breast, and they were snugly 
covered up and tucked in with a quantity of the 
same material. There was no evidence of a 
burrow in the inclosure and close watching was 
necessary to locate it. 
The doe suckles her young at night, and in 
the early morning leaves the burrow, the en¬ 
trance to which she fills with earth so carefully 
that it cannot be discovered by a superficial in¬ 
spection. When she feeds her young she stands 
over them and they lie on their backs and suck. 
The mother keeps her young concealed until 
they are weaned and old enough to shift for 
themselves. A mountain farmer this fall dis¬ 
turbed a large family of rabbits when he cut 
his oats, and the farmer’s cat caught several 
young ones which it brought to the house. 
Rob. Saunderson. 
Skunks and Hydrophobia. 
West Point, N. Y., Sept. 22 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: Several articles have appeared in 
Forest and Stream on the carrying of skunks, 
some persons going so far as to advocate the 
carrying by the tail. The fundamental princi¬ 
ples of carrying skunks will, however, best be 
made clear by the reminder that the orifice of 
the duct which carries the effluvium is inside of 
the anus. This duct sometimes overflows in 
the natural way, in which case the odor soon 
disappears, but when the effluvium is used as 
a defense and it is ejected in a fine spray, its 
most offensive and permanent effects are ob¬ 
served. When the animal is approached and is 
about to defend itself, the tail is raised high 
with a jerk. This action gave rise to the old 
erroneous idea that the effluvium was flirted 
from the tail itself, but in reality it is done to 
erect the anus and so make clear the orifice of 
the duct. Anything which will keep the tail 
down will keep the orifice closed and so pre¬ 
vent the spray. It is possible that the weight 
of the body suspended by the tail may also keep 
the duct closed, but the struggles of the animal 
might free the duct temporarily. You may, 
therefore, carry the skunk by the tail if you 
want to, but usually you will not warrt to. 
My experience in ridding a neighborhood of 
skunks in the most odorless manner has taught 
me to catch them in the old rabbit gum or figure 
four box rabbit trap where they are suddenly 
confined by the dropping of the top before the 
tail can be raised and the skunk can safely be 
carried about in the trap and the animal drowned 
by putting trap and all in the water, with a 
weight sufficient to keep the lid down, without 
the least odor. 
It is curious to note the fearless and impu¬ 
dent expression on the skunk’s face which can 
safely be looked at through the crack between 
the lid and body of the trap. The skunk surely 
fears not God neither regards man. 
The idea prevalent on the Southwestern plains 
that there was a certain variety of skunk which 
carried hydrophobia is believed by me to be 
erroneous, as I have known of a case of the 
so-called hydrophobia skunks biting a boy three 
times at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, without the boy 
having hydrophobia, and many Comanche and 
Kiowa Indians have stated that they have known 
of many skunk bites without ever having heard 
of a case of hydrophobia from that source, al¬ 
though they have known of some cases from 
wolf bites. It is probable that those cases re¬ 
ported by Dr. Janeway, U. S. Army, in his 
monograph are individuals that have gotten 
hydrophobia from wolf bites or some similar 
source. Kiowa. 
