May 13, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
735 
Wild Life in North Carolina. 
Raleigh, N. C., May 6 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: During March and April the “tree doc¬ 
tors,’’ a corps of young men from the West, 
were here looking after the wonderful oaks in 
Capitol Square. Their tree surgery was an in¬ 
spiration to many people. The gray squirrels 
are very numerous in the square and from it 
have spread all over the city. When the men 
had stopped the hollows in the limbs and trunks 
in the trees in which the squirrels had so long 
had their abode, neat boxes covered with bark 
were placed in the trees, and the squirrels seem 
to like their new homes. 
April was tricky, with some sharp frosts and 
even ice. The old saying that the leaves are 
all full grown by May 10 will not be true this 
year. Flowers have been and are extremely 
abundant and varied. After having traveled all 
over the State I have reached the conclusion 
that there are more kinds of flowers in the 
vicinity of Raleigh than at any other one point 
in North Carolina. We are on the dividing line 
between the north and the south, which runs 
through Cape Hatteras, and we are also on the 
dividing line between the coastal plain and its 
sand, and the Piedmont region with its clay and 
stiffer soils. This same environment has its ef¬ 
fect in causing a great variety of birds and in¬ 
sects. Song birds are extraordinarily numerous 
and gentle. It shows what bird protection is 
doing. During the past few days there have 
been bird concerts in the woods around Raleigh, 
and an English friend on a visit here, Herbert 
A. Plater, is astonished at the beauty of the 
songs of the mockingbird, thrush, catbird and 
song sparrow, not forgetting the oriole, which is 
remarkably abundant and tuneful. 
Birds, like flowers, seem to fancy certain places, 
and at this particular spot one can hear the 
melody of the birds which the country people 
call the swamp robin. 
Some fine coveys of quail were flushed during 
the past few days, and in the case of one of 
them a strange thing happened. As we stopped 
and looked at them flying, they dropped and a 
half dozen jumped on a log and looked all about 
them, craning their necks in the fashion of a 
turkey which is scared and cannot understand 
things. 
Assistant Curator Tom Addickes, of the State 
Museum, is on the coast superintending the dig¬ 
ging out of the skeleton of a mammoth which 
is wonderfully well preserved, the bones already 
reclaimed being almost perfect and not petrified. 
It is in the bed of a little creek and above it is 
a bridge. A caisson of planks and logs was built 
to keep out the water, but the work inside this 
is difficult and Mr. Addickes and his negro 
laborers look as if they had just been dug up 
themselves when they finish their work each day. 
Curator Herbert Brimley is arranging a very 
large case in the museum to contain alligators 
and snakes. In this will be some nine-foot al'i- 
gators of his own killing, and a huge rattlesnake. 
This is a diamond-back rattler from Carteret 
county, with a head three and a quarter inches 
wide, twenty-two rattles, a girth of sixteen inches 
and a length of nearly seven feet. There is not 
a bruise on this snake, for an old man killed him 
with a slight tap of a stick. A few days ago 
A. J. Cobb kil'ed a nine-foot alligator in Robe¬ 
son county, the biggest one ever killed there. 
Six years ago some Raleigh boys were walk¬ 
ing along a small stream when their collie dog 
suddenly made a dash at a hole in the bank, but 
jumped back, for there was a strange sort of 
hissing. The boys dug out an alligator four 
feet long and four or five small ones. They 
gave away the latter, but tied the largest one 
on a plank and brought it to me. It was taken 
to Pullen Park, in the suburbs, and put in a lake 
in which I had some years before planted the 
Egyptian lotus, and there he is to-day. He came 
out often during the winter, but in the cold days 
lurked in a hole he had dug for himself in the 
bank. Last summer this wretch broke through 
a wire netting and ate a heron which up to that 
time had led a contemplative life. 
Fred. A. Olds. 
Trained Chinese Dog. 
