Wild Animals of North America Edward William Nelson 734 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wild Animals of North
America

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: Wild Animals of North America

Author: Edward William Nelson

Author of introduction, etc.: Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor

Illustrator: Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Ernest Thompson Seton

Release date: May 10, 2019 [eBook #59475]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59475

Credits: Produced by MFR, Wayne Hammond and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD ANIMALS
OF NORTH AMERICA ***

WILD ANIMALS
OF NORTH AMERICA
INTIMATE STUDIES OF BIG AND LITTLE CREATURES
OF THE MAMMAL KINGDOM

BY

EDWARD W. NELSON
Natural-Color Portraits from Paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Track Sketches by Ernest Thompson Seton

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
SOCIETY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
U. S. A.

Copyright, 1918
BY THE
National Geographic Society

Washington, D. C.
Press of Judd & Detweiler, Inc.

INTRODUCTION

I N OFFERING THIS VOLUME of “Wild Animals of North America” to
members of the National Geographic Society, the Editor combines the
text and illustrations of two entire numbers of the National Geographic
Magazine—that of November, 1916, devoted to the Larger Mammals of
North America, and that of May, 1918, in which the Smaller Mammals of
our continent were described and presented pictorially.

Edward W. Nelson, the author of both articles, is one of the foremost
naturalists of our time. For forty years he has been the friend and student of
North America’s wild-folk. He has made his home in forest and desert, on
mountain side and plain, amid the snows of Alaska and the tropic heat of
Central American jungles—wherever Nature’s creatures of infinite variety
were to be observed, their habits noted, and their range defined.

In the whole realm of scientists, the Geographic could not have found a
writer more admirably equipped for the authorship of a book such as “Wild
Animals of North America” than Mr. Nelson, for, in addition to his
exceptional scientific training and his standing as Chief of the unique U. S.
Biological Survey, he possesses the rare quality of the born writer, able to
visualize for the reader the things which he has seen and the experiences
which he has undergone in seeing them. Each of his animal biographies, of
which there are 119 in this volume, is a cameo brochure—concisely and
entertainingly presented, yet never deviating from scientific accuracy.

In Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, the National Geographic Society has secured
for Mr. Nelson the same gifted artist collaborator which it provided for
Henry W. Henshaw, author of “Common Birds of Town and Country,” “The
Warblers,” and “American Game Birds,” all of which were assembled in
our “Book of Birds.” In the present instance Mr. Fuertes has produced a
natural history gallery of paintings of the Larger and Smaller Mammals of
North America which is a notable contribution to wild-animal portraiture,

and the reproductions of these works of art are among the most effective
and lifelike examples of color printing ever produced in this country.

Supplementing the work of Mr. Nelson and Mr. Fuertes is a series of
drawings by the noted naturalist and nature-lover, Ernest Thompson Seton,
showing the tracks of many of the most widely known mammals.

“Wild Animals of North America” provides in compact and permanent form
a natural history for which the National Geographic Society expended
$100,000 in the two issues of the Magazine in which the articles and
illustrations originally appeared.
Gilbert Grosvenor,
Director and Editor.

INDEX TO WILD ANIMALS OF NORTH
AMERICA
(The articles and illustrations in this volume are reproduced from the
November 1916, and May, 1918,
National Geographic Magazine. The first page is numbered 385, as it
originally appeared
in the Magazine The following pages are numbered in sequence.)

Color Track
Text
illustration illustration
Antelope, Prong-horn 452 451 611
Armadillo, Nine-
banded 584 559 ..
Badger 420 419 601
Bat, Big-eared desert 603 567 ..
Bat, Hoary 598 566 ..
Bat, Mexican 599 567 ..
Bat, Red 596 566 ..
Bear, Alaskan Brown
(frontispiece) 441 .. ..
Bear, Black 437 439 608
Bear, Cinnamon, or
Black 437 439 ..
Bear, Glacier 437 439 ..
Bear, Grizzly 440 442 608
Bear, Polar 436 438 ..
Beaver, American 441 443 ..
Beaver, Mountain 529 534 ..

Beluga, or White
Whale 468 470 ..
Bison, American, or
Buffalo 461 463 ..
Blarina 593 566 595
Bobcat, or Bay Lynx 409 411 ..
Bowhead 469 471 ..
Buffalo, or American
Bison 461 463 ..
Cachalot, or Sperm
Whale 472 471 ..
Caribou, Barren
Ground 460 422 610
Caribou, Peary 460 422 ..
Caribou, Woodland 460 459 ..
Cat, Common .. .. 487
Cat, Jaguarundi, or
Eyra 413 415 ..
Cat, Ring-tailed 586 562 ..
Chipmunk, Antelope 545 539 ..
Chipmunk, Eastern 549 542 580
Chipmunk, Golden 545 542 ..
Chipmunk, Oregon 552 543 ..
Chipmunk, Painted 553 543 ..
Cony, or Little Chief
Hare 494 511 ..
Cougar, or Mountain
Lion 412 414 605
Cow, Common .. .. 594
Coyote, Arizona, or
Mearns 424 423 ..
Coyote, Mearns, or
Arizona 424 423 ..

Coyote, Plains 424 423 599
Deer, Arizona White-
tailed 457 458 ..
Deer, Black-tailed 456 455 611
Deer, Mule 453 455 607
Deer, Virginia 456 458 ..
Deer, White-tailed 456, 457 458 606
Dog .. .. 596, 597
Elk, American 453 454 607
Eyra, or Jaguarundi
Cat 413 415 ..
Ferret, Black-footed 571 551 ..
Fisher, or Pekan 444 446 ..
Footprints, wild folk .. .. 485
Fox .. .. 575
Fox, Alaska Red 417 418 ..
Fox, Arctic, or White 425 426 ..
Fox, Cross 417 418 ..
Fox, Desert 420 419 ..
Fox, Gray 417 419 ..
Fox, Pribilof Blue 425 426 ..
Fox, Red 416 418 ..
Fox, Silver 417 418 ..
Fox, White, or Arctic 425 426 ..
Goat, Bighorn .. .. 604
Goat, Rocky
Mountain 452 451 604
Gopher, Pocket 500 515 ..
Hare, Arctic 491 510 ..
Hare, Little Chief 494 511 ..
Hare, Varying 489 507 490
Horse .. .. 610

Human footprints .. .. 609
Jaguar 413 414 ..
Kangaroo Rat 502 518 ..
Lemming, Banded 503 519 ..
Lemming, Brown 504 519 ..
Lion, Mountain 412 414 605
Lynx, Bay 409 411 ..
Lynx, Canada 409 411 612
Manati, Florida 465 467 ..
Marmot, American 533 534 578
Marmot, Hoary, or
Whistler 536 535 ..
Marten, or American
Sable 576 555 ..
Mink, American 575 555 586, 587
Mole, Oregon 588 563 ..
Mole, Star-nosed 589 563 ..
Moose 461 462 602
Mouse, Beach 524 530 ..
Mouse, Big-eared
Rock 525 531 ..
Mouse Field, or
Meadow 505 522 495
Mouse, Grasshopper 520 527 570
Mouse, Harvest 517 527 ..
Mouse, House 529 531 ..
Mouse, Jumping 496 514 ..
Mouse, Pine 508 522 ..
Mouse, Red-backed 509 523 ..
Mouse, Rufous Tree 512 523 ..
Mouse, Silky Pocket 497 515 ..
Mouse, Spiny Pocket 498 515 ..

Mouse, White-footed 521 530 572
Muskhog, or Peccary 448 447 ..
Musk-ox 464 466 600
Muskrat 513 526 569
Ocelots, or Tiger-cats 416 415 ..
Opossum, Virginia 408 410 588
Otter 445 446 ..
Otter, Sea 432 434 ..
Peccary, Collared 448 447 ..
Pekan, or Fisher 444 446 ..
Pig, Common .. .. 571
Pika, or Little Chief
Hare 494 511 ..
Polecat, or Spilogale .. .. 593
Porcupine 495 514 ..
Prairie-dog 536 538 ..
Quadruped, with
biped track:
Common cat .. .. 487
Rabbit, Antelope Jack 486 506 ..
Rabbit, California
Jack 487 507 ..
Rabbit, Cottontail 492 510 492
Rabbit, Jack .. .. 488
Rabbit, Marsh 493 511 ..
Rabbit, Snowshoe 489 507 490
Raccoon 408 410 590
Rat, Brown 525 531 574
Rat, Kangaroo 502 518 ..
Sable, American, or
Marten 576 555 ..

Sea-elephant,
Northern 432 434 ..
Sea-lion, Steller 429 431 ..
Seal, Alaska Fur 429 431 ..
Seal, Elephant 432 434 ..
Seal, Greenland 433 435 ..
Seal, Harbor 433 435 ..
Seal, Harp, or Saddle-
back 433 435 ..
Seal, Leopard 433 435 ..
Seal, Ribbon 436 438 ..
Seal, Saddle-back 433 435 ..
Sheep, Dall Mountain 449 450 ..
Sheep, Rocky
Mountain 448 447 ..
Sheep, Stone
Mountain 449 450 ..
Shrew, Common 591 566 ..
Shrew, Short-tailed 593 566 595
Skunk, Common 580 558 592
Skunk, Hog-nosed 582 559 ..
Skunk, Little, or
Polecat .. .. 593
Skunk, Little Spotted 577 558 ..
Squirrel, Abert 564 550 ..
Squirrel, California
Ground 541 539 ..
Squirrel, Douglas 557 546 ..
Squirrel, Flying 568 551 ..
Squirrel, Fox 561 547 581, 582
Squirrel, Gray 560 547 ..
Squirrel, Kaibab 564 550 ..

Squirrel, Red 556 546 ..
Squirrel, Rusty Fox 561 547 581
Squirrel, Striped
Ground 540 538 ..
Spilogale, or Polecat .. .. 593
Stoat, or Large
Weasel 572 554 ..
Tiger-cats, or Ocelots 416 415 ..
Walrus, Pacific 428 430 ..
Wapiti, or American
Elk 453 454 ..
Weasel .. .. 584
Weasel, Large, or
Stoat 572 554 ..
Weasel, Least 573 554 ..
Whale, Greenland
Right 469 471 ..
Whale, Killer 468 470 ..
Whale, Sperm, or
Cachalot 472 471 ..
Whale, White, or
Beluga 468 470 ..
Whistler, or Hoary
Marmot 536 535 ..
Wildcat, Texan .. .. 612
Wolf, Arctic White 421 422 ..
Wolf, Black .. 423 ..
Wolf, Gray, or Timber 421 423 605
Wolf, Prairie 424 423 ..
Wolf, Timber, or Gray 421 423 ..
Wolverine 428 427 583
Woodchuck, Common 533 534 578
Woodrat 516 526 ..

From a drawing by Louis Copyright by the National Geographic Magazine, 1916,
Agassiz Fuertes Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Editor

THE LARGEST CARNIVOROUS ANIMAL EXTANT
THE ALASKA BROWN BEAR
The great brown bear of the Alaska peninsula, Ursus gyas, and his cousin, Ursus middendorffi, of
Kodiac Island, are the largest of all bears, as well as the largest carnivorous animals in the world.
While sometimes attaining a weight of 1500 pounds, they are, as a rule, inoffensive giants, taking
flight at the first sight of man. But when wounded, or surprised at close quarters, they give battle, and
their enormous size, strength and activity render them terrific antagonists. The world did not know of
the existence of these bears until 1898. During the spring the Alaska brown bear lives upon the
salmon which come up the rivers and creeks to spawn, while in the summer and fall they eat the
sedge of the lowland flats, grazing like cattle, and varying their diet with small mammals and berries
which they find in the hills. The comparatively limited and easily accessible territory in which they
live renders their future precarious unless reasonable means for their proper protection are continued.

The Larger North American Mammals
By E. W. NELSON

Chief, U. S. Biological Survey

With Illustrations from Paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

A T THE time of its discovery and occupation by Europeans, North
America and the bordering seas teemed with an almost incredible
profusion of large mammalian life. The hordes of game animals which
roamed the primeval forests and plains of this continent were the marvel of
early explorers and have been equaled in historic times only in Africa.

Even beyond the limit of trees, on the desolate Arctic barrens, vast herds
containing hundreds of thousands of caribou drifted from one feeding
ground to another, sharing their range with numberless smaller companies
of musk-oxen. Despite the dwarfed and scanty vegetation of this bleak
region, the fierce winter storms and long arctic nights, and the harrying by
packs of white wolves, these hardy animals continued to hold their own
until the fatal influence of civilized man was thrown against them.

Southward from the Arctic barrens, in the neighboring forests of spruce,
tamarack, birches, and aspens, were multitudes of woodland caribou and
moose. Still farther south, in the superb forests of eastern North America,
and ranging thence over the limitless open plains of the West, were untold
millions of buffalo, elk, and white-tailed deer, with the prong-horned
antelope replacing the white-tails on the western plains.

With this profusion of large game, which afforded a superabundance of
food, there was a corresponding abundance of large carnivores, as wolves,
coyotes, black and grizzly bears, mountain lions, and lynxes. Black bears
were everywhere except on the open plains, and numerous species of
grizzlies occupied all the mountainous western part of the continent.

Fur-bearers, including beavers, muskrats, land-otters, sea-otters, fishers,
martens, minks, foxes, and others, were so plentiful in the New World that
immediately after the colonization of the United States and Canada a large
part of the world’s supply of furs was obtained here.

Trade with the Indians laid the foundations of many fortunes, and later
developed almost imperial organizations, like the Hudson’s Bay Company
and its rivals. Many adventurous white men became trappers and traders,
and through their energy, and the rivalry of the trading companies, we owe
much of the first exploration of the northwestern and northern wilderness.
The stockaded fur-trading stations were the outposts of civilization across
the continent to the shores of Oregon and north to the Arctic coast. At the
same time the presence of the sea-otter brought the Russians to occupy the
Aleutian Islands, Sitka, and even northern California.

Photograph by Capt. F. E. Kleinschmidt

TOWING HER BABY TO SAFETY

When a mother polar bear scents danger she jumps into the water and her cub holds fast to her tail while
she tows it to safety. But when no danger seems to threaten she wants it to “paddle its own canoe,” and
boxes its ears or ducks its head under water if it insists on being too lazy to swim for itself.

The wealth of mammal life in the seas along the shores of North America
almost equaled that on the land. On the east coast there were many millions
of harp and hooded seals and walruses, while the Greenland right and other
whales were extremely abundant. On the west coast were millions of fur
seals, sea-lions, sea-elephants, and walruses, with an equal abundance of
whales and hundreds of thousands of sea otters.

Photograph by Capt. F. K. Kleinschmidt

A SWIMMING POLAR BEAR

A polar bear when swimming does not use his hind legs, a new fact brought out by the motion-picture
camera.

Photograph by Roy Chapman Andrews

FUR SEAL: FEMALES AND YOUNG PUPS

From the ages of one to four years fur seals are extremely playful. They are marvelous swimmers, and
frolic about in pursuit of one another, now diving deep, and then, one after the other, suddenly leaping high
above the surface in graceful curves, like porpoises.

Many of the chroniclers dealing with explorations and life on the frontier
during the early period of the occupation of America gave interesting details
concerning the game animals. Allouez says that in 1680, between Lake Erie
and Lake Michigan the prairies were filled with an incredible number of
bears, wapiti, white-tailed deer, and turkeys, on which the wolves made
fierce war. He adds that on a number of occasions this game was so little
wild that it was necessary to fire shots to protect the party from it. Perrot
states that during the winter of 1670-1671, 2,400 moose were snared on the
Great Manitoulin Island, at the head of Lake Huron. Other travelers, even
down to the last century, give similar accounts of the abundance of game.

© Keystone View Co.

ROAMING “MONARCHS OF THE PLAIN”: BRITISH COLUMBIA

A remnant of the veritable sea of wild life that surged over American soil before the dikes of civilization
compassed it about and all but wiped it out.

TRAINS HELD UP BY BUFFALO

The original buffalo herds have been estimated to have contained from
30,000,000 to 60,000,000 animals, and in 1870 it was estimated that about
5,500,000 still survived. A number of men now living were privileged to see
some of the great herds of the West before they were finally destroyed. Dr.
George Bird Grinnell writes:

“In 1870, I happened to be on a train that was stopped for three hours to let
a herd of buffalo pass. We supposed they would soon pass by, but they kept
coming. On a number of occasions in earlier days the engineers thought that
they could run through the herds, and that, seeing the locomotive, the
buffalo would stop or turn aside; but after a few locomotives had been
ditched by the animals the engineers got in the way of respecting the
buffaloes’ idiosyncrasies....

“Up to within a few years, in northern Montana and southern Alberta, old
buffalo trails have been very readily traceable by the eye, even as one
passed on a railroad train. These trails, fertilized by the buffalo and deeply
cut so as to long hold moisture, may still be seen in summer as green lines
winding up and down the hills to and from the water-courses.”

Concerning the former abundance of antelope, Dr. Grinnell says: “For many
years I have held the opinion that in early days on the plains, as I saw them,
antelope were much more abundant than buffalo. Buffalo, of course, being
big and black, were impressive if seen in masses and were visible a long
way off. Antelope, smaller and less conspicuous in color, were often passed
unnoticed, except by a person of experience, who might recognize that
distant white dots might be antelope and not buffalo bones or puff balls. I
used to talk on this subject with men who were on the plains in the ’60’s
and ’70’s, and all agreed that, so far as their judgment went, there were
more antelope than buffalo. Often the buffalo were bunched up into thick
herds and gave the impression of vast numbers. The antelope were
scattered, and, except in winter, when I have seen herds of thousands, they
were pretty evenly distributed over the prairie.

Photograph by E. E. Kleinschmidt

A WALRUS BATTLE FRONT: THOUGH FORMIDABLE LOOKING, WITH THEIR LONG TUSKS,
THEY ASK ONLY TO BE LET ALONE.

ANTELOPES EVERYWHERE

“I have certain memories of travel on the plains, when for the whole long
day one would pass a continual succession of small bands of antelope,

numbering from ten to fifty or sixty, those at a little distance paying no
attention to the traveler, while those nearer at hand loped lazily and
unconcernedly out of the way. In the year 1879, in certain valleys in North
Park, Colorado, I saw wonderful congregations of antelope. As far as we
could see in any direction, all over the basins, there were antelope in small
or considerable groups. In one of these places I examined with care the
trails made by them, for this was the only place where I ever saw deeply
worn antelope trails, which suggested the buffalo trails of the plains.”

Photograph by Albert Schlechten

A CINNAMON TREED: YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Bruin for the most part is an inoffensive beast, with an impelling curiosity and such a taste for sweet things
that he can eat pounds of honey and lick his chops for more.

Photograph by E. C. Oberholtzer

MOOSE FEEDING UNDER DIFFICULTIES

The moose likes the succulent water plants it finds at the bottom of lakes and sluggish streams, and often
when reaching for them becomes completely submerged.

The wealth of animal life found by our forebears was one of the great
natural resources of the New World. Although freely drawn upon from the
first, the stock was but little depleted up to within a century. During the last
one hundred years, however, the rapidly increasing occupation of the
continent and other causes, together with a steadily increasing commercial
demand for animal products, have had an appalling effect. The buffalo, elk,
and antelope are reduced to a pitiful fraction of their former countless
numbers.

Photograph by E. C. Oberholtzer

COW MOOSE WITH HER YOUNG

Notice the fold of skin at her neck resembling a bell.

WANTON WASTE OF WILD LIFE

Practically all other large game has alarmingly decreased, and its
extermination has been partly stayed only by the recent enforcement of
protective laws. It is quite true that the presence of wild buffalo, for
instance, in any region occupied for farming and stock-raising purposes is
incompatible with such use. Thus the extermination of the bison as a
denizen of our western plains was inevitable. The destruction, however, of
these noble game animals by millions for their hides only furnishes a
notable example of the wanton wastefulness which has heretofore largely
characterized the handling of our wild life.

A like disregard for the future has been shown in the pursuit of the sea
mammals. The whaling and sealing industries are very ancient, extending
back for a thousand years or more; but the greatest and most ruthless

destruction of the whales and seals has come within the last century,
especially through the use of steamships and bomb-guns. Without adequate
international protection, there is grave danger that the most valuable of
these sea mammals will be exterminated. The fur seal and the sea-elephant,
once so abundant on the coast of southern California, are nearly or quite
gone, and the sea otter of the North Pacific is dangerously near extinction.

Photograph by W. J. Stroud

ROCKY MOUNTAIN ELK

They can hold their own in the mountains in summer, but when the deep snows come they are compelled
to go down into the valleys. Just before they leave the big bulls travel the mountains from one end to the
other, driving old and young before them into the lower country. In case of a hard winter the elk are thin
and weak, and then the dreaded wolf makes havoc among them, especially the little calves.

Photograph by W. J. Stroud

AN UNUSUAL ELK PICTURE

The recent great abundance of large land mammals in North America, both
in individuals and species, is in striking contrast with their scarcity in South
America, the difference evidently being due to the long isolation of the
southern continent from other land-masses, whence it might have been
restocked after the loss of a formerly existing fauna.

Photograph by Charles E. Johnson

THE MOOSE IS A POWERFUL SWIMMER

Photograph by F. O. Seabury

PART OF A HERD OF SIXTY MOUNTAIN SHEEP

They are fed hay and salt daily at the Denver and Rio Grande Railway station at Ouray, Colorado. This
picture was taken at a distance of about 10 to 15 feet from the wild animals, which grow quite tame under
such friendly ministrations.

From a drawing by Charles R. Knight

A MOOSE THAT LIVED IN NEW JERSEY IN PLEISTOCENE TIMES: CROVALCES

A primitive moose-like form, a nearly perfect skeleton of which was found in southern Jersey some years
ago. In size and general proportions the animal was like a modern moose, but the nose was less developed,
and the horns were decidedly different in character.

SPECIES COME AND SPECIES GO

The differences in the geographic distribution of mammal life between
North and South America and the relationships between our fauna and that
of the Old World are parts of the latest chapter of a wonderful story running
back through geologic ages. The former chapters are recorded in the fossil
beds of all the continents. While only a good beginning has been made in
deciphering these records, enough has been done by the fascinating
researches of Marsh, Cope, Osborn, Scott, and others to prove that in all
parts of the earth one fauna has succeeded another in marvelous procession.

It has been shown also that these changes in animal life, accompanied by
equal changes in plant life, have been largely brought about by variations in
climate and by the uplifting and depressing of continental land-masses
above or below the sea. The potency of climatic influence on animal life is
so great that even a fauna of large mammals will be practically destroyed
over a great area by a long-continued change of a comparatively few
degrees (probably less than ten degrees Fahrenheit) in the mean daily
temperatures.

The distribution of both recent and fossil mammals shows conclusively that
numberless species have spread from their original homes across land
bridges to remote unoccupied regions, where they have become isolated as
the bridges disappeared beneath the waves of the sea.

Photograph by Gus A. Swanson

THEIR LIVING LIES BENEATH THE SNOW

All nature loves kindness and trusts the gentle hand. Contrast these sheep, ready to fly at the slightest
noise, with those in the picture on page 396, peacefully feeding in close proximity to a standing express
train. Every one appreciates a good picture of a living animal more than the trophy of a dead one!

VAST NATURAL MUSEUMS OF EXTINCT ANIMAL LIFE

For ages Asia appears to have served as a vast and fecund nursery for new
mammals from which North Temperate and Arctic America have been
supplied. The last and comparatively recent land bridge, across which came
the ancestors of our moose, elk, caribou, prong-horned antelope, mountain
goats, mountain sheep, musk-oxen, bears, and many other mammals, was in
the far Northwest, where Bering Straits now form a shallow channel only
28 miles wide separating Siberia from Alaska.

Photograph by L. Peterson

INTRODUCING A LITTLE BLACK BEAR TO A LITTLE BROWN BEAR AT SEWARD, ALASKA

“Howdy-do! I ain’t got a bit of use for you!”

“What do I care! You’d better back away, black bear!”

The fossil beds of the Great Plains and other parts of the West contain
eloquent proofs of the richness and variety of mammal life on this continent
at different periods in the past. Perhaps the most wonderful of all these
ancient faunas was that revealed by the bones of birds and mammals which
had been trapped in the asphalt pits recently discovered in the outskirts of
Los Angeles, California. These bones show that prior to the arrival of the
present fauna the plains of southern California swarmed with an astonishing
wealth of strange birds and beasts (see page 401).

The most notable of these are saber-toothed tigers, lions much larger than
those of Africa; giant wolves; several kinds of bears, including the huge
cave bears, even larger than the gigantic brown bears of Alaska; large wild
horses; camels; bison (unlike our buffalo); tiny antelope, the size of a fox;
mastodons, mammoths with tusks 15 feet long; and giant ground sloths; in
addition to many other species, large and small.

With these amazing mammals were equally strange birds, including, among
numerous birds of prey, a giant vulturelike species (far larger than any
condor), peacocks, and many others.

DID MAN LIVE THEN?

The geologically recent existence of this now vanished fauna is evidenced
by the presence in the asphalt pits of bones of the gray fox, the mountain
lion, and close relatives of the bobcat and coyote, as well as the condor,
which still frequent that region, and thus link the past with the present. The
only traces of the ancient vegetation discovered in these asphalt pits are a
pine and two species of juniper, which are members of the existing flora.

There is reason for believing that primitive man occupied California and
other parts of the West during at least the latter part of the period when the
fauna of the asphalt pits still flourished. Dr. C. Hart Merriam informs me
that the folk-lore of the locally restricted California Indians contains
detailed descriptions of a beast which is unmistakably a bison, probably the
bison of the asphalt pits.

The discovery in these pits of the bones of a gigantic vulturelike bird of
prey of far greater size than the condor is even more startling, since the
folk-lore of the Eskimos and Indians of most of the tribes from Bering
Straits to California and the Rocky Mountain region abound in tales of the
“thunder-bird”—a gigantic bird of prey like a mighty eagle, capable of
carrying away people in its talons. Two such coincidences suggest the
possibility that the accounts of the bison and the “thunder-bird” are really
based on the originals of the asphalt beds and have been passed down in
legendary history through many thousands of years.

CAMELS AND HORSES ORIGINATED IN NORTH AMERICA

Among other marvels our fossil beds reveal the fact that both camels and
horses originated in North America. The remains of many widely different
species of both animals have been found in numerous localities extending
from coast to coast in the United States. Camels and horses, with many
species of antelope closely related to still existing forms in Africa,
abounded over a large part of this country up to the end of the geological
age immediately preceding the present era.

Photograph by Carl J. Lomen

A REINDEER HERD AT CAPE PRINCE OF WALES, ALASKA: MANY FAWNS ARE TO BE SEEN
IN THE HERD, AS THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN SHORTLY AFTER THE FAWNING SEASON

Then through imperfectly understood changes of environment a tremendous
mortality among the wild life took place and destroyed practically all of the
splendid large mammals, which, however, have left their records in the
asphalt pits of California and other fossil beds throughout the country. This
original fauna was followed by an influx of other species which made up
the fauna when America was discovered.

At the time of its discovery by Columbus this continent had only one
domesticated mammal—the dog. In most instances the ancestors of the
Indian dogs appear to have been the native coyotes or gray wolves, but the
descriptions of some dogs found by early explorers indicate very different
and unknown ancestry. Unfortunately these strange dogs became extinct at
an early period, and thus left unsolvable the riddle of their origin.

Before the discovery of America the people of the Old World had
domesticated cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, dogs, and cats; but none of

these domestic animals, except the dog, existed in America until brought
from Europe by the invaders of the New World.

The wonderful fauna of the asphalt pits had vanished long before America
was first colonized by white men, and had been replaced by another mainly
from the Old World, less varied in character, but enormously abundant in
individuals. Although so many North American mammals were derived
from Asia, some came from South America, while others, as the raccoons,
originated here.

FEWER LARGE MAMMALS IN THE TROPICS

It is notable that the fossil beds which prove the existence of an
extraordinary abundance of large mammals in North America at various
periods in the past, as well as the enormous aggregation of mammalian life
which occupied this continent, both on land and at sea, at the time of its
discovery, were confined to the Temperate and Arctic Zones. It is popularly
believed that the tropics possess an exuberance of life beyond that of other
climes, yet in no tropic lands or seas, except in parts of Africa and southern
Asia, has there been developed such an abundance of large mammal life as
these northern latitudes have repeatedly known.

From Scott’s “History of the Land Mammals of the Western Hemisphere”: Macmillan Company

THIS REPRESENTS A SCENE AT THE CALIFORNIA ASPHALT PITS, WITH A MIRED ELEPHANT,
TWO GIANT WOLVES, AND A SABER-TOOTHED TIGER (SEE PAGE 399).

In temperate and arctic lands such numbers of large mammals could exist
only where the vegetation not only sufficed for summer needs, but retained
its nourishing qualities through the winter. In the sea the vast numbers of
seals, sea-lions, walruses, and whales of many kinds could be maintained
only by a limitless profusion of fishes and other marine life.

From the earliest appearance of mammals on the globe to comparatively
recent times one mammalian fauna has succeeded another in the regular
sequence of evolution, man appearing late on the scene and being subject to
the same natural influences as his mammalian kindred. During the last few
centuries, however, through the development of agriculture, the invention of
new methods of transportation, and of modern firearms, so-called civilized
man has spread over and now dominates most parts of the earth.

As a result, aboriginal man and the large mammals of continental areas
have been, or are being, swept away and replaced by civilized man and his
domestic animals. Orderly evolution of the marvelously varied mammal life

in a state of nature is thus being brought to an abrupt end. Henceforth fossil
beds containing deposits of mammals caught in sink-holes, and formed by
river and other floods in subarctic, temperate, and tropical parts of the earth,
will contain more and more exclusively the bones of man and his
domesticated horses, cattle, and sheep.

DESTROYING THE IRRESTORABLE

The splendid mammals which possessed the earth until man interfered were
the ultimate product of Nature working through the ages that have elapsed
since the dawn of life. All of them show myriads of exquisite adaptations to
their environment in color, form, organs, and habits. The wanton destruction
of any of these species thus deprives the world of a marvelous organism
which no human power can ever restore.

From a drawing by Charles R. Knight

A PRIMITIVE FOUR-TUSKED ELEPHANT, STANDING ABOUT SIX FEET AT THE SHOULDER,
THAT LIVED AGES AGO IN THE UNITED STATES (TRICOPHODON MIOCENE)

Fortunately, although it is too late to save many notable animals, the leading
nations of the world are rapidly awakening to a proper appreciation of the
value and significance of wild life. As a consequence, while the superb
herds of game on the limitless plains will vanish, sportsmen and nature
lovers, aided by those who appreciate the practical value of wild life as an
asset, may work successfully to provide that the wild places shall not be left
wholly untenanted.

Although Americans have been notably wasteful of wild life, even to the
extermination of numerous species of birds and mammals, yet they are now
leading the world in efforts to conserve what is left of the original fauna. No
civilized people, with the exception of the South African Boers, have been
such a nation of hunters as those of the United States. Most hunters have a
keen appreciation of nature, and American sportsmen as a class have
become ardent supporters of a nation-wide movement for the conservation
of wild life.

SAVING OUR WILD LIFE

Several strong national organizations are doing great service in forwarding
the conservation of wild life, as the National Geographic Society, the
National Association of Audubon Societies, American Bison Society, Boone
and Crockett Club, New York Zoölogical Society, American Game
Protective and Propagation Association, Permanent Wild Life Protective
Fund, and others. In addition, a large number of unofficial State
organizations have been formed to assist in this work.

Through the authorization by Congress, the Federal Government is actively
engaged in efforts for the protection and increase of our native birds and
mammals. This work is done mainly through the Bureau of Biological
Survey of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, which is in charge of the
several Federal large-game preserves and nearly seventy bird reservations.

From a drawing by Charles R. Knight

A GROTESQUE CREATURE THAT ONCE LIVED IN THE UNITED STATES (UERTATHERIUM
EOCENE, MIDDLE WYOMING)

It had six horns on the head and, in some species, two long canine teeth projecting downward from the
upper jaw. The feet were somewhat like those of an elephant, but the skull and teeth resemble nothing on
earth today.

On the large-game preserves are herds of buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope.
The Yellowstone National Park, under the Department of the Interior, is one
of the most wonderfully stocked game preserves in the world. In this
beautiful tract of forest, lakes, rivers, and mountains live many moose, elk,
deer, antelope, mountain sheep, black and grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes,
mountain lions, and lynxes.

Practically all of the States have game and fish commissions in one form or
another, with a warden service for the protection of game, and large
numbers of State game preserves have been established. The increasing
occupation of the country, the opening up of wild places, and the
destruction of forests are rapidly restricting available haunts for game. This

renders particularly opportune the present and increasing wide-spread
interest in the welfare of the habitants of the wilderness.

The national forests offer an unrivaled opportunity for the protection and
increase of game along broad and effective lines. At present the title to
game mammals is vested in the States, among which great differences in
protective laws and their administration in many cases jeopardize the future
game supply.

If a coöperative working arrangement could be effected between the States
and the Department of Agriculture, whereby the Department would have
supervision and control over the game on the national forests, so far as
concerns its protection and the designation of hunting areas, varying the
quantity of game to be taken from definite areas in accordance with its
abundance from season to season, while the States would control open
seasons for shooting, the issuance of hunting licenses, and similar local
matters, the future welfare of large game in the Western States would be
assured.

From a drawing by Charles R. Knight

THE PRIMITIVE FOUR-TOED HORSE (EOHIPPUS, LOWER EOCENE, WYOMING)

The so-called four-toed horse, a little creature some 12 inches in height at the shoulder, having four well-
defined hoofs on the front foot and three on the hind foot. The animal is not a true horse, but was
undoubtedly an ancestor (more or less direct) of the modern form. It must have been a very speedy type,
which contributed greatly to the preservation of the species in an age when (so far as we know) the
carnivores were rather slow and clumsy.

Under such an arrangement the game supply would be handled on business
principles. When game becomes scarce in any restricted area, hunting could
be suspended until the supply becomes renewed, while increased hunting
could be allowed in areas where there is sufficient game to warrant it. In
brief, big game could be handled by the common-sense methods now used
so effectively in the stock industry on the open range. At present the lack of
a definite general policy to safeguard our game supply and the resulting
danger to our splendid native animals are deplorably in evidence.

A TRUE HORSE WHICH WAS FOUND IN THE FOSSIL BEDS OF TEXAS: PLEISTOCENE

It is interesting to note that this country was possessed of several species of wild horses, but these died out
long before the advent of the Indian on this continent. The present wild horses of our western plains are
merely stragglers from the herds brought over by the Spaniards and other settlers. When Columbus
discovered America there were no horses on the continent, though in North America horses and camels
originated (see text, page 399).

From drawings by Charles R. Knight

THE FOREST HORSE OF NORTH AMERICA (HYPOHIPPOS MIOCENE)

This animal is supposed to have inhabited heavy undergrowth. It was somewhat off the true horse ancestry
and had three rather stout toes on both the fore and hind feet.

Photograph by Gus A. Swanson

A MONTANA DOE AND FAWN

Observers of those times believed that at the beginning of the last century there were more deer and
antelope in the United States than there were buffaloes. If that be true, they were probably more numerous
than any domestic animal we have today.

Photograph by Gus A. Swanson

THE SPIRIT OF THE WILD

Timorous as a gazelle in the open, brave as a lion when forced to fight, with nerves as quick as lightning
and sinews as hard as steel, these denizens of the deep wood match the wind for speed, are unsurpassed for
endurance, and yield place to no other species in graceful beauty.

OPOSSUM, VIRGINIA OPOSSUM (Didelphis virginiana and
its subspecies)

The opossums are the American representatives of the ancient order of
Marsupials—a wonderfully varied group of mammals now limited to
America and Australasia. Throughout the order the young are born in an
embryonic condition and are transferred to teats located in an external
pocket or pouch in the skin of the abdomen, where they complete their
development. The kangaroos are among the most striking members of this
group.

Numerous species of opossums are known, all peculiar to America and
distributed from the eastern United States to Patagonia. The Virginia
opossum, the largest of all the species, is characterized by its coarse hair,
piglike snout, naked ears, and long, hairless, prehensile tail. Its toes are
long, slender, and so widely spread that its footprints on the muddy border
of a stream or in a dusty trail show every toe distinctly, as in a bird track,
and are unmistakably different from those of any other mammal.

This is the only species of opossum occurring in the United States, where it
occupies all the wooded eastern parts from eastern New York, southern
Wisconsin, and eastern Nebraska south to the Gulf coast and into the
tropics. It has recently been introduced in central California. Although
scarce in the northern parts of its range, it is abundant and well known in
the warmer Southern States.

These animals love the vicinity of water, and are most numerous in and
about swamps or other wet lowlands and along bottom-lands bordering
streams. They have their dens in hollow trees, in holes under the roots of
trees, or in similar openings where they may hide away by day. Their food

consists of almost everything, animal or vegetable, that is edible, including
chickens, which they capture in nocturnal raids.

The Virginia opossums have from 5 to 14 young, which at first are
formless, naked little objects, so firmly attached to the teats in the mother’s
pouch that they can not be shaken loose. Later, when they attain a coating
of hair, they are miniature replicas of the adults, but continue to occupy the
pouch until the swarming family becomes too large for it. The free toes of
opossums are used like hands for grasping, and the young cling firmly to
the fur of their mother while being carried about in her wanderings.

They are rather slow-moving, stupid animals, which seek safety by their
retiring nocturnal habits and by non-resistance when overtaken by an
enemy. This last trait gave origin to the familiar term “playing possum,” and
is illustrated by their habit of dropping limp and apparently lifeless when
attacked. Despite this apparent lack of stamina, their vitality is
extraordinary, rendering them difficult to kill.

While hunting at daybreak, I once encountered an unusually large old male
opossum on his way home from a night in the forest. When we met, he
immediately stopped and stood with hanging head and tail and half-closed
eyes. I walked up and, after watching him for several minutes without
seeing the slightest movement, put my foot against his side and gave a
slight push. He promptly fell flat and lay limp and apparently dead. I then
raised him and tried to put him on his feet again, but his legs would no
longer support him, and I failed in other tests to obtain the slightest sign of
life.

The opossum has always been a favorite game animal in the Southern
States, and figures largely in the songs and folk-lore of the southern
negroes. In addition, its remarkable peculiarities have excited so much
popular interest that it has become one of the most widely known of
American animals.

RACCOON (Procyon lotor and its subspecies)

Few American wild animals are more widely known or excite more popular
interest than the raccoon. It is a short, heavily built animal with a club-
shaped tail, and with hind feet that rest flat on the ground, like those of a
bear, and make tracks that have a curious resemblance to those of a very
small child. Its front toes are long and well separated, thus permitting the
use of the front feet with almost the facility of a monkey’s hands.

Raccoons occupy most of the wooded parts of North America from the
southern border of Canada to Panama, with the exception of the higher
mountain ranges. In the United States they are most plentiful in the
Southeastern and Gulf States and on the Pacific coast. Under the varying
climatic conditions of their great range a number of geographic races have
developed, all of which have a close general resemblance in habits and
appearance.

They everywhere seek the wooded shores of streams and lakes and the
bordering lowland forests and are expert tree-climbers, commonly having
their dens in hollow trees, often in cavities high above the ground. In such
retreats they have annually from four to six young, which continue to
frequent this retreat until well grown, thus accounting for the numbers often
found in the same cavity. Although tree-frequenting animals, the greater
part of their activities is confined to the ground, especially along the
margins of water-courses. While almost wholly nocturnal in habits, they are
occasionally encountered abroad during the day.

Their diet is extraordinarily varied, and includes fresh-water clams,
crawfish, frogs, turtles, birds and their eggs, poultry, nuts, fruits, and green
corn. When near water they have a curious and unique habit of washing
their food before eating it. Their fondness for green corn leads them into
frequent danger, for when bottom-land cornfields tempt them away from
their usual haunts raccoon hunting with dogs at night becomes an especially
favored sport.

Raccoons are extraordinarily intelligent animals and make interesting and
amusing pets. During captivity their restless intelligence is shown by the
curiosity with which they carefully examine every strange object. They are
particularly attracted by anything bright or shining, and a piece of tin
fastened to the pan of a trap serves as a successful lure in trapping them.

They patrol the border of streams and lakes so persistently that where they
are common they sometimes make well-trodden little trails, and many
opened mussel shells or other signs of their feasts may be found on the tops
of fallen logs or about stones projecting above the water. In the northern
part of their range they hibernate during the coldest parts of the winter, but
in the South are active throughout the year.

Raccoons began to figure in our frontier literature at an early date. “Coon-
skin” caps, with the ringed tails hanging like plumes, made the favorite
headgear of many pioneer hunters, and “coon skins” were a recognized
article of barter at country stores. Now that the increasing occupation of the
country is crowding out more and more of our wild life, it is a pleasure to
note the persistence with which these characteristic and interesting animals
continue to hold their own in so much of their original range.

CANADA LYNX (Lynx canadensis)

The lynxes are long-legged, short-bodied cats, with tufted ears and a short
“bobbed” tail. They are distributed from the northern limit of trees south
into the Temperate Zone throughout most of the northern part of both Old
and New Worlds. In North America there are two types—the smaller
animal, southern in distribution, and the larger, or Canada lynx, limited to
the north, where its range extends from the northern limit of trees south to
the northern border of the United States. It once occupied all the mountains
of New England and south in the Alleghenies to Pennsylvania. In the West
it is still a habitant of the Rocky Mountains as far south as Colorado, and of
the Sierra Nevada nearly to Mount Whitney.

The Canada lynx is notable for the beauty of its head, one of the most
striking among all our carnivores. This species is not only much larger than
its southern neighbor, the bay lynx, but may also be distinguished from it by
its long ear tips, thick legs, broad spreading feet, and the complete jet-black
end of the tail. It is about 3 feet long and weighs from 15 to over 30 pounds.
As befits an animal of the great northern forests, it has a long thick coat of
fur, which gives it a remarkably fluffy appearance. Its feet in winter are
heavily furred above and below and are so broad that they serve admirably

for support in deep snow, through which it would otherwise have to wade
laboriously.

