The Tar Baby and the Tomahawk: Race and Ethnic Images in American Children's Literature, 1880-1939

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I. Principles of Woodcraft

Nine Important Principles of Woodcraft

THIS is a time when the whole nation is turning toward the Outdoor Life, seeking in it the physical regeneration so needful for continued national existence—is waking to the fact long known to thoughtful men that those live longest who live nearest to the ground —that is who live the simple life of primitive times, divested however, of the evils that ignorance in those times begot.

Consumption, the white man's plague since he has become a house race, is vanquished by the sun and air and many ills of the mind also are forgotten when the sufferer boldly takes to the life in tents.

Half our diseases are in our minds and half in our houses. We can safely leave the rest to the physicians for treatment.

Sport is the great incentive to Outdoor Life; Nature Study is the intellectual side of the sport.

I should like to lead this whole nation into the way of living outdoors for at least a month each year, reviving and expanding a custom that as far back as Moses was deemed essential to the national well-being.

Not long ago a benevolent rich man, impressed with this idea, chartered a steamer and took some hundreds of slum boys up to the Catskills for a day in the woods. They were duly landed and told to "go in now and have a glorious time." It was like gathering up a netful of catfish and
set1921.2012.026.jpg throwing them into the woods, saying, "Go and have a glorious time."

The boys sulked around and sullenly disappeared. An hour later, on being looked up, they were found in groups under the bushes, smoking cigarettes, shooting "craps," and playing cards—the only things they knew.

Thus the well-meaning rich man learned that it is not enough to take men out of doors. We much also teach them to enjoy it.

The purpose of this book is to show how Outdoor Life may be followed to advantage.

Nine leading principles are kept in view:

• (1) This movement is essentially for recreation.
• (2) Camp-life. Camping is the simple life reduced to actual practice,as well as the culmination of the outdoor life.

  Camping has no great popularity to-day, because men have the idea that it is possible only after an expensive journey to the wilderness; and women that it is inconvenient, dirty, and dangerous.

  These are errors. They have arisen because camping as an art is not understood. When intelligently followed, camp-life must take its place as a cheap and delightful way of living, as well as a mental and physical savior of those strained or broken by the grind of the over-busy world.

  The wilderness affords the ideal camping, but many of the benefits can be got by living in a tent on a town lot, a piazza, or even a housetop.

• (3) Self-government with Adult Guidance. Control from without is a poor thing when you can get control from within. As far as possible, then, we make these camps self- governing. Each full member has a vote in affairs.

• (4) The Magic of the Campfire. What is a camp with- out a campfire?—no camp at all, but a chilly place in a
  set1921.2012.027.jpg landscape, where some people happen to have some things.

  When first the brutal anthropoid stood up and walked erect—was man, the great event was symbolized and marked by the lighting of the first campfire.

  For millions of years our race has seen in this blessed fire, the means and emblem of light, warmth, protection, friendly gathering, council. All the hallow of the ancient thoughts, hearth, fireside, home is centred in its glow, and the home-tie itself is weakened with the waning of the home-fire. Not in the steam radiator can we find the spell; not in the water coil; not even in the gas log; they do not reach the heart. Only the ancient sacred fire of wood has power to touch and thrill the chords of primitive remembrance. When men sit together at the campfire they seem to shed all modern form and poise, and hark back to the primitive—to meet as man and man—to show the naked soul. Your campfire partner wins your love, or hate, mostly your love; and having camped in peace together, is a lasting bond of union — however wide your worlds may be apart. The campfire, then, is the focal centre of all primitive brotherhood. We shall not fail to use its magic powers.

• (5) Woodcraft Pursuits. Realizing that manhood, not scholarship, is the first aim of education, we have sought out those pursuits which develop the finest character, the finest physique, and which may be followed out of doors, which, in a word, make for manhood.

  By nearly every process of logic we are led primarily to Woodcraft—that is, Woodcraft in a large sense—meaning every accomplishment of an all-round Woodman—Riding, Hunting, Camper-craft, Scouting, Mountaineering, Indian-craft, First aid, Star-craft, Signaling, and Boating. To this we add all good Outdoor Athletics and Sports, including Sailing and Motoring, and Nature Study, of
  set1921.2012.028.jpg which Wild Animal Photography is an important branch; but above all, Heroism.

  Over three hundred deeds or exploits are recognized in these various departments, and the members are given decorations that show what they achieved. (Sec Woodcraft Manual.)

• (6) Honors by Standards. The competitive principle is responsible for much that is evil. We see it rampant in our colleges to-day, where every effort is made to discover and develop a champion, while the great body of students is neglected. That is, the ones who are in need of physical development do not get it, and those who do not need it are over-developed. The result is much unsoundness of many kinds. A great deal of this would be avoided if we strove to bring all the individuals up to a certain standard. In out non-competitive tests the enemies are not "the other fellows," but time and space, the forces of Nature. We try not to down the others, but to raise ourselves. A thorough application of this principle would end many of the evils now demoralizing college athletics. Therefore, all our honors are bestowed according to world-wide standards. (Prizes are not honors.) (See Woodcraft Manual.)
• (7) Personal Decoration for Personal Achievements. The love of glory is the strongest motive in a savage. Civilized man is supposed to find in high principle his master impulse. But those who believe that the men of our race, not to mention boys, are civilized in this highest sense, would be greatly surprised if confronted with figures. Nevertheless, a human weakness may be good material to work with. I face the facts as they are. All have a chance for glory through the standards, and we blazon it forth in personal decorations that all can see, have, and desire.
• (8) A Heroic Ideal. The boy from ten to fifteen, like the savage, is purely physical in his ideals. I do not know that I ever met a boy that would not rather be John L. Sullivan
  set1921.2012.029.jpg than Darwin or Tolstoi. Therefore, I accept the fact, and seek to keep in view an ideal that is physical, but also clean, manly, heroic, already familiar, and leading with certainty to higher things.
• (9) Picturesqueness in Everything. Very great importance should be attached to this. The effect of the picturesque is magical, and all the more subtle and irresistible because it is not on the face of it reasonable. The charm of titles and gay costumes, of the beautiful in ceremony, phrase, dance, and song, are utilized in all ways.

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II. The Spartans of the West

NO WORLD-MOVEMENT ever yet grew as a mere doctrine. It must have some noble example; a living, appealing personality; some man to whom we can point and say, "This is what we mean." All the great faiths of the world have had such a man, and for lack of one, many great and flawless truths have passed into the lumber-room.

To exemplify my outdoor movement, I must have a man who was of this country and climate; who was physically beautiful, clean, unsordid, high-minded, heroic, picturesque, and a master of Woodcraft, besides which, he must be already well-known. I would gladly have taken a man of our own race, but I could find none. Rollo the Sea-King, King Arthur, Leif Ericsson, Robin Hood, Leatherstocking, all suggested themselves, but none seemed to meet the requirements, and most were mere shadows, utterly unknown. Surely, all this pointed the same way. There was but one figure that seemed to answer all these needs: that was the Ideal Indian of Fenimore Cooper and Longfellow.

For this reason, I took the Native American, and called my organization "Woodcraft Indians." And yet, I am told that the prejudice against the word "Indian" has hurt the movement immensely. If so, it is because we do not know what the Indian was, and this I shall make it my
set1921.2012.032.jpg sad and hopeful task, at this late day, to have our people realize.

We know more about the Redman to-day than ever we did. Indeed, we knew almost nothing of him twenty years ago. We had two pictures offered us; one, the ideal savage of Longfellow, the primitive man, so noble in nature that he was incapable of anything small or mean or wicked; the other was presented by those who coveted his possessions, and, to justify their robberies, they sketched the Indian as a dirty, filthy, squalid wretch, a demon of cruelty and cowardice, incapable of a human emotion, and never good till dead.

Which of these is the true picture? Let us calmly examine the pages of history, taking the words and records of Redmen and white, friends and foes of the Indian, and be prepared to render a verdict, in absolute accordance with that evidence, no matter where it leads us.

Let us begin by admitting that it is fair to take the best examples of the red race, to represent Indian philosophy and goodness; even as we ourselves would prefer being represented by Emerson, Tolstoi, Lincoln, Spencer, Peabody, General Booth, or Whitman, rather than by the border ruffians and cut-throat outlaws who were the principal exemplars of our ways among the Indians.

It is freely admitted that in all tribes, at all times, there were reprobates and scoundrels, a reproach to the people; just as amongst ourselves we have outcasts, tramps, drunkards, and criminals. But these were despised by their own people, and barely tolerated.

We must in fairness judge the Indian and his way of life and thought by the exemplifications of his best types: Hiawatha, Wabasha I, Tshut-che-nau, Ma-to-to-pa, Tecumseh, Kanakuk, Chief Joseph, Dull Knife, Washakie
set1921.2012.033.jpg and many that loved their own people and were in no wise touched by the doctrines of the whites.

If from these men we gather their beliefs, their teachings, and the common thoughts that guided their lives, we may fairly assume that we have outlined the creed of the best Indians.

These are the main thoughts in the Redman's creed:

• (1) While he believed in many gods, he accepted the idea of one Supreme Spirit, who was everywhere all the time; whose help was needed continually, and might be secured by prayer and sacrifice.
• (2) He believed in the immortality of the soul, and that Its future condition was to be determined by its behavior in this life.
• (3) He reverenced his body as the sacred temple of his spirit; and believed it his duty in all ways to perfect his body, that his earthly record might be the better. We cannot, short of ancient Greece, find his equal in physical perfection.
• (4) He believed in the subjection of the body by fasting, whenever it seemed necessary for the absolute domination of the spirit; as when, in some great crisis, that spirit felt the need for better insight.
• (5) He believed in reverence for his parents, and in old age supported them, even as he expected his children to support him.
• (6) He believed in the sacredness of property. Theft among Indians was unknown.
• (7) He believed that the murderer must expiate his crime with his life; that the nearest kin was the proper avenger, but that for accidental manslaughter compensation might be made in goods.

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• (8) He believed in cleanliness of body.
• (9) He believed in purity of morals.
• (10) He believed in speaking the truth, and nothing but the truth. His promise was absolutely binding. He hated and despised a liar, and held all falsehood to be an abomination.
• (11) He believed in beautifying all things in his life. He had a song for every occasion—a beautiful prayer for every stress. His garments were made beautiful with painted patterns, feathers, and quill-work. He had dances for every fireside. He has led the world in the making of beautiful baskets, blankets, and canoes; while the decorations he put on lodges, weapons, clothes, dishes, and dwellings, beds, cradles, or grave-boards, were among the countless evidences of his pleasure in the beautiful, as he understood it.
• (12) He believed in the simple life. He held, first, that land belonged to the tribe, not to the individual; next, that the accumulation of property was the beginning of greed that grew into monstrous crime.
• (13) He believed in peace and the sacred obligations of hospitality.
• (14) He believed that the noblest of virtues was courage, and that, above all other qualities, he worshipped and prayed for. So also he believed that the most shameful of crimes was being afraid.
• (15) He believed that he should so live his life that the fear of death could never enter into his heart; that when the last call came he should put on the paint and honors of a hero going home, then sing his death song and meet the end in triumph.

If we measure this great pagan by our Ten Command- ments, we shall find that he accepted and obeyed them, all
set1921.2012.035.jpg but the first and third: that is, he had many lesser gods besides the one Great Spirit, and he knew not the Sabbath Day of rest. His religious faith, therefore, was much the same as that of the mighty Greeks, before whom all the world of learning bows; not unlike that of many Christians and several stages higher than that of the Huxley and other modern schools of materialism.

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III. Woodland Songs, Dances, and Ceremonies

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VII. Signaling and Indian Signs

Sign Language

DO YOU know the Sign Language?

If not, do you realize that the Sign Language is an established mode of communication in all parts of the world without regard to native speech?

Do you know that it is so refined and complete that sermons and lectures are given in it every day, to those who cannot hear?

Do you know that it is as old as the hills and is largely used in all public schools? And yet when I ask boys this question, "Do you use the Sign Language?" they nearly always say "No."

The first question of most persons is "What is it?" It is a simple method of asking questions and giving answers, that is talking, by means of the hands. It is used by all the Plains Indians, and by thousands of white people to-day, in cities, as well as in the western country, and to an extent that surprises all when first they come to think of it.

Not long ago I asked a boy whether the policemen on the crowded streets used Sign Language. He said, "No!" at least he did not know if they did.

I replied: "When the officer on Fifth Avenue wishes to stop all vehicles, what docs he do?"

"He raises his hand, flat with palm forward," was the reply.

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"Yes, and when he means 'come on,' what does he do?"

"He beckons this way."

"And how does he say 'go left, go right, go back, come, hurry up, you get out?' " Each of these signs I found was well known to the boy.

The girls are equally adept and equally unconscious of it.

One very shy little miss—so shy that she dared not speak—furnished a good illustration of this:

"Do you use the Sign Language in your school?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Do you learn any language but English?"

She nodded.

"What is the use of learning any other than English?

She raised her right shoulder in the faintest possible shrug.

"Now," was my reply, "don't you see you have already given me three signs of the Sign Language, which you said you did not use?"

After collecting popular signs for several years I found that I had about one hundred and fifty that are in established use in the schools of New York City.

Here are some of the better known. Each boy will probably find that he has known and used them all his schooldays:

• You (pointing at the person);
• Me (pointing at one's self);
• Yes (nod);
• No (head shake);
• Go (move hand forward, palm first);
• Come (draw hand toward one's self, palm in);
• Hurry (same, but the hand quickly and energetically moved several times);
• Come for a moment (hand held out back down, fingers closed except first, which is hooked and straightened quickly several times);

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• Stop (one hand raised, flat; palm forward);
• Gently or Go easy (like "stop," but hand gently waved from side to side);
• Good-bye (hand high, flat, palm down, fingers wagged all together);
• Up (forefinger pointed and moved upward);
• Down (ditto downward);
• Silence or hush (forefinger across lips);
• Listen (flat hand behind ear);
• Whisper (silently move lips, holding flat hand at one side of mouth);
• Friendship (hands clasped);
• Threatening (fist shaken at person);
• Warning (forefinger gently shaken at a slight angle toward person);
• He is cross (forefinger crossed level);
• Shame on you (right forefinger drawn across left toward person several times);
• Scorn (turning away and throwing an imaginary handful of sand toward person);
• Insolent defiance (thumb to nose tip, fingers fully spread);
• Surrender (both hands raised high and flat to show no weapons);
• Crazy (with forefinger make a little circle on forehead then point to person);
• Look there (pointing);
• Applause (silently make as though clapping hands);
• Victory (one hand high above head as though waving hat);
• Indifference (a shoulder shrug);
• Ignorance (a shrug and headshake combined);
• Pay (hand held out half open, forefinger and thumb rubbed together);

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• Poverty (both hands turned flat forward near trouser pockets);
• Bribe (hand held hollow up behind the back);
• Knife (first and second fingers of right hand used as to whittle first finger of left);
• I am thinking it over (forefinger on right brow and eyes raised);
• I forgot (touch forehead with all right finger tips, then draw fiat hand past eyes once and shake head);
• I send you a kiss (kiss finger tips and move hand in graceful sweep toward person);
• The meal was good (pat stomach);
• I beg of you (flat hands tight together and upright);
• Upon my honor (with forefinger make a cross over heart);
• Bar up, fins, or I claim exemption (cross second finger of right hand on first finger and hold hand up);
• Give me (hold out open flat hand pulling it back a little to finish);
• I give you (the same, but push forward to finish);
• Give me my bill (same, then make motion of writing);
• Get up (raise flat hand sharply, palm upward);
• Sit down (drop flat hand sharply, palm down);
• Rub it out (quickly shake flat hand from side to side, palm forward);
• Thank you ( a slight bow, smile and hand-salute, made by drawing flat hand a few inches forward and downward palm up);
• Do you think me simple? (forefinger laid on side of nose);
• Will you? or, is it so? (eyebrows raised and slight bow made);
• Will you come swimming? (first and second fingers raised and spread, others closed);
• Also of course, the points of the compass, and the numerals up to twenty or thirty.

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My attention was first directed to the Sign Language in 1882, when I went to live in western Manitoba. There I found it used among the Crees and Sioux, the latter especially being expert sign-talkers. Later, I found it a daily necessity for travel among the natives of New Mexico and Montana.

One of the best sign talkers I ever met was the Crow Indian, White Swan, who had been one of Custer's Scouts. He was badly wounded by the Sioux, clubbed on the head, and left for dead. He recovered and escaped; but ever after was deaf and dumb. However sign talk was familiar to all his people and he was at little disadvantage in daytime. From him I received many lessons in Sign Language and thus in 1897 began to study it seriously.

Now I wish to teach it to the Scouts. If each of them would learn to use with precision the one hundred and fifty schoolboy signs and then add twice as many more, they would become fairly good sign-talkers. These additional signs they can find in the "Dictionary of the Sign Language."*

Why should you talk the Sign Language? There are many reasons:

• In this code you can talk to any other Scout, without a outsider knowing or understanding.
• It makes conversation easy in places when you must not speak aloud, as in school, during music, or by the bedside of the sick.
• It is a means of far-signaling much quicker than semaphore or other spelling codes, for this gives one or more words in one sign.
• It will enable you to talk when there is too much noise to be heard, as across the noisy streets.
[note]
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• It makes it possible to talk to a deaf person.
• It is a wonderful developer of observation.

It is a simple means of talking to an Indian or a Scout of another nationality whose language you do not understand. This indeed is its great merit. It is universal. It deals not with words but with ideas that are common to all mankind- It is therefore a kind of Esperanto already established.

So much for its advantages; what are its weaknesses? Let us frankly face them:

• It is useless in the dark;
• It will not serve on the telephone;
• It can scarcely be written;
• In its pure form it will not give new proper names.

To meet the last two we have expedients, as will be seen, but the first two are insurmountable difficulties.

Remember then you are to learn the Sign Language because it is silent, far-reaching, and the one universal language.

Since it deals fundamentally with ideas, we avoid words and letters, but for proper names it is very necessary to know the one-hand manual alphabet,

For numbers we use the fingers, as probably did the earliest men who counted.

Yes. The sign for "yes" is so natural that one can see it instinctively made if we offer food to a hungry baby. That is simply a nod. That is if you are near, but far off, make your right hand with all fingers closed except index and thumb which are straight and touching at top, advance, bend toward the left side as though bowing, then returned and straight again.

No. This also is a natural sign, we can see it if we offer bitter medicine to a baby. The sign for "No," when near, is shake the head; but, when too far for that to be seen, hold the closed right hand in front of the body, then sweep it
set1921.2012.172.jpg [illustration - A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z & ]
set1921.2012.173.jpg [illustration - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 100 Counting or Numbers # ]
set1921.2012.174.jpg outward and downward, at the same time turn the palm up as though throwing something away.

Query. The sign for Question—that is, "I am asking you a question," "I want to know "—is much used and important. Hold up the right hand toward the person, palm forward, fingers open, slightly curved and spread. Wave the hand gently by wrist action from side to side. It is used before, and sometimes after all questions. If you are very near, merely raise the eyebrows.

The following are needed in asking questions:

How Many? First the Question sign, then hold the left hand open, curved, palm [illustration - QUERY SIGN ] up, finders spread, then with right digit quickly tap each finger of left in succession, closing it back toward the left palm, beginning with the little finger.

How Much? Same as How many?

What? What are you doing? What do you want? What is it? First give Question, then hold right hand palm down, fingers slightly bent and separated, and, pointing forward, throw it about a foot from right to left several times, describing an arc upward.

When? If seeking a definite answer as to length of time, make signs for Question, How much, and then specify time by sign for hours, days, etc. When asking in general "When" for a date, hold the left index extended and vertical, other and thumb closed, make a circle round left index tip with tip of extended right index, others and thumb closed; and
set1921.2012.175.jpg when the index reaches the starting point, stop it and point at tip of left index (what point of shadow?).

Where? (What direction) Question, then with forefinger sweep the horizon in a succession of bounds, a slight pause at the bottom of each.

Which? Question, then hold left hand in front of you with palm toward you, fingers to right and held apart; place the end of the right forefinger on that of left forefinger, and then draw it down across the other fingers.

Why? Make the sign for Question, then repeat it very slowly.

Who? Question, and then describe with the right forefinger a small circle six inches in front of the mouth.

Eat. Throw the flat hand several times past the mouth in a curve.

Drink. Hold the right hand as though holding a cup near the mouth and tip it up.

Sleep. Lay the right cheek on the right flat hand.

My, mine, yours, possession, etc. Hold out the closed fist, thumb up, and swing it down a little so thumb points forward.

House. Hold the flat hands together like a roof.

Finished or done. Hold out the flat left hand palm to the right, then with flat right hand chop down past the ends of the left fingers.

Thus "Will you eat?" would be a Question, you eat, but Have you eaten would be, Question, you eat, finished.

Way or road. Hold both flat hands nearly side by side, palms up, but right one nearer the breast, then alternately lift them forward and draw them back to indicate track or feet traveling.

The Indian had much use for certain signs in describing the white trader. The first was:

Liar. Close the right hand except the first and second
set1921.2012.176.jpg [illustration - SIGN FOR VERY MUCH ] fingers; these are straight and spread; bring the knuckles of the first finger to the mouth, then pass it down forward to the left, meaning double or forked tongue.

The second sign, meaning "very" or "very much," is made by striking the right fist down past the knuckles of the left without quite touching them, the left being held still.

Another useful sign is time. This is made by drawing a circle with the right forefinger on the back of the left wrist. It looks like a reference to the wrist watch, but it is certainly much older than that style of timepiece and probably refers to the shadow of a tree. Some prefer to draw the circle on the left palm as it is held up facing forward.

If you wish to ask, "What time is it?" You make the signs Question, then Time. If the answer is "Three o'clock," you would signal:

Time and hold up three fingers of the right hand.

Hours are shown by laying the right forefinger as a pointer on the flat palm of the left and carrying it once around; minutes by moving the pointer a very little to the left.

If you wish to signal in answer 3:15. You give the signs for hours 3 and minutes 15. Holding all ten fingers up for 10, then those of one hand for 5.

It takes a good-sized dictionary to give all the signs in use, and a dictionary you must have, if you would become an expert.

I shall conclude with one pretty little Indian sign: First,
set1921.2012.177.jpg give the Question sign, then make an incomplete ring of your right forefinger and thumb, raise them in a sweep until above your head, then bring the ring straight down to your heart. This is the Indian way of asking, "Is the sun shining in your heart?"—that is, "Are you happy?" —your answer will, I hope, be made by the right hand and arm standing up straight, then bowing toward the left, followed by a sharp stroke of the right fist knuckles past those of the left fist without their touching, which means "Yes, the sun shines in my heart heap strong."

