JAN. 13, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 










#7) | NATURAL HIST 
. Frightened Animals. 
Winturop, Mass., Dec. 9.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The Natural History department of 
Forest AND STREAM is a source of pleasure to 
me, and often suggests observations and ex- 
periences of my own, as I presume it does to 
all lovers of outdoor life. In regard to fright- 
ened animals it has been my experience that, 
as a rule, fear only adds to their speed of de- 
parture from the cause, but in a few instances 
I have seen animals too scared to run. I have 
several times seen hares, squatting under a bush 
near a camp path, allow persons to pass and re- 
pass repeatedly within three or four feet with- 
out apparently being disturbed, in fact, to be 
found day after day in the same place. I have 
noticed them under such circumstances wrink- 
ling and working the nose as if in the act of 
smelling, and have often wondered what their 
powers of scent were. 
I have known a person to kill such with a 
stone, and I can easily see how a very quick 
animal, as a domestic cat, could spring upon 
and catch one that was in no way hindered by 
fear.’ On the other hand, from observations of 
other animals in a state of fear, I have no 
doubt that hares are capable of being frightened, 
as, for example, in the event of danger rapidly 
approaching from two directions at once, so as 
to be incapable of any attempt to escape by 
flight. It is in this way that I account for the 
large number of hares of all sizes caught by a 
beagle which I once had, aided by another dog. 
In regard to other animals my experiences 
have been more direct, and.I will tell a few. 
When I was a very small boy rambling in the 
woods I happened upon a chipmunk. The 
chippie, apparently confused and frightened by 
the suddenness of my arrival, sprang up a low 
tree (which, I think, is an unusual thing for a 
chipmunk to do) and clung to a branch a few 
feet out of my reach. Being in the Indian 
stage of my existence, I circled and whooped 
and danced under the tree until, to my surprise, 
the squirrel curled up and dropped to the ground 
at my feet, apparently paralyzed with fear. I 
picked it up in my bare fingers, handled it and 
carried it home in my pocket without its making 
the slightest effort to escape. 
I have seen red squirrels show the greatest 
presence of mind in dodging when trying to 
escape from under the feet and jaws of a dog. 
But when as a boy, I brought red squirrels into 
close proximity with a pet weasel, they were 
paralyzed with fear and unable to move. | 
But it is not necessary to go to wild animals 
alone to find illustrations of excessive fear. 
friend of mine was traveling in an automobile 
in New Hampshire the last summer but one, 
and met a horse that was so frightened that it 
was impossible to get it to move. After trying 
to induce the horse to pass the machine now 
stationary and at the side of the road, without 
even getting the horse to lift a foot, the driver 
asked my friend to start up his machine, and 
pass if there was room. As the machine started, 
the horse trembled violently and then fell to the 
ground with legs stiff and muscles quivering. 
The next day in an attempt to get the horse 
used to the machine the same thing happened 
again. 
But, if I am not mistaken, humans are subject 
to the same thing. At any rate, I shall never 
be able to get from my mind a picture of awful 
fright of which I was innocently the cause. I 
was a youth, and in my room in the top of the 
‘house had been pouring over my Latin and 
Greek for hours after the noises of the house 
‘had ceased. When my task was finished and 
I was prepared for bed, I suddenly remembered 
that I had brought from the office a letter for 
my aunt, which I knew she was anxious to re- 
ceive. I also remembered that she would on 
that night be sitting up waiting for the home- 
coming of her husband, at a very late hour. 
So letter in hand, in my night robe, and bare- 
footed, I swiftly, but noiselessly (it seems) de- 
scended the carpeted stairs. It was nearly mid- 
night and my aunt, a young and substantial 
matron, had been sitting alone for a couple of 
hours at her sewing, and the house had been 
painfully still. What she had been thinking 
about, I do not know, but she sat facing the 
door which is at the foot of the stairs, and 
when I, without warning suddenly appeared in 
the doorway of the darkened hall, her work 
dropped from her fingers, her eyes opened to 
a most unusual size, her hands with bent 
fingers were slowly and stiffly raised, and with 
the most horrible expression of fear upon her 
face, she fell to the floor in a paroxysm of 
fright. All of which goes to show that the 
tendency to get “scared stiff,” to use a colloquial 
expression, is common to many, if not to all of 
the higher animals. Gy Debs 

Vermont Bird Congregations. 
