376 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 5, la¬ 
ment, and though I grabbed my gun they got 
away, owing to the simple fact that it was un¬ 
loaded. Following the good old rule, I had left 
the loading until required, but on this occasion 
it was a bit late. I found, on looking at my 
watch, that I had slept for nearly two hours. 
On another occasion I practiced this method 
and the big cock turkey that I had my eye on 
was very slow in approaching me. Food was 
fairly plentiful and the old fellow was making 
very poor progress. I had waited for over 
three hours and was getting very tired and 
thirsty, as the day was extremely hot. Still the 
turkey was fully 200 yards off. However, I 
wanted him badly and the only way to get him 
was by waiting patiently until he came close 
enough for me to shoot him. Then, to my dis¬ 
gust, he was beginning to stray off his line and 
to be going in a direction that would not bring 
him closer than one hundred yards to me. I 
was cursing his contrariness and wondering 
whether he had caught a sight of me when I 
looked round—as I did at intervals—to see if 
my horse—tied up at a fence half a mile back 
—was safe, and as I looked I could hardly be¬ 
lieve my eyes. Right beside me were three tur¬ 
keys—two old ones and a full grown youngster. 
They had evidently dropped into the paddock 
after I had hidden and had been feeding, un¬ 
conscious of danger, beside me for some time. 
They were only about thirty yards off and they 
were quite unsuspicious of any trouble. All 
three were fine birds, so abandoning my original 
quarry I quietly slipped the cartridges into my 
gun and jumped to my feet. It was a nice right 
and left. The right brought down the young 
one who turned out one of the best birds I 
ever ate and the left accounted for the old male. 
The turkey is usually roasted, much in the same 
style as the domestic bird. But it is an improvement 
if it is wrapped around with sheep suet first. 
The flesh is dark and slightly aromatic, but if 
rightly cooked the flavor is excellent. A fat 
bird, weighing say twenty pounds, makes a splen¬ 
did dish. Unfortunately the turkey is steadily 
becoming less numerous over most of the com¬ 
monwealth. Australis. 
[The “brush turkey,” the hunting of which is 
described by an Australian correspondent, is not 
a turkey at all, though in Australia it is gen¬ 
erally called turkey. A related species found in 
Western New Guinea and other neighboring 
islands is also called turkey. 
These birds belong to that group of galli¬ 
naceous birds known as mound builders, or 
megapodes. They are large birds with enor¬ 
mously strong and large legs, long tails and 
some of them possess fleshy wattles or carun¬ 
cles on the more or less naked head or neck. 
The more or less naked skin of the head and 
neck may be of various colors—blue, red, yellow, 
purple or gray. 
The megapodes are placed between the curas- 
sows on the one hand and the true quails on the 
other by British naturalists, the true quails being 
all old world birds. The megapodes spend their 
lives chiefly on the ground, in valleys, among 
thickets or in open country or on gravelly and 
sandy beaches. They usually live near water. 
They are swift of foot, and as a rule take wing 
only when closely pursued. Their food consists 
of seeds, berries and other fruit; worms, snails, 
insects and even crabs. But the most extraordi¬ 
nary thing about these birds is that they deposit 
their eggs sometimes in mounds of decaying 
vegetable matter and soil which they themselves 
heap up, or sometimes in holes which they them¬ 
selves scratch in sandy ground.. The eggs when 
buried are hatched either by the heat of the de¬ 
caving vegetation, or by the sun s heat on the 
sand. The young are hatched feathered, and fly 
almost at once. They readily extricate 'them¬ 
selves from the ground and a young bird hatched 
in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, in London, 
left the mound within twenty-four hours after 
it was hatched. There are many species of the 
megapodes and of many sizes.— Editor.] 
Wild New Hampshire Elk. 
A few years since a small bunch of wapiti or 
elk were turned out, we believe, on Ragged 
Mountain, in the town of Andover, N. H. These 
are said to have increased, and now to number 
fifty, although there are people who declare that 
the number is 100 or even 200. They are not 
often seen, but occasionally make themselves felt 
by destroying trees in winter and crops in sum¬ 
mer. Occasionally a desperate farmer kills one. 
The elk come out largely at night to feed, and 
it is, therefore, a matter of much difficulty to 
keep them away from the crops. It is even said 
that occasionally cows are killed by them. 
These elk are reported to be especially harm¬ 
ful to orchards, whether of fruit trees or of 
maples. They strip the trees of branches as far 
up as they can reach, and sometimes bite through 
a branch three-quarters of an inch in diameter. 