This animal does not attack people, though popular belief often credits it
with such action. It feeds mainly on such small prey as varying hares, mice,
squirrels, foxes, and the grouse and other birds living in its domain; but on
occasion it even kills animals as large as mountain sheep. One such feat was
actually witnessed above timberline in winter on a spur of Mount
McKinley. The lynx sprang from a ledge as the sheep passed below, and,
holding on the sheep’s neck and shoulders, it reached forward and by
repeatedly biting put out its victim’s eyes, thus reducing it to helplessness.

The chief food of the Canada lynx is the varying hare, which throughout the
North periodically increases to the greatest abundance and holds its
numbers for several years. During these periods the fur sales in the London
market show that the number of lynx skins received increases
proportionately with those of the hare. When an epizoötic disease appears,
as it does regularly, and almost exterminates the hares, there is an
immediate and corresponding drop in the number of lynx skins sent to
market. This evidences one of Nature’s great tragedies, not only among the
overabundant hares, but among the lynxes, for with the failure of their food
supply over a vast area tens of thousands of them perish of starvation.

The Canada lynx has from two to five kittens, which are marked with dusky
spots and short bands, indicating an ancestral relationship to animals similar
to the ocelot, or tiger-cat, of the American tropics. The young usually keep
with the mother for nearly a year. Such families no doubt form the hunting
parties whose rabbit drives on the Yukon Islands were described to me by
the fur traders and Indians of the Yukon Valley.

During sledge trips along the lower Yukon I often saw the distinctive broad,
rounded tracks of lynxes, showing where they had wandered through the
forests or crossed the wide, snow-covered river channel. Here and there, as
the snow became very deep and soft, the tracks showed where a series of
leaps had been made. Lynx trails commonly led from thicket to thicket
where hares, grouse, or other game might occur. Canada lynxes appear to be
rather stupid animals, for they are readily caught in traps, or even in snares,
and, like most cats, make little effort to escape.

BOBCAT, OR BAY LYNX (Lynx ruffus and its subspecies)

The bay lynx, bobcat, or wildcat, as Lynx ruffus and its close relatives are
variously called in different parts of the country, is one of the most widely
distributed and best known of our wild animals. It is about two-thirds the
size of the Canada lynx and characterized by much slenderer proportions,
especially in its legs and feet. The ears are less conspicuously tufted and the
tip of the tail is black only on its upper half. Bobcats range from Nova
Scotia and southern British Columbia over practically all of the wooded and
brushy parts of the United States except along the northern border, and
extend south to the southern end of the high table-land of Mexico.

OPOSSUM

RACCOON

From the earliest settlement of America the bobcat has figured largely in
hunting literature, and the popular estimate of its character is well attested
by the frontier idea of the superlative physical prowess of a man who can
“whip his weight in wildcats.” Although our wildcat usually weighs less
than 20 pounds, if its reputed fierceness could be sustained it would be an
awkward foe. But, so far as man is concerned, unless it is cornered and
forced to defend itself, it is extremely timid and inoffensive.

CANADA LYNX

BOBCAT (Bay Lynx)

Like all cats, it is very muscular and active, and to the rabbits, squirrels,
mice, grouse, and other small game upon which it feeds is a persistent and
remorseless enemy. Although an expert tree-climber, it spends most of its
time on the ground, where it ordinarily seeks its prey. It is most numerous
in districts where birds and small mammals abound, and parts of California
seem especially favorable for it. At a mountain ranch in the redwood forest
south of San Francisco one winter some boys with dogs killed more than
eighty bobcats.

Ordinarily the bobcat seems to be rather uncommon, but its nocturnal habits
usually prevent its real numbers being actually known. In districts where
not much hunted it is not uncommonly seen abroad by day, especially in
winter, when driven by hunger.

The bay lynx makes its den in hollows in trees, in small caves, and in
openings among rock piles wherever quiet and safety appear assured.
Although a shy animal, it persists in settled regions if sufficient woodland
or broken country remains to give it shelter. From such retreats it sallies
forth at night, and not only do the chicken roosts of careless householders
suffer, but toll is even taken among the lambs of sheep herds.

As in the case of most small cats, the stealthy hunting habits of the bay lynx
renders it excessively destructive to ground-frequenting birds, especially to
quail, grouse, and other game birds. For this reason, like many of its kind, it
is outlawed in all settled parts of the country.

MOUNTAIN LION (Felis couguar and its subspecies)

The mountain lion, next to the jaguar, is the largest of the cat tribe native to
America. In various parts of its range it is also known as the panther,
cougar, and puma. It is a slender-bodied animal with a small head and a
long round tail, with a total length varying from seven to nine feet and a
weight from about 150 to 200 pounds.

It has from two to five young, which are paler brown than the adult and
plainly marked with large dusky spots on the body and with dark bars on

the tail. These special markings of the young, as in other animals, are
ancestral, and here appear to indicate that in the remote past our plain
brown panther was a spotted cat somewhat like the leopard.

No other American mammal has a range equal to that of the mountain lion.
It originally inhabited both North and South America from southern Quebec
and Vancouver Island to Patagonia and from the Atlantic to the Pacific
coasts. Within this enormous territory it appears to be equally at home in an
extraordinary variety of conditions. Formerly it was rather common in the
Adirondacks of northern New York and still lives in the high Rocky
Mountains of the West, where it endures the rigors of the severest winter
temperatures. It is generally distributed, where large game occurs, in the
treeless ranges of the most arid parts of the southwestern deserts, and is also
well known in the most humid tropical forests of Central and South
America, whose gloomy depths are drenched by almost continual rain.

A number of geographic races of the species have been developed by the
varied character of its haunts. These are usually characterized by differences
in size and by paler and grayer shades in the arid regions and by darker and
browner ones in the humid areas.

The mountain lion, while powerful enough to be dangerous to man, is in
reality extremely timid. Owing to its being a potentially dangerous animal,
the popular conception of it is that of a fearsome beast, whose savage
exploits are celebrated in the folk-lore of our frontier. As a matter of fact,
few wild animals are less dangerous, although there are authentic accounts
of wanton attacks upon people, just as there are authentic instances of buck
deer and moose becoming aggressive. It has a wild, screaming cry which is
thrillingly impressive when the shades of evening are throwing a
mysterious gloom over the forests. In the mountains of Arizona one summer
a mountain lion repeatedly passed along a series of ledges high above my
cabin at dusk, uttering this loud weird cry, popularly supposed to resemble
the scream of a terrified woman.

The mountain lion is usually nocturnal, but in regions where it is not hunted
it not infrequently goes abroad by day. It is a tireless wanderer, often
traveling many miles in a single night, sometimes in search of game and
again in search of new hunting grounds. I have repeatedly followed its

tracks for long distances along trails, and in northern Chihuahua I once
tracked one for a couple of miles from a bare rocky hill straight across the
open, grassy plain toward a treeless desert mountain, for which it was
heading, some eight or ten miles away.

Although inoffensive as to people, this cat is such a fierce and relentless
enemy of large game and live stock that it is everywhere an outlaw. Large
bounties on its head have resulted in its extermination in most parts of the
eastern United States and have diminished its numbers elsewhere. It is not
only hunted with gun and dog but also with trap and poison.

A mountain lion usually secures its prey by a silent, cautious stalk, taking
advantage of every cover until within striking distance, and then, with one
or more powerful leaps, dashing the victim to the ground with all the
stunning impact of its weight. In a beautiful live-oak forest on the
mountains of San Luis Potosi I once trailed one of these great cats to the
spot where it had killed a deer a short time before, and could plainly read in
the trail the story of the admirable skill with which it had moved from cover
to cover until it reached a knoll at one side of the little glade where the deer
was feeding. Then a great leap carried it to the deer’s back and struck the
victim to the ground with such violence that it slid 10 or 12 feet across the
sloping ground, apparently having been killed on the instant.

Another trail followed in the snow on the high mountains of New Mexico
led to the top of a projecting ledge from which the lion had leaped out and
down over 20 feet, landing on the back of a deer and sliding with it 50 feet
or more down the snowy slope.

The mountain lion often kills calves, but is especially fond of young horses.
In many range districts of the Western States and on the table-land of
Mexico, owing to the depredations of this animal, it is impossible to raise
horses. Unfortunately the predatory habits of this splendid cat are such that
it can not continue to occupy the same territory as civilized man and so is
destined to disappear before him.

JAGUAR (Felis hernandesi and its subspecies)

The jaguar, or “el tigre,” as it is generally known throughout Spanish
America, is the largest and handsomest of American cats. Its size and deep
yellow color, profusely marked with black spots and rosettes, give it a close
resemblance to the African leopard. It is, however, a heavier and more
powerful animal. In parts of the dense tropical forests of South America
coal-black jaguars occur, and while representing merely a color phase, they
are popularly supposed to be much fiercer than the ordinary animal.

Jaguars are characteristic animals of the tropics in both Americas,
frequenting alike the low jungle of arid parts as well as the great forests of
the humid regions. In addition, they range south into Argentina and north
into the southwestern United States. Although less numerous within our
borders than formerly, they still occur as rare visitants as far north as middle
Texas, middle New Mexico, and northern Arizona. They are so strictly
nocturnal that their presence in our territory is usually not suspected until,
after depredations on stock usually attributed to mountain lions, a trap or
poison is put out and reveals a jaguar as the offender. Several have been
killed in this way within our border during the last ten years, including one
not far from the tourist hotel at the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

Although so large and powerful, the jaguar has none of the truculent
ferocity of the African leopard. During the years I spent in its country,
mainly in the open, I made careful inquiry without hearing of a single case
where one had attacked human beings. So far as I could learn, it has
practically the same shy and cowardly nature as the mountain lion. Despite
this, the natives throughout its tropical home have a great fear of “el tigre,”
as I saw evidenced repeatedly in Mexico. Apparently this fear is based
wholly on its strength and potential ability to harm man if it so desired.

Jaguars are very destructive to the larger game birds and mammals of their
domain and to horses and cattle on ranches. On many large tropical ranches
a “tigrero,” or tiger hunter, with a small pack of mongrel dogs, is
maintained, whose duty it is immediately to take up the trail when a “tigre”
makes its presence known, usually by killing cattle. The hunter steadily
continues the pursuit, sometimes for many days, until the animal is either
killed or driven out of the district. It is ordinarily hunted with dogs, which

noisily follow the trail, but its speed through the jungle often enables it to
escape. When hard pressed it takes to a tree and is easily killed.

Few predatory animals are such wanderers as the jaguar, which roams
hundreds of miles from its original home, as shown by its occasional
appearance far within our borders. In the heavy tropical forest it so
commonly follows the large wandering herds of white-lipped peccaries that
some of the Mexicans contend that every large herd is trailed by a tiger to
pick up stragglers. Along the Mexican coast in spring, when sea turtles
crawl up the beaches to bury their eggs in the sand, the rising sun often
reveals the fresh tracks of the jaguar where it has traveled for miles along
the shore in search of these savory deposits.

In one locality on the Pacific coast of Guerrero I found that the hardier
natives had an interesting method of hunting the “tigre” during the mating
period. At such times the male has the habit of leaving its lair near the head
of a small canyon in the foothills early in the evening and following down
the canyon for some distance, at intervals uttering a subdued roar. On
moonlight nights at this time the hunter places an expert native with a short
wooden trumpet near the mouth of the canyon to imitate the “tigre’s” call as
soon as it is heard and to repeat the cry at proper intervals. After placing the
caller, the hunter ascends the canyon several hundred yards and, gun in
hand, awaits the approach of the animal. The natives have many amusing
tales of the sudden exit of untried hunters when the approaching animal
unexpectedly uttered its roar at close quarters.

JAGUARUNDI CAT, OR EYRA (Felis cacomitli and its
subspecies)

The eyra differs greatly in general appearance from any of our other cats,
although it is one of the most characteristic of the American members of
this widely spread family. It is larger than an otter, with a small flattened
head, long body, long tail, and short legs, thus having a distinctly otterlike
form. It is characterized by two color phases—one a dull gray or dusky, and
the other some shade of rusty rufous. Animals of these different colors were
long supposed to represent distinct species, but it has been learned not only

that color is the only difference between the two, but also that the two
colors are everywhere found together, affording satisfactory evidence that
they are merely color phases of the same species.

MOUNTAIN LION

JAGUAR

RED AND GRAY PHASES OF THE JAGUARUNDI CAT, OR EYRA

TIGER-CAT, OR OCELOT

The eyra is a habitant of brush-grown or forested country, mainly in the
lowlands, from the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas south to Paraguay. In
this vast territory it has developed a number of geographic races.

In southern Texas, where it is often associated with the ocelot, the eyra lives
in dense thorny thickets of mesquites, acacias, ironwood, and other
semitropical chaparral in a region of brilliant sunlight; but farther south it
also roams the magnificent forests of the humid tropics, in which the sun
rarely penetrates. It appears to be even more nocturnal and retiring than
most of our cats, and but little is known of its life history. The results of
thorough trapping in the dense thorny thickets near Brownsville, Texas,
indicate that it is probably more common than is generally supposed.

The natives in the lowlands of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast of Mexico,
informed me that the eyra in that region is fond of the vicinity of streams,
and that it takes to the water and swims freely, crossing rivers whenever it
desires. Its otterlike form goes well with such habits, and further
information may prove that it is commonly a water-frequenting animal. Its
unusual form and dual coloration and our lack of knowledge regarding the
life of the eyra unite to make it one of the most interesting of our
carnivores.

TIGER-CATS, OR OCELOTS (Felis pardalis and its relatives)

The brushy and forested areas of America from southern Texas and Sonora
to Paraguay are inhabited by spotted cats of different species, varying from
the size of a large house cat to that of a Canada lynx. Only one of these
occurs in the United States. All are characterized by long tails and a
yellowish ground color, conspicuously marked by black spots, and on neck
and back by short, longitudinal stripes—a color pattern that strongly
suggests the leopard.

In the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas the tiger-cat is rather common,
with the eyra-cat, in areas densely overgrown with thorny chaparral. Like
most of the cat tribe, it is strictly nocturnal and by day lies well hidden in its

brushy shelter. By night it wanders along trails over a considerable territory,
seeking its prey. Birds of all kinds, including domestic poultry, are captured
on their roosts, and rabbits, wood rats, and mice of many kinds, as well as
snakes and other reptiles, are on its list of game.

Its reptile-eating habit was revealed to me unexpectedly one day in the
dense tropical forest of Chiapas. I was riding along a steep trail beside a
shallow brush-grown ravine when a tiger-cat suddenly rushed up the trunk
of a tree close by. A lucky shot from my revolver brought it to the ground,
and I found it lying in the ravine by the body of a recently killed boa about
6 or 7 feet long. It had eaten the boa’s head and neck when my approach
interrupted the feast.

The first of these cats I trapped in Mexico was captured the night after my
arrival, in a trail bordering the port of Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast. The
rejoicing of the natives living close by evidenced the toll this marauder had
been taking from their chickens.

The tiger-cat is much more quiet and less fierce in disposition than most
felines. It excited my surprise and interest whenever I trapped one to note
how nonchalantly it took the situation. The captive never dashed wildly
about to escape, but when I drew near sat and looked quietly at me without
the slightest sign of alarm and with little apparent interest. A small trap-
hold, even on the end of a single toe, was enough to retain the victim. On
one occasion, while a cat thus held sat looking at me, it quietly reached to
one side and sank its teeth into the bark of a small tree to which the trap was
attached, and then resumed its air of unconcern.

The tiger-cat brings within our fauna an interesting touch of the tropics and
its exuberance of animal life. It is found in so small a corner of our territory,
however, that, despite its mainly inoffensive habits, it is certain to be
crowded out in the near future by the increased occupation of its haunts.

RED FOX (Vulpes fulva and its relatives)

Red foxes are characterized by their rusty red fur, black-fronted fore legs,
and white-tipped tail. They inhabit the forested regions in the temperate and
subarctic parts of both Old and New Worlds, and, like other types of animal
life having a wide range, they break up into numerous distinct species and
geographic races.

In America they originally ranged over nearly all the forested region from
the northern limit of trees in Alaska and Canada south, east of the Great
Plains, to Texas; also down the Rocky Mountains to middle New Mexico,
and down the Sierra Nevada to the Mount Whitney region of California.
They are unknown on the treeless plains of the West, including the Great
Basin. Originally they were apparently absent from the Atlantic and Gulf
States from Maryland to Louisiana, but have since been introduced and
become common south to middle Georgia and Alabama.

Wherever red foxes occur they show great mental alertness and capacity to
meet the requirements of their surroundings. In New England they steadily
persist, though their raids on poultry yards have for centuries set the hand of
mankind against them. For a time conditions favored them in parts of the
Middle Atlantic States, for the sport of hunting to hounds was imported
from England, and the foxes had partial protection. This exotic amusement
has now passed and the fox must everywhere depend on his nimble wits for
safety.

Since the days of Æsop’s fables tales of foxes and their doings have had
their place in literature as well as in the folk-lore of the countryside. Many
of their amazing wiles to outwit pursuers or to capture their prey give
evidence of extraordinary mental powers.

Their bill of fare includes many items, as mice, birds, reptiles, insects, many
kinds of fruits, and on rare occasions a chicken. The bad name borne by
them among farmers, due to occasional raids on the poultry yard, is largely
unwarranted. They kill enormous numbers of mice and other small rodents
each year, and thus well repay the loss of a chicken now and then.

Red foxes apparently pair for life and occupy dens dug by themselves in a
secluded knoll or among rocks. These dens, which are sometimes occupied
for years in succession, always have two or more entrances opening in

opposite directions, so that an enemy entering on one side may be readily
eluded. The young, numbering up to eight or nine, are tenderly cared for by
both parents.

Although they have been persistently hunted and trapped in North America
since the earliest times, they still yield a royal annual tribute of furs. It is
well known that the highly prized cross, as well as the precious black, and
silver gray foxes are merely color phases occurring in litters of the ordinary
red animal. Black skins are so highly prized that specially fine ones have
sold for more than $2,500 each in the London market. The reward thus
offered has resulted in the development of black fox fur-farms, which have
been very successful in parts of Canada and the United States, thus
originating a valuable new industry.

By the modern regulation of trapping, foxes and other fur-bearers are
destined to survive wherever conditions are favorable. In addition to the
economic value of foxes, the location of an occasional fox den here and
there on the borders of a woodland tract, the meandering tracks in the snow,
and the occasional glimpse of animals cautiously making their rounds add a
keen touch of primitive nature well worth preserving in any locality.

ALASKA RED FOX (Vulpes kenaiensis)

The red fox of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and the adjacent mainland is
probably the largest of its kind in the world, although those of Kodiak
Island and of the Mackenzie River valley are nearly as large. Compared
with its relatives of the United States, the Kenai fox is a giant, with heavier,
duller-colored coat and a huge tail, more like that of a wolf than of a fox.
The spruce and birch forests of Alaska and the Mackenzie Valley are
apparently peculiarly adapted to red foxes, as shown by the development
there of these animals—good illustrations of the relative increase in size
and vigor of animals in a specially favorable environment.

As noted in the general account of the red foxes, the occurrence of the black
phase is sporadic, and the relative number of dark individuals varies greatly
in different parts of their range. The region about the upper Yukon and its

tributaries and the Mackenzie River basin are noted for the number of black
foxes produced, apparently a decidedly greater proportion than in any other
similarly large area. The prices for which these black skins sell in the
London market prove them to be of equal quality with those from any other
area.

Like other red foxes, the Alaskan species digs its burrows, with several
entrances, in some dry secluded spot, where both male and female share in
the care of the young. In northern wilds the food problem differs from that
in a settled country. There the surrounding wild life is the only dependence,
and varying hares, lemmings, and other mice are usually to be had by the
possessor of a keen scent and an active body. In summer many nesting
wild-fowl and their young are easy prey, while heathberries and other
northern fruits are also available.

Winter brings a season of scarcity, when life requires the exercise of every
trained faculty. The snow-white ptarmigan is then a prize to be gained only
by the most skillful stalking, and the white hare is almost equally difficult to
secure. At this season foxes wander many miles each day, their erratic
tracks in the snow telling the tale of their industrious search for prey in
every likely spot. It is in this season of insistent hunger that many of them
fall victims to the wiles of trappers or to the unscrupulous hunter who
scatters poisoned baits.

Fortunately the season for trapping these and other fur-bearers in Alaska is
now limited by law and the use of poisons is forbidden. These measures
will aid in preserving one of the valuable natural assets of these northern
wilds.

GRAY FOX (Urocyon cinereoargenteus and its relatives)

Gray foxes average about the size of common red foxes, but are longer and
more slender in body, with longer legs and a longer, thinner tail. They are
peculiar to America, where they have a wide range—from New Hampshire,
Wisconsin, and Oregon south through Mexico and Central America to
Colombia. Within this area there are numerous geographic forms closely

alike in color and general appearance, but varying much in size; the largest
of all, larger than the red fox, occupying the New England States.

Gray foxes inhabit wooded and brush-grown country and are much more
numerous in the arid or semiarid regions of the southwestern United States
and western Mexico than elsewhere. In parts of California they are far more
numerous than red foxes ever become. They do not regularly dig a den, but
occupy a hollow tree or cavity in the rocks, where they bring forth from
three to five young each spring. As with other foxes, the cubs are born blind
and helpless, and are also almost blackish in color, entirely unlike the
adults. The parents, as usual with all members of the dog family, are
devoted to their young and care for them with the utmost solicitude.

CROSS FOX RED FOX SILVER FOX

The precious black and silver gray foxes are merely color phases occurring in litters of the ordinary red
animal (see text, page 416).

ALASKA RED FOX

DESERT FOX GRAY FOX

BADGER

Like other members of the tribe, they are omnivorous and feed upon mice,
squirrels, rabbits, birds, and large insects, in addition to acorns or other nuts
and fruits of all kinds. In Lower California they are very common about the
date-palm orchards, which they visit nightly for fallen fruit. They also make
nocturnal visits to poultry yards.

In some parts of the West they are called “tree foxes,” because when
pursued by dogs they often climb into the tops of small branching trees.

On one occasion in Arizona I saw a gray fox standing in the top of a large,
leaning mesquite tree, about thirty feet from the ground, quietly gazing in
various directions, as though he had chosen this as a lookout point. As soon
as he saw me he came down at a run and swiftly disappeared.

In the same region I found a den in the hollow base of an old live-oak
containing three young only a few days old. The mother was shot as she
sprang from the hole on my approach and the young taken to camp. There
the skin of the old fox, well wrapped in paper, was placed on the ground at
one side of the tent, and an open hunting bag containing the young placed

on the opposite side, about ten feet away. On returning an hour later, I was
amazed to find that all three of the young, so small they could crawl only
with the utmost difficulty, and totally blind, had crossed the tent and
managed to work their way through the paper to the skin of their mother,
thus showing that the acute sense of smell in these foxes becomes of service
to them at a surprisingly early age.

DESERT FOX (Vulpes macrotis and its subspecies)

A small fox, akin to the kit fox or swift of the western plains, frequents the
arid cactus-grown desert region of the Southwest. It is found from the
southern parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and California south into the
adjacent parts of Mexico. The desert fox is a beautiful species, slender in
form, and extraordinarily quick and graceful in its movements, but so
generally nocturnal in habits as to be rarely seen by the desert traveler. On
the rare occasions when one is encountered abroad by day, if it thinks itself
unobserved by the traveler it usually flattens itself on the ground beside any
small object which breaks the surface, and thus obscured will permit a
horseman to ride within a few rods without moving. If the traveler indicates
by any action that he has seen it, the fox darts away at extraordinary speed,
running with a smooth, floating motion which seems as effortless as that of
a drifting thistledown before a breeze.

The desert fox digs a burrow, with several entrances, in a small mound, or
at times on an open flat, and there rears four or five young each year. Its
main food consists of kangaroo rats, pocket mice, small ground-squirrels,
and a variety of other small desert mammals. In early morning fox tracks,
about the size of those of a house-cat, may be seen along sandy arroyos and
similar places where these small carnivores have wandered in search of
prey.

Like the kit, the desert fox has little of the sophisticated mental ability of
the red fox and falls an easy prey to the trapper. It is nowhere numerous and
occupies such a thinly inhabited region that there is little danger of its
numbers greatly decreasing in the near future.

BADGER (Taxidea taxus and its subspecies)

The favorite home of the badger is on grassy, brush-grown plains, where
there is an abundance of mice, pocket gophers, ground-squirrels, prairie-
dogs, or other small mammals. There it wanders far and wide at night
searching for the burrows of the small rodents, which are its chief prey.
When its acute sense of smell announces that a burrow is occupied, it sets to
work with sharp claws and powerful fore legs and digs down to the terrified
inmate in an amazingly short time.

The trail of a badger for a single night is often marked by hole after hole,
each with a mound of fresh earth containing the tracks of the marauder. As a
consequence, if several of these animals are in the neighborhood, their
burrows, 6 or 8 inches in diameter, soon become so numerous that it is
dangerous to ride rapidly through their haunts on horseback.

Although a member of the weasel family, the badger is so slow-footed that
when it is occasionally found abroad by day a man on foot can easily
overtake it. When brought to bay, it charges man or dog and fights with
such vicious power and desperation that nothing of its own size can
overcome it. It appears to have a morose and savage nature, lacking the
spice of vivacity or playfulness which appears in many of its relatives.

Although commonly found living by itself in a den, it is often found
moving about by day in pairs, indicating the probability that it may mate
permanently. In the northern part of its range it hibernates during winter, but
in the south remains active throughout the year. Its shy and retiring
character is evidenced by the little information we have concerning its
family life. The badger is so destructive to rodents that its services are of
great value to the farmer. Regardless of this, where encountered it is almost
invariably killed. As a consequence, the increasing occupation of its
territory must result in its steady decrease in numbers and final
extermination.

The American badger is a close relative of the well-known badger
occupying the British Isles and other northern parts of the Old World. It is a
low, broad, short-legged, powerfully built animal of such wide distribution

that it has developed several geographic races. Its range originally extended
from about 58 degrees of latitude, on the Peace River, in Canada, south to
the plains of Puebla, on the southern end of the Mexican table-land, and
from Michigan, Kansas, and Texas west to the Pacific coast. It has now
become extinct over much of this area and is everywhere greatly reduced in
numbers.

It appears to thrive equally well on the plains of Alberta, in the open pine
forests of the Sierra Nevada in California, and on the dry tropical lowlands
at the southern end of the Peninsula of Lower California.

ARCTIC WOLF (Canis tundrarum)

In order to fit properly into a high northern environment, Arctic wolves
have developed white coats, which they wear throughout the year. They are
among the largest of their kind and have all the surpassing vigor needful for
successful beasts of prey in the rigors of such a home. Nature is more than
ordinarily hard on weaklings in the far North and only the fittest survive.

The range of the white wolves covers the treeless barren grounds bordering
the Arctic coast of Alaska and Canada and extending thence across the
Arctic islands to the north coast of Greenland beyond 83 degrees of latitude.

The short summer in the far North is the season of plenty, during which
swarms of wild-fowl furnish a bountiful addition to the regular food supply.
Young wolves are reared and the pack feeds fat, laying up a needed reserve
strength for the coming season of darkness. When winter arrives lemmings
and Arctic hares and an occasional white fox furnish an uncertain food
supply for such insistent hunger as that of wolves, and larger game is a
necessity.

In the northern part of their range they share with the other denizens of that
land the months of continuous night. There, amid relentless storms and iron
frosts, the trail, once found, must be held to the end. The chase is made in
the gloom of continuous night and the white caribou or musk-ox herd is
brought to bay, and by the law of the pack food is provided.

White wolves are the one dreaded foe Nature has given the musk-ox and the
caribou in the northern wilds. The number of the wolves, as with other
carnivores, varies with the abundance of their chief prey, and they will
disappear automatically with the caribou and musk-oxen.

GRAY, OR TIMBER, WOLF (Canis nubilus and its relatives)

Large wolves, closely related to those of Europe and Siberia, once infested
practically all of Arctic and temperate North America, excepting only the
arid desert plains. This range extended from the remotest northern lands
beyond 83 degrees of latitude south to the mountains about the Valley of
Mexico.

When America was first colonized by white men, wolves were numerous
everywhere in proportion to the great abundance of game animals. With the
increased occupation of the continent and the destruction of most of its
large game, wolves have entirely disappeared from large parts of their
former domain. They still occur in varying numbers in the forest along our
northern border from Michigan westward, and south along the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierra Madre to Durango, Mexico, and also in all the
Gulf States.

The variations in climate and other physical conditions within their range
has resulted in the development of numerous geographic races, and perhaps
of species, of wolves, which show marked differences in size and color. The
white Arctic wolf, described on pages 421 and 424, is one of the most
notable of these, but the gray wolf of the Rocky Mountain region and the
eastern United States is the best known.

Since the dawn of history Old World wolves, when hunger pressed, have
not hesitated to attack men, and in wild districts have become a fearful
scourge. American wolves have rarely shown this fearlessness toward man,
probably owing to the abundance of game before the advent of white men
and to the general use of firearms among the pioneers. That wolves are
extremely difficult to exterminate is shown by their persistence to the
present day in parts of France and elsewhere in Europe. This is due both to

their fecundity (they have from eight to twelve young), and to their keen
intelligence, which they so often pit successfully against the wiles of their
chief enemy—man.

Gray wolves appear to mate permanently, and in spring their young are born
in natural dens among great rocks, or in a burrow dug for the purpose in a
hillside. There both parents exercise the greatest vigilance for the protection
of the young. The male kills and brings in game and stands guard in the
neighborhood, while the mother devotes most of her time to the pups while
they are very small. At other times of year packs made up of one or more
pairs and their young hunt together with a mutual helpfulness in pursuing
and bringing down their prey that shows a high order of intelligence.
Wolves are in fact first cousins of the dog, whose mental ability is
recognized by all.

During the existence of the great buffalo herds, packs of big gray “buffalo
wolves” roamed the western plains, taking toll wherever it pleased them.
Since these vast game herds have disappeared only a small fraction of the
wolves have survived. There are enough, however, not only to commit great
ravages among the deer and other game in northern Michigan and on the
coastal islands of Alaska, but also to destroy much live stock in the Rocky
Mountain region.

THE PEARY CARIBOU ARCTIC WOLF
One of the geographic forms of the
Barren Ground Caribou (see text,
page 460).

So serious have the losses in cattle and sheep on the ranges become that
Congress has recently made large appropriations for the destruction of
wolves and other predatory animals, and these disturbers of the peace will
soon become much reduced in numbers. The necessity for action of this
kind is shown by the recent capture in Colorado of a huge old dog wolf with
a definite record of having killed about $3,000 worth of stock. Interesting as

wolves are, filling their place in the wilderness, their habits bar them from
being tolerated in civilized regions.

GRAY, OR TIMBER, WOLF BLACK WOLF

PLAINS COYOTE, OR PRAIRIE WOLF ARIZONA, OR MEARNS, COYOTE

PLAINS COYOTE, OR PRAIRIE WOLF (Canis latrans)

Western North America is inhabited by a peculiar group of small wolves,
known as coyotes, this being a Spanish corruption of the Aztec name coyotl.
They range from northern Michigan, northern Alberta, and British
Columbia south to Costa Rica, and from western Iowa and Texas to the
Pacific coast. As a group they are animals of the open plains and sparsely
wooded districts, ranging from sea-level to above timber-line on the highest
mountains. They are most at home on the wide brushy or grassy plains of
the western United States and the table-lands of Mexico.

Within their great area coyotes have developed several distinct species and
a number of geographic races, distinguished by differences in size, color,
and other characteristics. Some attain a size almost equaling that of the gray
wolf, while others are much smaller.

They are less courageous and have less of the social instinct than gray
wolves, and on the rare occasions when they hunt in packs they form, no
doubt, a family party, including the young of the year. They appear to pair
more or less permanently and commonly hunt in couples. The young,
sometimes numbering as many as fourteen, are born in a burrow dug in a
bank, or in a den among broken rocks and ledges. Young animals are
readily tamed, and it is entirely probable that some of the dogs found by
early explorers among western Indians may have descended from coyotes.

Coyotes are a familiar sight to travelers in the wildest parts of the West.
Here and there one is seen trotting through the sagebrush or other scrubby
growth, or stopping to gaze curiously at the intruder. If suddenly alarmed,
they race away across the plains with amazing speed. At night their high-
pitched, wailing howls voice the lonely spirit of waste places.

With the growth of settlement in the West and the steady decrease of large
and small game, coyotes have become more and more destructive to poultry
and all kinds of live stock. As a result, every man’s hand is against them,
reinforced by gun, trap, and poison. Despite years of this persistent warfare,
their acute intelligence, aided by their extraordinary fecundity, has enabled
them to hold their own over a great part of their original range. Their
depredations upon live stock have been so great that many millions of
dollars have been paid in bounties for their destruction.

This method of control has proved so ineffective, however, that the Federal
Government has engaged in the task of suppressing them, together with the
other less numerous predatory animals of the West, and has placed about
300 hunters in the field for this purpose. The complete destruction of
coyotes would, no doubt, upset the balance of nature in favor of rabbits,
prairie-dogs, and other harmful rodents, and thus result in a very serious
increase in the destruction of crops.

The coyote supplies much interest and local color to many dreary
landscapes and has become a prominent figure in the literature of the West.
There it is usually symbolic of shifty cunning and fleetness of foot.
Whatever his faults, the coyote is an amusing and interesting beast, and it is
hoped that the day of his complete disappearance from our wild life may be
far in the future.

ARIZONA, OR MEARNS, COYOTE (Canis mearnsi)

The Arizona coyote is one of the smallest and at the same time the most
handsomely colored of all its kind. Its home is limited to the arid deserts on
both sides of the lower Colorado River, but mainly in southwestern Arizona
and adjacent parts of Sonora. This is one of the hottest and most arid
regions of the continent, and for coyotes successfully to hold their own
there requires the exercise of all the acute intelligence for which they are
noted. Instead of the winter blizzards and biting cold encountered in the
home of the plains coyote, this southern species has to endure the
furnacelike heat of summer, with occasional long periods of drought, when
water-holes become dry, plant life becomes dormant, and a large part of the
smaller mammal life perishes.

The Arizona coyote, like others of its kind, is omnivorous. In seasons of
plenty, rabbits, kangaroo rats, pocket gophers, and many other desert
rodents cost only the pleasant excitement of a short stalk. With the changing
seasons the flesh diet is varied by the sugary mesquite beans, juicy cactus
fruit, and other products of thorny desert plants. Wherever sufficient water
is available for irrigation, small communities of Indians or Mexicans are to
be found. About such centers many coyotes usually establish themselves
and fatten on poultry, green corn, melons, and other fruits provided by the
labor of man. Many of them also patrol the shores of the Gulf of California
and feast upon the eggs of turtles and other spoils of the sea.

The arrival of men at a desert water-hole is quickly known among these
alert foragers, and when the travelers arise at daybreak they are likely to see
tell-tale tracks on the sand where one or two coyotes have walked in and
out between their sleeping places and all about camp. Shortly afterward the
campers, if inexperienced, may learn that bacon and other food are
contraband and always confiscated by these dogs of the desert. These camp
marauders often stand among the bushes only 75 or 100 yards away in the
morning and watch the intruders with much curiosity until some hostile
movement starts them off in rapid flight.

WHITE, OR ARCTIC, FOX (Alopex lagopus)

The Arctic fox, clothed in long, fluffy white fur, is an extremely handsome
animal, about two-thirds the size of the common red fox. It is a circumpolar
species, which in America ranges over all the barren grounds beyond the
limit of trees, including the coastal belt of tundra from the Peninsula of
Alaska to Bering Straits, the Arctic islands, and the frozen sea to beyond 83
degrees of latitude.

The blue fox of commerce is a color phase of this species, usually of
sporadic occurrence, like the black phase of the red fox. The white fox
makes its burrow either in a dry mound, under a large rock, or in the snow,
where its young are brought forth and cared for with the devotion which
appears to characterize all foxes.

How this small and delicately formed animal manages to sustain life under
the rigorous winter conditions of the far north has always been a mystery to
me. I have seen its tracks on the sea ice miles from shore. It regularly
wanders far and wide over these desolate icy wastes, which can offer only
the most remote chance for food. However, it appears to thrive, with other
animal life, even where months of continuous night follow the long summer
day.

The food of the Arctic fox includes nearly all species of the wild-fowl
which each summer swarm into the far North to breed. There on the tundras
congregate myriads of ducks, geese, and waders, while on the cliffs and
rocky islands are countless gulls and other water birds. In winter they find
lemmings and other northern mice, occasional Arctic hares, and ptarmigan,
as well as fragments of prey left by Arctic wolves or polar bears. Now and
then the carcass of a whale is stranded or frozen in the ice, furnishing an
abundance of food, sometimes for a year or more, to the foxes which gather
about it from a great distance.

Perhaps owing to its limited experience with man, the northern animal is
much less suspicious than the southern red fox. During winter sledge trips
in Alaska I frequently had two or three of them gather about my open camp
on the coast, apparently fascinated by the little camp-fire of driftwood.
They would sit about, near by in the snow, for an hour or two in the
evening, every now and then uttering weak, husky barks like small dogs.

The summer of 1881, when we landed from the Corwin on Herald Island,
northwest of Bering Straits, we found many white foxes living in burrows
under large scattered rocks on the plateau summit. They had never seen
men before and our presence excited their most intense interest and
curiosity. One and sometimes two of them followed closely at my heels
wherever I went, and when I stopped to make notes or look about, sat down
and watched me with absurd gravity. Now and then one at a distance would
mount a rock to get a better view of the stranger.

On returning to the ship, I remembered that my notebook had been left on a
large rock over a fox den, on the island, and at once went back for it. I had
been gone only a short time, but no trace of the book could be found on or
about the rock, and it was evident that the owner of the den had confiscated
it. Several other foxes sat about viewing my search with interest and when I
left followed me to the edge of the island. A nearly grown young one kept
on the Corwin was extraordinarily intelligent, inquisitive, and mischievous,
and afforded all of us much amusement and occasional exasperation.

PRIBILOF BLUE FOX (Alopex lagopus pribilofensis)

The blue fox is a color phase of the Arctic white fox and may occur
anywhere in the range of the typical animal. In fact, the blue phase bears the
same relationship to the white that the black phase does to the red fox. In
the Pribilof, or Fur Seal, Islands of Alaska, however, through the influence
of favorable climatic conditions, assisted by artificial selection in weeding
out white animals, the blue phase has become the resident form. Isolation
on these islands has developed other characters also which, with the
prevailing color, render the Pribilof animal a distinct geographic race of the
white species. A blue fox is also the prevailing resident animal in Iceland.

In years when fur-seals were killed in considerable numbers on the Pribilofs
their carcasses remained on the killing grounds as a never-failing store of
food through the winter. During summer there is an abundance of nesting
water-fowl, and throughout the year there are mice on land and the products
of the sea along shore. As a result the foxes have thrived amazingly and
several hundred skins have been produced a year. With the lessening

number of seals now being killed on the islands and the resulting scarcity of
winter food, the fate of the foxes is somewhat in doubt. The Pribilof skins
are of high market value, bringing from $40 to $150 each in the London
market.

Stock from the Pribilofs has been introduced on a number of the Aleutians
and other Alaskan islands for fur-farming purposes. The value of these fur-
bearers is so great that special effort should be made not only to keep up the
stock on the islands, but still further to improve it.

The Pribilof foxes have from five to eleven young, which are usually born
above ground and are later carried to the shelter of dens dug in the open or
under the shelter of a rock. Foxes have become so accustomed to people on
these islands that they have little fear and come about boldly to satisfy their
curiosity or to seek for food. They often show an amusing interest in the
doings of any one who invades the more remote parts of their domain.
White animals born on the islands or coming in by chance when the pack
ice touches there in winter are killed, whenever possible, in order to hold
the blue strain true.

WHITE, OR ARCTIC, FOX PRIBILOF BLUE FOX

WOLVERINE

WOLVERINE (Gulo luscus)

The wolverine, or carcajou of the Canadian voyageurs, is a circumpolar
species belonging to the northern forested areas of both continents. In North
America it formerly ranged from the northern limit of trees south to New
England and New York, and down the Rocky Mountains to Colorado, and
down the Sierra Nevada to near Mount Whitney, California. It is a low,
squat, heavy-bodied animal, with strong legs and feet armed with sharp
claws, and is the largest and most formidable of the weasel family.

The wolverine is extraordinarily powerful and possesses what at times
appears to be a diabolical cunning and persistence. It frequently trails
trappers along their trap lines, eating or destroying their catches and at
times hiding their traps. It is a tireless wanderer, and the hunter or traveler
in the northern wilds always has this marauder in mind and is put to the

limit of his wits to provide caches for his provisions or other supplies which
it can not despoil.

What it can not eat it is likely to carry away and hide. A wolverine has often
been known to expend a surprising amount of labor in apparently deliberate
mischief, even carrying numerous articles away from camps and hiding
them in different places. It sometimes trails a traveler for many miles
through winter snow, always out of sight, but alert to take advantage of any
carelessness in leaving game or other food unguarded.

Mingled with these mischievous traits the wolverine possesses a savage
ferocity combined with a muscular power which renders it a dreaded foe of
all but the largest animals of its domain. When guarding her young, the
female is no mean foe, even for a man.

As a consequence of its mental and physical character, the wolverine, more
than any other animal of the north, has impressed itself on the imagination
of both native and white hunters and travelers. A vast amount of folk-lore
has grown up about it and both Indians and Eskimos make offerings to
propitiate its malignant spirit. The Alaskan Eskimos trim the hoods of their
fur garments with a strip of wolverine fur, and Eskimo hunters wear belts
and hunting bags made of the skin of the legs and head, that they may
acquire some of the power of the animal from which these came.

The value of the handsome brown fur of the wolverine, as well as the
enmity the animal earns among hunters and trappers, has resulted in its
being so persistently hunted that it has become extinct over much of its
former territory, and wherever still found it is much reduced in numbers.

