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Forest and Stream 
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Cork -Tex 
Wadded Shells 
Insure Better Results 
T HE variation in shotgun 
shells, under widely varying 
conditions, has always baffled bal¬ 
listic science; and it was for this 
reason that we turned our atten- 
tion to the development of “Cork- 
Tex,” the new scientific wadding. 
Cork-Tex Wads maintain pow¬ 
der stability by keeping out mois¬ 
ture. Also, this soft, resilient ma¬ 
terial minimizes the recoil—and 
lessens the nerve strain in shooting. 
Thousands of shooters in all 
parts of the country are now 
using Cork-Tex Wadded Shells. 
Try them once—and you’ll use 
no other. 
Send for our booklet, “Shell 
Certainty Through Ballistic Sci¬ 
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features which are sure to be of in¬ 
terest to every informed shooter. 
Bond Manufacturing Corporation 
513 Monroe St. Wilmington, Delaware 
Note: We make the “Cork- 
Tex” wads for shell manu¬ 
facturers. We do not manu¬ 
facture shells — but factory 
loaded shells are available. 
If your dealer is not in posi¬ 
tion to supply you, send us 
his name and we will advise 
him how he may be 
supplied with “Cork- 
Tex” wadded shells. 
^the New WAD 
Endorsed by SCIENCE 
It is now time to start back for Port- 
au-Prince so you regretfully leave Trou- 
caiman and wend your way back 
through the cactus desert. On every 
side are crows (Coruus Icucognaphalus 
positively identified), and numbers of 
the ani. But I have said nothing of the 
two commonest birds of Haiti. They 
are everywhere and remind you of one 
another in their general habit of perch¬ 
ing on the top of a tree or a pole and 
in their gray color. They are the Hai¬ 
tian mockingbird and the gray kingbird. 
You cannot go two hundred yards along 
the road that you do not see an indi¬ 
vidual of one or another, and this is par¬ 
ticularly so in the plains country. Two 
smaller birds are almost as common, the 
grassquits, yellow-faced and black¬ 
headed, and the song of the former is 
almost indistinguishable from that of 
the chipping sparrow; in fact, the grass- 
quits take the place of our American 
sparrows all along the roads. 
The car stops quickly, and everyone 
is over the side in a moment, banging 
away at a flock of guineas, which are 
fast disappearing in the cactus. These 
birds are descendants of .the common 
guineas brought in by the French over 
a century ago. When the French evacu¬ 
ated Haiti the guineas were left and 
they became acclimated and for genera¬ 
tions have now been wild. They are 
excellent game and delicious food. The 
proper way to hunt the guinea is to get 
out in the cactus-less plains before dawn 
and have a couple of dogs, which tree 
the birds until you are generally within 
gunshot. 
T HE rest of the ride brings you sev¬ 
eral new birds—a flash of green 
means that a narrow-billed tody has 
passed, the unmistakable flight of a 
woodpecker means you have seen a Hai¬ 
tian woodpecker, and the Haitian 
grackle, Haitian oriole and two kinds of 
doves, the mourning and Cuban ground 
and the white-winged pigeon form the 
more interesting. 
Just before you reach town you run 
into what may be called “the English 
sparrow of Plaiti.” It is that little- 
known bird, the palmchat, which seems 
to stay about the towns and has one 
note of an English sparrow and another 
of a starling. The birds are always 
hanging in some grotesque position, re¬ 
minding you of a crossbill. They are 
generally in flocks, often thirty being in 
a single tree together, and usually eat¬ 
ing the seeds of some native trees. 
Your ride is over. You have visited 
a choice part of Haiti, but there is a lot 
that remains unseen. If you go into the 
interior you will see flocks of the 
Haitian parrot. If you go out in the 
harbor you will see the brown pelican 
and the man ’o war birds, and at any 
time you may see either variety of the 
beautiful palm tanagers and all of these 
common American warblers: black and 
white, Cape May, yellow-throated, 
black-throated blue, palm, prairie, red¬ 
start, myrtle and Louisiana water- 
thrush. 
There are other birds which you will 
find eventually if you are long in Haiti, 
and much that is new about those you 
have already seen. 
Two nights later you sit on your 
veranda and eat your guinea or duck to 
the call of a chuck-wills-widow. 
BLUE JAY AND STARLING 
TRACKS 
B ARE winter with its loneliness is the 
season to be interested in tracks. 
The white landscape may stretch from 
horizon to horizon under the touch of 
an icy north wind, without sign of wild 
life, but it is seldom that the white page 
of snow is not marked with the foot¬ 
prints of bird or beast. 
In the village, tracks left by rabbit 
and squirrel, so like yet clearly different, 
run here and there among the footpads 
of cat and dog. In the woodland, one 
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Blue jay and starling tracks 
may cross the clean-cut trail of a fox, 
or find marks left by the broadly spread 
toes of the ruffed grouse, now fringed 
with comb-like teeth, a sort .of nature’s 
snowshoe. The tracks of mice, resem¬ 
bling those of a miniature rabbit or 
squirrel, appear along the wayside, dis¬ 
appearing in some hole, and wherever 
one may tramp are marks left by small 
ground-feeding birds, so much alike as 
to be puzzling or impossible to differ¬ 
entiate. 
When our old friend the blue jay de¬ 
scends to the snow his feet strike side 
by side, and he progresses by leaps. 
There may be a foot’s distance between 
the take off and where he strikes the 
snow again. A blue jay’s footprint is 
very narrow, the antithesis of the 
spreading toes of such true ground birds 
as quail and grouse. The diagramatic 
sketch of a jay track in snow shows a 
very long hind-toe mark, suggesting that 
the hind toe may be dragged in landing. 
Now that the introduced European 
starling has become numerous in the 
Northeast, its are among the most 
abundant bird tracks on winter snows 
or shores. It walks in place of hopping, 
and its recognizable footprint, though 
much smaller, suggests that of the crow. 
The sketch of a starling track herewith, 
like that of the blue jay, is in proportion 
to a one-inch scale. 
There is a fascination in the study of 
tracks; playing detective, as it were, on 
creatures of the wild, even in places far 
too civilized for any big game to remain. 
J. T. Nichols. 
In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. It will identify you. 
