The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1898-02-05
A HUNTERS WOOD LORE
PALACES CONCERNING BEASTS;
BIRDS AND REPTILES.

Queer Facts About Snakes Animals
and Birds That Are Fond of Fish.
ga man learns many of the subtle
and interesting secrets of nature when
he lives in the woods as long as
have" said Zenas Cartwright, the
woodsman and Catskill guide. II
often read bear stories in the New
York newspapers which are dated in
the Catskill Mountains, which, if they
were true, would completely throw
awry the infallible laws of nature
and cause the wheels of the machine
to clog. They are, in fact, what you
newspaper people call fakes, and are
manufactured out of whole cloth.
Living in the woods has taught me
many things that the ordinary writer
of bear stories don't know, and one of
them is that the reporter who writes
about old she bears being accompan-
led by young cubs from spring to fall
is an ignorant liar. He don't know
that the bears all cub, if at all, in a
certain season of the year, and that the
old she bear sends the young ones
about their business as soon as they
learn to dig sweet roots for food, steal
corn from a cornfeld or sucking pig
from pig pen. The fellow who
writes about fierce encounters with a
huge she bear weighing $50 pounds,
accompanied by sucking cubs in the
early spring, in the month of August,
and just before snow flies, is q pure
and simple liar, as the she bear of
these mountains seldom, if ever.
weighs more than 100 pounds, and
her cubs, which are born during her
alternating period, leave her not later
than the month of May to shift for
themselves.
81 have lived in these mountains for
nearly half century," he continued,
''and have hunted and trapped them
from the Helderbergs to the Delaware
River, and over in Pennsylvania, and
while I have learned many things or
binary people are ignorant of, I
haven't found out all the curious
secrets of the woods yet, but am find
ing out more every day, as I travel the
woods, fields and swamps.
"Now, you read in the natural his
tories that the mink and the muskrat
are water animals and subsist largely
on fish. This is true to large ex-
tent, yet these two fellows are among
the most persistent and unconscion-
able of robbers. I have known both
minks and muskrats to lay in hiding
behind tuft of grass, furze bush, or
clump of heather waiting for hours
until the rabbit whose burrow was
near their hiding place came home,
and when he came, jump on him and
rob him of the cabbage leaf which he
was bringing home for the young rab-
bits, and bite the unsuspecting bunny
to death, and suck his blood. The
skunk and the weasel will do the same
trick, except that the skunk will eat
the rabbits flesh, while the others
only suck the blood.
There are many things about
snakes which are curious, also. 1.-THE
writer's of snake stories only knew this
they wouldn't be filling the columns
of the newspapers with stories about
snake dens where rattlesnakes, cop
perheads, adders, blacksnakes, and
all other kinds, venomous and non
venomous, live together. A venomous
snake and anon-venomous snake never
den together, but the venomous snake
is deadly afraid of q non-venomous
reptile, and will run from it upon all
occasions, even if it is nothing but the
little striped garter or milk snake.
These snakes always give battle to the
venomous kind, but the latter will
never fight unless they are cornered,
and then, conditions being anywhere
even, the victory, ninty-nine times out
of a hundred, lies with the non-ven-
omous snake.
ST have also noted that the rattle
snake never sounds his rattle to give
warning of his presence except when
he is lying off, taking rest, and does
not want to be disturbed. He is lazy,
and, although he will go miles out
of straight course to avoid meeting
q blacksnake, when he is summing him.
self he don't want to be disturbed, so
he sounds his rattles to keep off in
truders, merely because he is too lazy
and shiftless to change his position.
When he wants to strike his fangs in
to anything he never springs his rattle,
but whatever is bitten is done so with
out warning. He is foxy and never
betrays his presence when he bites.
''Some of the most instructive
things you see in the woods are the
queer traits of birds. The eagle, for
instance, never mates but once. II
the male dies the widow bird remains
80 during life. In the case of the
male bird it is the same. The eagle
always builds it's nest of sticks in q
dead tree or on some high crag OF
rocks, so it can sweep the landscape
for miles with its terrible eye. It is
not an afectionate bird to its young,
and as soon as the eaglets are feath-
cred out it pushes them out of the
nest and off the rock, compelling
them to fly. They are then left to
shift for themselves or die of starva-
ton. 1t only takes young eagle
about half an hour to learn to fly al
most as we'll as the old birds.
ibid you ever hear of any one find
ing an owls nest? No. Well, owls
don't build nests. No owl since
creation ever built nest in which il
Matched out its own young. The owl
l.