FOREST AND STREAM. 
979 
j 
Dec. 19, 1908.] 
Missouri Rattlesnakes. 
1 Doniphan, Mo., Dec. 5.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have read in the columns of Forest 
and Stream articles referring to the deadly 
rattlesnakes of Florida. In our hill countries 
we have a few, but in the swamps east of us 
the large diamond-back fellows can be found, 
probably not the equal in numbers of his Florida 
brothers, but certainly in size they are fully as 
large. The rattlesnakes of the bottoms are not 
much in evidence during the high water stages 
of summer and fall, but as the land begins to 
dry out at the first approach of the autumn sea¬ 
son, it is not unusual to see them everywhere. 
During the high water they confine themselves 
to the numerous knolls that are covered with 
blackberry and green briar vines where they 
neither molest anyone nor are sufficiently in 
evidence to cause attacks from men. 
I never knew of anyone being bitten by one, 
but in this I am only drawing on my limited 
knowledge. The Missouri mule—that animal 
which no one seems to have ever seen dead—on 
one occasion I saw succumb in five hours after 
being struck by a diamond rattler. He stepped 
on one on an old logging road and was struck 
a few inches above the hoof. The snake was 
dispatched. It carried fourteen rattles. The 
body of the reptile was split open lengthwise 
and bound with the flesh side over the wound. 
This was supposed to be an infallible cure, but 
in an hour’s time inflammation was so great 
that the local veterinary was sent for. His 
treatment consisted of injections around the 
!' wound of permanganate of potash and internal 
doses of strychnia sulphate, but none of this 
helped stop the deadly poison that a few 
hours afterward brought the animal s spirit to 
the mule heaven. 
During the drouth spells of the last few years 
I have met with many diamond-back rattlers, 
some carrying as many as twenty-two rattles. 
Often they sound the note of alarm, but fie- 
i quently I have seen them coiled ready to attack 
anything in reach and no noise came from their 
music box. So I agree with one of your cor¬ 
respondents that the warning noise is not to be 
depended on. 
I once had a small pointer bitch struck in the 
shoulder by a rattler that had nineteen rattles. 
He was lying stretched out on a wooden bridge 
that spanned Cane Creek. The bitch attacked 
the reptile and in return received its fangs full 
in her shoulder. She let out a yelp and I ran 
forward and shot the big fellow whose enorm¬ 
ous circumference led me to believe—as I after¬ 
ward found out—had been indulging in a swamp 
rabbit feast. The bitch was paralyzed with fear 
at first. I carried her to her kennel about one- 
half a mile away, using all the antidotes I could 
imagine. The whole front of her was badly 
swollen, but next morning she was none the 
worse for the experience. 
The city girl is supposed to become frightened 
at any kind of a snake, but a city girl who was 
visiting showed herself to be made of the right 
stuff when with an axe she dispatched one of 
seventeen rattles which my three-year-old boy 
discovered near the wood pile and brought her 
to see it as an object of curiosity. This city 
girl was not overcome by her deed, but rather 
astonished me when she hung it on a tree head 
downward and politely requested me to skin it 
so she could have it made into a belt. Though 
disliking the task extremely, I could not shrink 
from the task after her display of pluck. The 
hide was afterward stuffed with cornmeal, and 
what the fair one has done with it I do not 
know. 
The negroes in the swamps save every snake 
they kill. My astonishment was often great to 
see on many occasions negroes bring large rat¬ 
tlers home, their heads tied to a strip of hickory 
bark and their long bodies trailing the dust. 
Upon inquiry I found that they rendered out 
the snakes for the “ile,” which was good for 
earache, toothache and rheumatism. If it pos¬ 
sesses this virtue, so far I have never had cour¬ 
age to test its value. Loch Laddie. 
Central Illinois Game. 
Charleston, Coles County, Ill., Dec. 8 .— Editor 
Forest and Stream: Hunting in this vicinity is 
tolerably good under efficient game protection. 
Nov. 22 .Charles Horton was out for a day’s 
rabbit hunting and bagged sixteen. John Cart¬ 
wright, On the 23d, bagged nine, and on the 24th 
ten, 25th six, 26th six rabbits and a few quail. 
Nov. 26 Justin and Rush Hart were out for 
a hunt and bagged sixteen rabbits and ten quail. 
Dec. 5 Isaac Sampson and Justin Hart were out 
for a day’s hunting and bagged sixteen rabbits 
and thirty-four quail, the largest that I heard 
of last week. 
