302 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[FEB. 24, 1906. 

far as could be seen without contact with the 
tongue or soft parts of the mouth. He is very 
partial to the tomato, but the bright yellow ber- 
ries of another member of the same family, the 
horse nettle, which is said to have distinctly poi- 
sonous properties, he seems careful not to break 
in his beak, although by reason of its bright 
color and convenient form he makes free use of 
it as a plaything. Between sugar and salt he 
shows no decided mark of preference. Being 
presented a small heap of each of these sub- 
stances side by side, he pecked first at one and 
then at the other several times, then wiped his 
bill and turned away, as if neither offered any 
attraction other than being white. What he may 
decide as to the qualities of quinine remains to 
be tested. 
Alas! since writing the above Jim has flown on 
his last long flight, from which no master’s sum- 
mons can bring him back. Some time, perhaps, 
the story of his last days may be told; but the 
time is not now. He lies sleeping among the 
hollyhocks in the flower garden and under a 
stone on which is roughly carved an open wing 
and just “Jim.” B. W. BARTON. 
Snapping Turtles as Pets. 
THE snapping turtle is generally regarded to be 
the incarnation of malevolence when his dander 
is up. Few other creatures show such fury when 
irritated, and a snapper seems to be nearly always 
in a passion when waked up. Perhaps this is be- 
cause nearly everybody who meets a snapping 
turtle tries to get a rise out of it by teasing it 
with a stick. It is human nature to tease irascible 
creatures. Who would think of teasing a rabbit, 
for instance? Teasing a snapper is genuine fun, 
however, because he shows fight. He hoists him- 
self on tiptoes with legs as rigid as those of a 
footstool and his vicious looking eyes fairly blaze 
with anger as he snaps at an offending boot or 
stick, It is safer to use the stick when indulging 
in the questionable sport of irritating a big snap- 
per who can break a broomstick with his power- 
ful jaws, but why should anybody desire to an- 
noy one of these homely and retiring creatures? 
Satanic as the snapper appears, he is not as 
black as he is painted. Chelydra serpentina he is 
named in the scientific catalogues. Isn’t that 
enough to condemn him? Serpentina for snake- 
like, and then they add “fierce and voracious,” but 
this is ameliorated in a degree by Dr. C. C. Ab- 
bott and others declaring, “they have no habits 
that make them obnoxious to farmers.” Who, 
however, would dream of domesticating a snap- 
ping turtle. He is scarcely handsome enough to 
invite petting, and he has the worst kind of a 
reputation, but it has been proven to my knowl- 
edge that Chy is capable of appreciating human 
kindness and returning it by curbing his fierce 
nature; in fact, becoming far safer to handle and 
less destructive than a bull terrier pup. 
A living example to prove this statement exists 
in Main street, East Orange, five doors west of 
the Newark line on Orange street, and he weighs 
22% pounds. He isa well behaved, good-natured, 
or rather amiable chelonian of advanced years, as 
his weight must indicate, and was captured in a 
swamp last year by Charles F. Miller, who began 
and accomplished the creature’s education in a 
few months, reducing him to a condition of such 
docility that Mr. Miller or his children can handle 
him without fear or danger. 
Mr. Miller is a newsdealer and has a little cigar 
and news store opposite the car barns on the line 
between East Orange and Newark. He is like- 
wise a naturalist with a strong trend toward rep- 
tilia, giving most of his study to frogs, toads, 
snakes and turtles, and having a large collection 
of each from time to time. He has now thirty- 
three turtles of various kinds, among them four 
domesticated snappers weighing respectively 2, 
2%, 10 and 22% pounds. Singularly enough, the 
oldest and heaviest is the most tractable, although 
the others all show a mildness of disposition 
which is amazing to all observers. They all take 
their meals of raw beef from Mr. Miller’s hand 
without the greedy snapping which is supposed 
to be characteristic of snappers. In fact, they 
belie their names, and eat with little exhibition of 
voracity, not gulping their food but holding down 
with their recurved claws while they tear off a 
dainty mouthful. 
Mr. Miller made a pet of the big fellow all last 
summer by keeping it in a, box in the back part 
of his store. It could easily climb out of its box 
and make excursions out into the street, but 
never went further than the gutter, and invariably 
climbed the curb, crossed the sidewalk and re- 
entered the store, seeking its box when tired of 
hearing the hammering of the flat wheels of the 
Orange and Newark trolley cars. 
Recently Mr. Miller took his strange pet up- 
stairs and he has the freedom of the kitchen now. 
If he gets in the way Mrs. Miller pushes him 
aside with her foot and he shows no resentment, 
or she calls upon one of the children to put him 
in his box. All of the other turtles and a few 
snakes are kept in neat cages which Mr. Miller 
made. He makes cages for other snake-fanciers 
in his idle moments. This is not a case of prov- 
ing a story by showing the hole the turtle 
crawled into, but the tame turtle is in evidence, 
and anybody who takes enough interest can see 
him any day in the week. HARRIMAC. 
A Night’s Lodging. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your recent notes in regard to changes in the 
habits of birds resulting from their association 
with man are of especial interest to all bird- 
lovers. They suggest that the line of action 
sometimes adopted by our feathered friends under 
a new environment may be dictated by something 
closely akin to what we are pleased to call reason 
as opposed to instinct. My family of Virginia 
quail (four in number) occupy a coop about 6x20 
feet in ground space and six feet in height, the 
netted front facing the south. All the remaining 
sides and roof are of ordinary inch boards, and 
several low bushes growing within the inclo- 
sure furnish a natural shelter. Everyone famil- 
iar with our quail is aware of the fact that they 
spend the night upon the ground; but these birds, 
having been sometimes disturbed by marauding 
cats, evidently determined that it was advisable 
to-“roost high,” and they accordingly selected a 
place on a ledge that ran across the back of the 
coop some five feet above the ground. With the 
idea of humoring their wishes, I nailed on this 
ledge in one corner of the coop a box about 
twelve inches square, open at the top and front. 