PACIFIC WALRUS (Odobenus obesus)

The walruses, or “sea horses” of the old navigators, are the strangest and
most grotesque of all sea mammals. Their large, rugged heads, armed with
two long ivory tusks, and their huge swollen bodies, covered with hairless,
wrinkled, and warty skin, gives them a formidable appearance unlike that of
any other mammal. They are much larger than most seals, the old males

weighing from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds and the females about two-thirds as
much.

These strange beasts are confined to the Arctic Ocean and the adjacent
coasts and islands and are most numerous about the borders of the pack ice.
Two species are known, one belonging to the Greenland seas, while the
other, the Pacific walrus, is limited to Bering Sea and the Arctic basin
beyond Bering Straits.

The Pacific walruses migrate southward through Bering Straits with the
pack ice in fall and spend the winter in Bering Sea and along the adjacent
coast of eastern Asia. In spring they return northward through the straits and
pass the breeding season about the ice pack, where they congregate in great
herds. One night in July, 1881, the U. S. steamer Corwin cruised for hours
along the edge of the ice pack off the Arctic coast of Alaska and we saw an
almost unbroken line of walruses hauled out on the ice, forming an
extended herd which must have contained tens of thousands.

Walruses were formerly very abundant in Bering Sea, especially about the
Fur Seal Islands and along the coast north of the Peninsula of Alaska, but
few now survive there. Owing to the value of their thick skins, blubber, and
ivory tusks, they have been subjected to remorseless pursuit since the early
Russian occupation of their territory and have, as a result, become extinct in
parts of their former range and the species is now in serious danger of
extermination.

Like many of the seals, walruses have a strong social instinct, and although
usually seen in herds they are not polygamous. They feed mainly on clams
or other shellfish, which they gather on the bottom of the shallow sea. On
shore or on the ice they move slowly and with much difficulty, but in the
water they are thoroughly at home and good swimmers. When hauled out
on land or ice, they usually lie in groups one against the other. They are
stupid beasts and hunters have no difficulty in killing them with rifles at
close range.

Walruses have a strongly developed maternal instinct and show great
devotion and disregard of their own safety in defending the young. The
Eskimos at Cape Vancouver, Bering Sea, hunt them in frail skin-covered

kyaks, using ivory- or bone-pointed spears and seal-skin floats. Several
hunters told me of exciting and dangerous encounters they had experienced
with mother walruses. If the young are attacked, or even approached, the
mother does not hesitate to charge furiously. The hunters confess that on
such occasions there is no option but to paddle for their lives. Occasionally
an old walrus is unusually vindictive and, after forcing a hunter to take
refuge on the ice, will remain patrolling the vicinity for a long time, roaring
and menacing the object of her anger.

When boats approach the edge of the ice where walruses are hauled up, the
animals plunge into the sea in a panic and rise all about the intruders,
bellowing and rushing about, rearing their huge heads and gleaming white
tusks high out of water in an alarming manner. As a rule, however, they are
timid and seek only to escape, although occasionally, in their excitement,
one has been known to attack a boat and by a single blow of its tusks to do
serious damage and endanger the crew.

ALASKA FUR SEAL (Callorhinus alascanus)

Several species of fur seals are known, all of them limited to the southern
oceans or the coasts and islands of the North Pacific. All are strongly
gregarious and formerly sought their island breeding grounds in vast
numbers. At one period, soon after the purchase of Alaska, it was estimated
that several million fur seals were on the Pribilof Islands in one season.
During the height of their abundance the southern fur seals were equally
numerous.

The value of their skins and the facility with which these animals may be
slaughtered have resulted in the practical extermination of all but those
which breed under governmental protection on the Russian islands off the
coast of Kamchatka and on the Pribilof Islands in Alaska. Owing mainly to
wasteful pelagic sealing prior to the recent international treaty, the numbers
on both these groups of islands were much reduced.

The Alaska fur seal is a migratory species, wintering down the Pacific coast
as far as northern California. The migrations of these seals are of

remarkable interest. In spring they leave the northwest coast and many of
them travel steadily across more than two thousand miles of the North
Pacific. For days at a time they swim through a roaring gale-swept sea,
under dense, low-hanging clouds, and with unerring certainty strike certain
passages in the Aleutian Islands, through which they press to their breeding
grounds, more than 100 miles beyond, on the small, fog-hidden Pribilof
Islands.

Fur seals are extremely polygamous and the old males, which weigh from
400 to 500 pounds, “haul up” first on the breeding beaches. Each bull holds
a certain area, and as the females, only one-fifth his size, come ashore they
are appropriated by the nearest bulls until each “beach master” gathers a
harem, sometimes containing more than 100 members.

Here the young are born, and after the mating season the seals, which have
remained ashore without food from four to six weeks, return to the water.
The mothers go and come, and each is able to find her young with certainty
among thousands of apparently identical woolly black “pups.”

From the ages of one to four years fur seals are extremely playful. They are
marvelous swimmers and frolic about in pursuit of one another, now diving
deep and then, one after the other, suddenly leaping high above the surface
in graceful curves, like porpoises. Squids and fish of various species are
their main food. Their chief natural enemy is the killer whale, which
follows their migrations and haunts the sea about their breeding grounds,
taking heavy toll among them.

Since the discovery of the Pribilof Islands by the Russians the fur seal herds
there have yielded more than five million recorded skins. A census of the
herds in 1914 gave these islands nearly three hundred thousand seals. Now
that pelagic sealing has been suppressed and the herds are being protected,
there is every reason to expect that the seals will increase rapidly to
something like their former numbers.

STELLER SEA-LION (Eumetopias jubata)

Sea-lions are near relatives of the fur seals and have a nearly similar
distribution, both in far southern and northern seas. The males of the several
species are more than twice the size of the females and are characterized by
an enormous development of neck and shoulders. The Steller sea-lion is the
largest member of the group, the old bulls weighing from 1,200 to 1,500
pounds. All are extremely gregarious and polygamous.

The Steller sea-lions belong to the North Pacific, whence they range in
winter as far south as the coasts of California and Japan. In spring they
migrate northward to their breeding grounds among the Aleutian, Pribilof,
and other rocky islands of the North Pacific. The early histories of this
region record their great abundance, including several hundred thousand
which were reported to have congregated to breed each season on the
Pribilof Islands. Although less valuable than the fur-seal, persistent hunting
has gradually reduced their numbers on these islands until in 1914 only a
few hundred remained.

In summer range they are less limited than the fur seals, occurring in herds
about the shores of many rocky islands along the mainland coast of the
North Pacific and the Aleutian chain.

Since the primitive days before the arrival of civilized men in their haunts,
sea-lions were of the greatest economic importance to the Aleutian
Islanders and other coast natives. Food and fuel were obtained from their
flesh and blubber; coverings for boats were made of their skins; water-proof
overshirts of their intestines; boot soles from the tanned skin of their
flippers; trimmings of fancy garments from their tanned gullets and bristles,
and thread from their sinews.

They are preëminently animals of the most rugged of shorelines and the
stormiest of seas, being superbly powerful beasts with extraordinary
vitality. The ease with which they pass through a smother of pounding seas
to mount their rugged resting places is an admirable exhibition of skill and
strength. The males have a bellowing roar, which rises continually from the
herds on the rocks in savage unison with the booming of the sea against the
base of their refuge.

The harems of the bulls on Pribilof Islands rarely exceed a dozen members,
which are under less strict discipline than the harems of the fur seals. The
old bulls, especially during the mating season, are aggressive and savage
fighters, inflicting severe wounds on one another. At all times they are more
courageous and belligerent than fur seals, and hunters driving parties of
them back from the beach on the Pribilofs approach them with extreme
caution, to avoid the dangerous charges of angry bulls. It is reported that an
umbrella opened and closed suddenly in the faces of the old sea-lions
appears to terrify them more than any other weapon and is used
successfully in drives. At sea they have only a single known enemy to fear
—the fierce killer whale.

PACIFIC WALRUS

ALASKA FUR SEAL

STELLER SEA-LION

SEA OTTER (Latax lutris and its subspecies)

Sea otters, distant relatives of land otters, are heavy-bodied animals, about 4
feet long, with broad webbed hind feet. When in the water they have a
general resemblance to seals, whose mode of life is similar to theirs. Their
fur is extremely dense and on the skins of adult males is almost black,
closely sprinkled with long white-tipped hairs. The fur of prime skins has a
silky luster, equaled in beauty by only the finest silver-tipped fox skins. For
centuries sea-otter fur has been highly prized and single skins have brought
more than $1,000 in the London market.

Otters are limited to the coasts of the North Pacific, where formerly they
were incredibly abundant all the way from the shores and islands of Lower
California to the Aleutians, and thence along the Asiatic coast to the
Kuriles. Through excessive hunting, they are now extinct along most of this
extended coast-line.

In the days of the Russian occupation of Alaska the discovery of the
abundance of sea otters led to intense activity in their pursuit. Otter-hunting
expeditions were organized by the Russians along the storm-swept coast
from Unalaska to Sitka, sailing vessels being used as convoys for hundreds
of Aleut hunters in their skin-covered boats. The loss of life among the
hunters under their brutal taskmasters was appalling and resulted in
seriously and permanently reducing the native population of the Aleutian
Islands. At the same time enormous numbers of sea-otter skins were taken.
Afterward both English and American ships engaged in the pursuit of otters
farther down the coast.

The first year after the discovery of the Pribilof Islands the records show
that 5,000 sea otters were taken there. Many expeditions in other directions
secured from one to several thousand skins. When sea otters were most
abundant they were found all down the coast, even in San Francisco Bay,
and one American trading vessel obtained 7,000 skins in a few weeks from
the natives of the northern coast of Lower California.

The otters formerly frequented the shores of rocky islands and outlying
reefs, but constant persecution has driven the few survivors to remain
almost constantly at sea, where they seek resting places among kelp beds.
They are now excessively shy and, aided by keen eyes and an acute sense of
smell, are difficult to approach. When anything excites their curiosity they

commonly raise the body upright, the head high above water, and gaze
steadily at the object. If alarmed, they dive and reappear at a long distance.

Otter hunters report the animals very playful in pleasant weather, and
sometimes floating on their backs and playing with pieces of kelp. The
mother is devoted to her young and is said to play with it in the water for
hours at a time.

All efforts to rear the young in captivity have failed. The food of the sea
otter is mainly of shellfish of various kinds, secured by them from the
bottom of the sea.

Practically the only sea otters left among the hordes which once frequented
the American shores of the North Pacific are now scattered along the
Aleutian Islands. Government regulations prohibit their being hunted and it
is hoped that enough still remain to restock the wild and stormy sea where
they have their home.

NORTHERN SEA-ELEPHANT, OR ELEPHANT SEAL
(Mirounga augustirostris)

Sea-elephants are the largest and among the most remarkable of the seals.
Two species are known—one from islands on the borders of the Antarctic
Ocean and the other from the Pacific coast of Upper and Lower California.
The northern species formerly existed in vast numbers along the coast and
among outlying islands from Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, south to
Cedros Island, but is now reduced to a single small herd living about
Guadalupe Island, off Lower California.

The old males attain a length of 22 feet or more and are huge, ungainly
beasts, moving with difficulty on land, but with ease and grace in the water.
The name sea-elephant is obviously derived from the broad flexible snout
of the males, which, when relaxed, hangs 6 or 8 inches below the muzzle.
This curious proboscis can be moved about and raised vertically, giving the
animal a strange appearance. The males have a loud roar like the bellowing
of an ox.

The breeding season extends from February to June, and during this period
these seals are far more numerous on shore than at any other time. They are
gregarious in habits and formerly hauled up in herds on the islands or on
remote and inaccessible beaches of the mainland. On shore they are
sluggish, having none of the alertness shown by many other seals. They lie
supine on the sand and permit a man to walk quietly up and touch them
without showing signs of fear. When attacked by sealers or otherwise
alarmed, however, they become panic-stricken and make ungainly efforts to
escape, but quickly become exhausted by the exertion necessary to move
their great bodies. Their only natural enemy appears to be the killer whale.

Between 1855 and 1870 the great numbers of northern sea-elephants,
combined with their helplessness on shore and the value of their oil,
attracted numerous sealing and whaling ships to the coast of Lower
California. The resulting slaughter reduced these animals from swarming
abundance to a few scattered herds. Since then their numbers have steadily
decreased, and there is a serious probability that these strange and
interesting habitants of the sea will soon disappear forever.

The small remaining herd on Guadalupe Island is without protection and
lies at the mercy of wanton hunters. The people of the coastal towns of
California should exert themselves to discourage hunters from killing these
seals, since the only hope for the preservation of this noteworthy species
lies in an awakened public sentiment in its favor. Even within recent years
they have occasionally visited the Santa Barbara Islands, California, and if
the existing survivors can be saved they may again become resident there.

HARBOR SEAL, OR LEOPARD SEAL (Phoca vitulina)

The harbor seal, one of the smallest of the hair seals, attaining a length of
only 5 or 6 feet, is one of the most widely distributed and best known of its
kind. It is a circumpolar species, formerly ranging well south on the
European coast and to the Carolinas on the American side of the Atlantic,
though now more restricted in its southern extension. On the North Pacific
it ranges south to the coast of Japan on the Asiatic side and to Lower
California on the American side.

Throughout its range the harbor seal haunts the coast-line, frequenting
rocky points, islets, bays, harbors, and the lower courses of rivers. It
commonly frequents the sandy bars exposed at low tide about the mouths of
rivers, and has been known to ascend the St. Lawrence to Lake Champlain
and Lake Ontario, and the Yukon to several hundred miles above its mouth.
It is still a common and well-known animal on the coast of Maine and
eastern Canada and about many harbors on the Pacific coast. It appears to
be a non-migratory species and in northern waters frequents the pack ice
along shore in winter. Where the pack is unbroken, the seal makes breathing
holes through the ice, which it visits at intervals, and where it is hunted by
the Eskimos.

It is not polygamous and is not so strongly gregarious as some of the other
seals. That it has some social instinct is evident, however, since it
commonly gathers in small herds on the same sand spits, rocky points, and
islets. The young are born in early spring and at first are entirely covered
with a woolly white coat. The mother is devoted to the “pup” and shows the
deepest anxiety if danger threatens.

The flesh and blubber of this seal are highly prized by the Eskimos as the
most palatable of all the seals, and the skin is valued for clothing and for
making strong rawhide lines used for nets and other purposes. On the
Alaskan coast of Bering Sea in fall the Eskimos capture many seals in nets
set off rocky points, just as gill nets are set in the same places in spring for
salmon.

Owing to the presence of this seal along so many inhabited coasts, much
has been written concerning its habits, especially as observed about the
shores of the British Isles. Where not disturbed it shows little fear and will
swim about boats or ships, raising its head high out of water and gazing
steadily with large intelligent eyes at the object of its curiosity; but when
hunted it becomes exceedingly shy and wary. All who have held the harbor
seal in captivity agree in praising its intelligence. It becomes very docile,
often learning a variety of amusing tricks, and develops great affection for
its keeper.

The small size of this seal and its limited numbers are elements which save
it from extensive commercial hunting and may preserve it far into the future

to add life and interest to many a rocky coast.

HARP SEAL, SADDLE-BACK, OR GREENLAND SEAL (Phoca
grœnlandica)

The black head, gray body, and large dorsal ring of the male harp seal are
strongly distinctive markings in a group generally characterized by plain
dull colors. The harp seal is a large species, the old males weighing from
600 to 800 pounds.

It is nearly circumpolar in distribution, but its area of greatest abundance
extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Greenland, and thence eastward in
that part of the Arctic Ocean lying north of Europe and western Siberia. Its
reported presence in the Arctic basin north of Bering Straits or along the
coasts to the southward is yet to be confirmed. It is an offshore species,
migrating southward with the ice pack in fall to the coast of Newfoundland
and returning northward with the pack after the breeding season in spring.
For a day or two during the fall migration, when these seals are passing
certain points on the coast of Labrador, the sea is said to be thickly dotted
with their heads as far as the eye can reach, all moving steadily southward.

The harp seal is extremely gregarious and gathers on the pack ice well
offshore during March and April to breed. The main breeding grounds are
off Newfoundland and off Jan Mayen Land in the Arctic. During the
breeding season, in the days of their abundance, they gathered in enormous
closely packed herds, sometimes containing several hundred thousand
animals and covering the ice for miles.

SEA OTTER

NORTHERN SEA-ELEPHANT, OR ELEPHANT SEAL

From all accounts it is evident that originally there were millions of these
animals in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Their gregarious habits
made them an easy prey, and the value of their skins and blubber formed the
basis for a great industry. Hundreds of vessels were sent out from north
European and American ports and nearly 1,000,000 harp seals were killed
during each breeding season. This tremendous slaughter and its attendant
waste has resulted in the disappearance of these seals from many of their
former haunts and has alarmingly reduced their numbers everywhere. Some
are still killed off the coast of Newfoundland, but the sealing industry, now
insignificant as compared with its former estate, is practically dead.

HARBOR SEAL, OR LEOPARD HARP SEAL, SADDLE-BACK,
SEAL OR GREENLAND SEAL

The hunting of harp and other seals on the pack ice is an occupation calling
for such splendid qualities of virile hardihood in the face of constant danger
to life that its brutality has been little considered. In this perilous work great
numbers of hunters have been cast away and frozen miserably on the
drifting ice and many a sealing ship has been lost with all hands.

Off Newfoundland the young harp seal is born early in March, wearing a
woolly white coat. At first it is tenderly cared for by its mother, but before
the end of April it has learned to swim and is left to care for itself. The
young do not enter the water until they are nearly two weeks old and
require several days of practice before they learn to swim well. The adults
are notable for their swiftness in the water. In the tremendous herds of these
seals the continual cries uttered by old and young is said to produce a
steady roar which may be heard for several miles. Their food is mainly fish.
Man is their worst enemy, but they are also preyed upon by sharks and
killer whales.

RIBBON SEAL (Phoca fasciata) (see polar bear group, page 438)

The broad-banded markings of the male ribbon seal render it the
handsomest and most strongly characterized of the group of hair seals to
which it belongs. Its size is about that of the harbor seal. Its range extends
from the Aleutian Islands, on the coast of Alaska, and from the Kuriles, on
the Asiatic shore of the Pacific, north to Bering Straits.

This seal is so scarce and its home is in such remote and little-frequented
waters that its habits are almost unknown. Apparently it is even less
gregarious than the harbor seal and usually occurs singly, although a few
may be seen together, where individuals chance to meet. There are records
of its capture at various places along the Asiatic coast, especially about
Kamchatka and the shores of Okhotsk Sea. In Alaska it is a scarce visitant
to the Aleutian Islands and appears to be most common on the coast south
of the Yukon Delta and from Cape Nome to Bering Straits.

The few individuals taken by the Alaskan Eskimos are captured while they
are hunting other seals on the pack ice in winter, and while at sea in kyaks
in spring and fall. Owing to its attractive markings, the skin of the male
ribbon seal is greatly prized by the Eskimos, as it was formerly by the fur
traders, for use as clothes-bags. The skin is removed entire and then tanned,
the only opening left being a long slit in the abdomen, which is provided
with eyelet holes and a lacing string, thus making a convenient water-proof
bag to use in boat or dog-sledge trips.

The scarcity of the ribbon seal and its solitary habits will serve to safeguard
it from the destructive pursuit which endangers the existence of some of its
relatives.

POLAR BEAR (Thalarctos maritimus)

Both summer and winter the great ice bear of the frozen north is
appropriately clothed in white. It is also distinguished from all other bears
by its long neck, slender pointed head, and the quantity of fur on the soles
of its feet. It is a circumpolar species, the limits of whose range nearly
everywhere coincide with the southern border of the pack ice. The great
majority live permanently on the ice, often hundreds of miles from the
nearest land.

During summer the polar bear rarely visits shore, but in winter commonly
extends its wanderings to the Arctic islands and the bordering mainland
coasts. In winter it ranges southward with the extension of the ice pack. In
spring, by an unexpectedly sudden retreat of the ice, individual bears are
often left south of their usual summer haunts, sometimes being found
swimming in the open sea far off the coast of Labrador. Occasionally some
of those which migrate southward with the ice through Bering Straits fail to
turn north early enough and are stranded on islands in Bering Sea.

That a carnivore requiring so much food as the polar bear can maintain
itself on the frozen polar sea is one of the marvels of adaptation to
environment. The activity of these bears through the long black night of the
far north is proved by records of Arctic explorers, whose caches have been
destroyed and ships visited by them during that season. In this period of
privation they range far over land and ice in search of food, and when in
desperate need do not hesitate to attack men. I have seen several Eskimos
who had been seriously injured in such encounters, and learned of other
instances along the Arctic coast of Alaska in which hunters had been killed
on the sea ice in winter. During the summer season of plenty, polar bears
are mild and inoffensive, so far as men are concerned. At that time they
wander over the pack ice, swimming in open leads, and, when hungry,
killing a seal or young walrus.

When spring opens, many polar bears are near the Arctic coast. At that time
the natives along the northeast coast of Siberia kill many of them on the ice
with dogs and short-hafted, long-bladed lances. The dogs bring the bear to
bay, and the hunter, watching his opportunity, runs in and thrusts the lance
through its heart.

During the cruise of the Corwin we saw many of these bears on the broken
ice off Herald and Wrangel Islands. One large old male climbed to the top
of an uptilted ice-pan and, after looking about, lay down on one side and,
giving a push with one hind foot, slid down head foremost 30 or 40 feet,
striking the water with a great splash. He then climbed out and walked
sedately away.

Another bear saw a seal basking on the ice by a large patch of open water
and, swimming across, suddenly raised himself half out of the water to the
edge of the ice, and by a blow of his paw crushed the seal’s skull. He then
climbed out and made a feast within 500 yards of where the Corwin was
anchored to the ice pack.

Once while we were anchored in a dense fog several miles off the pack a
bear came swimming out to us, stopping every now and then to raise its
head high out of water to sniff the attractive odors from the ship. Although
strong and tireless swimmers, these bears lack the necessary speed to
capture their prey in the water.

The female retires in winter to a snug den among the hummocks on the sea
ice, where one or two naked cubs are born, which by the time the ice begins
to break up are ready to follow the mother. Until the cubs are well grown
the mother cares for and defends them with the most reckless disregard for
her own safety. On one occasion I saw a wounded mother bear shield her
cub, twice the size of a Newfoundland dog, when bullets began to strike the
water about them, by swimming straight away with the cub safely sheltered
between her forelegs.

The inaccessible character of so large a part of the home of the polar bear
will long preserve it from the extermination that is overtaking some of the
land bears.

BLACK BEAR (Ursus americanus and its subspecies)

Numerous species of black bears varying in size occur in North and South
America and in Asia. In North America a black bear, remarkably uniform in
general appearance, but representing various geographic races and possibly
species, is generally distributed throughout the forested areas from the
borders of the Arctic barrens, at the northern limit of trees, south throughout
the United States and down the wooded Sierra Madre to Jalisco, Mexico,
and from Newfoundland on the east to Queen Charlotte Island on the west.

These bears are usually entirely black except for a brown patch covering the
muzzle and an occasional white spot on the breast. Their weight is variable,
the largest ones exceeding 500 pounds, but they average much less.

The cinnamon bear, so common in the West and Northwest, long supposed
to be a distinct species, has proved to be merely a color phase of the black
bear—cinnamon cubs being born in the same litters with black ones.

Since the days of primitive man and the great cave bear, the ways of bears
have had a fearsome interest to mankind. Childhood revels in the delicious
thrills of bear stories and dwells with wonder on the habit bears have of
standing upright like droll caricatures of man, on the manlike tracks of their
hind feet, and on their fondness for sweets and other palatable food.

From the landing of the first colonists on our shores, hunters and settlers
have encountered black bears so frequently that these are among the best-
known large forest animals of the continent. During winter they hibernate
for months, seeking a hollow tree, a low cave, the half shelter of fallen tree
trunks and brush, or else digging a den for themselves. The female chooses
a specially snug den, where in midwinter from one to four cubs are born. At
birth the young, only 8 or 9 inches long, are practically naked and have
their eyes closed. They are so undeveloped at this time that it is more than a
month before their eyes open and more than two months before they can
follow their mother.

Although powerful beasts, black bears are so shy and timid that to approach
them requires the greatest skill on the part of a still hunter. They only attack
people when wounded or so cornered that they must defend themselves or

their young. To safeguard themselves from danger they rely mainly on a
fine sense of hearing and an exquisite delicacy of smell. They have poor
eyesight, and where a suspicious object is seen, but no sound or scent can
be noted, they sometimes rise on their hind feet and look long and carefully
before retreating.

To bears in the forest everything is game. They often spend the entire day
turning over stones to lick up the ants and other insects sheltered there, and
at night may visit settlers’ cabins and carry off pigs. They raid the settlers’
cornfields for green corn and are passionately fond of honey, robbing bee
trees whenever possible. In season they delight in wild cherries, blueberries,
and other fruits, as well as beechnuts, acorns, and pinyon nuts. They are
mainly nocturnal, but in districts where not much disturbed wander widely
by day.

The success of black bears in caring for themselves is well demonstrated by
the numbers which still survive in the woods of Maine, New York, and
other long-settled States. Their harmlessness and their exceeding interest to
all render them worthy of careful protection. They should be classed as
game and thoroughly protected as such except for certain open seasons. If
this is done throughout the country, as is now the case in certain States, the
survival of one of our most characteristic large wild animals will be
assured.

GLACIER BEAR (Ursus emmonsi)

When first discovered the glacier bear was supposed to be a distinct and
well-marked species. Recently cubs representing the glacier bear and the
typical black bear have been found in the same litter, thus proving it to be
merely a color phase of the black bear. Its color varies exceedingly, from a
light smoky, almost bluish, gray to a dark iron gray, becoming almost black.
Some individuals are extraordinary appearing beasts, quite unlike any other
bear. The interest in this curious color development is increased by its
restricted distribution.

RIBBON SEAL POLAR BEAR

GLACIER BEAR CINNAMON BEAR BLACK BEAR

The cinnamon bear is merely a color phase of the black bear.

The glacier bear is an Alaskan animal, which occupies the seaward front of
the Mount St. Elias Range, about Yakutat Bay, and thence southeast to
Glacier Bay and a short distance beyond toward the interior. The popular
name of this bear was well chosen, as its home is in the midst of
innumerable stupendous glaciers. Here, where the contours of gigantic
mountain ranges are being steadily remade by glaciers, Nature appears to
have begun the evolution of a new kind of bear. That the task is in progress
is evidenced by the excessive variation in color, scarcely two individuals
being the same.

The food of this bear consists largely of mice, ground squirrels, and
marmots, which it digs from their burrows on the high mountain slopes. Its
food is varied by salmon during the spawning season and by various herbs
and berries during the summer. The winters in the home of the glacier bear
are less severe than across the range in the interior, but are so long and
stormy that the bear must spend more than six months each year in
hibernation.

Owing to the remote and little-frequented region occupied by this bear, little
is known of its life history. For this reason it is important that all sportsmen
visiting its country bring back careful and detailed records of their
observations. Up to the present time so few white men have killed glacier
bears that a skin of one taken by fair stalking is a highly prized trophy. As
the glacier bear country becomes more accessible, more stringent protection
will be needed to prevent the extermination of these unique animals.

GRIZZLY BEAR (Ursus horribilis and its relatives)

Recent research has shown that the popular terms grizzly or silver-tip cover
a group containing numerous species of large bears peculiar to North
America, some of which, especially in California, have become extinct
within the last 25 years. These bears vary much in size, some about
equaling the black bear and others attaining a weight of more than 1,000
pounds. They vary in color from pale dull buffy to nearly black, usually

with lighter tips to the hairs, which produce the characteristic grizzled or
silver-tipped appearance upon which the common names are based.

The strongest and most distinctive external character of the grizzlies is the
long, proportionately slender, and slightly curved claws on the front feet,
sometimes more than 3 inches long.

Grizzly bears have a wide range—from the Arctic coast of Alaska
southward, in a belt extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific,
through western Canada and the United States, and thence along the Sierra
Madre of Mexico to southern Durango. They also occupy the barren
grounds of northern Canada, and vague reports of a large brown bear in the
interior of the Peninsula of Labrador indicate the possibility of the existence
there of an unknown species of grizzly.

From the days of the earliest explorers of the Rocky Mountain region
grizzly bears have borne the undisputed title of America’s fiercest and most
dangerous big game. In early days, having little fear of the primitive
weapons of the Indians, they were bold and indifferent to the presence of
man, and no higher badge of supreme courage and prowess could be gained
by a warrior than a necklace of grizzly claws.

Since the advent of white men with guns, conditions have changed so
adversely to the grizzlies that they have become extremely shy, and the
slightest unusual noise or other alarm causes them to dash away at a
lumbering, but surprisingly rapid, gallop. The deadly modern gun has
produced this instinctive reaction for self-preservation. It does not mean,
however, that grizzlies have lost their claim to the respect of even the best
of hunters. They are still considered dangerous, and even in recent years
experienced hunters have been killed or severely mauled by them. They are
much more intelligent than the black bear, and thus, when wounded, are a
more dangerous foe.

Like the black bear, the grizzlies are commonly nocturnal, but in remote
districts often wander about in search of food by day. They roll over stones
and tear open rotten wood in search of grubs and insects. They also dig out
ground squirrels and other rodents and eat a variety of acorns and other wild
nuts and fruits. As an offset to this lowly diet, many powerful old grizzlies,

from the Rocky Mountains to California, have become notorious cattle-
killers. They stalk cattle at night, and, seizing their prey by the head, usually
break its neck, but sometimes hold and kill it by biting. These cattle-killing
grizzlies still occur on the Western ranges. One or more wily marauders of
this kind have run for years with a bounty of $1,000 on their heads.

Like other bears, grizzlies hibernate in winter, seeking small caves, or other
shelter, and sometimes digging a den in the ground. The young, from one to
four in number, are born in midwinter and are very small, naked, and but
partly developed at birth. They go about with the mother throughout the
summer and commonly den up with her the following winter. Although full-
grown grizzlies are ordinarily solitary in habits, parties of from four to eight
are sometimes seen. The object of these curious but probably brief
companion-ships is not known.

Grizzlies are disappearing so rapidly that it is very desirable that they be
placed on the list of game protected during part of the year, except in the
case of the few individuals which become stock-killers. They are among the
finest of native animals and their absence from the rugged slopes of the
western mountains would leave a serious gap in our wild life.

ALASKAN BROWN BEAR (Ursus gyas and its relatives)
(See frontispiece of this Magazine for the illustration of this remarkable animal)

The Alaskan brown bears form a group of gigantic animals peculiar to
North America and limited to the coast and islands of Alaska, from the head
of Norton Sound to the Sitka Islands. The group includes a number of
species, individuals of two of which, Ursus gyas, of the Alaska Peninsula,
and Ursus middendorffi, of Kodiak Island, sometimes attain a weight of
1,500 pounds or more, and are not only the largest existing bears, but are
the largest living carnivores in the world. They can be likened only to the
great cave bears, which were the haunting terror of primitive mankind
during the “Old Stone Age” in Europe. Brown bears still exist in Europe
and Asia, but they form a distinct group of much smaller animals than the
American species.

The Alaskan brown bears vary much in color, from a dull golden yellowish
to a dusky brown, becoming almost black in some species. In color some of
the darker species are indistinguishable from the great grizzlies, with which
in places they share their range; but the relatively shorter, thicker, and more
strongly curved claws on the front feet of the brown bears are distinctive.

As a rule they are inoffensive giants and take flight at the first sign of man.
The taint left by a man’s recent track or the faintest odor on the passing
breeze, indicating the proximity of their dreaded enemy, is enough to start
the largest of them in instant flight. Instances are reported of their having
attacked people wantonly, but such cases are extremely rare. When
wounded or suddenly surprised at close quarters, the instinct of self-defense
not infrequently incites them to attack their enemy with furious energy.
Many Indian and white hunters have been killed or terribly mauled by them
in such encounters. At close quarters their great size, strength, and activity
—astonishing for such apparently clumsy beasts—render them terrific
antagonists.

Some of the species occupy open, rolling, or hilly tundras, and others live
on the steepest and most rugged mountain slopes amid glaciers, rock slides,
and perpetual snow-banks. On the approach of winter all retreat to dry
locations, usually in the hills, where they dig dens in the earth or seek other
cover to which they retire to hibernate, and here the young, usually two or
three in number, are born. They usually emerge from hibernation in April or
early May and wander about over the snow-covered hills and mountains. At
this time their dark forms and their great tracks in the snow are so
conspicuous that hunters have little difficulty in finding them.

Despite their size, brown bears devote much of their time to hunting such
game as mice, ground squirrels, and marmots, which they dig from their
burrows with extraordinary rapidity. During the salmon season, when the
streams swarm with fish, bears frequent the lowlands and make trails along
the watercourses, where they feed fat on this easy prey. During the summer
and fall these great carnivores have the strange habit of grazing like cattle
on the heavy grasslike growth of sedge in the lowland flats and benches,
and also of eating many other plants.

Although Alaska was long occupied by the Russians and has been a part of
our territory since 1867, not until 1898 was there any definite public
knowledge concerning the existence of these bears, notwithstanding their
size and abundance. Since that time they have become well known to
sportsmen and others as one of the wonders of the remarkable region they
occupy. Their comparatively limited and easily accessible territory renders
their future precarious unless proper measures for their reasonable
protection are continued. They are certain to be exterminated near
settlements; but there are ample wild and inhospitable areas where they may
range in all their original freedom for centuries to come, provided man
permits.

AMERICAN BEAVER (Castor canadensis and its subspecies)

When North America was first colonized, beavers existed in great numbers
from coast to coast, in almost every locality where trees and bushes
bordered streams and lakes, from near the Yukon Delta, in Alaska, and the
Mackenzie Delta, on the Arctic coast, south to the mouths of the Colorado
and the Rio Grande. Although now exterminated from most of their former
range in the eastern United States, they still occur in diminished numbers
over nearly all the remainder of their original territory, even in the lower
Rio Grande and the delta of the Colorado. Their vertical distribution
extends from sea-level to above an altitude of 9,000 feet.

Beavers are heavily built, round-bodied animals, with powerful chisel-
shaped front teeth, short legs, fully webbed hind feet, and a flat, scaly tail.
They are covered with long, coarse hairs overlying the short, dense, and
silky underfur to which beaver skins owe their value. Their range covers the
northern forested parts of both Old and New Worlds. The American species
closely resembles in general appearance its Old World relative, but is
distinctly larger, averaging 30 to 40 pounds in weight, but sometimes
attaining a weight of more than 60 pounds. Owing to the different physical
conditions in its wide range, the American animal has developed a number
of geographic races.

Beavers mate permanently and have from two to five young each year.
Their abundance and the high value of their fur exercised an unparalleled
influence on the early exploration and development of North America.
Beaver skins were the one ready product of the New World which the
merchants of Europe were eager to purchase. As a consequence competition
in the trade for these skins was the source of strong and bitter antagonisms
between individuals and companies, and even caused jealous rivalries
among the Dutch, English, and French colonies.

GRIZZLY BEAR

AMERICAN BEAVER

Disputes over the right to trade in certain districts often led to bloodshed,
and even to long wars, over great areas, where powerful rival companies
fought for the control of a new empire. This eager competition among
daring adventurers resulted in the constant extension of trading posts
through the North and West, until the vanguard of civilization reached the
far borders of the continent on the shores of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

Among the fur traders the beaver skin became the unit of value by which
barter was conducted for all sorts of commodities. This usage extended
even throughout northern Alaska, where it was current among the American
fur traders until the discovery of gold there upset old standards.

Beavers belong to the rodent family—a group of animals notable for their
weak mental powers. The beaver is the striking exception to the rule, and its
extraordinary intelligence, industry, and skill have long excited admiration.
It is scarcely entitled to the almost superhuman intelligence many endow it
with, yet it certainly possesses surprising ability along certain lines.
Furthermore, it can alter its habits promptly when a change in environment
renders this advantageous.

In wild places, where rarely disturbed, beavers are unsuspicious, but where
they are much trapped they become amazingly alert and can be taken only
by the most skillful trapping. They are very proficient in building narrow
dams of sticks, mud, and small stones across small streams for the purpose
of backing up water and making “beaver ponds.” In the border of these
ponds a conical lodge is usually constructed of sticks and mud. It is several
feet high and about 8 or 10 feet across at the base.

The entrance is usually under water, and a passageway leads to an interior
chamber large enough to accommodate the pair and their well-grown
young. From the ponds the animals sometimes dig narrow canals several
hundred feet long back through the flats among the trees. Having short legs
and heavy bodies, and consequently being awkward on land, beavers save
themselves much labor by constructing canals for transporting the sticks
and branches needed for food and for repairing their houses and dams.

Along the Colorado, lower Rio Grande, and other streams with high banks
and variable water level, beavers usually dig tunnels leading from an
entrance well under water to a snug chamber in the bank above water level.
Under the varying conditions in different areas they make homes showing
every degree of intergradation between the two types described.

Beavers live almost entirely on twigs and bark, and their gnawing powers
are surprising. Where small trees less than a foot in diameter abound they
are usually chosen, but the animals do not hesitate to attack large trees. On
the headwaters of the San Francisco River, in western New Mexico. I saw a
cottonwood nearly 30 inches in diameter that had been felled so skillfully
that it had fallen with the top in the middle of a small beaver pond, thus
assuring an abundance of food for the animals at their very door.

In the cold northern parts of their range, where streams and ponds remain
frozen for months at a time, beavers gather freshly cut green twigs, sticks,
and poles, which they weight down with mud and stones on the bottoms of
ponds or streams near their houses, to be used for food during the shut-in
period.

The mud used by beavers in building dams and houses is scooped up and
carried against the breast, the front feet being used like hands. The flat tail
serves as a rudder when the animal is swimming or diving, and to strike the
surface of the water a resounding slap as a danger signal.

Beavers are usually nocturnal, but in districts where not disturbed they
sometimes come out to work by day, especially late in the afternoon.
Among the myriads of small streams and lakes in the great forested area
north of Quebec they are very plentiful; their dams and houses are
everywhere, sometimes four or five houses about one small lake. Their
well-worn trails lead through the woods near the lake shores and frequently
cross portages between lakes several hundred yards apart.

Where beavers continue to occupy streams in settled districts, they often
make regular trails from a slide on the river bank back to neighboring
cornfields, where they feast on the succulent stalks and green ears. They
also injure orchards planted near their haunts, by girdling or felling the
trees. Within recent years laws for their protection have been passed in
many States, and beavers have been reintroduced in a number of localities.
They should not be colonized in streams flowing through lands used for
orchards or cornfields, nor where the available trees are too few to afford a
continuous food supply.

FISHER, OR PEKAN (Mustela pennanti)

The fisher is one of the largest and handsomest members of the weasel
family. Like others of this group, it is a long-bodied, short-legged animal. It
attains an extreme length of from 3 to 3½ feet and a weight of 18 or 20
pounds, but the average is decidedly lower than these figures. In general, it

is like a gigantic marten, and from its size and dark color is sometimes
known locally as the “black cat” or “black fox.”

It lives in the forested parts of Canada and the United States, where it
originally occurred from the southern shores of Hudson Bay and Great
Slave Lake south throughout most of eastern Canada and New England and
along the Alleghanies to Tennessee; also in the Great Lakes region, south to
the southern end of Lake Michigan; along the Rocky Mountains to
Wyoming, down the Cascades to northern California, and from the Atlantic
coast of Nova Scotia and Maine to the Pacific coast of southeastern Alaska
and British Columbia. They still occur regularly in the Adirondacks of New
York and the Green Mountains of Vermont and in Maine, but are gone from
most of the southern border of their former range.

Fishers are powerful and agile animals, probably for their size by far the
swiftest and most deadly of all our forest carnivores. So swift and dextrous
are they in the tree-tops that they not only capture squirrels without
difficulty, but are able to overtake and kill the marten, almost an incredible
feat. When in pursuit of their prey or when alarmed, they make astonishing
leaps from tree to tree. While not so speedy on the ground as some other
animals, they have the tireless persistence of their kind and capture
snowshoe hares in fair chase.

Among the habitants of the forest the fisher is a fearless and savage
marauder, which feeds on frogs, fish, and nearly every bird and mammal its
domain affords, except species so large that their size protects them.
Porcupines are among its favorite victims and are killed by being turned
over and attacked on their underparts. As a consequence of such captures,
the fisher often has many quills imbedded in its head and the foreparts of its
body.

The fisher, like many other predatory animals, has more or less regular
“beats” along which they make their rounds over the territory each
occupies. These rounds commonly require several days to accomplish. In
winter they keep mainly along wooded ridges, where they are trapped.

It follows trap lines like the wolverine and eats the bait or the captured
animal, but, unlike the wolverine, appears to have no propensity for further

mischief. When overtaken by dogs or when at war with any of its forest
rivals, it is so active and ferocious that it is worthy all due respect from
antagonists several times its size.

Although essentially a tree animal, much of the fisher’s time is spent on the
ground. In summer it appears to be fond of heavy forests in low-lying
situations and the vicinity of water. Its dens are usually located in a hollow
high up in a large tree, but sometimes in the shelter of fallen tree trunks or
crevices in the rocks, where, the last of April or early in May, the young are
born. These may number from one to five, but are usually two or three. The
young begin to follow the mother in her wanderings when quite small and
do not leave her guardianship until nearly grown.

The fisher is not a common animal and only about 8,000 of its skins are
marketed each year. Owing to its size, it is conspicuous, and its very
fearlessness tends to jeopardize its existence. It is gone from most of the
southern part of its former range and will no doubt continue steadily to lose
ground with the increasing occupation of its haunts.

OTTER (Lutra canadensis and its relatives)

Land otters are common throughout a large part of the Old World, and when
America was explored the animals were found generally distributed, and
sometimes common, from the northern limit of trees in North America to
southern South America. Within this great area a considerable number of
species and geographic races of otters occur, all having a close general
resemblance in appearance and habits.

The Canadian otter is the well-known type throughout the United States,
Canada, and Alaska. It is a slender, dusky brown animal, from 4 to 5 feet in
length, frequenting streams and lakes which contain a good supply of fish.
Otters are too short-legged to move easily on land, but are remarkable for
their admirable grace, agility, and swiftness in the water. Although so
poorly adapted to land travel, they are restless animals, constantly moving
up and down the streams in which they live and often crossing from one
stream to another. In the far north in midwinter they travel surprising

distances across snow-clad country, following the banks of streams or
passing between them searching for an entrance to water, whether through
the ice or in open rapids.

