A March-Day Walk. 
New York, March 7. — Editor Forest and 
Seam: March 1 and the opening day of 
sring. At 7 o’clock sharp I was awakened by a 
lavy pressure upon my chest, to find the Nip- 
fr’s wide blue eyes dancing a few inches above 
v sleepy face, his snub nose wrinkled with 
lighter, and to hear his gruffly piping voice cry- 
i 5: “Ain’t ye goin’ to get those skunk cab¬ 
les, daddy?” “That’s so! That’s so! ’pon my 
sal. But, time to see if the silent world is 
iking up yet!” 
,We both wriggle into hip-boots (mine size 8— 
Ipper’s size 10 minus) sweaters, peajackets, 
siting caps, gloves—and after a short trip by 
blley, we arrive within a half-mile of our own 
[ivate preserve. That is to say, the Nipper 
s/aks of the mill-pond as “our pond,” of the 
bok as “our brook,” the birches, alders, chest- 
1 ts, tulip-trees, woodcock, rabbits, squirrels, 
\ asels, trout, pickerel, painted-turtles, and even 
t; suckers, as “ours.” 
The day, which had been bright, became over- 
cst, but did not deter us. It takes more than 
1 incipient snowstorm to turn us back from our 
fst exploring trip of the season. And now we 
Ive arrived at the top of the long hill which 
lids to the promised land. What’s that? Noth¬ 
in else, my son, but the encroachment of the 
adless real estate moloch upon our domain, 
bed honest tears, my lad, for the little country 
he which has disappeared beneath a thousand 
hds of yellow dirt; heave a worthy sigh for 
t; many silver birches wantonly destroyed; yes, 
id grind your teeth at our helplessness to pre- 
int the imminent destruction of our thrice-be- 
Led brook. Another season and “Thee the all- 
1 holding sun shall see no more.” Ah, well! 
’was too much to expect, that a square mile of 
ich natural beauty should continue to exist 
'thin three miles of .Manhattan. 
My son and I have caught brook trout up to 
even inches, and seen many rabbits, woodcock 
:d squirrels within three miles of one of Man- 
l.ttan’s main thoroughfares. Why, we saw a 
:esh coon skin tacked to a barn door not more 
lan two miles from Riverside Drive this very 
:ternoon. But where’s the sense in harrowing 
t the reader’s feelings and my own ? As long 
; people fancy billiard top lawns and geomet- 
::al clusters of coleus, so long will primeval 
1 ture continue to disappear from the face of 
le globe. 
Well! We discovered our fcetidus on the .lee 
:le of a hill where the water trickled and the 
found was unfrozen. In soil frozen so hard that 
1 r jack-knife penetrated with difficulty we 
und cinquefoil, garlic, flag; and in the beds of 
inning rills, sometimes festooned with ice, the 
ieen and thriving leaves of flag, mint and 
.'/amp buttercup. Below the frozen surface of 
* pool we’ watched the antics of tadpoles, and 
ime small fishes which I hesitate to identify, 
>e ice being about 1 y 2 inches thick. We heard 
<e cawing of crows and beheld two of them; 
• so the twittering of a pair of phcebes, a robin, 
a jay and a highholder. Of the last three we 
will not be certain, the sounds being distant and 
soon discontinued. A caterpillar, apparently 
frozen stiff, soon thawed out in our kichen, and 
is now domiciled in my worm-box. I thought 
cold weather killed them? Considering the fact 
that the weather was freezing and the trip com¬ 
pleted in a fall of snow, Nipper says we did very 
well. Darius Dalrymple. 
Food of the Grosbeaks. 
Of the finches or sparrows commonly known 
as grosbeaks, the pine grosbeak and the evening 
grosbeak are so seldom found in the United 
States—and then only in winter—that their food 
habits interest us but little. There are five others, 
however, the cardinal, gray, rose-breasted, black¬ 
headed and blue grosbeaks which spend either 
the summer or the whole year within the United 
States, and their food habits are of importance 
to the farmer. The food habits of these species 
have for some time been under investigation by 
the Biological Survey, one of whose assistants, 
Mr. W. E. McAtee, has just published the re¬ 
sults of his studies. He gives the distribution 
and habits of each species, its economic rela¬ 
tions, including its vegetable food, divided into 
grain and wild fruit and seeds, its animal food, 
of insects, either helpful or injurious, the food 
of the nestlings, and finally gives a summary of 
his conclusions, after which comes a list of the 
seeds, fruits and invertebrates eaten by the spe¬ 
cies. The list of these foods for the cardinal 
covers two pages and a half set in double col¬ 
umn. For that bird it appears that three-tenths 
of its food is animal, and seven-tenths vegetable. 
