The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 20, 1901, Page 8

THE SUNDAY CALL. building fr t noticeable cut were The masterful clear collec- ated at and »d ‘of head of shrewd, ap- the Senator Ha parently just ab s to indulge i one of he OUTLINE OF SECRETARY HAYS FACE. sident MK As the suard watch e feminine shoulder 1 disappe lasted during tw five minutes hing more sug; ve of the gentlae who had ussed away <ould be ~a visitant born of sunlight and adowing th in weirdly tender g ful mother love and As profile of McKinley and profile of Queen Victoria were observed after the des ng farewell.” iother hs of these wom- en, and not before, even the most super- stitiously inclined and determinedly pes simistic have been unable to extract from the shadowy appearances any tang- ible sign of mishap or ill. At the same HUNTING THE SMALLEST GAME ON EARTH. | X the forests of Northern Australla H lives =2 butterfly which is always hunted with powder and shot. This is & brilllant-hued creature, highly valued by collectors. It is very shy and hovers @bout upper branches of the trees, seldom epproaching within twenty feet the ground. For a long time the only speci- mens in coi ms were frayed and be- draggled individuals, which, because of injuries to their wings, had dropped be- low their zone of fiight A American naturalist went to A termined to get some perfect spe this rare insect. For strove with long nets and short nets to entrap some of the beautiful creatures of the upper air. He raised ladders and climbed trees at the peril of life and limb, but the wary butterfiies kept beyond the range of his swooping net. Yankee in- genuity was not to be beaten so easily, bowever. Tht entomologist hit upon the brilliant idea of a decoy. Loading his gun with the smallest shot he had he brought down one of the high- fiers. It was badly battered, but he patched and furbished it up to an appear- ance of respectability and spread it on a bush top in & conspicuous spot ten feet the ground, arranging the wings with as close a resemblance to life as possible. Curiosity is a besetting falling of butterflies. Presently two of them no- ticed their departed comrade and began to circie lower and Jower above the bush, s traveling several d above Others joined the investigation and finally the patient coilector was able to cap-| ture one of them by a swift move- ment. Somewhat similar was the capture of some rare South American butterflies sev- eral years ago. An entomologist traveling the Orinoco falled, after many at- tempts, to take a single specimen of a swallow-tail butterfly, which haunted the upper follage of the forest. One day his party came across a band of half-savage native armed with blowguns, bows and spears, one of whom offered to supply the collector with a number of the desired in- sects at a price. An offer of 2 cents a epecimen represented opulence to the na~ tive, who returned on the following even- ing with six of the butterfifes, all perfect or nearly so. How the Indian could catch the shy and delicate insects which he him- self with all the fmplements of the chase could not capture was a problem to the traveler. Not until he was about to leave would the native explain. His method was very simple, he sald, and pointed to his blowgun, & weapon with which these people are marvelously accurate and deadly marksmen, even killing big game with darts blown from them. He had “marked down his butterfly, waited for it to alight and then shot a peilet to the leaf upon which it was polsing. The im- pact was sufficlent to stun the prey and bring It to the ground withbut injuring its fragile wings.—Youth's Companion, i I on -, time they are unwilling to admit that the manifestations are without some hidden and, mayhap, sinister meanings. Just what this meaning moy be, there has yet arfsen no Danlel to make plain. Not alone, however, are the croakers Interested in this matter. Since the death of President McKinley the shadows have 87 changed their forms as to make them the subject of very general comment and study by the Washingtonlan. The native of the capital has grown somewhat used to the comings and goings of the shadov/s. He had marveled at the old woman with the spinning wheel, the “pointing hand” and at the many and varied reproductions of the facial char- acteristics of men of prominence in the nation. But, as he had never Heen able satisfactorily to explain to himself or any one else the origin and destination of the immaterial showing, he gradually gave over going to the White House in search of new finds, leaving this work to the visitor within the gates, to whom it would come with the force of a néw and fascinating amusement. Now, however, since the fading away of the original groupings and the arrival of a totally new and dissimilar set, the native Washingtonlan 1s again to be found In attendance at the White House, _Z vying with his country cousin for a sight of the latest marvels. He is not always successful In his quest, for the hour of the shadow's arrival on the white column no, man knoweth. These shadows are fitful things, capricious as the winds, va- riable as the clouds, and may never be de- pended upon to arrive on a schedule. So the curlous have to wait with what pa- tlence they can bring to bear. When one of these realizes that an ‘“important” shadow is taking shape, he Is quick to communicate his discovery to the othere, who eagerly flock around the particular plllar honored by the mystic visitor. ‘Whenever the plllar bearing the dutline of President Roosevelt's face.is fruitful there fs sure to be a large and enthu- slastic crowd in attendance. These see in the profile nothing to warrant fear of 11l fortune to come, Rather do the major- ity of the shadow hunters lean to the view that the sign is one of good portent to the rapldly advanced young man from New York. It would be hard to Imagine o more clearly outlined suggestion of the President than is thrown by the sun and the cornice in partnership. There used ta be a man who did busi- ness