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‘ i = / ‘. % =. - * 3 . i = % 2 7 Ss . f i P ri u ee c
Sear! Wil GUN AND ROD
ni - - . i : ' ‘ yy \ 4 . . 7 4 he ay 5 . +p * | ~ v - 7 « F : ‘ * 7 « . ee : ‘ ,
tee s Hy a ot ASH
i Bi Whi)
On Pith GUN-AND ROD
AMERICAN WOODS AND WATERS
EDITED BY
ALFRED M. MAYER
PROFESSOR IN THE STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK THE: CENTURY Y GO
Copyright, 1883, by TH= Century Co.
PIE AG Be
HE love of the chase is deeply imbedded in man’s nature. During
the untold centuries of his savage condition he followed it of necessity.
We now revert to our primitive employment for our pleasure and rec- reation, pursuing with ardor, sports which often involve much bodily fatigue and always require skill and training. An impulse, often irresistible it seems, leads man away from civilization, from its artificial pleasures and its mechan- ical life, to the forests, the fields, and the waters, where he may have that free- dom and peace which civilization denies him. If this be not so, then why is it that the man of affairs as well as the man of leisure feels again the joy of his youth as he bids farewell to his office or his club, and seeks the solitudes of the woods and the plains? He will meet there some old familiar face in a guide, or fellow-sportsman, and welcome it with the ardor of good-fellowship. He will undergo all sorts of bodily discomforts,—coarse food and rough bed, the wet and the cold,—and yet be happy, because for a little spell he is free; in other words, he has, for the time, become a civilized savage. If, with gun and rod, he goes into the recesses of the great woods, and lives there for weeks or months, or mounts his horse and traverses the western plains and mountain passes, relying on his rifle for his subsistence, he is made to realize that there are many things to be learned outside of cities and away from his usual occupations. He will find food for philosophy in the behavior of his hunting companions; he will see who is manly and unselfish, who endowed with pluck and self-reliance; for three weeks’ association with a friend in the wilderness will reveal more-of his real character than a dozen years’ with him amid the safe retreats and soothing comforts of civilized life. He will learn how few are the real wants of a happy life in the midst of unciv- ilized nature. His troubles, if he carried any with him, will vanish ; time will seem of as little value to him as to the savage, and like all true sportsmen
and “honest anglers,” he will return to his home with a calmed spirit and a contented mind.
12
Preface.
We shall have attained our object in this book, if the sportsman, as he reads it, feels his lungs expand with the cool, balsam-laden air of the woods; hears the sudden whir-r-r of the ruffed grouse on the mountain-side, and feels his nerves grow tense as he again stands over his dog and is about to flush the woodcock or snipe; hears the breakers on the rocky coast, as in imagina- tion he makes a long “cast” into the surf; smells the salt marshes, while he hears the cries of the wild fowl and the whistle of the ducks’ wings. By its perusal, also, the younger reader may be led to spend his vacations in the enjoyment of sports which are manly and health-giving, which engender self- reliance and good-fellowship, and develop a love for Nature.
My connection with this volume was unexpected. Some time ago I sug- gested to the editor of THe Cenrury Macazine that the various articles on hunting and angling which had appeared in that periodical should be col- lected into a book. At the time I made this suggestion, I had no inten- tion or desire to undertake the editing of writings describing the pursuit of game, so varied in habits and haunts that no one person could be expected to have had the requisite experience, and it was only at the solicitation of the publishers that I undertook the task. To make the work complete, several papers have been added, some of which are here printed for the first time.
In behalf of the publishers, I wish to acknowledge indebtedness to the courtesy of Kegan Paul & Co., of London, for the use of the paper on Moose-Hunting in Canada, by the Earl of Dunraven; to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., for the articles contributed by Charles Dudley Warner and John Burroughs; to Charles Scnbner’s Sons, for the paper on Bow-Shooting by Maurice Thompson, and to James R. Osgood & Co., for the poem by the same author.
ALFRED M. MAYER.
MAPLEWOOD,
TITLES.
In THE Woops
Heap or MuLe-DEER
Heap oF FAWN oF )
MutLe-DEER
Heap or Rocky
Heap or Musk-Ox
Biack Bass | “BROKE Away” §
THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING
Bos ee —Atr Dawn
A GRousE FAMILY AT SUNSET
SOUTH AMERICAN ) GOAT-SUCKER 4
JAPAN
ARTISTS ( Engraved direct | . from Nature §
J. Harrison Mills
W. M. Cary
t , : MountTAIN WILD SHEEP § James C. Beard
James C. Beard
Gurdon Trumbull
James C. Beard
James C. Beard
James C. Beard
j Engraved direct ) \ from Nature 4
James C. Beard
PROG Ss:
ENGRAVERS.
Elbridge Kingsley
J. Harrison Mills
R. A. Miiller
R. A. Miiller
J. H. E. Whitney
H. Davidson 4
F. S. King
R. <G3Gollins
F. S. King
Elbridge Kingsley
Frank French
PAGES.
“e
“
ee
Frontispiece.
§ Vignette on Title.
Facing 46
280
314
334
494
612
646
836
mate PNG Eb Ste TONS.
TITLES. ARTISTS. ENGRAVERS, PAGES, ie ee CREE BEN Mary Hallock Foote J. Hellawell 13 SHORE ‘ Hawk on NEst? Fannie E. Gifford E. Heinemann 28 INDIAN HUNTER J. Q. A. Ward David Nichols 44.