Of its total food, between eight and nine per 
cent, is grain, but of that more than half is 
waste. It destroys a vast number of highly in¬ 
jurious weed seeds. In its insect food, the car¬ 
dinals devour one beneficial insect to fifteen in¬ 
jurious ones. 
The grosbeaks are much less exclusively vege¬ 
tarian in food than are the other finches, and 
nearly one-half of their food is animal. They 
eat the injurious hairy caterpillars avoided by 
many birds, the bugs, potato beetles, cucumber 
and ladybird beetles, together with a large num¬ 
ber of other injurious insects. The blackheaded 
and blue grosbeak destroy the scale insects in 
very great numbers, but on the other hand the 
blue grosbeak is very fond of fruit, and so 
takes some small toll of what he saves from 
the scale insect, when the fruit ripens. The 
farmer and fruit grower have no better friends 
than the whole family of the grosbeak, and it has 
been found that by planting a few mulberry trees 
on the confines of the orchard, the birds will fre¬ 
quent them and will let the cultivated fruit alone. 
Mr. McAtee’s very valuable paper is illus¬ 
trated by a large number of cuts showing the 
seeds, plants and insects on which these birds 
feed, and by three colored plates of grosbe^Ls 
painted by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. One of these 
shows the cardinal and the gray grosbeak, one 
the blackhead and rose-breasted grosbeak, and 
one the blue grosbeak. 
Skunk Tales. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I once knew a professional skunk trapper 
who professed to have the magic, or black art 
of leading a skunk to a scentless death, but as 
I could detect his presence a quarter of a mile 
away against a strong wind, I did not think it 
worth while to> learn his secret. The skunk 
often casts the scent if instantly killed, not al¬ 
ways immediately, but after some little interval'. 
I have a vague idea that the shock of death 
left the impression of being attacked by some 
larger animal, and the scent was cast involun¬ 
tarily to prevent further mouthing. 
If your correspondent of the box trap had 
put a weight in it heavy enough to sink box, 
skunk and all, then indeed would he have 
achieved the scentless death, for the skunk does 
not use this weapon against the elements; it is 
their defense against animated enmies, hence it 
does not scent the trap in which it is caught, 
though I think if one were struck by lightning 
it would reply with its battery. 
Some fourteen or fifteen years ago I was in 
camp with a small party at Twin Lakes, out on 
the Roseau trail, Minnesota. The stage between 
Stephens and Jadis, 75 miles, passed within a 
few hundred yards of our camp and used to 
bring us mail and supplies. It came along just 
after dark, and we had to picket the road to 
intercept it. One evening it was raining, and 
the first watch got tired of waiting, before I 
got ready to go out, and started to come in, 
leaving his lantern hanging on a tree, following 
the path in the darkness with the tent lights for 
a guide. When I met him, a skunk was ambling 
along a few feet in front. By the use of the 
lantern I carried a smash-up was avoided. 
When the stage came along a skunk was patter¬ 
ing along in front of it, just keeping from 
under the leader’s feet. By the way, who that 
has traveled much in the West has not detected 
the odor of some skunk, that tried to outrun 
the engine, wafted through the car window by 
the prairie winds? 
When we broke camp at this place there was 
one tent with only an unoccupied cot in it. One 
of the party went in to pack it, but came out 
with a troubled look and said there was some¬ 
thing under the cot that made a thumping 
sound. “Skunk!” was the general remark of 
the knowing ones. The front of the tent was 
opened wide, the rear wall raised, and then we 
tried to drive it out by thumping on the ground; 
but it only thumped back at us and yielded not 
an inch, We finally got a bundle of dry hay, 
and placing it so the wind carried in the right 
direction, set it on fire. When it got to burn¬ 
ing well a bunch of wet grass and leaves were 
thrown on and a dense smoke rolled up and 
into the tent, under the cot and out of the 
rear. We soon heard the skunk wheezing and 
later saw it emerge from the smoke half¬ 
way down to the lake, where it disappeared ia 
the marsh grass. 
The skunk is the greatest nuisance, and the 