In a recent issue of the ForEST AND STREAM 
mention was made of various breeding resorts 
of gulls. Such a place exists only a short dis- 
tance from the city of Burlington on four small 
rocky islands in Lake Champlain, known as the 
Four Brothers. These islands are owned by a 
New York gentleman who has a keen love for 
nature, and who is a firm believer in bird pro- 
tection. It was my good fortune to be able to 
visit these islands last season, about June I, 
when the gulls were busy with their family 
cares. The nests, composed of dried grasses, 
twigs and water weeds, were everywhere, some 
on the sandy beach, some on jutting ledges of 
rock and others in nooks and crannies where- 
ever room was to be found. Some contained 
eggs in various stages of incubation, but the 
majority held young birds, from downy fledg- 
lings to half-grown lusty fellows who greeted 
us with open beaks ever hungry for their ex- 
pected ration of fish. At least 600 gulls are 
hatched here annually. These islands are well 
posted by the New York Audubon Society, and 
are policed by a man who is kept there by the 
owner during the breeding season. Yesterday 
frequenters of the water front saw a pretty 
sight, at least 200 gulls took refuge on the 
breakwater in the harbor during the high wind 
and rainstorm that prevailed and remained there 
during the greater part of the day. 
In the summer of 1904 I visited a swallow 
roost, of which for several years I had heard 
a great deal. I had been told of an island about 
fifteen miles north of Burlington, known as 
Cedar Island, where each year vast numbers 
of swallows congregated before departing on 
their southern journey. I had heard about it 
from so many sources that I determined to see 
for myself, so on Aug. 24 I visited it. 
Cedar Island comprises about three acres of 
land, and, as its name implies, is densely covered 
with cedars, making an ideal bird roost. At 
about 3 o’clock on the afternoon of our arrival 
the swallows began to appear, first in parties 
of two or three, then in small flocks and finally 
in countless masses. As sunset approached, 
from every point of the compass, as far as the 
eye could reach, came an endless host of birds, 
and when they reached the island, they circled 
in the air above it until a veritable cloud of 
swallows was above us. As far as I could 
ascertain, they were the common bank swallow 
that make their nests by excavating holes along 
our streams, and subsequent investigation of 
some of the birds proved that to be the case. 
As it grew darker they came thicker and faster 
and settled down to roost in the cedars for the 
night in a_ perfect babel of twitterings and 
chirpings. Later in the evening, with the aid of 
a lantern, we could see them in rows sitting 
on the limbs of the trees, and while they were 
dazzled by the light, we could take those that 
roosted within reach in our hands for examina- 
tion. We would clap hands or shout, and then 
a bedlam would break loose as they rose from 
their perches with a roar, so that we could only 
carry on conversation with difficulty, so great 
was the tumult. 
At daybreak they left the island in scattered 
flocks, to return later in the day. 
My time was limited, and I was obliged to 
leave before the final migration took place; 
but I am informed by people who have known 
the island for years that this takes place in the 
night, about Sept. 1, when they disappear, to 
be seen no more until the next season. 
It would be impossible to estimate the num- 
ber of swallows that congregate on the island, 
for the place is literally alive with them. I 
have been an interested observer of the doings 
of wild things all my life, and have seen many 
curious things in the course of my observations, 
but nothing equal to the sight of these myriads 
of swallows mustering their forces for their 
long southern trip to the land of warmth and 
sunshine, VERMONTER. 
A Query Concerning Cats. 
Paris, France, Dec. 25.—I have often ob- 
served—in fact, I can observe the fact daily if 
I care to, merely by arranging circumstances— 
that when I spread over a bed or any chair or 
aimchair, a certain knitted woolen shawl, now 
known at home as “Toth’s shawl,” offering it 
as a sleeping place to the said Toth, a much 
petted and beloved cat, he never curls himself 
on it immediately. He understands very well 
my benevolent intention, but does not lie down 
at once. He begins a long and apparently very 
useless pawing and clawing of the shawl, as 
if he wanted to make it “fluffy.” This he never 
does with any other fabric. I could understand 
his trying to make the seat of a chair or arm- 
chair or a cushion softer by the same process; 
but why does he do this only with the very 
softest of materials? The process is a rather 
long one, sometimes occupying ten full minutes, 
during which time the animal purrs loudly and 
seems to enjoy very much the prospect of a 
soft and warm bed. Is anything of the kind 
done by other cats, and do other Felidz act in 
a similar manner? 
It is well known that the turning round of 
dogs, before lying down, is an ancestral habit, 
quite reasonable when dogs were wild animals 
and went to sleep in the midst of grass, and 
maintained under circumstances which do not 
call for it. Is the pawing and clawing shown 
by Toth an ancestral habit? What was the 
use of this habit—or what is its use among wild 
cats or Felide? 
Another fact, which I have observed only on 
one of my cats—the much regretted “Plucky” 
—in some sense related to a habit, which, how- 
ever, is not ancestral, and still persists. When- 
ever I offered Plucky some food he did not like 
generally, or he did not want at that particular 
moment, he began scratching energetically the 
ground, or the floor, just as cats do always in 
order to cover up their excreta. This meant 
very clearly: “How can you offer me this 
food? It is simply dirt, or filth. I won’t have 
it. It deserves nothing more or less than 
being immediately hidden from the sight.” Of 