( Charles C. Ward }
Tue BLACK Bear iJames C. Beard §
Henry Varley Facing 50
A Meer art Newport’ George Inness, Jr. W. J. Dana roo
THE AMERICAN Bison James C. Beard H. E. Schultz Facing 116
A Moose FIGHT
Henry Sandham
In A WESTERN Forest Julian Rix Heap or MERINO Ram James C. Beard
Heap or Musk-Cow James C. Beard
JapaNEseE KinGIyo James C. Beard
THE PROFESSOR } : : ee Cocks LANDING A DOUBLE { J PARALLELISM IN FLicHT oF Birps AND ¢ James C. Beard SWIMMING OF FISH
OutTwarbD BouND M. J. Burns
PERcE Rock M. J. Burns OLp MILLt-WHEEL
A Braco Stupy James C. Beard
Charles A. Vanderhoof
T. Cole “36
Charles Cullen J. H. E. Whitney Samuel P. Davis
F. 5. King
H. Davidson
F. S. King
John Evans John Evans Annie L. Haywood
Henry Marsh
Facing 284
Facittg 386
Facing 422
16 — Feull-Page [Mustrations.
TITLES. ARTISTS ENGRAVERS. PAGES. A Porpotise DIvING ea Woe Elbridge Kingsley Facing 482 NeEar NEWPORT Henry Sandham R. C. Collins 540 Ar Low Tipe Stephen Parrish Elbridge Kingsley 572 Snow BuNTINGS Fidelia Bridges F. S. King 610 eee ; James C. Beard J. H. E. Whitney Facing 664 Woopcock AND YounGc James C. Beard Samuel P. Davis S686 “ ears James C. Beard Henry Marsh “606 Hoan Sheng James C. Beard ; y H. E. Whitney Se Our oF Doors Roger Riordan Henry Marsh 796
A Birp MEpLey Fidelia Bridges F. S. King 880
TAB EE Or CONTENTS.
x PAGE [PRISER ACIS Relic An ace ad aS ee er ABTS O HGH PAPAIN EPEAROORSi), os) ot sn GP tee ees ee ea, TA intieOne Uti AGE MMLUSTRATIONS 6.057) yt ee ee eae eee 615
WineePRenisroric TuNTER....°....... Alfred A. Mayer. 29
Illustrations: Axe, Spear-head, and Knife of Archzeolithic age—Skeleton of the Great Irish Elk— Arrowhead from Killarney —Spear-head and Arrowhead found near Pont-Leroy—TFish-spear, Kents’ Cavern— Harpoon-Point of bone and nephrite— Prehistoric Carving on Ivory—Fish-spears, La Madelaine— Arrowhead from Lake Bienne—Tail-piece.
A Gia GAVE:
(iP DPACKMOBARI "ius. +, - |. a aaue. e.Gnxarles C. Ward. 49 Illustrations, from sketches by the author: Head of Black Bear— Bear and Cubs—The Bear Pass. . James C. Beard. Skull of Black Bear — Fore-paws — Hind-paws — A DeadetalleMrapeeper. sts aim, seeder ate ch . Charles C. Ward. The Indian; from’ a sketch by the author. ........ 2. W. Taber.
Sacking a Lumber Camp, from a sketch by the
ALthOY meee eric. ches las see. eisoesh vio! lo ede ke SAO. After Honey — An Aboriginal Hunter — Tail-piece. . . . . Dan Beard. Ne Heaton aMbormerneac. gett yee) + 4, + 4s. 0 2» Looser Riordan.
2
18 Contents.
BEAR-HUNTING IN THE SOUTH . sense Illustrations, from sketches by the author: Old Asa Cutting through the Canebrake — Bear Hieroglyphics —At Bay —The Death — Old Asa in es In the Forest . é A Flight of Wild Geese fino. engravings) . A Hunter’s Paradise . Tail-piece
. James Gordon.
_ WL. Sheppard.
. Granville Perkins,
. James C. Beard. . Thomas Moran. BS (GPT ARLE
Fox-HuNTING IN New Encuanp .. . . Rowland &. Robinson.
Illustrations, from sketches by the author: Head- piece . wae “An Honest Fox Mise ne es
After a Breakfast —“ Holed ” eS hantatine the’ ae ‘
The Dog’s Dream—The Start—On the Trail—The Run-way . ene
Calling the Dogs .
Another Stratagem .
Bearing Home the Brush .
A Happy Family— Head of Fox- Road Dea
: . L. Hopkins. . James C. Beard. . John IW. Bolles.
. . Alfred Kappes. . Walter Shirlaw. . Peter Moran.
. James £. Kelly.
BthlerSGent is oa Gl est bs: ev yy en Men UMP OUU IE MERCTEI (277 CEL ROLCOLTFISDIE-
In November Tail-piece .
A BuFrFaLo-HUNT IN NorTHERN Mexico Illustrations, from sketches by the author: The School of the Laniat— Now, Fire Fei: 5 The “Mozo” The Patio, from a Seer h by the ator The Start — Our First View of the Herd . On the Road — Juan —Santos—In the Rear Court — “ Under the Colonnade”—In the Corridor—A Group of Vaqueros—A Maguey Field . Head of American Buffalo . The Tangle of Paths .
. Jervis McEntee. . Henry Farrer.
. Lew Wallace.
. James E. Kelly. . IV. L. Sheppard. . John W. Bolles.
. George [Inness, Jr,
. Mary Hallock Foote.
. James C. Beard. . Lew Wallace.
Tue Norty American Cervips ... . George Bird Grinnell.
Illustrations: A Moose Fight . Barren-ground Caribou . , Head of American Elk — Head of Maile ees F Tail-piece .
. Henry Sandham. . Charles C. Ward. . James C. Beard. . Roger Riordan.
PAGE
65
79
IOL
129
Contents.
IVIGOSE=HUNTING 020. 5 86 eee .Charles C. Ward. Illustrations, from sketches oy the author : maine Hee na
Tree— Moose Family — Moose-yard—- Fire Hunting . . Henry Sandham.
sliver UOOSe-Calliemnnr td -NUcmea ewe ect ey ey . James &. Kelly.
Moose-Birds. ... . ; Be eames CG. Beard, Socotoma— Still re thy IMaese: one s Camp =
The Old Block-House—Stone Medallion . . . . . . Charles C. Ward.