Shanghai, China, March 18.- — Editor Forest 
and Stream: A friend of mine relates that 
while shooting recently he met a Chinese sports¬ 
man equipped with a matchlock gun weighing 
about twenty pounds and with barrels about four 
feet long. This, however, is not an unusual 
weapon for a native sportsman to carry during 
the day when hunting for pheasants and other 
game, but as the sportsman in question was ac¬ 
companied with a dog, also of Chinese nativity, 
there was some curiosity to know how he pro¬ 
ceeded in the field. My informant states that 
he did not have long to wait, for he soon saw 
a pheasant feeding in a rice field and the Chinese 
sportsman maneuvering for a, pot shot. The 
dog appeared to be the principal tactician, al¬ 
ways keeping between his owner and the unsus¬ 
pecting pheasant, and when the former was with- 
ing shooting distance, he deliberately laid down, 
broadside to the pheasant, concealing the potter 
as much as possible, who was successful in kill¬ 
ing the pheasant.* 
In this connection, another peculiarity of a 
Chinese sportsman may be mentioned in tlfe 
words of an eye witness. In his book, “With 
Boat and Gun in the Yangtse Valley,” Mr. Wade 
says: “A method which came under my obser¬ 
vation during a shooting trip was this: At the 
close of a cold December day, some seven miles 
from the walled city of Iviutang, near a large 
pond, I saw a man beckoning to me, and as I 
approached he asked me not to shoot the ducks 
in the pond. He explained that his friend was 
in the water, so I waited to see what would 
happen. After some time his friend landed, 
wearing a large bamboo collar or cangue, and 
carrying a basket containing a few wild and 
three tame ducks secured together by a string. 
He was dressed in goat skin, with the wool in¬ 
side, his stockings were stitched to the cloth¬ 
ing, and so oiled as to be nearly waterproof. 
Thus accoutred, he immersed his body, using 
the collar as a float. On his hat were placed 
bunches of grass, and on the collar two or three 
decoy ducks. He slowly approached the wild¬ 
fowl, and when near enough dexterously caught 
the unsuspecting duck and dragged it under 
water. I watched him until he had gathered 
nearly the whole lot.” 
I wonder if Colonel F. A. Olds, of Raleigh, 
N. C., ever saw anything like the above. 
T. R. Jernigan. 
*A similar account was recently printed in Forest and 
Stream.—Editor. 
A Cape Cod Wolf Hunter. 
In an interesting volume about the families 
of Barnstable (Mass.)—a reprint of the genea¬ 
logical papers originally published in the Barn¬ 
stable Patriot by the late Amos Otis—is much 
curious history about Cape Cod. One story, 
which has to do with wolves on the Cape, tells 
of a period when Plymouth had been settled for 
fifty years or more, and of the doings of Joseph 
Bodfish, who seems to have been a great hunter 
and trapper. 
“Though liberal bounties had been paid to 
English and Indians for wolves’ heads, yet 
these ravenous animals abounded in the colony. 
In 1654, the whole number killed was nineteen— 
of which three were killed in Barnstable, and in 
1655 thirty-one—nine in Barnstable. In 1690 the 
number killed was thirteen and in 1691 nineteen. 
Jonathan Bodfish said his grandfather could set 
a trap as cunningly as the oldest Indian, and 
that the duck or the goose that ventured to 
come within gun shot of him rarely escaped 
being shot. 
“Wolf Neck, so named because it was the 
resort of these animals, was about half a mile 
from Joseph Bodfish’s house, and there he set 
his traps. Once he narrowly escaped losing his 
own life. Seeing a large wolf in his trap he 
incautiously approached with a rotten pine pole 
in his hand. He struck, the pole broke in his 
hand and the enraged beast sprang at him with 
the trap and broken chain attached to his leg. 
Mr. Bodfish stepped suddenly one side and the 
wolf passed by him. Before the wolf could re¬ 
cover, Mr. Bodfish was beyond his reach. This 
trap is preserved in his family as an heirloom. 
“Some years after, a wolf was followed by 
hunters from Wareham to Barnstable and they 
wished Mr. Bodfish to join them but he de¬ 
clined. Having studied the habits of the ani¬ 
mal, he felt certain it would return on the same 
track. Taking his gun he went into the woods, 
concealed himself within gun-shot on the lee¬ 
ward side of the track and waited for the return 
of the wolf. He was not disappointed. The 
wolf at last appeared and was shot. He return¬ 
ed to his house and soon after the Wareham 
hunters came in and reported that they had 
followed the wolf to the lower part of Yar¬ 
mouth, and the dogs had there lost the track 
and they gave up the pursuit. They felt a 
little chagrined when the dead body of the 
wolf was shown to them.” 
Introduced Game Birds. 
W. B. Newcomb, the auditor of Yakima county, 
in the State of Washington, says of his section: 
“This county is taking considerable interest in 
stocking the country with game birds, and this 
spring we are spending nearly $3,000 for Hun¬ 
garian pheasants and bobwhite. A few years ago 
a number of Chinese pheasants were turned 
loose, and now they are very plentiful here, and 
I am satisfied if the farmers had their way about 
it that an open season would not be allowed for 
a number of years. 
Washington is one of the most progressive of 
States and is also one of the sections where, 
with reasonable protection, game birds should 
most flourish. Pheasants, bobwhites and sharp- 
tail grouse should all do well there, and if there 
are any sharptail grouse left in the country, 
strenuous efforts should be made to protect thenq. 
