96 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[July i 7, 1909. 
with his gun and dog. I know that foxes, wild¬ 
cats, weasels and other “varmints, besides 
hawks and owls, take their toll of our greatest 
game birds, yet even in my time I can remem¬ 
ber when the woods were full of grouse and 
at the same time there were many of these nat¬ 
ural enemies. 
Never mind about their natural enemies. The 
balance in nature is always and inevitably right, 
until it is upset by man. There is where the 
game laws come in. These laws are made pri¬ 
marily to restrain man. If they are wisely drawn 
laws and well enforced, Nature will do the rest, 
and we will always have a fair supply of game 
left. Let sportsmen, wardens and legislators 
keep this truth in mind and then we will con¬ 
serve our present supply instead of destroying 
it. May the grouse never be exterminated! 
Long may he reign! Harry Chase. 
“Riding Down” Lions in East Africa. 
In a recent issue of Harper’s Weekly the 
Rev. W. S. Rainsford contributes a graphic ac¬ 
count of hunting experiences in East Africa. 
“Comparatively few lions have yet been really 
ridden in this country,” he writes, “and already 
several men have been mauled, and two at 
least have died. The unwounded lion is seldom 
dangerous to any one on foot. At times un¬ 
wounded lions will attack, as will lions that have 
lain down after a hearty meal and resent being 
disturbed. All lions everywhere are dangerous. 
The unwounded lioness sometimes is dangerous, 
especially if her cubs are young. But the lion 
(or lioness), once ridden, is a quite different 
beast. He does not come to bay till he is 
thoroughly tired and quite convinced that his 
retreat is cut off. Once he is bayed, the last 
thing he thinks of is getting away. He wants 
to get his enemy down. He runs from nothing 
but man, and it is as though, resenting the in¬ 
dignity man has placed on him, he rushes in to 
kill. There is no turning, no swerving about 
him then, unless he has received a death shot.” 
How the honey-bird leads men to the bees’ 
store is also described in this interesting article, 
which is illustrated by many novel photographs, 
including one of a giraffe in flight, and another 
of a wild elephant herd drinking. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
On a hot July day I was fishing a mountain 
stream with a companion when we came to a 
pool above an immense ledge of red sandstone 
which formed a natural dam. Even the spill¬ 
way was there, at one side where the ledge dip¬ 
ped slightly. Trees shaded the deep pool, and 
thinking of our own boyhood days, we agreed 
that this must be “the old swimming hole” of 
the boys of the neighborhood. Our lunches were 
cached in the shade and we went on, meeting 
again at noon beside the pool to take a swim 
before eating. There was a smooth stone hard- 
by, while the clear water beyond it showed a 
depth of twelve to fifteen feet, so the impulse 
to dive deep and far was irresistible. Into the 
depths we plunged with confidence and vigor, but 
I doubt if an alligator ever chased a pickaninny 
out of a Southern river more quickly than the 
chill of that icy stream did us. It was as if we 
had seen some unknown monster in those clear 
depths, but although our dive had taken us far 
out into the pool, the return was made in record 
time, and I for one stubbed a toe badly in boy- 
fashion in my haste to get out of that awful 
refrigerator. But although we shivered and 
shook in the warm sunlight, the ample lunch, 
the pipes and the siesta under the plane trees 
filled two anglers with contentment, and when 
the shadows grew long and we waded on up 
that beautiful mountain stream, the surround¬ 
ings, though familiar, never seemed fairer. 
New Publications. 
“When the Wildwood Was in Flower.” By 
G. Smith Stanton; cloth, 130 pages, 36 illus¬ 
trations; $1 net. New York: J. S. Ogilvie 
Publishing Company. 
Mr. Stanton, who is also the author of 
“Where the Sportsman Loves to Linger,” in 
“When the Wildwood Was in Flower” tells of 
the fifteen years he spent on the plains as a 
stockman, before and after the days of rail¬ 
roads. “Reminiscences of the Author’s Vacation 
Days,” the second half of the book, contains 
seven short narratives of his vacation days in 
the open. 
in position to shoot. The rustle in the leaves 
continued to come closer and closer. I waited 
until I was sure I could turn over and make a 
quick shot before the squirrel could make off 
into the brush. At the right moment I turned 
over quickly, resting on my left elbow ready to 
shoot and bag the squirrel, but to my astonish¬ 
ment I confronted the largest blacksnake—or 
rather the snake confronted me—that I ever en¬ 
countered, and I have killed some that sound 
like snake stories. Of course, I was not long 
in sending the old soft shot and black powder 
fumes into the snake, and as his head was about 
a foot off the ground he afforded a good shot, 
and I cut him in twain and lay there looking 
at him in his death struggles, little knowing the 
real danger I was in. 