PICTURE-WRITING

The written form of Sign Language is the picture-writing also called Pictography, and Ideography, because it represents ideas and not words or letters. It is widely believed that Sign Language is the oldest of all languages; that indeed it existed among animals before man appeared on earth. It is universally accepted that the ideography is the oldest of all writing. The Chinese writing for instance is merely picture-writing done with as few lines as possible.

Thus, their curious character for "Hearing" was once a complete picture of a person listening behind a screen, but in time it was reduced by hasty hands to a few scratches; and "War," now a few spider marks, was originally a sketch of "two women in one house."

To come a little nearer home, our alphabet is said to be descended from hieroglyphic ideographs.

"A" or "Ah," for example, was the sound of an ox represented first by an outline of an ox, then of the head, which in various modifications, through rapid writing, became our "A."

"O" was a face saying "Oh," now simplified into the round shape of the mouth.

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"S" was a serpent hissing. It is but little changed today.

We may also record our Sign Language in picture-writing, as was the custom of many Indian tribes, and we shall find it worth while for several reasons: It is the Indian special writing; it is picturesque and useful for decoration; and it can be read by any Indian no matter what language be speaks. Indeed, I think it probable that a pictograph inscription dug up 10,000 years from now would be read, whether our language was understood or not. When the French Government set up the Obelisk of Luxor in Paris and wished to inscribe it for all time, they made the record, not in French or Latin, but in pictographs.

It is, moreover, part of my method to take tin- boy through the stages of our race development, just as the young bird must run for a send-off, before it flies, so pictography being its earliest form is the natural first step to writing.

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In general, picture writing aims to give on paper the idea of the Sign Language without first turning it into sounds. In the dictionary of Sign Language I give the written form after each of the signs that has a well established or possible symbol. Many of these are drawn from the Indians who were among the best scouts and above all noted for their use of the picture-writing. A few of them will serve to illustrate.

Numbers were originally fingers held up, and five was the whole hand, while ten was a double hand. We can see traces of this origin in the Roman style of numeration.

A one-night camp, a more permanent camp, a village and a town are shown in legible symbols.

An enemy, sometimes expressed as a "snake," recalls our own "snake in the grass." A "friend," was a man with a [illustration - The picture on the teepee lining, to record Guy's Exploit ] branch of a tree; because this was commonly used as a flag of truce and had indeed the same meaning as our olive branch. The "treaty" is easily read; it was a pair of figures like this done in Wampum that recorded Penn's Treaty.

"Good" is sometimes given as a circle full of lines all
set1921.2012.180.jpg straight and level, and for "bad" they are crooked and contrary. The wavy lines stood for water, so good water is clearly indicated. The three arrows added mean that at three arrow flights in that direction, that is a quarter mile, there is good water. If there was but one arrow and it pointed straight down that meant "good water here," if it pointed down and outward it meant "good water at a little distance." If the arrow was raised to carry far, it [illustration - Level Direction forward Direction backward Sun or day Sunrise Sunset Noon Night Day back one, or yesterday Day forward one, or to-morrow Moon, or month Rain Snow Year (or snow round to snow) Snow Moon or January Hunger Moon or February March the Wakening or Crow Moon Grass Moon or April Planting Moon or May Rose Moon or June Thunder Moon or July Red Moon or Green Corn, August Hunting Moon, September Leaf-Falling Moon, October Mad Moon, November Long Night Moon, December. ] [illustration - ]
set1921.2012.181.jpg [illustration - Man Woman Baby Scout Scouting Question Yes No Doubtful Peace War Surrender Prisoner Enemy Friend Good Bad Water Good water Good water in 3 arrow flights One-night camp More permanent camp Village Town Heap or many I have found Bear Grizzly bear Chipmunk Dead bear Treaty of peace ] meant good "water a long way off there." This sign was of the greatest value in the dry country of the southwest. Most Indian lodges were decorated with pictographs depicting in some cases the owner's adventures, at other times his prayers for good luck or happy dreams.

The old Indian sign for peace, three angles all pointing one way that is "agreed," contrasts naturally with the "war" or "trouble" sign, in which they are going different Ways or against each other.

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An animal was represented by a crude sketch in which its chief character was shown, thus chipmunk was a small animal with long tail and stripes. Bear was an outline bear, but grizzly bear, had the claws greatly exaggerated.

When the animal was killed, it was represented on its back with legs up.

Each chief, warrior and scout had a totem, a drawing of which stood for his name or for himself.

A man's name is expressed by his totem; thus, the above means, To-day, 20th Sun Thunder Moon. After three days "Deerfoot," Chief of the Flying Eagles, comes to our Standing Rock Camp.

When a man was dead officially or actually, his totem was turned bottom up.

Here is a copy of the inscription found by Schoolcraft on the grave post of Wabojeeg, or White Fisher, a famous Ojibwa chief. He was of the Caribou clan. On the top is his clan totem reversed, and on the bottom the White Fisher; the seven marks on the left were war parties he led.

The three marks in the middle are for wounds.

The moose head is to record a desperate fight he had with a bull moose, while his success in war and in peace are also stated.

This inscription could be read only by those knowing the story, and is rather as a memory help than an exact record.

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BLAZES AND INDIAN SIGNS—BLAZES

First among the trail signs that are used by Scouts, Indians, and white hunters, and most likely to be of use to the traveler, are axe blazes on tree trunks. Among these some may vary greatly with locality, but there is one that I have found everywhere in use with scarcely any variation. That is the simple white spot meaning, Here is the trail."

The Indian in making it may nick off an infinitesimal speck of bark with his knife, the trapper with his hatchet may make it as big as a dollar, or the settler with his heavy axe may slab off half the tree-side; but the sign is the same in principle and in meaning, on trunk, log or branch from Atlantic to Pacific and from Hudson Strait to Rio Grande. "This is your trail," it clearly says in the universal language of the woods.

There are two ways of employing it: one when it appears on back and front of the trunk, so that the trail can be run both ways; the other when it appears on but one side of each tree, making a blind trail, which can be run one way only, the blind trail is often used by trappers and prospectors, who do not wish any one to follow their back track. But there are treeless regions where the trail must be marked; regions of sage brush and sand, regions of rock, stretches of stone, and level wastes of grass or sedge. Here other methods must be employed.

A well-known Indian device, in the brush, is to break a twig and leave it hanging. (Second line.) Among stones and rocks the recognized sign is one stone set on top of another (top line) and in places where there is nothing but grass the custom is to twist a tussock into a knot (third line).

These signs also are used in the whole country from Maine to California.

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In running a trail one naturally looks straight ahead for the next sign; if the trail turned abruptly without notice one might easily be set wrong, but custom has provided against this. The tree blaze for turn "to the right" is shown m Number 2, fourth row; "to the left" in Number 3. The greater length of the turning blaze seems to be due to a desire for emphasis as the same mark set square on, is understood to mean "Look out, there is something of special importance here." Combined with a long side chip it means "very important; here turn aside." This is often used to mean "camp is close by," and a third sign that is variously combined but always with the general meaning of "warning" or "something of great importance" Is a threefold blaze. (No. 4 on fourth line.) The combination (No. 1 on bottom row) would read "Look out now for something of great importance to the right." This blaze I have often seen used by trappers to mark the whereabouts of their trap or cache.

Surveyors often use a similar mark—that is, three simple spots and a stripe to mean, "There is a stake close at hand," while a similar blaze on another tree near by means that the stake is on a line between.

STONE SIGNS

These signs done into stone-talk would be as in the top line of the cut.

These are much used in the Rockies where the trail goes over stony places or along stretches of slide-rock.

GRASS AND TWIG SIGNS

In grass or sedge the top of the tuft is made to show the direction to be followed; if it is a point of great importance
set1921.2012.186.jpg three tufts are tied, their tops straight if the trail goes straight on; otherwise the tops are turned in the direction toward which the course turns.

The Ojibways and other woodland tribes use twigs for a great many of these signs. (See second row.) The hanging broken twig like the simple blaze means "This is the trail." The twig clean broken off and laid on the ground across the line of march means, "Here break from your straight course and go in the line of the butt end," and when an especial warning is meant, the butt is pointed toward the one following the trail and raised somewhat, in a forked twig. If the butt of the twig were raised and pointing to the left, it would mean "Look out, camp, or ourselves, or the enemy, or the game we have killed is out that way." With some, the elevation of the butt is made to show the distance of the object; if low the object is near, if raised very high the object is a long way off.

These are the principal signs of the trail used by Scouts, Indians, and hunters in most parts of America. These are the standards—the ones sure to be seen by those who camp in the wilderness.

SMOKE SIGNALS

There is in addition a useful kind of sign that has been mentioned already in these papers—that is, the Smoke Signal. These were used chiefly by the Plains Indians, but the Ojibways seem to have employed them at times.

A clear hot fire was made, then covered with green stuff or rotten wood so that it sent up a solid column of black smoke. By spreading and lifting a blanket over this smudge the column could be cut up into pieces long or short, and by a preconcerted code these could be made to convey tidings.

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But the simplest of all smoke codes and the one of chief use to the Western traveler is this:

One steady smoke—"Here is camp."

Two steady smokes—"I am lost, come and help me."

I find two other smoke signals, namely:

Three smokes in a row—" Good news." Four smokes in a row— "All are summoned to council."

These latter I find not of general use, nor are they so likely to be of service as the first two given.

SIGNAL BY SHOTS

The old buffalo hunters had an established signal that is yet used by the mountain guides. It is as follows:

Two shots in rapid succession, an interval of five seconds by the watch, then one shot; this means, "where are you?" The answer given at once and exactly the same means "Here I am; what do you want?" The reply to this may be one shot, which means, "All right; I only warted to know where you were." But if the reply repeats the first it means, "I am in serious trouble; come as fast as you can."

SPECIAL SIGNS

A sign much used among the Utes was three flocks of geese flying one way meaning, "All at Peace." But two one way and one the other meant, "Look out! there is a war afoot."

Another Indian sign was a little heap of stones, meaning "We camped here because one of us was sick." This originated in the hot stones used for making steam
set1921.2012.188.jpg in the vapor bath that is so much favored by Indian doctors.

The Indians sometimes marked a spot of unusual importance by sinking the skull of a deer or a mountain sheep deep into a living tree, so that the horns hung out on each side. In time the wood and bark grew over the base of the horns and "medicine tree" was created. Several of these trees have become of historic importance. A notable example of this was the big Ramtree that by common consent demarked' the hunting grounds of the Blackfeet from those of the Nez Perces. It was held by these Indians in religious veneration until some white vandal deliberately destroyed it by way of a practical joke.

It would be easy to record many other Indian signs; the sign for the "first crow" of spring; the sign for "buffalo in sight"; the sign for a "war party coming"; the sign that a certain man "wants the arrows," that another man owes him, and the sign that the owner of the teepee is "praying and must not be disturbed." But these are things that arc quickly passing away and the Indians themselves arc for' getting them.

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The most important of the signs used by men of the wilderness are herein described. They are interesting as a crude beginning of literature. The knowledge of such things appeals to most boys. They find pleasure in learning this crudest of writing. Furthermore, many a one in the past has owed his life to an inkling of this woodcraft knowledge, and there is no reason to doubt that many a wilderness traveler in the future will find it of equally vital service.

WEATHER SIGNALS

(Adopted for general use by the United States Signal Service on and after March 1, 1887.)

• No. 1, white flag, clear or fair weather, no rain.
• No. 2, blue flag, rain or snow.
• No. 3, black triangular flag, refers to temperature, and above Nos. 1 or 2, indicates warmer weather; below No. or 2, colder weather, and when not displayed, stationary weather.
• No. 4, white flag with black centre (cold wave flag), sudden fall in temperature; this signal is usually ordered at least twenty-four hours in advance of the cold wave. It is not displayed unless a temperature of forty-five degrees, or less is expected, nor is flag No. 3 ever displayed with it.
• No. 5, means local rain or snow; with 3 above it means with higher temperature; with 3 below it means lower temperature.

A red flag with a black centre indicates that a storm of marked violence is expected.

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SIGNALS ON THE RAILWAY

Most of us are familiar with some of the signals given by brakemen, conductors, or engineers, but not so many of us have sat right down to inspect the code, as officially fixed. A conductor on the Canadian Pacific Railway allowed me to copy it out from his "Trainman's Book," 1909, and since then I have been told that this is the code in universal use, so I give it in full.

It consists of color signals, hand and lantern signals, toots, and cord-pulls. It will add a new interest to the journey, at least when you can read the "Signs of the Iron Trail," and the "Talk of the Iron Horse."

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THE CODE

(From C. P. R. "Trainman's Book," 1909 No. 7563; but in general use.)

Colors:

Hand, Flag and Lamp Signals:

Other Hand Signals, modifications of the above:

Signals by Engine Whistle:

(o a short toot.—a long one)

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Air-whistle or Cord-pull:

When the train is standing:

When the train is running:

(All but the 2nd are answered by 2 blasts

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An engineer responds to there with two short toots, meaning "All right," except in the second, when the engineer answers in three short toots.

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VIII. Campercraft or The Summer Camp

Camping Out

EVERY boy looks forward to camping out. Then it is that he gets the best chance to practise the things that are peculiar to scouting; and camping out is the only complete outdoor life.

When a boy, I was of course eager for a chance to camp out, but I had a very wrong idea about it. I believed that one must undergo all sorts of hardships, in order to be really "doing it"; such as, sleep on the ground with one blanket, go without proper food, etc. I know some boys that were injured for life by such practices.

It is well, then, to keep in mind that camping out offers a number of priceless benefits, and is also beset by one or two dangers. Let us aim to get all the good and avoid all the ill.

The good things are: The pure air, especially at night; the bracing and lung-healing power of the woods; the sun bath; the tonic exercise; and the nerve rest.

The bad things are: The danger of rheumatism from sleeping on the ground, or in damp clothes; the exhaustion from bad nights, through insufficient bed-clothes or an uncomfortable bed; and the dangers arising from irregular meals and badly cooked food.

I have seen boys go back from an ill-run camp, tired out and but little benefitted; whereas, if properly guided, every
set1921.2012.195.jpg camp-out should mean a new spell of life—a fresh start in vigor for every one concerned.

Many mothers ask with fear, "Won't my boy catch cold, if he camps out?" This is the last and least of dan, gers. Almost never does one catch cold in camp. I have found it much more likely that boys suffer through irregular hours of eating and sleeping; but these are troubles that the camp discipline is designed to meet.

The great evil that campers should beware of, is of course rheumatism. But none need suffer if they will take the simple precaution of changing their wet clothes when not in action, and never sleeping directly on the ground. A warm, dry place for the bed should be prepared in every tent and teepee.

As a rule, it is better to go on a trip with a definite object. If you go with a general vague determination to get healthy, you are likely to think too much about it. It is better to live correctly, and safely assume that you will be healthier for the trip. To illustrate: One of my trips was made to determine the existence of Wood Buffalo on the Great Slave River; another to prove that the Canadian Fauna reached the Lake of the Woods. Some of my friends have made trips to win the badge of expert canoe-man; others for the camper badge, and so forth, and I think it best to go a long way from home. Get as complete a change as possible.

OUTFIT FOR A PARTY OF SIX (CAMPING ONE WEEK IN FIXED CAMP)

• 1 12-foot teepee (if for cold weather), accommodating five or six men not forgetting a storm-cap,
• Or, in summer, a 10 x 12 wall tent.
• 18 x 10 awning for kitchen and dining-room, in hot or wet weather.

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• 5 yards mosquito-bar and some dope for stinging-insects.
• 3 or 4 one-gallon bags of cotton for supplies.
• A few medicines and pill-kit or "first aid," including cold cream for sunburn.
• 1 strong clothes line; ball of cord; ball twine; of ball of strong linen pack-thread.
• Axe.
• A sharp hatchet.
• Claw-hammer.
• Whetstone.
• Small crosscut saw.
• Spade.
• File.
• Packing needles and sewing-kit for repairing clothes.
• Nails: One lb. of 1½, two lbs. of 2½, two lbs. of 3½, and one lb. of 5-inch.
• Pocket tool outfit (A, K, and B is good)
• Soap.
• Mirror.
• Toilet-paper.
• Waterproof match-box.
• Book of Woodcraft
• A locker.
• Cooking outfit: Either a ready-made, self-nesting "Buzzacot," or
• 3 cover-kettles, 10-qt., 4-qt., and 2-qt. (riveted, not soldered).
• 2 frying-pans, with handles and covers.
• 2 big spoons.
• Coffee strainer.
• 1 Dutch oven.
• 1 wire grill
• 2 bake-pans
• 1 butcher knife

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• Salt and pepper casters.
• Tin boxes to hold stock of same.
• 2 folding buckets.
• 2 folding wash-basins.
• Dishpan.
• Tea-pot (riveted).
• Coffee-pot (riveted).
• Dishcloths and towels.
• Soap.
• Folding lantern and supply of candles.
• 4 flat steel rods to cook on.
• And for each man, plate, cup, saucer, and porringer (preferably enameled); also knife, fork, and spoon.
• And such other things as are dictated by previous experiï ence, or for use in the games to be played.
• Besides which each member has his ordinary clothes, with a change, and toilet-bag, also:
• A rubber blanket.
• 2 wool blankets.
• 1 cotton or burlap bed-tick, 2½ x 6¼ ft.
• Swimming-trunks.
• A pair of brown sneaks.
• A war-sack of waterproof.
• Khaki suit.
• Fishing tackle and guns, according to choice.
• Pocket knife.

Food to last six fellows one week:

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Fresh fish and game are pleasant variations, but seem to make little difference in the grocery bill.

OUTFIT FOR EACH WOODCRAFTER

• 1 good 5-foot lancewood bow, complete with string.
• 6 standard arrows, 25 in. long, 3 feathers, steel points.
• 1 quiver of waterproof canvas or leather.
• 1 arm-guard.
• 1 head-band.
• 1 pair moccasins or "sneaks."
• 1 waterproof blanket.
• 2 Indian blankets of gray wool.

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TENTS

There are many styles of small tents on the market; almost any of them answer very well. For those who wish to equip themselves with the latest and best, a to x 12-foot wall tent of 10-ounce double-filled army duck, stained or dyed yellow, brown, or dull green, is best. It will accommodate a party of five or six.

For tramping trips, light tents of waterproof silk are made. One large enough for a man weighs only two or three pounds.

Any of the established makers can supply what is needed if they know the size of the party and nature of the outing.

TEEPEES

The Indian teepee has the great advantage of ventilation and an open fire inside. It has the disadvantage of needing a lot of poles and of admitting some rain by the smoke-hole. (It is fully described on page 468.)

A new style of teepee, invented by myself some years ago, has been quite successful, since it combines the advan- i Ñor ,"4 1.A y , A tage of teepee and tent and needs only four poles besides the smoke-poles. It is, however, less picturesque than the old style.

This gives the great advantage of an open fire inside, and good ventilation, while it is quite rainproof.

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It can be put up with four long poles outside the canvas, the holes crossing at the top as in the Indian teepee. Of course the point of the cover is attached before the poles are raised.

THE CAMP GROUND

In selecting a good camp ground, the first thing is a dry, level place near good wood and good water. If you have horses or oxen, you must also have grass.

Almost all Indian camps face the east, and, when idea!, have some storm-break or shelter on the west and north. Then they get the morning sun and the afternoon shade in summer, and in winter avoid the coldest winds and drifting snows, which in most of the country east of the Rockies come from the north and west.

Sometimes local conditions make a different exposure desirable, but not often. For obvious reasons, it is well to be near one's boat-landing.

After pitching the tent or teepee, dig a trench around, with a drain on the low side to prevent flooding.

LATRINE

Each small camp or group of tents in a large camp, must have a latrine, that is a sanitary ditch or hole. For a small camp or short use, this is a narrow trench a foot wide, surrounded by a screen of bushes or canvas. It is made narrow enough to straddle. Each time after use, a shovelful of dry earth is thrown in.

But a large camp needs the regulation army latrine. This is a row of seats with lids over a long trench which has a layer of quicklime in the bottom. The wooden structure
set1921.2012.201.jpg is banked up so no flies can get in. The lids arc down tight when the seat is not in use. A shovelful of quicklime is then thrown in after each occasion. A running trough is arranged along side so it is tributary to the main trench; this also is kept coated with quicklime. The place should be thoroughly screened, but is as well without a roof except over the seats.

All camps should be left as clear of filth, scraps, papers, tins, bottles, etc., as though a human being had never been there.

ARRIVING ON THE CAMP GROUND

As soon as all are on the ground, with their baggage, let the Leader allot the places of each band or clan. Try to have each and every dwelling-tent about 25 feet from the next, in a place dry and easy to drain in case of rain and so placed as to have sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon.

Each group is responsible for order up to the halfway line between them and the next group.

Loose straw, tins, papers, bottles, glass, filth, etc., out of place are criminal disorder.

Pitch at a reasonable distance from the latrine, as well as from the water supply.

As much as possible, have each band or clan by itself.

As soon as convenient, appoint fellows to dig and prepare a latrine or toilet, with screen.

All will be busied settling down, so that usually there is Ho methodic work the first day.

But the second day it should begin.

CAMP OFFICERS AND GOVERNMENT

After the routine of rising, bathing, breakfast, etc., there should be called at eight o'clock a High Council. That is a
set1921.2012.202.jpg Council of all the Leaders, Guides, Head Guides, and Hew: Chief; that is, the Chief of the whole camp, appointed for that day. He is the Chief in charge, or Head Man of the village. It is his duty to appoint all other officers for the day, and to inspect the camp. In some camps this High Council meets at night when the younger members are asleep.

The other officers are:

• Assistant Chief in Charge, who goes about with the Chief and succeeds him next day.
• Keeper of the Milk and the Ice-box, when there is ice for the milk.
• Keeper of the Letters. He takes all letters to the post and brings back all mail.
• Keeper of the Canoes. No boats may be taken without his sanction, and he is responsible for the same.
• Keeper of the Garbage. He must gather up and destroy all garbage each day at a given hour; preferably late afternoon.
• Keeper of the Latrine.
• He must inspect hourly, and see that all keep the rules.
• Keeper of the Campfire. He must have the wood cut and laid for the Council-fire at night, with an extra supply for all the evening, and must keep the Council-fire bright, not big; but never dull.

Also, the High Council should appoint a Tally Keeper for the whole camp; he is to serve throughout the whole period of the encampments, keeping the records for every day. Sometimes the work is divided, but one fellow can do it better, if he is willing.

A band or clan prize for the whole term is always offered. The competition for this is judged by points, and for each of the above services to the camp, the band, to which the scout belongs, gets up to 25 points per day, according to his efficiency.

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No fellow should leave camp without permission. If he does so, he may cause his Band to lose points.

THE DOG SOLDIERS

In every large camp it is found well to follow the Indian custom in forming a Lodge of Dog Soldiers. These are a band of eight or ten of the strongest and sturdiest fellows. They act as police when needed, but wear no badge. They must at once run to any place where the signal (a loud baying) is heard, and act promptly and vigorously.