The hunters report rabbits very numerous this 
winter. Quail are tolerably plenty. There were 
a great many squirrels here in the fall. Deer 
and turkeys are of the past. There are some 
few pheasants left and they are quite wild. 
J. B. D. 
A Reporter Dog. 
Seattle, Wash., Dec. 1.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: As I understand that the trait of “re¬ 
porting” in bird dogs is rare, I trust the follow¬ 
ing may be of interest: 
I have a place at East Sound on Orca Island, 
in Washington, where my wife and I usually 
spend the month of October quail hunting. We 
have the California mountain quail and the Bob 
White, also a few Chinese pheasants and a few 
deer. Arthur Langel, of this place, has an Irish 
setter, Betsy by name, between three and four 
years old. Betsy is a wide ranger, and as the 
country about East Sound is much broken and 
covered with brush and fern, she is out of sight 
a good part of the time when working. When 
she locates a covey of birds at a distance she 
will leave them and return until she is within 
sight of her master and lie down to show that 
she has game located. If she is not followed 
at once she will come closer and lie down again. 
If she is followed she will lead the way to the 
birds, turning her head to see if her master is 
coming, and will work up as close as she can 
without flushing them, making a point and hold¬ 
ing it long enough to show where the birds are. 
Then she will usually back out of her point 
and circle out beyond the birds and wait for 
them to be flushed, and watch for the ones that 
drop when they are shot at. 
Perhaps an instance will illustrate more fully: 
In the latter part of October of this year I was 
hunting one afternoon with my wife and Wes¬ 
ley Langel, a brother of Arthur’s. We had 
Betsy, her daughter Lucy and my dog, an Eng¬ 
lish setter. We were working out a large field 
which has a slight rise in the center. The dogs 
were well ahead and Betsy went out of sight 
over the rise. She was gone about three minutes 
when she returned to the top of the rise and 
lay down. Wesley said, “She has some birds 
for us.” We followed her, sending Lucy with 
her and calling my dog to heel. Betsy took us 
a distance of about three hundred yards and 
came to a point, Lucy backing her. Betsy 
then backed out of her point and circled out 
beyond the birds and lay down, Lucy mean¬ 
while holding her point. We flushed the birds, 
but only killed one of them. 
Betsy repeated the performance later the same 
day, but in the second instance we saw her find 
the birds and leave them to come back to us 
at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile. I 
attribute this habit to the fact that her master 
when breaking her never insisted on her hold¬ 
ing a point for any length of time, but punished 
her severely for flushing birds. Of course she 
would be useless to anyone who did not know 
her ways, but for that country I would not ask 
for a better dog. Harding M. Gow. 
Passenger Pigeons. 
Topeka, Kan., Dec. 5 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Business matters calling me to the 
southern part of the State of Kansas, at the 
city of Winfield, I became acquainted with N. 
Wortman, of Oxford postoffice, Cowley county, 
Kansas, a responsible farmer, who grew to man¬ 
hood in northern Indiana, and served in an In¬ 
diana regiment in the Civil War from 1862 to 
1865. 
In conversation he stated he “had never seen 
the ‘wild pigeon’ from the time he left Indiana 
in 1866 until the 14th or 15th of November, this 
fall, when a flock of 250 to 300 lighted in his 
orchard on the bottom land of the Arkansas 
River valley, twelve miles southwest of Win¬ 
field. He called his wife and children to wit¬ 
ness the long lost birds, which fed beneath the 
apple trees for an hour or two and then de¬ 
parted down the river valley.” 
In reply to my questions he said, “There could 
be no mistake about it, for my home in Indiana 
was within twelve miles of a big roost and I 
helped trap and net hundreds of them in In¬ 
diana, and those in my orchard were within 100 
yards of me, and I had no shells for my breech¬ 
loader, or I would have shot some of them and 
had them mounted. My wife had seen thou¬ 
sands of them in Indiana, and when I called to 
her to look in the apple trees, her first words 
were, ‘Where did the wild pigeons come from? 
They’re the first I’ve seen since we left In¬ 
diana.’ ” 
Can it be possible that some remnants of the 
species have survived and are breeding in un¬ 
known portions of Arkansas or the Indian Ter¬ 
ritory? There are many square miles about the 
headwaters of the Cassetot River in Arkansas 
and in the Kiomeche Mountain region along the 
river of the same name that lie in Oklahoma and 
Texas that are only visited by hunters in the 
winter time where the passenger pigeon could 
live and their existence would never be known, 
and the few remaining may there have. their 
homes, as this visit to a Kansas orchard is too 
well authenticated to be doubted by 
W. F. Rightmire. 