In Alaska I saw many otter trails in the snow crossing the Yukon and
through the adjacent forest. In such journeys it was evident that the animals
progressed by a series of long bounds, each leaving a well-marked, full-
length impression in the snow, so characteristic that it could not be
mistaken. These trails, often leading for miles across country, always
excited my deepest interest and wonder as to how these animals could
succeed in finding holes through the ice in this vast snow-bound waste.
Nevertheless they seemed to know full well, for the trails always appeared
to be leading straight away for some known objective.

Although never very abundant, otters are so shy and solitary in their habits
that they have managed to retain almost all of their original range. They
occur now and then in the Potomac, near Washington, and in other rivers
throughout the country, where their tracks may occasionally be detected on
sand-bars and in the muddy shallows along the banks. A sight of the
animals themselves is rare. Their dens are usually in the banks of streams or
lakes above or below the surface of the water, under the roots of large trees,
or beneath rocky ledges.

Otters are extremely playful and amuse themselves by sliding down steep
banks into the water, repeatedly using the same place until a smooth chute
or “slide” is defined. They usually have two to five young, which remain
with the mother until nearly grown.

While close relatives of the weasel, they are much more intelligent, have a
gentler disposition, and make playful and most interesting pets. Their fur is
highly prized and always brings a good price in the market. As a result, they
have been persistently hunted and trapped since our pioneer days. That the
species should continue to exist, though in much diminished numbers,
throughout most of its original range is a striking evidence of its retiring
habits and mental acuteness.

FISHER, OR PEKAN

OTTER

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP

COLLARED PECCARY, OR MUSKHOG]

COLLARED PECCARY, OR MUSKHOG (Pecari angulatus)

The numerous and extraordinarily varied species of wild pigs of the Old
World are represented in America by the peccaries, a specialized group
containing two species of small pigs peculiar to North and South America.
One of the many differences between them and their Old World relatives is
their having but two young. The name muskhog, applied to them, is based
on their possession of a large gland, located high up on the middle of the
rump, which emits a powerful odor. The musky odor from this quickly
permeates the flesh of a peccary unless it is cut out as soon as the animal is
killed.

The collared peccary is the smaller of the two species, usually weighing less
than 75 pounds. It ranges from the southwestern United States south to
Patagonia. Within this range numerous geographic races have developed,
varying from light grizzled gray to nearly black. It formerly occurred within
our border north to the Red River of Arkansas, but is now limited to the
southern half of Texas and the southern parts of New Mexico and Arizona.

In tropical America collared peccaries are found in dense forests or in low
jungles, but in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States they are
equally at home among scattered thickets of cactus and other thorny plants
on plains and in the foothills. They are strictly gregarious and live in bands
of from a few individuals up to thirty or more, usually led by the oldest and
most powerful boar. They are omnivorous, feeding on everything edible,
from roots, fruits, nuts, and other vegetable products to reptiles and any
other available animals. They are specially numerous in many tropical
forests where wild figs, nut palms, and other fruit-bearing trees provide
abundant food. In the arid northern part of their range dense thickets of
cactus and mesquite afford both food and shelter. Their presence in a
locality is often indicated by the rooted-up soil where they have been
feeding.

Young peccaries become very tame and make most intelligent and amusing
pets. One moonlight night on the coast of Guerrero two of us, after a bath in
the sea by a small Indian village, strolled along the hard white sand to enjoy
the cool breeze. Suddenly a little peccary, not weighing over eight or ten
pounds, came running to meet us and, after stopping at our feet to have its
head scratched, suddenly circled about us, away and back again in whirling

zigzags, with all the joyous frenzy of a playful puppy. Continuing this
performance, it accompanied us for several hundred yards, until we
returned to the village.

Tales of the ferocity of bands of the collared peccaries and of their treeing
hunters who have disturbed them read well to the novice, but have little
foundation in fact. In reality the animals are shy and retiring and fight only
when forced to do so for self-protection. When brought to bay by dogs or
other animals, they fight viciously, and with their sharp, knife-edged tusks
can inflict serious wounds. Their natural enemies are mainly the jaguar in
the south and bobcats and coyotes, which prey upon their young, in the
north.

The increasing occupation of our Southwest has already resulted in the
extermination of peccaries from most of their former range within our
border, and unless active steps are taken to protect the survivors their days
will be few in the land. They are such unique and harmless animals that it is
hoped interest in their behalf may be awakened in time to retain them as a
part of our wild life.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP (Ovis canadensis and its
relatives)

Wild sheep inhabit mountain ranges in both Old and New Worlds. Northern
Africa and southern Europe have representative species, but Asia appears to
be the true home of the group. There the greatest variety of species is found,
including such giants as Ovis poli.

In the New World they occur only in North America, where there are two or
three species, with numerous geographic races. Among these the sheep
inhabiting the main Rocky Mountain region is best known. It is a heavier
animal than its northern relatives of the Stikine country and Alaska, with
larger and more massively proportioned horns. It occupies the main range
from south of Peace River and Lake Babine, in British Columbia, to
Colorado, and possibly northern New Mexico. Closely related geographic

races occur elsewhere in the mountains of the western United States and
northern Mexico.

The usual conception of wild sheep as habitants of the cold, clear upper
world at timberline and above is justified in the case of the Rocky Mountain
sheep. In early spring its one or two young are born amid these rugged
elevations, where it remains until the heavy winter snows drive it down,
sometimes through the open timber to the foothills. That wild sheep thrive
equally well under very different conditions, however, is shown by their
abundance on the treeless mountains of our southwestern deserts, among
cactuses, yuccas, and other thorny vegetation, where water is extremely
scarce and summer temperatures rise high above 100° Fahrenheit in the
shade.

The Rocky Mountain sheep, like other species, appears to feed on nearly
every plant growing within its domain. In spring many lambs are killed by
bald and golden eagles, and in winter, when driven down to lower levels by
snow, it becomes easy prey for mountain lions, wolves, and coyotes. Owing
to continuous hunting, this sheep has disappeared from many of its former
haunts and is decreasing in most of its range. When effective protection is
undertaken in time, however, as in Colorado, the range is readily restocked.

The sure-footedness with which a band of these sheep will dash in full
flight up or down seemingly impossible slopes, where a misstep would
mean death, is amazing. Even the old rams, with massive sets of horns,
bound from point to point up a steep rock slope with marvelous grace and
agility. Mountain sheep living among the rugged summits of high ranges
possess the courage and prowess of skillful mountaineers, so admired by
all, and the mere sight of one of these animals in its native haunts is an
adventure achieved by few.

No other big-game animal carries with it the romantic glamour which
surrounds this habitant of the cold, clear upper world. Big-game hunters
prize above all others their mountain-sheep trophies, which form vivid
reminders of glorious days amid the most inspiring surroundings and
evidence their supreme prowess in the chase.

STONE MOUNTAIN SHEEP (Ovis stonei)

Owing to its dark, iron gray color, Ovis stonei is often called the “black”
mountain sheep. Despite its dark color, the Stone sheep is probably a
geographic race of the pure white Dall sheep of Alaska. It has the same
slender, gracefully coiled horns, frequently amber colored and extended in a
widely spread spiral.

Its range lies in northern British Columbia, especially about the upper
Stikine River and its tributaries; thence it extends easterly to Laurier Pass in
the Rocky Mountains, north of Peace River, and south perhaps to Babine
Lake. Unfortunately it appears to have become extinct in the southern
border of its range, so that its real relationship with the Rocky Mountain
sheep farther south may never be determined.

The sheep occupying the mountains between the home of typical stonei and
that of dalli in northwestern British Columbia and southeastern Yukon
Territory are characterized by having white heads, with bodies of a varying
shade of iron gray, thus showing evident intergradation on a great scale
between the white northern sheep and the “black” sheep of the Stikine.
These intermediate animals have been called the Fannin, or saddle-backed,
sheep (Ovis fannini). Hunters report a considerable mingling of entirely
white animals among flocks of these intergrading animals, and occasionally
white individuals are seen even in flocks of the typical dark sheep of the
Stikine country.

Like the white Alaskan sheep, the Stone sheep exists in great abundance in
many parts of its range, especially east of Dease Lake. It usually ranges in
flocks, those made up of ewes and young rams often containing a
considerable number. The old bucks, except in fall, keep by themselves in
smaller bands in separate parts of the range. The Stone sheep lives in one of
the most notable big-game fields of the continent. Its home above
timberline is shared with the mountain goat and in the lower open slopes
with the caribou, while within the adjacent forests wander the moose and
two or more species of bear.

Owing to its frequenting remote and sparsely inhabited country, it continues
to exist in large numbers; but if its range becomes more accessible, only the
most stringent protection can save this splendid animal from the
extermination already accomplished on the southern border of its range.

DALL MOUNTAIN SHEEP (Ovis dalli)

The only variation in the pure white coat of the Dall sheep is a mixture of a
few black hairs on the rump, sometimes becoming plentiful enough to form
a blackish spot on the tail and a light brownish stain over the entire body,
due to the slight discoloration at the tips of the hairs from contact with the
earth in their bedding-down places. Their horns are usually dull amber
yellow and are notable for their slender proportions and the grace of their
sweeping coils, which sometimes curve close to the head and again spread
in a wide, open spiral.

As their white coats indicate, the Dall sheep are the northernmost of their
kind in America. Their home lies mainly in Alaska, where they were
formerly abundant in many mountain ranges, from those bordering the
Arctic coast south through the interior to the cliffs on Kenai Peninsula, but
are now scarce or gone from some mountains. To the eastward they are
numerous across the border in much of Yukon territory, nearly to the
Mackenzie River. Their haunts lie amid a wilderness of peaks and ridges,
marked in summer with scattered glaciers and banks of perpetual snow and
in winter exposed to all the rigors of a severe Arctic climate. They are
extraordinarily numerous in some districts, as among the outlying ranges
about the base of Mount McKinley.

In their high, bleak homes these sheep have little to fear from natural
enemies, although the great Canada lynx, the wolf, the wolverine, and the
golden eagle, as overlords of the range, take occasional toll from their
numbers. Their one devastating enemy is man, with his modern high-power
rifle. Even so long ago as the summer of 1881, I saw hundreds of their skins
among the Eskimos at Point Barrow, taken that spring with the use of
Winchester rifles among the mountains lying inland from the Arctic coast.
Of late years the advent of miners and the establishment of mining camps

and towns have greatly increased the demand for meat, and this has resulted
in the killing of thousands of these sheep. Large numbers of these splendid
animals have also been killed to serve as winter dog food.

The advent of thousands of men engaged in the construction of the
government railroad which, when completed, will pass through the Mount
McKinley region, makes imminent the danger of extermination that
threatens the mountain sheep, as well as the moose and caribou, in a great
area of the finest big-game country left under our control.

STONE’S, FANNIN’S, AND DALL’S MOUNTAIN SHEEP

Properly conserved, the game animals of Alaska will continue indefinitely
as one of its richest resources, but heedless wastefulness may destroy them
forever. All sportsmen and other lovers of wild life should interest
themselves in an effort to safeguard the future of Alaskan game animals
before it is too late; for, under the severe climatic conditions prevailing, the
restocking of exhausted game fields in that region will be extremely
difficult, if not practically impossible.

PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT (Oreamnos montanus and its
subspecies)

The numerous wild goats of the Himalayas and other mountains of Asia are
represented in America solely by the Rocky Mountain goat. This is one of
the most characteristic, but least graceful in form and action, of our big-
game animals. It is distinguished by a long ungainly head, ornamented with
small black horns; a heavy body, humped at the shoulders like a buffalo,
and a coat of long shaggy white hair.

The range of these habitants of the cliffs extends from the head of Cook
Inlet, Alaska, easterly and southerly through the mountains to Montana and
Washington. Unlike mountain sheep, the goats do not appear to dislike the
fogs and saline winds from the sea, and at various points along the coast of
British Columbia and Alaska they range down precipitous slopes nearly to
the shore.

They are much more closely confined to rugged slopes and rocky ledges
than the mountain sheep, which in winter commonly descend through the

foothills to the border of the plains. Through summer and winter, goats find
sufficient food in the scanty vegetation growing among the rocks, and their
heavy coats of hair protect them from the fiercest winter storms.

Owing to their small horns and unpalatable flesh they are less sought after
by hunters than mountain sheep, and thus continue to exist in many
accessible places where otherwise they would long since have become
exterminated. They are frequently visible on the high ledges of a mountain
across the bay from the city of Vancouver and are not difficult to find in
many other coastal localities.

Although marvelously surefooted and fearless in traversing the faces of
high precipitous slopes, goats lack the springy grace and vivacity of
mountain sheep and move with comparative deliberation. They are reputed
to show at times a stupid obstinacy when encountered on a narrow ledge,
even to the point of disputing the right of way with the hunter.

Their presence lends interest to many otherwise grim and forbidding ranges
where, amid a wilderness of glacier-carved escarpments, they endure the
winter gales which for days at a time roar about their cliffs and send snow
banners streaming from the jagged summits overhead.

Owing to the character of their haunts, mountain goats have few natural
enemies. The golden and bald eagles now and then take toll among their
kids, but the lynx and mountain lion, their four-footed foes, are not known
to prey upon them to any considerable extent. Through overhunting they
have vanished from some of their former haunts, but still hold their own in
many places, and with effective protection will long continue to occupy
their peculiar place in our fauna.

PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE (Antilocapra americana and its
geographic races)

Unique among the antelope of the world, among which it has no near
relatives, the prong-horn, because of its beauty of coloration, its grace, and
fleetness, claims the attention of sportsmen and nature lovers alike. It is a

smaller and slenderer animal than the larger forms of the Virginia deer. Its
hair is coarse and brittle, and the spongy skin lacks the tough fiber needed
to make good buckskin. Both sexes have horns, those of the doe being
smaller and slenderer. One of the extraordinary peculiarities of this antelope
is its habit of shedding the horns every fall and the developing new horns
over the remaining bony core.

The rump patch of the prong-horn is formed of long pure white hairs, which
in moments of excitement or alarm are raised on end to form two great
chrysanthemum-like white rosettes that produce an astonishingly
conspicuous directive color mark. The power to raise these hairs is
exercised by the fawns when only a few days old. Even when the hairs are
not erected the rump patch is conspicuous as a flashing white signal to a
distance of from one to two miles as the antelope gallops away. When the
animal whose rump signal has been plainly visible at a distance suddenly
halts and faces about to look back, as is a common custom, its general color
blends with that of the background and it vanishes from sight as by magic.

Early explorers discovered antelope in great abundance over a vast territory
extending from near the present location of Edmonton, Alberta, south to
near the Valley of Mexico, and from central Iowa west to the Pacific coast
in California. They were specially numerous on the limitless plains of the
“Great American Desert,” where our pioneers found them in great bands,
containing thousands, among the vast herds of buffalo. So abundant were
they that it has been estimated that on the Great Plains they equaled the
buffalo in numbers. Now reduced to a pitiful remnant of their former
numbers, they exist only in widely scattered areas, where they are
constantly decreasing. Fortunately they are strictly protected by law in most
of their remaining territory.

The great herds containing thousands of antelope were usually formed late
in fall and remained together throughout the winter, separating into
numerous smaller parties during the summer. For years following the
completion of the transcontinental railroads they were commonly seen from
the car windows as trains crossed the Great Plains. At such times their
bright colors and graceful evolutions, as they swept here and there in erratic

flight or wheeled in curiosity to gaze at the passing train, never failed to
excite the deepest interest.

In early days prong-horns were noted for their curiosity and were frequently
lured within gun-shot by waving a red flag or by other devices. I have
repeatedly seen them circle or race a team, or a horseman, crossing their
range. In racing a horseman traveling along an open road or trail they
gradually draw nearer until finally every member of the band dashes madly
by only a few yards in front and then straight away across the plains in full
flight.

The prong-horns appear to possess a highly nervous temperament, which
requires for their welfare the wide free sweep of the open plains. They do
not thrive and increase in inclosures, even in large game preserves, as do
deer, elk, and buffalo. For this reason, it will require the greatest care to
protect and foster these attractive members of our fauna to save them from
soon being numbered among the many wild species which have been
destroyed by the coming of civilized man.

WAPITI, OR AMERICAN ELK (Cervus canadensis and its
relatives)

By a curious transposition of names the early settlers applied to the
American wapiti the term elk, which belongs to the European representative
of our moose. Our elk is a close relative of the European stag. It is the
handsomest and, next to the moose, the largest member of the deer family
in America. The old bulls, weighing more than 800 pounds, bear superb
widely branched antlers, which give them a picturesque and noble mien.
This is the only American deer which has a well-marked light rump-patch.
The young, numbering from one to three, are white spotted, like the fawns
of other deer.

Originally the elk was the most wide ranging of our hoofed game animals.
It occupied all the continent from north of Peace River, Canada, south to
southern New Mexico, and from central Massachusetts and North Carolina
to the Pacific coast of California. Like the buffalo, it appeared to be equally

at home in the forested region east of the Mississippi River and on the open
plains flanking the Rocky Mountains. Its range also extended from sea-level
to above timberline on lofty mountain ranges.

Exterminated throughout most of their original range, elk still occupy some
of their early haunts in western Canada, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and
the Pacific Coast States. The last elk was killed in Pennsylvania about 60
years ago, and in Michigan and Minnesota some 20 years later. The main
body of the survivors are now in the Yellowstone Park region. Their size
and the readiness with which they thrive in captivity has led to serious
consideration of elk farming as an industry.

In the West, before the settlement of their range crowded the elk back, large
numbers lived throughout the year on the plains and among the foothills.
They have now become mountain animals, spending the spring and summer
largely in the timberline forests and alpine meadows, where many bands
linger until the heavy snows of early winter force them down to the foothills
and valleys. During the last days of their abundance in the Rocky
Mountains winter herds numbering thousands gathered in Estes Park and
other foothill valleys.

Elk are the most polygamous of all our deer, each bull gathering a small
herd of cows during the fall. At the beginning of the mating season the bulls
wander widely through the high forest glades, their musical bugling
piercing the silence with some of the most stirring notes of the wilderness.
Amid the wild grandeur of these remote mountain fastnesses the appearance
of a full-antlered buck on the skyline of some bare ridge presents a noble
picture of wild life.

There are probably over 40,000 elk still left in the United States, and of
these more than 30,000 are located in Wyoming, mainly in and about
Yellowstone National Park.

During the last few years great interest has been shown in the reintroduction
of elk in parts of their former range, where they had been exterminated and
where conditions are still suitable for their perpetuation. Such efforts are
meeting with much success. Not only do the animals thrive and increase
rapidly, but local sentiment is almost unanimous in their favor. This is well

shown by the active interest taken by both cattle and sheep owners in
northern Arizona in regard to a band of elk introduced a few years ago on
their mountain stock ranges. The stockmen exercise a virtual wardenship
over these animals that insures them against molestation, and the herd is
rapidly increasing.

As against this, we have the despicable work of poachers, who are shooting
elk for their two canine teeth and leaving the body to the coyotes.
Information has been received that more than 500 elk were ruthlessly
slaughtered for this purpose about the border of Yellowstone National Park
during the winter of 1915-1916.

MULE DEER (Odocoileus hemionus and its subspecies)

Mule deer are larger than the common white-tails, with a heavier, stockier
form. Their strongest characteristics lie in the large doubly branching
antlers, large broad ears, and rounded whitish tail with a brushlike black tip.
Their common name in this country and the name “venado burro” in
Mexico are derived from the great, donkeylike ears. Their antlers vary
much in size, but in some examples are almost intermediate between those
of the white-tail and of the elk. Antlers of the mule deer and of the black-
tail agree in having the tines all pronged, in contrast with the single spikes
of the white-tails. In summer these deer have a rich, rusty red coat which is
exchanged in winter for one of grayish brown.

WAPITI, OR AMERICAN ELK

The range of mule deer extends from northern Alberta, Manitoba, and
western Iowa to the State of San Luis Potosi, on the Mexican table-land,
and west to Lower California and the coast of California. Within these
limits they inhabit different types of country, from the deciduous forests
along streams on the eastern border of the Great Plains to the open pine
forests of the high western mountains, the chaparral-covered hillsides of
southern California, and the thickets of mesquites, acacias, and cactuses on
the hot and arid plains of Sonora. Several geographic races of this deer have
resulted from these varied conditions.

MULE DEER

BLACK-TAILED DEER

In spring in the Rocky Mountains the does leave the bands with which they
have passed the winter and seek undisturbed retreats among forest glades or
along scantily wooded slopes of canyons, where they have two or three
handsomely spotted fawns with which they remain apart throughout the
summer.

The bucks usually keep by themselves during the summer, in parties rarely
exceeding ten. As their horns lose the velvet and the mating season draws
near, the old bucks gather in bands of from six to ten.

At this time they are in perfect physical condition, and a band of them in the
open forest, their antlers held proudly aloft and their glossy coats shining in
the sun, presents a superb picture. They have little of the protective caution
so characteristic of the white-tails, and when a shot is fired at a band they
often begin a series of extraordinary “buck jumps,” bounding high in the
air, facing this way and that, sometimes not taking fight until after several
additional shots have been fired. These high, bounding leaps are
characteristic of mule deer and are commonly made when the animals are
suddenly alarmed and often when they are in full flight through brushy
thickets.

After the mating season, bucks and does join in bands, sometimes of fifteen
or twenty, and descend to the foothills and sometimes even to the adjacent
plains. Their preference, however, is for rough and broken country, such as
that of canyon-cut mountains or the deeply scored badlands of the upper
Missouri River.

These deer are not good runners in the open. On several occasions, on level
country in Arizona, I have ridden after and readily overtaken parties of them
within a mile, their heaving flanks and open mouths showing their distress.
The moment rough country was reached, however, with amazing celerity a
series of mighty leaps carried them away from me over declivities
impossible for a horse.

The sight of a party of these splendid deer bounding away through the aisles
of a mountain forest always quickens one’s pulse and gives the finishing
touch of wildness to the scene. Mule deer are characteristic animals of the

beautiful open forests and forest parks of the Rocky Mountains and the high
Sierras, where they may be perpetuated if given reasonable protection.

BLACK-TAILED DEER (Odocoileus columbianus and its
subspecies)

In general appearance the black-tails have a close resemblance to the mule
deer, but average smaller. They have the same large ears, forked tines to the
antlers, and rather “stocky” body; but the brushy all-black tail distinguishes
them from any other American deer. In color they have much the same
shade of brown as the Virginia deer. They have the usual cycle of annual
changes common to most American deer—assuming a dull coat in fall and
losing their horns in winter, followed by the resumption of a brighter coat in
spring and the renewal of their horns in summer.

The black-tails have one of the most restricted ranges among our deer. They
are limited to the humid heavily forested belt along the Pacific coast from
Juneau, Alaska, southward to the Coast range in central California. This
coastal belt is characterized by superb growths of cedars, spruces, and firs
in the north and by redwoods and firs in the south, uniting to make one of
the most magnificent forest areas in the world. Here the deer live in the
midst of rank undergrowths of gigantic ferns and other vegetation, as
luxuriant in many places as that of the humid tropics.

Their home on the abruptly rising slopes of the islands in the Alaskan
Archipelago is so restricted that both in summer and winter they fall an easy
prey to native and white hunters. It has been reported that there has been
much wasteful killing of the deer on these islands for commercial purposes.
When the heavy snows of winter on the islands force the deer down to the
shore, great numbers of them are also killed by wolves.

Black-tails commonly have two or three young, and this fecundity,
combined with the effective protection given by the dense forest where
many of them live, will aid in their perpetuation. At the same time they
have not developed the mental alertness of the Virginia deer, and there is
imminent need for prompt and effective action in safeguarding the deer in

the Alaskan part of their range if their extermination on some of the islands
is to be prevented. In this northern region the black-tails share their range
with strange tribes of coastal Indians, whose huge sea-going canoes, totem
poles, and artistic carvings are unique among native Americans.

VIRGINIA, OR WHITE-TAILED, DEER (Odocoileus
virginianus and its subspecies)

The aptness of the name “white-tail” for the Virginia deer is obvious to any
one who has startled one in the forest and seen it dash away with the tail
upright and flashing vivid white signals at every leap. The adults have two
strongly contrasted coats each year: brownish gray in winter and rusty red
in summer. The fawns, usually two in number, are dull rusty brown, marked
with a series of large white spots, which remain until the gray winter coat is
assumed in the fall. Large bucks sometimes attain a weight of more than
300 pounds.

The white-tail is the well-known deer of all the forest areas in eastern North
America. With its close relatives, it ranges from northern Ontario to Florida
and from the Atlantic coast to the Great Plains; also in the Rocky Mountains
south to New Mexico, and in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to northern
California.

The supreme importance of this deer to the early settlers of the Eastern
States is made plain in all the literature covering the occupation of that
region. Its flesh was one of the most reliable staples in the food supply, and
not infrequently was the only resource against starvation. In addition, the
tanned skins served for clothing and the sinews for thread. Many of the
most striking and romantic characters in our early history appear clad in
buckskin, from fringed hunting shirt to beaded moccasins.

As no other American game animal equaled the white-tail in economic
value to the settlers, so even to-day it remains the greatest game asset in
many of the Eastern States. Partly through protective laws and partly
through its acute intelligence and adaptability, the Virginia deer continues to
hold its own in suitable woodland areas throughout most of its former

range, and in recent years has pushed hundreds of miles northward into new
territory in Ontario and Quebec.

Even in the oldest and most densely populated States, as New York and
Massachusetts, white-tails still exist in surprising numbers. Over 7,000
were killed during the hunting season of 1915 in Maine, and an average of
about 2,800 are killed yearly in Vermont. The great recreational value of the
white-tail to a host of sportsmen is obvious. To the growing multitude of
nature lovers the knowledge that a forest is inhabited by deer immediately
endows it with a delightful and mysterious charm.

In summer white-tails are usually solitary or wander through the forest in
parties of two or three. In winter, where the snowfall is heavy, they gather in
parties, sometimes of considerable size, in dense deciduous growth, where
food is plentiful. There they remain throughout the season, forming a
“yard” by keeping a network of hard-beaten paths open through the snow in
order to reach the browse afforded by the bushes and trees.

Ordinarily Virginia deer are shy and elusive habitants of dense forests,
where they evade the unpracticed intruder like noiseless shadows. Where
they are strictly protected for a period of years under State laws, they
become surprisingly confident and often damage young orchards and crops
on farms near their haunts. Several States pay for the damage thus done.
Happily this attractive species thrives so well under protective laws that its
continued future in our forests appears to be assured.

ARIZONA WHITE-TAILED DEER (Odocoileus couesi)

The Arizona white-tails are slight and graceful animals, like pigmy Virginia
deer, so small that hunters often ride into camp with a full-grown buck tied
back of the saddle. They have two seasonal pelages—gray in winter and
more rusty brown in summer. The antlers, very small, but in form similar to
those of the Virginia deer, are shed in winter and renewed before the end of
summer.

These handsome little deer, the smallest of our white-tails, are common in
many of the wooded mountains of middle and southern Arizona, southern
New Mexico, western Texas, and in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua and
Sonora, Mexico. By a curious coincidence this area was the ancient home
of the Apache Indians and has had one of the most tragic histories of our
western frontier.

During summer and early fall in the higher ranges small bands of Arizona
white-tails occupy the lower parts of the yellow-pine forests, between 6,000
and 9,000 feet altitude, where they frequent thickets of small deciduous
growth about the heads of canyons and gulches. As winter approaches and
heavy snowstorms begin, they descend to warm canyon slopes to pass the
season among an abundant growth of pinyons, junipers, oaks, and a variety
of brushwood.

In the White Mountains of Arizona, between the years 1883 and 1890, when
wild life was more abundant than at present, I often saw, on their wintering
grounds, large herds of these graceful deer, numbering from 20 to more
than 100 individuals. Such gatherings presented the most interesting and
exciting sight, whether the animals were feeding in unconscious security or
streaming in full flight along the numberless little trails that lined the steep
slopes. Where these deer live on the more barren and brush-grown tops of
some of the desert mountains in southwestern Arizona and Sonora, the
snowfall is so light that their summer and winter range is practically the
same.

Although far more gregarious than our other white-tails, the herds of
Arizona deer break up in early spring. At this time one or two fawns are
born, amid early flowers in the charming vistas of the open forest. Very
young fawns are hidden in rank vegetation and sometimes left temporarily
by their mothers. If a horseman chances by the fawns may rise and follow
innocently at the horse’s heels. On such occasions I have had difficulty in
driving them back to prevent their becoming lost.

In the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua one summer I found these little white-
tails occupying “forms,” like rabbits, located in the sheltering matted tops
of fallen pine trees which had been overthrown by spring storms. In these
shelters they rested during the middle of the day, secure from the wolves

and mountain lions which prowled about the canyon slopes in search of
prey.

With the growing occupation of their territory by cattle and sheep and the
increase in the number of hunters, these once abundant deer are rapidly
diminishing. It is high time more careful measures be taken for their
conservation, else extermination awaits them throughout most of their
original haunts.

VIRGINIA, OR WHITE-TAILED, DEER

ARIZONA WHITE-TAILED DEER

WOODLAND CARIBOU

WOODLAND CARIBOU (Rangifer caribou and its subspecies)

The caribou lacks the symmetry and grace of the true deer. Its large head
topped with irregular antlers, heavy body, and thick, sturdy legs, ending in
large, broad-spreading hoofs, produce a distinctly ungainly animal. It is the
only member of the deer family in which both sexes have antlers, those of
the female being smaller and slenderer than those of the male. It varies in
size in different parts of its range, but large old bulls usually weigh from
300 to 400 pounds. A single calf is the rule, but occasionally there are two.

The woodland caribou, the southern representative of the barren ground
caribou, inhabits almost the same northern forest of spruce, tamarack, birch,

and alder as those sheltering the moose. It ranges from the northern border
of the forests in Alaska and Canada south to Maine, northern Minnesota,
northern Idaho, and British Columbia. It is far less gregarious than the
barren ground caribou, during summer only small parties of cows, calves,
and partly grown young keeping together, while the bulls are solitary or in
still smaller separate parties. In winter all unite in larger herds.

The curiously ungraceful appearance of the caribou, so different from other
deer, gives it a strong individuality, which seems to belong with its remote
haunts in the wilderness. This great animal has an added appeal to our
interest, owing to its close relationship to that other woodland caribou
which was such an important resource to the cave-men of France and other
parts of Europe, as shown by bone and horn implements, carvings, and
other records discovered in their homes.

During summer and fall in eastern Canada, where this caribou is distributed
through much of the wilder forests, it has a habit of coming out of the
woods to sun itself and bathe on the borders of shallow lakes. Here the old
bulls wallow in the water, and on rising shake themselves like a dog, filling
the air with a halo of sparkling water drops. In such places the bulls
frequently stand basking in the sun for hours. To a canoeman gliding
silently around a jutting point, this rugged habitant of the wilds, discovered
across the shining waters, standing outlined against the dark green forest,
represents a wonderfully picturesque sight. When alarmed at such times the
caribou dashes shoreward through the water amid clouds of flying spray
struck up by its broad feet and vanishes in the sheltering forest,
accompanied by a loud crashing of dry branches.

The woodland caribou is neither so swift nor so astute in avoiding danger as
the Virginia deer or the moose. It falls an easy prey to hunters and to
wolves, and when not properly safeguarded is readily exterminated. This is
shown by its complete disappearance from the Adirondacks, in northern
New York, and by its threatened disappearance from the forests of Maine,
Minnesota, and Idaho; in fact, the woodland caribou is in more imminent
danger of complete and early extermination within the United States than
any other game animal and can be saved only by stringent laws and careful
guardianship.

BARREN GROUND CARIBOU (Rangifer arcticus and its
subspecies) (see illustration, page 422).

The typical barren ground caribou is smaller and paler colored than the
woodland species. Several geographic races have been distinguished,
among which the most notable is the Peary caribou, the palest of all and the
subject of the accompanying drawing. Like other members of the group,
this species is a heavily built animal, with thick legs and large feet.

The barren ground caribou is characteristic of the desolate Arctic barrens
and tundras beyond the limit of trees, ranging to the northernmost limit of
land beyond 83 degrees of latitude. When explorers first visited these
northern wilds, including the treeless coastal belt from the Peninsula of
Alaska to Bering Straits, they found these animals almost everywhere in
extraordinary abundance. Over great areas of this territory straggling herds
of caribou, sometimes numbering hundreds of thousands, drifted with the
season from one feeding ground to another.

The advent of white men with guns has resulted in their rapid decrease
everywhere and in their extermination over great areas. In many of their old
haunts the only trace of their former abundance is in well-marked trails
winding by easy grades to the bare tops of the low mountains. They are still
numerous on the Peninsula of Alaska and in much greater numbers in parts
of the barren grounds of Canada. There, on the shores of Artillery Lake,
during the summer of 1907 a small migrating herd of about 2,000 was seen.

When alarmed these caribou often break into a clumsy gallop, which soon
changes to a steady shambling trot, their characteristic gait, carrying them
rapidly across country. In winter their tracks in the snow show that their
feet, instead of being raised high at each step, like those of a Virginia or
mule deer, drag through the snow like those of domestic cattle. Their large,
broad-spreading hoofs, with sharp, cup-shaped edges, are admirably
adapted to secure a firm footing in the yielding and hummocky surface of
their haunts in summer and on the snow and ice in winter.

The barren ground caribou, living under severe climatic conditions, has
developed an extraordinary method of storing up fat to carry it through

winter stresses. Early in fall a layer of pure tallow, called “backfat,” is
formed over the entire top of the back from between the shoulders to the
rump. This is a solid slab of tallow lying between the superficial muscles
and the skin. It is almost as thin as a knife-blade at the shoulders, but
thickens gradually to a depth of from 4 to 6 inches at the rump. This slab of
tallow is gradually absorbed during the winter and has totally disappeared
by spring. In early winter the “backfat” is easily removed and transported in
its original form. It is highly prized for food and as an article of trade
among the Eskimo and Indian hunters, and figures as one of the chief
delicacies at their winter feasts.

The Peary caribou lives in Ellesmere, Grinnell, and other of the
northernmost Arctic lands to beyond 83 degrees of north latitude, where in
places it is common. It appears to thrive on moss, lichens, and other dwarf
and scanty Arctic vegetation, and holds its own against the depredations of
packs of the white Arctic wolves. In these northern wilds, amid the most
intense cold, the caribou passes from three to five months of continuous
night, its wanderings lighted only by the moon, stars, and the marvelous
displays of waving northern lights.

Tame reindeer, which are kept by the people of the Arctic border of the Old
World from Lapland to Bering Straits, are domesticated descendants of the
barren ground caribou of that region. They are used by their owners to pack
burdens and haul sledges as well as to supply them with food and clothing.
These animals have been successfully introduced in Alaska, and both
natives and white men are developing this new and promising stock
industry. The herds of tame reindeer are extremely gentle and easily
handled. Their progenitors were like other wild caribou—of a dull and
nearly uniform color—but domestication has resulted, as with cattle, in
producing endless color variations, from white to black, with every
imaginable piebald variation.

The changed conditions of life in Alaska, due to the recent development of
that territory, have seriously affected the welfare of the natives. Fortunately
the introduction of reindeer herds appears to open a promising future for
both Eskimos and Indians.

MOOSE (Alces americanus and its subspecies)

The American moose is a large cousin of the elk of the northern forests of
Europe and Siberia. The Old World animal is characterized not only by its
smaller size, but also by smaller antlers. The moose is a large, grotesquely
formed animal, with the most impressive individuality of any of our large
game. Its great head, with oddly formed nose, huge palmated antlers,
pendulous bell under the neck, short body, and disproportionately long legs
unite to lend the impression that it may be a strange survivor from some
remote geologic period.

The moose inhabits our northern forests, where it wanders among thickets
of spruce, tamarack, birch, aspen, and alder, from the mouth of the Yukon
and the lower Mackenzie southward to Maine, northern Minnesota, and
down the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming. It varies in size in different parts
of its range. The bulls of the Kenai Peninsula and adjacent region in Alaska
are the largest of their kind in the world, sometimes weighing more than
1,400 pounds. The enormous antlers of these great northern beasts attain a
spread of more than six feet and make the most impressive trophy the big-
game hunter can secure in America.

Although taller than an ordinary horse, weighing more than half a ton, and
adorned with wide-spreading antlers, the bull moose stalks with ghostly
silence through thickset forests, where man can scarcely move without
being betrayed by the loud crackling of dry twigs. In summer it loves low-
lying, swampy forests interspersed with shallow lakes and sluggish streams.
In such places it often wades up to its neck in a lake to feed on succulent
water plants, and when reaching to the bottom becomes entirely submerged.
These visits to the water are sometimes by day, but usually by night,
especially during the season when the calves are young and the horns of the
bulls are but partly grown.

Late in the fall, with full-grown antlers, the bulls wander through the forest
looking for their mates, at times uttering far-reaching calls of defiance to all
rivals, and occasionally clashing their horns against the saplings in
exuberance of masterful vigor. Other bulls at times accept the challenge and
hasten to meet the rival for a battle royal. At this season the call of the cow

moose also brings the nearest bulls quickly to her side. Hunters take
advantage of this, and by imitating the call through a birch-bark trumpet
bring the most aggressive bulls to their doom.

Ordinarily moose are extremely shy, but during the mating season the males
become so bold that when encountered at close range they have been
known furiously to charge a hunter. They strike vicious blows with their
front feet, as well as with their heavy antlers, and make dangerous foes for
man or beast.

Moose have disappeared from the Adirondacks and have become scarce in
many districts where once plentiful. Through wise protection they are still
numerous about the head of Yellowstone Lake, and are still among the
available game animals of Maine and the eastern provinces of Canada.
Indeed, during the last few years they have steadily extended their range in
northern Ontario and British Columbia. They occupy great areas of little-
visited wilderness, which are becoming more and more accessible; as a
result the future existence of these superb animals depends upon their
receiving proper protection.

AMERICAN BISON (Bison bison and its subspecies)

The American bison, or buffalo, is a close relative of the larger bison which
once inhabited Europe and survives in limited numbers in certain game
preserves of Poland and the Caucasus. The size, dark shaggy coat, great
head, and high arched shoulders of our bison give them a unique
individuality among American big game. They once roamed in vast
numbers over a broad territory, extending from Great Slave Lake, Canada,
south to southern New Mexico, and from Pennsylvania and eastern Georgia
to Arizona and northern Nevada. It is thus evident that they were at home in
the forested country east of the Mississippi River, as well as on the treeless
plains of the West. In the northern part of their range they are larger and
darker than elsewhere and form a local geographic race called the wood
buffalo.

MOOSE

AMERICAN BISON, OR BUFFALO

Originally buffalo were enormously abundant in America, and it has been
variously estimated that when the continent was first discovered their
numbers were from 30,000,000 to 60,000,000. With the settlement of
eastern America, they gradually retreated across the Mississippi River, but
continued to exist in great but rapidly diminishing numbers on the Great
Plains up to within the last fifty years.

The crossing of their range by the first transcontinental railroad quickly
brought the remaining herds to an end. In 1870 there were still about
5,500,000 head on the plains, but these were so wastefully slaughtered for
their hides that in 1895 only about 800 remained. The depletion of the herds
was so startling that sportsmen and nature lovers awoke to the danger of the

immediate extermination of these splendid animals; the American Bison
Society was organized and the surviving buffalo were saved.

Although the bison usually has but a single calf a year, these are so hardy
and do so well in fenced preserves, and even in the closer confinement of
small parks, that their number has now increased to approximately 4,000,
about equally divided between the United States and Canada. In the district
south of Artillery Lake, northern Canada, a few hundred individuals,
remnants of the wild stock of that region, survive and are increasing under
the wise protection of the Canadian Government. The only other herd still
existing on its original ground is that in Yellowstone National Park.

Experiments have been made in crossing buffalo with certain breeds of
domestic cattle for the purpose of establishing a new and hardier variety of
stock for the Western ranges. These have not proved successful, largely
owing to the lack of fertility in the hybrid, which has been called the
“cattalo.”

Under primitive conditions, buffalo herds numbering millions of animals
regularly migrated in spring and fall from one feeding ground to another,
often traveling hundreds of miles for this purpose. The herds followed the
same routes year after year and made lasting trails, often from two to three
feet in depth. Investigation has shown that many of our highways, and even
some of our main railway lines, seeking the most convenient grades, follow
trails laid down by these early pathfinders. When a great migrating herd
was stampeded, the thunder of its countless hoofs shook the earth, and in its
flight it rushed like a huge black torrent over the landscape.

The buffalo was the most important game animal to the Indians over a great
area. Several tribes were mainly dependent upon these animals for food and
clothing and the entire tribal economy was built about them. The mode of
life, customs, and folk-lore of the Indians all centered about these animals.
Their clothing and tepee covers were made of the skins. The tanned skins
also served as individual and tribal records of the warrior-hunters, the
chronicles being drawn in picture-writing on the smooth surfaces. The
passing of the buffalo on the free sweep of the western plains ended forever
one of the most picturesque phases of aboriginal life in America.

MUSK-OX (Ovibos moschatus and its subspecies)

The musk-ox is one of the unique and most interesting of American game
animals. In general appearance it suggests a small, odd kind of buffalo, and
is, in fact, related to both cattle and sheep. It is a heavily built, round-bodied
animal, with short, strong legs and long fringelike hair which hangs so low
on the sides that it sometimes trails on the snow. The horns—broad, flat,
and massive at the base—curve down and out to a sharp point on each side
of the head and form very effective weapons for defense.

Fossil remains prove that musk-oxen lived in northern Europe and Asia
during Pleistocene times, but they have long been confined to Arctic
America. Up to within a century they have occupied nearly all of the
cheerless wilds north of the limit of trees, from the coast of northern Alaska
to that of east Greenland. They appear to have become extinct in northern
Alaska within the last 75 years, and their present range east of the
Mackenzie River is becoming more and more restricted.