When the Chief has selected the huskies he wishes to have in the Dog Lodge, he invites all to meet secretly in some quiet teepee at night, explains the purpose and adds "I have called on you who are here. If any do not wish to serve, now is the time to retire."

The sacred fire is lighted in the middle, all stand in a ring about it, each with his right hand on a war club above the fire, his left holding a handful of ashes. Then all repeat this vow:

Then he scatters the ashes.

It is customary for each Tribe to adopt further a secret sign and password, which is taught to the Dog Soldiers as a finish.

INSPECTION

Every day there is an inspection. It is best in the middle of the morning. The Chief and his second go from
set1921.2012.204.jpg tent to tent. Each Clan is allowed 5o points for normal, then docked i to io points for each scrap of paper, tin, or rubbish left lying about; also for each disorderly feature or neglect of the rules of common sense, decency or hygiene, on their territory; that is, up to halfway between them and the next group. They may get additional points for extra work or inventions, or unusual services for the public good; but it is always as a Clan that they receive the points, though it was the individual that worked for them.

After the inspection, the Chief announces the winning Band or Clan saying: "The Horns of the High Hikers were won to-day by . . . . . Band." And the horns are accordingly hung on their standard, pole or other place, for the day. At the end of the camp, provided ten were present for at least a fortnight, Clan or Band that won them of tenest carries them home for their own; and ever afterward are allowed to put in one corner of their banner a small pair pf black horns.

THE HORNS OF THE HIGH HIKERS

What are they? Usually a pair of polished to buffalo horns with a fringed buckskin hanger, on which is an inscription saying that they were won by . . . . . Band at such a camp.

When buffalo horns cannot be got, common cow horns or even horns of wood are used.

COUNCIL-FIRE CIRCLE

In every large permanent camp I establish a propel Council-fire Circle or Council Camp. The uses and
set1921.2012.205.jpg benefits of these will be seen more and more, as camp goes on.

For the Council-fire Circle, select a sheltered, level place that admits of a perfectly level circle 24 feet across; 18 feet has been used, but more room gives better results. On the outer rim of this, have a permanently fixed circle of very low seats; 8 inches is high enough, but they should have a back, and for this, the easiest style to make is that marked K. L. on page 481. Each Band or Clan should make its own seat, and always go there in Grand Council. On the back of the seat should be two loops of wire or string in which to put their standard. Back of the first row should be a slightly higher row. If the ground slopes up, all the better, but in any case there should be fixed seats enough for all the camp. The place should be carefully leveled and prepared, and kept always in order, for it will be used several times each day, either for councils or for games, dances and performances.

At one side of the ring in a conspicuous place should be the throne of the Chief (p. 481); close by this a desk and seat for the Tally Keeper and on the desk should be a lantern holder; in the exact middle of the ring is the Council- fire, never a bonfire.

TOTEM-POLE

Directly opposite the Chief's throne, on the outer edge of the camp, should be the Totem-pole. This I always set up as soon as possible in all permanent camps. Its purpose is, 1st, to typify the movement; 2nd, to display the Totems of all the Tribes, or Bands that camp here; 3rd, to serve as a place of notice. Any document posted on the Totem-pole Is considered published.

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COUNCILS

Three kinds of Councils are held in the Council Place:

• 1. The High Council of the Chiefs and the Guides every morning at 8 o'clock, and at other times when called.
• 2. The General or Common Council of all the fellows every night from seven to nine o'clock. At this we have some business (in the awarding of honors), some campfire stunts or challenges, and a little entertainment.
• 3. Grand Council. This is usually held once a week. Every one comes in full Scout or Indian dress. Visitors are invited. Business except when very interesting is dispensed with, and a program of sports and amusements, chiefly for the visitors, is carefully prepared. This is "Strangers' Night" and they should be entertained, not bored.

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BEDS

Of all things, the camper's bed is the thing most often made wrong, and most easily made right, when one knows how; and of all things comfort at night is most essential.

Every dealer in camp outfits can produce an array of different camp beds, cots, and sleeping bags, that shows how important it is to be dry and warm when you sleep.

The simplest plan is the oldest one—two pair of blankets and waterproof undersheet on a neatly laid bed of evergreen boughs, dry leaves, or dry grass. The ideal way of laying the boughs is shown in the figure below.

But there are few places now in eastern America where you are allowed to cut boughs freely. In any case you cannot take the bough bed with you when you move, and it takes too much time to make at each camp.

Sleeping bags I gave up long ago. They are too difficult to air, or to adjust to different temperatures.

Rubber beds are luxurious, but heavy for a pack outfit, and in cold weather they need thick blankets over them, otherwise they are too cool. So the one ideal bed for the
set1921.2012.210.jpg camper, light, comfortable, and of wildwood stuff, is the Indian or willow bed, described on p 495.

WATER, OR THE INDIAN WELL

If there is swamp or pond, but no pure water at hand, you can dig an Indian well in half an hour. This is simply a hole about 18 inches across and down about 6 inches below water-level, a few paces from the pond. Bail it out quickly; let it fill again, bail it a second time, and the third time it fills, it will be full of filtered water, clear of everything except matter actually dissolved.

It is now well known that ordinary vegetable matter does not cause disease. All contamination is from animal refuse or excreta, therefore a well of this kind in a truly wild region is as safe as a spring.

MOSQUITOES, BLACK FLIES, ETC.

If you are camping in mosquito or fly season, the trip may be ruined, if you are not fully prepared.

For extreme cases, use the ready-made head-nets. They are hot, but effectual. You can easily get used to the net; no man can stand the flies. In my Arctic trip of 1907, we could not have endured life without the nets. Indians and all wore them.

Of the various dopes that are used, one of the simplest and best is Colonel N. Fletcher's, given in Kephart's "Book of Camping and Woodcraft":

Mix cold in a mortar. If you wish, you can add 3 per cent. carbolic acid to above. Some make it 1½ ozs. tar."

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Most drug shops keep ready-made dopes under such names as Citronella, Repellene, Lollakapop, etc.

LICE AND VERMIN

In certain crowded camps there is danger of head lice and body vermin. I have heard washing in potato water recommended as a sure cure. Potato water is the water potatoes have been boiled in. Most drug shops have tobacco ointment and blue ointment; a very little of these applied to the body where there is hair is a sure cure.

SUGGESTED CAMP ROUTINE

• 6:30 A. M. Turn out, bathe, etc.
• 7:00 Breakfast.
• 8:00 Air bedding in sun, if possible
• 8:15 High Council of Leaders.
• 9:00 Scouting games and practice.
• 11:00 Swimming.
• 12:00 M. Dinner.
• 1:00 P. M. Talk by leader.
• 2:00 Games, etc.
• 6:00 Supper.
• 7:00 Evening Council.
• 10:00 Lights out. Sometimes High Council for a few minutes instead of in the morning.

CAMPFIRES

The day Columbus landed (probably) the natives remarked; "White man fool, make big fire, can't go near; Indian make little fire and sit happy."

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We all know that a camp without a campfire would be no camp at all; its chiefest charm would be absent.

Your first care, then, is to provide for a small fire and prevent its spreading. In the autumn this may mean very elaborate clearing, or burning, or wetting of a space around the fire. In the winter it means nothing.

Cracked Jimmy, in "Two Little Savages," gives very practical directions for lighting a fire anywhere in the timbered northern part of America, thus:

If you have no birch bark, it is a good plan to shave a dry soft-wood stick, leaving all the shavings sticking on the end in a fuzz, like a Hopi prayer stick. Several of these make a sure fire kindler. Fine splinters may be made quickly by hammering a small stick with the back of the axe.

In the case of a small party and hasty camp, you need nothing but a pot hanger of green wood for a complete kitchen, and many hundreds of times, on prairie and in forest, I found this sufficient.

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[illustration - Green log grate ] A more complete camp grate is made of four green logs (aspen preferred), placed as in the illustration. Set the top logs 3 inches apart at one end, 10 inches at the other. The top logs should be flattened in the middle of their top sides—to hold the pot which sits on the opening between the top logs. The fire of course is built on the ground, under the logs. Sometimes stones of right size and shape are used instead of the logs, but the stones do not contribute anything to the heat and are less manageable.

In addition to this log grate, more elaborate camps have a kitchen equipped with a hanger as below, on which are pot hooks of green wood.

In wet weather, an axeman can always get dry wood by
set1921.2012.214.jpg cutting into a standing dead tree, or oh the under side of down timber that is not entirely on the ground.

On the prairies and plains, since buffalo chips are no more, we use horse and cow chips, kindled with dry grass and roots of sage-brush, etc.

To keep a fire alive all night, bank the coals: i. e., bury them in ashes.

Always put out the fire on leaving camp.

It is a crime to leave a burning fire.

Use buckets of water if need be.

COUNCIL-FIRE

The Council-fire is a very different thing from the cooking fire or the so-called bonfire. And there are just as many ways of making it wrong.

These are the essentials:

• It must be easily started.
• It must give a steady, bright light.
• It must have as little heat as possible, for it is mostly used in the summer. Therefore, it must be small.
• It is best built as in (c), about two and one half feet high; the bottom stick about three feet long; the rest shorter and smaller.
• The small wood and chips to light it can be put either under or on top of the second layer.
• It should be drawn in toward the top, so as to burn without falling apart.
• It must contain a large proportion of dry, winter-seasoned wood, if it is to blaze brightly. The readiest seasoned wood is usually old lumber.

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For an all-evening Council-fire, at least three times as much should be in stock as on the fire when started.

Here are some wrong methods.

The high pyramid or bonfire, (a) goes off like a flash, roasts every one, then goes dead.

The shapeless pile (b), is hard to light and never bright.

The bonfire is always bad. It wastes good wood; is dangerous to the forest and the camp; is absolutely unsociable. A bonfire will spoil the best camp-circle ever got together. It should be forbidden everywhere.

FIREARMS

Experience shows that it is unwise to have firearms in camp. And no one under fourteen years of age should be allowed the use of a gun or pistol under any circumstances.

The didn't-know-it-was-loaded fool is the cause of more sorrow than the deliberate murderer.

For any one to point a firearm at another is a crime. If he didn't know it was loaded, he should be still more severely punished.

Never let the muzzle of the gun sweep the horizon.

Never carry a gun full-cock or hammer down. The half- cock is made for safety. Use it.

Never pull a gun by the muzzle.

Never shoot at anything about which you are in doubt.

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CAMP COOKERY

(See Horace Kephart's "Book of Camping and Woodcraft.")

In most camps the staples are: Coffee (or tea), bacon, game, fish and hardtack, bannocks or biscuit, usually and most appropriately called "sinkers" and "damper."

To make these necessary evils, take

• 1 pint flour.
• 1 teaspoonful of baking-powder,
• Half as much salt,
• Twice as much grease or lard,
• With water enough to make into paste, say one half a pint.

When worked into smooth dough, shape it into wafers, half an inch thick, and three inches across. Set in a greased tin, which is tilted up near a steady fire. Watch and turn the tin till all are browned evenly.

For other and better but more elaborate methods of making bread, see Kephart's book as above.

For cooking fish and game the old, simple standbys are the frying-pan and the stew-pan.

As a general rule, mix all batters, mush, etc., with cold water, and always cook with a slow fire.

There is an old adage:

This reflects perhaps the castle kitchen rather than the camp, but it has its measure of truth, and the reason why
set1921.2012.217.jpg roast meat is not more popular is because it takes so much time and trouble to make it a success.

During my Barren Ground trip I hit on a remarkably successful roaster that, so far as I know, was never tried before.

The usual pot-stick is set in the ground (if no tree be near), and the roast hung by a wire and a cord; where they [illustration - Camp-roaster ] meet is a straight or fiat piece of wood, or bark, set in a loop of the wire.

The wind strikes on this, causing the roast to turn; it goes till the cord is wound up then unwinds itself and goes on unceasingly. We used it every day. It was positively uncanny to see the way in which this thing kept on winding and unwinding itself, all day long, if need be.

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WAR-SACK

Every brave in camp should have a war-sack. This is a sack of waterproofed canvas to hold clothing and anything that is unbreakable. It has several advantages over a trunk. It is cheap ($1.50), waterproof, light, a comfortable pack to carry or to stow in a canoe, collapsible when empty, safe to float in an upset, and at night it serves as a pillow.

Its disadvantages are that it will not protect breakables, and you have to take out most of the things to find an article not on the top. Nevertheless, all old campers use the war- sack. They can be had of any camp outfitter.

WOODCRAFT BUTTONS

On the Plains, when a button is lost or needed, it is easy to make one of leather. Usually a piece of an old strap is is used. Cut it the right size, make two holes in it, and sew it on as an ordinary button. This never breaks or fails. As the old plainsman who first showed me, said, " There's a button that'll be right there when the coat's all wore away from behind it."

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LACE OR THONG

If you need a lace or thong and have no leather long enough, take a square piece, round the corners, then cut it round and round, till it is all used up. Pull and roll the thong produced, until it is small and even, with-, out kinks.

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IX. Games for the Camp

Interesting Pursuits

I HAVE always taken the ground that interest is as essential to exercise as relish is to digestion. And fot this reason have no use for the Indian clubs or dumb- bells. An ideal exercise is in the open air, employing not only every member vigorously—not violently—but also the faculties including the great coördinating power that is the crowning gift of the athlete—the power to make all parts play the game in the measure needed to secure the best total result.

How needful is it then to have interesting pursuits that inspire the Scout to do and be his very best.

The appeal to the imagination that is assumed by such games as Spear-throwing and Dispatch-runner is the greatest and most elevating of all. Without some such magical power, no fellow really does the best that is in him. It makes a live wire of every fibre in his make-up.

TILTING SPEARS

A simple and useful part of the Tribe's outfit that should be made ready before going into camp is a supply of tilting- spears. I have seen a good many campers try tilting in the water or on the land, and make an utter failure of it, by reason of the absurdly clumsy, heavy spears used. A green
set1921.2012.221.jpg sapling was cut for handle, and the end tied up in a bundle of rags that was i8 inches through. This was hard enough to lift, when dry, and as it usually soon fell into the water, and got sopping wet, its weight became trebled, and one could not use it as a spear at all.

The correct spears always used in our camps are made thus: Take 8 feet of the butt-end of an ordinary bamboo fishing-rod—or, if anything, a little heavier than ordinary. Get a 2-inch plank of any light wood, and from this cut a disk 3 inches across, bevel off and round the edges. Bore a hole (about I inch) in the middle, and put this on the top of the bamboo, so that it sets against a shoulder or knot. Drive a circular plug in the hollow of the bamboo for a wedge, and make all secure with one or two Fo,losh^et Head very thin nails driven in (No. 7).

Now pad the head an inch thick with the ordinary horsehair stuffing that is used in furniture, and bind all with strong burlap, sewing it at the seams, and lashing it around the bamboo with string (No. 8). This completes the dry land spear. If for use in the water, make a final cover out of rubber cloth. This keeps the spear dry. A completed spear weighs about 1½ lbs.

Each band should have a half-dozen of these spears. They serve a number of purposes, some of them quite different from that originally intended.

TILTING IN THE WATER

When used in the water, the ordinary rules of canoe-tilting are followed. Each spearman stands in the bow of his boat, on the bow-seat. His crew bring him within 8
set1921.2012.222.jpg feet of his rival, and now he endeavors to put him overboard. Points are reckoned thus:

• Forcing your enemy to put one foot down off the seat . . . . . . . . 5
• Forcing your enemy to put two feet down off the seat . . . . . . . . 10
• Forcing your enemy on one knee . . . 5
• Forcing your enemy down on two knees 10
• Forcing your enemy to lose his spear . 10
• Forcing your enemy overboard . . . 25

It is a foul to strike below the knee, or to use the spear as a club.

The umpire may dock up to 25 points for fouls.

When canoes are used, the spearman stands on the bottom, so all points are by loss of spear, or by going overboard.

TUB-TILTING ON LAND

But by far the most of the tilting is done on land, around 'the campfire. For this we use two stools, about 14 inches across. These are set level, exactly a spear length apart, centre to centre.

Each fighter takes his place on a stool, and his game is to put the other off the other stool. To prevent accidents, we have usually a catcher behind each man. The umpire stands alongside, near the middle.

It is a foul to use the spear as a club, or to push below the knees, or to push the stool, or to seize the other man's spear in your hand, or to touch the ground with your spear.

A foul gives the round to the other man.

The round is over when one man is off.

It is a draw when both go off together.

They change stools after each round.

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If one drops his spear, and recovers it without going off, it is all right.

The battle is usually for 3, 5, or 7 rounds.

I do not know of any good thrusts having been invented, but several good parries are well known. One is to use your spear-handle as a single stick. The best players parry much by wriggling the body. Often, when overbalanced, one can regain by spinning completely around.

So much for the game. It is immensely popular at night by the blazing campfire, and is especially used in initiations.

STILL-HUNTING THE BUCK, OR THE DEER-HUNT

The deer is a dummy, best made with a wire frame, on which soft hay is wrapped till it is of proper size and shape, then all is covered with open burlap. A few touches of white and black make it very realistic.

If time does not admit of a well-finished deer, one can be made of a sack stuffed with hay, decorated at one end with a smaller sack for head and neck, and set on four thin sticks.

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The side of the deer is marked with a large oval, and over the heart is a smaller one.

Bows and arrows only are used to shoot this deer.

A pocketful of corn, peas, or other large grain is now needed for scent. The boy who is the deer for the first hunt takes the dummy under his arm and runs off, getting ten minutes' start, or until he comes back and shouts "ready!" He leaves a trail of corn, dropping two or three grains for every yard and making the trail as crooked as he likes, playing such tricks as a deer would do to baffle his pursuers. Then he hides the deer in any place he fancies, but not among rocks or on the top of a ridge, because in one case many arrows would be broken, and in the other, lost.

The hunters now hunt for this deer just as for a real deer, either following the trail or watching the woods ahead; the best hunters combine the two. If at any time the trail is quite lost the one in charge shouts "Lost Trail!" After that the one who finds the trail scores two. Any one giving a false alarm by shouting "Deer" is fined five.

Thus they go till some one finds the deer. He shouts "Deer!" and scores ten for finding it. The others shout "Second," "Third," etc., in order of seeing it, but they do not score.

The finder must shoot at the deer with his bow and arrow from the very spot whence he saw it. If he misses, the second hunter may step up five paces, and have his shot. If he misses, the third one goes five, and so on till some one hits the deer, or until the ten-yard limit is reached. If the finder is within ten yards on sighting the deer, and misses
set1921.2012.225.jpg [illustration - cleaning cut sideview plan ] his shot, the other hunters go back to the ten-yard limit. Once the deer is hit, all the shooting must be from the exact spot whence the successful shot was fired.

A shot in the big oval is a body wound; that scores five. A shot outside that is a scratch; that scores two. A shot in the small oval or heart is a heart wound; it scores ten, and ends the hunt. Arrows which do not stick do not count, unless it can be proved that they passed right through, in which case they take the highest score that they pierced.

If all the arrows are used, and none in the heart, the deer escapes, and the boy who was deer scores twenty-five.

The one who found the dummy is deer for the next hunt. A clever deer can add greatly to the excitement of the game.

Originally we used paper for scent, but found it bad. It littered the woods, yesterday's trail was confused with that of to-day, etc. Corn proved better, because the birds
set1921.2012.226.jpg [illustration - Straw Club ] and the squirrels kept it cleaned up from day to day, and thus the ground was always ready for a fresh start. But the best of all is the hoof mark for the shoe. These iron hoof marks are fast to a pair of shoes, and leave a trail much like a real deer. This has several advantages. It gives the hunter a chance to tell where the trail doubled, and which way the deer was going. It is more realistic, and a boy who can follow this skilfully can follow a living deer. In actual practice it is found well to use a little corn with this on the hard places, a plan quite consistent with realism, as every hunter will recall.

It is strictly forbidden to any hunter to stand in front of the firing line; all must be back of the line on which the shooter stands.

There is no limit to the situations and curious combinations in this hunt. The deer may be left standing or lying. There is no law why it should not be hidden behind a solid tree trunk. The game develops as one follows it. After it has been played for some time with the iron hoof mark as above, the boys grow so skilful on the trail that we can dispense with even the corn. The iron mark like a deer hoof leaves a very realistic "slot" or track, which the more skilful boys readily follow through the woods. A hunt is usually for three, five, or more deer, according to agreement, and the result is reckoned by points on the whole chase.

THE BEAR HUNT

This is played by half a dozen or more boys. Each has a club about the size and shape of a baseball club, but made of straw tied around two or three switches and tightly sewn up in burlap.

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One big fellow is selected for the bear. He has a schoolbag tightly strapped on his back, and in that a toy balloon fully blown up. This is his heart. On his neck is a bear- claw necklace of wooden beads and claws. (See Cut.)

He has three dens about one hundred yards apart in a triangle. While in his den the bear is safe. If the den is a tree or rock, he is safe while touching it. He is obliged to come out when the chief hunter counts ioo, and must go the rounds of the three till the hunt is settled.

The object of the hunters is to break the balloon or heart; that is, kill the bear. He must drop dead when the heart bursts. The hunter who kills him claims the necklace.

But the bear also has a club for defence. Each hunter must wear a hat, and once the bear knocks a hunter's hat off, that one is dead and out of this hunt. He must drop where his hat falls.

Tackling of any kind is forbidden.

The bear wins by killing or putting to flight all the hunters. In this case he keeps the necklace.

The savageness of these big bears is indescribable. Many lives are lost in each hunt, and it has several times happened that the whole party of hunters has been exterminated by some monster of unusual ferocity.

This game has also been developed into a play.

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SPEARING THE GREAT STURGEON

This water game is exceedingly popular and is especially good for public exhibition, being spectacular and full of amusement and excitement.

The outfit needed is:

• (1) A sturgeon roughly formed of soft wood; it should be about three feet long and nearly a foot thick at the head. It may be made realistic, or a small log pointed at both ends will serve.
• (2) Two spears with six-inch steel heads and wooden handles (about three feet long). The points should be sharp, but not the barbs. Sometimes the barbs arc omitted altogether. Each head should have an eye to which is attached twenty feet of one-quarter-inch rope. On each rope, six feet from the spearhead, is a fathom mark made by tying on a rag or cord.
• (3) Two boats with crews. Each crew consists of a Spearman, who is captain, and one or two oarsmen or paddlers, of which the after one is the pilot. All should be expert swimmers or else wear life belts during the game.

The game. Each boat has a base or harbor; this is
set1921.2012.229.jpg usually part of the shore opposite that of the enemy; or it obviates all danger of collision if the boats start from the same side. The sturgeon is left by the referee's canoe at a point midway between the bases. At the word " Go I" each boat leaves its base and, making for the sturgeon, tries to spear it, then drag it by the line to the base. When both get their spears into it the contest becomes a tug of war until one of the spears pulls out.

