March 12, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
413 
Vertebrates of the Cayuga (N. Y.) 
Lake Basin. 
Last autumn Messrs. Hugh D. Reed and Al¬ 
bert H„ Wright read before the American Philo¬ 
sophical Society a paper on the vertebrates of 
the Cayuga Lake Basin of New York. Central 
New York, as is well known, is interesting for 
its series of long and narrow lakes running in 
a general way from north to south and some¬ 
times called the Finger Lakes. These lakes are 
of varying size and length; from Cayuga Lake, 
66.8 square miles of water, to Otisco Lake, with 
three square miles. An interesting point about this 
locality is that the sources of these lakes are 
on the divide between the Susquehanna and the 
Oswego basins, and in fact “the origins of many 
of the streams of each system are very close, in 
a few instances with actual water connection.” 
The fauna of the Cayuga Lake basin is in the 
main Transitional, and most of the mammals and 
birds there are those which have been given by 
Miller as identifying the Transition zone. It is 
to be noted that Cayuga Lake exercises an ap¬ 
preciable influence in cooling the spring tem¬ 
perature, so that flowers at its edge do not bloom 
until much later than the same plants at a dis¬ 
tance from the lake, though at a higher altitude. 
Perhaps less is known of the fishes of this 
region than of any of the other vertebrates. Of 
the sixty-five species found in the basin, nineteen 
are common to the Ontario and Susquehanna 
basins, but the fish fauna of Cayuga Lake bears 
the stamp of Lake Ontario. There are seventeen 
species of amphibians, twenty of reptiles, 257 of 
birds and thirty-eight of mammals. 
Many unusual birds seem to get carried over 
to these lakes. Murres are taken there quite fre¬ 
quently. There is a record of the fork-tailed 
gull and the black-capped petrel and the white 
pelican has several times been taken. Black 
ducks and mallards appear to breed there. A 
European teal was killed in 1902. From the 
south on the other hand comes the glossy ibis 
captured more than once at Cayuga Lake, while 
the Florida gallinule and some other southern 
birds are taken there from time to time. 
The opossum is more or less common, and 
there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether 
it was introduced or is native. A squirrel has 
been introduced, and the animals held long in 
captivity do not seem to have done well. A 
Canada lynx was killed in 1906 and the otter is 
conjectured to be extinct. There are seven 
species of bats. 
The paper is a useful one and should be in 
the hands of every field naturalist in New York 
State. 
Hawks and Owls in Massachusetts. 
Lowell, Mass., March 5.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: From the articles on “Hawks and Owls 
of the United States,” by Mr. Hardy and Mr. 
Fisher, it would seem to be impossible to classify 
them for the country generally. I have no scien¬ 
tific knowledge of the contents of their stomachs, 
but can say from hard experience that hawks 
are bad birds for the New Hampshire farmer. 
It would seem that the only way to treat these 
birds is to kill them in the sections where they 
are harmful and protect them where useful. 
We New England farmers could not be ex¬ 
pected peacefully to watch our chickens go be¬ 
THE MALE BIRD AT TOP OF TALL TAMARACK. 
cause the thief carries off superfluous jack rab¬ 
bits west of the Mississippi River, any more than 
we could expect the farmer of that region to kill 
them for fear they would steal from the distant 
New England hen roosts. If they will not stay 
where protected, the friends of the wandering 
hawk must not feel bad if he returns to them 
minus at least a few tail feathers. Perhaps the 
hawks of other sections of our States are more 
honest, but even so it would seem that Mr. 
Fisher’s estimate that the damage done by these 
birds to farmers would not average one fowl 
yearly is way below the proper estimate. 
On my own farm in South Conway, N. H., I 
often lose four or five chickens a month, and 
it is only by constant watchfulness that I do not 
lose many more. The former owner of the place 
frequently had chickens taken off within a few 
feet of where she stood at the rate of two well 
grown birds a day. It is a well known fact 
among farmers that if a hawk once gets a bird 
from a flock you must kill the hawk or keep 
the fowls shut up till he gets discouraged, as he 
will keep returning till he gets them all. This 
does not seem to agree with the statement that 
the average would only be one fowl to a farmer. 
I believe that however the hawk is classed in 
“The Hawks and Owls of the United States,” 
he will always be regarded by the New Eng¬ 
lander as a “bad fellow.” 
Richard S. Greenhalge. 
Biltmore Forest School. 
Darmstadt, Germany, Feb. 3. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: January was the busiest month of 
the winter so far. We have visited the Oden- 
wald where extensive afforestation of land re¬ 
cently devoted to oak coppice is being carried 
on; have spent a couple of days in the heart of 
the Black Forest among the tallest, cleanest 
spruce in Germany; and finally, and best of all, 
a day in the Spessart Mountains, where there 
is growing (at a rate of 1/10 per cent, per an¬ 
num) the best and most high priced oak in the 
world. In spite of this slow rate of growth the 
investment has proven to be a good one, as the 
prices have quadrupled in twenty years. 
That Spessart trip was a most strenuous one— 
twenty-five miles through a foot and a half of 
snow. Some of our short trips led us into the 
inundation district of the Rhine, famous for ash 
and maple, and abundance of game. Not to be 
forgotten was a day spent in the communal 
forest of Heidelberg, where considerable experi¬ 
ments have been carried on with various Ameri¬ 
can species (notably Douglas fir, redwood, Law¬ 
son’s or Port Orford cypress, etc.) with aston¬ 
ishing success. On all of these trips we have 
done considerable timber cruising, studied the 
value of stumpage, methods of logging and com¬ 
pared the German with the American methods 
of management. 
Recently we visited the famous “coning” es¬ 
tablishment of C. Appel, of Darmstadt. i ne 
German foresters in Hesse, Bavaria, Baden and 
Prussia continue to do all in their power for 
our benefit, acting as guides and instructors 
wherever we go. We fondly believe we are 
seeing more of real German forestral conditions 
and real German life than any American has 
ever seen heretofore. 
C. Theodore Jones. 