They are now limited to that part of the barren grounds of Canada lying
north and northwest of Hudson Bay and from the Arctic islands northward
and eastward to the northern coast of Greenland. Their range extends to
beyond 83 degrees of latitude and covers some of the bleakest and most
inhospitable lands of the globe. There a short summer, with weeks of
continuous sunshine, permits the growth of a dwarfed and scanty Arctic
vegetation; but winter brings a long period of night, continuous, in the
northernmost parts, through several months.

Under such rigorous conditions musk-oxen thrive unless hunted by civilized
man. They are strongly gregarious, usually traveling in herds of from six to
twenty, but herds containing about 100 have been recorded. Their eyesight
is not strong, but their sense of smell is good, and when danger is suspected
they dash away with great celerity for such heavily formed animals. If
rocky ground is near, they seek refuge in it and ascend steep, broken slopes
with astonishing agility.

When brought to bay, the herd forms a circle about the calves and, with
heads out, presents to the enemy an unbroken front of sharp horns. So long

as the circle remains unbroken such a defense is extremely effective against
both dogs and wolves. The only natural enemies of musk-oxen are wolves,
and against these and the primitive weapons of the Eskimos they hold their
own very well.

When the Greely Expedition landed at Lady Franklin Bay in 1881, musk-
oxen were encountered and killed practically on the site where winter
quarters were established. Since then several exploring and hunting parties
have taken heavy toll from the herds of that region. Some accounts of the
wholesale killings do not make pleasant reading for one who desires the
perpetuation of our native species. Fortunately for the musk-oxen, the
adventurers of these northern quests are few and far between, so that on
departing they leave the game animals in their vast solitudes to recuperate
from these onslaughts.

Musk-oxen have but a single young, so that between depredations of
wolves and overkilling by white and native hunters these animals face the
very real danger of extermination threatening so many other game animals
in the far North. For this reason, it is hoped that sportsmen who visit these
remote game fields will restrain a desire for making large bags.

FLORIDA MANATI (Trichechus latirostris)

The manatis, or manatees, are strange aquatic mammals, with seal-like
heads and whalelike bodies. Compared with whales, their flippers are more
flexible at the joints, and thus can be used much more freely. They have
very small eyes and a heavy upper lip, deeply cleft in the middle and
forming a thick lobe on each side. The skin is hairless and covered with fine
wrinkles.

These animals inhabit the rivers entering the sea and shallow coastal
lagoons on both sides of the Atlantic, in tropical parts of West Africa and of
eastern North and South America. The South American species ascends the
Amazon and its tributaries well up toward their headwaters.

The Florida manati regularly frequents the coast from eastern Florida to
Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies; in summer it sometimes
strays as far north as the coast of Virginia.

This species attains an extreme length of more than 15 feet and a weight of
more than 1,500 pounds, but the average size is much less. A large
specimen exhibited alive at New Orleans the winter of 1912 weighed 1,310
pounds and is reported to have eaten daily from 60 to 100 pounds of grass.
One captured near Point Isabel, Texas, measured a few inches more than 15
feet in length.

Manatis were formerly plentiful in the Indian River and elsewhere along the
Florida coast, but were shot and netted to the verge of extermination. They
were killed not only for amusement by thoughtless sportsmen, but many
were killed by residents for their flesh, which was salted down like beef for
future use. The flesh is said to be well flavored and not unlike beef.

The imminent danger of the extermination of these curious animals and
their evident value for the interest they lend the coastal waters of the State
led to the passage of protective laws with a penalty of $500. As a result of
this, manatis have increased rapidly. A correspondent, writing on June 20,
1916, from Ponce Park, on Indian River, says that at this season scarcely an
hour in the day passes but that from one to half a dozen may be seen in
front of his house. He adds that one with a “calf” about 3 feet long keeps
about his dock all the time. In this vicinity manatis appear to be migratory,
leaving about the first of December and returning in early spring, the first
one noted in 1916 appearing on March 26. They are extremely susceptible
to cold, as was demonstrated by the number which perished in Indian River
near Micco, February 12, 1895, when the temperature fell to 20°
Fahrenheit. They are known to winter in Biscayne Bay and elsewhere in
southern Florida.

Within a few weeks after the manatis return to the vicinity of Ponce Park
the young are born. Just before this the females are said to seek the
protection of a dock, crib, or bridge, possibly in order that the new-born
young may be safe from the sharks and sawfish which abound in these
waters. Usually there is only one calf, which is about 30 inches long, but
sometimes the mother is seen accompanied by two. During this season the

females are scattered and, with their young, keep in comparatively shoal
water near the shore, and not infrequently lie in shallow pools with half
their bodies exposed. Later in the season they gather in herds and often 15
to 20 may be seen close together. At such times they roll about and make a
great turmoil in the water. The Mexicans on the coast of southern Vera Cruz
described to me similar summer gatherings of manatis in small lagoons and
claimed they were there for the purpose of mating.

In fall, near Ponce Park, the larger animals, probably the old males, separate
from the herds and roam about singly. At this time they often make a
peculiar noise like a loud snort, which may be heard for half a mile or more.

The Florida manatis are extremely mild and inoffensive animals, seeming
never to fight one another, nor to show aggressiveness of any kind. When
not molested they are very gentle and will feed close about a boat or dock
regardless of the presence of people, but they become alarmed by any
sudden noise. In captivity they soon learn to eat from their captor’s hands.

Manatis are sluggish, stupid animals, without other defense than their size.
They are not rapid swimmers and are among the extremely few herbivorous
aquatic mammals. Unlike seals, whales, and their allies, which feed upon
some form of animal life, manatis feed on the lush grasses and other
vegetation springing from the oozy bottom of the waters they frequent.
When feeding on the bottom they use their flippers to help move slowly
about. In places along the Indian River they are reported to approach the
shore and, with head and shoulders out of water, to feed on heavy grasslike
plants hanging from the banks.

MUSK-OX

While they are feeding the heavy bi-lobed upper lips work freely and are
sufficiently prehensile to seize the grass, or other plant food, between the
lobes and thrust it back into the mouth. The ends of the flippers are
sometimes used to help convey food to the mouth, like huge hands in
thumbless mittens.

FLORIDA MANATI

When suckling her young the manati rises to the surface, her head and
shoulders out of the water, and with her flippers holds the nursling partly
clasped to her breast. This semi-human attitude, together with the rounded
head and fishlike tail, may have furnished the basis on which the ancients
built their legends of the mermaids.

KILLER WHALE (Orcinus orca)

The killer whale is a habitant of all oceans from the border of the Arctic ice
fields to the stormy glacial margin of the Antarctic continent. So far as
definitely known, there appears to be but a single species. It attains an
extreme length of approximately 30 feet and is mainly black with well-
defined white areas on the sides and underparts of the body. Its most
striking and picturesque characteristic is the large black fin, several feet
long, standing upright on the middle of the back.

The killer usually travels and hunts in “schools” or packs of from three to a
dozen or more individuals. Unlike most whales, the members of these
schools do not travel in a straggling party, but swim side by side, their
movements as regularly timed as those of soldiers. A regularly spaced row
of advancing long black fins swiftly cutting the undulating surface of the
sea produces a singularly sinister effect. The evil impression is well
justified, since killers are the most savage and remorseless of whales. The
jaws are armed with rows of effective teeth, with which the animals attack
and devour seals and porpoises, and even destroy some of the larger whales.

Killers are like giant wolves of the sea, and their ferocity strikes terror to
the other warmblooded inhabitants of the deep. The Eskimos of the Alaskan
coast of Bering Sea consider killers as actual wolves in sea form. They
believe that in the early days, when the world was young and men and
animals could change their forms at will, land wolves often went to the
edge of the shore ice and changed to killer whales, and the killers returned
to the edge of the ice and climbed out as wolves, to go ravening over the
land. Some of the natives assured me that even today certain wolves and
killers are still endowed with this power and, on account of their malignant
character, are much feared by hunters.

Killers are known to swallow small seals and porpoises entire and attack
large whales by tearing away their fleshy lips and tongues. When attacking
large prey they work in packs, with all the unity and fierceness of so many
wolves. The natives of the Aleutian Islands told me that large skin boats are
sometimes lost in the passes between the islands by sea-lions leaping upon
them in their frenzied efforts to escape the pursuit of killer whales.

The killers are specially detrimental to the fur-seal industry, owing to their
habit of preying upon seals during their migrations in the North Pacific and

during the summer in Bering Sea. They also haunt the waters about the Fur
Seal Islands to continue their depredations during the summer. It would be a
wise conservation measure for the Federal Government to have these
destructive beasts persistently hunted and destroyed each spring and
summer when they congregate on the north side of the Aleutian passes.
Their destruction would not only save large numbers of fur seals, but would
undoubtedly protect the few sea otters still remaining in those waters.

WHITE WHALE, OR BELUGA (Delphinapterus leucas)

The white whale, or beluga of the Russians, is a circumpolar species,
limited to the extreme northern coasts of the Old and the New Worlds. The
adult is entirely of a milk-white color, is very conspicuous, and as it comes
up to “blow” presents an interesting sight. The young beluga is dark slate
color, becoming gradually paler for several years until it attains its growth.
The beluga usually lives in the shallow waters along shore, and not only
frequents sheltered bays and tidal streams, but ascends rivers for
considerable distances. Plentiful along the coast of Alaska, especially in
Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, this whale also ascends the Yukon for a
long distance. It also comes down the Atlantic coast and enters the lower St.
Lawrence River.

The white whale is said at times to attain a length of 20 feet, but its ordinary
length is nearer 10 or 12 feet. It travels in irregular “schools” of from three
to ten or fifteen individuals and usually rolls high out of water when it
comes up to breathe. It enters sheltered bays and the lower courses of
streams, mainly at night, in pursuit of fish, which furnish its main food
supply. During the twilight hours of the Arctic summer night, glowing with
beautiful colors, the ghostly white forms of these whales breaking the
smooth blue-black surface of a far northern bay add the crowning effect of
strange unworldly mystery to the scene.

When on hunting trips in early autumn, I camped many times on the banks
of narrow tide channels leading through the coastal tundra, and for hours
during the darkness of night, as the tide was rising, heard the deep-sighing

sound of their blowing, as schools of belugas fished up and down the
current, often only 15 or 20 feet from where I lay.

The oil and flesh of the white whale is highly prized by the Eskimos, and
they not only pursue it in kyaks with harpoon and float, but set large-
meshed nets of strong seal-skin cords off projecting points near entrances to
bays. Young or medium-sized animals are often caught in this manner, but
powerful adults often tear the nets to fragments.

The beluga frequents broken pack ice along shore, and one trapped alive by
the closing ice north of the Yukon early one winter was reported by the
Eskimos to have uttered curious squeaking noises when they attacked and
killed it—an interesting fact, as the beluga is said to be the only member of
the whale family to make vocal sounds of any kind.

When a school has its curiosity aroused by the approach of a boat or for any
other cause, the members often raise their heads well out of water, one after
the other, and take a deliberate look, then dive and swim to a safe distance
before coming up again.

The small size of the beluga has long saved it from organized pursuit.
Recently it has been announced that its skin has become valuable for
commercial purposes, and that many are being killed. If this continues,
these harmless and interesting animals are likely soon to disappear from
most of their present haunts, unless proper measures can be taken to protect
them from undue killing.

GREENLAND RIGHT WHALE, OR BOWHEAD (Balæna
mysticetus)

The Greenland right whale is one of the largest of sea mammals, reaching a
length of from 50 to 60 feet, and has a marvelously specialized
development. Its enormous head comprises about one-third of the total
length, with a gigantic mouth provided with about 400 long, narrow plates
of baleen, or whalebone, attached at one end and hanging in overlapping
series from the roof of the mouth. These thin plates of baleen rarely exceed

a foot in width and are from 2 to over 10 feet long. One edge and the free
end of each plate is bordered with a stiff hairlike fringe.

The northern seas frequented by these whales swarm with small, almost
microscopic, crustaceans and other minute pelagic life, which is commonly
so abundant that great areas of the ocean are tinged by them to a deep
brown. These gatherings of small animal life are called “brit” by the
whalers and furnish the food supply of the bowhead. The whale swims
slowly through the sea with its mouth open, straining the water through the
fringed whalebone plates on each side of its mouth, thus retaining on its
enormous fleshy tongue a mass of “brit,” which is swallowed through a
gullet extraordinarily small in comparison with the size of the mouth.
Among all the animal life on the earth there is not a more perfectly
developed apparatus provided for feeding on highly specialized food than
that possessed by the right whale—one of the hugest of beasts and feeding
on some of the smallest of animals, untold numbers of which are required
for a single mouthful.

The bowhead is a circumpolar species, which in summer frequents the
Arctic ice pack and its borders, and on the approach of winter migrates to a
more-southerly latitude. For centuries this huge mammal has formed the
main basis for the whaling industry in far northern waters, first in the
Greenland seas and later through Bering Straits into the Arctic basin north
of the shores of Siberia and Alaska.

Each large whale is a prize worth winning, since it may yield as much as
200 barrels of oil and several thousand pounds of whalebone. All know of
the rise and fall of the whaling business, on which many fortunes were built
and on which depended the prosperity of several New England towns.

Whaling served to train a hardy and courageous generation of sailors the
like of which can nowhere be found today. They braved the perils of icy
seas in scurvy-ridden ships, and when fortune favored brought to port full
cargoes of “bone” and oil, which well repaid the hardships endured in their
capture. Many a ship and crew sailed into the North in pursuit of these
habitants of the icy sea never to return.

Interest in the brave and romantic life of the whalers still exists, though the
most picturesque quality of their calling passed with the advent of steam
whalers and the “bomb gun,” which shoots an explosive charge into the
whale and kills it without the exciting struggle which once attended such a
capture by open boats.

It has been well said that no people ever advanced in the scale of
civilization without the use of some artificial illuminant at night. The world
owes a great debt to the right whale and its relatives for their contribution to
the “midnight oil,” which encouraged learning through the centuries
preceding the discovery of mineral oil. It also furnished the whalebone
which built up the “stays” so dear to the hearts of our great-grandmothers.

The female right whale has a single young, which she suckles and keeps
with her for about a year. She shows much maternal affection, and a number
of cases are recorded in which the mother persisted in trying to release her
young after it had been harpooned and killed.

Every year, as the pack ice breaks up for the season, the bowheads move
north through Bering Straits. As late as 1881 Eskimos along the Arctic coast
of Alaska put to sea in walrus-hide umiaks, armed with primitive bone-
pointed spears, seal-skin floats, and flint-pointed lances for the capture of
these huge beasts. These fearless sea hunters, with their equipment handed
down from the Stone Age, were sufficiently successful in their chase to
cause trading schooners to make a practice of visiting the villages along the
coast to buy their whalebone.

From one of the whaling ships encountered north of Bering Straits the
summer of 1881 we secured a harpoon, taken from a bowhead in those
waters, bearing a private mark which proved that it came from a whaling
ship on the Greenland coast, thus showing conclusively that these whales in
their wanderings make the “Northwest Passage.”

Persistent hunting through the centuries has vastly decreased whales of all
valued species, and the modern steam whaler is hastening their end. Their
only hope of survival lies in wise international action, and it is urgent that
this be secured in time.

KILLER WHALE

WHITE WHALE, OR BELUGA

GREENLAND RIGHT WHALE, OR BOWHEAD

SPERM WHALE, OR CACHALOT

SPERM WHALE, OR CACHALOT (Physeter macrocephalus)

The cachalot is from 40 to 60 feet long, about equaling the Greenland
bowhead whale in size. It has a huge blunt head, which comprises about
one-third of the entire animal. The mouth is large and the under jaw is
provided with a row of heavy teeth, consisting of ivory finer in grain than
that from an elephant’s tusk.

The great whaling industry of the last two centuries was based mainly on
the sperm and the bowhead whales. The largest of the bowheads is limited
to the cold northern waters, but the sperm whale frequents the tropic and
subtropic seas around the globe. The main hunting area for them lies in the
South Pacific, but they frequently visit more temperate coasts, especially
when seeking sheltered bays, where their young may be born. The young
are suckled and guarded carefully until old enough to be left to their own
devices. Sperm whales sometimes occur off both coasts of the United
States, especially off southern California.

The feeding grounds of these whales are mainly in the deepest parts of the
ocean, where they cruise about in irregular schools containing a number of
individuals. Their food consists almost entirely of large octopuses and giant
squids, which are swallowed in large sections.

As befits a gigantic mammal possessing huge jaws armed with rows of
fighting teeth, the sperm whale is a much more pugnacious animal than the
bowhead. There are many records of whale-boats being smashed by them,
and several well-authenticated cases of enraged bull cachalots having
charged and crushed in the sides of whaling ships, causing them speedily to
founder.

The sperm whale yields oil of a better quality than the bowhead. Its huge
head always contains a considerable number of barrels of specially fine-
grade oil, which produces the spermaceti of commerce. Ambergris, having
an excessively high value for use in the manufacture of certain perfumes, is
a product occasionally formed in the digestive tract of the sperm whale.

The name cachalot is one to conjure with. It brings up visions of three-year
voyages to the famed South Seas, palm-bedecked coral islands, and idyllic
days with dusky islanders. As in the case of the Greenland bowhead,
however, this animal has been hunted until only a small fraction of its

former numbers survives and the romantic days of its pursuit are gone,
never to return.

THE LARGER NORTH AMERICAN MAMMALS
INDEX TO TEXT AND ILLUSTRATION PAGES
Text Illustration
page. page.
Antelope, Prong-horn 452 451
Badger 420 419
Bear, Alaskan Brown—(Frontispiece) 441
Bear, Black 437 439
Bear, Cinnamon or Black 437 439
Bear, Glacier 437 439
Bear, Grizzly 440 442
Bear, Polar 436 438
Beaver, American 441 443
Beluga or White Whale 468 470
Bison, American, or Buffalo 461 463
Bobcat or Bay Lynx 409 411
Bowhead or Greenland Right Whale 469 471
Buffalo or American Bison 461 463
Cachalot, or Sperm Whale 472 471
Caribou, Barren Ground 460 422
Caribou, Woodland 460 459
Caribou, Peary, or Barren Ground 460 422
Cat, Jaguarundi, or Eyra 413 415
Coyote, Arizona or Mearns 424 423
Coyote, Mearns or Arizona 424 423
Coyote, Plains, or Prairie Wolf 424 423
Deer, Arizona White-tailed 457 458

Deer, Black-tailed 456 455
Deer, Mule 453 455
Deer, Virginia or White-tailed 456 458
Deer, White-tailed 456, 457 458
Elk, American 453 454
Eyra or Jaguarundi Cat 413 415
Fisher or Pekan 444 446
Fox, Alaska Red 417 418
Fox, Arctic or White 425 426
Fox, Cross 417 418
Fox, Desert 420 419
Fox, Gray 417 419
Fox, Pribilof Blue 425 426
Fox, Red 416 418
Fox, Silver 417 418
Fox, White or Arctic 425 426
Goat, Rocky Mountain 452 451
Jaguar 413 414
Lion, Mountain 412 414
Lynx, Bay 409 411
Lynx, Canada 409 411
Manati, Florida 465 467
Moose 461 462
Muskhog or Peccary 448 447
Musk-ox 464 466
Ocelots or Tiger-cats 416 415
Opossum, Virginia 408 410
Otter 445 446
Otter, Sea 432 434
Peccary, Collared, or Muskhog 448 447
Pekan or Fisher 444 446
Raccoon 408 410

Sea-elephant, Northern, or Elephant
Seal 432 434
Sea-lion, Steller 429 431
Seal, Alaska Fur 429 431
Seal, Elephant, or Sea-elephant 432 434
Seal, Greenland, or Harp Seal 433 435
Seal, Harbor 433 435
Seal, Harp, Saddle-back, or Greenland 433 435
Seal, Leopard, or Harbor Seal 433 435
Seal, Ribbon 436 438
Seal, Saddle-back, or Harp Seal 433 435
Sheep, Dall Mountain 449 450
Sheep, Rocky Mountain 448 447
Sheep, Stone Mountain 449 450
Tiger-cats or Ocelots 416 415
Walrus, Pacific 428 430
Wapiti or American Elk 453 454
Whale, Greenland Right or Bowhead 469 471
Whale, Killer 468 470
Whale, Sperm, or Cachalot 472 471
Whale, White or Beluga 468 470
Wolf, Arctic White 421 422
Wolf, Black 423
Wolf, Gray or Timber 421 423
Wolf, Prairie, or Plains Coyote 424 423
Wolf, Timber or Gray 421 423
Wolverine 428 427

SMALLER MAMMALS OF NORTH AMERICA
By Edward W. Nelson
Chief, U. S. Biological Survey

With illustrations in color from paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

I N THAT PART of North America lying north of Mexico more than 1,300
species and geographic races of mammals are known to exist. Of these
by far the greater number, both of species and individuals, fall into the class
of smaller mammals.

Some of the most characteristic types which appear to have originated in
North America are the mountain-beavers, pocket-gophers, kangaroo-rats,
pocket-mice, wood-rats, white-footed mice, muskrats, skunks, and ring-
tailed cats.

In Siberia and Europe live close counterparts of our northern weasels,
minks, martens, field-mice, lemmings, northern hares, conies, marmots,
moles, and others; and on our southern border the armadillo and the hog-
nosed skunk introduce a faint tinge of a strange fauna from South America.

FURRY FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

The muskrats, minks, martens, and skunks for many years have yielded an
enormous annual return from their furs; the squirrels and rabbits afford
sport and a large supply of excellent flesh for food; the prairie-dogs and
some of the ground-squirrels existing in enormous numbers have been
excessively destructive to crops; and others, like the porcupine and the
armadillo, have attracted particular attention because of their strange
characteristics.

ANIMALS THAT LEARNED TO “DIG IN”

The smaller mammals live everywhere, from the tropical end of Florida to
the uttermost lands of the frozen North, and from the seashore to the limit
of vegetation on the high mountains. The heaviest forests, open meadows,
rugged mountain slopes, arctic barrens, and sun-scorched desert plains all
have their small four-footed habitants. Many modifications of parts and
organs of the various species have been necessary to adapt the small
mammals to specialized modes of life.

This is strikingly illustrated in the case of those true rodents, the pocket-
gophers, which apparently found competition on the surface of the ground
so acute that they took the unoccupied territory below the surface, where
they live as miners and tunnel from place to place in search of edible roots,
with an occasional stealthy excursion above ground to seize some of the
food available there.

Another excellent illustration is furnished by the moles, which, leaving the
numerous closely related species—the shrews—to feed upon insects above
ground, have descended and, like the pocket-gophers, live in tunnels which
they make in the pursuit of earthworms and insects below the surface; like
the gophers, they, too, make occasional excursions above ground in search
of food.

The mink and the muskrat, representing the carnivores and rodents, have
rivals for their food supply on land and have become amphibious, being as
much at home in the water as on shore, one feeding on fish and flesh and
the other on aquatic vegetation. Certain forms of the squirrel tribe are
heavy-bodied and live in underground burrows, while other more slender
and graceful species make their homes in the tree-tops.

A DEPARTURE FOR EVERY NEED

Another member of this group, the flying-squirrel, has developed an
extension of the skin uniting the front and hind legs, so it may glide freely
from tree to tree. The bats have gone still further, and the skin uniting their
lengthened front and hind limbs and long finger bones forms broad wings
which lend them powers of flight scarcely equaled by those of birds.

The gophers, pocket-mice, chipmunks, and
others are provided with little cheek
pouches in the skin on each side of the
mouth, in which they may carry food home
to their store-rooms and other hiding
places.

The hares have developed long legs for
running on open plains, and the weasels
have long, slender bodies and an exceeding
quickness which enables them to follow
and capture their elusive prey in its
burrows and among crevices in the rocks.

The hairy coat of the mole is short and
equal to the finest velvet, while that of the
porcupine stands out in strong, sharp
spines; the skin of the armadillo is
practically hairless, but forms a bony armor
covering its upper parts.

The front feet of squirrels and most other
rodents are slender and used with deftness
Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton

as hands in manipulating food, while those
HEREDITARY ENEMIES: A of the badger and skunk are heavily clawed
CAT WATCHING A GRAY and strongly muscled for the purpose of
SQUIRREL digging up their prey.
At one time the gray squirrel was so abundant as to
The tails of many species are varied in
make ruinous inroads on the corn and wheat crops of
our pioneers. In Ohio, a hundred years ago, there was
form to serve special purposes. The long-
a law requiring each free white man to deliver 100
squirrel scalps every year or pay a penalty of $3.
haired tails of tree-squirrels have a plume-
Today the gray squirrel needs legal protection to
prevent its extermination.
like character, which adds much to the
beauty of these attractive animals. The long
tails of the kangaroo-rats and the jumping-mice serve as balances for their
bodies during long leaps. The vertically flattened tail of the muskrat and the
broad horizontally flattened tail of the beaver are useful as rudders. Perhaps
the oddest of all is the naked prehensile tail of the opossum, which coils

about branches or other support and thus is a safeguard against a possible
fall, and even permits the animal to hang suspended by it alone.

STRANGE ADAPTATIONS TO MEET CONDITIONS OF
ENVIRONMENT AND COMPETITION

In such ways, by thousands of adaptations and modifications of the typical
four-footed mammal, are they fitted to their varied modes of life, each so
far as possible in some special place of its own.

The effect of the pressure of environment and competition upon the various
species of mammals in any region could not be better shown than by the
kangaroos of Australia. That continent is occupied by many species of these
peculiar mammals, some of which inhabit the open plains like our jack-
rabbits in the West; others have learned to climb and live arboreal lives in
the tree-tops; and still other members of this group have become burrowers
and live in dens underground like some of our native rats and mice.

From the instances mentioned above it is evident that the mammalian
organism is very plastic and has been molded by the environment to which
it has been subjected during the ages. The larger effects evidenced by
profound modifications in the anatomy are the result of continued pressure
extending far back in time. The far more numerous, modern, and superficial
changes known to naturalists as geographic variations are everywhere in
evidence.

© F. J. Haynes

“BABES IN THE WOOD”

The American black bear, of which the brown bear is a color phase, is not aggressive and will attack man
only when wounded or in defense of its young. The hungry twins were born in mid-winter and came into
the world entirely devoid of fur overcoats. Their coats soon developed, however; in a month their eyes
were open, and in two months they were following their mother about the great forests of the Yellowstone.

By the collection of great series of specimens in North America and
elsewhere in the world it has been proved that it is common for a single
species of mammal to occupy a great area, including such diverse climatic
conditions as humid forested districts near the sea-level, sections of arid
desert plains in the interior, and high rugged mountain slopes. In each area
of differing conditions it is ordinarily found that representatives of a
species, under certain conditions, vary from those in other areas mainly in
shades of color and in proportions.

GEOGRAPHY AND COLOR

In arid areas the colors are usually distinctly paler and grayer, in the humid
districts they are darker and browner. Other conditions also effect these
changes among members of the same species, as is shown in some of the
most arid and desert plains of the southwestern United States, where
mammals living among dark-colored lava beds are darker than those found,
sometimes within a few rods, on paler adjoining soil. Complete isolation
under the same climatic and other conditions sometimes produces marked
changes, as is well illustrated by the difference between the Abert and
Kaibab squirrels on the two sides of the Grand Canyon in Arizona (see page
448).

The different forms of a species occupying areas under varying conditions
are commonly termed geographic races. They grade imperceptibly into one
another along the border between their ranges, step by step with the
gradations of the climatic and other conditions which have produced their
differences.

ANIMAL CHEMISTS CHANGE STARCH INTO WATER

One of the most striking modifications of mammalian economy by
environment is that shown in many small mammals of our southwestern
desert region and adjacent parts of Mexico, in which such species as the
kangaroo-rats, pocket-mice, prairie-dogs, and others are able to exist under
the most arid conditions without drinking. The liquid necessary for
supplying their bodily needs is obtained through chemical action in their
digestive tracts, whereby some of the starchy parts of their food are changed
into water.

Over considerable areas in the waterless deserts on the peninsula of Lower
California periods of from three to five years sometimes pass without a
drop of rain falling. In these areas the small desert mammals named above,
as well as wood-rats, white-footed mice, cottontails, and jack-rabbits, are
numerous and successfully pass these dry periods without inconvenience.
The absolute independence of water of these animals has been

demonstrated in southern California in the case of pocket-mice kept for
months in captivity in a box and fed solely upon thoroughly dried seeds
without their showing the slightest sign of discomfort.

Our small mammals may be roughly classified by their food habits into
three main groups: Rodents, or gnawing animals; carnivores, or flesh eaters,
and insectivores, or insect eaters.

GNAWERS MOST NUMEROUS OF MAMMALS

The rodents vastly outnumber all other mammals and are typified by the
squirrels, rats, and mice; their food is mainly vegetable matter, but many of
them eat insects and meat whenever available. The carnivores, including
such species as the weasel, mink, and marten, are mainly flesh eaters,
preying largely upon rodents, but they also eat insects and fruits of many
kinds. The insectivores include the moles and shrews, which, with all the
bats found within our limits, are almost exclusively eaters of worms and
insects.

While rodents primarily feed on vegetable matter, it is surprising to note the
large number of species among them which commonly feed on insects and
have strong carnivorous propensities. This is not so much the case with
such larger rodents as the beaver, porcupine, and woodchuck, but most of
the smaller kinds, from squirrels to mice, have been found to be confirmed
flesh eaters.

Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton

A MILLENNIAL SCENE: A RABBIT-HOUND AND A YOUNG RABBIT ENJOYING EACH
OTHER’S SOCIETY

Here the camera records a friendship almost as remarkable as that which is to mark the association of the
lion and the lamb in the final days of the world’s history.

The destruction of the eggs and young of birds, both on the ground and in
the trees, by these animals must have a far-reaching effect in reducing the
number of insectivorous and other small birds. Some small rodents, as the
grasshopper-mice, subsist mainly upon insects and flesh.

The naturalist who sets traps for small rodents in field or forest is constantly
annoyed by finding trapped animals partly devoured by their fellows. When
mice or rats are confined together in cages and provided with an abundance
of vegetable food, it is a common experience to find that the stronger kill
and eat the weaker ones, until in a short time only a single survivor remains.
These cannibalistic traits are strongly developed in the common house rat,
which is notorious for its savagery toward others of its kind.

CASES OF CONCENTRATED FEROCITY

To a certain extent the ferocity of mammals appears to increase in
proportion to a decrease in their size. The smaller members of the weasel
family—the weasels—are relatively far more active and bloodthirsty than
the minks, martens, and other larger members of the group.

If the common weasel should be increased to the bulk of a mountain-lion
and retain its nature and physical prowess, it would be many times more
dangerous than any existing carnivore and the devastations it would commit
would be appalling. Even the tiny insect-eating shrews are endowed with a
fierce and aggressive spirit scarcely equaled among larger animals.

Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton

A WEASEL AT BAY ON A TREE-TRUNK

Wolves, coyotes, and foxes are the natural enemies of this ferocious little creature. In spite of its
diminutive size, it is a foe to be respected, for its attack is always aimed at a vital point—commonly the
brain, the back of the neck, or the jugular vein of its adversary.

Rodents and insectivorous mammals are without effective weapons of
offense or defense against the birds and beasts of prey which beset them.
Many, however, are surprisingly courageous when brought to bay, and,
using their front teeth, will fight to the death with vigor and spirit. This is
especially notable of the muskrats and their cousins, the field-mice.
Carnivores, both great and small, have teeth and claws with which to
defend themselves against attack.

WHY THE SKUNK NEVER HURRIES

In addition, skunks have an even more potent weapon in the secretion of a
vile-smelling liquid which is sprayed on a dangerous enemy. So confident
are skunks in the efficacy of this weapon that they are extremely calm and
unhurried in their manners and take little trouble to avoid an encounter with
man or beast. Their odorous weapon is not used among themselves and
appears to be held for service against more dangerous enemies.

Scent glands are common among rodents, carnivores, and insectivores, but
are ordinarily used for purposes of communication with others of their kind,
sometimes to attract the opposite sex and sometimes merely to give notice
of their presence in a locality.

The hard school of experience holding through the ages has taught many of
our rodents the necessity of lying up stores of food to meet periods of
scarcity. Many species store food in a desultory way whenever a surplus is
available, but when harvest time comes, at the close of summer, the work is
taken up as a serious occupation during many busy hours each day or night
by the species living where the severe northern winters make the stores a
necessity.

The storage instinct is possessed as well by many of the southern desert
species, where climatic conditions permit activity throughout the year. In
such regions the supplies serve during storms and in periods of drought,
when the yield of plant food is limited.

Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton.

ARMED NEUTRALITY: A DOG AND A SKUNK PREPARE FOR COMBAT

Once in a lifetime the photographer of wild life gets an opportunity such as is recorded here. Luck was
with the camera man, but not with the terrier, as a moment after this picture was made the dog was a very
nauseated and embarrassed animal, the skunk having employed its natural weapon with overpowering
odoriferous effect.

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING IN RODENT LAND

One can but marvel at the wise prescience with which northern rodents
gather their winter stores and hide them away safe from the weather in
secret places in hollow trees, old logs, crevices among the rocks, or in neat
storage chambers dug for the purpose adjoining underground burrows. The
size of the stores and the tireless industry of these little husbandmen in
gathering them might well serve as examples worthy of emulation by some
of their human neighbors. The seeds gathered are freed from chaff, the
grasses and herbs are dried as “hay,” and roots are carefully cleaned before
being stored.

The storing habit appears to be nearly always for purely individual benefit.
The food is usually stored in bulk, but squirrels and chipmunks often bury
here and there single nuts, which they are able to recover long afterward
through their extraordinary powers of smell.

Stores are laid by for a single season, and a single failure of a nut or seed
crop will cause the starvation of many small animals, and the failure of the
crops for two or more seasons is so disastrous that the rodents may nearly
or quite all die of famine over great areas. The reverse of this occurs during
successive years of bountiful nut and seed crops.

An abundant food supply appears to be a powerful stimulant to the
fecundity of mammals, and the number of young at a birth, as well as the
number of litters born during a season, are greatly increased by it, until their
haunts fairly swarm with them.

THE EBB AND FLOW OF ANTAGONISTIC SPECIES

With this stimulated increase of rodent life goes a related increase in the
number of birds and mammals which prey upon them. The close
relationship between the numbers of rodents and of the carnivores which
prey upon them is shown by the records of the Hudson Bay Company, in
which with the increase or decrease in the abundance of varying-hare skins
secured by the fur traders goes a corresponding increase or decrease in the
number of lynx skins taken.

Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton

IT IS NOT VANITY WHICH PROMPTS THIS MOUSE TO TAKE ITS OWN PICTURE

The bait is a grain of corn attached to one end of a thread; the other end operates the camera shutter; but
the pose is almost “studied”.

After rodents become enormously abundant, if food becomes scarce they
sometimes make extended migrations, during which vast numbers swarm
across the country, like the lemmings of the North or the gray squirrels
during their historic migrations of early days in the eastern United States. At
such times vast numbers of the wandering hordes perish; epidemic disease
also plays its part in reducing their numbers. Nature thus is self-limiting in
restraining the permanent increase of any species beyond the numbers
needed to preserve its balance.

The advent of man in new regions with his clearing of forests, cultivation of
the soil, and destruction of animal life for food or other purposes, quickly
upsets the balance of nature, and some species are much reduced in
numbers or disappear, while others, especially among the smaller kinds of
mammals, may greatly benefit through added food supplies, and then
increase until they become a pest, to be destroyed by the farmer as a
measure of self-protection.

ANIMALS THAT SEEK SAFETY IN DARKNESS

For some reason, perhaps owing to their small size and defenselessness
against birds and beasts of prey, the great majority of small mammals,
including hundreds of species and untold millions of individuals, are
nocturnal or live such obscure and hidden lives they are unknown except to
the comparatively few people who go much afield, with all their powers of
observation alert by day and by night. Many of the mainly nocturnal species
pursue minor activities by day, where shelter of one kind or another gives
them a reasonable feeling of security.

Under the revealing light of day most small mammals, especially the
rodents, are extremely watchful and timid, leading lives filled with alarms
which commonly end in tragic deaths. By night they appear to have far
greater confidence; yet this also is a time of imminent danger from the owls
and many beasts of prey then prowling about.

Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton

A NEST OF YOUNG WHITE-FOOTED MICE

One form of this small animal has been found living at an elevation of from 15,000 to 16,000 feet on Mt.
Orizaba, Mexico, the highest record of any North American mammal.

That the small rodents have good cause for their timorous ways is plain
when we consider the array of enemies which encompass them, including
owls, herons, gulls, bears, foxes, bobcats, weasels and their cousins, with
snakes, and on occasion fishes, which take endless toll from their numbers.
Fortunately for them, these small folk live wholly in the present and quickly
forget the shadow of death cast by the passage of a hawk or the skulking
form of a four-footed enemy.

COUNTLESS BEASTS THAT ROAM THE NIGHT

By day the squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, and spermophiles are abroad
and unite with the birds to lend an air of pleasant animation to forest and
plain. With the falling shades of night, near the abodes of mankind as well
as in the remote wilderness, everywhere a countless multitude of small
beasts come forth and form a little, bright-eyed furry world, clad in delicate
shades of gray and brown and characterized by remarkable grace and
agility.

These small folk of the night swarm out from snug nests hidden in burrows
in the earth, in crevices among the rocks, in hollow trees, under logs or
other cover, and even from the shelter afforded by buildings. In number and
variety of forms they far exceed anything seen by day. The air is filled with
the flitting forms of bats, while among the trees or on the ground, varying
with the locality, are multitudes of rabbits, flying-squirrels, rats and mice of
many kinds, lemmings, pocket-mice, kangaroo-rats, pocket-gophers,
shrews, and even moles.

This abundance of night life brings forth the prowling powers of darkness
in the form of velvet-winged owls, weasels, skunks, minks, martens, and
other carnivores, which by scent and by keen vision find abundant harvest.
The small carnivores, in turn, are subject to the predatory law of might and
are at times hunted by the larger carnivores, as the great-horned owls, the
wolves, foxes, fishers, bobcats, and mountain-lions.

Photograph by George Shiras, 3rd

A MINK TAKING ITS OWN PICTURE BY FLASHLIGHT

This is one of many remarkable nature studies which have been made possible by Dr. George Shiras 3rd’s
invention and development of animal flashlight photography, with the animals themselves as the
photographers. The naturalist may have to spend hours, sometimes days, waiting in swamp or desert to
study his quarry, but by means of flashlight photographs the inhabitants of the wild are revealed in their
native haunts to all who read a story told in pictures. Dr. Shiras’s notable contributions to this magazine
have always won hearty appreciation from members of the National Geographic Society.

To most people the majority of small rodents are classed as “rats” or “mice”
and are viewed with the prejudice born of long familiarity with those
omnipresent pests, the house rats and mice. The small beasts of field and
forest are commonly of remotest kinship to these repulsive household
parasites and are of entirely different lineage, having nothing in common
but their size.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AKIN TO MAN’S

When viewed with unbiased attention, these little animals of the wilds are
certain to charm the observer either by their beauty and grace or by their
varied and interesting habits. No one can long study mammals, large or

small, without observing many traits of intelligence so akin to his own that
they awaken feelings of friendly fellowship.

The modes of life of small mammals are much more varied than those of
the larger species. At times radical differences in habits may be noted
among different individuals of the same species, as instanced by the wood-
rats of Santa Margarita Island, some of which live in burrows dug by
themselves in the ground and others in nests built of sticks in the tops of
mangroves rising amid the waters of a lagoon.

An even more extraordinary variation is shown among the heavy-bodied
meadow-mice of the genus Phenacomys, most of which live in underground
burrows; but one member of the group in Oregon builds its nests in the tops
of tall conifers, sometimes at an altitude of 80 feet, and rarely or never
descends to the ground.

PEEPS INTO FUR-FOLK HOMES

The homes of small mammals vary greatly. The species living in
underground burrows usually excavate an oval chamber which is filled with
fine vegetable material to form a snug retreat. The muskrat places a conical
lodge on the border of a marshy stream or lake. The wood-rat lives in an
underground burrow, in a nest of sticks and trash heaped above the ground
or in a stick nest placed among the branches of low trees. Harvest mice
build a little hollow ball of grass blades, lined with finer material, among
the branches of bushes several feet above the ground. White-footed mice
may lodge in a knot-hole 50 feet or more above ground in the trunk of a
tree.

As a rule, small mammals are of inconspicuous colors which harmonize so
well with their surroundings that when not in motion, especially if lying
close to the ground, they are difficult to distinguish. Exceptions to this rule
are obvious in the case of jack-rabbits when standing on bare plains, or
other mammals which are apart from the usual partly concealing growth of
vegetation or other surroundings.

In contrast to the protective coloration are certain markings, like the cottony
white underside of the tail of the cottontail rabbit, which renders the flight
of this animal conspicuous in the gloomiest shades of the forest, or even on
the approach of night, when it is impossible to distinguish the animal itself.
The white underside of the tail of the antelope chipmunk is another well-
defined instance of this kind.

NEW COATS FOR BOREAS’ COURT

The most marked of all examples of “directive” coloration among the small
mammals appears to be that of certain white-sided jack-rabbits, in which
the white areas on the sides and rump are drawn up and down as the animal
runs across the plains, giving a flashing effect, which attracts attention to
them exactly as does the white rump-patch of the antelope.

In the northern part of the continent, where snow lies for many months,
several species of hares are dusky or buffy gray in summer and change to a
pure white coat in winter. This change is of enormous protective value to
these animals. In Greenland, where the summer is short and snow exists
throughout the year, the highest northern representative of the hares remains
permanently white, while near the southern border of snow in the United
States the varying hares and white-tailed jack-rabbits, which become pure
white in the northern parts of their range, make only a partial change.

Weasels are the only carnivores which change from the brown of summer to
a white winter coat. Owing to their small size and the need for activity in
the snowy northern regions, where they would be peculiarly susceptible to
danger from birds of prey and larger predatory animals, their protective
white coats serve them well.

