748 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 12, 1906. 

ghanies and the plains, between Toronto or 
Milwaukee and the Ohio River, is a region twice 
as great as all the North Atlantic States com- 
bined, and throughout all of it, wild game 
bigger than a ’coon or a goose is about as 
scarce as bears are on Broadway during the 
shopping hours. 
When our last census was taken, the center 
of population of the United States was in 
southern Indiana, near the town of Columbus. 
Now, with a map before us, let us set one leg 
of a pair of dividers on the spot marked 
Columbus and describe a circle of 200 miles’ 
radius. What does it include, in the way of 
wild Jand, mountain and virgin forest? Noth- 
ing whatever! Now a. 200-mile sweep around 
New York would take in all of the Pennsyl- 
vania uplands, nearly all of the Adirondacks, 
and would reach the heart of the White Moun- 
tains in New Hampshire. From Boston, such 
a circuit would include all of the Adirondacks, 
all of the White and Green Mountains, and the 
St. Lawrence to Lake St. Peter, besides which 
it would reach the center of the great woods 
of Maine, and would touch New Brunswick and 
Nova Scotia. From Philadelphia it would 
reach from Raquette Lake to Pamlico Sound, 
and as far west as Wheeling. Moreover, and 
let it never be forgotten, the circle so struck 
from either of these three human hives takes in 
a long line of coast, and good scope of the 
forever untamable and uncrowded sea. 
Let us now return to our center of population 
and strike a larger circle, this time of 300 miles. 
Still it is nearly all dry land—an area of 283,- 
000 square miles, and densely settled, for in this 
region, about the size of Texas, live more than 
a fourth of all the people of the United States. 
Now what have these twenty millions of western 
Americans—what have they in the way of an 
outing ground, a breathing-spot, a place where 
one can camp where he pleases and do as nature 
prompts him, for a time? To the northward, 
Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit—we can hardly 
camp there; to the east, Cleveland, Pittsburg, 
Wheeling, and soot; to the west, Davenport, 
Hannibal, St. Louis, muddy water and hot 
winds; to the south, New Madrid (a little game 
around there, but hell in summer), Chattanooga 
(the scent is getting warm!), and—the highest 
mountains, the coolest summer, the purest 
water, and by all odds the finest forest, in 
eastern. North America,. with, incidentally,-a 
sparse population of the most-primitive and 
most interesting whites (there are no negroes), 
all of them of colonial ancestry. 
Sometimes, maybe, I will tell you more about 
this land, favored of the gods, and about its. 
people, who ask favors of nobody. 
Dayron, Ohio. Horace KEPHART, 