This the quail promptly occupied at night during 
the mild weather of January. But during the re- 
cent cold snap, and on windy nights they seek a 
roosting place on the ground as usual, evidently 
adapting the night’s lodging, as a matter of 
choice, to the varying conditions of the weather. 
Would it not seem that an intelligence which 
is capable of making a selection, first as a con- 
sideration of safety, and afterward modifies that 
selection as a matter of comfort, is to be classed 
as something beyond and above so-called in- 
stinct ? JAY BEEBE. 
To.epo, O., Feb. 10. 
Weasels and Poultry. 
East WAREHAM, Mass., Feb. 10.—Editor For- 
est and Stream: In Forest AND STREAM received 
to-day your interesting contributor, Mr. Hardy, 
says that he knows no authentic instance of a 
weasel destroying poultry. I have had one ex- 
perience of a weasel’s destructiveness. This oc- 
curred in August, 1888. I had placed a hen with 
fifteen chickens in a building with loose stone 
foundation, i. e., not pointed with mortar. Com- 
ing home in the evening I heard the hen in great 
distress and one chicken peeping. Opening the 
door I could see the hen all ruffled up running 
about in an excited manner, the single chick in 
great fright was dodging her feet and peeping its 
loudest. Knowing that there was something 
wrong I first secured the hen and chick and then 
began to look for the missing. Suspecting a 
weasel, I felt in the cracks between the stones 
and pulled out three dead chicks, each with a bite 
in the base of their skulls. A careful search failed 
to reveal more. I next set three steel traps in as 
many cracks in the wall and left them over night. 
The next morning the weasel was fast in two of 
them, a foreleg in one and hindleg in another. 
With us the weasel is rare, so also is his larger 
cousin the mink. That same summer I had an 
experience with the latter. Our house stood on 
a bluff just above the salt water and our decoy 
ducks had a coop at the foot where .the tide at 
high water would almost run into it. One night 
I was awakened by a great outcry among the 
ducks. Knowing time was precious I raised our 
chamber window and pointing my gun out, fired — 
over the coop, then got into my clothes and went 
down there. The water was nearly up to the 
floor and ducks as yet unharmed. Some little 
tracks in the wet sand _ spelled mink pretty 
plainly. Procuring a steel trap I placed it near 
the coop and returned to bed. In the morning I 
found a small mink fast. The sequel to this was 
not quite as I planned. Thinking there might be 
more minks following the shores, I kept the trap 
set nights. For several days nothing happened, 
then we had a shower sometime in the small 
hours; this wet the pan which springs the trap. 
We know how a duck like to dibble where there 
is any moisture. My very best decoy managed 
to stretch her neck far enough to reach that pan. 
WaAL_TER B, SAVARY. 
Beaked Whale from Kiska Island, Alaska. 
THE monster dolphin, 18% feet long, which 
was mentioned in Forest AND STREAM for Dec. 
2, 1905, as having grounded on the beach in 
Kiska Harbor, Alaska, proves, on examination of 
photographs obtained by Dr. Egbert, to be one 
of the beaked whales, or ziphioid whales, belong- 
ing to the same family as the sperm whale, or 
the Physeteride, but to a separate sub-family 
known as the Ziphiine. They resemble the dol- 
phins in general appearance, but differ in many 
important particulars, the most obvious of which 
externally are the small number of teeth im- 
planted in the jaws—never more than two or four 
—and the absence of a slit in the flukes, or tail 
fin. For the identification and for the notes 
which follow we are indebted to Mr. F. W. True, 
Head Curator, Department of Biology, of the 
National Museum: 
The species represented in the illustration is 
probably the one discovered at Bering Island in 
1887 by Dr. Leonhard Stejneger and named by 
him Ziphius grebnitzkii, in honor of the Gover- 
nor of the Commander Islands. This species is 
known only from skulls and bones, and as no 
part of the skeleton of the Kiska specimen was 
preserved, a positive identification cannot be 
made. It is highly probable, however, that the 
external form of this species is now first made 
known through the photograph here reproduced. 
The North Atlantic species, Ziphius caviros- 
tris, has been taken several times on the east 
coast of the United States, and has long been 
known on the coast of Europe, but Dr. Stejneger 
was the first to make known the presence of 
beaked whales in the North Pacific. Singularly 
enough, within the last two or three years five 
instances have become known of the stranding 
of different species of this group at points on the 
coasts of California, Oregon and Alaska, and the 
specimens in two instances were the largest 
beaked whales recorded from any part of the 
world. The largest of these was about forty-two 
feet long, or considerably in excess of the length 
of adults of the smallest species of whalebone 
whale, Batenoptera acuto-rostrata. The largest 
Zibhius thus far recorded was one from New 
Zealand, which was said to have a length of 
twenty-nine feet. 
Tue following story is told by the Chinese 
Minister at Washington: “There was a Chinese 
who had three dogs. When he came home one 
evening he found them asleep on his couch of 
teakwood and marble. He whipped them and 
drove them forth. The next night, when he came | 
home, the dogs were lying on the floor. But he 
placed his hand on the couch and found it warm 
from their bodies. Therefore he gave them an- 
other whipping. The third night, returning ear- 
lier than usual, he found the dogs sitting before 
the couch, blowing on it to cool it.’—New Or- 
leans Times-Democrat. 