It was formerly considered that the change of mammals from the brown of
summer to the white winter coat in the fall, and from the white to the brown
in spring, was due to a change in the color of the hairs, but it is now known
that it is entirely due to molt. The time of these changes depends on the
season, and this varies several weeks, according to whether the fall or
spring is early or late.

The general shades of mammals are of delicate tints, and the spots, stripes,
and other markings, as in the case of chipmunks and the little spotted skunk,
are often of great beauty.

ANIMALS THAT HAVE TO SING

Small mammals vary greatly in their vocal powers, but the changes in
intonation and character of the notes and calls indicate plainly that they are
used to convey a variety of meanings.

Some are practically voiceless, as in the case of rabbits and hares, except
when in an extremity of fear they utter loud shrieks of terror. Squirrels,
prairie-dogs, and some other small mammals bark and chatter, while mice
and bats have a variety of curious squeaking notes. Marmots and ground-
squirrels have chattering notes and sharp, whistling calls.

In addition, some of the squirrels and many mice are known to have
continuous series of notes which are as evidently songs as the utterances of
birds. Some of these notes, as in the case of singing mice, have a
remarkably musical character, similar to the warblings of canaries. Various
unrelated species of mice have been observed singing, and a closer study of
the life habits of these small animals may develop the fact that all are
songsters to some degree.

House rats and mice have, undoubtedly, been parasitic about the haunts of
man from early times. From Asia they have accompanied him through his
advance in civilization. With the growth of commerce they have traveled
around the world, becoming transplanted to all lands and thriving in all
climates. In various parts of America they have not only become pests about
human habitations, but where climatic conditions were favorable have
reverted to the wild state and are competing with the native species in the
fields.

Of all the small mammals none have become modified to such an extent as
the bats. As a group these mammals are of world-wide distribution except in
the inhospitable polar regions. They are true mammals and present an

extraordinary variation in size, from tiny little creatures, almost as small
and fragile as butterflies, to the huge fruit-bats, with a spread of wings like
that of a wild goose.

BATS WITH BULLDOG FACES

The heads of bats are strangely sculptured, some being smoothly contoured
and shaped like those of little foxes; others appear like miniature bulldogs;
and still others have curious cartilaginous nose-leaves upright on the
muzzle. Some have the entire face molded into a hideous mask repulsive to
look upon.

Their habits are equally varied to meet special conditions: Some are eaters
of fruit alone; others feed solely upon insects, while others bite other
mammals, including man, for the purpose of drinking the oozing blood,
upon which they subsist. All are nocturnal, but some appear late in the
afternoon, before the sun sets; most species, however, wait until the shades
of night have covered the earth.

Throughout the world the majority of the species of bats feed upon insects,
but there are many fruit-eaters. The teeming insects and plant life of the
tropics afford a never-failing food supply, and the center of abundance of
these animals is found there. In some localities between twenty and thirty
kinds of bats exist, with such vast numbers of individuals that the bat
population far outnumbers all other kinds of mammals combined.

ANIMALS THAT PUT THEMSELVES IN COLD STORAGE

In the northern parts of the Old and New Worlds many mammals, including
bears, marmots, prairie-dogs, ground-squirrels, and jumping mice, pass a
large part of the winter months in a lethargic sleep called hibernation. While
hibernating these animals have extremely slow and slight heart action and
their bodily temperature falls far below the normal of their active periods.
During the most profound hibernation an animal may be awakened if

brought into a warm temperature, but when again put into the cold at once
returns to sleep.

Preparatory to this sleep, during the summer and in the autumn, the
hibernating mammals become exceedingly fat.

It has long been generally accepted that the fat thus accumulated was for the
purpose of being gradually absorbed to nourish the animals during their
long fast. As a matter of fact, during this period the bodily functions appear
to be practically suspended and the animals may be said to be in cold
storage. This is evident from the fact that observations have been made of
ground-squirrels, and even bears, emerging in spring, after their long winter
sleep, practically as fat as when they retired in fall. Hibernating animals
become extremely active as soon as they come out in spring and quickly
lose the fat which should be of special service to them, owing to the
temporary shortage of food they experience at this season.

Most hibernating species do not retire for the winter until cold weather is at
hand, in September or October, at times remaining out until after the first
snow has fallen. The animals which retire latest, like chipmunks and
prairie-dogs, sometimes appear temporarily during certain warm periods in
winter.

Recent observations have established the fact that the adults of both sexes
of the Richardson ground-squirrel living in the Northwestern States and
adjacent parts of Canada become excessively fat by the first of July, and
before the first of August practically disappear for the season, not appearing
again until they emerge the following March or April. The retirement of
these squirrels for a part of the summer is a case of imperfect estivation, as
it is termed, followed by complete hibernation. The young of the year enter
hibernation at a considerably later date.

DEFENSIVE AND OFFENSIVE ANIMAL ALLIANCES

A great number of both large and small mammals live solitary lives except
for brief periods during the mating season or the association of the young

with the mother. Some species, however, like the wolves and coyotes, may
mate permanently and show great mutual affection and constancy. Many
species have well-developed social instincts, which appear in some cases to
combine two purposes, self-defense and the desire for companionship.

Herds of large herbivorous mammals, such as musk-oxen and buffalo,
frequently present a solid array of bristling horns to the attacking wolves,
and thus protect the weaker members of the herd and give an example of
the usefulness to them of the social instinct. Wolves and some other
predatory animals hunt in couples or in packs and succeed in pulling down
prey which singly they could not successfully attack.

Prairie-dogs living in colonies have the advantage of community
intercourse as well as added safety through the chance that some member of
the colony will espy an approaching enemy and by its warning cry allow a
safe retreat. In other cases, such as the flying-squirrels, which gather in
considerable numbers in hollow trees or other shelter, and the bats, which
gather in caves, the congregation appears to be purely from a desire for
close companionship.

FOOTPRINTS OF NATURE’S WILD FOLK

BY ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

In the drawings accompanying Mr. Nelson’s article I usually give the track of a normal adult animal in
about one inch of snow, that being ideal for tracking. Some of the smaller kinds are shown in fine dust.
The trail goes up or across the page at the ordinary gait of the animal. The scale is indicated, but when
possible the topmost set is given of life size. While there are endless variants in each kind, I aim to give the
reader at least one typical set of each.

In all animals which bound, the hind feet track ahead of the front ones. This is very plainly seen in the
rabbits. There are two arrangements of the fore feet when bounding: That of the rabbit (b), in which the
fore feet are usually one behind the other, and that of the tree-squirrel (a), in which the fore feet are side by
side. The latter arrangement is associated with power to climb a tree. The former means that the animal is
purely terrestrial. These, however, are true only as generalizations. There are exceptions in all species. The
ground-squirrels conform to the rabbit type. The tracks are, of course, ideal, giving far more detail than is
usually to be seen.

THE ANTELOPE JACK RABBIT (Lepus alleni and its
relatives)

(For illustration, see page 506)

The antelope, or Allen, jack rabbit is one of the most picturesque of
American mammals. It is larger than the common western jack rabbit and is
strongly characterized by enormous ears, long, slender legs, short tail, and
contrasting colors. It is a member of the white-sided group of jack rabbits,
which are distinguished by the extension of the white of the underparts well
up on the sides of the body.

This group is represented in limited areas on our southern border by two
species. One of these, the Gailliard jack rabbit (Lepus gailliardi), occurs on
the grassy plains of extreme southwestern New Mexico and is succeeded by
other white-sided species southward across the Mexican tableland and
through interior Oaxaca to the Pacific coast, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The other species, the antelope jack rabbit, occupies a considerable area in
southwestern Arizona, and with its geographic races ranges southward
through the coastal plains of Sonora and Sinaloa to northern Tepic.

All jack rabbits are more or less closely related to the Old World hares, the
term “rabbit” having been so generally misapplied to them by the early
settlers in the western United States that the name is now fixed by current
usage. In Mexico and among the Mexicans of our southwestern border the
proper distinction is made and the jack rabbit is termed liebre, or hare, and
cottontail is called conejo, or rabbit.

The white-sided species are more widely differentiated from their Old
World relatives than the other jack rabbits and are the southernmost
representatives of the true hares in America, reaching their limit in the
tropics a little beyond the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

The extension of the white on the sides of these species assists in producing
one of the most extraordinary examples of directive coloration known
among mammals. I had the pleasure of discovering this one day in May,
1895, when hunting on horseback over the grassy plain bordering the
Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. As I rode slowly along, a big
jack rabbit hopped deliberately from its form in the grass a few yards away,
and by the contraction of a special set of muscles along the back drew the
dark-colored dorsal area forward and together so that it formed only a

narrow band on the middle of the back, with a corresponding extension of
the white area on the rump and sides until, as the animal moved diagonally
away, it looked almost entirely white.

At a distance of fifty or sixty yards it came to a stop, and expanded and
contracted the dark dorsal area, thus producing a “flashing” effect with the
changing area of white on the sides and rump. This solved the riddle of the
mirror-like white flashes I had often seen as jack rabbits on the tableland
had dashed away in the brilliant sunshine. The same habit of “flashing” the
white was afterwards observed in the species of southwestern New Mexico
and southwestern Arizona, demonstrating the appropriateness of the name,
“antelope jack rabbit,” given them by the ranchmen.

Formerly the antelope jack rabbit of Arizona was common on the plains
about Tucson, where many were shot for rifle practice. They are now
comparatively scarce in that district, and are never so excessively abundant
as the common species of the West now and then becomes. They have an
extraordinary appearance as, with their great ears erect, they stand poised
on their long, thin legs. When alarmed, they leap away with amazing
celerity in long, high bounds. They are usually much more shy and alert
than the common jack rabbits and at times are far more difficult to stalk
than antelope. A peculiarly appropriate setting to this remarkable species is
found in the strange and wonderful growth of giant cactuses, yuccas,
creosote bushes, fouquerias, palo verde, and other desert vegetation of the
plains in Arizona and Sonora.

Like other hares, the antelope jack rabbits occupy forms under bushes or in
the shelter of little patches of coarse vegetation. The only exception to this
rule I have seen was west of the city of Guadalajara, on the Mexican
tableland. There one summer day, in the midst of a lovely open valley
covered with short, velvety green grass and dotted with scattered acacia
bushes, a caracara eagle suddenly swooped down upon a young white-sided
jack rabbit. In mortal terror the little beast dashed away at great speed, the
caracara casting at it repeatedly from a height of fifteen or twenty feet and
each time striking the ground just behind. The young animal ran not less
than five hundred yards, straight for a little bush on a small bank, where it
vanished as by magic.

The caracara was close behind and, alighting, ran round and round the trunk
of the bush, craning its neck and apparently as surprised as myself at this
sudden disappearance. Riding over to investigate, I found, partly concealed
by coarse grass, the entrance of a burrow large enough to admit an adult
jack rabbit. It extended almost horizontally into the bank for about eighteen
inches, and then, turning abruptly to the left, ended in a rounded chamber
some fifteen inches in diameter, in which the young jack rabbit lay snugly
ensconced. It appeared altogether probable that this burrow had been made
by the old jack rabbit as a shelter for her young, one of which in its extreme
need had again sought asylum there.

White-sided jack rabbits are frequently found in pairs, occupying forms in
close proximity to one another. More rarely several may be found in a small
area. When driven from the forms, they often run in a wide circle, and in the
course of half an hour or more may be detected returning slyly and
watchfully from a direction nearly opposite to that in which they departed.

THE CALIFORNIA JACK RABBIT
(Lepus californicus and its subspecies)

(For illustration, see page 507)

The common hares, or gray-sided “jack rabbits” of the Western States, are
among our best known and most interesting mammals. They are
characterized by long, thin necks, long ears tipped with black, long legs,
grayish sides differing but little from the color of the back, and a rather long
tail, black on its upper side and dingy gray below.

They are abundant and generally distributed over a vast and mainly treeless
area in middle North America extending from western Missouri and eastern
Texas to the Pacific coast, and from the border of South Dakota and the
Columbia River Valley of Washington south over the tableland of Mexico
and throughout the peninsula of Lower California. Within this region they
range from sea level up to an altitude of over 9,000 feet. In the North they
experience severe winters with much snow, but never show any winter
whitening of their furry coat, as do more northern hares.

The gray-sided hares over all this extended range belong to a single species,
typified by the California jack rabbit. The area thus occupied includes many
different climatic and other physical conditions, from the sweeping grassy
plains of Kansas to the juniper and pine dotted plateaus of the Rocky
Mountain region, the foggy coast of California, the hot cactus-grown
deserts of the Southwest, and the cool elevations of the Mexican tableland.

This varying environment has worked on the plastic organization of the
species and modified it into a considerable number of well-marked
geographic races which together make up the gray-sided group of jack
rabbits, in contrast with the white-sided group already described. Some of
the races are very dissimilar in color, but each merges imperceptibly into its
neighboring races, and the group thus forms an unbroken chain of
subspecies.

Like other hares, the jack rabbits are both diurnal and nocturnal in habits.
They do not burrow, but make forms among dense growths of grass or
weeds, or under bushes, where they lie hidden. It is a question whether they
have more than one litter a season, although it is known that in some parts
of their range young are born at all times throughout the spring and
summer. From one to six are produced at a time, fully clothed in fur and
with their eyes open. Within a few days they leave the “form” and run about
like little furry balls. Even at this early period they are amazingly alert and
skillful in evading capture by quickly doubling and zigzagging when
pursued.

A QUADRUPED WITH BIPED TRACK: THE COMMON CAT

The cat does not show its claws in the track. In walking, the hind foot is set exactly in the track of the front
foot; this perfect register offers many advantages and makes for a silent tread. The track of the cat will
probably be noticed more than that of any other animal, owing to the large numbers of them in every
locality.

Throughout its range the gray-sided jack rabbit is preyed upon by a host of
enemies, including wolves, coyotes, wildcats, eagles, and several species of
hawks and owls. As a result it has become extremely cunning and watchful.
It is a beautiful sight to observe the cautious grace with which one that
suspects danger but thinks itself unobserved will quietly move out of its
form, pause like a statue for a few seconds, then raise its body into a sitting
posture and look keenly about, its great upstanding ears turning sensitively
to one side and the other, delicately testing the air for sound waves, which
may spell approaching peril.

If not alarmed it may then move slowly along by a series of easy little hops,
occasionally varied by the single-footed gait of most other mammals. At
such times the ears are often raised and lowered as though worked by some
mechanism. If the rabbit becomes alarmed, however, it leaps away in quick,

springy and graceful bounds, now and then making a high soaring leap as if
to command a better view.

These occasional high leaps mark the first stages of alarm. In greater stress,
when pursued by a coyote or other swift-footed enemy, the jack rabbit
indulges in no such showy performances, but gets down to serious work,
and developing marvelous action in a continuous series of rapid, low
stretching leaps, with ears lying flat along the shoulders, it skims over the
ground almost as swiftly as a bird. Coursing jack rabbits with greyhounds
was for many years a favorite sport in different parts of the West. No other
dog has much chance for success in the open pursuit of these animals.

THE TRACKS OF THE JACK RABBIT

The tracks of the western jack rabbit resemble those of the cottontail (see page 492), but the feet are
seldom paired; a typical set is seen in the lower left-hand corner. The bounds cover 10, 12, or even 15 feet

each. The tail is held down, so that it leaves a mark in the snow between each bound. Sometimes the
animal makes a spy-hop—that is, hops up high to look around. This is seen in the track.

Ordinarily jack rabbits are mute, but when wounded and caught they not
infrequently utter a series of long-drawn wailing shrieks which are
movingly expressive of terror and pain.

Since the settlement of the Western States numberless predatory animals
have been killed and at the same time the cultivation of the soil has
produced a dependable increase in the food supply. These changes have
resulted in the sporadic increase of jack rabbits in many parts of their range,
from Texas to Oregon, until at times they have become a serious menace to
agriculture.

During such periods of abundance they invade fields and devastate grain,
forage crops, vineyards, and young orchards. In places they sometimes
actually destroy entire crops and force settlers to abandon their locations. In
winter they swarm about haystacks and destroy many tons of hay.
Depredations of this character were committed by them on a considerable
scale during 1916 in parts of Oregon, Idaho, and Utah.

During the early development of the San Joaquin Valley, California, jack
rabbits became such an intolerable pest that great community drives were
organized. Large woven wire corrals with wing fences leading away several
miles from the entrance were built on the open plains. The occasions of the
drives were made public holidays through all the surrounding region, and
people gathered sometimes to the number of from 5,000 to 8,000. A great
line of beaters was formed, miles in length, and the jack rabbits were driven
between wing fences into corrals. Four such drives in Fresno County in the
spring of 1892 resulted in the destruction of 40,000 jack rabbits, one drive
netting more than 20,000 animals.

At this time the level floor of the San Joaquin Valley was crossed by
numberless well-worn rabbit trails six or eight inches broad and one or two
inches deep, extending in long straight lines sometimes for miles. On
approaching a patch of large weeds one often saw twenty or thirty jack

rabbits dash out and, after hopping away a short distance, sit with
upstanding ears to look curiously at the intruder.

It is a general rule that when any species of animal becomes extremely
numerous it loses its ordinary wariness and, conversely, when its numbers
are materially reduced its wariness is greatly increased. The periods of
abundance of jack rabbits usually extend through several years until, at the
height of their increase, a contagious malady suddenly sweeps them away
almost to the point of extinction, as in the case of the varying hare. A period
of years follows during which their numbers are slowly recovered.

Jack rabbits are specially adapted for life on great plains, where speed and
the ability to subsist on almost any form of vegetation are prime qualities.
They are as grotesquely characteristic of the Western States as the
kangaroos were of Australia, and have entered largely into the literature of
the region they occupy.

THE VARYING HARES (Lepus americanus and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 507)

The varying hares, white rabbits, or snowshoe rabbits, as they are known,
form a small group of closely related species and geographic races of hares
peculiar to northern North America. They sometimes attain a weight of five
pounds and are about half the size of the arctic hares, which they resemble
in form, except that they are more heavily built and have proportionately
shorter legs and larger hind feet.

With a single exception they become white in winter and change to dusky
or brownish in summer. The molt from the brown summer coat to the white
winter one occurs with the arrival of winter snows, the exact time varying
according to the season, the reverse change in spring being governed in a
similar way by the disappearance of the snow. In the southern part of their
range the change to the white winter coat is less complete than in the North.
There has been much controversy over the manner of this change in color,
some maintaining that on the approach of winter the hairs turn white with

the first snow. It has been definitely proved, however, that both seasonal
changes are due to molt.

The Washington hare (Lepus washingtoni), which remains brown
throughout the year, is the exception to the rule of white winter coats in this
group of hares. It lives in the cool, dense forests of the humid coast belt of
Washington and adjacent part of British Columbia, where the snowfall does
not affect its pelage.

In winter the large hind feet of the varying hares and their long, spreading
toes are entirely covered with a heavy coat of hair, forming broad
snowshoe-like pads, which enable their possessors to move about freely
over the soft snow, a peculiarity that has given rise to one of the names in
common use.

In cool, forested regions varying hares range from Maine and extreme
eastern Canada, including Newfoundland, to the Pacific coast, and from the
stunted bushes bordering the northern limit of trees south to the northern
border of the United States and beyond, following the higher Alleghenies to
West Virginia, the Rocky Mountains to New Mexico, and well down the
Sierra Nevada in California.

As in the case of other species, these hares make “forms” in which they lie
by day, for they are mainly nocturnal in habits. The mating season occurs in
early spring, when the males become very restless, several sometimes
congregating in the same vicinity and occasionally fighting and chasing one
another about. At this time, as well as at other seasons, snowshoe rabbits
have a habit of thumping rapidly on the ground, making a dull sound
audible for some distance. This is probably done with the hind feet, as is
known to be the case with the European rabbit.

The thumping is apparently a signal and may be a part of the mating
display, but is also used for warning purposes. Hunters in northern Canada
call these rabbits by making a harsh squeaking noise with their lips.
Sometimes they become so eager and excited on hearing this call that with
odd little grunting sounds they come bounding close up to the hunter.

The young, varying from two to seven, are born in nests made of dry leaves,
grasses, and other suitable vegetation, warmly lined with hair from the
mother’s body, and usually hidden under brush or in dense vegetation. The
young, which have their eyes open and are fully furred at birth, within a few
days leave the nest and move freely about. Although the mother snowshoe
rabbit will defend her young at first even at the risk of her life, when they
are half grown she leaves them to shift for themselves. Young hares of
various ages when caught often utter shrill squealing cries of fright and the
older animals when wounded and caught sometimes do the same.

Perhaps through living so constantly in low ground, among swamps and
along streams, varying hares become less averse to entering water than
most of their kind. In the delta of the Yukon River I saw many places where
they had crossed small streams in spring, their wet tracks entering and
leaving the water, thus furnishing unmistakable evidence. Curiously
enough, when caught by a flood they will take refuge on stumps or other
support and often remain to starve rather than swim ashore.

In summer, owing to their nocturnal habits and the dense thickets they
inhabit, varying hares are rarely seen unless they are unusually plentiful. In
winter their presence is known by their conspicuous tracks, leading in every
direction through their haunts. A single animal will in one night so
thoroughly track the snow in a patch of woods it gives the impression that
several must have been there.

In river bottoms, among densely wooded swamps, these rabbits frequently
make definite beaten runways in the snow; runways are also made through
thickets in their summer haunts. This habit renders it easy to snare them,
and enormous numbers are thus captured every winter.

They feed on a variety of small herbage in summer and in winter depend on
buds, twigs, and the bark of shrubs and small trees. They are specially fond
of willows, and their winter distribution in many districts is governed by the
abundance of willow thickets.

Varying hares are one of the most important mammals of the northern fur
country. They are generally distributed and exist in such numbers that they
are an important source of food supply both to the Indians and to such

predatory birds and mammals as the great horned and snowy owls, the
goshawk, gyrfalcon, lynx, fox, ermine, fisher, and others. The skins are also
used by the Indians for robes.

FOOTPRINTS OF THE VARYING HARE, OR SNOWSHOE RABBIT

The great size of the feet from which the creature is named is a strong feature of the track, distinguishing it
from that of the cottontail and others (see pages 489 and 507).

Under favorable conditions they steadily increase until they become
enormously plentiful over great areas. After this swarming abundance
continues for several seasons it reaches a maximum, and then, as in the case
of many other mammals when similarly overabundant, a mysterious malady
suddenly attacks and sweeps them off, until within a year or two they

become rare over the entire area. The people of the fur country believe these
changes in numbers run in cycles of about seven years each.

As the hares increase in numbers some of the birds and mammals which
prey upon them increase proportionately. This is specially marked with the
big northern lynxes. The skins of varying hares are gathered and sent to the
London fur market with other furs, including those of lynxes. In the records
of sales of the Hudson’s Bay Company there are direct increases of the
numbers of Canada lynx skins sold corresponding with the increases in the
sales of varying hare skins. As the number of hare skins abruptly decreases
following the outbreak of epidemics among them, there are correspondingly
abrupt decreases in the numbers of lynx skins sold.

This correlation is shown in the records extending back many years and
illustrates the interdependence in nature between the various forms of
animal life. The far-reaching tragic effect of the sudden disappearance of
the snowshoe rabbits is not confined to the wild habitants of the forest, as it
has not infrequently brought starvation and death into many lonely Indian
lodges in the great northern wilderness.

THE ARCTIC HARE (Lepus arcticus and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 510)

Many parts of the northernmost circumpolar lands are occupied by large
hares, which attain a weight of more than ten pounds. They are about the
size of large jack rabbits, but are more heavily proportioned, with much
shorter ears and shorter, stronger legs. There are several species and
geographic races of these animals, all of which are snowy white in winter
except for a small black tip on each ear. In summer the southern arctic hares
change to a nearly uniform dull iron gray or grayish brown. The
northernmost animals of Ellesmere Land and north Greenland, where the
summer is brief and severe arctic conditions prevail, retain their white coat
throughout the year.

In keeping with the cold climate of their territory, the furry coat of the arctic
hares is long and thick, especially in winter, when the ears, legs, and even

the soles of +he feet, as well as the body, are heavily furred. The coats of
the hares of north Greenland and adjacent region are so heavy and
fleecelike that during the spring molt they come off in felted patches as the
new coat is assumed, giving the hares a curiously ragged appearance.

In the region between the areas in which the summer coat remains wholly
white and where it is completely changed to grayish, there is a gradual
transition, with the lessening severity of the climate, through every
intermediate degree between the two. As in the case of the snowshoe rabbit,
the large hind feet and long spreading toes of its big northern relative are so
heavily covered with hair that they form broad fluffy pads, which enable the
hares to travel lightly over the arctic snowfields.

The distribution of arctic hares is confined to the barrens or tundras beyond
the limit of trees. They range practically to the land’s end of northern
Greenland and Ellesmere Land. To the southward in North America they
range down the coast of Labrador and across to Newfoundland, where they
are limited to the open barrens. They also occur along the shores of Hudson
Bay and follow the tundras bordering Bering Sea to the peninsula of Alaska.

In Ellesmere Land they are reported to be extraordinarily numerous at times
in certain little valleys, and the fur traders on the coast south of the Yukon
Delta informed me of similar gatherings in spring on gently sloping
hillsides in that region. Photographs taken in Ellesmere Land show many of
these hares scattered over a small area, each crouched in a compact form
and all heading in the same direction to face the wind. Such gatherings, at
least those in Alaska, occur during the mating period, after which the
animals scatter over the area they occupy.

An account of the big northern hares would be incomplete without
reference to the white-tailed jack rabbit, the largest of all American hares
and a near relative of the arctic species. It attains a weight of twelve pounds
or more and appears like a giant of its kind. It has longer legs than the arctic
hare and a longer tail. In summer it is grayish or buffy, with a conspicuous
pure white tail. Throughout most of its range in winter it becomes pure
white except the black tips to the ears, but near the southern border the
change to white is not so complete as in the North. The distribution of the

white-tailed jack rabbit extends from Minnesota to the Cascade Mountains
and from the Saskatchewan River, in Alberta, south to southern Colorado.

Arctic hares have from one to seven young in a litter each spring. Owing to
the climatic conditions under which they exist, it is doubtful if more than a
single litter is born each year.

The manner in which animal life adapts itself to its environment is
beautifully illustrated by the arctic hares of north Greenland and Ellesmere
Land. There the conditions are rigorously arctic and continuous winter night
extends through a period of several months. In all this region the scanty and
dwarfed vegetation is covered with snow and ice the larger part of the year.
The hares living there are, with little question, a geographic race of those
living farther south, but have developed into larger and stronger animals,
with heavier fur, to meet the sterner conditions of life.

Their claws are much larger and heavier, so that they may dig the snow
from the hidden herbage. Most marvelous of all, the anterior ends of both
jaws are lengthened and the incisors set so that they project and meet at an
acute angle, thus serving, tweezerlike, more readily to pick out the lowly
vegetation imbedded in the snow.

In most parts of their range arctic hares are scarce and rarely encountered.
Each winter during my residence on the coast of Bering Sea the Eskimos
killed only a few individuals. They were shy and watchful and the hunters
sometimes followed one on snowshoes all day over the tundra without
securing it. In the high North they appear to be more numerous in places,
judging from the number killed for food by members of polar expeditions.
Their flesh is excellent, but a little dry. Their natural enemies include
wolves, foxes, weasels, gyrfalcons, and snowy owls, all of which share their
desolate haunts and join in destroying them.

The winter skins of arctic hares have a beautiful snowy white pelage, which
make warm garments and sleeping robes for the North, but are too delicate
to withstand much service.

THE COTTONTAIL RABBIT’S TRACK

The large set of four tracks at the top gives the maximum possible of detail, which is very rarely seen. The
lower figure at the right-hand corner is a typical track (tt). At the set marked “sitting” the tail mark is seen,
and in this only are the fore-feet tracks ahead of the hind tracks. The cottontail has five toes on the front
feet, but only four ever show in the track (see page 510).

THE COTTONTAIL RABBITS (Sylvilagus floridanus and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 510)

North America has several species of hares, but no typical representative of
the European rabbit. The American cottontails and their near relatives, the
brush rabbits and others, combine characteristics of both the hares and

rabbits, but are most like the rabbits, of which they appear to form aberrant
groups.

The cottontails are distinctly smaller than most of the American hares and
average from two to three pounds in weight. They are otherwise contrasted
with the hares by their short ears, proportionately shorter and smaller legs
and feet, and by the fluffy snow-white underside of the tail, which shows so
conspicuously as they run that it has given them their distinctive name.

The American mammals to which the term “rabbit” may be properly
applied include not only the cottontails, but numerous other species closely
similar in form and general appearance, but lacking the cottony white tail.
As a group, these rabbits have a far greater distribution in America than the
hares. They range from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific and from the
southern border of Canada south through Central and South America to
Argentina. Their vertical distribution extends from sea level to above
timberline, attaining an altitude of more than 14,000 feet on Mount Orizaba,
Mexico.

In the United States cottontails are so numerous and generally distributed
that they are well known to nearly every one. They inhabit all kinds of
country, from the deciduous forests of the Eastern States to the grassy or
brush-grown plains and pine-clad mountain slopes of the West and the sun-
scorched deserts of the Southwest. As a result of this extended distribution
and the variety of conditions in the areas occupied, these rabbits include
numerous species and geographic races, which in some instances differ
greatly in appearance.

Cottontails are especially common about the brushy borders of cultivated
lands throughout the country, and in fertile brush-grown areas of foothills,
valleys, and river bottoms of the West. They are mainly nocturnal, and in
areas where there is an abundance of natural cover in the way of brushy
thickets and dense grass commonly make concealed “forms” in which they
lie safely hidden.

In areas where shelter is represented by scattered bushes and a
comparatively thin growth of other vegetation they generally occupy
burrows in the ground. These may be holes deserted by badgers or prairie-

dogs or dug by themselves under a rock or other object. Hollow logs or
natural cavities and crevices among the rocks are also frequented. When
pursued by dogs, hares as a rule rely solely on their speed for safety, while
the cottontails take refuge in the first hole they can reach.

Everywhere in their territory, as the shades of night approach, the
cottontails come forth from their hiding places and skip merrily about in
open ground on the borders of thickets and similar shelter, where they
search for the tender green vegetation on which they love to feed. After it
becomes too dark to distinguish their forms, the white tail may be seen
twinkling about in the dusk. During the night they are often revealed in
country roads by the head lights of automobiles.

Several litters of from two to six young usually appear during the spring
and summer. These are born blind and practically naked, their unclad
helplessness strongly contrasting with the open-eyed, fully furred, and alert
young of the hares at the same age. This is a conclusive indication of the
close relationship between cottontails and European rabbits, the young of
the latter being similarly, but even more, undeveloped at birth.

The young of the cottontails are born in nests made of dead grasses warmly
lined with fur from the mother’s body. If above ground the nest is placed in
a little depression and so artfully concealed by a covering of dead grasses
that it can be discovered only by accident. When caught, young cottontails
utter little cries of alarm; the wounded adults sometimes shriek in terror.

From the early settlement of the United States to the present day cottontails
have been so abundant that they have served as a valuable source of our
game food supply. They are hunted with guns and with dogs, as well as
being snared and trapped. Enormous numbers, running into the millions, are
killed in this country yearly, but they are so prolific that they hold their own
in a surprising degree.

Their abundance in many places, however, has made them a serious pest to
agriculture. They eat growing alfalfa and other forage plants, many kinds of
cultivated vegetables, young grape vines, and nursery stock and even kill
orchard trees by gnawing the bark from the base of the trunks. As a result
those who suffer from their depredations consider them pests to be

destroyed, while others look upon them as desirable game animals to be
protected by law.

As game animals the cottontails furnish some of the most delightful and
interesting sport available to American hunters. The scurrying zigzag rush
of a cottontail for the nearest shelter is so full of energetic motion that it
always excites a pleasurable thrill in the observer, and even the keenest
sportsman has so friendly a feeling for these little animals that the escape of
one of them from an unsuccessful shot nearly always leaves a feeling of
humorous amusement.

The cottontails have a secure place in American literature and folklore. Who
has not read the wonder stories of the adventures of “Brer Rabbit” and ever
after had a warmer feeling of fellowship for his kind? The presence of
cottontails is a source of pleasure to children of all ages, and their
disappearance from the wild life of a locality creates a more deeply felt
blank than would the passing of many a nobler animal.

THE MARSH RABBIT (Sylvilagus palustris and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 511)

The marsh rabbit, or “pontoon,” as it is known in Georgia, is a distinctively
American species allied to the cottontails, but distinguished from them by
its more heavily proportioned body, smaller ears, shorter and slenderer legs
and feet, and shorter, nearly unicolored tail. Its only close relative in the
United States is the swamp rabbit, known in Alabama as the “cane-cutter.”

These two species appear to be members of a Tropical American group of
which other members are the wood rabbits of Mexico, Central and South
America. The distribution of the group was probably at one time
continuous, but a change to arid conditions in northeastern Mexico and
Texas isolated the two species remaining in this country.

The distribution of the marsh rabbit is limited to the southeastern coastal
States from Dismal Swamp, Virginia, to Mobile Bay, Alabama. It is
common in suitable places in Florida. Its larger relative, the swamp rabbit,

ranges west from this area to Texas and up the Mississippi Valley to Illinois
and southeastern Kansas. Swamp rabbits are numerous in the low, wooded
coastal region of Louisiana. They are larger and longer-legged than marsh
rabbits and fleeter of foot.

Among all the rabbits of the world the marsh and swamp rabbits are the
only species which have aquatic habits. Both live mainly in marshes,
wooded swamps, and along the low wooded courses of streams. Other
rabbits and hares are occasionally known to cross water by swimming, but
the marsh and swamp rabbits live about the water and take to it with all the
freedom of a muskrat or mink. The marsh rabbit appears to be the more
aquatic of the two, as the swamp rabbit sometimes lives in the forest, farther
back from the water.

The Tropical wood rabbits are habitants of the dense forests, where they are
well hidden under the rank undergrowth. They are not known to enter the
water, but, like their northern relatives, make runways through the dense
vegetation they frequent. The marsh rabbits live in cypress or other fresh-
water swamps, heavily wooded bottoms, and fresh water, as well as
brackish marshes. They feed on a variety of vegetation growing in such
places and dig up such edible roots as the wild potato and amaryllis.

Both marsh and swamp rabbits have several litters of from two to six young
each season, beginning in April. The young are born in large, well-made
covered nests, which are built of rushes, grasses, and leaves and lined with
hair from the parents. The nests, which have an entrance on one side, are
usually located in the midst of dense growths of vegetation or on tussocks,
in low, swampy places, and are sometimes surrounded by water. In the most
frequented parts of marsh and swamp these rabbits make well-trodden trails
through the dense vegetation.

When alarmed, marsh rabbits run for the nearest water, into which they
plunge and swim quickly to the shelter of aquatic plants or other cover.
When cut off from escape by water they try to avoid capture by doubling
and turning, but are so short-legged that they are readily overtaken by a
dog. The tracks of these rabbits in the mud differ from those of the
cottontails in showing imprints of the spreading toes.

In South Carolina Bachman once found numerous marsh rabbits in the
thickets about recently flooded rice fields and swamps. When he beat the
bushes the rabbits plunged into the water and swam away so rapidly that
some escaped from a Newfoundland dog which accompanied him. Several,
apparently thinking themselves unnoticed, stopped and remained
motionless about fifteen yards from the shore, with only their eyes and
noses showing above water. Thus concealed in the muddy water, with ears
laid flat on their necks, they were difficult to see. When touched with a stick
they appeared unwilling to move until they saw that they were discovered,
when they quickly swam away.

Later, when the water subsided to its regular channels, where it was about
eight feet deep, many of the rabbits were seen swimming about, meeting
and pursuing one another as if in sport. One which Bachman had in
captivity during warm weather would lie for hours in a trough partly filled
with water, with which the cage was furnished.

THE PIKA, OR CONY (Ochotona princeps and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 511)

The pika, little chief hare, or cony, as it is variously named, is among the
most attractive and interesting of our mountain animals. It is about the size
and shape of a small guinea-pig, with a short, blunt head, broad, rounded
ears, short legs, practically no tail, and a long, fluffy coat of fur. While most
nearly related to the hares and rabbits, it has very different habits.

The pikas form a group comprising many species, much alike in general
appearance and distributed among the high mountains, from the Urals of
Russia through Asia and northern North America. In Asia they occur mainly
in the mountains through the middle of the continent south to the
Himalayas. In Pleistocene time they ranged across Europe to England. In
North America they are limited to the western side of the continent, from
the Mount McKinley region of Alaska down the Rocky Mountains to New
Mexico and along the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the Mount Whitney
region, in California.

Giving to these North American animals the appellation “cony” is one of
many instances in which the name of an Old World animal is brought to
America to designate a totally unrelated species. Once fixed in current use,
the misapplied term is certain to persist.

Pikas are among the few mammals which live permanently along the high
crests of the mountains, mainly above timberline, but they also descend in
rock slides among the upper spruces, firs, and pines. The altitude of their
haunts varies with the latitude, being between 8,000 and 13,500 feet in the
United States, but in Alaska much lower.

In these cool, alpine regions the little animals live wholly within the shelter
of rock slides and among the crevices of shattered rock masses. Their
distribution is unaccountably broken, and although abundant in many
places, they are absent from many others equally suitable. Their homes are
in the midst of the flower-bedecked glacial valleys and basins, the haunts of
the big marmots and mountain sheep.

They are mainly diurnal in habits, and throughout the day may be heard
their odd little barking, or bleating note, like the syllables “eh-eh” repeated
at intervals in a nasal tone, resembling the sound made by squeezing a toy
dog. Occasionally they may be heard barking at night, perhaps when
disturbed by some prowling enemy. Their notes have a curiously
ventriloquial quality, which renders it difficult to locate the animals uttering
them.

Owing to their dull gray or brownish colors, the pikas blend with their
background so completely that when quietly sitting on a rock they are
extremely difficult to see. Even when running about at a little distance they
are not easily noted. Their movements are quick and they scamper over the
rough surface of a rock slide with surprising agility.

Little is known of their more intimate life history. Their young, three or four
in number, are born usually during the first half of summer and are out
foraging when less than half-grown.

Small, bright eyes and big, rounded ears give pikas an odd and attractive
appearance, unlike that of any other mountain animal. They are extremely

watchful and at the first alarm disappear in the shelter of their rocky
fortresses. Their little bark, however, continues to come up from their
hiding places with constant iteration. If the observer will sit quietly at some
good vantage point his patience will eventually be rewarded by the
appearance of the pika on the top of a stone near the mouth of its retreat.

After a time, if everything is quiet, it resumes its scampering about over the
rocks or may come to the border of the slide and make little excursions
across the open ground after some of its forage plants. Skipping nimbly
from the border of the slides to neighboring patches of vegetation,
sometimes fifty or more feet away, the pika nips off the stems of short
grasses or other plants and taking them up, like small bundles, crosswise in
its mouth, runs back to add them to its “stacks.” These sallies are quick little
runs, made as though in fear of being long away from the safety of the
rocks. Caution is needful, however, in a world where lurk such enemies as
coyotes, lynxes, foxes, weasels, hawks, and owls.

During late summer the pikas have the extraordinary habit of gathering
stores of small herbage in piles containing sometimes a bushel each, usually
well sheltered in dry places under the rocks where they live. Pikas are
active all winter, and these little stacks of well-cured hay, containing a great
variety of small plants, serve them as food during the severe cold season,
when at these high altitudes they are buried under many feet of snow.

In pleasant weather, near the end of summer, visitors to the mountains of
Colorado, Glacier National Park, the high slopes of Mount Shasta, or of the
Sierra Nevada may have the pleasure of watching the pikas hard at work
doing their “haying.” One of their “stacks” in the mountains of New
Mexico contained thirty-four kinds of plants, including many flowers. No
one who once becomes acquainted with these unique and gentle little
animals will ever cease to remember them with friendly interest.

THE TRAIL OF A FIELD OR MEADOW MOUSE

When compared with that of the deermouse, one notes the absence of the tail mark and the rarity of the
fore feet being paired (see pages 505 and 522).

THE PORCUPINE (Erethizon dorsatum and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 514)

The porcupine is one of the most grotesque of the smaller North American
mammals. With a weight of from fifteen to twenty pounds, its heavy body is
supported on short legs, the feet resting flat on the ground like those of the
raccoon, instead of on the toes, as in most small animals.

Its strongest peculiarity is the specialized development of most of the fur
into rigid, sharp-pointed spines or “quills” from half an inch to over three
inches in length. That the spines represent the underfur of ordinary
mammals is evident from the fact that they are overlaid by long, coarse
guard hairs, sometimes several times their length.

The spiny armament usually lies flat on the body, but when the animal is
excited or alarmed it may be raised, by special muscles on the underside of
the skin, into a bristling array of barbed points. The spines are so slightly
attached that when their points enter the skin of an enemy they at once
become free at the base. The points firmly set in the skin of another animal,
the spines can be withdrawn only with considerable effort, and if left will
gradually work deeper and may traverse a considerable part of the victim’s
body before finally becoming encysted.

When assailed the porcupine turns down its head, arches its back, and, on
firmly planted feet with all its spines erected into a bristling cover, awaits
the enemy. The instant its body is touched the club-shaped tail, armed with
a multitude of spines, is swung vigorously around and the animal so
incautious as to receive the blow is pierced by a host of stinging darts
which, freed from the porcupine, remain to torment the aggressor. This
swift and effective sweep of the tail has probably given rise to the idea that
the porcupine can “shoot” its quills when defending itself.

Despite its defensive powers, however, the porcupine is, on occasion,
successfully attacked by various enemies, including the mountain lion,
bobcat, fisher, and even the eagle and great horned owl. The fisher is said
habitually to kill and feed upon them, and the encysted quills are commonly
found under its skin.

The frightful effect of an ill-judged attack on a porcupine is shown by
inexperienced dogs after their first encounter with this strange beast. That
such an attack is a dangerous venture, even by the craftiest and most
powerful of its enemies, is well demonstrated by occasional fatalities
among large carnivores which result from the great mass of spines
imbedded in their heads and bodies.