The sturgeon is landed when the prow of the boat that has it in tow touches its proper base, even though the spear of the enemy is then in the fish: or it is landed when the fish itself touches base if it is also in tow at the time. The boats change bases after each heat.

Matches are usually for one, three, or five sturgeon. Points are counted only for the landing of the fish, but the referee may give the decision on a foul or a succession of fouls, or the delinquent may be set back one or more boat- lengths.

Sometimes the game is played in canoes or boats, with one man as spearman and crew.

Rules: It is not allowed to push the sturgeon into a new position with the spear or paddle before striking.

It is allowed to pull the sturgeon under the boat or pass It around by using the line after spearing.

It is allowed to lay hands on the other boat to prevent a collision, but otherwise it is forbidden to touch the other boat or crew or paddle or spear or line, or to lay hands on the fish or to touch it with the paddle or oar, or touch your own spear while it is in the fish, or to tie the line around the fish except so far as this may be accidentally done in spearing.

It is allowed to dislodge the enemy's spear by throwing your own over it. The purpose of the barbs is to assist in this.

It is allowed to run on to the sturgeon with the boat.

set1921.2012.230.jpg

It is absolutely forbidden to throw the spear over the Who boat or over the heads of your crew.

In towing the sturgeon the fathom-mark must be over the gunwale—at least six feet of line should be out when the fish is in tow. It is not a foul to have less, but the spear-man must at once let it out if the umpire or the other crew cries "Fathom!"

The spearman is allowed to drop the spear and use the paddle or oar at will, but not to resign his spear to another of the crew. The spearman must be in his boat when the spear is thrown.

If the boat is upset the judge's canoe helps them to right.

Each crew must accept the backset of its accidents.

CANOE TAG

Any number of canoes or boats may engage in this. A rubber cushion, a hot-water bag full of air, any rubber football, or a cotton bag with a lot of corks in it is needed. The game is to tag the other canoe by throwing this into it.

The rules are as in ordinary cross-tag.

SCOUTING

Scouts are sent out in pairs or singly. A number of points are marked on the map at equal distances from camp, and the scouts draw straws to see where each goes. If one place is obviously hard, the scout is allowed a fair number of points as handicap. All set out at same time, go direct, and return as soon as possible.

Points are thus allowed:

Last back, zero for traveling.

The others count one for each minute they are ahead of the last.

Points up to 100 are allowed for their story on return.

set1921.2012.231.jpg

Sometimes we allow io points for each Turtle they have seen; io for each Owl seen and properly named; 5 for each Hawk, and i each for other wild birds; also 2 for a Cat; for a Dog.

No information is given the Scout; he is told to go to such a point and do so and so, but is fined points if he hesitates or asks how or why, etc.

THE GAME OF QUICKSIGHT

Take two boards about a foot square, divide each into twenty-five squares; get ten nuts and ten pebbles. Give to one player one board, five nuts, and five pebbles. He places these on the squares in any pattern he fancies, and when ready, the other player is allowed to see it for five seconds. Then it is covered up, and from the memory of what he saw the second player must reproduce the pattern on his own board. He counts one for each that was right, and takes off one for each that was wrong. They take turn and turn about.

This game is a wonderful developer of the power to see and memorize quickly.

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FAR-EIGHT, OR SPOT-THE-RABBIT

Take two six-inch squares of stiff white pasteboard or whitened wood. On each of these draw an outline Rabbit, one an exact duplicate of the other. Make twenty round black wafers or spots, each half an inch across. Let one player stick a few of these on one Rabbit-board and set it up in full light. The Other, beginning at ioo yards, draws near till he can see the spots well enough to reproduce the pattern on the other which he carries. If he can do it at 75 yards he has wonderful eyes. Down even to 70 (done 3 times out of 5) he counts high honor; from 70 to 60 counts honor. Below that does not count at all.

HOME STAR OR POLE STAR

Each competitor is given a long, straight stick, in daytime, and told to lay it due north and south. In doing this he may guide himself by sun, moss, or anything he can find in nature—anything, indeed, except a compass.

The direction is checked by a good compass corrected for the locality. The one who comes nearest wins.

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It is optional with the judges whether the use of a timepiece is to be allowed.

RABBIT HUNT

The game of Rabbit-hunting is suited for two. hunters in limited grounds.

Three little sacks of brown burlap, each about eight inches by twelve, are stuffed with hay.

At any given place in the woods the two hunters stand in a io-foot circle with their bows and arrows. One boy is blindfolded; the other, without leaving the circle, throws the Rabbits into good hiding places on the ground. Then the second hunter has to find the Rabbits and shoot them without leaving the circle. The lowest number of points wins, as in golf. If the hunter has to leave the circle he gets one point for every step he takes outside. After he sees the Rabbit he must keep to that spot and shoot till it is hit once. One shot kills it, no matter where struck. For every shot he misses he gets five points.

After his first shot at each Rabbit the hider takes alternate shots with him.

If it is the hider who kills the Rabbit, the hunter adds ten points to his score. If the hunter hits it, he takes ten off his score.

If the hunter fails to find all the Rabbits, he scores twenty-five for each one he gives up.

The hider cannot score at all. He can only help his friend into trouble. Next time the two change places.

A match is usually for two brace of Rabbits.

ARROW FIGHT

This is a good one for challenges between two bands of equal numbers, say six on a side.

set1921.2012.234.jpg

Each brave is armed with a bow and arrows (blunt preferred). Let the two bands stand in a row opposite a given bank, Io to 20 yards away. Against this bank should be a row of 12-inch wooden or card disks (wooden dishes do well) set on edge lightly in stakes. Each brave is represented by a disk, which is opposite his enemy or corresponding number. Thus six disks, number one to six, represent the Wolf Band; they are opposite the Eagles, and vice-versa.

At the word go each shoots at the disks that represent his enemies. As soon as the disk that represents himself is shot, he must fall; he is out of the fight. The battle continues until all of one side are down. A truce may be arranged to recover the arrows.

HOSTILE SPY

Hanging from the Totem-pole is a red or yellow horsetail. This is the Grand Medicine Scalp of the band. The Hostile Spy has to capture it. The leader goes around on the morning of the day and whispers to the various braves, "Look out—there's a spy in camp." At length he goes secretly near the one he has selected for spy and whispers, "Look out, there's a spy in camp, and you are it." He gives him at the same time some bright-colored badge, that he must wear as soon as he has secured the Medicine Scalp. He must not hide the scalp on his person, but keep it in view. He has all day till sunset to get away with it. If he gets across the river or other limit, with warriors in close pursuit, they give him ten arrowheads (two and one half cents each), or other ransom agreed on. If he gets away safely and hides it, he can come back and claim fifteen arrowheads from the Council as ransom for the scalp. If he is caught, he pays his captor ten arrowheads, ransom for his life.

set1921.2012.235.jpg

THE SCOUT MESSENGER

This is played with a scout and ten or more Hostiles, or Hounds, according to the country; more when it is rough or wooded.

The scout is given a letter addressed to the "Military Commandant"* of any given place a mile or two away. He is told to take the letter to any one of three given houses, and get it endorsed, with the hour when he arrived, then return to the starting-point within a certain time.

The Hostiles are sent to a point halfway, and let go by a starter at the same time as the scout leaves the camp. They are to intercept him.

If they catch him before he delivers the letter he must ransom his life by paying each two arrowheads (or other forfeit) and his captor keeps the letter as a trophy. If he gets through, but is caught on the road back, he pays half as much for his life. If he gets through, but is over time, it is a draw. If he gets through successfully on time he claims three arrowheads from each Hostile and keeps the letter as a trophy.

They may not follow him into the house (that is, the Fort), but may surround it at one hundred yards distance. They do not know which three houses he is free to enter, but they do know that these arc within certain narrow limits.

The scout should wear a conspicuous badge (hat, shirt, coat, or feather), and may ride a wheel or go in a wagon, etc., as long as his badge is clearly visible. He must not go in female dress.

A CHALLENGE FOR SCOUT MESSENGER

On ......day, 1913, the Sinawa Tribe of Cos Cob, Conn., will send a letter by one man into the town of [note]
set1921.2012.236.jpg Jellypot (two miles off) and will have him bring again an answer within the space of three hours; and hereby challenge any twenty picked warriors of the Flying Eagles of New Jersey to capture or hinder the delivery of said letter. On this the messenger will stake his scalp or any other agreed forfeit according to the rules of the game of Scout Messenger.

TREE THE COON

This is an indoor game, founded on the familiar "Hunt the Thimble."

We use a little dummy coon; either make it or turn a ready-made toy rabbit into one, by adding tail and black mask, and cropping the cars. Sometimes even a little rag ball with a face painted on it.

All the players but one go out of the room. That one places the coon anywhere in sight, high or low, but in plain view; all come in and seek. The first to find it sits down silently, and scores i. Each sits down, on seeing it, giving no clue to the others.

The first to score 3 coons is winner, usually. Sometimes we play till every one but one has a coon; that one is the booby. The others arc first, second, etc.

Sometimes each is given his number in order of finding it. Then, after 7 or 8 coons, these numbers are added up, and the lowest is winner.

NAVAJO FEATHER DANCE

An eagle feather hung on a horsehair, so as to stand upright, is worked by a hidden operator, so as to dance and caper. The dancer has to imitate all its motions. A marionette may be used. It is a great fun maker.

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FEATHER FOOTBALL OR FEATHER-BLOW

This is an indoor, wet-weather game.

The players hold a blanket on the knees or on the table. A soft feather is put in the middle. As many may play as can get near. They may be in sides, 2 or 4, or each for himself. At the signal "Go!" each tries to blow the feather off the blanket at the enemy's side, and so count one for himself.

A game is usually best out of 7, x 1, or 13.

COCK-FIGHTING

Make 2 stout sticks, each 2 feet long (broomsticks will do). Pad each of these on the end with a ball of rag. These are the spurs. Make an 8-foot ring. The two rivals are on their hunkers, each with a stick through behind his knees, his hands clasped in front of the knees, and the arms under the ends of the spurs.

Now they close; each aiming to upset the other, to make him lose his spurs or to put him out of the ring, any of which ends that round, and scores 1 for the victor. If both fall, or lose a spur, or go out together, it is a draw. Battle is for 3, 5, 7, II, or 13 rounds.

ONE-LEGGED CHICKEN FIGHT

In this the two contestants stand upon one leg, holding up the ankle grasped in one hand behind. Points are scored as above, but it is a defeat also to drop the up leg.

STRONG HAND

The two contestants stand right toe by right toe, right hands clasped together; left feet braced; left hands free.
set1921.2012.238.jpg At the word "Go!" each tries to unbalance the other; that is, make him lift or move one of his feet. A lift or a shift ends the round.

Battles are for best out of 3, 5, 7, or II rounds.

BADGER-PULLING

The two contestants, on hands and knees, face each other. A strong belt or strap is buckled into one great loop that passes round the head of each; that is, crosses his nape. Halfway between them is a dead line. The one who pulls the other over this line is winner.

The contestant can at any time end the bout by lowering his head so the strap slips off; but this counts 1 against him.

Game is best out of 5, 7, 11, or 13 points.

STUNG, OR STEP ON THE RATTLER—SOMETIMES CALLED POISON

This is an ancient game. A circle about three feet across is drawn on the ground. The players, holding hands, make a ring around this, and try to make one of the number step into the poison circle. He can evade it by side-stepping, by jumping over, or by dragging another fellow into it.

First to make the misstep is "it" for the time or for next game.

Sometimes we use a newspaper with a switch lying across it. Each when stung sits down. When one only is left he is the Rattler, and may sting each of the others with the switch across their hand.

BUFFALO CHIPS

When I was among the Chipewyan Indians of Great Slave Lake, in 19(37, I made myself popular with the young men, as well as boys, by teaching them the old game of bat-ball or Buffalo Chips.

set1921.2012.239.jpg

The players (about a dozen) put their hats in a row near a house, fence, or log (hollows up) A dead-line is drawn io feet from the hats; all must stand outside of that. The one who is "it" begins by throwing a soft ball into one of the hats. If he misses the hat, a chip is put into his own, and he tries over. As soon as he drops the ball into a hat, the owner runs to get the ball; all the rest run away. The owner must not follow beyond the dead-line, but must throw the ball at some one. If he hits him, a chip goes into that person's hat; if not, a chip goes into his own.

As soon as some one has 5 chips he is the Buffalo; he wins the booby prize: that is, he must hold his hand out steady against the wall, and each player has 5 shots at it with the ball, as he stands on the dead-line.

RAT-ON-HIS-LODGE

Each player has a large, smooth, roundish stone, about 4 or 5 inches through. This is his rat. He keeps it permanently.

The lodge is any low boulder, block, stump, bump, or hillock on level ground. A dead-line is drawn through the lodge and another parallel, 15 feet away, for a firing line.

The fellow who is "it," or "keeper," perches his rat on the lodge. The others stand at the firing-line and throw their rats at his. They must not pick them up or touch them with their hands when they are beyond the deadline. If one does, then the keeper can tag him (unless he reaches the firing-line), and send him to do duty as keeper at the rock.

But they can coax their rats with their feet, up to the dead-line, not beyond, then watch for a chance to dodge tack to the firing-line, where they arc safe at all times.

set1921.2012.240.jpg

If the rat is knocked off by any one in fair firing, the keeper is powerless till he has replaced it. Meantime, most of the players have secured their rats and got back safe to the firing-line.

By using bean bags or sandbags instead of stones this may be made an indoor game.

WATCHING BY THE TRAIL

This is a game we often play in the train, to pass the time pleasantly.

Sometimes one party takes the right side of the road with the windows there, and the other the left. Sometimes all players sit on the same side.

The game is, whoever is first to see certain things agreed on scores so many points. Thus:

The winner is the one who first gets 25 or so points, as agreed.

When afoot, one naturally takes other things for points, as certain trees, flowers, etc.

TRAILING

A good trailing stunt to develop alertness and observation is managed thus: One fellow wearing the tracking irons is deer. He is given too beans, 3o slices of potato and to minutes start. He has to lay a track, as crooked as he pleases, dropping a bean every 3 or 4 yards and a slice

set1921.2012.241.jpg

set1921.2012.242.jpg

The target should be a burlap sack stuffed tight with straw and ranged as for archery. Make it big, 6 feet square, if possible, and always begin so close to it that you at least hit the sack nearly every time. Afterward you can work off to the correct range of 30 feet.

WATER-BOILING CONTEST

Given a hatchet and knife, I match, a 2-quart pail, 7 inches or less in diameter, one quart of water and a block of soft wood about 2 feet long and 5 or 6 inches through.

Any one should have the water boiling in 10 minutes. The record is said to be 7.59

First cut plenty of wood. Spend three minutes on it. Support your pail on four pegs driven in the ground. If water is handy dip the pegs in it before placing.

The water must be jumping and bubbling all over the surface or it is not boiling.

If the first match goes out, contestants are usually allowed a second, but are penalized by having 2 minutes added to their time.

MEDLEY SCOUTING

The following competition in Medley Scouting took place at one of my camps. A prize was offered for the highest points in the following:

• At the word, "Go."
• Bring a leaf of sugar-maple; and tell how it differs from other maples.
• Tell a short story.
• Bring a leaf of poison ivy (wrapped in a thick paper, to avoid touching it), and describe the poison, and mode of counteracting it.

set1921.2012.243.jpg
• Mark off on a stick your idea of a yard.
• Bring a leaf of witch hazel, and tell what it is good for.
• Show a bed made by yourself in camp of woods material.
• Bring a leaf of beech, and tell how it differs from those most like it.
• Show a dancer's war club made by yourself in camp, and tell what they are used for.
• Dance a step; any—English, Irish, Scotch, or Indian. Strike a match and light a lamp; both of them imaginary.
• Show a birch-bark utensil or article made by yourself.
• Make a map of North America from memory in 10 minutes.
• Boil a quart of water in a 2-quart pail, given i match, a hatchet, and a stick of wood. You should do it inside of 12 minutes.
• Give an imitation of some animal, actions or sounds.
• Play the part of an Indian woman finding her warrior dead.

For each of the first 20 competitors, points were given; the prize adjudged by the total.

Some of these stunts may seem trivial, but there was a purpose in each, and that purpose was served. In the Indian widow, for example, we wished to select the best actor for play. Most of the fellows failed. Two were good, but one, nearly the smallest in camp, was so fine that he brought tears into the eyes of many.

The selection of the various leaves impressed these kinds on all, especially those who failed to bring the right ones.

The song and dance was introduced to cultivate the spirit of going fearlessly in and doing one's best, however poor it might be; and the elements of handicraft were recognized in birch-bark vessel and war club.

set1921.2012.244.jpg

By the bed competition, all were taught how easy it is to make one's self comfortable in the woods.

The water-boiling was particularly instructive and was tried twice. The first time the winner took 14 minutes, and the second best 20. The last time, the winner's time was 8 minutes, and the second one's 10.

Even the imitations of monkey, lynx, cat, panther, moose, etc., developed a keen observation, and a lot of good natural history that was intensely interesting as well as amusing.

set1921.2012.245.jpg

X. Health and Woodland Medicine

FIRST AID. (Rudimentary)
(Second Aid, and best, is bring the doctor)
TO REVIVE FROM DROWNING

• AS SOON as the patient is in a safe place, loosen the S clothing if any.
• (2) Empty the lungs of water, by laying the body breast down, and lifting it by the middle, with the head hanging down. Hold thus for a few seconds, till the water is evidently out.
• (3) Turn the patient on his breast, face downward.
• (4) Give artificial respiration thus: by pressing the lower ribs down and forward toward the head, then release. Repeat about twelve times to the minute.
• (5) Apply warmth and friction to extremities, rubbing toward the heart.
• (6) DON'T GIVE UP! Persons have been saved after hours of steady effort, and after being under water over twenty minutes.
• (7) When natural breathing is reëstablished, put the Patient into warm bed, with hot-water bottles, warm drinks, Or stimulants, in teaspoonfuls, fresh air, and quiet. Let him sleep, and all will be well.

set1921.2012.246.jpg

SUNSTROKE

• (1) Reduce the temperature of the patient and the place—that is, move the patient at once to a cooler spot, if possible, in the shade.
• (2) Loosen or remove the clothing about the neck and body.
• (3) Apply cold water or ice to the head and body, or even wrap the patient in sheets wet from time to time with cold water.
• (4) Use no stimulant, but allow free use of cold water to drink.

BURNS AND SCALDS

Exclude the air by covering the burn with a thin paste of baking-soda, starch, flour, vaseline, olive oil, linseed oil, castor-oil, lard, cream, or cold cream. Cover the burn first with the smear; next with a soft rag soaked in the smear.

Shock always accompanies severe burns, and must be treated.

HEMORRHAGE, OR INTERNAL BLEEDING

This is usually from the lungs or stomach. If from the lungs, the blood is bright-red and frothy, and is coughed up; if from the stomach, it is dark, and is vomited. Cause the patient to lie down, with head lower than body. Small pieces of ice should be swallowed, and ice-bags, or snow, cold water, etc., applied to the place whence it comes. Hot applications may be applied to the extremities, but avoid stimulants, unless the patient is very weak.

set1921.2012.247.jpg

CUTS AND WOUNDS

After making sure that no dirt or foreign substance is in the wound, the first thing is tight bandaging—to close it and stop the bleeding. The more the part is raised above the heart—the force-pump—the easier it is to do this.

If the blood comes out in spurts, it means an artery has been cut; for this, apply a twister or tourniquet—that is, make a big knot in a handkerchief, tie it round the limb, with the knot just above the wound, and twist it round with a stick till the flow is stopped.

LIGHTNING

To revive one stunned by a thunderbolt, dash cold water over him.

SHOCK OR NERVOUS COLLAPSE

A person suffering from shock has pale, dull face, cold skin, feeble breathing, rapid, feeble pulse, listless, half-dead manner. Place him on his back with head low. Give stimulants, such as hot tea or coffee, or perhaps one drink of spirits. Never remove the clothing, but cover tho person up. Rub the limbs and place hot-water bottles around the body. Most persons recover in time, without aid, but those with weak hearts need help.

FAINTING

Fainting is caused by the arrest of the blood supply to the brain, and is cured by getting the heart to correct the lack. To aid in this have the person lie down with the head lower than the body. Loosen the clothing. Give fresh air.
set1921.2012.248.jpg Rub the limbs. Use smelling-salts. Do not let him get up until fully recovered.

MAD DOG OR SNAKE BITE

Put a tight cord or bandage around the limb between the wound and the heart. Suck the wound many times and wash it with hot water to make it bleed. Burn it with strong ammonia or caustic or a white-hot iron; or cut out the wounded parts with a sharp knife or razor, if you can, not get to a doctor.

INSECT STINGS

Wash with oil or weak ammonia, or very salt water, or paint with iodine.

TESTS OF DEATH

Hold a cold mirror to the nostrils or mouth. This shows at once if there is any breath. Push a pin into the flesh. If living, the hole will close again; if dead, it will remain open.

CINDERS OR SAND IN THE EYE

Can be removed with the tip of a lead-pencil, or the wet end of a tiny roll of soft paper. I have seen a woman lick the cinder out of her child's eye when other means were lacking.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

"First Aid" By Major Charles Lynch. P. Blakiston Sons & 1017 Walnut St., Philadelphia, 1911. 30 cents.

set1921.2012.249.jpg

Some Wildwood Remedies or Simples

(In case no standard remedies be at hand.)
For trees mentioned, but not illustrated here, see Forestry section.