in the hotels aloug Pennsylvania avenue, a dark, nervous, quick-wittea, rapid fingered genius who would take a ve pair of scissors and a sheet of black pa- per and cut out your silhouette about as fast as you could cut the pages of a book. By which he rolled up quite a com- petency, because he was, in his particular and rather odd line, a thorough artist. He never did anything in this connection that could throw into the shade the silhouette of President Roosevelt as lined up against the White House pillar. Hardly a distin- guishing outward characteristic of the President is lacking. There {s the fam- ous mustache, the well defined nose, the mouth slightly “ajar,” and, of course, the celebrated Rough Rider's hat. As if to carry the illusion still further there de- pends from the shoulder of the figure what might very well pass for the stock of a gun. The outline of Secretary Hay's face, seen first at one hour, then at another, but never twice at the same hour, is al- most equally excellent as a likeness. Even those unfamillar with Mr. Hay, from actual sight of the Secretary, are in- variably able to recognize the silhouetted figure from, the frequency with which the features of the State Department's head have appeared in the new:zpapers. An amusing oddity is “‘the hand holding a pistol” This is not quite so successful a reproduction as are some of the others, While House Pillars havs Chante WHAT NEW STORY OF THE F T Q Vs anged= || UTURE DO THEY CONCEAL ? S 7 . and requires a Ifttle ald from a responsive imagination before it can be properly cat- alogued in the list of White House pillar wonders. The hand is not so distinct as it might be, but there can be no doubt as to the weapon which extends diagonally down across the column. To be sure, the yevolver s suggestive of the ““British bull- dog" pattern, a variety which we belleve not now to be in popular use. It may be that the notions which govern the part- nership of the sun and the cornice in their relations to the columns are a wee bit old- fashioned. Certainly ne up-to-date sil- houettist would cast a pistol of such an- clent and pudgy form as the one here proudly thrown. Another of the newcomers in shadow- land is the winged figure, or, rather, it is a substantlal portion of winged figure. Were the plllars of the White House por- tico only a trifle larger and offering broader surface, it is safe to assume that SRS the figure in Its entirety would be shown. However, with the limited space at com- mand, the winged one comes out surpris- ingly well. By far the prettiest shadow of the col- lection is that of the little dove near the top of the ¢olumn. This well favored bird rests near the top of the column, its fiying apparatus apparently in readiness for im- mediate flight. Fortunately, the photog- rapher ‘has been able to gather a very fair idea of the dove before its actual de- parture. * These are the latest shadows cast on the now famous porticos. There are other fig- ures which come and go, but the recur- rence of the pictures mentioned is most frequent and gives rise to most talk. The ‘White House attaches say the intangibles are responsible for a large Increase among visitors. As for the distinguished subjects of the sun’s sport, they are as much In- terested as the rest of the world. _— HUNTING THE LARGEST GAME ON EARTH. fully, 2 boat is required that can steam twelve knots an hour. It is furnished with a formidable weap- on known a= the harpoon-gun. The harpoon-gun is a ponderous plece of apparatus placed on a raised platform on the prow of the whaler and consists of a short, stout cannon, mounted on a Jbroad pedestal, on which it can rotate horizontally. The gun has also a vertical TO pursue the blue whale success- motion, and can be turned quickly in* whatever direction the prow of the ship dominates. On the top of the ‘gun are “sights” for aiming, just as in a rifle. Be- hind is the stock, which is grasped in L.e hand when firing the gun, and beneath it the trigger. The breech is a box-llke ar- rangement, situated just where the stock 1s fastened to the gun proper. The gun is loaded in the grdinary way from the muz- zle, and the harpoon is tightly rammed into it. To discharge the gun a smail cartridge with a wire attached is first put into the breech. Pressure on the trigger causes a pull on the wire, which ignites the cartridge and discharges the gun si- multaneously. . The harpoon is about six feet in length and very massive. It consists cssentially of three parts, the anterior conical por- tion, the movable barbs and the shaft. The anterior conical piece is an explosive shell filled with gunpowder, and screws on to the rest of the harpoon. The plosive shell is fired with a time-fuse afe- er the harpoon is imbedded in the whale. Behind the explosive conical plece lte the four barbs, situated at right angles to each other. These barbs are always bound down tightly together with thin rope when the harpoon is going to be discharged. Ws the harpoon penetrates the flesh of the whale this rope gets brushed off the barbs, and In so doing pulls a wire which sets fire to the fuse, and it explodes the shell In a few sec- onds. The shell gets blown to pleces and makes a terrific wound In the whale's in- terior, and the explosion causes the four barbs to stand out so that it becomes impossible for the harpoon to be with- drawn. The rest of the harpoon consists of a long shaft with a slot in it, In which a ring ‘moves freely with the rope at- tached. If the whale is at all well hit, the har- Poon gets imbedded about five feet, and unless the rope breaks the animal cannot escape. The rope, which is a very stout one, passes from the harpoon on to a round tray In front of the gun, where a coll of fifty feet or so lles. It then passes backward over a pulley on to_the drum of a double steam winch supplied with an immensely powerful brake. Taken all in all, says a writer in Pear- son’s, the harpoon-gun is about the most exquisitely cruel instrument of destruc- tion devised by the ingenuity of man,