JyencdaCedanebidsiyear a) eas nee tu ae ee eacia, Bridees.
The Darkening Pines. Engraved direct from nature. . A/bridge Kingsley.
Retumme domi the unt. es sss ses 2 4. Alene Sandham.
MoosE-HUNTING IN Canapa......... Earl of Dunraven.
Illustration: Tail-piece. Engraved direct from nature. . . 2iiitdge Kingsley.
ARTEOUSHUNTING, | jo. sce. cs 2 1 oye Charles ©. Ward. Illustrations, from sketches by the author: Caribou
Barrens —Caribou Crossing a Frozen Lake. . . . . . Zhomas Moran,
Attacked by a Wolf—Afloat on a Cake of Ice—Bring- :
ing in the Caribou—-A Good Chance. . . . . . . Henry Sandham. Woodland Caribou Hoofs— Caribou Migiarine Sauer
est Birds —Seh-ta-ga-bo— A Shot from Tomah. . . . Charles C. Ward.
(Cadkir IBinds 4\ 8) 559s 0 GUM pe tonecuens oon cua Cola eae
DEER-HUNTING ON THE Au SaBLeE.....W. Mackay Laffan. Illustrations: Up Saginaw Bay— Camp Erwin — On the Au Sable—Deception— Under the Cédars— Hung Up—A General Surprise—A Torch of the
Au Sable—Sweepers—A Ton and a half of Venison . IV. Mackay Laffan. AX Ibiasl ssa e) SMG 6 lo We ORIG ao a pub Bald, cA Dare
Huntinc THE Mute-DeEER tn CoLorapo. ¥. Harrison Mills. Illustrations: from a sketch by the author, “ And Tiny
Saidehe: Lhought he Could’: 2 2... . . . frederick Dielman. The Fall of the Leader, from a sketch by the auithor . . . George Inness, Jr.
Head of the Mule-Deer—* Are you Looking for us ?” —An Attack of Buck Fever— Osborne and his Dog —How Tiny Beguiled them—A Pattern in a Net
of Twigs—A Dissolving View. . ....... . . J. Harrison Mills. Ongthey Grameen, sop. 5is ills, eats ys, meee er ee Oma Moran: dail DICCemme MN MeT de. irene hs ad ihe! ei eect ly bs fadeane ex:
) PAGE
154
iS) O S
to ios) Oe
to on NI
20 Contents.
THe WiLp SHEEP OF THE SIERRA......... John Mutr. Illustrations, after sketches by the author: Head of Rocky Mountain Wild Sheep— Head of the Merino
Ram (Domestic) —The Water-ousel . =: . 2 6 James GC Bearas AVHeeding-croud 9. 9.9. = - do cape sta tay gh timate ete cle eh tte COPA OAC IUD Snow-Bound on Mount Shasta— lanes over a Preci-
pice — Indians Hunting Wild Sheep. . . . . . . . . John W. Bolles. Williamson Spruce Tree. . . oye ag Bee tea ey de eRe RSI GA OTe Jona Sierras HOreStes sc) & fly es ia ee ee omasmVarage Crossinpva Canonsieamia . = «| © nen ewes] memGeo7ce/ nmessmuire
(DHE ANTELOPE... 0.0.0... 5 1. «st » Georee Bara Grammer
salle pleGeleiaee siya sues Vs. Hl See ts, Seema = eat ee GeorgeGa0sar.
A NiwsK=Ox VEfuNT. 2 3. % : . Frederick Schwatka.
Illustrations: Head of ee Ox Heed of Mase Cow. . . James C. Bear. From sketches by the author: Parseneuk in a Tight
Place—On the Tral— At Bay. ......... George Inness, Jr. AnvEsquimo x Campi ie. .5. 008 1. a ce aeemeee ce sas Borer ee atte epee I Ty age
PS EL.
Tue Primitive FisH-Hook......... . . Barnet Phillips. Illustrations: Stone Fish-gorge—Bricole (two cuts)— Double Hook — Prehistoric Forms — Sharpened Needle used in France—Bronze Fish-hooks— Deuble Hook, barbed —Alaskan Halibut-hook (two cuts)— Russian Fish-hook— Artificial Stone
Shiimpyey se CMCC crake wear LS Wah, An Alaskan Fish- ackion seeige 6 a Gn es Se aa ee eaaicesm aeons
Shell-hooks (five cuts).
Maal piece ects hE Seb. ne cs iis vos Se a, hee en gr
PAGE
280
Sue
337
Contents.
Trout-FisHiInG iV THE RanGELEY Lakes. . Edward Seymour.
Illustrations : The Junction of Rangeley and Kennebago — Allerton Lodge — Stony Batter—Cleft Rock . Camp Kennebago — Upper Dam .
Experiment in Natural Philosophy — Catching a Pave: pounder — Spirit of Mooselucmaguntic—* Matching” a Seven-pound Trout — Breaking Camp
Head of Trout . :
The Dam on Rangeley Stream
The Net Result . Pape eeineies “vee 33
Lakes and Head Waters a ie Androscoggin and Kennebec — Hic Jacet.
IBUACK. BASS “RISHING 5 0). on. ae fms Illustrations: Large-mouthed Black Bass — Small
mouthed Black Bass Near the River . Luke . Bae The Professor Tandiie: a Tpeable = Ae dest “Still Fisher”
. Thomas Moran. pies 3 IK Sa IEF, The Interior of the Camp — Telling Fish-stories . . Keninies S. Reinhart.
. W. L. Sheppard. . J. Ff, Runge.
. WW. FH. Gibson.
. Roger Riordan.
A. Henshall.
. £. R. Copeland. . Thomas Moran.
. Joseph Fennell,
ML COCR:
In THE Haunts oF Bream AND Bass (Poem). Maurice Thompson.
SALMON-FISHING .... . ae A. G- Wilkinson.
