Dec. i7, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
971 
moving trains at game, and no attempt made to 
recover the body of any animal accidentally 
struck by the missiles. 
Such practice would not be tolerated now, as 
a general thing, for it is not pleasant for passen¬ 
gers to be disturbed by the firing of guns from 
the cars, and even in the 8o’s, as I recall it, there 
were so many objections that train men often 
warned their passengers not to indulge in the 
practice. The bugaboo of holdups was ever 
working in the minds of timid passengers, one 
of whom, happening to address another who was 
very deaf, tried to jump off the platform of a 
moving train when the deaf man drew out an 
ear trumpet and pointed it toward him. And 
there is slight resemblance between an ear trum¬ 
pet and a six-shooter. 
What Johnson did to justify his hasty action 
in the eyes of the law is not known, but the 
penalty for shooting first and thinking afterward 
might well be severe in this case as in others. 
A transcontinental passenger on a train crossing 
Colorado is seldom provided with a Colorado 
shooting license, and if the passenger referred 
to above got away without paying a heavy fine, 
he was lucky. 
* * * 
Of all the detestable practices known to gun¬ 
ners, one of the worst, and a very common one, 
is to shoot into squirrels’ nests. If you happen 
fo be stalking quietly through the woods, getting 
one shot each hour on an average, it may puzzle 
you to hear another gunner firing frequently, 
and you wonder why he finds game abundant 
and you do not. But if you approach and watch 
you may see him fire into a squirrel’s nest, wait 
a few moments, then pass on and repeat the per¬ 
formance elsewhere. It is perhaps permissible 
to shoot into a nest in which you have seen a 
squirrel disappear, but it is a thing I have sel¬ 
dom done, and in a long experience I can say 
that it is not a satisfactory thing to do. In the 
South the big fox squirrel, if wounded, will cling 
to a limb, or wedge himself between vines or 
twigs, so that he will not fall, and in this way 
one often loses him; but the gray squirrel, if 
hit in the head with a bullet, invariably comes to 
the ground. Knowing this, it is safe to shoot a 
gray in a knothole in a tree, for he will come 
out before he dies; but if crippled with shot, as 
in a nest, he may not show himself at all. Shoot 
a squirrel when you .see him, if you can, but 
when he seeks a nest, if throwing sticks will not 
bring him out, leave him in peace. 
Someone has expressed surprise that squirrels 
which miss a jump from treetop to treetop and 
fall to the ground are not killed. What non¬ 
sense! Did you ever see a cat injured in a long 
fall? And does not the squirrel invariably land 
on all fours, just like a cat? I shot at a big 
gray squirrel one day and missed. He ran up 
a large oak tree and hid, and for a long time 
I circled the tree, carefully scanning every part 
of it. Presently a gust of wind moved the tip 
of the squirrel’s tail slightly, and I saw the out¬ 
line of back and ears, but could not see his head, 
for the limb he was on was nearly horizontal 
and large enough to shield the squirrel. 
Thinking to move him, I walked directly under 
his hiding place, and aiming at the center of the 
limb, fired. Perhaps the impact of the bullet 
was sufficient, or the limb splintered under him, 
for the squirrel was lifted slightly and came 
straight toward me, feet spread, tail as big as 
that of a scared tomcat. 
If I had had time to think he was my meat, I 
would have been sadly mistaken, for that big 
gray landed on all fours with a thud, and in two 
seconds he outdistanced me in running. So far 
as I know he is running yet, for I saw him go¬ 
ing full tilt for at least 200 yards. As for me, 
I tried to estimate the height of his drop, but 
only came to the conclusion that, had I fallen 
as far, my squirrel hunting days would have 
closed right there. 
;{s >}c 
“Perthamboyster” says this paragraph ap¬ 
peared in the Technical World Magazine: 
“The grebe is a bird difficult to shoot, because 
it swims so low in the water and is so quick at 
diving. ‘A special gun that will shoot a charge of 
shot within an area of a foot square at forty or 
fifty yards is what I use,’ said an old hunter.” 