• Antiseptic or wound-wash: Strong, salt brine, as hot as can be borne: a handful of salt in a quart of water.
• Balm for wounds: Balsam Fir. The gum was considered a sovereign remedy for wounds, inside or out; it is still used as healing salve, usually spread on a piece of linen and laid over the wound for a dressing.
• Bleeding, to stop, nose or otherwise: Gather a lot of leaves of witch hazel, dry them, and powder them to snuff. A pinch drawn up the nose or on a wound will stop bleeding. The Indians used a pinch of powder from a puff ball.
• Bowel complaint: Get about a pound of small roots of sassafras, or else two pounds of the bark, smashed up. Boil in a gallon of water till only one pint of the fluid is left. A tablespoonful of this three times a day is a good remedy for bowel trouble.
• Chills and fever: Two pounds of white poplar or white willow bark, smashed up and soaked for twenty-four hours in a gallon of water and boiled down to a pint, make a sure remedy for chills and fever. A dessertspoonful four times a day is the proper dose.
  A tea made of spice bush twigs is a good old remedy for chills and fever. Make it strong, and sip it hot all day.
• Cold or fever cure: A decoction of the poplar bark or roots of flowering dogwood is a good substitute for quinine, as tonic and cold cure, bowel cure, and fever driver.
• Cough remedy: (That is, to soften and soothe a cough:) Slippery elm inner bark boiled, a pound to the gallon, boiled down to a pint, and given a teaspoonful every hour.
  Linseed is used the same way, and is all the better if licorice or sugar of any kind be added.
  
  set1921.2012.250.jpg [illustration - Spice bush. ] [illustration - Sassafras. ] [illustration - Golden willow. ]
  set1921.2012.251.jpg [illustration - Flowering dogwood. ] [illustration - Black cherry. ] [illustration - Cherry leaf—teeth enlarged. ]
  set1921.2012.252.jpg Another woodland remedy is the syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sweet birch tree.
• Cough and irritated throat: Mix a spoonful of sugar with two of butter, and eat it slowly. This usually stops a hacking cough that would keep the patient from sleep.
• Cough and lung remedy: A pound of inner bark of black cherry, soaked twenty-four hours in a gallon of water and boiled down to one pint, makes a famous cough remedy and lung balm. A tablespoonful three or four times a day.
• Diuretic: A decoction of the inner bark of elder is a powerful diuretic.
• Face-ache: Heat some sand in the frying-pan, pour it into a light bag and hold it against the place. The sand should be as hot as can be borne. This treatment is good for most aches and pains.
• Inflammation of the eyes or skin: Relieved by washing with strong tea of the bark of witch hazel.
• Ink: The berries and leaves of red or staghorn sumac boiled together in water make a permanent black ink.
• Lung balm: Infusion of black cherry bark, root preferred, is a powerful tonic for lungs and bowels. Good also as a skin wash for sores. When half wilted, the leaves are poisonous to cattle.
• Nose-bleed: A snuff made of the dried leaves of witch hazel stops nose-bleed at once, or any bleeding.
• Nose stopped up at night: Wet the nose outside, as well as in, with cold water, and prop the head up higher with pillows.
• Pimples and skin rash: A valuable tonic or skin wash for such troubles is strong tea made of the twigs of alder.
• Poison ivy sting, to cure: Wash every hour or two with soapy water as hot as can be borne, then with hot salt water. This relieves the sting, and is the best simple remedy. The sure cure is washing the parts two or three
  set1921.2012.253.jpg [illustration - Elder. ] [illustration - Wintergreen. ] [illustration - Poison ivy. ]
  set1921.2012.254.jpg

  230 The Book of Woodcraft

  
  set1921.2012.255.jpg [illustration - Alder. ] plenty of hot water, or better a thin extract of sassafras, or tea made of wintergreen leaves. Keep very warm, so as to get a good sweat. Rub him all over, especially the place afflicted, with grease or vaseline. The only use of these last things is to protect the skin. It is the rubbing that does the good.
  The Indian treatment was a Turkish bath, as described later.
• Sores and wounds: Can be cleansed by washing with hot brine, that is a handful of salt in a quart of water.
• Sunburn: If you take your sunburn gradually, a little each day, it doesn't hurt. But if you are foolhardy at first, and expose your white skin, arms, or neck and back to the blaze of the summer sun for a few hours you will pay a heavy price. At night you will be in a torment of fever-fire. The punishment may last for days. Huge blisters arise, and you may be obliged for a time to give up all
  set1921.2012.256.jpg [illustration - Male-fern ] [illustration - Sweet birch. ] active sports. As soon as you find you are overburnt, put cold cream, vaseline, sweet-oil, or grease of any kind on the place, and keep it covered up. In a day or two you will be well.
  But it is best to go slow. Do not get overdone at all, and so have no damage to repair.
• Sweater: A famous woodman's sweater is tea made from the leaves and twigs of hemlock. Make a gallon of about two pounds of twigs, etc., and sip it all day.
• Tapeworm: Boil a pound of smashed-up male-fern or evergreen fern root in a gallon of water till but a pint of fluid is left. A teaspoonful three or four times a day—followed by a purge—is a famous remedy.

set1921.2012.257.jpg
• [illustration - Sumac. ]
• Tonic: An infusion or tea of black alder bark is a wonderful tonic, and a healer of the skin, inside and out. Boil a pound of bark in a gallon of water till a quart is left. Take half a cupful four times a day. This is a bracer for the feeble constitution.
• Tonic: A fine tonic is made from the twigs of sweet birch, by boiling two pounds of twigs in a gallon of water, till it makes about a pint of strong brown tea, which should be sipped, about half a pint a day.
• Tonic: A decoction, or boiled in water extract, of almost any part of the red sumac tree, is a powerful tonic. Make it of two pounds of sumac in a gallon of water boiled to a mt. Take a big spoonful twice a day.
• Wash for sore throat: Inner bark of hemlock is a powerful astringent and good as a throat wash. A pound of bark in a gallon of water is boiled to a quart.
• Worms: The berries of black alder used as tincture
  set1921.2012.258.jpg (bruised in alcohol) are a powerful remedy for worms. A dessertspoonful three times a day is a dose.
• Worms and tonic: The inner bark and root bark of tulip tree, either as dry powder or infusion, are powerful tonics and especially good for worms.
• Wound-wash. See Antiseptic.
• For other remedies, see Dr. Elisha Smith's "Botanic Physician," Cincinnati, 1844.

AN INDIAN BATH OR SWEAT LODGE

A Turkish bath in the woods is an interesting idea. The Indians have always used this style of treatment and, with their old-time regard for absolute cleanliness, took the bath once a week, when circumstances permitted.

Their plan was to make a low, round-topped lodge, about five feet high and as much across, by bending over a number of long willow poles with both ends stuck in the ground. A few slender cross-bars lashed on here and there completed the skeleton dome. This was covered over with a number of blankets, or waterproof covers of canvas, etc. A shallow pit was dug near one side. The patient stripped and went in. A fire was made previously close at hand, and in this a number of stones heated. When nearly red-hot, these were rolled in, under the cover of the Sweat Lodge into the pit. The patient had a bucket of water and a cup. He poured water on the hot stones, a dense steam arose, which filled the Lodge, causing the intense heat, which could be modified at will. The more water on the stones the greater, of course, the steam. Meantime, the patient drinks plenty of water, and is soon in a profuse sweat. Half an hour of this is enough for most persons. They should then come out, have a partial rub-down, and plunge into cold water, or have it thrown over them. After this a
set1921.2012.259.jpg thorough rub-down finishes, and the patient should roll up in a blanket and lie down for an hour. Aromatic herbs or leaves arc sometimes thrown on the stones to help the treatment.

This is fine to break up a cold or help a case of rheumatism. I have found it an admirable substitute for the Turkish bath.

LATRINE

Nothing in camp is more important than the latrine or toilet. It is fully described on page 178.

THE KEEN EYES OF THE INDIAN. DO YOU WISH TO HAVE THEM?

Near-sightedness. An eminent eye doctor, Dr. W. H. Bates of New York, has found out how you can have sight as keen and eyes as good as those of the Indians who live out of doors. After eight years' study of the subject he has established the following:

a. The defect known as near-sight or short-sight seldom exists at birth, but is acquired.

b. Besides being acquirable, it is preventable and in some cases curable.

c. It comes through continual use of the eye for near objectit only, during the years of growth.

The Remedy. The remedy is, give the eye regular muscular exercise every day for far-sight by focussing it for a few minutes on distant objects. It is not enough to merely look at the far-off landscapes. The. eye must be definitely focussed on something, like print, before the necessary Muscular adjustment is perfect and the effect obtained.

The simplest way to do this is—get an ordinary eye testing card, such as is sold for a nickel at any optician's.
set1921.2012.260.jpg Hang it up as far off as possible in the schoolroom and use it each day. Train your eyes to read the smallest letters from your seat.

By such exercises during the years of growth almost all short-sight or near-sight, and much blurred sight or astigmatism, may be permanently prevented.

An interesting proof is found by Dr. Casey Wood in the fact that while wild animals have good sight, caged animals that have lost all opportunities for watching distant objects are generally myopic or short-sighted. In other words, nature adapts the tool to its job.

DRY SOCKS

A certain minister knowing I had much platform experience said to me once, "How is it that your voice never grows husky in speaking? No matter how well I may be my voice often turns husky in the pulpit."

He was a thin, nervous man, very serious about his work and anxious to impress. I replied: "You arc nervous before preaching, which makes your feet sweat. Your socks are wet when you are in the pulpit, and the sympathy between soles and voice is well known. Put on dry socks just before entering the pulpit and you need not fear any huskiness."

He looked amazed and said: "You certainly have sized me up all right. I'll try next Sunday."

I have not seen him since and don't know the result, but I know that the principle is sound—wet feet, husky throat.

SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND SAVE YOUR LIFE

This was the title of an essay by George Catlin, a famous outdoor man, who lived among the Indians, and wrote about
set1921.2012.261.jpg them 1825 to '40. In this he pointed out that it is exceedingly injurious to breathe through your mouth; that, indeed, many persons injured their lungs by taking in air that was not strained and warmed first through the nose, and in many cases laid the foundation of diseases which killed them.

DON'T TURN OUT YOUR TOES MUCH

When you see a man whose toes are excessively turned out, you may know he was born and brought up on sidewalks. He is a poor walker and will not hold out on an all day-tramp.

The mountaineer and the Indian scout always keep their feet nearly straight. It is easier on the feet and it lengthens the stride; makes, in short, a better traveler. A glance at his tracks will tell you how a person walks.

TOBACCO

No Indian was allowed to use tobacco until a proven warrior. It was injurious to the young they said, but in the grown man if used only as a burnt sacrifice it helped in prayer and meditation.

Some of the finest Indians, Spotted-tail for example, never smoked as a habit.

In the New York Literary Digest for December 30, 1911, there appeared the following important article:

INJURIOUSNESS OF TOBACCO

The opinion that tobacco is injurious to the young and apparently harmless to adults, quoted in these pages recently from American Medicine, is adjudged by the editor of Good Health (Battle Creek, Mich., December) to be one of those half-truths which Tennyson tells us are "ever the blackest lies."
set1921.2012.262.jpg He agrees heartily with the first part of it, but asserts that no respectable medical authority will be found to endorse the other half of it. Has the editor of American Medicine, he asks, never heard of tobacco blindness? And how about cancer of the lip and of the throat, diseases almost confined to smokers? Bouchard, of Paris, an authority on diseases of the heart and blood- vessels, names tobacco, the writer goes on to say, as one of the leading causes of this deadly class of maladies. And this is by no means a new idea. Medical examiners tell us that nine tenths of the rejected applicants for the Army are refused on account of tobacco-heart. We read further:

"King Edward died of tobacco-heart. Mark Twain was another victim of this disease. A king of Hungary fell off his horse some time ago and lost his life because of defective vision due to smoking. The death-rate from disease of the heart and blood-vessels has increased, within the last ten years, from 6 per 100,000 to 24 per 100,000 or 400 per cent. Is there no evidence from these facts that it is not 'harmless to adults'?

"No experienced coach will allow men in training for athletic events to make use of tobacco, so well known are its effects upon the heart. A well-known physician said to the writer just before the Yale-Harvard boat-race: 'I am sure Yale will be beaten, for the coach permits the men to use tobacco.'

"The ill effects of tobacco upon the kidneys are familiar to all physicians. Statistics gathered some years ago showed that lo per cent. of all smokers have albumen in the urine. The physician forbids the use of tobacco or very greatly restricts its use in cases of Bright's disease.

"But even on a priori grounds it may be safely said that tobacco is anything but harmless. The deadly effects of tobacco are well enough known. In very minute doses nicotin produces deadly effects. One tenth of a grain killed a goat, and a much smaller dose killed a frog. The farmer uses tobacco leaves and stems to kill ticks on sheep. An eminent German botanist has recently shown that tobacco, even in minute quantities, produces pernicious effects on plants.

"Numerous investigators have shown that pigeons are proof against anthrax, a disease very deadly to sheep. Charrin showed that after giving to a pigeon a very small dose of nicotin the creature quickly dice when infected with the anthrax germ.

set1921.2012.263.jpg

"Doctor Wright, of London, showed that nicotin lowers the tuberculo-opsonic index of the blood; that is, it lowers the power of resistance of the body against tuberculosis. He cited the case of a young man who was a great smoker and whose tuberculoopsonic index was zero instead of ioo. The young man was suffering from tuberculosis and died within a few weeks.

"Post-mortem examination made at the Phipps Institute showed that smokers are twice as subject to tuberculosis as non-smokers."

These are only a few of the thousand facts, the writer goes on, that might be cited on his side of the question. Nothing in them shows that there is any distinction between the child and the adult, and the fact that the effects are often less apparent in the latter is due, we are told, solely to the fact that they possess greater vital resistance than children. Finally, he remarks:

SEX MATTERS

Some of our best authorities tell us that more than half of our diseases, mental and physical, come from ignorance and consequent abuse of our sexual powers.

We have long known and realized vaguely that virtue and strength are synonymous; that the Puritan fathers, for example, notwithstanding their narrowness and their unlovely lives, were upon the whole a people of pure life, who reaped their reward in their wonderful mental, moral, and physical strength, not entirely gone to-day.

All men realize the desirability of virtue; and hitherto we have attempted to keep our young people virtuous by keeping them ignorant. Most thinking men to-day admit
set1921.2012.264.jpg and maintain that as a protection ignorance is a sad failure.

It is far better for the parent to teach the child the truth—the sacred truth—by degrees, as he or she is ready for it. Most children are ready at seven or eight to know something about the process of procreation, especially it they live on a farm where they see it all about them.

No boy is any the worse for learning of these things. All are better for knowing them.

Rest assured of this, more nations have been wiped out by sex abuse than by bloody war. The nation that does not bring up its youth with pure ideals is certainly going to destruction.

Every leader of boys should talk frankly to his charges and read to them or have them read:

"From Youth Into Manhood," by Dr. Winfield S. Hall. Y. M. C. A. Press, 124 East Twenty-eighth Street, New York.

STARVATION FOODS TN THE NORTHERN WOODS

For a man who is lost, the three great dangers in order of importance, are Fear, Cold, and Hunger. He may endure extreme hunger for a week and extreme cold for a day, but extreme fear may undo him in an hour. There is no way of guarding against this greatest danger excepting by assuring him that he is fortified against the other two.

Starvation is rare in warm regions and I suppose that no one ever starved during the late summer and early autumn. The woods then are full of roots, nuts, and berries that, as a rule, are wholesome and palatable, and usually there is a large amount of small game at this season.

The greatest danger of starvation is in the far north during winter. Fly the far north I do not mean the Polar regions, where few go and where life usually depends on a
set1921.2012.265.jpg keeping touch with the ship, but the wooded regions of Canada and Alaska where there are hundreds, yes, thousands of travelers each year, and where each year one hears of some one dying of starvation, through ignorance of the few emergency foods that abound in that country.

Fish are not included among these foods, for the wanderer in the snow is not likely to be equipped with fish hook, spear or net. The fish, moreover, are in winter protected by ice of great thickness. Animal food is exceedingly scarce at such times, the forms most likely to be found arc rabbits, mice, insect-borers, ants, and rawhide gear. Of course the mounted Indian never starved, because he would bleed his horse each day and live on the blood; taking care that his steed had fodder enough to keep up his strength. But we must assume that this source of food is not available—that our traveler is on foot.

A well-known explorer states in his book that northern expeditions should be undertaken chiefly or only in rabbit years—that is, when rabbits arc at the maximum of their remarkable periodic increase. While there is some truth in this, we must remember, first, a rabbit year in one region is not necessarily a rabbit year in another, so we could not foretell with certainty what would be a season of abundant food in the region proposed for the expedition; second, men will at any risk go into the vast northern wilderness every year, for it is destined to be the great field for exploration, and every traveler there ought to know the foods he can count on finding at all times.

Rabbits. If when in straits for food he have the luck to be in a rabbit country, he should select a thicket in which their tracks and runs are very numerous. By quietly walking around it, he is likely to see one of these silent, ghostlike hares, and can easily secure it with his gun. Without a gun his next best reliance is on snares. String,
set1921.2012.266.jpg [illustration - Pole for rabbit snare and various ways of setting the noose. ] a shoelace, a buckskin thong, or even a strip of clothing, may be used as a snare. There are many ways of making h rabbit snare, but the simplest is the best. The essentials are, first, the snare—an ordinary running noose; second, a twitch-up; that is either a branch bent down, or a pole laid in the crotch of a sapling. If the nearest sapling does not have a crotch the twitch-up can be fastened to it with a willow withe.

The snare is fast to the end of the pole, and spread open in a well-worn runway. The loop is about four inches across and placed four inches from the ground. The pole twitch-up is held down by placing the cross-piece of the snare under some projecting snag, as shown. The rabbit, bounding along, puts his head in the noose, a slight jerk frees the cross piece from its holder, and in a moment the rabbit is dangling in the air. The cross piece can be dispensed with if the snare be wrapped three or four times around a snag. The squaws often build a little hedge across a rabbit thicket, so as to close all but three or four
set1921.2012.267.jpg dill runs, each of which is guarded by a snare. They then drive the rabbits back and forth, capturing several at each drive.

Mice swarm in all the northern country wherever there is heavy sedge, or where the ground is deeply buried in moss, and that means most of the Far North. If I were seeking for mice I should pick out a sedgy hollow, one evidently not actually a pond in summer, and dig through snow and tangle down to the runways, at the level of the ground. If one has traps they may be set here with the certainty of taking some game within a few hours. But usually the mice are so common that they may be caught by hand. I have frequently done this, taking a hint from the method of a fox hunting mice. He advances very slowly, watching for a movement in the cover. As soon as this is seen he seizes the whole tussock, and, after the death squeeze, separates his victim from the grass.

Deep snow, unfortunately, puts the mice beyond reach, and excludes them from the bill of fare when most needed.

Ants, the next on our list, are usually to be found dormantvi dead and hollow trees, sometimes in great numbers. Bears and flickers eat them in quantities, and I have met with men who claim to have done so, but I never tried them myself and suspect that they are unpleasantly acid.

Insect-borers. These are the fat white grubs that winter under the bark of trees and in dead timber. They are accounted acceptable food by bears and by most birds, which is almost if not quite conclusive evidence that they are good for human food. Their claws, nippers, and spines should be removed. To get them one must have an axe.

Rawhide, or even leather, if boiled for hours, will make a nutritious soup. Many a man has bridged the awful gap by boiling his hoots, whence the phrase to express the final extreme, "I'll at my boots first." Mark Twain was once
set1921.2012.268.jpg put to this final resort and recorded afterward that "the holes tasted the best."

But the hardest case of all is the best for present discussion. That is the case of the man who has not happened on a rabbit region and who has neither gun nor axe, string nor rawhide. He must look entirely to the vegetable world for sustenance, as do all the northern natives in times of direst famine.

Bark and buds. In the forest region are several foods that are available in the depth of winter. First of these is the thin green outer skin or bark, the white innermost bark, and the buds (not the middle brown bark) of quaking asp or white poplar. The brown bark is highly charged with a bitter principle, partly tannin, that makes it unpalatable as well as unwholesome. Aspen bark is a favorite food with elk, deer, beavers, squirrels, rabbits, and mice in winter. I found that by boiling it for some hours it is reduced to a gelatinous and apparently nutritious mass. I have also found the buds of basswood a palatable food supply. In my early days, in the backwood of Canada, we children frequently allayed our hunger with basswood buds and spruce and tamarac shoots.

Dr. C. C. Curtis informs me that in British Columbia the natives eat the inner bark of willows, hemlock, and other trees, and I have often heard of the Indians eating the innermost bark of birch.

All these are common foods with herbivorous animals. Man, having a less capable stomach, will do well to predigest such by roasting or long boiling.

Toadstools. There is yet another supply that is commonly shunned, namely—toadstools. No toadstool growing on trees is known to be poisonous, and most contain nutriment—especially the birch polyporus, which grows on birch trees and has pores instead of gills. A toadstool gnawed
set1921.2012.269.jpg by mice or squirrels is usually good. References to the article on toadstools will show that none but the Amanitas are deadly, and these are well known by their white or yellow gills, their parasol shape, the ring on their upper stem, and the cup out of which they spring. They grow on the ground in the woods.

Lichens. But the surest food supply of all is that from the lowly lichens., which exist in enormous quantities throughout the great land of big hunger and little sticks.Doctor C. C. Curtis says:

"All lichens are rich in carbohydrates; lichen starch or lichenin, constituting 40 to 60 per cent, of the bulk of the higher forms."

They supply winter food to all the northern quadrupeds. The reindeer, the white hare, the musk-ox, and the lemming find in them their chief support; and those which do not live directly on the lichen do so indirectly by preying on those who do.

They are not choice dainties for human food. But Richardson, the famous northern naturalist, and the party with him, as well as unnumbered Eskimos and travelers, have lived for weeks on the lichens when other food has failed.

The kinds most useful are the Iceland moss (Cetraria icelandica), the reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina), and the rock-tripe or famine-food (Umbilicaria arctica), and other species. To these we might add the Lucanora esculenta or manna lichen, the manna of the Bible; but as this is an old-world species it is not within the intended scope of this article.

The Iceland mossis a rigid, erect, brandling moss, almost like a seaweed, and of brown color. It abounds in most northern latitudes. Richardson speaks of the Barren Grounds being covered with Cetraria of two species. When
set1921.2012.270.jpg boiled for an hour, it is highly nutritious. Those who wish to familiarize themselves with its appearance as a preliminary of northern travel can see it in most drug shops.

The reindeer moss is by far the most abundant of the food lichens. There are thousands of square miles in the barren northern country, deeply covered with reindeer moss. It is indeed the most abundant form of vegetable life, the [illustration - Cetraria ] main support of the reindeer, and the ever-present and obvious guarantee to the traveler that he need not starve. It is readily known by its soft gray-green color and its branching like a little tree without leaves. It grows on rocks or on the ground, and masses sometimes like sponges. It is said to be a nutritious food. It is gritty unless collected carefully and washed. This latter, fortunately, is easily done, for grit sinks in the water and the moss floats when fresh.

Boiling is the usual way of cooking it. Reindeer moss from Connecticut, however, I boiled for several hours without producing any evident change. It continued to be tough and unpalatable, and tasteless except for a slight suggestion of fish oil.

Roasting was more successful than boiling. When carefully browned, I found it tasted not unlike burnt bread
set1921.2012.271.jpg crumbs, and, of course, was easily chewed. While roasting it gave off a smell, like seaweed.

Rock-tripe. But the last, the rock-tripe or famine food of the Indians, has proved the most satisfactory of all the starvation foods that I have experimented with. Every one knows it as the flat leathery crinkle-edged lichen that [illustration - G. Muhl Rock-tripes. ] grows on rocks. It is blackish and brittle in dry weather, but dull dark greenish on the upper side in wet. It is largely composed of nutritious matter that can be assimilated by the human stomach. Unfortunately it is also a powerful purge, unless dried before being boiled, as food. Specimens gathered from the rocks in Connecticut— it is very widely distributed even in New England—after drying and two or three hours boiling, produced a thick mucilaginous liquid and a granular mass of solid jelly, that were
set1921.2012.272.jpg mild and pleasant to the taste, entirely without the bitterness of Cetraria, etc. Indeed, it was sweetish, with a slight flavor of licorice and of sago, far from unpalatable at any time, and to a starving man, no doubt, a boon from heaven. It is less abundant in the north country than the reindeer moss, but yet of general distribution and to be found in great quantities and at all seasons of the year.

