362 
FOREST AND STREAM 
AUGUST, 1917 
THE HUNTED FOILS THE HUNTER 
YOUR OWN ADVENTURES PROBABLY INCLUDE 
SOME WHERE THE WILY ANIMAL OUTWITTED YOU 
By GEORGE L. KIRK. 
IV.—More About Bears 
ROBABLY no bear other than a one- 
third grown cub would exhibit the 
rabbit trait of traveling in circles when 
it found an enemy on its bad? track, and it 
was a surprised deer hunter who found 
that he was in familiar territory after fol¬ 
lowing a cub’s track in nearly a foot of 
snow on the slope of Mount Killington one 
late October day. Yes, the tracker had 
been in the very same spot that very day; 
there were his own footprints in the snow. 
The cub was coming up behind him as he 
led off in the direction it had first taken, 
traveling in a complete circle. 
A second time cubby tried the same trick 
and then the hunter attempted a cross cut 
which caused the animal to climb a high 
ridge to its home, a big windfall where 
broken rocks and fallen trees covered the 
crest of the mountain for a hundred yards. 
Marks on the black cherry trees, claw- 
scratches low down and great grooves seven 
feet high, showed that a bear family had 
passed the summer there. But mother 
bruin was not at home that day, as tracks 
in the snow indicated, and the cub led off 
for another mountain, on her trail. 
Next morning two hunters were on the 
scene early. There had been a fresh fall 
of snow during the night and the tracks of 
an old bear and a cub going into the wind¬ 
fall were plainly visible. There were no 
tracks leading out. The tangle was en¬ 
circled, stumps were mounted as vantage 
points; but no bears were sighted. The 
writer volunteered to play dog and, lying 
flat on his stomach, wriggled under the 
prostrate trees, following the track left by 
the bear and cub. Soon a shout was heard 
from his companion who had been sta¬ 
tioned at the point where the tracks indi¬ 
cated the animals usually made their exit 
The bears had smelled the man scent and 
T HE heath hen, one of the first game 
birds to be protected by law in the 
state of New York, but extinct m 
that region for many years, has been re¬ 
turned to its native range as the result of 
co-operation recently effected by the state's 
conservation commission with the game 
commissioners of Massachusetts. Twenty- 
one of the birds have been taken from the 
Martha’s Vineyard reservation, where they 
have been protected from extermination 
by the careful work of the Massachusetts 
commission, and have been liberated upon 
the state game farm at Middle Island, 
Long Island, where it is hoped they will 
multiply and eventually spread over a 
large part of the territory once inhabited 
by them. 
In early Colonial days southeastern New 
York, and particularly Long Island, was 
beat a hasty retreat past the hunter. But 
a big mitten had caught in the trigger- 
guard of his rifle, and before it got dis¬ 
entangled the bears were gone. 
A ND then there was the incident of 
the bear and the hunter in the cave. 
Not a half dozen miles from the spot 
where the bear trap was set, a deer hunter 
traced a yearling bear to the mouth 
of a cave into which it had fled. Think¬ 
ing that the creature might emerge, be¬ 
cause he had traveled many miles and 
seemed restless, the sportsman selected a 
point where he could command a good 
view of the hole in the ledge and de¬ 
cided to wait for the animal to re¬ 
appear. Three hours of inactivity, during 
which nothing larger than a chickadee 
came into view, chilled the watcher to the 
marrow, and he decided to rout bruin 
from the cavern. 
With a tiny pocket flashlight in one 
hand and a cocked rifle in the other the 
bear hunter started to crawl into the open¬ 
ing, which was not high enough to permit a 
man to walk erect and was only about 
three feet wide. Hardly had he pene¬ 
trated to where the light of day was ob¬ 
scured, when he suddenly found himself 
flattened on the stone floor. The bear did 
not like his company and bolted by him 
in the narrow aperture, being not at all 
fussy about stepping on the prostrate 
hunter. 
The latter was dazed for a moment; then 
he realized what had happened and 
crawled in the direction the bear had taken. 
