luck to secure four bear, all within an 
hour’s time. 
The trout fishing season hereabouts 
was unfavorable in the extreme. Cold, 
backward weather prevailed in the 
spring, followed by a drouth, during 
which there was too little water for 
fishing. But very few good catches 
were reported, but all hope it means 
more fish for another year. 
JOHN L. Woopgpury, 
Cornish, Me. 
A Case of Vulpine GiantismP? 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
Y attention has been called to pub- 
lication in the press last week of 
the account of a twenty-one and a half 
pound fox killed in Connecticut. I have 
not been able to get a copy of the press 
report which is said to be authentic. 
Authenticity would appear to be sup- 
ported by the fact of the addition of 
the half pound. 
Three explanations for a fox this 
size come to mind: 
One of them might be verified if the 
skin has been preserved and the other 
two if the body of the fox has been 
preserved. It is an extremely large 
fox which weighs thirteen or fourteen 
pounds. A fox weighing more than 
twenty pounds might have been a hy- 
brid, because female foxes and female 
dogs when in heat will sometimes re- 
ceive a male of another species. The 
hybrids, I believe, are infertile. The 
skin of such a hybrid would probably 
carry points indicating the parentage 
even though the fox ancestor gave gen- 
eral character to the pelage. 
A very large fox might result from 
the loss of ovaries or testicles congeni- 
tally or otherwise very early in life. 
The same thing might occur through a 
congenital defect of the endocrine sys- 
tem, leading to what biologists call gi- 
gantism. All of these factors are 
known to have resulted in abnormally 
large development of birds or animals. 
Dr. Rospert T. Morris, 
New York City. 
How an Alligator Catches Fish 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
HEN a boy I read in one of Mayne 
Reid’s books for boys, that an alli- 
gator struck the fish with his tail and 
reaching around with his head caught 
the fish in his mouth. I never expected 
to see one perform the feat, but in 
1913 I was on an island off the north 
coast of Cuba. The island is separated 
from the cozst of Cuba by a sound about 
nine miles in width. I crossed in a 
small sail boat manned by two Cubans, 
an old man who steered, and a young 
one who managed the sail. The day 
was warm and I had taken off my shoes 
and was holding my feet over the gun- 
wale and allowing them to drag in the 
water. The two men were talking to 
each other on indifferent subjects and 
I was paying no attention to their con- 
versation. The younger of the two ad- 
dressed me in an excited tone, saying, 
“Very bad fish here, Senor.” I was 
puzzled to know why he seemed to in 
earnest, and what sort of fish was very 
bad, and I thought of alligators. The 
Spanish for alligator is cayman—pro- 
nounced ky-e-man. I said, “What fish, 
cayman?” “Si, Senor, michos cay- 
manes aqui,” (Yes, sir, there are many 
alligators here.) 
He was warning me that a cayman 
might seize me by the foot and drag me 
out of the boat. I didn’t need a second 
warning, for a I realized that if a large 
alligator seized my feet, that I would 
be drawn out of the boat and dragged 
to the bottom. 
Shortly afterward we saw an alli- 
gator swimming along about fifty yards 
from the boat. Suddenly he struck a 
fish with his tail and curving his body 
around, making a complete circle, 
caught the fish in his mouth and after 
their custom, sank to the bottom to eat 
it. 
A large alligator is very strong, his 
head and all the upper part of his body 
is covered by an armor of scales, almost 
impenetratable to pistol ball, and like 
other reptiles and fish has great vital- 
ity, and will survive for hours after the 
brain is mangled. The following inci- 
dent will illustrate their strength. 
I was in a park in Florida which con- 
tained a small lake. The keeper told 
me that there was on the lake a black 
Australian swan, and an alligator com- 
ing from a neighboring stream broke 
through a strong rail fence, completely 
demolishing it, caught the swan and de- 
voured it. 
MICHAEL CAMPBELL, 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Initiating the Pup 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
T was as natural for Blue to hate 
coyotes as for an Irishman to eat 
boiled potatoes. His sire had done it 
before him. Blue was a crossbred stag 
and grey hound. He had some of the 
qualities of both. He could make a 
jackrabbit lay his ears and start to 
dodge in less than a quarter of a mile 
race, and he had size and that courage 
which always drove him cn at all odds 
and gave him the advantage of always 
being the aggressor in a fight. We 
looked upon him as a likely coyote 
hound and were anxious to give him 
an opportunity to verify our judgment. 
He had opened his eyes in a burrow 
in an old straw stack, where his mother 
had kept him from the rigor of the 
early spring storms. He was several 
weeks old when we first saw him. And 
he was the sole survivor of a litter that 
must have come during a severe bliz- 
zard in early March. He was wild and 
shy. Whether or not he had self con- 
fidence, he certainly didn’t have much 
in the rest of the world. He would play 
around on the old straw stack in the 
sunshine, but at the approach of any 

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