After the snake quieted down I proceeded to 
get up to look him over, and put my right hand 
on the ground to rise when to my horror and 
surprise I discovered a huge copperhead coiled 
up less than six inches from where I put my 
hand on the ground. Just how I got up and to 
a safe distance from that copperhead I never 
could explain, but I was not long in putting 
a good big dose of black powder and soft shot 
down the old gun and belching it into that 
snake. I am positive there was no snake there 
when I lay down, and I have always been of 
the opinion that had I not been there a battle 
royal would have taken place between the two 
snakes, as they are natural enemies, as much so 
as the blacksnake and the rattlesnake. 
Books received: “From Ruwenzora to the 
Congo,” by A. F. R. Wollaston; New York, E. 
P. Dutton & Co. “The Further Adventures of 
Quincy Adams Sawyer,” by Charles Felton 
Pidgin; Boston, L. C. Page. “Adrift on an 
Ice Pan,” by Wilfred T. Grenfell; New York, 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. “Getting Acquainted 
With the Trees,” by J. Horace McFarland; New 
York, The Macmillan Company. 
Loch Laddie, who has written frequently of the 
game and fish of Southeast Missouri, sends a 
clipping from the Doniphan Prospect-News rela¬ 
tive to the storm in May when enormous hail¬ 
stones were said to have fallen in different parts 
of the Southwest, Texas claiming the record 1 
for size. 
C. A. Jobson sends me the following: 
In a recent issue of Forest and Stream 
under “The Top Rail” I read a letter from a 
correspondent in the South giving an account 
of the dangers from snakes encountered in the 
woods of Florida. This reminds me of an ex¬ 
perience I had in the woods of Pennsylvania. 
In the early ’80s the squirrel season opened on 
the I'ith of September and we had many warm 
fall days during the early season. One promis¬ 
ing morning early in the season I took my old 
smooth-bore muzzleloading gun and went to the 
woods with bright hopes of a good day’s sport 
shooting squirrels. After hunting all forenoon 
with indifferent success I came upon an old 
charcoal hearth on the side of the mountain and 
decided to eat my lunch and take a rest. 
The days were very warm and after eating 
my light lunch I stretched myself on the ground 
and was soon fast asleep. It was about 3 P. M. 
when I was aroused from my siesta by the shrill 
shriek of a passing locomotive down in the val¬ 
ley. I stretched myself out full length on my 
back, gun along my side, and was enjoying the 
situation, when I heard a slight rustle in the 
dry leaves directly back of me and about fifty 
feet up the mountain. I naturally concluded it 
was a squirrel sneaking along on the ground 
and commenced quietly moving my old gun 
around to get a quick shot, when I turned over 
Farmers living along Fourchee Creek, near Liebig, in 
the western part of this county, have been telling of a 
very remarkable occurrence which came under their 
personal observation on Tuesday of last week. In the 
afternoon of that day their section was visited by a 
terrific hail and rain storm. The downpour of water ■ 
and hail was so rapid that it put a rise of about eight 
feet in the creek in one hour’s time. After the storm 
was over the farmers found large numbers of fish of all 
sizes and kinds, lying out on the banks of the creek 
and in the fields through which the stream ran. They 
were very nearly chilled to death from the sudden 
change of the temperature of the water, and were 
secured without trouble. Evidently in their efforts to 
get away from the ice which was rushing down the 
channel of the creek, they kept crowding to the edges 
of the stream and then, half-frozen, hopped clear out 
on the banks; or, another explanation is offered, to the 
effect that the creek rose and receded so rapidly that 
the fish were left high and dry. About 100 pounds were 
picked up and taken to Ponder, and about 200 to 
Poynor, and every family living at those places and 
along the creek in that neighborhood had fish enough 
to last for several days. 
It is said the hail, on level ground, was eighteen 
inches deep, and that in low places, where it drifted it 
was piled up to a depth of four feet. Sam Griffin says 
it reached up to the axles of his wagon at 11 o’clock 
on the day after the storm. Such good citizens as Jim 
Patterson, Joe Dalton, Gus Bollenbacher, J. D. Riley 
and N. L. Britton, can vouch for the truthfulness of 
this statement. 
Loch Laddie adds that the parties mentioned 
are reliable. Anyway, the story is a good one 
for it is not often that nature provides good 
fishing on terra firma, and ice with which tc 
preserve the catch. Ice in such convenient form 
too, and in May. Grizzly King. 
