G12 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 22, 1911. 
Otters and Muskrats and Spring. 
Packerville, Conn., March 30 . —Editor Forest 
and Stream: The story of the otter by Mr. 
Hardy was very good, as are so many of your 
natural history articles, lhcy all have the im¬ 
press of actuality and observation at first hand. 
I have never seen an otter alive in the Noith, 
and not many in Central America, but had 
formed opinions of their habits, partly from 
observation and partly from hearsay, slightly 
different from those expressed by Mr. Hardy. 
He tells us of a friend seeing an otter chasing 
trout in a pool and looking like a shadow, and 
a moment later appearing at the surface with 
a trout in his mouth. My opinion had been that 
the otter catches fish much as hawks most fre¬ 
quently catch quail or poultry by chasing them 
until they hide in the weeds or grass, then get¬ 
ting them almost without an effort. It may be 
that fish are sometimes caught in a fair chase 
by an otter, but 1 believe far more are caught 
after the fish has tried to hide in the weeds, 
mud, under the bank or a stone. Every angler 
has seen fish in clear water, frightened at his 
approach, trying to find a place to hide in safety, 
and of course they would do the same with so 
great an enemy as an otter after them. 
Mr. Hardy’s description of an otter's method 
of crossing large ponds under the ice I have 
reason for believing not quite accurate. Instead 
of placing the nose against the under surface of 
the ice, expelling the devitalized air in a bubble, 
and then rebreathing it, I feel quite certain the 
otter discharges his breath while some distance 
below the ice. The air, robbed of its oxygen, 
rises to the ice, forming a bubble there, but re¬ 
oxygenized or vitalized by its passage through 
the water in small bubbles. Air is about one- 
fifth oxygen and four-fifths nitrogen, while water 
consists of oxygen and hydrogen, and devitalized 
air may be revitalized by passing in small par¬ 
ticles through water. A friend told me years 
ago that on one occasion 1 he saw a muskrat 
going through this process. He had taken an 
axe and gone on the ice of a nearby brook to 
kill suckers by striking the ice above them. 
While looking carefully for suckers he saw a 
muskrat at the bottom apparently eating some¬ 
thing. He watched and presently the rat turned 
his nose upward and expelled the air from his 
lungs in small bubbles, which rose to the ice 
through two or three feet of water, and formed 
a large bubble, which the rat came to and re¬ 
breathed and proceeded to resume his feeding. 
He watched him repeat the performance several 
times, always letting the air rise through the 
water. I cannot believe that breathing it out 
at the surface of the water would at once im¬ 
prove it greatly. Surely, it would not to so 
great an extent as if it came through the water. 
I have frequent occasion to pass a small pond 
where muskrats have a home, and when passing 
in the evening often see them. In the begin¬ 
ning they were w r ild and at my approach would 
dive quickly and disappear. From seeing me so 
often they gradually grew bolder. I learned, too, 
that they were less likely to be frightened if I 
came singing loudly, and kept up my singing 
while watching them. While they would allow 
me to pass by without being frightened, they 
would dive at once when I made a stop the 
better to observe them closely, but when I came 
singing and continued my song, they would swim 
about and lie idiy on the water apparently 
charmed by the noise, which action I do not 
for a moment attribute to the qua ity of the 
singing, nor will any of my friends. On two 
or three occasions after we became on friendly 
terms, one of the young ones, possibly to repay 
me for the music, gave an acrobatic perform¬ 
ance which was entirely new to me. After lying 
on the water quite still for a time, he would 
begin to sink lower and turn around and around 
like a dog chasing his tail, gradually sinking 
lower and lower, and ending the feat wholly 
under the surface, which seemed greatly agitated. 
Can any of your readers inform me if this is 
a common performance of the muskrat, or must 
we attribute it to the singing? 
Bluebirds made their first appearance on the 
2d, the very day they did one year ago. I have 
not seen a robin yet, and they came in large 
numbers ten days earlier a year ago. Some of 
my neighbors have seen them, however, and the 
papers have reported them being seen in all parts 
of Southern New' England during the whole 
winter. My friend Mr. Coster, who lives twenty 
miles south, says both robins and bluebirds have 
brightened the winters for six years for him, 
while none are ever seen here in winter. I am 
told they are found in some protected places 
where cedar trees are p entiful, and it may be 
a matter of food. 