Rock-tripe is the food that saved the life of Sir John Franklin and Dr. J. Richardson on their long and desperate journey for three months, in the summer and autumn of 1821, on foot from Fort Enterprise to the Polar Sea and back. The record of that expedition shows that when they were out of game, as soon happened, their diet was varied with burnt bones when they could find them and toasted
set1921.2012.273.jpg leather and hide; but the staple and mainstay was rock-tripe. It is not delicious food, nor is it highly nutritious, but it will sustain life, and every traveler should know what it is like and how to use it.

Drinks. It will be a fitting conclusion to this question of foods if we note one or two possible drinks. Franklin and Richardson used Labrador tea as a hot drink. This is an infusion of the plants figured here. But good and slightly nourishing drinks are made also of the buds, sprouts, or inner bark of spruce, basswood, tamarac, birch, and especially of slippery elm.

set1921.2012.274.jpg

XI. Natural History

Our Common Birds or Forty Birds that Every Boy Should Know

THE Bald Eagle or White-headed Eagle (Haliaeetos leucocephalus) is the emblem of America. It is three to four feet from beak to tail, and six or seven feet across the wings. When fully adult it is known by its white head, neck and tail, and the brown body; but when young it is brownish black, splashed and marked with dull white.

The only other eagle found in the United States is the Golden or War Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). This is a little larger. When full grown it is dark brown, with the basal half of tail more or less white. The plumage of the young birds is somewhat like that of the young Bald Eagle; but the two species may always be distinguished by the legs. The War Eagle wears leggings— his legs are feathered to the toes. He is ready for the warpath. The Bald Eagle has the legs bald, or bare on the lower half.

Redtailed Hawk or Henhawk (Buteo borealis). The common hawks of America are very numerous and not easy to distinguish. The best known of the large kinds is the Redtail. This is about two feet long and four feet across the wings. In general it is dark brown above and white beneath, with dark brown marks; the tail is clear reddish with one black bar across near the tip. In young birds
set1921.2012.275.jpg the tail is gray with many small bars. It has four primaries notched on the inner web. The legs are bare of feathers for a space above the toes. It is common in North [illustration - Bald Eagle ] [illustration - Redtailed Hawk of Henhawk ] America east of the Rockies up to mid-Canada.It is noted for its circling flight and far-reaching whistle or scream.

The Barred or Hoot Owl (Strix varia). This Owl is known at once by the absence of horns, the black eyes and the plumage barred acrossthe chest and stripedbelow that. It is about twenty inches long, in general gray-brown marked with white. It is noted for its loud hooting; it is the noisiest owl in our woods. Found in the wooded parts of America up to about latitude so degrees, east of the Plains.

set1921.2012.276.jpg

Great Horned Owl or Cat Owl (Bubo virginianus). This is the largest of our Owls. About twenty-four inches long and four feet across the wings. It is known at once by its great ear tufts, its yellow eyes, its generally barred plumage of white, black and buff, and its white shirt front. This is the winged tiger of the woods. Noted for its destruction of game and poultry, it is found throughout the timbered parts of North America.

Screech Owl (Otus asio). This is not unlike the Horned Owl in shape and color but is much smaller—only ten inches long. Sometimes its plumage is red instead of gray. It feeds on mice and insects and has a sweet mournful song in the autumn—its lament for the falling leaves. It is found in the timbered parts of North America.

Turkey Vulture or Buzzard (Cathartes aura). The Turkey Vulture is about two and a half feet long and about six feet across its wings. It is black everywhere except on the under side of the wing which is gray, and the head which is naked and red. It is known at once by the naked head and neck, and is famous for its splendid flight. It is found from Atlantic to Pacific and north to the Saskatchewan. It preys on carrion.

In the Southern States is another species—the Black Vulture or Carrion Crow—which is somewhat smaller and wears its coat collar up to its ears instead of low on the neck; also its complexion is dusky not red.

Loon (Gavia immer). The common Loon is known by its size—thirty-two inches long and about four feet across the wings—and its brilliant black and white plumage. It is noted for its skill as a fisher and diver. Its weird rolling call is heard on every big lake in the country.

Common Seagull (Larus argentalus). The common Seagull is twenty-four inches long and four feet across. The plumage is white with blue-gray back, when adult; but
set1921.2012.277.jpg [illustration - Barred or Hoot Owl. ] [illustration - Turkey Vulture or Buzzard. ] [illustration - Great Horned Owl. ] [illustration - Screech Owl. ]
set1921.2012.278.jpg splashed brown when young, and with black tips to the wings. Its beak is yellow with red spot on the lower mandible. It is found throughout North America.

[illustration - Loon. ] [illustration - Common Seagull. ]

Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). The white Pelican is known at once by its great size—about five feet long and eight feet across the wings— by its long beak, its pouch, and its feet fully webbed. Its plumage is white, but the wing tips are black. It is found in the interior of America up to Great Slave Lake.

Wild Duck or Mallard (Anal platyrhynchos). Of all our numerous wild ducks this is the best known. It is about twenty-three inches long. Its bottle-green head, white
set1921.2012.279.jpg collar, chestnut breast, penciled sides and curled up tail feathers identify it. The female is streaky brown and gray. It is found in all parts of the continent, up to the edge of the forest. This is the wild duck from which tame ducks are descended.

[illustration - Pelican. ]

Wood Duck or Summer Duck (Aix sponsa). This beautiful duck is about eighteen inches long. Its head is beautifully variegated, bottle-green and white. Its eye is red, its breast purplish chestnut, checkered with white Spots, while its sides are buff with black pencilings. This
set1921.2012.280.jpg [illustration - Wild Duck or Mallard ] [illustration - Wood Duck of Summer Duck ] [illustration - Wild Goose, Canada Goose or Honker ] is one of the wildest and most beautiful of ducks. It nests in hollow trees and is found in North America up to about latitude 50 degrees.

Wild Goose, Canada Goose or Honker (Branta canadensis). This fine bird is about three feet long. Its head and neck are black; its cheek patch white; its body gray; its tail black with white coverts above and below. It is found up to the Arctic regions, and breeds north of about latitude 45 degrees. It is easily tamed and reared in captivity.

Swan. There are two kinds of Swan found in America: The Trumpeter (Olor buccinator), which is almost extinct, is very large and has a black bill, and the Whistling Swan (Olorcolumbianus), which is smaller—about five feet long and seven feet across. Its plumage is pure
set1921.2012.281.jpg white; its bill black, with a yellow spot near the eye. It is found generally throughout North America but is rare now.

Bittern (Botaurus lengtiginosus) . This bird of marshes is about twenty-eight inches long and can stand nearly three feet high. Its general color is warm yellowish brown splashed with dark brown. The black mark on the side [illustration - Bittern ] [illustration - Great Blue Heron ] of the neck is a strong feature, and its bright green legs and beak are very distinctive. It is famous for its guttural call notes in the marshes, and is found throughout North America up to about latitude Go in the interior.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). This bird is commonly called Blue Crane. Its great size will distinguish it. In general it is blue-gray above, white below; head,
set1921.2012.282.jpg white, with black hind head, crest and marks or., neck, and shoulders. Its thighs are chestnut. It is found throughout North America to the limit of heavy timber.

Quail or Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). This famous and delicate game bird is about ten inches long. Its plumage is beautifully varied with reddish brown, lilac, and black markings, on a white ground. Its whistle sounds like "Bob White." It is found in eastern North America up to Massachusetts and South Ontario.

[illustration - Quail or Bobwhite ] [illustration - Ruffled Grouse or Partridge ]

Ruffed Grouse or Part ridge Ruffed Grouse or Partridge (Bonasa umbellus). It is known by its mottled and brown plumage, its broad and beautiful fan tail, and the black ruffs on each side of the neck. It is noted for its drumming, which is usually a love song—a call to its mate. Found in the heavy woods of North America, north of the Gulf States.

Dove (Zenaidura macroura). This is an abundant inhabitant of the farming country as far north as wheat 13 now grown. It is about twelve inches long, and known
set1921.2012.283.jpg by its pigeon-like look, and its long wedge-shaped tail, with black and white marks on the feathers. Its breast is soft purplish gray. Its extinct relation, the once plentiful Passenger Pigeon, was eighteen inches long and had a reddish breast.

Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens). About six and and a half inches long, black and white. In the male the nape is red, the outer tail feathers white, with black spots. Carefully distinguish this from its large relation the Hairy Woodpecker which is nine and a half inches long and has no black spots on the white outer tail feathers. A familiar inhabitant of orchards the year round, it is found in woods throughout eastern North America.

Flicker or Ilighhole (Colaptes auratus). This large and beautiful woodpecker is twelve inches long. Its head is ashy gray behind, with a red nape in the neck, and brown- gray in front. On its breast is a black crescent. The spots below and the little bars above are black, and the under side of wings and tail are bright yellow. The rump is white. Its beautiful plumage and loud splendid " clacker " cry make it a joy in every woodland. It is found throughout North America, cast of the Rockies up to the limit of trees.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Trochilus colubris). Every one knows the Hummingbird. The male only has the throat of ruby color. It is about four inches long from tip of beak to tip of tail. This is the only Hummingbird found in the Northern States or Canada cast of the Prairies.

Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus). This bird is nearly black in its upper parts, white underneath, and has a black tail with white tip. Its concealed crest is orange and red. It is eight and a half inches long. Famous for its intrepid attacks on all birds, large and small, that
set1921.2012.284.jpg approach its nest, it is found in North America east of the Rockies, into Southern Canada.

Bluejay (Cyanocitta cristata). This bird is soft purplish blue above, and white underneath. The wings and tail are bright blue with black marks. It is found in the [illustration - Dove. ] [illustration - Flicker. ] [illustration - Downy Woodpecker. ] [illustration - Kingbird. ]
set1921.2012.285.jpg woods of America east of the plains to about latitude 55. The Bluejay is a wonderful songster and mimic, but it is mischievous—nearly as bad as the crow indeed.

Common Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos). The Crow is black from head to foot, body and soul. It is about [illustration - Bluejay. ] [illustration - Bobolink or Reedbird. ] eighteen inches long and thirty wide. It makes itself a nuisance in all the heavily wooded parts of E. North America.

Bobolink or Redbird (Dolichonyx oryzivorus). This bird is about seven and a half inches long. The plumage is black and white, with brown or creamy patch on nape; and the tail feathers all sharply pointed. The female, and the male in autumn, are all yellow buff with dark streaks. Though famous for its wonderful song as it flies over the meadows in June, it is killed by the thousands to supply the restaurants in autumn and served up under
set1921.2012.286.jpg the name Reedbird. It is found in North America, chiefly between north latitude 40 and 52 degrees.

Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula). The Oriole is about eight inches long, flaming orange in color, with black head and back and partly black tail and wings. The female is duller in plumage. Famous for its beautiful nest, as [illustration - Baltimore Oriole. ] [illustration - Purple Grackle or Crow Blackbird. ] well as its gorgeous plumage and ringing song, it is abundant in Eastern North America in open woods up to Northern Ontario and Lake Winnipeg.

Purple Grackle or Crow Blackbird (Quiscalus quiscala). This northern bird of paradise looks black at a distance but its head is shiny blue and its body iridescent. It is twelve inches long. When flying it holds its long tail with the edge raised like a boat, hence "boat tail." In various forms it is found throughout the eastern States, and in Canada up to Hudson Bay.

Snowbird (Plectrophenax nivalis). About six and a half inches long, this bird is pure white, overlaid with brown
set1921.2012.287.jpg on the crown, back and sides. The wings, back and tail are partly black. The Snowbird nests in the Arctic regions and is common in most of temperate agricultural America, during winter, wherever there is snow.

[illustration - Snowbird. ] [illustration - Song-sparrow. ] [illustration - Scarlet Tanager. ]

Song-Sparrow (Melospiza melodia). The Song-sparrow is about six and a half inches long—brown above—white underneath. It is thickly streaked with blackish marks on flanks, breast and all upper parts. All the tail feathers are plain brown. There is a black blotch on the jaw and another on the middle of the breast. Always near a brook.
set1921.2012.288.jpg It is noted for its sweet and constant song, and is found in all well wooded and watered parts of North America.

Scarlet Tanager (Piranga erythromelas). This gorgeous bird is about seven inches long. The plumage of the male is of a flaming scarlet, with black wings and tail; but the female is dull green in color. The Scarlet Tanager is found in the woods of eastern America, up to Ottawa and Lake Winnipeg.

Purple Martin (Progne subis). About eight inches in length, with long wings and forked tail, the Purple Martin [illustration - Purple Martin. ] [illustration - Barn Swallow. ] is everywhere of a shiny bluish or purplish black. Like the Kingbird it attacks any intruder on its lower range. This swallow is found in the wooded regions of east temperate America, north to Newfoundland and the Saskatchewan.

Barn Swallow (Hirundro erythrogaster). About seven inches long, this bird is steel-blue above, chestnut on
set1921.2012.289.jpg throat and breast, buffy white on belly. It is known by the long forked tail which is dark with white spots. Famous for its mud nest, it is found in open country about barns in America generally.

Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos). About ten inches long, soft gray above, dull white beneath, wings and tail [illustration - Mockingbird. ] [illustration - Catbird. ] black and white, with no black on head—the Mockingbird is famous for its song, and is found in United States north to New Jersey.

Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis). This northern Mockingbird is about nine inches long, dark slate in color, with a black-brown cap, black tail and a red patch "on the seat of its pants." It abounds in the Eastern States and Canada, north to Ottawa, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Common House Wren (Troglodytes (aedon). This little fairy is about five inches long; soft brown above and brown-
set1921.2012.290.jpg ish gray below, it is barred with dusky brown on wings and tail. It nests in a hole, and is found in wooded America cast of the plains, north to Saskatchewan. Ottawa and Maine.

Chickadee (Penthestes atricapillus). This cheerful little bird is five and a half inches long. Its cap and throat are [illustration - Common House Wren. ] [illustration - Robin. ] [illustration - Chickadee. ] black. Its upper parts are gray, its under parts brownish, its cheeks white, no streaks anywhere. It does not migrate, so it is well known in the winter woods of eastern America up to the Canadian region where the Brown-Capped or Hudson Chickadee takes its place. Its familiar song chickadee dee dee has given it its name.

Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelinus). About eight
set1921.2012.291.jpg inches long, cinnamon-brown above, brightest on head, white below, with black spots on breast and sides, this thrush is distinguished from the many thrushes in America much like it, by the reddish head and round black spots on its under sides. It is found in the woods of eastern North America up to Vermont and Minnesota.

Robin (Planesticus migratorius). The Robin is about ten inches long, mostly dark gray in color, but with black on head and tail, its breast is brownish red. The spots [illustration - Wood Thrush. ] [illustration - Bluebird. ] about the eye, also the throat, the belly and the marks in outer tail feathers are white. Its mud nest is known in nearly every orchard. Found throughout the timbered parts of America north to the limit of trees.

Bluebird (Sialia sialis). About seven inches long, brilliant blue above, dull red-brown on breast, white below. Found in eastern North America, north to about latitude 50 degrees in the interior, not so far on the coast.

How to Stuff a Bird

(By E. T. S. from Country Life, July, 1904)

A boy found a bird that was lying dead in the woods. Its beautiful plumage, its form and its markings delighted his eye. He carried it home to show to his mother and to ask its name. She admired it with him but she could not tell him what it was, and at length said, "Now go and bury it before it begins to smell."

The boy had not given a thought to the history of the bird, nor had its death caused him a touch of sorrow. He was interested in it as a strange and beautiful thing, and the idea of burying all that beauty, or—worse—seeing it corrupt, now gave him a deep regret.

"How I wish I knew how to stuff it," he said, feeling that then he might always renew his present enjoyment. He was expressing the feeling of most young people when they see a dead bird. All would like to save its beautiful plumage at least. They know it can be done, but have
set1921.2012.293.jpg an idea that it is a very difficult thing. In a sense this is true. It is so difficult to stuff a bird well, that not many men in the world to-day can do it. As with all arts, there can be but few masters. But the main process itself is easy to learn; and if the boy who tries to do it fails in making a life-like bird of his specimen, he at least does three things: he saves its beautiful plumage; he adds to his bird acquaintance; and he gains a keener appreciation of the work of others.

While each taxidermist has his own methods, all agree in the main. The directions here given are those, recommended by good authorities, and that I have found most practical in my own work.

There are two ways of preserving a bird:

• (a) By making a skin.
• (b) By mounting the bird.

MAKING A SKIN

The first is removing and preserving the skin in such a way that it may always serve to show what the bird's Plumage is like.

Most naturalists prefer to keep their specimens as skins, not only because it is easier and cheaper to do so, but because then they take up less room, and the skin may be properly mounted at any later time.

These are the tools and materials used in making a skin:

A sharp knife, a pair of stout, short scissors, and a pair of small forceps. (It is, however, quite possible to dispense with all but the knife and scissors in making a bird skin. I rarely use any tool but the scissors.)

For materials you will need cotton wool, needle and thread, arsenical soap (some naturalists prefer dry white arsenic) and cornmeal (or fine hardwood sawdust). Some
set1921.2012.294.jpg plaster of paris and benzine will also be required if the specimen is soiled with grease.

The hardest birds to begin on are the very large ones, and the next hardest, perhaps, are the very small ones. The easiest birds are those about the size of a robin or bluejay (leaving out the woodpeckers).

Supposing the specimen to be skinned is a robin:

First put a little plug of cotton wool in its throat and mouth, also into any wounds the bird may have, to stanch the flow of blood, etc. This should be done the moment the bird comes into your possession.

Now lay the bird on its back, tail toward your right hand, part the feathers, and make a slit from near the end of the breast-bone into the vent (S.V. Fig. 1 p. 356), taking care to cut only the skin, not the walls of the abdomen. Separate the skin from the flesh by pushing it with the finger nail or knife-blade. As soon as the flesh is exposed, put a pinch of meal on it to keep the feathers from sticking, and also to soak up oil, blood, etc. Some use plaster for this; but plaster is disagreeable under the finger nails, it takes the gloss off the feathers, and if the specimen happens to be a game-bird it injures the meat for the table. The plaster is better however for white, fluffy birds, as meal or sawdust lodges in the down.

Push the skin from the body till the leg is reached. Work the leg out of the skin till the knee-joint is clear on the inside of the skin; (H L, Fig. 2) cut the leg off at the knee, taking great care not to cut or tear the skin. The severed leg now hangs to the skin. When both legs are thus cut, work around the base of the tail, freeing the skin. Then cut straight through the bone and all, with the scissors, at the part marked with arrow and black line in Fig. 3 ó leaving the tail bone with the tail hanging to the skin.

set1921.2012.295.jpg

This is one of the most difficult parts of the skinning. It is so hard to get at, and so easy to tear the skin, that one is to be congratulated if in the first lesson he safely "rounds Cape Horn."

At all stages keep the meal applied to the body as fast as it is exposed, and in quantity enough to soak up all moisture; and avoid stretching the skin.

With the tail and legs free, there is no difficulty in pushing the skin off until stopped by the wings.

Cut them off at the shoulder joint deep in the muscles of the breast (W. W, Fig. 4), leaving them attached to the skin, just as the legs and tail are.

The skin is now inside out. It can readily be worked along the neck and onto the head. Here it is stopped by the cars. In the robin these are like pockets of skin tucked into the small skull and may be easily pulled out Without cutting. In large birds the knife must be used. The next and last difficulty is the eyes. The skin must be cut free from them, carefully avoiding injury to the eyelids or the eyeballs.

Now the skin is attached only to the forepart of the skull (Fig. 4). Cut off the neck at the back of the skull and the skin is freed from the body, but needs careful cleaning.

Dig the eyes out of the sockets, taking great care not to break the eyeballs, as their liquid is very difficult to remove from the feathers. Cut out a section of the skull so as to enlarge the hole behind by extending it downward and sideways, as shown in Fig. 5, and remove the brains through this. Cut off any lumps of flesh left about the jaws, but do not break the jaw bone or its joints.

Next turn attention to the wings. Push the skin back to the first joint (the elbow) in each. Cut and scrape the meat from the bone. But there is a joint beyond
set1921.2012.296.jpg [illustration - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Skinning and stuffing a Robin ]
set1921.2012.297.jpg this— the one that corresponds with our forearm. This must be reached in a different way. There are two bones in this, and the space between them is full of meat. The quill feathers on its under side hold the skin tight. In birds up to the size of a robin, this can be cut out after the skin is forced a little farther back than the elbow joint on the upper side, but in large birds it is well to slit the skin under the wing from X to J (Fig. 1), along the line between the two bones.

Clean off the leg bones in the same way as the first wing Joint, turning the skin back as far as the heel joint (H in Fig. 2). Carefully scrape off any lumps of fat left on the skin, and especially remove the grease and flesh about the tail bones.

Now this is the time I have usually found most convenient to remove stains from the plumage.

If of blood, hold the stained feathers on the inside run of a cup of lukewarm water and wash till clear. Then dry the feathers with cornmeal. The shaking and turning they get in the next operation will make them fluff out as before.

If the stain is grease, use a cream made of benzine and plaster of Paris. Let this dry on the feathers. It dries as powder and falls off, taking the grease with it.

The next thing I now do is to tie the wing bones with a stout linen thread, so that their ends are shackled together as far apart as in life, (Fig. 6.) Some do not do this, but it strengthens the skin, and I find it a great help in several ways.

Now comes the poisoning. After trying dry arsenic for long, I have come back to the old-fashioned arsenical rap. It is much less liable to poison any one, since it is not blown about by the wind. It does not look like anything but soap and hence is unlikely to be mistaken
set1921.2012.298.jpg for something good to eat. And last of all the soap in it takes care of the grease in the skin.

Every part of the under side of the skin and of the bones exposed is to be painted with this cream of the soap. It is well now to lay a thin film of cotton over the skin or sprinkle it lightly with sawdust to keep the feathers from sticking in the soap.

Make two tight round plugs of cotton each as big as the eyeball, put one into each eye-socket.

Now push the head back into its place. This is easy when the neck is slippery with the soap. Work the wing and legs back into their places after wrapping each of the bones with enough cotton to take the place of the flesh cut off. This wrapping is not necessary with very small birds, but the larger the bird, the more it is needed.

Make a neck of the cotton, push it with the forceps up the neck skin, and well into the skull. Let it hang Into the body part, under the string that joins the wing bones. Push another soft wad up the neck and into the throat.

