Aug. 27, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
331 
ever, with the recollection of the days that are gone. 
Together we drove over the field and searched 
out the old, forgotten ways. The same sunshine 
lay on the white, dust-laden “pike,” and over 
the same old dry runs we had traversed long 
ago, and we returned home again through the 
old familiar dust-laden, golden dusk in the .frag¬ 
rance of evening. A new bridge had replaced 
the covered toll-bridge spanning the river, and 
the great oaks were gone, but the ascent from 
the river to the terrace level over a road utiliz¬ 
ing an ancient graded way of the prehistoric 
period was made through much the same 
shadowed leafy silence. 
Trolley lines penetrate this once remote valley, 
and the urban populace, with the garishness of 
recent architecture, has invaded the solitude, yet 
on the whole one is impressed less with these 
innovations than with the unchanging aspect of 
nature's landmarks, and that man and his works, 
prehistoric or historic, are but transient inci¬ 
dents in the ultimate impression. 
With the active work of his life closed, yet not 
finished, the antiquary looks out over the world 
and into futurity; not with any pained regret at 
his passing, but rather with an approach to com¬ 
prehension of something of “the great interro¬ 
gation.” As his mental horizon recedes in time 
and space, his soul is hedged in less and less by 
conventional concepts., Man’s history and pro¬ 
gress lie before him an open book, unfinished; 
its pages the cultural periods, and men in their 
struggles upward the type that prints the page. 
That the tendency to centralization has oper¬ 
ated to discourage original research in local 
scientific fields, as in the economic field, is a 
matter to be remedied perhaps when our cul¬ 
tural progress shall have measured up to some 
standard of usefulness one to another as against 
personal aggrandizement, intellectual or eco¬ 
nomic. It is not, however, for the solution of 
problems of ethic^ that we are camped here 
where we have camped in our youth, but as the 
long grass waves in the fresh west wind as night 
comes, and the embers glow as the light dies out 
of the west, let us glance backward and bestow 
a tribute of respect and love on the passing of 
a type—the antiquary. 
Young Wildcat?. 
Suring, Wis., Aug. 18. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Recently a man living near here caught 
a litter of young wildcats, and I succeeded in 
getting a few fairly good pictures, though it was 
difficult to induce the little fellows to pose. They 
are confined in a vacant room in the owner's 
house, and the way the animals devour meat and 
drink milk indicates a healthy appetite. There 
would be little difficulty in rearing them, but the 
possessor will kill them for the bounty (six dol¬ 
lars a head) in a few days unless he finds a 
purchaser. 
The little animals, full of “spunk,” will at¬ 
tack a bit of paper or a gloved hand viciously, 
hanging on to a glove by their teeth with all the 
tenacity of a bulldog. One of them caught the 
finger of Mr. D., who was trying to caress the 
innocent-appearing beast, and bit it severely. In 
appearance they are not unlike the striped or 
"tiger” kittens of the domestic cat, save that the 
gray under parts are spotted with brown, while 
the tips of the ears are white. Of course their 
tails are short. The legs are shorter, larger and 
more muscular than are those of Tabby’s off¬ 
spring. Looking the animals in the face, I was 
impressed by their intelligent expression, though 
when approached they laid, back their ears and 
“swore” in a way that told of suspicion as. well 
as intelligence. 
In response to my question as to where he se¬ 
cured them, Mr. D. said that he and a son were 
picking berries along the edge of a swamp not 
a mile from his house. Their dog was running 
about in the brush, and manifesting great excite¬ 
ment, but supposing that he was running rabbits, 
the men paid no attention. Neither were they 
interested when the dog settled upon a certain 
hollow log as the all-important point, and when 
they had filled their pails, they started for the 
house; but the dog made such a tremendous 
racket that they turned back. Mr. D. knelt down 
and looked into the log, expecting to see a rabbit, 
but what he saw impelled him to remove his 
outer shirt for a net. With great difficulty they 
YOUNG WILDCATS. 
Photograph by O. W.\Smith. 
captured the kittens, and having wrapped them 
in their shirts, started for the house. Mr. D.’s 1 
hands were scratched and bitten, though he said 
the kittens could not do much damage with their 
claws, for they did not seem to know how to 
use them, but that they could use their teeth he 
stands ready to testify. 
Mr. D. has set a trap for the mother, but has 
failed to secure her, though she has visited the 
den since the little ones were taken. 
What surprises me is that the mother would 
select a home so near a thickly settled commun¬ 
ity, when to the north there is a vast tract of un¬ 
improved land. Did she plan to secure her food 
at the nearby chicken roost, or did she think 
that she would be safer near civilization because 
unlooked for? But 1 forgot; animals do not 
reason, therefore it just happened so. 
O. W. Smith. 
Egg-Destroying Hawks. 
Okanagan Landing, B. C., Aug. 11 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream: In a recent letter to me you 
expressed surprise at my statement that the 
marsh-hawk robbed the nests of ground-breeding 
birds. Until recently I thought the harriers 
were the only hawks that habitually ate eggs, so 
when my friend Charles de B. Greene, who is 
surveying on the northern end of the Queen 
Charlotte Islands, wrote me that the red-tail 
hawk was a similar offender, I asked him for 
further particulars, which he has sent me as 
follows: The gull he refers to is the glaucous 
winged, which there breeds in an amazing way, 
singly on the muskegs—miles away* from the sea 
—-no doubt to escape the depredations of the 
crows, which take a very large percentage of 
their eggs where they breed on rocky islets. 
Mr. Green says in his letter; 
“The red-tailed buzzard is one of the enemies 
of these gulls. He comes sailing over the tree- 
tops that border the muskeg and goes straight 
for the bird on the nest. She shows up as white 
as snow. He proceeds to eat the eggs, without 
taking any notice of the two gulls who fly around 
him all the time. How any are left to hatch, I 
cannot see, for the bald eagles are at the same 
game. I don’t know whether the gulls can stand 
off the ravens, but I doubt it.” 
Now this big gull is a good fighter, and why 
two of them cannot defend their eggs from a 
Tfird no larger than themselves is a mystery. 