Weasels. 
Brookiyn, N. Y., April 25.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Years ago, when I was so young and 
small that the expression “knee high to a grass- 
hopper” was applicable to me, my father moved 
to a region beyond sound of a locomotive’s 
screech—deep among the woods. Here most of 
my life was passed in close contact with nature. 
Rabbits were so plentiful as to be a pest. Small 
fruit trees within.a few feet of the garden fence 
were girdled and destroyed by them. Quail were 
exceedingly abundant. Many times I have been 
compelled to jump from the farm wagon in order 
to drive the bevies of small quail from the 
wagon ruts, and this within a hundred yards of 
the barnyard, where to-day it is hard to find one 
quail within a radius of ten miles. Those were 
blissful days, fully appreciated now that they are 
but memories. 
In winter, when snow carpeted field and forest, 
thé' daily affairs of the wood folk were faith- 
fully recorded. The smallest creature could not 
stir without leaving an account of what he did, 
and where he went. Oh, the snow is a great but 
silent witness of forest dramas or tragedies. 
Many a rabbit track have I followed—my first 
one in the wrong direction—and noticed a smaller 
track close to the larger snowshoe track of the 
hare. At first there were four tracks, then the 
small feet left but two marks; drops of blood 
tinged the snow, and finally a dead rabbit was 
found—and the smaller tracks disappeared among 
the cedars and scrub oaks. It was an old story; 
a weasel had waylaid his victim, clinging to the 
throat till the end. I have even caught them at 
their murderous work. 
At the edge of our woodland an enormous 
chestnut tree had been uprooted by a_ severe 
storm, and its upturned roots, with masses of 
earth attached, formed a home for several fami- 
lies of weasels. 
One Sunday afternoon, during a ramble in that 
vicinity, I discovered a quail’s nest in a slight 
depression under the bottom rail of the snaké 
fence. Past experience had taught me not to 
meddle with the eggs in any way, else the ever 
watchful, keen little brown mother would scent 
danger and forsake her nest forever. 
The following Sunday I revisited the spot. The 
nest had been despoiled. Undoubtedly the eggs 
had hatched, for the evidence was there, shells 
with lids attached—miniature coffee pots. Frag- 
ments of tiny chicks also were there, and two 
dead ones untouched except for lacerated throats. 
“Weasels,” was my initial thought, and I hast- 
ened to the chestnut stump. There, wedged in 
the mouth of a small burrow, was the body of 
a hen quail. Even as I looked, the body was 
violently agitated by some agent in the rear. 
You may rest assured that there were a half 
dozen ‘steel traps concealed about that stump 
before evening, and the next morning three beau- 
tiful but exceedingly vicious weasels were fast in 
as many traps, 
Again and again I have known of similar inci- 
dents. One nest thus despoiled means that from 
ten to fifteen quail have been destroyed at one 
sweep. 
In the spring time mother always raised a small 
army of chickens. One morning a hen whose 
brood originally numbered ten chicks could only 
show three. Search was made, and in an old 
hog pen. I feund the carcass of one chick. Even 
s I looked there was a movement in a corner of 
the pen and two beady eyes peered from a sup- 
posed rat hole. I fairly flew to the house for my 
rifle, and cautiously approached to a favorable 
position and waited; nor had I a long watch to 
keep before a large weasel appeared, and hurry- 
ing.to the carcass proceeded to drag it toward 
his burrow. His career ended then and there. 
Weasels kill for the mere pleasure of killing. 
Would they but confine themselves to killing 
what they could devour the amount would be 
comparatively small, But no, it is kill, kill, kill; 
the blood lust is in them. One sharp bite and a 
tenacious hold on the victim’s throat—the vic- 
tim is often ten or twelve times heavier than the 
weasel. Another favorite hold is a quick snap 
immediately behind the quarry’s head. 
In one night two weasels killed ten full-grown 
hens before the commotion among the survivors 
attracted attention, and led to the destruction of 
the weasels in the very act of adding to the list 
of their dead. Six ducklings in a few minutes 
disappeared from a coop; one was discovered 
jammed in a burrow under a‘stone wall. The 
steel trap caught this murderous weasel also. It 
was an unusually large animal and in the trap 
was the embodiment of deviltry and concentrated 
hate. Its small eyes glittered, the sharp teeth 
gleamed, its body arched—the whole aspect be- 
tokened cruelty and tenacity. Truly, if as much 
ferocity and bloodthirstiness was displayed in 
the rest of the carnivora, this planet would soon 
be depopulated. 
While I admit that the weasel destroys mice 
and insects, yet he is far fonder of sneaking along 
a rail fence and destroying birds’ eggs, or, if he 
finds them hatched, woe betide the fledgelings. 
He has a most tender regard for chickens and 
ducklings, destroys quail and grouse. His sneak- 
ing abilities are enormous, and as he is a slim- 
bodied rascal, he can enter burrows and destroy 
enormous quantities of hares in that manner. 
I rank the weasel as one of our most destruc- 
tive animals. The list, as I have arranged it ac- 
cording to my personal experience in the great: 
forests, is as. follows: Fox, weasel, sparrow- 
hawk and owl. 
Every one of the foregoing incidents is am 
actual experience in my life, as seen by my own 
eyes; and those given are but a few of many 
similar occurrences. I believe the majority of 
country-bred persons will uphold my view, that 
the weasel is an absolutely worthless, destructive, 
bloodthirsty animal and should be destroyed by 
every possible means. 
SAMUEL-D. Piguet, M. D. 

Tarpon Sprincs, Fla., April 25—Editor For- 
est and Stream: Some of your correspondents. 
seem uncertain about the habits of the weasel. 
I always supposed that they were death on poul- 
try, and if this be admitted, they surely must kill 
game on occasion, else how did they manage to: 
get a living when there was no poultry in the 
country? In my younger days I lived in Massa- 
chusetts, where I was born, and I know that the 
weasel was there, although I never saw one. Back 
in the forties I was told by a man familiar with 
firearms, and one of the best shots I ever knew, 
that this animal was so quick that it could. not 
be killed with a flint-lock gun. In 1857-8 I was. 
hunting and incidentally trapping in Maine. We 
used occasionally. to get a weasel in our mink- 
traps, but as far as I remember, they were not 
considered worth much. Their skins were prob- 
ably sometimes used as money-purses, for I re- 
member to have heard the phrase “draw your 
weasel” addressed to a man when required to 
produce his money. Incidentally, I may remark 
that I have seen an eelskin devoted to the same 
use. It was hard to get the money out of it, 
and probably harder to get it in. 
The most notable experience with the weasel 
occurred in northern Wisconsin, some thirty-five 
years ago, at which time I was living on the 
Oconto River, and, among other buildings, had 
constructed a small log house for my hens. One 
raorning there was a light snow, and my wife re- 
turned from the henhouse with the information 
that the hens had apparently been fighting. This. 
seemed odd, and I went out there myself, and 
found two dead hens. I could not believe that — 
the birds were guilty, and on examination I dis- 
covered, as I expected, the marks of the teeth of 
a mink or weasel on the throat of each. Then I 
looked outside and soon found where the crea- 
ture had dug a hole through to the inside of the 
house. This I stopped, and went in to breakfast. 
The snow, which was falling, prevented me from 
finding any tracks. 
During the forenoon I was at work in the yard 
when I heard a commotion among the hens, 
which had, as usual, been released from their 