When his eyes had become accustomed to 
the bright light of the open forest he caught 
sight of a dark animal making good speed 
up the mountain side. A riffle cracked 
three times in rapid succession, but the 
bear kept on and soon had disappeared. 
plentifully stocked with this valuable and 
interesting game bird. It is the Atlantic 
coast species of the pinnated grouse or 
prairie chicken of the western states. 
In fact, it was so common in the early 
days of the Massachusetts colony that it 
was often stipulated when young boys 
were apprenticed at different trades that 
the apprentices were not to be fed exclu¬ 
sively on heath hen. Just what effect a 
steady diet of heath hen had on the labors 
of the apprentices was never set down in 
the articles of apprenticeship, but in these 
days of high prices the young gunners of 
Long Island are more than willing to be¬ 
gin where the Massachusetts apprentices 
le.ft off two centuries ago. 
The pine plains on Long- Island afford 
an ideal range for this bird, but it was 
also plentiful in decades past in other 
parts of the state. They were spoken of 
as plentiful around New Amsterdam and 
Fort Orange in 1639. They were one of 
the first species, however, to feel the ef¬ 
fect of the drain by white men upon wild 
life. Being strictly local in their habits 
and habitat, they did not migrate when 
they were decimated by the early settlers 
in this region. As the steady attacks upon 
the species continued, their numbers rap¬ 
idly decreased. In 1708 the governor of 
New York, the council, and the general as¬ 
sembly passed a game protective act pro¬ 
viding, among other things, for the in¬ 
carceration of any luckless white man, 
Indian, freedman or slave who killed a 
heath hen between the first day of April 
and the first day of August, unless he was 
possessed of the exorbitant sum of two 
shillings and sixpence with which to pur¬ 
chase his freedom. 
In spite of this tremendous barrier to 
the destruction of the heath hen, a cen¬ 
tury later the species was almost extinct. 
The last specimen was shot in this state in 
1836. In 1844 it was reported extinct all 
over its natural range, but it did not be¬ 
come an absolute victim to the onrush of 
civilization, as a few scattered birds re¬ 
mained on Martha’s Vineyard, a few miles 
off the coast of Massachusetts, and there 
lived in sanctuary. It is from this little 
flock of strays that the Massachusetts com¬ 
mission hopes to re-establish the species 
again in its native range; and the conser¬ 
vation commission of New York, through 
the gift of the Massachusetts commission, 
will endeavor to do the same in that state. 
The state ornithologist of Massachu¬ 
setts, Edward H. Forbush, who has con¬ 
ducted extensive investigations of the 
heath hen, reports that although it had in¬ 
creased on Martha’s Vineyard until there 
were in the neighborhood of a thousand 
birds there last year, a great fire on the 
island in 1916, followed by a cold wet 
breeding season and a flight of goshawks 
in the winter, so reduced their number that 
there are now probably less than one hun¬ 
dred and fifty birds left. However, they 
were once down to a third of this num¬ 
ber, so the authorities have hopes of 
bringing them up again. They are also 
watching with interest the success of the 
colony in New York. If the heath hen 
thrives in these new surroundings, the 
colony will be considered an “anchor to 
the windward.” 
MINNESOTA SNAPPING TURTLES 
PRIZED AS FOOD IN EAST 
The shipping of snapping turtles to east¬ 
ern markets is a new industry in Minne¬ 
sota. About 600 pounds of live turtles 
were sent to a Philadelphia commission 
merchant recently by C. E. Swenson, who 
is killing two birds with one stone, clearing 
a lake near his place of turtles, which de¬ 
voured fish as fast as they coud be stocked. 
Two thousand turtles were taken from 
the lake last fall, kept alive in boxes all 
winter and are now being sent east. 
South Dakota mined $7,500,000 in gold 
last year, or just half of the yearly crop 
toll taken by insects, according to Presi¬ 
dent E. L. Perisho of the State College. 
Feed the birds. 
RESTORING THE HEATH HEN 
A CAME BIRD ONCE SO COMMON IN MASSACHUSETTS 
THAT APPRENTICES WERE PROTECTED FROM IT 