He adds: “Considerable of a choke-bore! 
What?” Grizzly King. 
The Utah Duck Disease. 
Salt Lake City, Utah, Dec. 10. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: State Game and Fish Commissioner 
Chambers has handed me copies of correspond¬ 
ence that passed between his office and the Gov¬ 
ernment Pathologist at Washington, D. C., in 
reference to the epidemic among wild ducks in 
this State, and I send you herewith Dr. Mohler’s 
replies and findings. 
During the time that we were waiting for 
some light upon the subject, we began to gather 
up the dead birds in piles and to cover them 
with lime. This we did very extensively, cer¬ 
tainly disposing of a vast quantity of ducks. At 
times we discussed the advisability of dumping 
lime into the running channels, but I do not 
think the idea was ever carried out. The epi¬ 
demic seems to be abating considerably and the 
various clubs are all shooting again. The last 
club opened Nov. 20. Our use of the lime evi¬ 
dently helped a great deal in disinfecting the 
birds it covered, and that which found its way 
in solution into the various channels and 
streams may have assisted in the disinfection 
generally. With this we must consider the cold 
weather that we are having, as it is well known 
among bacteriologists that a certain amount of 
cold will not only kill many bacteria, but will 
also render less virulent a great many species of 
germs, so that the birds possessing a good physio¬ 
logical resistance possibly might escape after the 
cold had reduced its virulence. Again, all 
small lakes and pools that are frozen over and 
which had been veritable hotbeds of infection 
are, so to speak, sealed up, and so the birds 
cannot get into them to get at the infection in 
them. They must go into the channels, to find 
open water, which is very naturally more pure 
and practically free from infection. All these 
things must be taken into consideration in sum¬ 
ming up ultimate results. 
Next season we expect to dry our grounds off 
completely, and let the mud bake all summer in 
the hot sun, because we know that bacteria can¬ 
not grow upon a dry surface, and all bacteria 
so exposed to the sun’s rays all summer will be 
destroyed by the middle of September, 1911. 
This will kill our feed and all that, but we 
would rather have fewer ducks and not quite 
so many sick ones. So far as possible we will 
burn the grounds over as thoroughly as may be. 
We are still experimenting with our duck hos¬ 
pital. Ninety per cent, of the ducks and geese 
placed in the corral and given pure water and 
fresh food have recovered in from three to 
seven days. M. R. Stewart, M.D. 
The letters received from Dr. J. R. Mohler 
are as follows: 
“Oct. 22.—Regarding ducks received from you 
Oct. 11, through the Bureau of Biological Sur¬ 
vey, you are advised that death was due to in¬ 
testinal coccidiosis. The post mortem examina¬ 
tion showed the carcasses to be in good flesh. 
The viscera were apparently normal, except the 
intestines, which presented throughout the entire 
length more or less extensive areas of inflam¬ 
mation. Microscopic examination of the intes¬ 
tinal contents revealed immense numbers of coc- 
cidia in various stages of development. Micro¬ 
scopic examination of the heart blood of these 
ducks was negative in three cases. In one case 
the blood showed in stained films paired rods 
with rounded ends, somewhat larger than B. coli, 
also filament and chain formulation. The inocu¬ 
lation of a pure culture of this organism into a 
chicken was negative. The feeding of intestinal 
contents to half grown chickens gave negative 
results. Similar material inoculated into the back 
of a rabbit developed a small area of coagula¬ 
tion necrosis. The deatn of the rabbit five days 
after inoculation was due to a severe intestinal 
and hepatic invasion of coccidia, not caused by 
the inoculation, but a condition prevalent in rab¬ 
bits, due to a coccidium peculiar to that species. 
“It may be interesting to you to have the re¬ 
sults of two earlier investigations into the cause 
of death of the Salt Lake City ducks. Two, re¬ 
ceived about Sept. 20, in such a stage of de- 