The North American porcupine is a northern animal belonging mainly to
coniferous forests, and ranges from sea level to timberline. It originally
occupied nearly all the forested parts of the continent south to West
Virginia, southern Illinois, the Davis Mountains of western Texas, and the
southern end of the Sierra Nevada in California, but was absent from the
Southeastern States and the lower Mississippi Valley.

While characteristically a woodland animal, at times it wanders from forest
shelters and has been found prowling about above timberline on high
mountains, and among alder thickets beyond the limit of trees in the far
North. They are usually silent, but at times utter a curious squealing cry, and
in addition have a variety of snuffing, growling, and chattering noises.

In the forests of tropical America, from Mexico to Brazil, other and shorter-
quilled porcupines occur, characterized by smaller size and slenderer bodies
with a long tail, the terminal half of which is naked and prehensile like that
of an opossum. These animals inhabit forests where no conifers grow, and
are much more arboreal in habits than their northern relatives. Still other
and even more strikingly different porcupines occur in Europe, Asia, and
Africa, some of the African animals having heavy spines more than twelve
inches long.

All porcupines are true rodents, and the name hedgehog is erroneously used
when applied to any of them. Hedgehogs are small Old World insect-eating
mammals, which have their backs covered with porcupine-like spines, but
are in no way related to the porcupines.

The American porcupines are mainly nocturnal, although they sometimes
wander about by day. While largely arboreal in habits, they pass much of
their time on the ground and commonly have their dens in caves at the
bases of cliffs, under the shelter of large rocks, logs, piles of brush, or in
hollows at the bases of trees. They are sluggish, stupid animals, with poor
sight, and are unable to move rapidly, either in a tree or on the ground.

Although on the ground they are extremely deliberate, in the treetops they
are even more sluggish and can be compared only with the sloth. In
consequence they are practically helpless in the presence of an enemy
except for the defense afforded by their spiny armor. That in most cases this

is effective is evidenced by their continued presence throughout a large part
of their original range where forests still exist.

Porcupines are solitary animals, totally devoid of any qualities of good
fellowship with their kind, but the attraction of woodland camps often
brings a number together. They are exceedingly fond of salt and persistently
return to camps to gnaw logs, boards, or any other object having a salty
flavor.

They appear to be practically omnivorous so far as vegetable matter is
concerned and feed upon the bark and twigs of spruces, hemlocks, several
species of pines, cottonwoods, alders, and other trees and bushes. In
orchards and gardens near their haunts they eat apples, turnips, and other
fruits and vegetables and visit the shores of ponds for waterlily pads and
other aquatic plants growing within reach.

Ordinarily they eat patches of bark from the tree trunks, but sometimes
girdle the tree or at times denude the entire trunk. They often remain for
weeks in the top of a single tree, even in the severest winter weather. I had a
practical illustration of this on one occasion when stormbound in a fur
trader’s cabin at the head of Norton Bay, on the north coast of Bering Sea,
where a belt of spruces reached down from the interior. We were short of
meat, and when one of the Eskimos reported that some time before he had
seen a porcupine in a spruce tree he was sent to look for it. A few hours
later he returned bringing the game, having found it in the very same tree
where he had seen it many days before, although we had just experienced a
period of severe weather, with temperatures well under 40 degrees
Fahrenheit below zero. It was on this occasion that I first learned the
palatable qualities of porcupine flesh.

Little is known definitely concerning the family life of these animals. The
young, from one to four in number, are amazingly large at birth and appear
fully armed with spines. Even before they are half grown they adopt the
solitary habit of the adults and wander forth to care for themselves.

Porcupine’s have an intimate connection with the romantic side of early
Indian life in eastern America. Their white quills were colored in bright
hues by vegetable dyes known to the Indians and served to make beautiful

embroidery on belts, moccasins, and other articles of aboriginal clothing
until primitive art gave way to the more tawdry effects of trade goods.

THE JUMPING MOUSE (Zapus hudsonius and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 514)

In several ways the jumping mouse is unique among American mammals.
Its strongest characteristics are a dull, rusty yellowish color, a slender body
about three inches long, a remarkably slender tail about five inches in
length, and long hind legs and feet, which are specially developed for
jumping, like those of a little kangaroo. In addition it is provided with cheek
pouches, one on each side of the mouth, in which it gathers food to be
carried to its hidden stores.

The long tail serves as a balance during its extraordinary leaps, some of
which in a single bound cover a distance of about ten feet. If by accident
one of these animals loses its tail, whenever it jumps it is thrown into a
series of somersaults, turning helplessly over and over in the air.

The jumping mice form a small group of species and geographic races
closely similar in general appearance. They are the sole representatives in
North America of the Old World jerboas and are themselves represented
elsewhere by a single species occurring in the interior of China. The jerboa
family contains in addition many larger and curiously diverse species
distributed over a large part of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe. Many Old
World jerboas are desert animals, some of them exact reproductions in
shape and color of the kangaroo rats of arid regions in the Western and
Southwestern States and Mexico, although they are in no way related to
those animals.

Jumping mice are distributed over most of the northern parts of North
America from the Atlantic coast of Labrador to the Bering Sea coast of
Alaska, and southward to North Carolina, Illinois, New Mexico, and
California. They are nocturnal in habits and live in or near the borders of
forests, in thickets of weeds or brushwood, and in meadows adjoining
woodland areas or forest lakes. In prairie country they occupy belts of

woody growth bordering streams. In congenial locations they range from
sea level up to an altitude of 8,000 feet or more.

For winter homes they dig burrows two or three feet deep, in the lower parts
of which they excavate oval chambers and fill them with fine grass and
other soft material to make a warm nest. Other chambers opening from
these burrows serve as store-rooms for berries, seeds, and nuts of various
kinds, among which beechnuts are a favorite.

The nests occupied as summer homes are placed in shallow burrows a few
inches below the surface of the ground, or they may be in a hollow tree,
under a piece of bark, in a dense tussock of grass, or in other makeshift
shelter. In these nests the young, varying from two to eight in number, are
born at varying times between May and September, indicating the
probability that more than one litter is produced each season.

When suddenly startled from her nest the female often flees with several of
the young clinging to her teats. She runs swiftly through the grass, and if
hard pressed will take a long leap, still carrying the pendant young. It is
surprising that such delicately formed animals can make long leaps in
thickly grown places and apparently land safely, especially when carrying
their young. In the flights of the mother some of the young must be jarred
loose, but when the alarm is over no doubt she returns to find and rescue
any that may be missing.

In the northeastern States jumping mice are common habitants of meadows.
They are equally at home in the rocky meadows of New England, on the
flower-spangled borders of rushing trout streams in the Sierra Nevada of
California, and the boggy glades of subarctic Alaska.

My first acquaintance with them was made many years ago, during haying
time, in northern New York. Hidden under a haycock, as the last forkful was
raised one of them was often revealed, and its startling leaps always
resulted in an exciting chase, which usually ended in the escape of the
strange little beast.

Unlike most of their small fellows of meadow and thicket, jumping mice
regularly hibernate, occupying the nests near the bottoms of the winter

burrows. They usually become fat on the abundance of food at the end of
summer, and in September or October, with the approach of cool weather,
enter their winter quarters and sink into the long, hibernating lethargy.
Sometimes two of them are found hibernating in the same nest.

During hibernation they are coiled up in little furry balls, the nose resting
on the abdomen, the hind feet on each side of the head, and the tail wound
around the body. The winter sleep usually lasts until spring, but may be
broken at any time by mild weather.

When hibernating the mice appear cold and lifeless, but if one is carried
into a warm house or even held a long time in the captor’s hands it will
slowly awaken and may become as lively as in summer. When returned to a
low temperature, however, it soon resumes its mysterious seasonal sleep.

THE SILKY POCKET MICE (Perognathus flavus and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 515)

Soft, shining fur, delicate coloring, and graceful form distinguish the silky
pocket mice from others of their kind. The family of which they are
members consists of rodents peculiar to America and includes many other
species of pocket mice and kangaroo rats. All are provided with little
pouches on each side of the mouth for gathering and carrying food, have
proportionately long tails, and hind legs and feet more or less developed for
jumping. Only in the most remote way, however, are they related to the
jumping mice of the jerboa family.

The silky pocket mice vary in size from the tiny yellow species pictured on
the accompanying plate, which weighs much less than an ounce, to forms
considerably larger than the common house mouse. The little yellow pocket
mouse is one of the smallest mammals in the world, and in addition is one
of the most beautiful of our small species. Its bright eyes and the delicacy of
its form and color, combined with the readiness with which, in most
instances, it appears to lose all fear when caught and gently handled, render
it extremely attractive.

As with the majority of other pocket mice, the silky-haired species are
limited to the more arid parts of North America, and range from the Great
Plains west of the Mississippi Valley to the eastern base of the Cascades, to
the Sierra Nevada, and farther southward to the Pacific coast, and from the
Canadian border to the Valley of Mexico. Vertically, the range of these mice
extends from sea level to an altitude of more than 7,000 feet.

As with the majority of our wild mammals, little accurate information is
available concerning their life history. They are habitants mainly of desert
regions, where they prefer the areas of sandy loam, which produce an
abundance of scattered desert vegetation. They are nocturnal and by day are
seen only when driven from their nests. Their rather shallow burrows are
made in soft soil, the situation varying a little with the species. Some
species burrow only under the shelter of bushes or other vegetation; others
out in the bare ground.

Each burrow commonly has grouped in a small area several entrance holes,
which lead through tunnels to the central passageway, the nest, and the
storage chambers. Usually there is a little pile of loose dirt thrown out on
one side of a hole, or a group of holes may be in a little mound of earth. The
entrances are usually stopped from within by loose earth, and if a person
quietly thrusts in a short stick so as to remove the earthy plug and let in the
light he may see the dirt suddenly returned to its place in little jets, as the
occupant promptly kicks the door closed again.

The young, varying from two to six in a litter, are born in these little dens in
warm nests of dried grasses. They have been found at all times between
April and September, thus making it apparent that several litters are
produced each season.

The silky, as well as the other kinds of desert pocket mice, do not drink
water, and, as has been shown by experiments, they may be kept for months
in thoroughly dry sand and fed on dried seeds without any resulting
discomfort. Through the long pressure of desert environment they have
developed the power to produce sufficient water for their physiological
processes by chemical changes in the starch in their food, which are
effected in the digestive tract.

Representatives of this group of mice are almost everywhere in the arid
parts of their range, and in many sandy localities are extremely numerous
and active at night, as shown by the multitude of little tracks in the dust at
sunrise each morning. Their presence in the desert is indicated also by the
many little conical pits half an inch or an inch deep, where they have
located small seeds and dug them up.

They lie close in their burrows during cold or stormy weather, depending on
their stores for food, but are not known to hibernate, although in the
northern part of their range they are confined to their burrows for long
periods.

At one of my camps in the desert of Lower California I found the silky and
other pocket mice excessively numerous and so short of food that they
swarmed about us at night with amazing lack of fear. My experiences with
them are given in the accompanying account of the spiny pocket mice.

The silky and other pocket mice have many enemies, among the worst of
which are the handsome little desert fox and the coyote. Others which
continually prey upon them are the badger, skunk, and bobcat, as well as
many owls.

THE SPINY POCKET MICE (Perognathus hispidus and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 515)

Pocket mice are divided into several natural groups of species, all having
certain characters in common, as a pointed head, lengthened hind feet and
legs, and external cheek pouches for carrying food. The spiny group
contains numerous species, the smallest of which is about the size of a
house mouse and the largest nearly twice that size.

They are more slenderly built than the silky species and have longer tails,
with the hairs lengthened along the terminal half, thus giving a slightly
brushy or tufted appearance. Their most striking character is the distinctly
coarser hair with long scattered guard hairs, like small bristles, which

conspicuously overlie the fur on the hinder parts of the body and from
which the common name is derived.

The distribution of the spiny forms, although nearly the same as that of the
silky ones, is a little more restricted. All belong to the arid or desert parts of
the West and Southwest, from South Dakota and middle California
southward to Michoacan, near the southern end of the Mexican tableland,
and throughout Lower California.

Some species inhabit the scattered growth of plants in sandy areas, but they
are more generally characteristic of harder and more rock-strewn soil, rocky
mesas, and foothill slopes. There a few species make burrows in open
ground, sometimes with a single hole, but most of them make their nests
under rocks, in crevices, or in burrows sheltered by such desert bushes as
Covillea, Bursera, Olneya, Cercidium, and mesquites.

In these shelters pocket mice make little mounds a few inches high and ten
or fifteen inches across. The mounds have several entrances on different
sides, one of which generally shows signs of recent use, although by day it
is kept closed from within by loose earth. Each of the many-entranced dens
is occupied by a single animal. Early in the morning, before the wind fills
them with dust, tiny trails are to be seen leading from these doorways
toward the nearest feeding grounds and all about their haunts.

The spiny and the silky pocket mice, sharing much the same arid region,
have the same food plants and are preyed upon by the same enemies. The
food of these mice consists mainly of small seeds, including the wild
morning glory, wild sunflowers, wild parsnips, and a multitude of others
characteristic of the various areas they occupy.

Pocket mice are strictly nocturnal or crepuscular in habits and appear by
day only when disturbed. If the plugged entrance to a burrow is opened,
however, it will probably be quickly stopped up again from within by the
annoyed householder.

The young, in litters of from two to eight, are born at irregular times
according to the latitude and general weather conditions. In the south at

least several litters appear to be born each year, the young being noted
almost every month.

When camping alone for a few days in the desert near San Ignacio, in the
middle of the peninsula of Lower California, I had a unique opportunity to
learn something of the peculiarities of the various pocket mice. Three
species were abundantly represented, including both the silky and the spiny
kinds. They quickly learned that good hunting could be found in and about
the tents for the rice grains and other scattered food and promptly took
advantage of it.

As soon as approaching darkness began to render objects indistinct, from
their burrows among the surrounding bushes they swarmed into camp and
were busy throughout the night minutely searching the ground under the
shelter tent for every particle of food. In order to see these interesting
visitors to better advantage I placed a candle on a small box in the middle of
the tent.

Five or six individuals, representing three species, often came within the
circle of light at the same time. At first all were shy and when I made any
sudden movement would leap in every direction, like grasshoppers, and
quickly vanish. The smallest of the species, a member of the silky group,
was the shyest of all and remained timid and reserved.

The two larger species, representing both the spiny and the silky groups,
were much more bold and quickly became confiding and delightfully
friendly. Their attention was promptly attracted to rolled oats which I
scattered on the ground in a spot well lighted by the candle.

Sitting quietly close by the bait where the visitors congregated I soon had
evidence that among themselves these little beasts are extremely
pugnacious. The first to reach the food would fiercely charge the next
comer and always try to leap upon its back, at the same time delivering a
vicious downward kick with its strong hind feet. Occasionally the
newcomer would charge the one already at the food.

When five or six were trying to secure sole possession of the small food
pile there was lively skirmishing about the premises, as they alternately

attacked and pursued one another over the sand and among the boxes and
other camp gear scattered about. Amazingly quick in movements, they
would leap now forward, now sidewise, now straight up a foot or more in
the air, with almost equal celerity; and the direction of their movements
when attacked was often unexpected. When running about on the level sand
they had a steady, swiftly gliding motion, which their tracks showed was
the result of a series of little jumps.

Both the spiny and the silky pocket mice became so confiding the first night
that when I put my hand on the ground palm up with a little rolled oats in it
the nearest pocket mouse would run to it, stop for an instant to smell the
finger-tips, and then mount and sit quietly on the palm and fill its cheek
pouches.

At such times the mice showed no uneasiness, even when raised in my hand
to within a few inches of my eyes in order that I might observe their
movements more closely. The motions of their front feet when putting food
into the pouches were so rapid that it was impossible to follow them. The
nose was held just over the food pile, and the cheek pouches would slowly
but visibly swell as they were filled until they stood out like little bladders
on each side of the head.

As soon as they were full the mice became uneasy to get away and would
run from one side of my hand to the other peering down the abysmal depth
of three feet to the ground without daring to leap. As soon as my hand was
lowered to the ground the mouse darted away to carry the food to its store
in the bushes twenty to thirty yards away, quickly to return with empty
pouches.

The mice soon became so tame that while they were on my hand or on the
ground I could with one finger of the other hand stroke gently the tops of
their heads and backs and even pick them up by their tails and suspend
them head down. When thus held they remained motionless, their tiny front
feet like little closed hands held against their breasts. When lowered and
released they would immediately resume the filling of their pouches as
though nothing had happened. Several individuals of the dozen or more
which made free of the tent had lost part of their tails, so that they could be
readily distinguished.

One of these little bobtails was so gentle and confiding that I became much
attached to it. It would permit all manner of familiar treatment, such as
being picked up by one foot or by the tail, or being turned on its back. With
this confidence came a sense of proprietorship in the good things here so
suddenly and mysteriously plentiful, as was shown by his attitude toward
his fellows.

Again and again when he was filling his pouches from a pile of rolled oats
in my hand I lowered it in a gently sloping position within ten or fifteen
inches of another mouse gathering food on the ground. Thereupon the little
bobtail in my hand would invariably leave the task of filling his pouches
and without hesitation leap down on the back of the one on the ground. The
surprised animal thus assailed from an unexpected quarter always fled in
terror.

After a short pursuit the bobtailed one would come running back and
instead of going to the equally inviting pile of food on the ground would
come straight to my hand and complete his task. The industry of the little
animals appeared to be tireless, as working swiftly they made trip after trip
with pouchloads of food to their stores and quickly returned. One night I
watched this strenuous work for two hours until I retired.

The abundance and boldness of pocket mice and kangaroo rats at this place
led me to believe that there had been a former abundance of their food here,
resulting in a large increase in the rodent population, but that it was then
becoming scarce through a failure of rain to renew the seed harvest. The
invariable outcome in such cases is for the small rodents dependent on
seeds and fruits to be reduced by famine until they become rare, where
previously they existed in great numbers. This is one of Nature’s processes
whereby the danger of the overwhelming increase of any species is
automatically prevented.

Photograph by Howard Taylor Middleton

YOUNG RED SQUIRRELS AND THEIR NEST

These cute little chaps were found cozily at rest in their nest in a pine. They were routed out, however,
long enough to have their portraits taken. An effort was made to include the mother, but without success
(see page 556).

THE POCKET GOPHERS (Geomys bursarius and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 515)

With the exception of the moles no other extensive group of American land
mammals is so highly specialized for a peculiarly restricted mode of life as
the pocket gophers. They form a strongly marked family, the Geomyidæ,

which includes various genera and many species, all very similar in external
form, but varying from the size of a large mouse to a massively formed
animal equalling a large house rat in weight.

Without exception they are powerfully built for their size, the head and
front half of the body being extraordinarily muscled to meet the demands of
their mode of life. The broad blunt head is joined almost directly on the
body. The eyes are small and have the restricted vision to be expected from
animals living underground. The ears are reduced to little fleshy rims about
the openings, and the short naked tail is provided with nerves, which render
it useful as an organ of touch.

The front teeth are broad, cutting chisels, and on each side of the mouth is a
large pocket in the skin used for gathering and carrying food. On the front
feet are long claws, which, when not being used to dig or handle earth, are
doubled under, against the soles of the feet, so that the gopher walks on the
back of them much as the ant-eater walks on its folded claws.

Peculiar to North America, pocket gophers occupy a great area extending
from Illinois, Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast, and from
the plains of the Saskatchewan, in Canada, southward to Panama. Their
vertical range within these limits extends from sea level to timber-line, at
above 13,000 feet on some of the high volcanoes of Mexico. The family
attains its greatest development in that wonderful region of plains and
volcanoes lying about the southern end of the Mexican table-land.

In the United States these animals are best known as “gophers,” but in the
range they occupy in the Southeastern States they are called “salamanders”
and in Mexico are widely known as “tuzas.” As a rule they frequent treeless
areas, but are found also in many types of forests from among the palms
and other trees of the tropical lowlands to the oaks, pines, and firs on the
mountain sides.

All members of the family live wholly underground, in many-branched
horizontal tunnels, which they are continually extending in winding and
erratic courses about their haunts. The tunnels are from two to about five
inches in diameter, according to the size of the animal, and while usually
less than six inches below the surface, the approaches to the nest and

storage chambers sometimes drop abruptly two or three feet below the
regular working tunnels to the level of the living quarters. At intervals along
the tunnels short side branches are used as sanitary conveniences, thus
enabling the occupant to keep the main passageways in a habitable
condition.

The courses of the underground workings are roughly indicated on the
surface by series of piles of loose earth brought up through short side
passages as the tunnels are extended. These little miners’ dumps of earth
vary with the size of the animal, sometimes containing more than two
bushels. The outlets of the passages leading to the surface are kept plugged
with loose earth. When these animals are numerous the ground is thickly
dotted in all directions with earth piles, and the caving caused by the
network of tunnels just below the surface renders walking difficult. The
perpetual industry of these rodent miners outclasses that of the proverbial
beaver.

Gophers are both diurnal and nocturnal, the gloom of their tunnels scarcely
varying except when one of the outlets is temporarily opened. They are
averse to light, and if the plug to a freshly made opening is removed the
observer may soon catch a glimpse of the owner as he suddenly thrusts his
head into view for a moment before again plugging the door with earth.

Gophers dig their tunnels by using their teeth and the strong claws on the
front feet. The loose earth is pushed along the tunnel by the head, the palms
of the front feet, and the breast in little jerky movements until it is ejected
on the surface dump.

Owing to their poor sight, heavy bodies, and short legs, gophers are clumsy
and deliberate in their movements and peculiarly helpless in the open.
Apparently appreciating this, they rarely venture from their underground
shelter by day except when in grain fields or similar sheltering vegetation.
Here they sometimes run out two or three feet to cut down a succulent stalk
and drag it hastily within the entrance of the tunnel, where it is cut into
short sections and placed in the cheek pouches if to be used as food or left
on the dump if the object of the cutting is finally to secure the seeds or head
of ripening grain.

During the mating season in spring pocket gophers run about clumsily from
one burrow to another and may often be seen on the surface by the light of
the rising sun. Most of their short trips above ground are made at night,
when they sometimes swarm out and wander over a limited territory. Their
night wanderings are proved in California by the many bodies which the
morning light often reveals in the sticky crude oil on newly oiled roads
which the gophers have tried to cross.

From one to seven young are born in a litter, but whether there is more than
one litter in a season or not is unknown. The young when about half grown
migrate to unoccupied ground sometimes one or two hundred yards from
the home location and make tunnels of their own.

The food of pocket gophers consists mainly of tubers, bulbs, and other
roots, including many of a more woody fiber. Whole rows of potatoes or
other root crops are cleaned up by the extension of tunnels along them.
Sometimes the animals follow a row of fruit trees, cutting the roots and
killing tree after tree. In grain and alfalfa fields they are great pests, and in
irrigated country their burrows in ditch banks often cause disastrous breaks.

The big tropical species sometimes exist in such numbers as to render
successful agriculture very difficult. Sugar-cane planters in many parts of
Mexico and Central America are compelled to wage unremitting war on
them to avoid ruin. I know of an instance on a plantation in Vera Cruz in
which thousands were killed during a single season without stopping the
damage from these pests, which swarmed in from the adjacent area.

The large external cheek pouches of pocket gophers are used solely for
gathering such food supplies as seeds, small bulbs, and sections of edible
roots or plant stems and transporting them to storage chambers located
along the sides of the tunnels. Food is placed in the pouches by deft
sidewise movements of the front feet used like hands, and so quick are they
that the motions of the feet can scarcely be detected. The pockets are
emptied by placing the front feet on the back ends of the pouches and
pushing forward, thus forcing out the contents. In their tunnels gophers run
backward and forward with almost equal facility, the sensitive naked tail
serving to guide their backward movements.

Pocket gophers are stupid solitary little beasts, with surly dispositions, and
fight viciously when captured or brought to bay. This attitude toward the
world is justified by the host of enemies ever ready to destroy them. Among
their more active foes are snakes and weasels, which pursue them into their
tunnels; and badgers, which dig them out of their runways.

They are also persistently hunted day and night by foxes and coyotes.
Moreover, by day various kinds of hawks watch for them to appear at the
entrances of their dens, and by night the owls, ever alert, capture many.

When one gopher intrudes into the tunnel of another the owner at once
fiercely attacks it. In some places I have seen Mexicans take advantage of
this characteristic pugnacity by fastening the end of a long string about the
body of a captured gopher and then turning it into an occupied tunnel,
through a recently made opening. The owner, scenting the intruder, would
immediately attack him, the combatants locking their great incisors in a
bulldog grip.

The movements of the string would give notice of the encounter, and by
pulling it out steadily both animals could be drawn forth and the enraged
owner of the burrow dispatched. In this manner I have known an Indian to
catch more than a dozen gophers in a few hours.

Pocket gophers are active throughout the winter even in the coldest parts of
their range, but in many places must rely largely on food accumulated in
their storage chambers.

Melting snow in the mountains and in the North reveals the remains of
many tunnels made through it along the surface of the ground. These snow
tunnels are often filled for long distances with loose earth brought up from
underground, and after the snow disappears in spring the curious branching
earth forms left, winding snakelike through the meadows, are a great puzzle
to those who do not know their origin.

In a state of nature pocket gophers are constantly bringing the subsoil to the
surface and burying humus. Over an enormous area they exist in such
countless thousands that their work, like that of angleworms, is often of the
most beneficial character. On bare slopes, however, their work is highly

injurious, as it greatly increases erosion of the fertile surface soil and thus
has its direct influence in changing world contours.

When civilized man arrives in their haunts and upsets natural conditions
with cultivated crops the new food supply stimulates an increase in the
gopher population and their activities immediately become excessively
destructive and necessitate unremitting warfare against them.

THE KANGAROO RATS (Dipodomys spectabilis and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 518)

The desert regions of western North America have developed several
peculiar types of mammals, and among them are none handsomer or more
interesting than the kangaroo rats. These rodents, despite their name, are
neither kangaroos nor rats, but are near relatives of the pocket mice, which
share their desert haunts.

All are characterized by a kangaroo-like form, including small fore legs and
feet, long hind legs and feet for jumping, and a tail longer than the body to
serve as a balance. In addition, they have large, prominent eyes and are
provided with skin pouches on each side of the mouth for use in holding
food to be carried to their store chambers.

The color pattern, like the form, of the kangaroo rats is practically uniform
throughout the group. Both are well shown in the accompanying plate of
Dipodomys spectabilis, the largest and most strongly marked species. Its
total length is from 12 to 14 inches; most of the other species are much
smaller.

Kangaroo rats of many species are distributed over most of the arid and
semiarid regions of the United States and Mexico, from Nebraska,
Oklahoma, and the Gulf Coast of Texas west to the Pacific coast, and from
Montana and Washington southward to the Valley of Mexico and
throughout Lower California. They are especially numerous in the

southwestern deserts, where they are the oddest and most picturesque of
animals.

Although they have no near relatives in the Old World, some of the African
and Asiatic jerboas are externally almost perfect replicas of the kangaroo
rats in every detail of form, color, and color pattern, even to the tail
markings. This extraordinary likeness in appearance of two widely
separated and unrelated animals is made doubly significant by the fact that
both live in deserts and have similar habits.

Peculiarly desert animals, kangaroo rats live like the pocket mice, without
drinking, but obtain the necessary water through their digestive processes.
They are most numerous in sandy areas, and there the earth is sometimes so
riddled by their burrows as to render horseback riding difficult.

Kangaroo rats are nocturnal and always live in burrows dug by themselves.
As a rule they prefer soft or sandy ground, but some species occupy areas
where the earth is hard and rocky. The burrows of some species have only
one or two entrances with a small amount of earth thrown out, but others
make little mounds with several openings, entering usually nearly on a level
or at a slight incline. These openings are nearly always conspicuous, and
while frequently near bushes, no effort appears ever to be made to conceal
them, and a little trail often leads away through the soft earth.

The large Dipodomys spectabilis, which lives mainly in New Mexico and
Arizona, constructs the most notable of all the dwelling places of these
animals. From its underground workings it throws up large mounds of
earth, which gradually increase in size with the length of time they are
occupied until they are sometimes more than 3 feet high and 15 feet or
more in diameter. From three to a dozen burrows enter these mounds,
usually at the surface level of the ground, but some are on the slopes of the
mound. The mounds, usually located in open ground, with their round
entrance holes from four to five inches in diameter, are extremely
conspicuous.

Although generally scattered at varying distances from one another, the
mounds are sometimes grouped in colonies. Well-worn trails three or four
inches broad lead away from the entrances, some to other mounds showing

neighborly intercourse and others far away to the feeding grounds,
sometimes 200 or 300 yards distant. One of the openings at the side of the
mound is usually the main entrance, and by day this is ordinarily kept
stopped with fresh earth. Within the mound and farther under ground are
dug a series of ramifying passages, among which are located roomy nest
chambers and store-rooms for food.

Kangaroo rats are not known to hibernate in any part of their range. They
lay up food for temporary purposes at least and do not go abroad in stormy
or cold weather. The northern species and those on the colder mountain
slopes must make large store against the winter needs. Their food consists
mainly of seeds, leaves of several plants, and of little plants just appearing
above ground. Tiny cactus plants and the saline fleshy leaves of Sarcobatus
are often among the kinds gathered for food.

The big Dipodomys spectabilis appears to be more social than most of its
kind, as several may be caught in a single mound, and, as already said,
well-worn trails lead from mound to mound. A little noise made just outside
one of these mounds usually brings a reply or challenge in the form of a low
drumming or thudding noise, no doubt made by the animal rapidly striking
the ground with its hind feet like a rabbit or wood rat.

When caught they at first struggle to escape, but, like a rabbit, do not offer
to bite, and soon become quiet. They have from two to six young, which
may be born at any season. Nothing appears to be known concerning the
number of litters in a year.

When in camp at San Ignacio, in the middle of the desert peninsula of
Lower California, I had an unusual opportunity to learn something of the
habits of one of the smaller species of kangaroo rat abundant there. The
moon was at its full, and in the clear desert air its radiance rendered objects
near at hand almost as distinct as by day. Scattered grains of rice and
fragments of food on the ground about the cook tent attracted many
kangaroo rats and pocket mice.

During several nights I passed hours watching at close range the habits of
these curious animals. As I sat quietly on a mess box in their midst both the
kangaroo rats and the mice would forage all about with swift gliding

movements, repeatedly running across my bare feet. Any sudden movement
startled them and all would dart away for a moment, but quickly return.

Although the kangaroo rats did not become so fearless and friendly as the
pocket mice, they were so intent on the food that at times I had no difficulty
in reaching slowly down and closing my hand over their backs. I did this
dozens of times, and after a slight struggle they always became quiet until
again placed on the ground, when they at once renewed their search for
food as though no interruption had occurred.

One night, to observe them better, I spilled a small heap of rice on the sand
between my feet. Within two or three minutes half a dozen kangaroo rats
had discovered it and were busily at work filling their cheek pouches with
the grains and carrying them away to their store chambers.

While occupied in this rivalry for food they became surprisingly
pugnacious. If one was working at the rice pile and another rat or a pocket
mouse approached, it immediately darted at the intruder and drove it away.
The mode of attack was to rush at an intruder and, leaping upon its back,
give a vigorous downward kick with its strong hind feet. Once I saw a
pocket mouse kicked in this way. It was knocked over and for a minute or
more afterwards ran about in an erratic course, squeaking loudly as though
in much pain.

Sometimes the pursuit of one kangaroo rat by another continued for twenty
yards or more. By the time the pursuer returned another would be at the rice
pile and it would immediately dash at the victor of the former fray and drive
him away. In this way there was a constant succession of amusing
skirmishes.

Sometimes an intruder, bolder than the others, would run only two or three
yards and then suddenly turn and face the pursuer, sitting up on its hind feet
like a little kangaroo. The pursuer at once assumed the same nearly upright
position, with its fore feet close to its breast. Both would then begin to hop
about watching for an opening. Suddenly one would leap at the other,
striking with its hind feet exactly like a game cock. When the kick landed
fairly on the opponent there was a distinct little thump and the victim rolled

over on the ground. After receiving two or three kicks the weaker of the
combatants would run away.

The thump made by the kick when they were fighting solved the mystery
which had covered this sound heard repeatedly during my nights at this
camp. The morning light revealed a multitude of little paired tracks made
by the combatants in these battles. Such tracks in the sand have been
referred to as the “fairy dances” of these beautiful little animals, but the
truth revealed proves them to be really “war dances.”

THE BANDED LEMMING (Dicrostonyx nelsoni and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 519)

Banded lemmings are unique among the mouse tribe in their change from
the rufous brown, or gray summer coat to pure white in winter. With the
assumption of the white winter fur a thick, horny, padlike growth develops
on the underside of the two middle claws of the front feet, which is molted
in spring when the winter coat is lost. For an animal living in the far North
the usefulness of a white coat in winter is evident, but no good reason is
apparent for these curious claw-pads.

The summer coat varies remarkably in color and color pattern, and many of
the lemmings in their beautiful shades of chestnut, browns, or grays are
very handsome. They are more heavily proportioned than field mice and the
very long fluffy fur, which completely conceals the rudimentary ears and
tail, tends to exaggerate their size.

The banded lemmings form a strongly marked group, containing a number
of species inhabiting circumpolar regions. In North America they occur
nearly everywhere in the arctic and subarctic parts, including Greenland,
most of northern Canada, including the Arctic islands, and a large part of
Alaska, including some of the Aleutian Islands.

They range as far northward as vegetation affords them a proper food
supply and have been well known to many of the explorers of those stern

northern wilds. To the southward they extend into the subarctic northern
forests, where they usually keep to the open barren areas.

Not much is known of their life histories on this continent. They are mainly
nocturnal and live in burrows from two to three feet long, ending with a
nest chamber four or five inches in diameter, warmly lined with grass and
moss. Near the nest there is usually a branch burrow a foot or more long
which is used for sanitary purposes and as a place of refuge when the main
burrow is invaded.

In the nests during early summer litters generally containing about three
young are brought forth. Ordinarily the burrows open in unsheltered places,
but in wooded regions may be under a log or beneath a bush or the roots of
a tree. No runways lead out from the burrows as is customary with many of
their relatives. They are active throughout the winter, making many tunnels
along the surface of the ground under the snow, which are revealed when it
melts in spring.

These surface tunnels are their foraging roads, safe from most of the fierce
storms which rage overhead. At times, however, the snowy shelter is blown
away or some other cause brings the lemmings to the surface, where they
blunder aimlessly about, soon to be captured by some enemy or to perish
from the cold. As their infrequent appearance on top of the snow is usually
during storms, the Alaskan Eskimos have a legend that these white
lemmings live in the land above the stars and descend in a spiral course to
the earth during snowstorms.

Although banded lemmings never become so extraordinarily numerous over
great areas as the brown species, they become very abundant at times in the
barren grounds of Canada and the Arctic islands and migrate from one part
of their range to another. The best observation in regard to this was made by
Rae in June at the mouth of the Coppermine River. On the west bank of the
river north of the Arctic Circle he encountered thousands of them speeding
northward.

The ice on some of the smaller streams had broken up and he was amused
to see the little animals running back and forth along the banks looking for
a smooth place in the stream, indicating a slow current, where they could

swim across. Having found such a place, they at once jumped in and swam
quickly to the opposite side, where they climbed out and, after shaking
themselves like dogs, continued their journey as though nothing had
happened.

During the years I lived in northern Alaska the advent of winter was marked
by invasion of the storehouses by many brown lemmings and other mice,
but banded lemmings rarely appeared. When occasionally captured alive,
the old ones fought viciously, but the young were gentle and quickly
became tame and interesting pets. Their skins were highly prized by the
little Eskimo girls to make garments and robes for their walrus ivory dolls.

THE BROWN LEMMING (Lemmus alascensis and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 579)

Few small mammals are so well known in far northern lands as the brown
lemmings. They form a small group of species having a close general
resemblance to some of the field mice, from which, however, they may at
once be distinguished by their much heavier proportions, extremely short
tails, and the remarkable length of the hair on their backs and rumps.

They inhabit most of the arctic and subarctic lands of both Old and New
Worlds. In North America they are known from the northernmost lands,
beyond 83° north latitude, to the southern end of Hudson Bay, and
throughout most of northern Canada and all of Alaska, including the islands
of Bering Sea.

The extraordinary migrations of these lemmings have attracted attention far
back in the early history of northern Europe. At intervals, through favorable
conditions, they become superabundant over a large area, and then a sudden
resistless desire to migrate in a certain direction appears to seize the entire
lemming population. The little beasts start in a swarming horde, sometimes
containing millions, and traverse the country.

In their travels they appear indifferent to all obstacles and with dogged and
unwavering persistence swim the streams and lakes encountered on their
way. Similar migrations have been observed at various points in Arctic
America, several of them in Alaska, where the lemmings abound on the
open tundras.

These migrations sometimes continue for more than one season, the animals
meanwhile being killed in countless numbers by disease, by accident in
field and flood, and, in addition, through the heavy toll taken from their
numbers by their winged and four-footed foes, which always gather in
numbers to accompany them.

The migrations sometimes wear out through the diminution in numbers, and
sometimes when they reach the sea, as in Norway, they are said to enter the
water and swim offshore until they perish. When one of these swarms of
rodents passes through a farming district it cleans up the crops and other
surface vegetation like a visitation of locusts.

These lemmings do not hibernate, but, active throughout the severest
winters, are abroad almost equally by day and by night. Their burrows
consist of winding tunnels, often many-branched and with more than one
opening. A dry bed of peat or a dense growth of moss is often pierced by a
network of them. Well-defined runways often lead away from the burrows
or from the entrance of one burrow to that of another.

Their tunnels run everywhere under the snow, with occasional passages
leading to the surface. When fierce gales blow away the snow or a winter
rain melts it, many lemmings lose touch with their burrows and wander
about until they perish from cold or are caught by some enemy. They are
sometimes found several miles from shore, where they have strayed out on
the sea ice.

In winter in the fur countries, in company with field mice, they invade
storehouses and habitations in search of food. Among their enemies are
ravens and all northern hawks and owls, as well as foxes, weasels, lynxes,
bears, and other beasts of prey of all degree.

Within their underground tunnels and often in dense vegetation on the
surface lemmings make warmly lined nests of grass and moss in which their
young, from two to eight in number, are born. The young appear at varying
times, thus indicating several litters each year.

When taken alive, the old ones are fierce and courageous, growling and
fighting savagely; but several half-grown young brought me during my
residence in Alaska proved to be most amusing and inoffensive little
creatures. From the first they permitted me to handle them without offering
to bite and showed no signs of fear.

They were kept in a deep tin box, from which they made continual efforts to
escape. When I extended one finger near the bottom of the box they would
stand erect on their hind feet and reach up toward it, using their forepaws
like little hands. If my finger was lowered sufficiently they would climb up
into my hand and thence to my shoulder, showing no sign of haste, but
much curiosity, continually sniffing with their noses and peering at
everything with their bright beadlike eyes.

They were curiously expert in walking on their hind feet, holding the body
in an upright position and taking short steps. If anything was held just out of
reach above their heads, as the point of my finger, they would continue in
an erect position for a considerable time. At such times they would reach up
with their front paws and often spring up on their hind feet for half an inch
above the floor trying to touch it. When eating they sat upright on their
haunches, like little marmots, and held the food in their front paws.

THE COMMON FIELD MOUSE, OR MEADOW MOUSE
(Microtus pennsylvanicus and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 522)

The Pennsylvania meadow mouse is a small species about as long in body
as the house mouse, but much more heavily proportioned. Its head is
rounded, the eyes small and beadlike, the legs and tail are short, and the
comparatively coarse fur is so long that it almost conceals the short,
rounded ears.

It is a typical representative of a group of small mammals commonly
known as field mice, or “bear mice,” which includes a great number of
species closely similar in general appearance, but varying much in size. In
England they are termed voles, and large species living about the water in
England and northern Europe are known as “water rats.”

Field mice are circumpolar in distribution and abound from the Arctic
barrens, beyond the limit of trees, to southern Europe and the Himalayas, in
the Old World, and to the southern United States and along high mountains
through Mexico and Guatemala, in Central America. They occur in most
parts of the United States except in some of the hotter and more arid
sections.

As a rule field mice prefer low-lying fertile land, as grassy meadows, but
the banks of streams, the rank growths of swamps and marshes, the borders
of damp woodlands, the grassy places on Arctic tundras, or the dwarfed
vegetation of glacial slopes and valleys above timber-line on high
mountains furnish homes for one species or another.

Two, and even three, species of field mice are sometimes found in the same
locality, but each kind usually occupies a situation differing in some way
from that chosen by the others. Some occupy comparatively dry ground and
others, like the European water rat, live in marshes and are almost as
aquatic as the muskrat. Most species living about the water are expert in
diving and in swimming, even under water. In streams inhabited by large
trout they are often caught and eaten by the fish.

The presence of field mice is nearly always indicated by smoothly worn
little roads or runways about an inch in width, which form a network among
the vegetation in their haunts. These runways lead away from the entrances
of their burrows and wind through the vegetation to their feeding grounds.
They are kept clean and free from straws and other small obstructions, so
that the owners when alarmed may run swiftly to the shelter of their
burrows. Fully conscious of their helplessness, meadow mice are as
cautious as the necessities of existence will permit.

Their burrows are often in the midst of grassy meadows, as well as under
the shelter of logs, rocks, tussocks of grass, or roots of trees, and lead to

underground chambers filled with large nests of dry grass, which shelter the
owner in winter and often in summer. The summer nests in many places,
especially in damp meadows or marshes, are made in little hollows in the
surface or in tussocks of grass. In these nests several litters containing from
four to eleven young are born each year.

It is rarely that an observer is located where he can study the every-day
lives of little animals like the meadow mice and at the same time go on with
his regular occupation. At one of my mountain camps in Mexico I
fortunately pitched my tent on a patch of lawn-like grass in front of the
ruins of an abandoned hut. Runways of field mice formed a network
everywhere in the surrounding growth of grass and weeds.

ANTELOPE JACK RABBIT

Lepus alleni

For hours at a time as I worked quietly in the tent the many mice,
unconscious of my presence, came silently along their little roads through
the tall vegetation to the border of the short grass. Just within the shelter of
the tall growth they would each time stop and remain watchfully
immovable for a half minute, and then, if everything was quiet, make a
swift run two or three feet into the open, bite off a tender little grass blade
and dash back to the sheltered road. There they would sit up squirrel-like,
holding the grass blades in their forepaws and eating them rapidly, or would
sometimes carry the food back to the burrows.

