FOREST AND STREAM. 



men, likewise, were in brilliant coats ana 
enormous turbans, with leggings gracetully 
adorned with the fringe of the doe skin and 
moccasins fresh and new. Nor had _ the 
children been neglected, for, with swirling rib- 
bons and bright red dresses that reached to 
their slim ankles, they came bubbling with joy 
and laughter, ready to take their places in the 
dance circle. 
Now the dancers are ready. In the center 
of the square, the fire, the Sacred Fire, flashes 
and flickers. At each corner of the square 
stands a pole. The leader, who on this oc- 
casion is Chief Bill Stewart, waits at the door 
of the lodge. He starts a weird melody, and 
the band lock hands, marking time as they take 
‘up the chant. The chief leads off with the en- 
tire band in the procession, making as pictur- 
esque a figure as was ever witnessed in a New 
York cotillion. 
If the reader will follow the lines of the ac- 
companying diagram, tracing from the left, he 
will see that the long line of dancers, as they 
pass around the poles, appears to be coming 
and going, sometimes three and four abreast, 
but all in such symmetrical motion that the 
SACRED 
a 
EIRE 

COUNCIL 
HOUSE > 
THE HUNTING DANCE. 
dance is very beautiful, coupled with the grace 
and modesty of innocence, with an accompani- 
ment of singing strangely sweet. 
The various dances of these people show how 
close they live to nature. As they move to the 
rhythmical cadence of the owl song, we hear, 
“Waugh-ho-o00-whoo-whoo,”’ of the great 
horned owl; then the penewa, or wild turkey 
dance, with its notes of the gobbling bird; and 
so on with many others. 
A feature of the dance, and one that might 
be commended, is that those who dance must 
work or hunt. Each morning of the festival 
every member of the camp, down to the wee 
child, must hunt, leaving the camp by daybreak 
and ‘hunting till 12 o’clock noon. The men 
hunt large game; the boys go for rabbits, birds 
and squirrels; while the women hunt the hogs 
OF ANCIENT LINEAGE. 
and dig potatoes, and the very small children 
“hunt” water and bring in sticks of wood. To 
their white friends, they said, “Dance to-night?” 
This was intended for an invitation, and was an 
honor rarely accorded; but with that stern, un- 
written law before them, they explained, “White 
friends must hunt, hunt, hunt. All same In- 
dian. No hunt, no dance.” 
Another very picturesque game is the dancrng 
around the festal pole. In this dance, the women 
enter from one side and the men from another. 
Around the ankles of the women are strapped 
clusters of the shells of the highland terrapin, 
partly filled with pebbles; these shells are con- 
cealed by the long dress skirt, and as they 
dance, singing the long cadenced song of their 
fathers, they make melodious music. <A _ re- 
markable feature in the perfecttion of the dance 
is that as the women move off not a sound 1s 
heard, that bunch of shells is as silent as the 
tomb; and yet it would be practically impossible 
for one to move the shells by hand without 
causing them to rattle. 
The iestivals observed among the Seminoles 
to-day show teachings centuries old, blending 
the peculiarities of different races—the carnival 
of the Romans with the Jewish feasts of those 
days, and the mystic link of the Aztec Jubilee. 
There is so much that is elevating and puri- 
fying in the conduct of these people, that it 
would be hard to describe the scenes, the love 
and good humor that flashes between the 
moments of the time spent in the council, at the 
feasts and the dances. 
Minnie Moore-WIttson, 
KisstmMMEg, Fla. 
Adirondack Preservation. 
Tue Trustees of the Association for the Pro- 
tection of the Adirondacks gave an informal din- 
ner on Monday, Jan. 22, to Forest, Fish and 
Game Commissioner Whipple, Superintendent 
Fox, Attorney-General Julius Mayer and Chief 
Game Protector John B. Burnham, at the Uni- 
versity Club, New York city. Among those pres- 
ent besides the guests were Hon. Henry E. How- 
land, president of the Association; Hon. Warren 
Higley, John G. Agar, Henry Phipps, David Mc- 
Clure, Geo. F. Underwood, W. G. Ver Planck, 
Alfred L. White, E. B. Whitney, Charles P. 
