
894 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

[DeEc. 7, 1907, 

A Nature Lover’s November. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Poets and others have done the month of 
November a grave wrong; it is not as sad and 
somber as it is so often described. November 
has usually many bright, sunshiny days, the land 
drenched perhaps with one or two chilling rains 
in a gale that takes the dead leaves into fence 
corners, beside logs and in the crevices of rocks 
and stumps; but it is a month of sunshine, ripe 
and mellow with old age, and warm with the 
last pulse beats of the great throbbing heart of 
summer. November, summer’s nurse, starts the 
fire on the hearth, smoothes out the coverlets and 
comforts, December coming only to find the 
fragrant summer has been laid to rest beneath 
a harvest of leaves. 
Yesterday, as I paused to call back to a Bob 
White, my attention was attracted by a noise in 
the leaves ahead of me. From my perch on the 
fence I observed a gray squirrel busily engaged 
in burying a hickory nut. Soon the trick was 
accomplished, and when I tried to find the spot 
afterward I was unsuccessful. This incident is 
worth the telling inasmuch as it was the first 
of November, the month when the squirrel tribe 
put the finishing touches to their preparation for 
winter. 
Most of the birds are already on their way 
to the southland, but a song sparrow or two 
still linger down by the brook. A meadow lark, 
here and there, may set the passing year at 
naught by his plaintive “spring the year.” 
Perhaps on the fresh, exhilarating morning air 
is wafted the bluebird’s carol of “far away.” 
Even a thrush may tune up, but its effort is just 
the faintest echo of its old-time offering. The 
ever-welcome Bob White may manage to call 
“white,” and a robin break out into song, but 
oh, what a straggling, wayward crowd following 
like vagabonds the retreating footsteps of sum- 
mer ! 
ow 
The juncoes, usually arriving in October, with 
their perennial good humor, make up for some 
of the loss the season sustains in song. No 
birds are livelier than they, and indeed they rival 
the chickadees in merrymaking. Once you learn 
to love the juncoes no autumn scene is complete 
without them. You welcome their return as you 
do the first birds in spring. 
In the country the farmers are busy husking 
corn. The housewife moves her headquarters 
from the summer house to the good old-fash- 
ioned kitchen. Everywhere is noise and bustle, 
as though the farmer folk were making prepara- 
tions to depart from their field of labor. What 
word has been passed causing so much hurry in 
finishing the summer’s work? The district 
teacher, worried almost to despair over the ar- 
rangement of her many classes, scarcely pauses 
to note the pageant of the woods and fields, and 
hurries homeward to help at the corn. 
If there is anything sad in the landscape of 
November it is the ghosts of the summer flowers. 
After all the blessings and sweetness they have 
carried into every nook and corner of the world, 
now they too must lie low and go to sleep. 
Softly the change has come about. quietly their 
light has been put out, and only their dead and 
withered forms remain. For weeks and weeks 
the irresistible forces have been working, but 
in a dav, apparently, the transformation is com- 
plete. If your last walk in autumn should take 
you down through the meadows perhaps you will 
stoop to pluck a lone violet, one that has escaped 
the frost, and to you recalls unexpectedly those 
rich, fragrant days in the high-tide of the year. 
That mirage of the year, Indian summer, takes 
one back to a certain May day when the summer 
begins to blossom. Indian summer is a promise 
that is never kept; it is a reverie that is soon 
disturbed. The weather peculiar to this season 
is superb while it lasts, and is an ideal time in 
which make 
to a walking tour. It is the one 
period of the year when dreams are supreme, 
carefree as the vagabond wind roving over hill 
and dale. Indian summer! Through the haze 
and smoke one sees for a little while the moun- 
tain tops beyond. 
When the days of hazy skies are past and the 
has lost its blood-redness at setting, then 
will the cold wind come to sweep the land and 
sin 
sky. The leaves lie crisp and withered, and the 
faint rustle when they fell has turned to a harsh, 
crackling sound. How fine to stand under the 
giant pines to watch the night come on. The 
shadows are not black, only gray, and the wind 
keeps playing a soft monotone in the trees over- 
head, a subtle prophecy of the ever-returning 
spring. The mountains grow purple on the dis- 
tant horizon, and dark velvety clouds fringe the 
spot where the sun sank to rest. Soon the hills 
and mountains completely disappear. Lo! in an 
instant it is night, but a million stars come out 
to convince one that there is no night. 
So November and the last breath of summer 
vanish together, but around the country hearth- 
fire there is cheer enough to make the coldest 
day the brightest. How then can the passing of 
the fairy goddess spell sadness and despair, when 
beyond the window only, wakes the storm? 
: RoscoE BruMBAUGH., 

Calendar of Game Birds. 
By twelve color drawings from nature Mr. 
Louis Agassiz Fuertes has given us by far the 
most beautiful calendar for sportsmen and natur- 
alists that we have ever seen. Mr. Fuertes is 
an ornithologist, and he is also to-day the first 
of American bird painters, and an eminent natur- 
alist has declared that the mantle of the great 
Audubon has fallen on his worthy shoulders. 
At all events we know that he paints birds, and 
paints them beautifully, and in this calendar of 
game birds for 1908 he has done splendid work. 
Here then we have a calendar adorned by a 