Illustrations: On the @cabenk = The Restigouthe a Matapediac Rivers —Valley of the Matapediac — In the Harbor of St. John — A Canadian Fishing River — Quebec from the River— A Memory of Quebec —A Half-breed Netting Salmon — River Craft on the St. Lawrence . eo at Saute) ek fut Megat aac
Scotch Poacher — Gaffing at Big Salmon Hole — The Philosophical Angler— Our English Friend — The Strategic Angler — My First Salmon — The Patient Angler — An Irate Angler — The Countess of Duf- ferin Pool — Part of the Fun — Equal to the Emer- gency —* A Little o’ yer Fly-ile’”—Late to Dinner — One Way Fish are Lost . :
Percé Rock, South of Gaspé Basin — Falls at ae Narrows of York River
Percé Rock
Misfortune .
2A
. Henry Sandhan.
. WL. Sheppard.
. Thomas Moran. . M. J. Burns. Michael Woolf.
ios) “I Ne)
401
22 Contents. PAGE The Camp at Night . Will A. Low. Sparrows . ; . Midelia Bridges. “ Fifty Cents a Hruneeed! : . James C. Beard. The Rise . sh Vee the ee . Walter M. Brackett, Canadian Salmon Riv ers ad Gaspé Basin. STRUPEDM BASS one: fuy oo ee ts ew) te de PKG HE ATE or eee Illustrations: Gosnold’s Island, Cuttyhunk . Anna ness MEL I Goacks: The Club-house and Stands . . Charles A. Vanderhoof. On the Island . ita . Thomas Moran. On the Way to the Stands — r be L vali Honea at Gay Head she ae . John W. Bolles. Fishing from the a onlsy . WW. Taber. Back from the Beach — Tail-piece . : 12 EL Ss Church: Along the Chiff— On the Beach — Along Shore: : . KR. Swain Gifford. Indian Head . A, con . Aug. Will. The Edge of the Cliffs . : Charles S. Reinhart. Crab f Roger Riordan. Basket Fish . . James C. Beard. Montauk Light . . Walter Paris. Montauk (two cuts) . 3 . £. Hopkinson Smith. A Good Catch — Striped Base or Rock Fig Fish- ing A. D. 1496. PORPOISE-SHOOTING. .... cy ws » sheherles (6. Ward. ate Illustrations: Cape Blomidon sas Sue . Henry Sandhan. Sebatis Beaching the Canoe —The Camp at Indian Beach — Trying out Blubber — Spearing a Porpoise —Taking a Porpoise Aboard — Shooting a Porpoise —Sebatis Adrift . ‘ : _ MM. J. Burns. A Porpoise Diving, from a ae h oF the Biinion : 5 . Dan Beara. On the Way to the Eddies . Wee: ge W. Edwards. Tail-piece . R. Swain Gifford. THe MicuiGan GRayLInc. . Thaddeus Norris. 493
Illustrations: The Michigan ce View on the Manistee . . : On the Manistee — Sweepers in the “Manistee ; Tail-piece. Engraved direct from nature .
. James C. Beard. . Thomas Moran.
_ IV. Mackay Laffan.
. Elbridge Kingsley.
SE ——— =
Contents. 22
PAGE
SEA-TROUT PIBHING |. 4. etn A. R. Macdonough. 507 Illustrations; Turning a Rapid — Mating a Peoitage = The Lake Camp—A_ Pool—The Outlet — Tail-
jle@e) 4 Ee fee eae clase eR owt cc Win Lire SHED DOM Ms Long Sault Rapid a en eee Deere MR ak | cise «LL EMEY. SANRNOM. acim ae wer syle sts ai eae nae a Crea AI veto VILE Ld: Low, Our Skippere med wae ee pee anes ny eels. I. Chase, |iosoneyyendal Wyoyiiayel | GG 5 ep ce jo enh oe Jel oh wo ne ISCO (Exit The Custom-house, Quebec . . . . eee eels, Lloprinsarm Smt.
Map of Some Sea-trout Waters — Ruaning the Lachine Rapids—En Route—Clay Bank and Rapids— Cleaning for a Camp— The Home Camp — Getting Ready for Breakfast — Running a Rapid.
din HALCYON, IN CANADA: 4 4-66’ . Fohn Burroughs. 541 ee On ne St. Taieece ome Citadel at ‘aleche — A Canadian Interior . . . . Henry Sandham. Pane Kingbird. ae . . + Fannie £. Gifford. On the Way to the River — Atene ie Hineeon . . . Mary Hallock Foote.
Lake Memphremagog — In the Thousand Islands.
AMONG THE THOUSAND IsLanps ......... Howard Pyle. 573 Illustrations : Bagle's™ headin 5 \: . . . Hrank B. Mayer. Inlet to the Lake — Head of Creek and ten Sone . . . Thomas Moran. Flowers from Iron Spring. . . : . . . . Helena de Kay. The Devil’s Oven — Dock w rhere ‘the § Steamer af a was Burned Gs als. ; P : SG CLE ere aie General View from Bluft feand Ries Crate A Fishing Party — Bonnie Castle... . . ane Jee On Dauiison:
Ruins of the Old Fort —Camping Out— C dokine a Camp Dinner — Catching a Muskalonge— Spearing BeISN INewel Baye Wie ala! hem ag suits eerie LAO TCI IE IP /e
4 Witham Mitchell. 597 ( Laurence D. Alexander. 601
Tue Sperry Bampoo Rop .
On ‘THE INVENTION OF THE REEL. .....A/fred M. Mayer. 603
RELATION BETWEEN THE WEIGHT AND LENGTH GFABROOK-TROUT o0.0%% +7. PME sine Oe lod eson Elis. 605
24 Contents.
Some AMERICAN SportinG Docs ....Wielliam M. Tileston.
Illustrations: Greyhound — Deer-hound
. Rabbit-hunting with Beagles
Fox-hunting in the South . :
Red Irish Setter— Black-and-White Seite: Condon Setter— Head of Pointer — Black-and-White Pointer — Liver-and-White Pointer — Cocker Spaniels — Irish Water-spaniel .
