
g2 
FOREST AND Ss DRigaaia 
[JULY 20, 1907. 

the rate of growth noted in captivity by no 
means represents a forcing process, and that 
wild crocodilians actually grow faster than the 
rate we shall presently describe in detail. To be 
more emphatic, the writer would state his be- 
lief that alligators occurring even in the north- 
ern portion of this species’ habitat, where there 
is a quite prolonged hibernating period, show 
a more rapid growth than that given in the 
table relating to our captive specimens. As 
evidence on this point, we may cite certain ex- 
periments that have been conducted in the Zoo- 
logical Park. 
Two lots of alligators, each containing about 
a dozen specimens, have been placed under the 
different conditions. One lot was kept outside, 
in a pond where the reptiles enjoyed compar- 
ative freedom, the other lot remained indoors, 
in one of the capacious tanks of the Reptile 
House. The ontside specimens soon became 
wild, and very difficult to approach. As a result, 
they received food with less regularity and in 
smaller quantity than the indoor specimens; 
but at the end of the warm season, they were 
invariably found to be considerably larger than 
the latter. 
There is a powerful and mysterious tonic in 
the outdoor air, the summer rains, and, the 
muddy waters of a natural pool. The writer 
has noted the same result with snakes and 
lizards. He has set free young specimens of 
the latter kind in localities where they could be 
readily found again, and has kept members of 
the same broods indoors, endeavoring to “force” 
them by feeding them as frequently as they 
could properly assimilate their food. Yet we 
found the results to be the same as with wild 
crocodilians. The wild reptiles, when recaptured, 
were probably a third larger than those so care- 
fully reared in confinement. 
The coastal, swampy regions of the southeast- 
ern portion of the United States—the home of 
the alligator—are particularly conducive to the 

rapid growth of their reptile denizens. The 
favorite abode of the alligator is in the “low- 
grounds” rather than in large bodies of water. 
These ordinarily embrace combinations of jun- 
gle-like thickets, small savannas, and stagnant 
“water-holes.” After heavy rains much of these 
areas are covered with water. 
The writer’s studies of the alligator at home 
were conducted in the immediate vicinity of 
the Savannah River, about forty miles above 
the city of Savannah. His work was confined 
to the river low-grounds, a vast tract teeming 
with reptiles. Alligators were found in isolated 
pools and small lakes, the larger examples gen-: 
erally in the larger bodies of water. Masses of 
water hyacinths and rushes flourished in Juxur- 
ious profusion. 
Over terra-firma itself the going was exceed- 
ingly difficult, compelling us to tear our -way 
through thorny bushes, or masses of cane, eight 
to ten feet high.- In August the heat was in- 
tense, the temperature frequently reaching 105 
degrees F. in the shade, and- it was rendered all 
the more unendurable to human beings by its 
excessive humidity. In the “‘’gator holes” the 
water was tepid, and teeming with fish, among 
the latter being catfish of huge proportions. At 
times we passed shallow pools recently evapo- 
rated, and giving off an overpowering stench 
from masses of decomposing fish. 
No alligators were seen in the Savannah River 
itself. They lived mostly in the surrounding 
swampy country, where they were fairly secure 
from molestation. As night fell upon these 
swamps, bringing a much lower temperature, 
the heated ground and tepid water of the pools 
gave off a steamy vapor which spread and 
stratified over the treetops, or floated in long, 
ghostly streamers into the shallow and undu- 
lating valleys of the hammock land. Owing to 
this apparently ever-present, nocturnal miasma, 
there was never anything but a pale and sickly 
moonlight over the low-grounds, although as 
we often made our way into the higher pine 
lands a few miles away, the unwholesome at- 
mospheric conditions gave way to nights won- 
derfully. clear. In those moisture-laden and 
heated swamps, the rapid development of large 
reptiles may be surmised. 
[TO BE CONCLUDED. | 


