Sept. 24, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
491 
strange actions, vainly wondering what it could 
be. It looked more like some waterfowl feed¬ 
ing than anything else, but it was too large for 
any duck of which we had knowledge; besides, 
it appeared to be entirely white, even when the 
whole body was visible. "Could it possibly be 
a swan, or some kind of a goose?’’ I suggested. 
Billy did not know, but felt pretty sure that it 
was—at an) r rate, we'd investigate. 
No bird would allow the boat to come within 
range if we crossed the intervening stretch of 
open water, devoid as it was of anything in the 
way of cover; so we made a wide detour up 
stream, laboriously poled across a shallow flat 
where the boat almost stranded, and finally 
reached the opposite shore several hundred yards 
above our quarry. Still it fed on undisturbed, 
seeming to stay quite closely in one spot. Prob¬ 
ably there was a bed of mussels there, or some 
particularly luscious snails. By this time we 
felt certain it was a species new to us, if not to 
ornithological science, and we set out to circle 
back from the creek, cautiously approach the un¬ 
suspecting bird through the grass, and slay him 
with a load of sixes. ‘‘Plug him on the sit if 
you get a chance,” we told each other. "A bird like 
that is too rare to let it have a chance to get away.” 
We crept through the grass, stooping lower 
and lower as we neared the little cove until we 
were crawling on hands and knees. The bird 
had not been seen since we landed, so he had not 
flown away, anyhow. A truly masterful stalk that 
was, for the victim did not rise, even when we 
came to the last patch of cat-tails, fifty feet from 
him. Billy had the better position on the left, and I 
saw him stop and peer intently through the wind- 
tossed* rushes. Then to my utter amazement he 
rose indifferently to his feet, faced about, and 
remarked in tones of deepest disgust: “Paper— 
big sheet caught on a stick. When the wind hits 
it the stick flattens into the water and then 
springs back when the wind stops. Just throw 
those number nines of yours into me a couple 
of times good and hard, will you? Then I’ll 
do the same for you.” 
Gnawed Horns. 
Mr. Shiras’ very interesting articles on “The 
Moose of the Upper Yellowstone Valley"’ brings 
up again a point about which many years ago 
much interest was felt by sportsmen, and appar¬ 
ently very little was then known. In the corres¬ 
pondence then printed in response to the ques- 
ate their horns, and others still that they buried 
them. The whole correspondence made it very 
clear that among people at large little was* known 
on the subject. 
The antlers of deer, after they have hardened 
and the velvet has been stripped from them, are 
mere dead bone and drop from the 4 head after 
a few months. They drop wherever the deer 
MOUNTAIN SHEEP HORN GNAWED BY LARGE RODENTS. 
tion as to what becomes of the old antlers drop¬ 
ped by deer of various kinds, many different 
opinions were expressed, and of these many read 
as if evolved from the inner consciousness of 
the writers. Some people, for example, said that 
the deer went off to some secret place and there 
hid their horns, but no one ever explained what 
was meant by a secret place in the forest or on 
the prairie, since all places where natural condi¬ 
tions prevail are alike secluded and cease to be 
secret places only when man has found his way 
to them. Other writers declared that the deer 
happens to be at the moment when the antler 
becomes sufficiently loose on the head to part 
company with it, and to fall by its own weight 
to the ground. The two antlers do not neces¬ 
sarily fall at the same time, though presumably 
they usually fall the same day. Many years ago 
Captain L. H. North, of Nebraska, told us that 
while hunting in the sandhills he saw a deer 
pass over a ridge with both antlers, that when 
he next saw it, it was carrying only one antler, 
and that before he shot it, it had dropped the 
second. 
In a forest country, antlers which have fallen 
are soon partially covered by the weeds, grass 
and other vegetation which grows up about them, 
and when.autumn comes they are still further 
concealed by the dying grass and the falling 
leaves. A single horn takes up but little space 
and often lies flat to the ground, so that it is 
not strange that we do not see them more often, 
ANTLER GNAWED BY PORCUPINE. 
yet in old times in the Western country, in sec¬ 
tions where elk were plenty and in late winter 
and spring frequented high bald hills from which 
the wind constantly blew the snow, shed antlers 
often lay on the ground so thick that a wagon 
could not have be.en driven straight ahead with¬ 
out running over some of them. Such condi¬ 
tions may still prevail in the Yellowstone Park 
and the country to the south of it. 
As has been said, a shed horn is only dead 
bone, just as perishable as any other bone when 
it lies out in the weather It soon becomes white, 
