176 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 4, 1911. 
ceive a welcome there, and after the horses and 
dogs had been cared for, three tired, hungry 
hunters sat down to a supper that was thor¬ 
oughly appreciated. Never did the big fireplace 
and the rocking chairs look more inviting than 
when I left to catch the train, which was one 
hour and thirty minutes late. When I finally 
stretched out in my own bed at about the mid¬ 
night hour, I felt as though I had been up forty- 
nine hours and tramped over a good portion 
of northeastern Florida. But I would have 
started out again the next morning on a sim¬ 
ilar trip, had it been possible. 
George A. Irwin. 
Crows in Town. 
Omaha, Jan. 27. —Editor Forest and Stream: 
While coming down Farnam street early one 
morning I saw a sight that vividly brought back 
to me my early days in Omaha. Sitting on 
one of the lower limbs of the big cottonwood 
tree that stands a short ways back from the 
southwest corner of Farnam and Thirty-first 
street—a fashionable residential district—were 
two big black and very sedate looking crows, 
humped up in the frosty air, complacently 
watching the passing motor cars and pedes¬ 
trians. 
When I came to Omaha a quarter of a cen¬ 
tury ago, the crows fairly infested the city all 
through the winter months, perching by ones 
and twos and scores, on every tree and post 
and shed top in every door yard, or feeding 
on the refuse in the middle of the streets with 
apparently no more fear than is manifested by 
the tame pigeons of to-day. There was a city 
law then prohibiting their molestation, but it 
was this alone which caused these birds to fre¬ 
quent the very heart of the city and in fact all 
parts of it. I do not know whether that old 
ordinance was ever repealed or not, but along 
in the early ’90s the crows began to grow shy 
and finally quit visiting the city almost en¬ 
tirely. This is something with all my familiar¬ 
ity with the habits of birds, I never knew to 
be the case in any other city in the country, 
and I do not believe it exists anywhere now. 
The crow is naturally a wild and wary bird, and 
the sight of even a stray one in the busy haunts 
of man is a rare thing indeed. 
The hunters are still making life miserable 
for the rabbits—they are all that is left now, 
save an isolated bunch or so of lingering mal¬ 
lards. Of course it is capital sport for those 
who have not been educated up to the higher 
phases of sportsmanship, but it is getting well 
along toward the time now when the cotton¬ 
tails should be exempt from molestation. They 
begin to rut in February and by March 10 are 
heavy with young. After February 1, I do not 
think a rabbit should be killed, but there being 
no legal close time in Nebraska, improvident 
hunters keep after them till well on to May. 
They will tell you, too, that nothing can beat 
it—going out into the woods and fields and 
silent places with two or three—the more the 
better—good rabbit dogs. They will relate, 
with the most voluble gusto, what sport it is 
to trail bunny to some old brush pile, jump 
upon the same, drive poor Molly out and sic 
the curs after her, and as she yew-vaws through 
the weedy tangle, to blaze away at her with a 
gun. Fine sport, oh yes, fine sport. 
The fate of the wild pigeons, so much talked 
of in your columns these days, was indeed a 
melancholy one, and the thought that there is 
but one solitary living bird left in all this big 
world, is truly harrowing, especially to one who 
has seen them as I have, back at my home in 
Lancaster, Ohio. The one lone bird still ex¬ 
isting, as you probably know, is the property 
of the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. It is 
a hen and apparently in thrifty condition. It 
is thirty-five years old and its mate died but 
one year ago, at which time there were three 
other birds known to be alive, the latter owned 
by some nature society in Milwaukee. But all 
three of these birds also died during the year 
just closed. They were all very old and highly 
prized, and the Cincinnati bird that remains 
as a sad reminder of those wonderful days in 
the early ’70s, could not be purchased. 
I was a visitor at the Cincinnati Zoo in Oc¬ 
tober, 1890, and at that time there must have 
been a hundred or so of these birds there, but 
I understood at the time that, while they were 
apparently as vigorous and free from disease 
as in their native wilds, they would not breed. 
Just after the war of the rebellion, the wild 
pigeons were most numerous in Ohio, and 
when I say that I have seen them, in their pas¬ 
sage in the late afternoons from their feeding 
grounds in the Kettle Hills to their roosts in 
the big oak and hickory woods north of Lan¬ 
caster, absolutely and wholly obscure the whole 
firmament, I am only saying what hundreds of 
the old residents of that section will thoroughly 
corroborate. On several occasions the public 
schools, owing to the darkness brought on by 
the incalculable hordes of pigeons passing over, 
would be compelled to dismiss an hour or more 
before the regular time, and we children as 
we ran gleefully into the open air, would have 
to whoop and shout to make ourselves under¬ 
stood in the almost deafening roar made by the 
flapping of billions of wings above us. Before 
the sun would dip behind the western horizon 
the birds would have all passed, and it was like 
the dawning of another day. 