NOVEMBER—WILD TURKEY. 
series of very beautiful bird pictures and just 
the bird pictures of course which appeal most 
strongly to the sportsmen. Justly and properly 
the splendid ruffed grouse is the first to present 
himself, sitting hunched up on a limb in a forest 
snow scene. The January bird is the splendid 
canvasback, as royal among wildfowl as is the 
ruffed grouse among upland game. For Febru- 
ary we have the willow ptarmigan, for March 
the king rail, for April the sandhill crane, trum- 
peting his calls to passing flocks which he will 
soon follow; for May there is the drumming 
cock ruffed grouse; June shows the woodduck, 
July the willow ptarmigan with a brood of young, 
August the upland plover in one of his most 
characteristic attitudes; September presents a 
brood of hurrying quail, scaling down the hill- 
side, and well ahead—we venture to say—of any 
charge of shot that may be following them; 
October shows us a group of mallards with a 
widgeon. and a black duck in the distance: 
November the splendid turkey, and December 
a triangle of strong-winged clamorous geese. 
The pictures are beautiful, and each one is 
accompanied by a little bit of text giving some- 
thing about the life history of the birds, and 
something about its relation to the sportsman. 
Useful as it is as a calendar for the year 1908, 
this calendar will be not less useful after the 
year has expired to those wise purchasers who 
shall frame these beautiful representations of 
some of our finest birds, and keep them always 
in his home. ,The work should have a very 
large sale among sportsmen. The cut which ac- 
companies this notice, is a reduction of one of 
the plates of the calendar. 



Smelters and Vegetation. 
ASHEVILLE, N. C., Nov. 16.—Editor Forest a 
Stream: .Your editorial in last week’s Fore 
AND STREAM on the question of copper smelte 
being destructive to the vegetation of the st 
rounding territory, recalls a fight that has be 
in the courts in the southern Appalachians f 
several years. 
At Ducktown, Tenn., near the point whe 
Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia join, 
located the largest copper smelter in the Soui 
It has here been the custom to roast the ore « 
open wood fires. This burning out of the st 
phur has resulted in the formation of large qua 
tities of sulphurous gases, with the result. th 
all kinds of vegetation has greatly suffered in t 
entire valley. Farms have been practical 
ruined and large areas of heavy forests ha 
suffered to the extent that large as well as sm: 
trees have died. 
Individuals first sought relief through tl 
State courts; later the State of Georgia broug 
action against the State of Tennessee for mai 
taining a nuisance inimical to the interests \ 
citizens of Georgia. The matter has be 
thrashed out in the Federal courts the past ye: 
with the result that the copper mines have shi 
down. Just what solution was reached 
whether the matter has been finally settled I a 
unable to state. 
A letter from you to the Attorney General « 
Georgia, Atlanta, asking for the present status: 
the matter would furnish interesting reading f 
those of your readers who are believers of ¢ 
interested in forest preservation, States rights, « 
smelter operations in general. 































































































































C: P. AMBLER, 
The Hon. John C. Hart, Attorney-General « 
Georgia, has replied as follows to our inquir 
as to the case referred to: 
ATLANTA, Ga., Nov. 26.—Editor Forest an 
Stream: In reply to your inquiry of the 2ts 
wherein you ask what decision has been reache 
in the case of Georgia vs. Tennessee in th 
matter of the copper smelters at Ducktowi 
Tenn., I beg to say: 
The Supreme Court of the United States ha] 
adjudged that the State of Georgia was entitle 
to its injunction; that the copper companies hay} 
been given a reasonable time within which t 
install sulphuric acid chambers, the claim bein| 
that the installation of these appliances will ex 
tract from the fumes the injurious poison whic 


has so disastrously affected vegetation. This ex 
traction will be H2 SO 4. 
I understand the companies have spent ap 
proximately a million dollars in t 
to install these chambers and that 
well under way, and that within a 
furthest this 
operation. 
he preparatio}| 
the same ar} 
few weeks al 
process of extraction will be ij| 
Jno. C. Hart. 
Attorney-General 

The Tail of a Skunk. | 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
That a skunk can be safely carried by its tai 
I know, for I have seen the performance. | 
The late Ethan Allin also believed this, fol 
he had not only seen, but had actually done it 
Now he had never had an opportunity to demon: 
strate the fact to the public, so one day wher 
one of his neighbors came in haste to Ethan anc| 
told him that there was a skunk in his cellar! 
Ethan girded, up his loins and started for the 
scene. 
Going into the cellar he seized the maraudet 
by its caudal appendage and proudly held it 
aloft, then carrying it out of door he held if! 
up to the gaze of the awe-struck bystanders with 
an “I told you so” that was entirely convincing | 
There was a rock about as large as a bushel 

basket near him, and as he turned to answet| 
a question, the skunk, gained a foothold upon 
the rock and—phew ! that’s all. SHADOW. 

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