Retrieving . ; ce
Breaking Young Does Do n 6 hares :
Tail-piece . iba Sari veers
Pointers of Fifty years ago Ground Plan, Front Elevation, and Side View of Kennel.
Edward Laverack —
NortH AMERICAN GROUSE. Illustrations: Grouse in Field — Flushing a Covey of Pinnated Grouse ehrielsctens Ease The Drumming-log — A Crotite Family — Making themselves at Home — The Fifteenth of August on the Prairie — Grouse on Nest — Tail-piece . April-fool A ‘Twitch-up — The Covate. Eien. Across the Path . A Prairie Minuet . The Gilhe Boy .
AL A . Abbott H. Thayer. The Meet at the ‘‘ Harp and Eagle”. . . . . J. Wordsworth Thompson. . John W. Bolles. . W. L. Sheppard.
. J. fF. Runge. Sy SOLAS
. James C. Beard. . Theodore Robinson.
._Charles Ek. Whitehead.
Fidelia Bridges.
. James C. Beard. . Alfred Kappes.
. John W. Bolles.
. Sol. Lytinge. . H. W. Herrick. . James E. Kelly.
Bog White, THE GAME Birp or America. . Alfred M. Mayer.
Illustrations: European Gray Partridges—‘ Bob White !” — White Bob White — California Valley Partridge or Quail—Bob White and European Quail — Mrs. Bob White and Family — European Red- aie Partridges .
. James C. Beard.
a
FEATHERED GAMsE
PAGE
615,
639:
663.
Contents.
Steady, there! To-ho!... - ee oe Sean pe ee ee) Laer: en icccm reas Lege wie Maa ee bth hve soe, 1. Drake,
Bob White Egg (from the collection of H. B. Bailey).
THe AMERICAN Woopcock ..... . . George Lird Grinnell.
Illustrations: Woodcock and Young. . . A aed OES CaM Deara.
Egg of Woodcock (from the collection of H. B. Bailey).
DMIBE-SHOOTING .. <foci hs Je 45. a. George Bird Grinnell. Illustrations: A Wilson’s Snipe Family. . . Seem aiies GO. Beara: Egg of Wilson’s Snipe (from the collection cE lal Bailey). FIELD Sports IN MINNESOTA... . . Charles A. Zimmerman.
Illustrations, from sketches by the author: A Close Shot — A Side Shot — Bonded Goods in Transit— A “ Bond” in Wet Weather—A Cold Morning—The Bridge
Stand —Goose-shooting from Stubble... .... . . A. B. Frost. A Tight Shell—Stopping an Incomer— Wild Geese — Winall) 1eks! tvs) i) ri at se eCOLEZ A. L170. Kandiyohi Pass— Canvas- Heat And Red Hees Goose I ECOVSW Ae ea eta ao) 4s 3, 2 eee eee Chanlecs Aeem meray. CANVAS-BACK AND TERRAPIN ........ W. Mackay Laffan. Illustrations: At the Club in Colonial Days. . . Ee for trreGe Ds, ALQVER:
Diving for Celery (Two cuts) —The Nefarious Pot- hunter—Our Quarters— Rowing Down to the Blind —Blind at Biddison’s Point—Over the Decoys— Joe— Interrupted Pilgrims — A Toll of Ducks Coming In— Dividing the Spoils—In the Larder— Posthu- mous Migration—A Terrapin Hunter’s Home—
dercapinvtor (Ubvee wer sega, - 4b > os ey kee ee ae ackay) Lajjan. MitemarGood Day s\WOrk...0 <1 vi).2e bien cate ie Pian Wat 2. Goe,
Aa DAvWiTM THERA S@. 02.5 oth. ao ayrea MM. Mayer. Illustrations: Male and Female Rail. ....... . . James C. Beard. ACPusher——Watleshooting, =<. 129.) seas --- Seeies aie w/OSCDA LL ennell.
Egg of the Carolina Rail. (From the collection of H. B. Bailey.)
PAGE
685
695
795
NI to OV
NI on le)
26 Contents.
PAGE
SEM C SOM AGON Westen ten re eke Alfred M. Mayer. 765
Illustrations: Mechanism of the iach. oceHe German Wheel-lock—Spanish Flint-lock— Manton Flint-lock — Lefaucheux’s Breech-loader — Parts of a Gun—Section of Hammerless Breech-action— Patent Treble Wedge-fast Gun— Parts of an Ordi- nary Bar-lock —Stanton’s Rebounding Lock— Ham- merless Gun—Breech and Part of the Fore-end of Sneider Hammerless Gun—Sneider’s Double-grip Top- lever Gun—Three-twist Barrel— Four-twist Barrel —Two Spirals Welded Together in the Middle — Stamp of London Gunmakers Company —Stamp of the Birmingham Proof-house.
Camps AND TRAMpPS ABOUT KTAADN
Illustrations: Cross Section of Camp — Ground Plan of Camp— A Jumper may reg eos se oes : From studies by F. E. Church: Night View of the Camp — Ktaadn, from the South Shore — The Trav- eler— Wood Interior on Mount Turner—A View in the Great Basin. From studies by H. W. Robbins: The Missing Link— East branch of the Penobscot — Ktaadn Lake, from the Slide in the Basin From a study by L. De Forest: Ktaadn from Cress at
OUT VOR DOORS:
Arbor Ilex.
. A. L. Ffolley.
Thomas Moran.
WiestvEmdmofideake 08)... 3 \h syne) (Charles Vanes oar
Tail-piece
How I Kitiep a Bear
A Ficut witH a Trout
. Elbridge Kingsley.
