Jan. 14, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
45 
ODDLY NAMED BEAST. 
The first snow which fell this fall in the 
Moose River country was written upon by a 
fisher or Pennant’s marten, called Old Squaw 
Lake by the trappers in that part of the Adiron- 
dacks. This particular fisher gets its name from 
one of the localities where it travels and it is 
one of the few Adirondack wild animals which 
has a name of its own. 
Fishers range in size from twelve to forty 
pounds. They are members of the weasel fam¬ 
ily and rank next to the wolverine in size. 
They are, weight for weight, the strongest and 
fiercest kind of animal in the Adirondacks and 
some of them are more cunning than foxes, al¬ 
though their intelligence or instinct is usually 
no keener than that of a mink or marten. They 
are fairly plenty in spite of the fact that an ordi¬ 
nary pelt is worth $6.00 or $8.00, while as high 
as $15.00 to $20.00 is paid for a large, prime 
black skin. Old Squaw Lake, trappers reckon, 
must be worth at least $25.00 and perhaps more. 
Old Squaw Lake, says the Sun, is very sel¬ 
dom reported in the summer months. About 
three years ago, however, two campers were 
going along the alder bed opposite Balsam 
Lake on Indian River when they were startled 
by seeing a large black animal dash out of the 
alders and run up the valley toward the moun¬ 
tain. The first thought was that it was a 
small bear, but a moment later when they had a 
clear view they saw that it was a monster 
weasel of some kind. The two had perhaps the 
best sight of Old Squaw Lake that any one 
ever had, and they agreed that the animal’s pelt 
was almost but not quite clear black. There 
was a tinge of brown along its back and its 
nose was a dirty gray. 
Down in the alders the two found where the 
fisher had been catching frogs. On a bit of 
sandbar they found a frog torn to shreds and 
half eaten. Along the bank was a distinct trail 
showing where the fisher had tramped back and 
forth through the grass and weeds searching 
for frogs and possibly for fish and mud turtles. 
A perceptible limp besides its size identified 
Old Squaw Lake. One foreleg was caught in 
a trap some years ago and the animal chewed 
its leg off and broke the bones just above its 
wrist to get out of one of French Louie’s fox 
traps. The paw was as large as that of a good 
sized coon. The missing paw has enabled trap¬ 
pers to identify the animal certainly in the snow. 
Some have followed the tracks just to see what 
“the old cuss is up to,” while others have fol¬ 
lowed determined to add the fur to their 
winter s catch. The story seekers have been 
more successful. 
The Squaw Lake country reaches from Moose 
River to the West Canada lakes. The big fisher 
seems to make that land its home. In winter, 
trappers say, it follows a line around and 
around, going from ten to twenty miles a day, 
depending on the loose snow, and taking ten 
or fifteen days to make the circuit. Two or 
three trap lines cut across the circuit, but the 
fisher knows them all. Sometimes just to show 
what it thinks of trappers it tears a trap cubby 
to pieces and eats the bait. Again, finding a 
marten or a mink in a trap, Old Squaw Lake 
eats it and thus exasperates the trapper to the 
extent of $10.00 or $20.00. Whatever the real 
value of - the fur destroyed, the trapper firmly 
believes it was a ten-dollar mink or a twenty- 
dollar marten. 
Old Squaw Lake enjoys hunting rabbits, judg¬ 
ing by its trail. Ia winter the rabbits live in 
balsam swamps, and Old Squaw Lake has a 
number of such swamps along its runway. A 
mile or two along the trail in a balsam swamp 
indicates the most approved of time and method 
of hunting rabbits. When the new fallen snow 
lies a foot deep, loose and fluffy, in the woods 
Old Squaw Lake travels through the swamps 
with unusual care. Running is out of question, 
and fishers hate to walk. Long acquaintance 
with Old Squaw Lake’s track makes it easy 
to. tell when it is in a swearing mood. The 
animal tries to run, and at every jump lands 
ear-deep in the loose snow. In half a hundred 
jumps the animal is breathless and angry. It 
whips the snow to right and. left with its stump 
and paw and shakes the icicles from its whiskers 
and porcupine quills. Then it walks till its 
breath is back, when it runs again. 
But in spite of anger and hurry the old fisher 
hunts right along. It crawls under brush heaps, 
it seeks hard pan under the thick balsam cap 
top canopy, and at last sneaking noiselessly it 
plunges suddenly around a bush or hummock 
of snow or tree trunk and seizes a rabbit 
squatted in the snow. Then the fisher takes 
its revenge on the bawling rabbit, shaking it 
and tearing it to pieces. 
The porcupine quills in the whiskers of Old 
Squaw Lake are a matter of inference. French 
Louis says Old Squaw Lake’s principal diet is 
porcupines. All fishers kill some porcupines, 
and no trapper remembers catching a fisher that 
did not have porcupine quills in its forelegs, 
among its whiskers and in its chest. Places 
where Old Squaw has killed a porcupine may be 
found along its trail by following the trail a 
day or two or less. There are three or four 
mountains along the runway on which porcu¬ 
pine dens are found in the broken cliffs and 
stone. 
Old Squaw Lake climbs trees and fights the 
porcupines in topmost branches. Still fighting 
the two animals come crashing to the ground, 
and when the porcupine yields the least bit the 
fisher’s nose plunges to the unprotected belly. 
Then at its leisure the usher eats its fill. After 
such a gorge the animal retreats to the rocks 
and sleeps a while. 
HOLD UP. 
All the wise men in this world are not in 
the cities by any means,” said Otto Hornich in 
the Newark Star. “Why, I heard of a farm up 
in Sussex county that had not been hunted over 
in three years, and several of my friends and 
myself went up there two weeks before the sea¬ 
son opened, and a short walk over the farm 
convinced us that it would be a good place to 
hunt when the season opened. On our way to 
the depot we met the farmer that owned the 
farm and paid him $10 for the hunting privilege, 
and at his request we went back to the farm’ 
and he put up over thirty rabbits, two partridge 
and several quail just to show us that we had a 
bargain in the hunting line. 
“The morning that the rabbit season opened 
we were on hand before daylight, and believe 
me when I say that five of us hunted that farm 
even to the extent of pulling some of the stones 
from the fence, and all we got was one rabbit. 
About noon we went to the farmhouse to see 
the farmer, and his wife said that her husband 
had taken the $10 we gave him and went hunt¬ 
ing over to Johnsonburg. We asked her what 
had become of the game, and she said that they 
must have holed up, and that was all the satis¬ 
faction we had for our trouble and our money.” 
TWO DEER AT ONE SHOT. 
In the recent deer hunting season in Michi¬ 
gan at least three Upper Peninsula men were 
successful in filling their licenses as the result 
of a single shot. Sheriff Turnbull, of Luce 
county, was one of these. Two deer were 
standing together. The sheriff fired at one, 
the ball passing through its body and killing 
the other animal also. 
Paul Laabs, Sagola, Dickinson county, found 
two bucks engaged in a battle. A shot from 
Laab s rifle killed the spikehorn and the other 
was so weak from the loss of blood that it ex¬ 
pired as soon as released. 
Prof. Hill, superintendent of schools at 
Crystal Falls, is the third man who bagged two 
deer with one shot.' One of his trophies was a 
dead deer, however. The animal had been en¬ 
gaged in a battle, during which their antlers 
had become interlocked, and one of the com¬ 
batants was dead. Prof. Hill shot the living 
animal.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
THOSE STRIPES. 
“Now, children, what is this?” asked the 
teacher, holding up the picture of a zebra. “It 
looks to me like a horse in a bathing suit,” 
answered a little boy.—Our Dumb Animals. 
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