Swenson and Messrs. Walker and Grinnell. 
Judge Howland presided in his own inimitable 
manner. He expressed the absorbing interest of 
the Association in its work and its great desire 
to back up the State officials in the performance 
of their duty. Addresses were made by Commis- 
sioner Whipple, Colonel Fox, Attorney-General 
Mayer and Mr. Burnham. 
The policy of the Commissioner and his asso- 
ciates is that of strict enforcement of the law and 
punishment of offenders. If the law is not wise, 
the best way to have it altered is to enforce it. 
Mr. George F. Underwood spoke interestingly 
and at length from the standpoint of the lumber- 
men, while Mr. David McClure took the side of 
the strictest forest protectionist. The closing 
speech by Mr. Agar pointed out very forcibly the 
absolute necessity of preserving the forests which 
remain and of restocking the barren lands of the 
Adirondacks, which have been so wastefully ex- 
ploited. 
Sixteenth Century Alligators. 
THE illustration depicting the Indian mode of 
alligator hunting in the old days, was drawn by 
the artist De Bry, who visited Florida with the 
French expedition of 1563, and to whom we owe 
many pictures of the land and the people as he 
found them—and sometimes, perhaps, as here, as 
he did not find them. If the Florida alligator 
was of such prodigious size as De Bry repre- 
sented him, it is manifest that the creature has 
dwindled preceptibly since then; but the more 
reasonable theory is that De Bry shared the 
proneness of those who returned from America 
in those days to excite the marvel of home-stay- 
ing Europe by magnifying the wonders of the 
New World; and so added a few cubits to the 
measure of his “crocodiles.” 
The description in the Brevis Narratio runs: 
“They wage war on the crocodiles in this man- 
ner: By the bank of the river they build a little 
hut full of chinks and holes, in which is stationed 
a sentinel who can hear and see the crocodiles a 
great way of. Pressed by hunger they come up 
out of the water in search of prey, failing to find 
which they give forth a horrible roar that may be 
heard for half a mile. Then the sentinel calls 
the others who are ready; and ten or twelve of 
them, bearing a huge pole, hurry to intercept the 
gigantic monster (his jaws expanded to seize and 
swallow some one of them), and with great agil- 
ity, holding the sharp end of the pole as high as 
possible, they plunge it into his maw, whence be- 
cause of its roughness and the scaly bark he can- 
not eject it. Then turning the crocodile over on 
his back, they belabor his belly, which is softer, 
with clubs, and shoot arrows into it and open it; 
the back is impenetrable because of the hard 
scales, the more so if it be an old one. This is 
the Indians’ way of hunting crocodiles, to whom 
they are such inveterate foes that night and day 
they are on the watch for them, not less than we 
for our most hostile enemies.” 
Coachwhip and Rattler. 
GLENCOE, Fla.—A large coachwhip snake over 
six feet long was seen in a fierce combat with a 
young rattlesnake here the other day. The rat- 
tlesnake was probably about two years old, and 
was eighteen inches long. The coachwhip nearly 
killed his adversary, when a charge of shot put 
an end to both. The coachwhip snake is a great 
chicken eater. We never heard before, nor have 
we been able to find any one who has, of this 
snake being an enemy of the rattlesnake. It is 
well known that the blacksnake kills every rattle- 
snake he meets, and that where the former is 
common the latter are rarely seen. I also killed 
to-day, and preserved the skin of a very large 
gopher snake seven feet and one inch in length, 
and nine inches in circumference in the largest 
part. I don’t want the readers of ForEsT AND 
StrEAM to infer by the above that snakes are 
abundant here, for they are not. This rattle- 
snake was the second one I have seen in two 
years, and I believe I am in the woods as much 
as anyone in this section of the country, being 
engaged in surveying and hunting. W. 

A picturE by one of the old Chinese masters, 
now on exhibition at Tokio, establishes the fact 
that reels were used by Chinese anglers more 
than 800 years ago. 