Sor
Charles Dudley Warner. 820
Charles Dudley Warner. 827
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Contents. ZF
PAGE
Flow to) Mount A Birp.......°.... Frederic A. Lucas. 833 Illustrations: Ready for Work— A Taxidermist’s Sanctum —South American Goat-sucker— Argus Pheasant — Great Auk—Scarlet Ibis and Young Crocodile — Young Waterfowl —Owlet — Head of Saiga — A South American Monkey—The Bell Bird — Golden Eagle —A Little Stranger from the Tropics — A
Family of Screech-Owls— Peacock Screen. . . . . . James C. Beard. How the Wing is Wired— Bird, Wrapped. . . . . . /vederic A. Lucas.
BOW-SHO@TING ........... .. +. Maurice Thompson. 854 Illustrations: Stringing the Bow — Drawing the Bow —
ATT OMIM rakes ence oe a ee an ei ee he) pias Sheppard: A Good Target. . . ae - 2 Manme B. Gujord. What You Aimed At — W hen the eae Got There —
A Successful Shot — Thunder-Pumper . . . . . . . . James C. Beard. (CHEsehr Sic SRD Sep at oe it eye amen te //C7t Core Zei00a: A Staid Old Fr AIO CL se ... . .« Llbridge Kingsley.
ua Camp on Indian River On the dee of the Woods — Along the Bay — The Haunt of the Heron. . 7homas Moran,
\Neatainse ioye el Sie > So She SA hoe Be oo eS 6 ALIS fMail-piece sme) e Sig eS oe oe 6 BS 8 POS MMC oP Oe
Bows, Arrows, nad Aceouteiients
Mire BLOW=GUN, 2 274. os st os 2 Adfved Me Mayer: 881
Nees Sees ne ce at ey “eta Rell ae Beanie Date 1-544 OOM
ieee ho hORLG, FUN TER.
By ALFRED M:; MAYER.
Y hunting and fishing the prehistoric man obtained his sub-
sistence, and in these pursuits were his greatest pleasures.
It may then be of interest to the modern sportsman—who, begging his ‘pardon, is himself a good deal of a savage—to know something of this ancient brother hunter and angler, from whom he has inherited his love of sport and his savage instincts.
Thanks to the wonderful discoveries of quite recent days, we can now give the history of man as a hunter and angler from his first known appearance on earth to the present day. We first find him living in the river-valleys of Europe and of this country, his only weapons of the chase being pieces of flint rudely chipped into roughly pointed forms. Thence we track him to the caves in the banks of the rivers, where the fashion of his arms of flint and bone, and his skill in the arts of design and carving, show that he has made a notable step in his progress toward civilization. He is now a fish- erman as well as a hunter. Then we see him as a dweller on the shores of the sea and the borders of the fjords, and the dog first appears as man’s companion. Thence we trace him to the lakes, where he dwells in wooden houses built on piles. He wears woven fabrics as well as skins, cultivates the soil, and has herds. He fashions stone into elegantly shaped tools and weapons, with highly polished cutting edges. Later, he replaces these with bronze implements cast in stone molds. The dog now shares with man the perils and excitement of the chase and the comforts of his dwelling. The pile-dweller builds canoes or dug-outs, which he paddles over the lake, and he angles with spindles of bone and finely shaped barbed hooks of bronze suspended to lines spun of flax.
30 The Prehistoric Hunter.
We will attempt to give mosaics of these primitive hunters and anglers, formed, it is true, out of rather large stones and of few colors; for the pictures have to be made out of what fragments this prehistoric man has left of his habitations, his feasts, his flint, bone, and bronze implements his sketches and his carvings. Some- times, however, the arrangement of these fragments will make an al- most accurate picture of him. We can clothe him in his garments, adjust his crude ornaments, place in his hands the arms of the chase, and see him as he once pursued the noble game which everywhere surrounded him.
Tue Hunter OF THE DRIFT.
Deep below the surface of the gravel-beds in many river-valleys in France, England, and various other parts of the world are found stone axes, spear-heads and knives of flint, rudely chipped into
shape by races of men who were the first hunters of whom we have any record. The records these hunters have left are these stone implements and their own bones, which are found side by side
nen AXE OF ARCH OLITHIC AGE FOUND AT A DEPTH OF TEN FEET IN THE GRAVEL-BEDS OF THE
DILUVIUM AT MOULIN-QUIGNON, NEAR ABBEVIL 1 VALLEY OF THE SOMME— FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALF M. MAYER,
The Prehistoric Hlunter. 21
SPEAR-HEAD FOUND AT SAME PLACE AS AXE—FROM COLLECTION OF ALFRED M. MAYER.
with the bones of the animals they slew, and whose flesh was probably their only food.
These gravel-beds, forming what is called river-drift, are of great age. Lyell is of opinion that the chipped-flint implements and the bones found in the drift of the river Somme, in France, are at least one hundred thousand years old; while others hold that two hundred and fifty thousand years have elapsed since these ancient men hunted with their rude arms such extinct animals as the great Irish elk, the mammoth, the urus, and the cave bear. With their stone axes and flint spears they brought down the noble game, and skinned and cut it up with their flint knives.
The gigantic Irish elk, which stood ten feet in height and carried magnificent antlers which spread eleven feet from tip to tip; the urus, which disappeared in historic times, and which was described by Czesar as ‘‘ nearly equal to the elephant in bulk, but in color, shape, and kind resembling a bull”; the cave bear, longer than our grizzly ; the cave lion; the hyena; a woolly-haired rhinoceros; a hippopota- mus; the mammoth; the aurochs, or bison; the musk-ox; the wild horse; these were the animals hunted by these most ancient of prehistoric men. They have all passed away, except the aurochs, which the Russian Government has saved from extermination by strictly guarding them in the forests of Lithuania, and the musk- ox, which, however, now lives in the arctic regions and is sel- dom seen below the parallel of sixty-eight. The rest are only known to us from their bones, except the mammoth, which has
22 The Prehistoric Flunter.
HI
Nt
\
nn
SKELETON OF THE GREAT IRISH ELK—IN THE NEW YORK MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
been found in the flesh, imbedded in the arctic ice of Siberia, where a few have been preserved by refrigeration during untold ages.
