March 4, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
331 
ONE OF THE STUNTED PALISADES CEDAR TREES. 
ing down near the outlet of the pond, and as 
he did not come to camp at night, they went in 
search of him with a lantern. They found him 
lying between a dead otter and the otter’s hole. 
He had killed the otter, but was himself too 
badly hurt to move. Some writers state that “no 
dog ever killed an otter in a fair fight.” This 
is an error, as there are many dogs that can 
do it. Once my father when hunting moose 
found the tracks of three otters which were 
crossing over high land in making a short cut 
from one pond to another. His companion had 
with him a quite small dog which had been 
trained to kill animals in traps by backing up 
to them and letting them jump on his back, 
when he would wheel and catch them by the 
throat. In this case on coming to the otter, 
the one he attacked rose on his hind feet and 
jumped on the dog’s back. The first two times 
the dog got the otter by the throat he was 
thrown several feet to one side, but the third 
time he held his grip and did not let go until 
the otter was dead. The dog did not get hurt. 
This I know, as I well remember helping an 
Indian skin the otter.* 
In another case my old friend William H. 
Staples was crossing some burned land when 
there was snow and came upon the tracks of 
three otters. He had with him a large bulldog 
which took the track, and when Staples came 
up, the dog had one of the otters dead. I came 
into the Seboois House only a few minutes after 
Staples came in with the skin. The dog showed 
no signs of being bitten. If there was any fight 
it must have been a very short one, as the first 
Staples knew of it was finding the dog with the 
dead otter. I think any dog which can kill a 
large raccoon can kill an otter if he can have 
the otter on the land. Certainly such dogs as 
they have in the West trained to fight mountain 
*The reason for his remembering so well was that a 
horse, scared by the smell of otter grease which the 
Indian had playfully rubbed on him, kicked my father 
in the temple and nearly killed him outright.—F. H. E. 
lions and coyotes, would make short work of 
an otter, as although very tough and good 
fighters, no animal not weighing over twenty- 
five pounds and having little help from claws 
can be a match for a large dog trained to fight 
wild animals. 
In one case I know of three otters making 
common cause and beating a man. Two men, 
with both of whom I was well acquainted, were 
deer hunting and were traveling parallel with 
each other and not far apart. One of them, 
called Crooked-eyed Joe Penney, came upon 
three otters and fired at and wounded one. The 
otter fell, and Penney, who had a single-shot 
muzzleloader, rushed up to get him when the 
others attacked him. He broke the stock of his 
rifle and bent the barrel in trying to kill them, 
with the result that he was badly bitten and his 
trousers nearly torn off, while the otters, in¬ 
cluding the wounded one, escaped. Penney told 
me that he bent his rifle in pounding their heads 
and that he might as well have pounded a bag 
of wool as far as hurting them; but the opinion 
of his partner and myself was that he was so ex¬ 
cited that he struck over and bent his rifle 
by striking the ground, as I have known of 
otter being killed by a few blows from a scale 
rule, a goad stick or a pitch-fork handle, and 
in several instances I have known them killed 
where the man had nothing but his feet and 
hands. The well known guide. T. W. Pullings, 
of Brownville, Me., once told me that one 
time he was crossing a bog to look an otter 
trap when he met an old otter and two young 
ones. He tried to kill one of the young ones 
by jumping on it when the old one attacked 
him and, as he said, made him take steps that 
a dancing master would never have taught him. 
He finally killed one of the young ones, but 
was badly bitten. Manly Hardy, 
[to be concluded.] 
Harbinger? 
Milford, Conn., Feb. 20. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Crossing the lots the other day, Feb. 
18, from the hill toward a piece of woods, I saw 
as 1 entered a marshy meadow a small bird drop 
down from the branch of a tree a long way off 
and then fly from the ground to the branch 
again. From the way in which it acted I knew 
that it was either a rusty grackle or a bluebird, 
and presently as I drew nearer and I saw the 
bird move a few inches along the branch, it was 
evident that it was a bluebird and in very high 
plumage of blue coat and red vest. The blue 
on his back looked almost as dark as that of 
an indigo bird. 
I do not think I have seen a bluebird since 
last November, and I record this as the first 
one that has come under my notice in 1911. 
Orange. 
Pacific Coast Woodcock. 
It is much to be hoped that the next summer 
will give us some definite information with re¬ 
gard to woodcock on the Pacific coast. A letter 
received by C arence Parker, of Norwich, N. Y., 
from A. Bryan Williams, Chief Game Warden 
of British Columbia, states that Mr. Williams on 
a number of occasions has heard rumors of 
woodcock in the Kootenay district, British Co¬ 
lumbia, but has never been able to have them 
satisfactorily confirmed. 
A private letter from Dr. A. K. Fisher, of 
the Biological Survey, recently received, refers 
to the isolated colony of woodcock in North¬ 
eastern Colorado, which originated there after 
irrigation developed. Dr. Fisher says: 
“There is no reason to my mind why wood¬ 
cock should not do well in the Northwest coast 
region, if they ever happened to get there and 
could find suitable winter quarters after they 
migrated. In general terms I believe woodcock 
can live where moles exist, for both are more or 
less dependent on earth worms for food. The 
Northwest abounds in moles. 
“If the Los Angeles bird is a true record, it 
probably was a migrating bird from some breed¬ 
ing region in the Northwest. It would be im¬ 
portant to have the sportsmen of the region look 
out for woodcock, and if possible get them to 
refrain from shooting so as to develop a colony.” 
