
FOREST AND STREAM. 
NATURAL UISTOLN 

[MarcH 10, 1906. 

Bird Key. 
WasHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 20.—Editor Forest 
Stream: An island in Tampa Bay, Florida, com- 
monly known as “Bird Key,” but which appears 
upon the plot of T. 32 S., R. 16 E. in the General 
Land Office as “Indian Key,” was reserved as a 
preserve and breeding ground for native birds 
by President Roosevelt in Executive Order dated 
Feb. 10, 1906. The reservation of this island is 
a matter for congratulation on the part of all 
who are endeavoring to protect American birds. 
It is an ancient breeding ground for brown 
pelicans, comorants, white egrets, Louisiana 
herons and other species of water fowl in abund- 
ance, the number of birds in the aggregate reach- 
ing many thousands of pairs. More than ordi- 
nary interest attaches to this reservation on ac- 
count of the efforts heretofore made to secure 
the island for private purposes—probably for ex- 
ploiting the birds and their eggs or possibly the 
guano beds, if the same should prove sufficiently 
extensive to warrant their development. More 
than a year ago the National Association of 
Audubon Societies inaugurated steps to secure its 
reservation, but found, on examination of the 
records of the General Land Office, that the 
island had been entered as a homestead in 1900. 
Since that investigation, however, the Commis- 
sioner has held the entry for cancellation be- 
cause of the failure of the entryman to comply 
with the law and regulations relating to home- 
stead entries. On learning of this cancellation, 
the Audubon Societies renewed their effort to re- 
serve the island, with the gratifying result noted 
above. The reserve contains but one: island, is 
called the Indian Key Reservation, and contains 
ninety acres of land. It lies about ‘eleven miles 
north by east of the Passage Key Reservation in 
Tampa Bay, created by Executive Order dated 
O€t.*10, 1905. FRANK BOonp. 