Death to Montana Beaver. 
Tue Legislature of the State of Montana at 
its last session amended the game law in such 
way. as to wholly remove protection for the 
beaver. The matter appears not to have become 
generally known until the very last days of 
April, when a local trapper was arrested and put 
on trial for killing a beaver in March. The com- 
plaint was made by one Jack Hall, a deputy State 
game warden, who seems not to have known that 
the law had been amended at the recent session 
of the Legislature. The trapper pleaded guilty 
and was to have been sentenced on April 27, but 
before the time for sentence came the county 
attorney learned of. the change in the law and 
moved a dismissal of the case. Paynter was dis- 
charged. 
The trappers have been quick to take advantage 
of this law and the destruction of beaver will 
inevitably be very great. They are abundant 
and very tame. We understand that in the month 
of May on one small creek a single trapper killed 
140 beaver. 
The attitude of the general public toward game 
protection in Montana, if the way the news- 
papers speak about it is any indication of the 
public sentiment, is not encouraging. They seem 
to consider game protection as a huge joke. 
They do not look far enough ahead to see the 
value of the game to the State, they do not con- 
sider the value of the beaver as an irrigator. 
Without at all looking into the future they seem 
to take that admirably materialistic view so well 
expressed by old Butler: 
For what is worth in anything 
But so much money as “twill bring? 
There are many thousands of beaver in north- 
ern Montana and before the Legislature can meet 
again to give them protection it seems probable 
that most of these beavers will have been 
slaughtered—a very serious loss to the State and 
above all to the ranchman.: 
The following note on the value of the beaver 
as a conserver of water was printed in the 
Forest AND STREAM last January and should 
possess a special interest for Montanians. The 
observations made by the correspondent in 1906, 
and more than once in previous years, are con- 
firmed by similar observations made, and it is 
hoped soon to. be published, by Mr. Vernon 
3aily, the accomplished field naturalist of the 
Biological Survey. 
In the autumn of 1906 I crossed the little stream 
* * %& which lies in a rough country at a little 
distance out from the mountains, hidden at the 
bottom of a narrow valley, whose steep walls rise 
hundreds of feet on either side. Now, however, 
as with most of the little valleys in the West 
where there is water, a settler’s house is there, 
and his cattle browse on the steep hillsides, while 
from the narrow but level stream valley, he cuts 
hay enough to insure them against the dangers 
of winter. One would suppose that the beaver 
would long ago have disappeared, but this is just 
what they have not done. At close intervals 
along the little stream stand dams kept con- 
stantly in repair by the beaver, the water being 
held back so that it stands only about six inches 
below the level of the stream bottom. There 
may be a difference of a foot or a foot and a 
half in the height of the water above and below 
any one of the dams, but in any case it is close 
to the land’s level. The actual bed of the stream, 
however, lies five or six feet below the level of 
the soil in the bottom, and in every pool there 
is water deep enough to swim a horse. I know, 
because I tried to find a place to ride across it 
without going down to the bridge where the road 
crosses, and I had to back out or get a wetting. 
Why is it these beaver still flourish on this 
little stream, as in fact they are beginning to 
flourish. on many another little stream in Mon- 
tana? It-is true that the Montana law protects 
beaver, and it is forbidden to kill them, but in 
these sparsely settled districts the law is often 
forgotten, or if remembered, disregarded. 
The reason that these beaver are protected is 
that the man who claims this water and the ad- 
jacent hay-meadow realizes that in the beaver he 
has a lot of unpaid servants, who by their work: 
are saving him a great deal of labor and of 

money. They have dammed this creek and have 
thus put under irrigation the meadows from which 
he cuts his hay. If he were short-sighted enough 
to tear up these dams and to kill these beaver, 
he would be obliged to go to the head of the 
stream and there take out a ditch, bring it around 
along the hillsides, build laterals and sub-laterals, 
and so get water on his hay meadows at consid~- 
erable expense. Now, that meadow is_ sub- 
irrigated throughout its whole length, receiving 
just the amount of water that it needs and all 
this without one cent of cost to him who cuts 
his hay there. 
This is a single example—but a striking one— 
of the work the beaver do. They are doing 
similar work in a number of places in Montana, 
but what seems to me much more interesting than 
the fact that they are doing this work is the 
further fact that the people are coming to under- 
stand the usefulness of their services, and are 
trying to encourage and protect theme in order 
that they may continue this work. 
There are many streams in Montana, and in- 
deed in other portions of the West, where the 
water flows on a bed six or eight, or twelve feet - 
below the level of the stream valley. In such 
places men with infinite labor built dams to hold 
back the water, so that they may take it out to 
use in irrigation; but nine times out of ten, when 
the spring freshets come, the dam goes out, the 
labor is wholly lost, and the meadow which it was 
desired to irrigate remains as dry as ever. 
Such a stream is the Rosebud River, a tribu- 
tary of the Yellowstone from the south. For 
the lower eighty or ninety miles of its course, 
its valley is broad and flat with wide meadows, 
which, if watered, produce luxuriant crops of 
native hay. - But the stream itself flows through 
a narrow channe! cut through this valley, and ten 
or twelve feet below its general level. Moreover, 
about midsummer the Rosebud usually goes dry, 
and for months water stands in it merely in holes. 
Many attempts—some of them successful—have 
been made to dam the stream so as to store the 
spring water for irrigation, but where these at- 
tempts are not successful, the dry meadows far 
above the water level produce nothing except a 
little dry pasture. At one point, however, twenty- 
five or thirty miles from the mouth there exists 
a little colony of beaver which the ranch owner _ 
has protected. They have dammed one or two 
trickles of water coming from springs in the hills, 
have made themselves a series of ponds in which 
the waters stand only a little below the level of 
the meadows, and the result of this shows itself 
in the best hay meadow on the place. 
In the settling up of the West the beaver. has 
played a great part. It was the beaver that led 
men into and across those mysterious fastnesses 
that used to be called the Shining Mountains. It 
will be interesting if in these latter days, when 
civilization and all that goes with it, has thrust 
itself into every nook and valley of those Shin- 
ing Mountains, and the land on both sides of 
them, the living beaver should perform an active 
work in making the land productive, and its oc- 
cupancy by the white man possible. 
Bobolink in Connecticut. 
New Haven, Conn., July 1t0.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: In answer to a question from a 
gentleman in Bridgeport, Conn., in your issue 
of June 18 concerning the bobolink in the south- 
ern part of the State, I can say that there is at 
least one locality within a dozen miles of Bridge- 
port where this bird is not rare in the breeding 
season, This is at Woodmont, a few miles up the 
shore. Some time if your correspondent will 
take the trolley up there, get off at any of the 
stations, and walk inland half a mile or so: he 
will find them in almost any open field where the 
erass is long, together with numbers of other 
interesting birds. P. L. Burrerick, 
Member New Haven Bird Club. 
ROUGHING IT 
soon grows tiresome unless the food is good. 
Good milk is one item indispensable to a cheer- 
ful camp, and Borden’s solves the problem. 
Eagle Brand Condensed Milk and Peerless Brand 
Evaporated Milk keep indefinitely, anywhere, and 
fill every milk or cream requirement.—Adv. 



















































































