CALIFORNIA JACK RABBIT

Lepus californicus

VARYING HARE, or SNOWSHOE RABBIT

Lepus americanus

Occasionally as the mice darted into the open I made a slight squeaking
noise and perhaps two or three in sight at the time would instantly turn and
dash back into the sheltered road, sometimes not reappearing for a long
time. Again and again I saw them come into the open for food, and before
securing it suddenly scamper back in a panic without apparent cause for
alarm.

Eternal vigilance is the only defense such animals have, and despite their
watchfulness myriads of them are devoured daily by a large number of
rapacious birds and mammals, including even such huge beasts as the great
Alaskan brown and grizzly bears, which dig them from their burrows on
grassy northern mountain sides.

Despite their numerous natural enemies field mice are so prolific they
continue among the most destructive of agricultural pests. They are so
obscure and the damage by a single mouse appears so insignificant, that it
requires a knowledge of their habits, their wide distribution, and their

enormous numbers to appreciate what a serious drain they are on the
farmer’s income, even when in their normal numbers.

In summer they feed on growing grass, clover, alfalfa, and grain, seeds,
bulbs, root crops, and garden vegetables. In fall they congregate under
shocks to feed on the grain, and in winter often do enormous injury to
young or even well-grown fruit and other trees by gnawing off the bark on
the base of the trunk and roots, sometimes in this way destroying entire
orchards and nurseries.

One species in California destroys large quantities of raisins drying in the
field by carrying them off to some shelter, where they cut out the seeds and
leave the rest of the fruit. I have seen half a pound of raisins under a piece
of board, the result of the night’s work of a single mouse.

While field mice are always destructive, at intervals they have sudden and
mysterious accelerations of increase and become so excessively abundant
that they are a veritable plague. Many instances of this are on record in the
Old World, where they have become so numerous as to call forth
governmental intervention.

The most notable recent outbreak of this kind in the United States took
place in the Humboldt Valley, Nevada, where, during the winters from 1906
to 1908, they swarmed over the cultivated parts of the valley and
completely destroyed 18,000 acres of alfalfa, even devouring the roots of
the plants. During this outbreak the mice in the alfalfa fields were estimated
to number as high as 12,000 to the acre.

Whenever field mice become over-abundant notice appears to go out among
their natural enemies, and in extraordinary numbers hawks, owls, crows,
ravens, sea gulls, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, weasels, and other animals appear
to prey upon them.

At no season of the year are they free from their foes, for they remain active
throughout the winter, and most species apparently lay up no winter store of
food. They travel to winter feeding places through series of tunnels under
the snow, and it is mainly at this season that they do the most serious
damage to orchards and shrubbery.

In the far North at the beginning of winter they gather in large numbers
about the fur-trading stations and other habitations, where they persistently
invade the food supplies.

Some of the northern mice, however, gather stores of food for winter. A
species living along the coast of the Bering Sea and elsewhere on the Arctic
tundra of Alaska accumulates a quart or more of little bulbous grass roots,
which are delicious when boiled. They are hidden in nests of grass and
moss among the surface vegetation, and before the first snowfall I have
seen the Eskimo women searching for them by prodding likely places with
a long stick. The roots thus taken from the mice are kept to be served as a
delicacy to guests during winter festivals.

THE PINE MOUSE (Pitymys pinetorum and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 522)

The pine mice form a small group of species peculiar to North America and
closely related to the field mice. They are similar in form to the common
field mice of the Eastern States, but are usually smaller, with much shorter
tails and shorter, finer, and more glossy fur.

Most of the pine mice are limited to the wooded region of the States
between the Atlantic coast and the eastern border of the Great Plains, and
from the Hudson River valley and the border of the Great Lakes south to
the Gulf coast. Strangely enough, one species lives in a restricted belt
covered with tropical forest along the middle eastern slope of the
Cordillera, which forms the eastern wall of the Mexican tableland, on the
border between the States of Vera Cruz and Puebla.

Pine mice occupy the borders of thin forests and brushy areas, from which
they work out into the open borderlands, especially in orchards or other
places where there are scattered trees amid a rank growth of weeds. Instead
of making their runways among growing vegetation on the surface of the
ground like field mice, they live in little underground tunnels or burrows
which extend in all directions through their haunts. These tunnels are
closely like those of the common mole except that they are smaller and

have frequent openings to the surface, through which the owners make
short excursions for food. They often utilize the tunnels of moles when
conveniently located for their purposes.

The tunnels are often so near the surface that the ground is slightly uplifted
or broken as by a mole, or they are made under the fallen leaves and other
small decaying vegetable matter covering the ground under the trees.
Occasionally, when the surface soil becomes dry and hard, the burrows are
deeper, so that no surface indications can be discovered. On account of the
similarity of their burrows the depredations of pine mice are commonly
attributed to moles.

Several inches below the surface pine mice excavate oval chambers to be
used for nests or for storage purposes. The nest chambers have several
entrances from ramifying tunnels and are filled with short fine pieces of
grass, making a warm nest-ball. Here the several litters of young are born
each year. Pine mice are less prolific than field mice, however, and the
litters contain only from one to four young.

The food chambers are larger than the nest chambers, and when full of
stores are kept closed with earth. In these are stored short sections of green
or dry grasses, bulbous grass roots, and short sections of other edible roots.
One such store contained about three quarts of the fleshy roots of a morning
glory cut into short sections.

Pine mice obtain much of their food from the bark about the bases and roots
of trees, including both coniferous and deciduous species. They kill many
small trees and shrubs by girdling, or by cutting the roots below the surface,
and in this way frequently inflict severe damage in orchards and nurseries.
Owing to their underground habits they are much more dangerous to
orchards than field mice. They also do much damage by burrowing along
rows of potatoes and other root crops, upon which they feed.

Both pine mice and field mice are serious pests to agriculture and only by
vigilant care can they be prevented from steadily reducing the returns from
farm and orchard. A mouse appears so insignificant an enemy that the
general inclination among farmers is to ignore it, but both field and pine

mice exist in such enormous numbers and are so generally distributed that
the aggregate annual losses from them are great.

Clean cultivation in orchards, especially for some distance immediately
about the trees, is an excellent protective measure against both of these
mice. The shrubbery and fruit trees of orchards, lawns, and gardens may be
protected by the use of poisoned baits and traps as soon as signs of pine
mice or field mice are observed.

THE RED-BACKED MOUSE (Evotomys gapperi and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 523)

With the exception of the banded lemmings the red-backed mice are the
most brightly colored of the smaller northern rodents. They are close
relatives of the common field mice, which they about equal in size, but
from which they are distinguished externally by rufous coloration, finer and
more glossy pelage, larger ears, and proportionately longer tails.

The red-backed mice form a group containing a considerable number of
species distributed throughout the northern circumpolar lands, except on the
barren islands of the Arctic Sea. In North America they occur from the
Arctic tundras north of the limit of trees southward throughout Alaska and
Canada to the northern United States. With other northern species of
mammals, birds, and plants they follow the high mountain ranges still
farther southward to North Carolina, New Mexico, and middle California.

It is true that in the far North they are numerous on the moss-grown tundras,
and in the South range above timber-line on high mountains. As a general
rule, however, they are woodland animals, whether among the spruces,
birches, and aspens of the North or farther south in the United States in the
cool fir and aspen-clad slopes of mountains. They also frequent old, half-
cleared fields, brush-grown or rocky areas, and similar places where cover
is abundant.

Although so closely related to the field mice, the red-backed species are not
known to become excessively abundant nor seriously to injure crops. One
reason for their harmlessness in this respect may be their strong preference
for forest haunts.

I once found them numerous in the grass-grown streets and yards of an
abandoned mining camp in the forest at the head of Owens River, in the
Sierra Nevada, of California. The mice were making free use of the
congenial shelter afforded by the old log cabins, and their runways and
entrances to burrows were all about under scattered boards and similar
cover.

They are abroad equally by day and by night, and for this reason are better
known to woodsmen than most of the small woodland animals. When
foraging by day among the fallen leaves and deep green vegetation they
present a most graceful and attractive sight, now moving about with quick
and pretty ways, now pausing to sit up squirrel-like to eat some tid-bit held
in the front paws and then on the alert to detect a suspected danger and
poised in quivering readiness for instant flight.

Red-backed mice usually live in underground burrows similar to those of
field mice, but generally located with more care in dry situations, the
entrances sheltered by a stump, old log, root of a tree, rock, or other object.
Ordinarily they do not make such well-defined runways as do many field
mice, and sometimes no trace of a trail can be found leading away from
their burrows. But where they travel about through small dense vegetation,
under logs and about stumps and rocks they often make well-marked trails.

Their nests are bulky and formed of a mass of fine dry grass, moss, and
other soft material, which is sometimes located in an underground chamber
opening off the burrow and sometimes in hollow stumps and logs or under
other surface shelters. But little is known about the home life of these mice
except that they are prolific, and between April and October have several
litters containing from three to eight young in each.

ARCTIC HARE

Lepus arcticus

COTTONTAIL RABBIT

Sylvilagus floridanus

MARSH RABBIT

Sylvilagus palustris

PIKA, LITTLE CHIEF HARE, or CONY

Ochotona princeps

They feed upon a great variety of seeds, fruits, roots, and succulent
vegetable matter and lay up stores for winter in underground chambers or in
hollow logs and similar places above ground.

With the coming of winter they gather about cabins and other habitations in
their territory and become as persistent as house mice in searching out and
raiding food supplies of all kinds. When the more appreciated kinds of food
fail they resort to gnawing the bark from roots and bases of trunks of small
deciduous trees of various kinds.

During my sledge journeys in the region about Bering Strait I found the
skins of many red-backed mice among the Eskimo children. The small boys
kept them with lemming skins as evidences of their prowess with miniature
dead-fall traps and blunt-pointed arrows, and the little girls kept them as
prized robes for the dolls carved by their fathers from wood or walrus ivory.

THE RUFOUS TREE MOUSE (Phenacomys longicaudus and
its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 523)

The genus Phenacomys, to which the rufous tree mouse belongs, includes a
number of species closely similar in size and external appearance to some
of the well-known field mice. The structure of their teeth, however, shows
that they form a distinct group of animals.

So far as known, the living members of the genus are confined to the Boreal
parts of North America, where they range from the Atlantic to the Pacific in
Canada, and southward along the mountains to New Hampshire, New
Mexico, and northern California. The discovery of fossil representatives of
the genus in Hungary and England indicates that it was formerly
circumpolar in distribution.

All but one species of the genus live on the ground, inhabit burrows, make
runways through the small vegetation, and feed on grasses and other
herbage—all in close conformity with the habits of the meadow mice.

The tree mouse, however, is a strongly aberrant member of the group. It
differs from all the others, and from all field mice, not only in its rufous
color and longer tail, but in its remarkable mode of life. It is restricted to the
humid region of magnificent forests in western Oregon and northwestern
California, where it often spends its life in the tops of such noble trees as
the Sitka spruce, the Douglas fir, and the coast redwood. Such an amazing
departure from the habits of its kind lends unusual interest to this little
animal.

Its nests are generally located high up in the trees, sometimes 100 feet from
the ground, in forests where the branches of neighboring trees interlace so
that it can pass from one to another and inhabit a world of its own, free
from the ordinary four-footed enemies which prowl below.

The nests vary in size, structure, and location. In Oregon they have been
found only in large trees at elevations varying from 30 to 100 feet. On the
seashore near Eureka, California, they are placed on the branches of small
second-growth myrtle and redwood trees. Farther inland in the same region
many are in small trees, within a few yards of the ground, on the border of
heavy redwood forests.

The higher nests of the tree mice are often the deserted and remodeled
homes of the big gray tree squirrel of that region (Sciurus griseus) and
contain a foundation of coarser sticks than in the nests wholly built by the
mice. The larger proportion of the nests are built by the mice and are
usually composed of small twigs, fragments of a netlike lichen, skeletons of
fir, spruce, or other coniferous leaves, and the droppings of the mice
themselves. They vary from small oval structures a few inches in diameter,
located well out on the branches, to great masses close against and
sometimes entirely surrounding the tree trunks, supported on several
branches, and measuring three feet long and two or three feet high.

The interior of these large structures is pierced with numerous passageways
and sometimes as many as five separate nest chambers are scattered through
one. Tunnels run out along each of the limbs on which the mass rests, and if
it extends all the way round one main tunnel encircles the trunk from which
these hallways branch.

Such great nests have evidently been used for a long period and have grown
with the steady accumulation of material. This has gradually decayed and
become a solid mass of earthy humus. The large nests are usually the
abodes of a single female, the homes of the males having been found to be
small and more often located away from the trunk of the tree. The food of
the red tree mouse, so far as known, consists entirely of the fleshy parts of
fir and spruce needles and the bark from coniferous twigs.

Tree mice appear to breed throughout most of the year and have from one to
four young in a litter. They are mainly nocturnal, and when driven from
their nests by day appear rather slow and uncertain in their movements.
Those living in highly placed nests usually escape by running out on the
limbs, and pass from one tree to another if necessary. Those in small trees
usually drop quickly from limb to limb until they reach the ground, when
they run to the nearest shelter.

That these mice sometimes descend to the ground of their own volition is
probable, but the fact that the stomach of every individual so far examined
has contained only the fleshy parts of coniferous leaves indicate that their
food habits have become so fixed as to make arboreal life a necessity.

The modification of the habits of a member of a group of ground-
frequenting animals, with a structure adapted to such an existence, to those
of a strictly arboreal animal is so strange as to make the question of cause a
puzzling one.

In the Hawaiian Islands the introduction of the mongoose has made the
common house rat arboreal in habits, and possibly in the remote past the
pressure of some ground-frequenting enemy thus affected the lives of the
red tree mouse. An animal rarely makes an abrupt change in its habits
without direct pressure from some source, and then only as a matter of self-
preservation.

THE MUSKRAT (Fiber zibethicus and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 526)

The muskrat, or “musquash,” as it is widely known in the northern fur
country, is three or four times the size of the common house rat, to which it
bears a superficial resemblance. It has a compactly formed body, short legs,
and strong hind feet partly webbed and otherwise modified for swimming.
The long, nearly naked, and scaly tail is strongly flattened vertically and in
the water serves well as a rudder. The fur is nearly as fine and dense as that
of the beaver and, as in that animal, protects its owner from the cold water
in which so much of its life is spent.

Muskrats are peculiar to North America, where they exist in great numbers.
Aquatic in habits, they have a wide distribution along streams of all sizes
and among marshes, ponds, and lakes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
from a little beyond the limit of trees on the Arctic barrens south throughout
most of the United States. They reach our southern border at the delta of the
Mississippi and the delta of the Colorado, at the head of the Gulf of
California.

Within this vast area they have been modified by their environment into
several species and geographic races, none of which differ much in
appearance from the well-known animal of the Eastern States.

The nearest kin of the muskrats are the short-tailed field mice, so numerous
in our damp meadows. Like the latter, the muskrat has several litters of
young each season. The young are born blind, naked, and helpless, and
number from three to thirteen to a litter. This great fecundity has enabled
the muskrats to hold their own through years of persistent trapping.

They still occupy practically all their original range and yield a steady toll
of valuable fur each season. In 1914 more than 10,000,000 of their skins
were sold in London, and other millions were handled in America. The
aggregate returns on muskrat skins are so great as to constitute it our most
valuable fur-bearer. The furriers make its skins up in its natural color or
dress and dye it and give it the trade names of “Hudson seal,” “river mink,”
or “ondatra mink.”

In suitable marshes, as on the eastern shore of Maryland, muskrats become
extremely abundant and render such areas valuable as natural “fur farms.”
One Maryland marsh containing 1,300 acres has yielded from >,000 to

$7,000 worth of skins a year. Not only are the skins of value, but the flesh is
palatable, and is sold readily under the trade name of “marsh rabbit” in the
markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

There is little doubt that owners of favorably situated marshes could derive
from them a steady revenue by keeping them stocked with proper food
plants and protecting the muskrats from their enemies. The value of these
fur-bearers is becoming more and more appreciated and many States have
laws restricting the trapping season to a period in fall and winter when the
fur is prime.

In marshes about shallow lakes or bordering sluggish rivers muskrats build
roughly conical lodges or “houses,” three to four feet high, with bases,
usually in shallow water, several feet broader. These houses are made of
roots and stems of plants with a mixture of mud. An oval chamber is left in
the interior, well above the water level, to which entrance is gained by one
or more passageways opening under water. These shelters are mainly for
winter use, but the young are sometimes born in them as well as in large
grass nests among dense marsh vegetation.

The curious conical lodges are familiar objects about marshes in the Eastern
and Northern States, and I remember seeing, a few years ago, a specially
well-formed muskrat house close to the historic bridge, at Concord, and
others along the Concord River. Within ten years muskrat houses were
common in marshy ponds in Potomac Park, Washington, where the Lincoln
Memorial Building now stands.

Where the banks of streams or lakes rise abruptly, the muskrats make their
home in dry chambers in the banks above water level at the end of a tunnel
opening either under water or close to the water level. Worn trails lead up
the banks about such places and well-marked runways are made through the
heavy reeds and marsh grasses in their haunts.

Muskrats are mainly nocturnal animals, but often move about during the
day. I have seen them repeatedly swimming close to the bank of the
Potomac a short distance above Washington. They like to carry their food to
slightly elevated points where they can overlook the water along shore,
such as the top of a projecting log, large stone, or earthen bank, from which

they plunge headlong at the first alarm. Many a solitary canoeman gliding
silently along the shore of stream or pond at night has been startled by the
disproportionately loud splash made by a muskrat diving from its resting
place.

Their food consists mainly of the roots and stems of succulent plants varied
with fresh-water clams, an occasional fish, and even by cultivated
vegetables grown in places readily accessible from their haunts. They store
up roots and other vegetable matter for winter use and remain active
throughout that season. The roots of which their “houses” are built are
frequently those used for food and sometimes serve as winter supplies.

PORCUPINE

Erethizon dorsatum

JUMPING MOUSE

Zapus hudsonius

As a rule, muskrats keep near their homes in winter, making excursions
here and there beneath the ice. Sometimes the water rises and forces them
out and they wander widely in search of new locations. When encountered
at such times they show extraordinary courage and fiercely attack man or
beast. The first muskrat I ever saw was one which a farmer met in
midwinter in a snowy road in northern New York. As soon as the man drew
near, the animal rushed at him with bared teeth and fought savagely until
killed.

SILKY POCKET MOUSE SPINY POCKET MOUSE
Perognathus flavus Perognathus hispidus

POCKET GOPHER

Geomys bursarius

Muskrats are usually harmless animals and their presence in marshes and
along watercourses lends a pleasant touch of primitive wildness to the most
commonplace situations. They appear to have so adapted their habits to the
presence of men that they go on with their affairs with curious indifference
to their human neighbors. In irrigated country or elsewhere where banked
ditches are built their habits render them serious pests, as their burrows and
tunnels drain ponds or cause destructive washouts.

An interesting chapter in the history of these animals began in 1905, when
four Canadian muskrats were introduced on a nobleman’s estate in
Bohemia. Since then they have increased rapidly and spread over a large
area in Bohemia and beyond its borders. The streams in the region they
occupy are controlled by grassy banks, and dams are built to form ponds for
fish culture, which is a large industry there. The muskrats persistently
tunnel into the banks and dams, causing them to give way, thus causing
heavy losses to the owners.

They also work havoc among river crabs and mussels, which have great
economic value, and interfere with the fish and their spawning beds. To cap
the climax of their misdeeds, they are reported to feed on grain and
vegetables and to destroy the eggs of domestic poultry and of wild-fowl. It
is reported also that these expatriates in their foreign environment have
become larger animals than their ancestors, and that their fur has greatly
deteriorated in quality. The measures prescribed by the Agricultural Council
of the Kingdom of Bohemia for their control are apparently without much
success. This instance is a good illustration of the danger attending the
introduction of an animal from its native habitat into a new region.

THE WOODRAT (Neotoma albigula and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 526)

In the East known as woodrats, in the West, where much more numerous
and better known, these animals are called “mountain rats” or “trade rats.”
Despite a certain superficial resemblance in size and appearance, woodrats
are not related to those exotic parasites, the house rats, with coarse hair and
bare tails, but are far more attractive and handsome animals, clothed in fine

soft fur, delicately colored above in soft shades of gray, buffy, or
ferruginous, while below they are usually snowy white or buffy. The tail is
fully haired and in some species almost as broad and bushy as that of a
squirrel. Their prominent black eyes and large ears give them an air of
vivacious intelligence which their habits appear to confirm.

Woodrats are peculiar to North America, where they occur from
Pennsylvania and Illinois to the Gulf coast, spreading thence to the Pacific
and as far north as the headwaters of the Yukon, and south through Mexico
and Central America to Nicaragua. They are not plentiful in the southern
Mississippi Valley and eastward, where they live among cliffs and broken
ledges of rock in the deciduous forests, and well deserve their common
name. In this region their presence is rarely suspected except by hunters or
others familiar with woodland life.

Far more numerous and widely known in the Western States and throughout
most of Mexico, they have adapted themselves to life under every climatic
condition, from the most sun-scorched deserts of the southwest and the
splendid redwood forests of the humid coastal region in northern California
to the tropical lowlands farther south.

They live nearly everywhere on the mountain slopes, even to timber-line at
13,800 feet on Mount Orizaba. They thrive in an extraordinary variety of
situations, not only where they may find shelter among rocks, but also
where they must seek safety in nests made on the surface of the ground or
in burrows dug by themselves. They are prolific animals and each year have
several litters containing from two to five young.

The presence of woodrats is generally indicated by accumulations of odds
and ends filling the crevices of the rocks about their retreats or piled about
the entrances of their burrows, such accumulations including small sticks,
pieces of bark, leaves, cactus burrs, bones, stones, and any other small
objects which may be found in the vicinity.

Sometimes these piles of fragments seem to be made merely for amusement
or to work off surplus energy, as they form useless gatherings, such as heaps
of small stones, frequently containing a bushel or more, piled on the

rounded tops of small protruding boulders in open desert areas, or small
heaps of sticks and other material scattered aimlessly about their haunts.

In the desert where cactuses of many kinds abound woodrats’ nests are
often made at the bases of these or other thorny plants and are covered with
such a protective coating of cactus burrs as to deter the most insistent
enemy. In the heavy forests of northern California woodrats build huge
conical nests of sticks several feet in diameter on the ground, rising to a
height of five feet or more.

In southern California and elsewhere some species make great nests of
sticks eight to twenty feet from the ground in live oaks and other trees. The
stick-pile nests on the ground usually have several entrances, with trails
leading from them, and the underground burrows usually have two or more
openings.

As may be surmised from their habits, woodrats are skillful climbers, both
in trees and on the rough rock walls of the cliffs they inhabit. Their only
notes appear to be shrill squeaks and squeals when quarreling among
themselves at night. They also express annoyance or alarm by a rapid
drumming on the ground with their hind feet, just as is done by some of the
hares and rabbits.

On Santa Margarita Island, in Lower California, I found the most curiously
located habitations of these animals I have seen, the bulky stick nests being
placed well back in the midst of a mangrove thicket growing in a tidal
lagoon. At high tide the mangroves were isolated from shore by several rods
of water, so that only at low tide were the rats able to go ashore. In going
back and forth they followed certain lines of nearly horizontal mangrove
stems, the discoloration on the bark plainly indicating the routes which
finally led to dry land by little trampled roads across the muddy ground
bordering the shore.

Back a little way from shore others of the same species were living in
burrows guarded by orthodox stick and trash-pile nests among the cactuses.

Woodrats, especially in northern localities, gather stores of pinyon or other
nuts, potatoes, corn, and any other non-perishable food available to meet

the season of storms and scarcity, concealing these supplies in cavities in
the nests either above or below the ground. They eat many kinds of fruits,
seeds, leaves, and other parts of plants, sometimes including bark of shrubs
or small trees and even cactus pads.

As a rule each nest is occupied by a single rat, but sometimes several may
be found in one, and the well-worn trails that so often connect the entrances
of neighboring nests bear evidence that woodrats have a social disposition.
In most localities woodrats are distributed sparingly, but occasionally
become so abundant in favorable places on brushy plains that colonies
containing hundreds of nests may be found in limited areas. They
sometimes become so plentiful about ranches as to make serious inroads on
grain and other crops. They also give the Forest Service much trouble by
digging up the pine seeds planted in their great reforesting nurseries.

Woodrats are mainly nocturnal in habits and appear to be extremely active
throughout the night. Each morning in the vicinity of their nests the light
soil shows a multitude of tracks, and in places I have seen little roads in the
sand several hundred yards long which they had made by repeated trips to a
feeding ground.

No sooner is a cabin built in the mountains than they move in and establish
themselves under the floor, or locate a nest near by and use the house as
their nocturnal resort. Throughout the night the patter of their busy feet may
be heard as they race about on the floor or rustle about the roof, and often
over the sleeping forms of their unwilling hosts.

Their activities are sources of mingled amusement and vexation. Small,
loose articles, including table knives, forks, and spoons, vanish and all
manner of trash, including horse droppings, are brought in, thus establishing
their title to the cognomen of “trade rats.” If the owner of a cabin leaves it
for a few days, he may find on his return that the rats have taken possession
and during his absence have tried to fill it with trash of all kinds, in order to
make a comfortable home for themselves.

At one cabin in the mountains of New Mexico where I lived one summer
several mountain rats made free of the place and at night persistently tried
to add our shoes to their nest under the floor. An hour or so after retiring we

would hear our shoes scrape slowly across the floor, and in the morning
they would be found stuck toe down in the broad crack where the floor
ended near the wall. In the woodrat country when small articles are missed
from camp it is always worth the trouble to investigate the nearest rats’
nests.

Woodrats are plentiful on the Mexican table-land, making their nests under
cactuses or thorny agaves, where they are persistently hunted as game by
the natives, who prize them as a special delicacy. I saw them regularly sold
in the markets of the cities of San Luis Potosi and Aguas Calientes, where
the method of marketing them was unique. As soon as they were dug from
their nests, their lower incisors were broken off close to the jaw to render
them powerless to bite, and then the rats were placed alive in a strong sack
and carried to town.

The vendor would sit on a curb at the market and either kill and dress them
there or shout his wares by telling every one who passed that he had
“country rats; very delicious; live ones; fat ones; very delicious; very
cheap.” The natives all praised their delicate flavor and one I had served me
as a special courtesy was really good, tasting like young rabbit.

THE HARVEST MOUSE (Reithrodontomys megalotis and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 527)

In size, proportions, and color the harvest mice, of all our American species,
most closely resembles the common house mouse. Many of them are
decidedly smaller than that animal and they rarely, if ever, exceed it in size.
They may be distinguished from the house mouse by their browner colors,
more hairy tail and especially by a little groove which extends down the
front of each upper incisor.

The mice of this group include many species and have a wide distribution
ranging from Virginia, in the eastern United States, to the Pacific, and from
North Dakota, Montana, and Washington southward through Mexico and
Central America to northern South America.

They reach their greatest development in number and diversity of species in
the region about the southern end of the Mexican table-land, where I have
caught them from the tropical lowlands, near sea level, up to an altitude of
13,500 feet, at timber-line, on Mount Iztaccihuatl.

KANGAROO RAT

Dipodomys spectabilis

These delicately proportioned and graceful little beasts are habitants of
grassy, weed-grown, and brushy locations, mainly in the open country. They
are equally at home, however, in the beautiful grassy open forests of oak,
pine, and firs which clothe the slopes of the great continental mountain
system of Mexico and Central America.

Summer Winter

BANDED LEMMING (Dicrostonyx nelsoni)

BROWN LEMMING

Lemmus alascensis

In general they prefer comparatively dry situations, if there is sufficient
moisture to produce the needed vegetation, but some species inhabit
swamps and even salt and fresh water marshes. Although as a rule not very
numerous, at times they are very abundant and make well-worn trails
through the small vegetation in their haunts. They are active throughout the
year, and in the North, like some other mice, burrow through the winter
snows along the surface of the ground in search of food.

So far as man is concerned, most of the harvest mice are among the least
offensive of mammals. There are exceptions, however, and, although they
rarely approach habitations and as a rule take but slight toll from grain
fields and meadows, yet in some areas they become so numerous as to do
considerable damage.

Their food includes a great variety of seeds, small fruits and succulent
matter mainly from wild plants of no economic value. They lay up stores of
seeds in their nests and in little special storage places for severe or
inclement weather.

Some of the species dig burrows in the ground where their nests are hidden.
Most of them, however, build globular nests of grass and other vegetable
matter several inches in diameter in dense grass close to the ground, or up
in the midst of rank growths of weeds, or even as high as eight or ten feet
from the ground in bushes and low trees.

Sometimes they take possession of convenient sites already provided, such
as old woodpecker holes, cavities in fence posts, knot holes, and deserted
birds’ nests, including the nests of the cactus wren and orchard oriole,
which they remodel to suit themselves. Their nests are lined with fine
downy material such as the pappus of the milkweed or the cattail flag, and
have from one to three small openings usually located on the underside. In
these neat homes they have several litters of from one to seven young each
year.

Some of their bush nests three or four feet from the ground were found
when I was hunting on El Mirador coffee plantation in Vera Cruz. Often on

approaching them, the single occupant would dive headlong into the grassy
cover below and disappear. But sometimes when disturbed they would
come out and run about through the tops of the bushes, leaping from branch
to branch with all the agility and graceful abandon of pigmy squirrels.
Several times they were seen to stop and sit crosswise on the branches with
their tails hanging straight down. When they move about among the
branches they sometimes coil the tail around the twig as an opossum might,
to give them a more certain hold.

While harvest mice may be seen at their nests by day, they are mainly
crepuscular and nocturnal, and so retiring in habits that their presence may
be entirely overlooked unless special search is made to locate them. Where
found their pretty ways well repay the observer who has the patience to
spend a little time with them.

THE GRASSHOPPER MOUSE (Onychomys leucogaster and
its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 527)

The grasshopper mice are notable for the delicate coloring and velvety
quality of their fur. While closely resembling some of the white-footed
mice, they may readily be distinguished from them by more robust form,
short, thick tail, and the character of the fur.

Only two species, each with numerous geographic races, are known and
both are peculiar to North America. Characteristic animals of the arid and
semi-arid treeless plains, plateaus, and foothills of the West, their known
range extends from Minnesota and Kansas west to the Cascades and to the
Pacific coast of southern California, and in the North, from the plains of the
Saskatchewan southward to San Luis Potosi, on the tableland of Mexico.

Some races live on the grassy plains west of the Mississippi, but the
majority prefer the looser soil and sandy areas of the more arid Great Basin
and the even more desert Southwest, where the vegetation is characterized
by a scattered growth of woody plants, including many species of cactuses,

yuccas, agaves, sagebrush, greasewood, mesquites, acacias, and other
picturesque types.

Like other small mammals of the open plains, the grasshopper mice live in
burrows. When opportunity offers they evade the labor of digging these for
themselves by occupying the deserted holes of mice, kangaroo rats, ground
squirrels, prairie dogs, badgers, and other animals. In these retreats they
have nests of soft vegetable matter and each season bring forth several
litters containing from two to six young.

They are active throughout the year, but nothing appears to be known as to
the kind and amount of stores they lay up for winter use. As many live far
enough north to experience a long period of cold, with snow covering the
earth, there is little doubt that they exercise the same provision in providing
stores to meet the need as do many other small mammals.

Many species of mice eat insects or meat and even on occasion devour one
of their own kind. The grasshopper mice go far beyond this and are often
not only as fierce flesh eaters as real carnivores, but make their diet, at least
during the summer season, mainly of insects and other small invertebrates.
Their bill of fare includes a miscellaneous assortment of several species of
mice, including their own kind caught in traps, small dead birds, lizards,
frogs, cutworms, scorpions, mole crickets, ordinary crickets, grasshoppers,
moths, flies, and beetles, including the “potato bug.”

In addition they eat many kinds of seeds, fruit, and other vegetable matter.
Where obtainable, grasshoppers are one of their favorite foods, and from
this they receive their common name. In Colorado, from their fondness for
scorpions, they are sometimes called “scorpion mice.”

Vernon Bailey’s observations of a grasshopper mouse he had in captivity
are illuminating as to their habits, and indicate that their presence in
numbers about cultivated land must be of distinct economic value. When
undisturbed and well fed the captive was entirely nocturnal, sleeping all day
and becoming very active at night. While usually quiet, sometimes jumping
with all his force he tried furiously to escape from his small prison box. His
favorite food consisted of crickets, grasshoppers ranking next. Among other

things he ate were a black beetle, ladybirds, a potato beetle, spiders, bugs,
and dragon flies.

In feeding he sat upright on his haunches and held the insects in his front
paws, eating them head first. Large grasshoppers, their tails resting on the
ground, were held head up by a paw on each shoulder. A grasshopper would
sometimes kick so vigorously as to tip the mouse off its balance, but was
never relinquished until decapitated.

The mouse promptly killed and ate a small frog placed in his box and was
expert at catching flies. He ate many kinds of insects, including a live wasp,
but appeared terror-stricken if a few ants were put in with him. When a
dozen or more crickets and grasshoppers were put into his box at the same
time he at once proceeded to bite off all their heads before beginning to
feast upon them.

A dead white-footed mouse was dropped in and “he pounced upon it like a
cat, caught it by the side of the head near the ear, and began biting it with all
the ferocity of a coon dog.” The bones could be heard cracking and after the
little beast appeared satisfied that his prey was really dead he ceased
worrying it and an examination showed that he had bitten through its skull
deep into the brain. Afterward he tore off and ate fragments of flesh from its
head, neck, and shoulders. The ferocious certainty with which he seized the
white-footed mouse by the head and bit through its skull indicated that in
relation to small mammals he, probably like all his kind, had the predatory
instincts and habits of the carnivores.

One morning he ate 12 crickets and a spider in seven minutes and during a
single day devoured 53 insects—2 beetles, 8 grasshoppers, 28 crickets, and
15 flies—and appeared ready to take more.

Oddly enough, this grasshopper mouse, so fierce toward small game, never
offered to bite when captured or when handled freely, but continued
throughout his captivity to have the same friendly confidence in his captor.
Others caught in various parts of their range have shown the same
characteristics.

At night, especially early in the evening, grasshopper mice utter a fine shrill
whistling call note. This habit appears peculiar to them among all the mice
and may be likened to that of many of the large beasts of prey in uttering
their hunting call as they sally forth for the night’s foray.

THE WHITE-FOOTED MOUSE (Peromyscus leucopus and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 530)

Few of our smaller wild mammals are so generally known as the white-
footed mice. Usually a little larger and proportionately shorter bodied than
the house mice, they may at once be distinguished from them by the
contrast between the delicate shades of fawn color, brown, or gray of the
upper parts of the body, and the snowy white feet and under parts. Like
other members of the genus, they have cheek pouches inside the mouth for
gathering and carrying food to their stores.

Their exceedingly quick and graceful movements and their beauty of form
and color would make them generally attractive were it not for the prejudice
against all their kind resulting from the offensive ways of the house mouse.

Mice of the genus Peromyscus, to which the white-footed mice belong, are
peculiar to North and South America and include more species and
geographic races than any other American genus of mammals. The white-
footed mice are limited to North America. Readily responsive to the
influences of environment, they have developed numerous species and a
large number of geographic races.

These are spread over most of the continent from the northern limit of trees
to the tropical shores of Yucatan. One form has the distinction of living up
to an altitude of from 15,000 to 16,000 feet on Mount Orizaba, Mexico,
where I found its tracks in the volcanic ashes at the extreme limit of
vegetation. This is the highest record for any North American mammal.

White-footed mice are active throughout the year and thrive in every variety
of situation. In winter from the Northern States to the Arctic circle the

snowshoer traversing the forest will note their lace-work patterns of tiny
tracks leading across the snow from log to log or tree to tree. At sunrise on
the southwestern deserts their tracks made during the night often form a
fine network in the dust, but disappear with the first breath of the morning
breeze.

They not only live everywhere in the wilderness, but are prompt to swarm
about camps and other habitations, where they make free with the food
supplies. Few frequenters of forest camps in the Northern States and
Canada have failed to see the bright eyes of these pretty little animals
peering at them from some crevice, or the mice scurrying along the log wall
like little squirrels.

FIELD, or MEADOW, MOUSE

Microtus pennsylvanicus

PINE MOUSE

Pitymys pinetorum

They are industrious workers and once in a cabin quickly locate some cozy
nook in a box or other secluded place to construct a warm nest of any soft
fibrous vegetable material available. This completed, they set busily at work
nights to raid the food supply of the owner and hide it in suitable storage
places, such as a crevice among boxes, an old shoe or a pocket in a garment
hung on the wall. Their depredations usually cause so much exasperation
that the camper overlooks the grace and beauty of his visitors and makes
every effort to destroy them. If the occupants of such camps would keep
their supplies in mouse-proof containers and would then feed their
woodland friends, they would find them quickly responsive and most
attractive guests.

RED-BACKED MOUSE

Evotomys gapperi

RUFOUS TREE MOUSE

Phenacomys longicaudus

In their native haunts these mice have habits varying with varying
conditions. On brushy plains they burrow in the ground, while in the woods
they sometimes burrow under rocks, stumps, and logs, or live in hollows in
stumps and trees. As nimble in climbing as squirrels, many live in hollow
trees sometimes more than fifty feet above the ground.

That our inability to see at night prevents more than an occasional glimpse
at the doings of the small animals which often swarm all about us was
impressed on me at one of my camps in the desert of Lower California. My
blankets were spread under a small leafless tree growing near the base of a
rocky ledge, in the crevices of which many relatives of the white-footed
mice were living. The first morning in camp I awoke as the sky began to
pale and color with the approach of day. The dry branches of the tree a few
feet overhead became sharply silhouetted against the sky, revealing several
of the mice running up and down them and leaping from twig to twig with
all the active grace of tiny squirrels.

The mice appeared to be racing about in pure playful enjoyment of the
exercise, and when the light had increased sufficiently to render objects on
the ground distinct they suddenly ran down the tree trunk and vanished in a
crevice in the rocks. This game was repeated on several succeeding
mornings and is no doubt commonly indulged in where conditions are
favorable.

White-footed mice feed mainly on many kinds of seeds and nuts and vary
this diet with snails, insects, and sometimes with the flesh of dead birds or
other mice. As they do not hibernate they lay up abundant stores of grain
and seeds of many kinds in addition to a variety of nuts, as acorns, beech
nuts, pine nuts, maple seeds, and others, according to the locality. The
stores are hidden in hollows in logs, stumps, trees, or in the ground. When
in captivity they have shown themselves expert in catching flies, sometimes
capturing them with their teeth and again with their front paws used with all
the dexterity of little hands.

Several litters of young containing from three to seven each are born, the
first usually appearing in spring and the last in fall. The young are blind and
helpless at birth, and in this condition cling so tenaciously to the mother’s

teats that when she is frightened from the nest they are often carried off
attached to her.

Some individuals at least of the white-footed mice, like others of the genus
Peromyscus, are known to have a prolonged and musical song. It is a fine
warbling ditty, a little like the song of a canary. A number of good observers
have recorded these performances, but they appear to be so infrequent that
most people with woodland experience have never heard them.

The lives of these mice are passed in constant fear of a host of enemies.
Hawks and owls, bluejays, and shrikes in the bird world are ever on the
alert to capture them, while skunks, weasels, minks, foxes, and snakes
persistently seek them in their retreats.

THE BEACH MOUSE (Peromyscus polionotus niveiventris
and its relatives)
(For illustration, see page 530)

The beach mouse is a beautiful, velvety-furred little creature about the size
of a house mouse and one of the smallest species of the genus Peromyscus.
Its back is colored with delicate shades of pale vinaceous-buffy and its
underparts, including the feet, are snowy white.

The species Peromyscus polionotus, of which the beach mouse is one of
several geographic races, or subspecies, occupies a comparatively restricted
range in the lowland region of Alabama and Georgia and thence through a
large part of Florida.

It presents an unusually convincing illustration of the influence of changing
environment upon the physical characters of animals. Among the cotton
fields of Alabama and Georgia Peromyscus polionotus is rather dark grayish
brown, but on the lighter-colored soil of Florida the color responds and
becomes paler in perfect correspondence with the change in soil until the
white sand-dunes and beaches of the coast are reached. There, in strong
contrast with the color of the northern members of the species, it is so

modified that the pale representatives of this area are recognized under the
name niveiventris, as a geographic race, or subspecies.

Changes in environment affect both great and small mammals in a variety
of ways, sometimes in shades of color, sometimes in relative size, and
sometimes in proportions. Exceptions to the rule are to be found, however,
and some species of mammals have a wide range under a great variety of
conditions, with scarcely an appreciable sign of variation.

The beach mouse is abundant on the sand-dunes and beaches of peninsular
Florida, especially from Palm Beach to Mosquito Inlet, wherever there is a
growth of sea oats (Uniola), which appears to be its principal food plant. It
is a nocturnal animal and its nightly activities may be read, early in the
morning, from the multitude of tiny tracks which lead in all directions and
often form a network on the sand. A single track sometimes extends for a
hundred yards or more from a burrow, and with all its windings may
aggregate several hundred yards of travel, showing the activity of this small
worker during many hours.

Tracks are most plentiful immediately about growths of sea oats, patches of
saw palmetto, or scrubby bushes. The homes of these mice are usually in
short burrows sheltered by growing vegetation or under fallen palm fronds.

As in the case of many of our mammals, we have scanty information
concerning the life of these attractive little animals, and it is suggested that
here lies a pleasant subject for investigation by some nature lover wintering
in Florida.

THE BIG-EARED ROCK MOUSE (Peromyscus truei and its
relatives)
(For illustration, see page 531)

The numerous species of mice of the genus Peromyscus in North America
include a great variety of little beasts, many of which are distinguished by
beauty of form and color. One of the most striking and picturesque
individualities among these is found in the big-eared rock mouse, which is