It was no trick at all for me, a small lad, 
to go out on the outskirts of the village, and 
kill all the pigeons I could tote home, with a 
little single-barrel toy shot gun, that wouldn’t 
kill even a delicate song bird across the coun¬ 
try road. I would get so close onto the birds, 
perched in the apple trees in an orchard, that 
when I drew on them the muzzle of my gun 
would not be more than ten or twelve feet from 
them. I have even killed them with small flinty 
pebbles I had recourse to when I had no 
money to purchase shot, and many a time did 
I strike at the passing birds with my gun bar¬ 
rel. Scores of times too, I saw a single gun 
bring down over one hundred of these birds 
in a single morning’s shoot, and once, when I 
went out on the Flat Rock—a ridge running 
east and west just north of the town—with Cash 
Cannon and Amos Flood, the noted hunters of 
the place, to retrieve the birds, they actually 
killed as many as they could pile in a little old 
ramshackle express wagon they had taken for 
the purpose. I cannot now recall the number, 
but it must have been in the hundreds. It was 
a cold March morning, and the two hunters 
shot from daylight, when the birds always be¬ 
gan to leave for the feeding grounds, till about 
half past eight. Sandy Griswold. 
More About Foxes. 
Not far away are some secluded meadows 
shut in by rugged hills where Reynard often 
comes for breakfast, and tilted against the hills 
are acres of wild pasture where he has his home 
and where Madame Reynard leads forth her 
young in April days. This is an incentive to 
many of my across-lots walks, not that I am 
an orthodox sportsman and keep a hound, but 
chance meetings offer me an opportunity to 
balance an old account with Reynard, which 
I am especially ready to accept. Of late years 
and especially when fur is prime, I carry a 
single-barreled 12 gauge gun. The weight of 
the gun does not much interfere with walking 
and I like to be provided for every contingency. 
One of these chance meetings of a year ago 
ought to be well remembered by a certain mous¬ 
ing fox. I had risen early, taken my gun and 
a handful of shells and slipped out for an hour’s 
ramble along the creek before breakfast. A 
squirrel carrying a butternut tempted me to a 
long shot and then mysteriously disappeared. 
I found the butternut with a solitary shot im¬ 
bedded in its sticky rind, and after reloading 
I thrust the nut thoughtlessly in my pocket 
on top of my ammunition. Still keeping to the 
creek bank and not more than ten or fifteen 
minutes after the squirrel episode, I saw a fox 
standing on the fence along the woods a hun¬ 
dred yards to my left. After a careful survey 
of the premises and not scenting danger, he 
jumped lightly down into the meadow. In a 
moment I was down behind a convenient stone 
wall and so engrossed was the fox in his pur¬ 
suit of mice that he never lifted his nose from 
the stubble until the gun cracked at forty or 
fifty yards. Then he performed a remarkable 
acrobatic feat, jumping straight up in the air 
and turning more than half way around be¬ 
fore he came down. He had not yet located 
me when he started to run up the hill parallel 
with the wall behind which I was partly con¬ 
cealed. 
Meanwhile I had ejected the empty shell and 
was frantically trying to pry open my pocket 
which was glued tight and fast by the butter¬ 
nut. Before I had completed the operation and 
dug out a shell the fox saw me, turned sharply 
off and disappeared in the woods. 
At first I was wroth at losing such a prize. 
There was certainly no excuse for missing him, 
and I was sure that he was hit. Then I picked 
up the empty shell and remembered. During 
the summer months we had kept a quantity of 
shells on hand loaded especially for English 
sparrows, and a few of these left over had 
somehow got mixed with my No. 4s. Fortu¬ 
nately for the fox, I had given him nothing 
more than a painful surprise with No. 8s. 
While busy about the farm work I have had 
memorable glimpses of the fox. On one oc¬ 
casion two years ago I was plowing in a re¬ 
mote field. It was an Indian summer day, late 
in November. All that morning I had taken 
a lively interest in the insistent cawing of a 
flock of crows just over the ridge. I was on 
the point of making an investigation when the 
flock moved eastward, following a fence row 
and then turned down the hill along the woods 
to the wild pasture. The cawing continued, and 
mingled with the raucous cries I heard the 
barking of a fox. This sound, so associated 