Our game birds have had a good winter and 
should not have suffered any decimation except 
from foxes and hawks, of which we have too 
many for the good of the game. I heard late in 
January of one man and his son having caught 
sixty foxes, mostly in traps and snares. The 
shooting of foxes ahead of dogs is a popular 
sport in this section, and the lovers of this style 
of fox hunting have as much contempt for the 
snarer, as those who ride after hounds have for 
the shooters. E. P. Robinson. 
An Extraordinary Disease of Fowls. 
Among the various papers read at the Ithaca 
meeting of the Society of American Bacteri¬ 
ologists last December was one of especial in¬ 
terest to game breeders and to those who are con¬ 
sidering the subject of going into game breeding. 
Most of the papers read at the time appeal only 
to the bacteriologist, and to the average reader 
would be somewhat less comprehensible than so 
much Greek, Hebrew or Sanscrit. 
One of them, however, by Leo. F. Rettger deals 
with a bacteriological disease present in fowls, 
and of course likely to be present in other galli¬ 
naceous birds. 
The bacillus or bacterium of this disease has 
many points in common with the typhoid bacillus. 
It is present in the intestine, liver, lung, spleen, 
kidney, heart and unabsorbed yolk of chicks suf¬ 
fering with the disease. Experiments conducted 
on a large scale demonstrate that the disease may 
be transmitted to young chicks under three days 
old through infected food and drinking water. 
To the layman the most extraordinary thing 
about the disease will be the statement that chicks 
may be infected with it before hatching. These 
two facts explain the rapid spread of the infec¬ 
tion among chicks immediately after hatching. 
The author declares that the mother hen is the 
source of infection in the egg. It has been 
shown that hens producing infected eggs pos¬ 
sess ovaries that are infected with this bacillus 
called Bacterium pullorum. Eggs produced by 
these hens were found to contain the bacillus 
in various stages of incubation. A method was 
devised for identifying the bacillus in fresh eggs 
from infected flocks, and of eggs so tested the 
bacillus was found in some and not in others. 
It appears thus that the laying hen is a bacillus 
carrier. From her eggs which contain the bacillus 
are hatched chicks already infected. These in¬ 
fect other chicks, which at the time of hatching 
may be normal. The female chicks which grow 
to maturity carry the infection in their bodies, 
and when they become mature laying hens, pro¬ 
duce infected eggs, thus completing the cycle. 
Persons who are interested in this subject might 
write to Charles E. Marshall, Secretary, East 
Lansing, Mich., in the hope of securing a copy 
of Dr. Rettger’s paper. 
Alabama Bird Day. 
Montgomery, Ala., April 5.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: May 4 is the anniversary of the birth 
of John James Audubon, who occupies the pre¬ 
eminent station of having been the greatest bird 
lover and naturalist the world has ever known, 
hence the State Educational Department has set 
aside May 4 as a holiday to be observed in all 
the public schools of the State to be devoted to 
the study of birds, their economic value to man, 
and the conspicuous part they play in ho’ding in 
check the destructive insects that prey upon the 
vegetable kingdom as well as devouring noxious 
weed seeds, which, if allowed to grow, would 
stifle out the crops and make the cultivation of 
arable lands ten-fold harder than it is with the 
aid of man’s feathered allies. 
I believe that we should inculcate into the 
minds of our boys and girls the value of con¬ 
servation along all lines, so as to prevent the 
relentless assaults upon nature’s storehouse that 
in the past has been so shamefully vandalized. 
John H. Wallace, Jr., Commissioner. • 
New Publications. 
Alongshore, by Stephen Reynolds. Cloth, 325 
pages, illustrated, $1.20 net. New York, the 
Macmillan Company. 
The scene of this book is the ’longshore— 
“where man and the sea face one another.” The 
characters are typical specimens of that sturdy 
race who live, move and have their being on the 
briny deep. What these people have to con¬ 
tend with, what to glory in, how they work and 
play and what manner of life they live from day 
to day—these are the things which Mr. Rey¬ 
nolds portrays with wonderful sincerity and un¬ 
conscious picturesqueness. Of course, the sea 
with all its varying moods is here, and incident¬ 
ally much sound information is given in a quaint, 
amusing manner about the winds, the seasons, 
the clouds, the tides, the running of fish, the 
management of sails; in fact, about everything 
which in any way touches the life of fishermen. 
Books Received : “Unexplored Spain,” by Abel 
Chapman and Walter J. Buck; New York, Long¬ 
mans, Green & Co. “The Trail of a Tender¬ 
foot,” by Stephen Cha’mers; Outing. “Neigh¬ 
bors Unknown,” by Charles G. D. Roberts; 
Macmillan. “The Fine Art of Fishing,” by 
Samuel G. Camp; Outing. 