Besides this they often strip the bark from the 
trees. 
Recently a party of Boston lawyers visited 
Andover on a snowshoeing trip and tried to find 
the elk, but without success. They looked for 
them on the property of the Ragged Mountain 
Fish and Game Club which had been supposed 
to own the elk—at least the herd was liberated 
on its property. Now, however, the club denies 
ownership in the elk, and farmers are looking 
about to see who will pay them the damages to 
their orchards and their crops. 
Protect the Quail. 
The open season for killing quail is passed. 
We farmers, says Jesse Simon, in the Ohio 
Farmer, surely ought to do all we possibly can 
to have a law enacted by our Legislature to pro¬ 
tect quail from being killed at any time. If 
these useful and harmless birds were so pro¬ 
tected we would not suffer from having the 
hunters invade our farms as has been the case 
heretofore. There is no more innocent and use¬ 
ful bird than the quail. I have carefully watched 
them for sixty years. In all this time I never 
changed my mind as to their usefulness. Their 
habit is to hunt low, gather in the creeping in¬ 
sects that are not seen by the bird that feeds 
upon flying insects, as the majority of the insect 
eaters do. In carefully watching the habits, etc., 
of our native birds I have never seen any feed 
upon the striped squash beetle except bobwhite 
and his family. 
Now a word to all Ohio Farmer readers. Be 
sure to write your senator and representative 
and urge them to enact a law that will spare 
us the quail and do away with the hunting 
nuisance. 
Medication and Surgery in the Woods. 
The twentieth century finds the people of 
every civilized country wide awake to the im¬ 
portance and necessity of conserving their health, 
and that will extend the years of longevity. Dur¬ 
ing the past fifty years, as never before, atten¬ 
tion has been directed to the great benefit to be 
derived from outdoor life, and had this doctrine 
been earlier preached and practiced, many of the 
thousands now in insane asylums, a burden to 
themselves and society, might be in the enjoy¬ 
ment of their faculties and a benefit to the coun¬ 
try. 
The seventy-three volumes of Forest and 
Stream are a monumental evangel that has made 
better known and appreciated the salutary gos¬ 
pel of the woods and mountains where peace and 
tranquillity lead captive the strife, anxieties and 
disappointments of a turbulent and grinding 
world; where the unnatural, stilted and artificial 
are swallowed up in peaceful quietude, stillness 
and restfulness as are noisy mountain cascades 
in the placid waters of the unruffled lake; where 
the seething cauldron of every-day activity gives 
place to the calm and balm and witchery of the 
woods and mountains. 
Forest and Stream has ever been the ex¬ 
ponent of rational outdoor life, and its pages 
have always been freighted with interesting and 
helpful articles. Older readers will recall its 
many praiseworthy and helpful editorials for the 
higher ethics of sportsmanship as well as the 
poems in prose and scholarly contributions of 
its widely scattered correspondents; the lances 
broken in intellectual encounters in its pages 
over the difficult questions in natural history; 
the theories and problems of ballistics and gun¬ 
nery; the merits and demerits of different rifles 
and shotguns, etc.; the various kinds of fishing 
rods and how to handle them; favorite reels and 
lures; of camping and camping companions; and 
the many other questions of interest and pleasure 
for all 
“who in the love of nature 
Hold communion with her visible forms.” 
Some articles on medical and surgical treat¬ 
ment in camp have appeared in Forest and 
Stream, but for the most part they have been 
too technical for nearly all who spend their 
vacations in the wilderness. In too many cases 
. they seemed based upon the assumption that all 
modern remedies and appliances of well equipped 
hospitals and the services of well trained nurses 
are available in out-of-the-way places visited by 
tourists and sportsmen; it would seem their prin¬ 
cipal object was to exploit the medical knowl¬ 
edge and attainments of the writers rather than 
to be helpful in emergencies. 
Sickness and accidents are so rare, and the 
difficulties of transporting luggage so great, that 
sportsmen and tourists and even members of the 
medical profession handicap themselves as little 
as possible with clothing and other supplies, and 
the latter are often more indifferent and negli¬ 
gent in this respect than the former. 
The literature of the treatment of accidents 
and ailments under such conditions is very 
meagre, and it may well be advantageously cul¬ 
tivated. As a contribution thereto I will relate 
a personal experience that occurred some years 
ago. With a party of friends I spent my vaca¬ 
tion in the woods twenty miles beyond the near¬ 
est human habitation. I was the only medical 
man in the party. 