Shape a large piece of cotton for the body; set it in place, and draw the skin gently over it till the opening is closed. In large birds it is well to stitch this up, but it is not needed in small ones. All that is needed now is the prinking. Use a needle through the openings of the eyes to fluff out the cotton balls in each, till they fill out the sides of the head properly.

Set the innermost wing bones parallel with each other. Aim to arrange the feathers by arranging the skin and bones to which they are attached, rather than by prinking the feathers themselves.

If the wing was slit open as at X J, (Fig. I), fill the space with cotton and close with a few stitches.

If at any time it is necessary to leave the specimen half
set1921.2012.299.jpg finished, wrap it in a damp cloth and put it in a close tin box. This will keep it from getting dry.

In skinning large birds, a strong hook, attached to a string from the wall in front and above, is a great help. As soon as the tail is cut off stick this hook into the bony pelvis. It holds the bird away from you and answers as a third hand.

Finally, make a little shroud out of a sheet of cotton and wrap the bird in this before setting it to dry.

Cross the legs as in Fig. 7, and attach a label to these, giving date, sex and place where the bird was taken.

The work is now done. But it is wise to lift the skin the next morning and see if all goes well. In a few days it will be dry and safe from ordinary corruption, but must be protected from moth and insects.

This is a museum skin. It can be kept indefinitely in this shape, or at any time it can be softened up and mounted.

MOUNTING THE BIRD

For mounting the bird some additional tools and materials are needed, namely:

• A pair of wire cutters.
• A pair of pliers.
• A file,
• Some glass eyes,
• Some annealed or soft iron wire of several sizes,
• Some tow, and a ball of stout packthread with needle to match.
• A few ordinary carpenter tools are needed to make the stand, but that is another department.

The firstpart of the mounting is the skinning carried out exactly as in making the skin, up to the point where the cotton is put in Now there is a difference. You
set1921.2012.300.jpg cannot put a wire through cotton, therefore use no cotton in a bird to be mounted; use tow instead. Plug the eyes, wrap the legs and wings as before, but with tow.

If it is a dry skin that is to be mounted remove the cotton body and replace it with a lump of cotton soaked with water. Wrap damp cloth or cotton around the outside of each leg, and on the bend of each wing. Shut this up in a tin box for twenty-four hours and it will be soft and can be treated like a fresh skin.

Cut a wire (of stovepipe size) about a foot long. File a sharp point at one end and bend the other end into a hook (Fig. 8). Take tow in long strips and lash it tight over, around and through the hook -- stitching it tight and binding it on with plenty of packthread ó until you have a body the size and shape of the one you took out of the robin, with a neck on it also, like the bird's own neck (Figs. 9 and 10). Of course the real body should be at hand to give the measurements. Keep the neck lower than it appears, because the real neck is supple and drops low between the shoulders in a way not possible for the substitute. This body should be hard enough to hold a pin or needle driven into it; indeed some taxidermists use bodies carved out of cork.

Put the point of the wire up the neck, and out through the top of the skull between the eyes (N. W. Fig. 11). Gently work the neck up to the back of the skull and the body into its place.

Now make two other sharpened wires. Work one 11P through each foot under the skin of the leg, under the wrapping, and on straight through the hard body ó it enters about the middle of I he side (X in Fig. 9). When this is far enough through clinch it and drive it back firmly into the body; taking care to avoid tearing the skin, by casing up the leg on the wire, as it is drawn back.

set1921.2012.301.jpg

Do the same for the other leg. Get the tail into its right place; drive a sharpened 3-inch wire through the pope's nose or tail bone into the body to hold it there; work the skin together till the opening can be closed with a few stitches; and now we are ready for the stand. The simplest is the best for the present purpose. A piece of a board slightly hollowed on the under side is got ready in a few minutes. With an awl bore two holes through this about one inch apart and run a foot-wire through each. Clinch them on the under side, fastening them firmly with tacks or small staples. Now we are ready to give the robin its natural pose. This is done by bending the wires in the neck and legs. A wire or a large pin will have to be driven into each wing to hold it to the side, at least while drying (X, Fig. II); and another in the middle of the back (B P, Fig. II).

The prinking of the specimen is now done chiefly with needles reaching through the feathers to the skin. Pins may be driven into the body anywhere to hold the skin or feathers in place; and cotton thread may be lashed around the body or the wings and around the projecting wire till everything is held in the position that is wished. Then the bird is set away to dry.

In a week the specimen should be ready for the finishing touch—the putting in of the eyes. A plug of damp cotton is fastened on each eye-place the night before. In the morning the eyelids are once more soft. The eyes are put through the opening in the sockets, the lids neatly set around them. Some prefer to set them in a bed of putty or plaster of pans. Cut off the projecting wires flush, so that the feathers hide what is left, remove the thread lashings and the mounting of the robin is finished.

The process is much the same for all birds, but the larger
set1921.2012.302.jpg the bird the more difficult. Seabirds, ducks, and divers are usually opened at the back or under the side. Wood. peckers and owls and some others have the head so large that it will not come through the neck skin. This calls for a slit down the nape of the neck, which, of course, is carefully sewn up in finishing.

If the bird is to have its wings spread, each wing must be wired to the body in the way already set forth for the legs.

If the bill keeps open when you want it shut, put a pin through the lower jaw into the palate toward the part in front of the eyes, or even wind a thread around the bill behind the pin (see Fig. II).

The mistakes of most beginners are: making the neck too long, stuffing it too full, or putting the body so fai into it as to stretch the skin and show bare places.

To make good accessories for a group of mounted bird: is another very special business. It involves a knowledge of wax flowers, imitation woods, water, stones, etc., and is scarcely in the line of the present book. Therefore the beginner is advised to use the simplest wooden stands.

Not every one has the taste for natural history, but those who have will find great pleasure in preserving their birds. They are not urged to set about making a collection, but simply to preserve such specimens as fall in their way. In time these will prove to be many, and when mounted they will be a lasting joy to the youthful owner. If the museum should grow too large for the house, there arc many public institutions that will be glad to offer their hospitality and protection.

There is, moreover, a curious fatality attending a beginner's collection. It hardly ever fails. He speedily has the good luck to secure some rare and wonderful specimen that has eluded the lifelong quest of the trained and professional expert.

set1921.2012.303.jpg (From Country Life, June 1904)

OWL-STUFFING PLATE (P. 280)

• Fig. 1. The dead owl, showing the cuts made in skinning it: A to B, for the body; El to H, on each wing, to remove the meat of the second joint.
• Fig. 2. After the skinning is done, the skull remains attached to the skin, which is now inside out. The neck and body are cut off at Ct. Sn to Sn shows the slit in the nape needed for owls and several other birds.
• Fig. 3. Top view of the tow body, neck end up, and neck wire projecting.
• Fig. 4. Side view of the tow body, with the neck wire put through it. The tail end is downward.
• Fig. 5. The heavy iron wire for neck.
• Fig. 6. The owl after the body is put in. It is now ready to close up, by stitching up the slit on the nape, the body slit B to C, and the two wing slits El to H on each wing.
• Fig. 7. A dummy as it would look if all the feathers were off. This shows the proper position for legs and wings on the body. At W is a glimpse of the leg wire entering the body at the middle of the side.
• Fig. 8. Another view of the body without feathers. The dotted lines show the wires of the legs through the hard body, and the neck wire.
• Fig. 9. Two views of one of the eyes. These are on a much larger scale than the rest of the figures in this plate.
• Fig. 10. The finished owl, with the thread wrappings on and the wires still projecting. Nw is end of the neck wire. Bp is back-pin, that is, the wire in the centre of the back, Ww and Ww are the wing wires. TI are the cards pinned on the tail to hold it flat while it dries. In the last operation remove the thread and cut all these wires off close, so that the feathers hide what remains.

STUFFING AN ANIMAL

Mounting a mammal, popularly called animal, is a much more difficult thing than mounting—that is, stuffing— a bird.

PRESERVING SMALL MAMMAL SKINS

By Dr. C. Hart Merriam

Directions for Measurement

The tools necessary for measuring mammals are a pair of compasses or dividers, a steel rule graduated in millimeters, and two large pins. Dividers with round points are better than those with triangular points.

All measurements should give the distance in a straight line between the points indicated. They should be taken by means of dividers, or by driving pins into a board to mark the points between which the measurement is desired. They should never be made with a tape-line over the convexities or inequalities of the surface.

The three most important measurements, and those which should always be taken in the flesh are:

• (1) total length;
• (2) length of tail;
• (3) length of hind foot.

set1921.2012.306.jpg [illustration - Fig. 2. ] [illustration - Fig. 4. ] [illustration - Fig. 3. ] [illustration - Fig. 1. How to measure a small mammal ]
set1921.2012.307.jpg

• (i) The TOTAL LENGTH is the distance between the tip of the nose and the end of the tail vertebra. It is taken by laying the animal on a board, with its nose against a pin or upright post, and by straightening the back and tail by extending the hind legs with one hand while holding the head with the other; a pin is then driven into the board at the end of the vertebrae. (See Fig. 2.)
• (2) The LENGTH OF TAIL is the length of the caudal vertebrae. It is taken by erecting the tail at right angle to the back, and placing one point of the dividers on the backbone at the very root of the tail, the other at the tip end of the vertebra. (See Fig. 3.)
• (3) The HIND FOOT is measured by placing one point of the dividers against the end of the heel (calcaneum), the other at the tip of the longest claw, the foot being flattened for this purpose. (See Fig. 4.)

DIRECTIONS FOR THE PREPARATION OF SKINS

Skin all mammals as soon as possible after death.

Lay the animal on its back, and make an incision along the middle of the belly from just behind the fore legs nearly to the vent. Be careful not to stretch the skin while removing it, and exercise great caution in skinning around the eyes and lips, which are easily cut. Skin as far down on the feet as possible, but leave in the bones of the legs. Remove the bone from the tail by pulling it between the fingers (in the larger species a split stick answers well). Take out the skull, being careful not to cut or injure it in any way, and wash out the brains by means of a syringe or jet of water. Remove the tongue, and cut off the thick flesh from the sides and base of the skull. Tie a tag to the skull, bearing the same number
set1921.2012.308.jpg that is attached to the skin, and dry in the shade. In damp weather it is sometimes necessary to use powdered borax to prevent the remaining flesh from decomposing. Never put arsenic or salt on a skull.

Remove all fat and tags of flesh that adhere to the skin. In cleaning off blood or dirt that may have soiled the hair an old toothbrush and a liberal supply of cornmeal will be found serviceable.

Poison all parts of the skin with dry arsenic (or better still, with a mixture of powdered arsenic and alum in the proportion of four parts arsenic to one part alum), being particular to put an extra supply in the feet and tail. Put a wire in the body, letting it extend to the extreme tip of the tail, but he careful not to stretch the tail. Use annealed iron wire of as large size as will fit easily into the tip end of the tail. In rabbits, foxes, and wildcats put wires in the legs also.

Stuff the skin to nearly its natural size with cotton or tow (never use wool, feathers, or other animal substances); sew it up along the belly, and place it flat on a board to dry (belly down), with the fore legs extended in front and parallel to the body (i. e., not projecting sideways), and the hind legs and tail directed backward. The accompanying cut (Fig. I) shows the appearance of a well-made skin.

Attach to each skin a label hearing the same number that is given the skull. On this label should be stated the sex, locality, date of capture (name of month should always be written in full), and name of collector.

All skins should be thoroughly dry before they are packed for shipment. They should be carefully wrapped cotton and packed in small wooden boxes. Cigar-boxes do very well for the smaller species.

WASHINGTON, D. C., March, 1889.

set1921.2012.309.jpg

TRAPPING ANIMALS

Trapping wild animals with steel traps is a wretchedly cruel business and will doubtless be forbidden by law before long. The old-fashioned deadfall which kills the animal at once is quite sufficient for all the legitimate work of a trapper. But many boys wish to capture animals alive without doing them any injury, and this is easily managed for most species if a ketchalive is used. The [illustration - Section of Boxtrap or Ketchalive Wooden Trigger Ketchalive (set) ] ketchalive or old-fashioned box trap is made in a hundred different ways; but the main principles are shown in the illustration. The lock on the side is necessary for some species, such as skunks, that would easily lift the lid and escape.

For skunks, cats, weasels, mink, rats, etc., use a piece of chicken as bait.

For rabbits use bread, turnip, apple, or other vegetable.

The trap should be visited every morning or not used at all.

THE SECRETS OF THE TRAIL

It was Fenimore Cooper who first put the good Indian on paper— who called the attention of the world to the Wonderful woodcraft of these most wonderful savages.
set1921.2012.310.jpg It was he who made white men realize how far they had got away from the primitive. It was he who glorified the woodman and his craft. Yet nowhere do we find in Cooper's novels any attempt to take us out and show us this woodcraft. He is content to stand with us afar off and point it out as something to be worshiped— to point it out and let it die.

Fenimore Cooper has had many imitators, just as Uncas has had many successors. The fine art of trailing is still maintained in the Far West, and it has always seemed strange to me that none has endeavored to give it permanent record, other than superlative adjectives of outside praise.

TRAILING

What is trailing? The fox-hunter has some idea when he sees a superb pack follow a faint scent through a hundred perplexing places, discerning just which way the fox went, and about how long ago. The detective does another kind of trailing when he follows some trifling clue through the world of thought, tracing the secret of an unknown man along an invisible path, running it to earth at last in the very brain that conceived it. In his trailing the Indian uses the senses of the "animal" to aid the brain of the man. To a great extent his eyes do the work of the hound's nose, but the nose is not idle. When the trail disappears, he must do the human detective work; but under all circumstances his brains must be backed by the finest senses, superb physique, and ripe experience, or he cannot hope to overmatch his prey.

HARD TO PHOTOGRAPH TRACKS

When, in 1882, I began my dictionary of tracks (see "Life Histories of Northern Animals"), I found that there was
set1921.2012.311.jpg no literature on the subject. All facts had to be gathered directly from Nature. My first attempts at recording tracks were made with pencil and paper. Next, realizing how completely the pencil sketch is limited by one's own knowledge, I tried photography; but it invariably happens that not one track in ten thousand is fit for photographing, and it cannot be taken except when the sun is about thirty degrees above the horizon—that is, high enough to make a picture, and low enough to cast a shadow of every detail. Thus photography was possible only for about an hour in the early morning and an hour in the late afternoon. But the opportunity in the meanwhile usually was gone. I then tried making a plaster cast of the tracks in the mud. Only one such in a million was castable. As a matter of fact, none of the finest were in the mud; and the much more interesting dust-tracks were never within reach of this method. For most practical purposes I have been forced to make my records by drawing the tracks.

NO TWO TRACKS ALIKE

The trailer's first task is to learn the trails he means to follow. The Red Indian and the Bushman, of course, simply memorize them from their earliest days, but we find it helpful and much easier to record them in some way. Apart from other considerations, a form is always better comprehended if we reproduce it on paper. As a general principle, no two kinds of animals leave the same track. As a matter of fact, no two individuals leave the same just as surely as there are differences in size and disposition, so there will be corresponding differences in its trail; but this is refining beyond the purposes of practicability in most cases, and for the present we may be satisfied to consider it a general rule that each species
set1921.2012.312.jpg leaves its own clearly recognizable track. One of my daily pastimes when the snow is on the ground—which is the easiest and ideal time for the trailer, and especially for the beginner —is to take up some trail early in the morning and follow it over hill and dale, carefully noting any change and every action as written in the snow, and it is a wonderfully rewarding way of learning the methods and life of an animal. The trail records with perfect truthfulness everything that he did or tried to do at a time when he was unembarrassed by the nearness of his worst enemy. The trail is an autobiographic chapter of the creature's life, written unwittingly, indeed, and in perfect sincerity.

Whenever in America during the winter I have found myself with time to pass between trains, I endeavor to get out into the country, and rarely fail to find and read one of these more or less rewarding chapters, and thus get an insight into the life of the animal, as well as into the kinds that are about; for most quadrupeds are nocturnal, and their presence is generally unsuspected by those who do not know how to read the secrets of the trail.

DOG AND CAT

The first trails to catch the eye and the best for first study are those nearest home. Two well-marked types are the tracks of cat and dog. Most anatomists select the cat as the ideal of muscular and bony structure. It is the perfect animal, and its track also is a good one to use for standard. (Illustration I, p. 290.)

In these separate prints the roundness of the toe-pads tells the softness; their spread from each other shows the suppleness of the toes; the absence of claw-marks tells of the retractability of these weapons. The front and hind
set1921.2012.313.jpg feet are equal in length, but the front feet are broader. This is the rule among true quadrupeds. The series of tracks—that is, its trail—shows the manner of the cat in walking. In this the animal used apparently but two legs, because the hind foot falls exactly on the trail made by the front foot, each track being really doubled. This is perfect tracking. There are several advantages in it. Every teamster knows that a wagon whose hind wheels do not exactly follow the front wheels is a very bad wagon to haul in sand, snow, or mud. The trail for it has to be broken twice, and the labor increased, some say, 50 per cent. This same principle holds good in the case of the cat track: by correct following the animal moves more easily. But there is still a more important reason. A hunting cat sneaking through the woods after prey must keep its eyes on the woods ahead or on the prey itself. At the very most it may pick out a smooth, safe, silent place for its front feet to tread on. Especially at the climax of the hunt all its senses are focussed on the intended victim; it cannot select a safe spot for each hind foot in turn, even though the faintest crunch of a dry leaf will surely spoil the stalk. But there is no danger of that; the cat can see the spots selected for the front feet, and the hind feet are so perfectly trained that they seek unerringly the very same spots—the safe places that the front feet have just left. Thus perfect stepping is silent stepping, and is essential to all creatures that stalk their prey. The opposite kind of stepping is seen in very heavy animals Which frequent marshy ground; to them it would be a positive disadvantage to set the hind foot in the tread of the front foot, where so much of the support has just been destroyed. The ox illustrates this. These principles are applicable in geology, where the trails are the only biographical records of certain species. From the manner
set1921.2012.314.jpg [illustration - front foot hind foor No. 1 Cat. front foot hind foot No. 2 Dog. ]
set1921.2012.315.jpg of setting the feet we can distinguish the predacious and the marsh-frequenting quadrupeds.

The next track likely to be seen is that of the dog (Illustration 2). In this the harder, less pliant foot and the non-retractile claws are clearly seen. But the trail shows the dog is not a correct walker. His tracks are "out of register" as a printer would say. And he has a glaring defect—the result no doubt of domestication, of long generations on pavements and in houses—he drags his toes. All these things contribute to make the dog a noisy walker in the woods.

WOLF

It is well at this time to compare the track of the dog with that of the wolf. I have made dozens of drawings, casts, prints, photographs, and studies of wolf and dog tracks; and have not found a single reliable feature that will distinguish them. One hunter says the wolf has the relatively small outer toes. Yes, sometimes; but not when compared with a collie. Another says that the wolf's foot is longer; but not when compared with that of a greyhound, staghound, or lurcher. Another, the wolf's foot is larger; yet it will not rank in size with that of a St. Bernard or a great Dane. The wolf lifts his feet neatly without dragging his toes; but so do many dogs, especially country dogs. Thus all these diagnostics fail. On the whole a wolf is a better walker than a dog. His tracks do usually register, but not always, and in some wolves rarely.

If a wolf-track in the snow be followed for a mile or two, It Will be found to go cautiously up to an unusual or promising object. (Illustration 3.) It is obviously the trail of a suspicious, shy creature while the dog-trail
set1921.2012.316.jpg is direct, and usually unafraid. But this does not apply to the dogs which poach or kill sheep. There is therefore no sure means of distinguishing them, [illustration - No. 3 Dog and Wolf. ] even in the wilderness. One can only judge by probabilities.

I have often heard inexperienced hunters boast that they could "tell them every time"; but old hunters usually say, "No man can tell for sure."

set1921.2012.317.jpg

RABBITS AND HARES

America is well provided with rabbits and hares. A score or more of species arc now recognized, and two very well-known types are the cottontail of the woods and the jack-rabbit of the plains.

The cottontail is much like an English rabbit, but it is a little smaller, has shorter ears, and the whole under part of the tail is glorified into a fluffy, snowy powder-puff. It leads the life of a hare, not making burrows, but entering burrows at times under the stress of danger. The track of a New England cottontail is given in Illustration 4.

As the cottontail bounds, the hind feet track ahead of the front feet, and the faster he goes the faster ahead his hind feet get. This is true of all quadrupeds that bound, but is more obvious in the rabbits, because the fore and hind feet differ so much in size.

The jack-rabbit of Kansas is the best known of the long-eared jacks. His trail, compared with that of the cottontail, would be as in Illustrations 5 and 6.

The greater size of the marks and the double length of the bounds are the obvious but not important differences, because a young jack would come down to the cottontail standard. The two reliable differences I found are:

First, the jack's feet are rarely paired when he is bounding at full speed, while the cottontail pairs his hind feet but not his front ones. (Animals which climb usually pair their front feet in running, just as tree-birds hop when on the ground.)

Second, the stroke that is shown (x in Illustration 5) Is diagnostic of the southern jack-rabbit; it is the mark made by the long hanging tail.

Each of the four types of hare common in the temperate
set1921.2012.318.jpg [illustration - No. 4 Cottontail. No. 5 Jack-rabbit No.6 No. 7 ]
set1921.2012.319.jpg parts of America has its own style of tail and fashion of wearing it:

The northern or white-tailed jack carries his snowy- white tail out straight behind, so its general pure-white is visible;

The southern or black-tailed jack has his tail jet-black on the upper part, and he carries it straight down;

The varying hare has an inconsequent, upturned tuft, like a tear in his brown pantaloons, showing the white undergarment;

The cottontail has his latter end brown above, but he keeps it curled up tight on his back, so as to show nothing but the gleaming white puff of cotton on a helpful background of rich brown. The cottontail's tail never touches the ground except when he sits down on it.

The most variable features of any animal are always its most specialized features. The jack-rabbit's tail-piece is much subject to variation, and the length and depth of the little intertrack-ial dash that it makes in the snow is a better guide to the individual that made it than would be the tracks of all four feet together.

THE NEWTON JACK-RABBIT

During February of 1902, I found myself with a day, to spare in the hotel office at Newton, Kan. I asked the usual question, "Any wild animals about here?" and got the usual answer, "No, all been shot off." I walked down the street four blocks from the hotel, and found a jack-rabbit trail in the snow. Later I found some cottontail tracks, though still in town. I walked a mile into the country, met an old farmer who said that "No rabbits were ever found around here." A quarter of a mile away was an orchard, and beside it a fence half buried it
set1921.2012.320.jpg in snow drifts that were yellow with tall dead grass sticking through. This was promising, so I went thither, and on the edge of the drift found a jack-rabbit form or den, with fresh tracks leading out and away at full speed. There were no tracks leading in, so he must have gone in there before the last snow came, and that was the night before.