It is not difficult to make a sketch of this ancient hunter. We see him clad in skins. He is armed with a stone axe fastened to a long handle, a long-shafted flint-tipped spear, and a sharp flint knife. Thus equipped, the hunter of the drift set out in pursuit of game which in size and numbers exceeded any now existing. We can imagine a company of these men craftily approaching a herd of aurochs, or wild horses, selecting one for their prey, and then, with the stealthy approach of the tiger, drawing near till with sudden spring they felled the animal to the ground with blows of their tomahawks or thrusts of their lances; or we see them speeding over the snow, giving chase to the huge mammoth, the wild urus, or to the swift elk, till these animals, succumbing to the superior endurance of man to fatigue and hunger, allow the hunters to surround them, and the game falls, pierced with flint lances or stunned with the blows of stone axes.
The Prehistoric Flunter. 33
I here recall the narration of a friend of mine, an honest hunter and trapper of northern Maine. His rifle became useless when far away from his home-camp, and short of food, he came upon the tracks of a large bull-moose. On his snow-shoes he followed these
c=
1
tracks till night, when he slept in the hollow he scooped out
KNIFE FOUND AT SAME PLACE AS AXE AND SPEAR-HEAD — COLLECTION OF ALFRED M. MAYER.
between two fallen trees. At break of day, he was up and speeding on the snow after his game. In the afternoon, he first caught sight of the moose. He had nothing with which to attack the huge beast but a pocket-knife. With this he cut down a sapling birch and tied the knife to it in such manner that the blade could not close upon the handle. He only stopped a moment in the chase to cut down the sapling, trimming it of its branches and tying to it the knife while he was scudding over the snow. Overtaking the moose and using his extemporized lance, he gave him a severe stab in the throat. The bull at once charged him; but the hunter was pre- pared for this, and escaped the danger by quickly stepping behind a tree. After several repetitions of this manoeuvre the moose became exhausted from loss of blood and desperation, and fell at last, a victim to the blade of a pocket-knife in the hands of a man, because he was his superior in endurance.
While he told his story, I pictured to myself the man of the drift armed with a similar weapon in his sharp flint spear, and chasing the great Irish elk over the crust of the snow-clad hills of Europe.
After my friend had slain the moose, he set out in search of a fellow-trapper who would help him carry the meat to camp and share it with him; but before he left the moose he turned him on his back, and with lumps of snow propped up his legs, so
ARROWHEAD FROM KIL- LARNEY, IRELAND—
COLLE > AL- q = - : Eocene that af a storm should occurin. his absence the
Pe]
34 The Prehistoric Hunter.
SPEAR-HEAD FOUND NEAR PONT-LEROY IN THE DILUVIUM OF THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE — FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALFRED M. MAYER.
moose would not be lost to sight in the snow. This is a usual prac- tice with hunters, and it is not improbable that the same plan was practiced by the cave-men; for in one of their sketches of a group of reindeer, three are on their backs. One in particular, with stiffened legs in the air, is not merely a sketch made on the surface of the piece of antler in a reversed position, a fact which is at once evident when we examine the pose of the head, neck, and legs with the draw- ing turned upside down.
We may reasonably suppose that yet another plan of hunting was practiced by these prehistoric men. In the chase of the mam- moth or the aurochs, one of these creatures would sometimes be surrounded by the hunters and driven over the brow of a precipice, an experience which would be likely to suggest the use of pitfalls.
Flint axes, spears, and knives were the only arms of the chase used by the men of the drift, for no arrowhead, nor any kind of fishing implement or harpoon, has been found in the drift. On finding the arrowhead, we infer the use of the bow. This inven- tion does not appear till the period of the cave-dwellers —a, more recent date, yet far removed in time from “Ove ame
NEAR PONT-LEROY
ours. How man, armed only with the lance and the ,,COLLECTION OF
The Prehistoric Hunter. a5
stone tomahawk, could approach near enough to kill the swift-footed animals of the drift period, is explained by the fact that wild animals and birds do not naturally regard man as their enemy till he has taught them differently by attacking and wounding them. How often has the sportsman in the recesses of the Maine woods seen the ruffed grouse, only a few feet distant, walking leisurely across his path; while in cultivated sections of our country he is the most wary of birds, often disappointing the sportsman by springing up before him many yards beyond gun-shot. Also the squirrels, and even the deer, in regions where they have never been molested, do not exhibit that extreme fear of man which is usually attributed to them as part of their nature. It is also to be remembered that during the period of the drift, man must have been few in number compared with the game which he pursued, so that it took a long time before the animals over an extended area became aware that he was an enemy more dangerous than his size and appearance had led them at first to infer.
But as the game became aware of this fact, man had to devise weapons which could be projected from the hunter to the now more wary and more distant game, and the necessity for such weapons led to the invention of the bow and arrow, the sling, the bola, the boom- erang, and the blow-gun.
Even in our own days we have seen the change in the range of fire- arms advance with the increase of wariness in the game of the West. This education of animals in the knowledge of man’s killing power is also especially notable in the difficulty of now approaching the wild turkey, compared with the manner in which it could be killed during the early period of the history of this country.
THe CavE-DWELLING HUNTER AND FISHERMAN.
The men of the drift were sueceeded by the men of the caves,— so called because they used these natural shelters as dwellings. The flint and bone implements of these men, and the relics of their feasts, are found in the caves of Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Eng- land; but especially notable are the caves of the valleys of the rivers Dordogne and Vézére, in France.
36 The Prehistoric Hunter.
In the hardened beds of these caves are found flint and bone implements, and sketches and carvings on bones, which show that the men of the caves were much more advanced than the men of the drift. They hunted the same game,’ but it appears that the mam- moth and great elk had now diminished in numbers, and that the herds of reindeer had so increased that this period in the history of prehistoric man is often called the reindeer period.