The Mother Antelope and the Cactus. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
More than one recent writer of popular natural 
history has taken honors in ignorance and credu- 
lity, but the palm of real genius goes to the artist- 
author of a romance on the protective methods 
of the prong-horned antelope toward its young 
contained in the March number of the Century 
Magazine. 
The peg upon which this comedy of errors 
hangs is the writer’s allegation that when the 
female prong-horn is about to give birth she takes 
a flying leap high into air and lands near to the 
mathematical center of a patch of prickly pear, 
where she tramples a clear and unobstructed space 
upon which she deposits her progeny, there to 
find asylum through childhood, while dejected 
coyotes gaze wistfully across the prickly waste 
that divides them from their prey. In witness 
there are pictures graphic in detail, but on ex- 
amination doubtful of authority, for whereas the 
artist part of this double personality might be 
excused for never having seen a prickly pear out- 
side of a botanic garden, the author ~art should 
have advised him that where the prickly pear 
(Opuntia) meets antelope in portions of its range 
where alone it grows flat enough to serve the pur- 
pose depicted, it is far too small in diameter, while 
south, in Texas for example, where it is large 
enough in area, it grows as high as a good-sized 
shack, and in no way resembles the picture—with- 
out bothering over the mere detail that no sane 
animal save a box tortoise or an armadillo would 
tackle it, 
Perhaps this is hypercritical, but the observa- 
tion that the fawns shown in the second and 
third pictures don’t belong to their alleged parent 
is not. She is a sure enough antelope, but they, 
by reason of their spotted coat, might have a pos- 
sible claim to be the abandoned waifs of some 
perverted blacktail or whitetail mother, were it 
not that other anomalies hopelessly obscure the 
whole question of their origin. The one cer- 
tainty is that only an embryological miracle could 
have got them into that prickly pear in the man- 
ner implied by picture No. 1. If the excellent 
scrivener had but taken thought to ask any cow- 
puncher who rode the plains in antelope days, he 
would have learned that prickly pear does not 
grow that way, and prong-horns do not bear 
spotted young. ; 
Among other novelties in this remarkable 
paper, noteworthy alike to botanists, zoologists, 
toxicologists and ‘hunters, which may be enu- 
merated but not enlarged upon, is the discovery 
that the stickers of prickly pear are poisonous, 
but the prong-horn, to his good fortune among 
mammals, is immune. Game preservers are set 
straight in that the antelope is really not in any 
danger of extinction, but simply does not con- 
gregate as he used to, “and ranges over a much 
larger extent of country.” 
Philosophers have an interesting case of an- 
alogous evolution of an instinct presented to 
them in the “curlew” which, like the prong-horn, 
has adopted the prickly pear habit for nursery 
purposes and there, in a wonderfully constructed 
nest, deposits four “blue” eggs. 
Certain confusion of ideas concerning “Scotch 
staghounds” is there, and a greater degree of 
obscurity on the subject of antelope horns, their 
structure and their shedding—but space lacks 
for further details. 
Truly, for such like obliquity of statement one 
needs go back to Cuvier’s reply to his student 
who defined the crab as a little red fish that 
walks backward: “Excellent, excellent, only it 
is not red, it is not a fish, and it does not walk 
backward.” 
Seriously, one wonders which is the more to 
be condemned, the irresponsibility of the com- 
piler, who fails to acquire the elementary facts 
of his subject, or that of the editor whose critical 
judgment accepts such stuff for publication. 
ARTHUR Erwin Brown. 
Tue ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Philadelphia Pa. 
Some Things About Moose. 
In his article on moose in the February 
Scribner, Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton says in 
speaking of the bell of the moose (usually called 
the “tassel” by our Indians): “According to my 
experience it is found on all moose, male or 
female, at all ages, is largest in young bulls, 
smallest in very young and the very old.” 
From the time I can first remember my 
father was the largest buyer of moose hides in 
Maine. We had them come in by the hundred 
nearly every spring. A large part were brought 
in frozen in March or early April and, when it 
was warm enough, the hair was shaved off with 
a knife and the hides were stretched and dried. 
These hides usually had the whole skins of the 
head entire except the nose, so that one had a 
chance to see the bell if there was one. 
The spring I was fourteen years old, the Indian 
who shaved hides for my father, thinking that 
no one else could do the work, struck for higher 
pay and, at the expense of several severe cuts, 
I learned the trade and shaved over sixtv modse 
hides that spring, and many after that. In 
shaving the hides we always shaved the hair 
from the bells, or tassels, so that I took par- 
ticular notice of them. After my father’s death, 
I myself bought some thousands of hides, so 
that I have had some experience in the matter. 
In all I have seen of the hides of moose, dead 
or living, I have never seen a trace of a bell, 
or tassel, on any female moose, neither have I 
ever heard any hunter tell of ever seeing one. 
The tassel is always considered among hunters 
as a distinguishing mark of the male, just like 
the tassel of a cock-turkey or the beard of a 
man. I think cases of a tassel on a female 
moose fully as rare as a long beard on a woman 
or a long tassel, or brush, on a hen-turkey. The 
largest tassel I ever saw was on a bull having 
nine points on each horn. I have measured a 
good many, and ten to twelve inches is the 
usual length, although some are longer. Mr. 
Seton says: ““No one has ever yet given 
any satisfactory explanation of this curious 
dangler.” The explanation is the same as that 
of a man’s beard or.a cock-turkey’s brush; it 
is simply an ornament given to distinguish 
the male. 
Some may be interested to know how a moose 
hide is shaved. The hide is hung from a slant- 
ing pole, placed so that the upper part is some 
four feet from the ground. The hide hangs 
perfectly loose and clear from the pole. The 
operator draws the hide toward him with his 
left hand and with a very sharp knife in his 
right, shaves downward with long strokes, the 
hair rolling down like a fleece. The hide must 
be ‘perfectly soft, as if there are any dry places, 
or*a:chip or one’s finger is against the under 
side, ‘the knife instantly cuts through. An ex- 
pert operator, if he has good hides, free from 
ticks, can:shave an average of two hides to the 
hour, shaving them nearly as clean’as one’s 
face. When a boy I once shaved fourteen in 
a day of seven or eight hours. Several: times, 
when I have had the knives sharpened for me, 
I have shaved a-picked hide clean in fifteen 
minutes. The bulk of.the hair could be taken 
off in five minutes, but most of the time was 
eae in shaving the shanks and edges of the 
hide 

There is one thing which I have never known 
any one to write of, and that is the tick which 
is peculiar to the moose. I have never seen 
ticks on moose in summer or fall; but after the 
hair grows long some moose have literally 
thousands of them. They are in two forms. 
The immature one is about the size of a wood- 
tick, such as in summer are found upon the 
ears of the deer and northern hares, only they 
are not round, but oval and of a lighter blue 
color. The adults are about the size of a potato 
bug. but flatter and having quite a hard shell, 
the color dark gray. They are so firmly at- 
tached that they cannot be removed unless con- 
siderable force is used. Where a moose is in- 
fested with them every stroke of the knife cuts 
off the heads of scores, or more accurately, of 
hundreds, and they are so hard as soon to take 
the edge off from a knife. After the weather is 
warm and the hair is dried, those which have 
escaped the knife, sometimes get on persons 
packing the hair and inflict painful wounds, as 
they will bury their heads in the flesh, and if 
a part breaks off in removing them, it makes a 
sore which takes a long time to heal, as I know 
by several personal experiences. 
Full-grown, long-haired moose average eight 
pounds of dry hair to the skin, and it used to 
be in demand by carriage and harness makers 
for stuffing cushions, collars and saddles, as it 
was more springy than goat’s hair and more 
lasting than moss or excelsior. 

Every fall for the last fifteen or twenty years 
our Maine papers have had notices of several 
moose being killed, each of which was said to 
be the largest moose ever killed in Maine. 
While these notices do no harm and are flatter- 
ing to the vanity of the hunter, yet I think the 
chance is very small for moose ever to be killed 
in Maine as large as some which were killed 
many years ago. Having weighed hundreds of 
