forest and stream. 
I had picked out. and after unpacking, to the 
spring, there ensued the greatest water guz¬ 
zling stunt that I ever witnessed; I thought that 
both men and animals would founder them- 
selve right there. Toward evening, camp fixed 
is well as possible, and the greater part of my 
ram cut up for drying, we sat down to a feast 
}f ribs roasted brown over a mesquite fire. 
Gating and enjoying this best and rarest of all 
neat reminded me of a similar feast I had had in 
lays agone. but under such different conditions 
hat I was minded to tell my companions about 
t. And when I had done they declared that my 
ale had perceptibly cooled them off, and that 
if I would tell some more like it, they would 
be able to pass a very comfortable night. 
My story was about the happenings of one of 
the most pleasant days I ever spent in the 
Northern Rocky Mountains. How, after a long 
struggle with dense forest and dangerous cliff 
walls, our little party discovered a huge deep 
mass of ice, which I named Grinnell’s Glacier 
in honor of our leader, and how thereafter he 
killed a big, fat ram and brought it rolling - to 
our feet! I told them of the wonderful green 
of the ice; of its deep unfathomable crevasses, 
and the milky streams of water and ground-up 
rock that flowed from beneath it; and, finally, 
how, with no little risk of our bones, we got 
the meat of the ram down off the glacier and 
to c^mp, and built a big fire, which was none 
too warm for the September night, and stuffed 
ourselves with well-earned roast ribs. 
We went to bed early. “Now then, being 
that we're sure fixed for water and meat,” said 
Sonora, it s up to us to find Jim Termain and 
his placer ground.” 
Well, here s hopin , said Old-Timer. 
\ es, here s hoping, I agreed, and no sooner 
said it than I dropped asleep. 
More About St. Vincent ’Gators. 
Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 6 .—Editor Forest and 
heain. I am in receipt of a letter through 
ui, written by William M. Ellicott, of Char- 
iian, Pennsylvania, re¬ 
nding the alligator 
hich attacked the 
)rse. about which I 
rote you a few days 
to. Air. Ellicott slig¬ 
hts whether the sau- 
an might not have 
‘en a Flor'da croco- 
le. As to that I will 
y that I do not under¬ 
and that there are any 
orida crocodiles north 
the Florida Keys and 
p Everglades. Cer- 
nly the reptiles, which 
find on St. Vincent 
land, are genuine alli- 
! tors and not croco- 
i es. 
Dr. William T. Horn¬ 
by* the celebrated 
1 turalist, who spent 
ne weeks with me at 
Vincent Island last 
>ter, and who is director of the Bronx Zoo- 
dcal Park at New York, will, I am sure, con- 
1 a me in this statement. He was the first man 
describe the Florida crocodile, having killed 
arge specimen near Miami, Fla., many years 
In sending to you for publication the ac- 
n t of Captain McCormick’s experience with 
alligator, I was not unmindful of the fact 
!>ome might question the story, as it is not, 
far as I know, common for even the largest 
Wtors to attack such large animals as a full 
' vn horse, but, as I think I intimated in my 
>r ’ this was the fourth animal that had been 
|cked by alligators since I have owned St. 
cent Island. One of the three former ani- 
’’ attac ked was so badly lacerated that eight 
!res had to be taken to close the wound, 
1 was in the hip and underneath the thigh. 
Each of three animals, two horses and a mule, 
which were wounded at that time, were seized 
in about the same part of the hip and all were 
badly torn. Presumably this 'gator—whether 
there was one or more of them we could not 
A NATURALIST IN THE FIELD. 
G. A. Conradi Photographing a Bullfrog. 
tell—must have seized the animal when it was 
pretty well down in the mire, probably feeding 
upon the marsh grass; otherwise it would hardly 
seem that the animal could have been seized so 
high up on the hip. 
Our experience on St. Vincent Island leads us 
to believe that the alligators are much more 
ravenous in the hot summer months than they 
are at other times, and they probably attack ani¬ 
mals of greater size and strength than they 
would do when they are more dormant as at 
other seasons' of the year. Although we have 
always considered alligators even of the largest 
type to be found on St. Vincent Island, where 
they have been permitted to flourish without 
disturbance for about thirty years, as quite in¬ 
offensive, yet on two occasions in the past one 
has been known to attack people in a rowboat. 
Usually they get out of the way, sink and dis¬ 
appear promptly on seeing anyone approaching 
either in a boat or otherwise. Their attacking 
valuable animals, however, and the killing of 
numerous swine, some deer and other wild ani¬ 
mals has led at last to 
our waging vigorous 
war against them, and 
they are being rapidly 
exterminated. While 
they are interesting 
specimens for Northern 
visitors, yet we have de¬ 
cided that they are too 
troublesome and de¬ 
structive to be desirable 
on a game preserve, and 
we have had two skill¬ 
ful hunters actively en¬ 
gaged for some months 
p a st to exterminate 
them. R. V. Pierce. 
Range of the Wild 
Turkey. 
Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 
6. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue 
of Sept. 4 appears an 
article written by Sandy Griswold in which he 
speaks of having killed many turkeys in Michi¬ 
gan, and that he killed a twenty-nine-pound 
gobbler on the old Grayling River, the Au Grey, 
a tributary of the Au Sable, in 1877. 
Sandy had better revise his geography and 
freshen up his memory. In the first place the 
Au Grey is not a tributary of the Au Sable 
River; neither was it ever a grayling river, and 
there is no record of anyone ever having seen 
a wild turkey anywhere near the Au Sable 
River. The Au Sable is out of the wild turkey 
range. There might have been a turkey killed 
on the Au Grey River some time or other, but 
that is further north than I have ever heard 
of one being taken in Michigan. I think your 
correspondent will revise his notes if he goes 
over his records. W. B. Mershon. 