When a jack runs without fear of any enemy at hand, he goes much like a fox or an antelope, leaving a trail, as in No. 5. But when an enemy is close at hand he runs with long, low hops, from six to seven in succession, then gives an upright leap to take an observation, leaving a trail thus. (Illustration 7.)

A silly young jack will lose time by taking one in three for observation, but a clever old fellow is content with one in ten. Here was the trail of this jack straight away, but taking about one observation in twelve hops. He had made a fence a quarter-mile off, and there had sat for some time observing, had then taken alarm and run toward a farmyard, a quarter-mile farther, taking occasional observations. A dog was lying on a doorstep by the road, and past this dog he had run, doing twenty-foot leaps. Two hundred yards down this road he had turned abruptly, as though a human still in sight had scared him. I now began to think the jack was near at hand, although so far I had not seen him. The trail led through several barbed- wire fences and some hedges, then made for another barnyard half a mile off. I was now satisfied that he was only a little ahead of me, therefore I ceased watching the track so closely, watching rather the open plain ahead; and far on, under a barbed-wire fence, sitting up watching me, I soon saw my jack. He ran at once, and the line of his hops, was so—(Illustration 8)—the high ones being for observation.

[illustration - No. 8. ]
set1921.2012.321.jpg

He never let me get within two hundred yards, and he wasted but little time in observation. He had now taken me on a two-mile circuit and brought me back to the starting point. So he had taught me this—a cunning old jack-rabbit lived in the region around which I had followed him, for they keep to their homeground. All his ways of running and observing, and of using barbed- [illustration - No. 9. Where the Jack-rabbit's track was doubled ] wire fences, barnyards, and hedges, showed that he was very clever; but the best proof of that was in the fact that he could live and flourish on the edge of a town that was swarming with dogs and traveled over daily by men with guns.

The next day I had another opportunity of going to the jack-rabbit's home region. I did not see himself; but
set1921.2012.322.jpg I saw his fresh tracks. Later, I saw these had joined on to the fresh tracks of another rabbit. I sketched all the salient points and noted how my big jack had followed the other. They had dodged about here and there, and then one had overtaken the other, and the meeting had been the reverse of unfriendly. I give the record that I sketched out there in the snow. I may be wrong, but I argue from this that the life of the hardy jack was not without its pleasures. (Illustration 9.)

FOX

Of more general interest perhaps is the track of the fox. I have spent many days —yes, and nights—on the trail, following, following patiently, reading this life of the beast, using notebook at every important march and change. Many an odd new sign has turned up to be put on record and explained by later experience. Many a day has passed with nothing tangible in the way of reward; then, as in all hunting, there has come a streak of luck, a shower of facts and abundant reward for the barren weeks gone by, an insight into animal ways and mind that could not have been obtained in any other way. For here it is written down by the animal itself in the oldest of all writing—a chapter of the creature's normal life.

One day, soon after the snow had come, I set out on one of the long decipherments. The day before I had followed a fox-trail for three or four miles, to learn only that he tacked up wind and smelt at every log, bump, and tree that stuck through the snow; that he had followed a white hare at full speed, but was easily left behind when the hare got into his ancient safety—the scrubby, brushy woods.

set1921.2012.323.jpg

This morning I took up another fox-trail. The frost was intense, the snow was dry and powdery and as each foot was raised it fell back; so that the track was merely shapeless dimples in the whiteness. No tell-tale details of toes and claws were there, but still I knew it for a fox-trail. It was too small for a coyote. There were but two others that might have been confounded with it; one a very large house-cat, the other a very small house dog.

The fox has the supple paw of the cat. It spreads even more, but it shows the long, intractile claws. As a stepper the fox ranks close to the cat. His trail is noted also for its narrowness— that is, the feet are set nearly in one straight line. This in a trail usually means a swift animal; while the badly spread marks, seen at a maximum in the badger, stand for great but sluggish strength. (Illustration 10.)

The region put the cat out of the reckoning. Besides, at one or two places, the paw had grazed the snow, showing two long furrows, the marks of claws that do not sheathe: dog-marks, perhaps, but never a cat's. The marks were aligned like a cat's, but were fourteen inches apart, while it is rare for a cat to step more than ten.

They were not dog-marks: first, the probabilities were against it; second, the marks were nearly in a line, showing a chest too narrow for a dog. Then the toes did not drag, though there was four inches of snow. The register could not be distinguished, but there was one feature that settled all doubt—the big, soft, shallow marks 01 the fox's brush, sometimes sweeping the snow at every yard, sometimes not at all for fifty steps, and telling me with certainty, founded in part on the other things— "This is the trail of a fox."

Which way is he going? is the next question, not easy
set1921.2012.324.jpg to answer when the toe-marks do not show; but this is settled by the faint claw-marks already noted. If still in doubt, I can follow till the fox chances on some place under a thick tree or on ice where there is very little snow, and here a distinct impression may be found. I have [illustration - No. 10. ] often seen a curiously clear track across ice made by a gentle breeze blowing away all the snow except that pressed down hard by the impact of the toes, so that the black ice under has a row of clear-cut, raised tracks, a line of fox-track cameos, cut sharp on a black-ice base.

set1921.2012.325.jpg

THE FOX'S HUNT

For a mile or two I followed my fox. Nothing happened. I got only the thought that his life was largely made up of nose investigation and unfavorable reports from the committee in charge. Then we came to a long, sloping hollow. The fox trotted down this, and near its lower end he got a nose report of importance for he had swung to the right and gone slowly—so said the short steps—zigzagging up the wind. Within fifteen feet, the tacks in the course shortened from four or five feet to nothing, and ended in a small hole in a bank. From this the fox had pulled out a common, harmless garter-snake, torpid, curled up there doubtless to sleep away the winter. The fox chopped the snake across the spine with his powerful meat-cutters, killed it thus, dropped it on the snow, and then, without eating a morsel of it as far as I could see, he went on with his hunt. (Illustration 11 A.)

Why he should kill a creature that he could not eat I could not understand. I thought that ferocious sort of vice was limited to man and weasels, but clearly the fox was guilty of the human crime.

The dotted guide led me now, with many halts and devious turns, across a great marsh that had doubtless furnished many a fattened mouse in other days, but now the snow and ice forbade the hunt. On the far end the country was open in places, with clumps of timber, and into this, from the open marsh, had blown a great bank of soft and drifted snow.

Manitoban winters are not noted for their smiling geniality or profusion of outdoor flowers. Frost and snow are sure to come early and continue till spring. The thermometer may be for weeks about zero point. It
set1921.2012.326.jpg may on occasion dip down to thirty, yes, even forty, degrees below, and whenever with that cold there also comes a gale of wind, it conjures up the awful tempest of the snow that is now of world-wide fame as—the blizzard. [illustration - No. 11.The record of the Fox's hunt ] The blizzard is a terror to wild life out on the plains. When it comes the biggest, strongest, best clad, rush for shelter. They know that to face it means death. The prairie chickens or grouse have learned the lesson long ago. What shelter can they seek? There is only one— an Eskimo
set1921.2012.327.jpg shelter —a snow house. They can hide in the shelter of the snow.

As the night comes, with the fearful frost and driving clouds of white, the chickens dive into a snowdrift; not on the open plain, for there the snow is hammered hard by the wind, but on the edge of the woods, where tall grass spears or scattering twigs stick up through and keep the snow from packing. Deep in this the chickens dive, each making a place for itself. The wind wipes out all traces, levels off each hole and hides them well. There they remain till morning, warm and safe, unless—and here is the chief danger—some wild animal comes by during the night, finds them in there, and seizes them before they can escape.

This chapter of grouse history was an old story to the fox and coming near the woodland edge, his shortened steps showed that he knew it for a Land of Promise. (Illustration 11, B.)

At C he came to a sudden stop. Some wireless message on the wind had warned him of game at hand. He paused here with foot upraised. I knew it, for there was his record of the act. The little mark there was not a track, but the paw-tip's mark, showing that the fox had not set the foot down, but held it poised in a pointer-dog pose, as his nose was harkening to the tell-tale wind.

Then from C to D he went slowly, because the steps were so short, and now he paused: the promising scent was lost. He stood in doubt, so said the tell-tale snow in the only universal tongue. Then the hunter turned and slowly worked toward E, while frequent broad touches in the snow continued the guarantee that the maker of these tracks was neither docked nor spindle- tailed.

From E to F the shortened steps, with frequent
set1921.2012.328.jpg marks of pause and pose, showed how the scent was warming—how well the fox knew some good thing was near.

At F he stood still for some time with both feet set down in the snow, so it was written. Now was the critical time, and straight up the redolent wind he went, following his nose, cautiously and silently as possible, realizing that now a single heedless step might spoil the hunt.

CLOSING IN

At G were the deeply imprinted marks of both hind feet, showing where the fox sprang just at the moment when, from the spotless snowdrift just ahead, there broke out two grouse that had been slumbering below. Away they went with a whirr, whirr, fast as wing could bear them; but one was just a foot too slow; the springing fox secured him in the air. At H he landed with him on the prairie, and had a meal that is a fox's ideal in time of plenty; and now, in deep hard winter, it must have been a banquet of delight.

Now for the first time I saw the meaning of the dead garter-snake far back on the trail. Snake at no time is nice eating, and cold snake on a cold day must be a mighty cold meal. Clearly the fox thought so. He would rather take a chance of getting something better. He killed the snake; so it could not get away. It was not likely any one would steal from him that unfragrant carcass, so he would come back and get it later if he must.

But as we see, he did not have to do so. His faith and patience were amply justified. Instead of a cold, unpleasant snake, he fed on a fine hot bird.

Thus I got a long, autobiographical chapter of fox-life by simply following his tracks through the snow (see heading),
set1921.2012.329.jpg [illustration - 1. Tracks of old man. 2. " " a young hunter.3. " " a city woman. 4. " " dog. 5. " " cat. ] [illustration - Snapping Turtle. Brook Turtle. ]
set1921.2012.330.jpg I never once saw the fox himself that made it, and yet 1 know ó and you know ó it to be true as I have told it. Deer. Sheep. Pig. BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECOMMENDED "Tracks in the Snow," By E. T. Seton, St. Nicholas, March, 1888, p. 338, many diagrams, etc. "American Woodcraft," By E. T. Seton. 2 articles on tracks of animals. Ladies' Home Journal. May and June, 1902, many illustrations. "The Life Histories of Northern Animals," Two large volumes by Ernest Thompson Seton, dealing with habits of animals, and give tracks of nearly all. Scribners, T 909. "Tracks and Tracking," Joseph Brunner. "The Official Handbook," Boy Scouts of America. The American News Co. so cents. "Mammals of the Adirondacks," By C. Hart Merriam, M. D. Henry Holt & Co., New York City, Price $2.
set1921.2012.331.jpg XII. Mushrooms, Fungi, or Toadstools Abundance SUPPOSE that during the night a swarm of fairies were to enter our home woods and decorate it on ground and trunk, with the most strange and won- derful fruits, of new sorts, unheard of in shapes and colors, some like fans, with colored lacework, some like carrots, others like green and gold balloons, some like umbrellas, spring bonnets, birds' nests, barbers' poles, and Indian clubs, many like starfish and skulls, others imitating corals and others lilies, bugles, oysters, beefsteaks, and wine cups, resplendent with every color of the rainbow, delicious to eat, coming from nowhere, hanging on no plant and disappearing in a few days leaving no visible seed or remnant we should think it very strange; we might even doubt our eyesight and call it all a pure fairy tale. Yet this very miracle is what happens every year in our land. At least 2,000 different kinds of toadstools or mushrooms spring up in their own mysterious way. Of this 2,000 at least i,000 are good to eat. But ó and here is the dark and dangerous fact ó about a dozen of them are Amanitas, which are known to be deadly poison. And as ill-luck will have it these are the most widely diffused and the most like mushrooms. All the queer freaks, like clubs and corals, the cranks and tomfools, in droll shapes and satanic colors, the funny poisonous looking morels, ink-caps and boleti are good 307
set1921.2012.332.jpg 308 The Book of Woodcraft wholesome food but the deadly Amanitas are like ordinary mushrooms, except that they have grown a little thin, delicate and anxmic. DANGERS The New York papers have told of over twenty deaths this August Non) through toadstool poisoning. The explanation possibly lies in a recorded conversation that took place between a field naturalist and a little Italian who was indiscriminatingly collecting toadstools. "You are not going to eat those toadstools, I hope?" "No! me no eata de toad. My mudder she eata de toad and die; me no eata de toad; me sella de toad." All American boys are brought up with a horror of toadstools that compares only with their horror of snakes and it is perhaps as well. I do not want to send our boys out heedlessly to gather toadstools for the table, but I want to safeguard those who are interested by laying down one or two general rules. This is the classification of toadstools that naturally occurs to the woodcraf ter: Which are eatable and Which are not. Those which are not fit for food, may be so, first, because too hard and woodlike, and, second, because poisonous. The great fact that every boy should know is which are the poisonous toadstools. Mark Twain is credited with suggesting a sure test: "Eat them. If you live they are good, if you die they are poisonous." This is an example of a method that can be conclusive, without being satisfactory. What way can we suggest for general use? First, remember that there is nothing at all in the popular idea that poisonous mushrooms turn silver black.
set1921.2012.333.jpg Mushrooms, Fungi, or Toadstools 309 Next, "not one of the fungi known to be deadly gives warning by appearance or flavor of the presence of poison." (Mcllvaine.) The color of the cap proves nothing. The color of thi spores, however, does tell a great deal; which is unfortunatz as one cannot get a spore print in less than several hours. But it is the first step in identification; therefore the Scout should learn to make a spore print of each species he would experiment with. To make spore prints. Cover some sheets of blue or dark gray paper with a weak solution of gum arabic ó one tablespoonful of dry gum to one pint of water; let this dry. Unless you are in a hurry in which case use it at once. Take the cap of any full-grown toadstool, place it gill side down upon the gummed paper, cover tightly with a bowl or saucer and allow to stand undisturbed for eight or ten hours. The moisture in the plant will soften the gummed surface if it is dry; the spores will be shed and will adhere to it, making a perfect, permanent print. Write the name, date, etc., on it and keep for reference. Some of the papers should be black to show up the white spored kinds. It will be found most practical for the student to divide all mushrooms, not into two, but into three, groups. First. A very small group of about a dozen that are poisonous and must be let alone. Second. A very large group that are good wholesome food. Third. Another very large group that are probably Rood and worthy of trial if it is done judiciously, but have not yet been investigated. Scientists divide them into: Gilled toadstools Pore bearers
set1921.2012.334.jpg 3 To The Book of Woodcraft Spiny toadstools Coral toadstools Puffballs All the virulently poison ones as well as the most delici- ous are in the first group. POISONOUS TOADSTOOLS The only deadly poisonous kinds are the Amanitas. Others may purge and nauseate or cause vomiting, but it is believed that every recorded death from toadstool poisoning was caused by an Amanita, and unfortunately they are not only widespread and abundant, but they are much like the ordinary table mushrooms. They have, however, one or two strong marks: Their stalk always grows out of a "poison cup," which shows either as a cup or as a bulb; they have white or yellow gills, a ring around the stalk, and white spores. First of these is the Deathcup, Destroying Angel, Sure-Death or Deadly Amanita (Amanita phalloides), one and one half to five inches across the cup; three to seven inches high; pure white, green, yellowish, olive, or grayish brown; smooth, but sticky when moist; gills below; spores white; on the stem is an annulus or ring just white the cap, and the long stalk arises out of a hollow bulb or cup; usually it is solitary. A number of forms have been described as separate, but which are considered by Professor Mcllvaine as mere varieties of the phalloides ó namely, the Virulent Amanita (virosa), shining white with a cap at first conical and acute; Spring Amanita (verna), like virosa, but showing a more persistent and closely sheathing remains of the wrapper at the base of the stem; Big-veiled Amanita (magnivelaris), like verna, but has a large persistent annulus, and the bulb
set1921.2012.335.jpg Mushrooms, Fungi, or Toadstools 311 of the stem is elongated tapering downward; the Napkin Amanitas (nappa), volva circularly split; but all will be known by the four characters, poison-cup, ring, white or yellowish gills, and the form shown in the diagram ó and all are deadly poison. Amanita phalloidcs. This wan demon of the woods is probably the deadliest of all vegetable growths. To this pale villain or its kin is traced the responsibility for all deaths on record from toadstool poisoning. There have been cases of recovery when a strong man got but a little of the poison, but any one making a meal of this fungus, when beyond reach of medical aid, has but a poor chance of escape. Its poison is a subtle alkaloid akin to rattlesnake venom, it rarely begins to shovi
set1921.2012.336.jpg 3 12 The Book of Woodcraft its effects, until too late for treatment, the victim is beyond human help, and slowly succumbs. For centuries its nature has been a mystery; it has defied all remedies, only lately have we begun to win a little in the fight with this insidious assassin. There are thousands of tons of delicious food spread in our Fly amanita. woods and pastures every year, and allowed to go to waste because of the well-founded terror of the Deathcup. Every one should make a point of learning its looks and smashing all he can find, together with the half-formed young ones about it. We may not succeed in exterminating the pale fiend, but we can at least put that individual beyond doing mischief or giving forth seeds. Hated Amanita (A. sprela). (Poisonous.) Four to six inches high, three to five inches across the cap, with a bump in the middle, whitish or pale or rich brown, gills white, a
set1921.2012.337.jpg Mushrooms, Fungi, or Toadstools 313 large loose yellowish poison cup; the stem tapers above the ring and at the base and is tinged reddish brown in the middle. Fly Amanita (A. muscaria). (Poisonous.) About the same size; mostly yellow but ranging from orange red to almost white usually with raised white spot sor scales on the top; gills whiteóor tinged yellow, spores white; flesh, white. Frost's Amanita (A. frostiana). (Poisonous.) This is another gorgeous demon, small but brilliant and deadly. It is two to three inches high, with the cap one to two inches broad. The cap is brilliant scarlet, orange or yellow and warty, fluted on the margin. The gills are white or tinged yellow, the spores white; the stem white or yellow and the bulb margined above with a smooth collar or ring. A woodland specimen, no doubt responsible, Mcllvaine thinks, for the bad reputation of the scarlet Russula which is harmless but resembles this. Tall Deathcup (A. excelsa). (Poisonous.) This tall and lonely pirate of the beech woods is about four to six inches in stature as it stands in its cup, and four to five inches across the top which is brownish gray, fleshy and sticky, often wrinkled and covered with tiny warts, edge of cap fluted; gills white; stem covered with scales on its lower parts at least. There are about twenty more of the Amanitas, varying in size and color, but most have the general style of tall flat mushrooms, and the label marks of poison viz: White or yellow gills, a poison cup, and white spores. They are not known to be poisonous. Some of them are good eating. One of them, the King Cap or Royal Mushroom. (A. Caesarea), is said to be the finest of all mushrooms. This magnificent and famous toadstool is three to eight inches across the cap which is smooth and of a gorgeous red orange or yellow color; gills
set1921.2012.338.jpg 3 T 4 The Book of Woodcraft yellow, though the spores are white; stem yellow; the cap is very flat when fully expanded and always is finely grooved or fluted on the upper edge. This is not only eatable but famous, yet it is so much like certain poisonous forms that it is better let alone. Indeed it is best for the beginner to accept the emphatic warning given by Mcllvaine and Macadam, in their standard work " i000 American Fungi" (p. XVII): "Any toadstool with white or lemon-yellow gills, casting white spores when laid ó gills downward ó upon a sheet of paper, having remnants of a fugitive skin in the shape of scabs or warts upon the upper surface of its cap, with a veil or ring, or remnants or stains of one, having at the base of its stem ó in the ground ó a loose, skinlike sheath sur- rounding it, or remnants of one," should be considered deadly poison till the contrary is proved by good authority. This may make you reject some wholesome kinds, but will surely keep you from danger. If by ill chance any one has eaten a poisonous Amanita, the effects do not begin to show till sixteen or eighteen hours afterward ó that is, long after the poison has passed through the stomach and begun its deadly work on the nerve centres. Symptoms. Vomiting and purging, "the discharge from the bowels being watery with small flakes suspended, and sometimes containing blood," cramps in the extremities. The pulse is very slow and strong at first, but later weak and rapid, sometimes sweat and saliva pour out. Dizziness, faintness, and blindness, the skin clammy, cold and bluish or livid; temperature low with dreadful tetanic convulsions, and finally stupor. (Mcllvaine and Macadam p. 627.) Remedy: "Take an emetic at once, and send for a physician with instructions to bring hypodermic syringe and
set1921.2012.339.jpg Mushrooms, Fungi, or Toadstools 3 TS atropine sulphate. The dose is Tlr-o- of a grain, and doses should be continued heroically until -2-1-cr of a grain is administered, or until, in the physician's opinion, a proper quantity has been injected. Where the victim is critically ill the miff of a grain may be administered." (Mcllvain6 and Macadam XVII.) - Unwholesome. UNWHOLESOME BUT NOT DEADLY TOADSTOOLS There is another group that are emetic or purgative or nauseating, but not deadly. These it is well to know. Morgan's Lepiota (Lepiota morgani), six to eight inches high and five to nine or even twelve inches across the cap:
set1921.2012.340.jpg 316 The Book of Woodcraft Cup, white dotted over with fragments of a brownish or yellowish skin; gills, white at first, then green; spores, green; flesh, white, but changing to a reddish then yellowish when cut or bruised. This immense toadstool is found in meadows all summer long, usually in rings of many individuals; it is poisonous to some and not to others, but is never deadly so far as known. Sulphur Tricholoma (Tricholoma suphureum), two to four inches high: cap one to four inches apart, dingy or reddish sulphur yellow above; flesh, thick and yellow; spores, white; stem, yellow inside and out; has a bad smell and a worse taste; is considered noxious if not actively poisonous. It is the only inedible Tricholoma known. Deceiving Clitocybe (Clitocybe illudens). This grows in clusters on rotten stumps or trees from August to October. It is everywhere of a deep yellow or orange, often it is phosphorescent. Each plant is four to six inches across the cap and five to eight inches high. It is usually nauseating and emetic. Russula (Russula emetica). This is known at once by its exquisite rosy red cap, and its white gills, flesh and stalk. Sometimes the last is tinged rosy. It is a short stemmed mushroom two to four inches high; its cap pinkish when young, dark red or rosy red when older, fading to straw color in age; its gills and spores, white. Its peppery taste when raw is a fairly safe identification. In most books it is classed as "slightly poisonous," but Mcllvaine maintains that it is perfectly wholesome. I know that I never yet saw one that was not more or less gnawed by the discriminating little wood folk that know a good thing when they smell it. Woolly or Burning Marasmius (Marasmius urens), two to three inches high; cap two to three inches wide, pale yellowish, becoming paler; spores, white; gills, brown, paler