To the flint axes, spears, and knives of the drift-men, the cave- dweller had added the arrow and bow and fish-harpoons, the heads of which were skillfully and with great labor cut with flint-flakes out of the horn and bone of the reindeer. Some of these harpoons are armed with barbs along their sides; others are formed of lance- shaped pieces of bone, broad and hollow at their bases, showing that these were probably placed on the end of a shaft, and con- nected therewith by a long cord. On striking the fish the head of the harpoon would separate from the shaft, and the fish could be played and landed by the cord.
Mr. Phillips has shown, in his chapter on “The Primitive Fish- hook,” that the cavé-dwellers probably used a flint-flake, or splinter, ina manner similar to the baited needle used in these days in ‘ snig- gling” for eels and pike. A similar angling implement, made of bone, has been found among the relics of the pile-dwellers in the Swiss lakes, and our Indians of Frenchman’s Bay, Maine, seem to have used a like angling tool. According to Dr. Keller (‘‘ Lake- dwellings of Switzerland and other parts of Europe”), the sniggler yet survives in Switzerland, where it is used for catching wild ducks.
The fish-bones and carvings found in the caves show that their inhabitants speared or caught the salmon, trout, pike, and carp.
Though whistles made of the foot-bone of the reindeer, with a hole in one side near the bottom of the cavity, have been found in the caves, yet they were not used as dog-calls, for the relics of the caves do not show that they had this animal as assistant in the chase and companion and & protector. By blowing into one of these whistles,
PREHISTORIC CARVING IN IVORY.
a sound is produced that can be heard at a considerable distance. ‘‘ How many thousands of years,” says Dr. Rau, in his “ Early Man in Europe,” ‘may have elapsed since the sharp call of those whistles rallied the savage hunters when they were following the track of the reindeer or the horse !”
In their habits of life, the cave-dwellers resembled the
FISH-SPEARS, LA
to the Esquimos does not stop here. They are also alike in having similarly formed flint and bone implements, and in their peculiar talent for carving with flint-flakes on stone and bone.
The cave-men were clad in furs. These they cut into shape with flint knives, and made into garments by sewing them together with the sinews of reindeer, threaded on bone needles. On their hands and arms they wore long fur gloves, to protect them from the intense cold.
The Prehistoric Hunter.
They left the remains of their feasts around them in their caves. They could not have lived amidst such refuse except in an arctic climate; and this supposition is confirmed by the fact that the bones of the musk-ox and eee: reindeer which are found in these caves be- KENTS' CAVERN. long to animals which now live only within or quite near the arctic circle. That a cold climate then existed
is also shown from the bones of birds, whose variety also proves that they were expert fowlers. The snowy- owl,—now only found in the cold north,—the arctic willow-grouse, the ptarmigan, the capercailzie, and a species of crane, were the feathered game of these old sportsmen.
In the cave of La Madelaine, in the valley of the Vézéres, has been found a bone lance-head, on which is engraved a flock of birds, presum- ably ducks, as they scud along the water just
before rising on the wing.* But this resemblance of the cave-dwellers
HARPOON- POINT, OF BONE AND
* See “ Reliquize Aquitanics:; of Christy and Lartet,” p. 24, fig. s. NEPHRITE.
38 The Prehistoric Hunter.
Armed with their bows, and lances and arrows tipped with flint, and carrying at their sides poignards of reindeer horn, with beautifully carved handles, the men of the caves set out in pursuit of the urus, the wild horse, and the reindeer; and if such formid- able beasts as the mammoth, the cave-bear, or lion came in their way, they did not hesitate to give them battle. In one of the caves have been found several incisors of the cave-bear and the lion, on which (with flint-flakes) are admirably depicted various denizens of the forest, the stream, and the sea. These teeth are perforated at their roots, and no doubt were once strung in a necklace to adorn some ancient Nimrod, mighty among those who dwelt in caves.
The bones of the larger animals, like the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, are rare in the caves. This is easily accounted for. The hunters, after bringing down such large game, would, after the fatigue and excitement of such a great hunt, make a feast on the spot where the huge victim fell, and cutting up the carcass with their flint knives, they would carry what they could to the caves for their wives and little ones. ‘We can picture to our- selves,” says Mr. Dawkins (“Early Man in Britain”), “the camp around the carcass, and the fires kindled not merely to cook the flesh, but to keep away the beasts of prey attracted by the scent of blood. The tribe assembled around, and the dark trunks of the oaks
or Scotch firs lighted up by the blaze, with hyenas lurking in the
background, are worthy of the brush of a future Rembrandt.”
Tue Hunrer anp FISHERMAN OF THE SEA-SHORE AND THE Fyorp.
The arctic climate in which the men of the river-drift and the cave-dwellers lived slowly gave place to a climate more like that of our own age. During this climatic change, the mammoth, the Irish elk, the great bear and cave-lion disappeared, while the reindeer, musk-ox, chamois and ibex either slowly migrated to arctic regions or moved to alpine heights where they could have the cold suited to their natures.
Man changed his habits with the change of climate. He appears now as a dweller on the shores of the sea and an inhabitant of huts built on piles driven into the bottom of lakes. Living near and on the water, he becomes an angler as well as hunter.
The Prehistoric Funter. 39
Along the shores of the Danish island of Zealand and the fjords of Jutland are found vast deposits of shells, the remains of feasts. Some of these shell-heaps are a thousand feet long and nearly two hundred feet in width. _They are formed of the shells of the oyster, cockle, mussel, and periwinkle. Among these are found the bones of ducks, swans, and geese, of the great penguin, or auk, and of the large grouse known as the capercailzie (7etvao urogallus. ) “This bird, no longer found in Denmark, though still inhabiting the forests of Germany, deserves special mention. In spring it feeds chiefly on the buds of the pine, a kind of tree not growing naturally at present in Denmark, but very common during the stone age, as has been ascertained by the examination of Danish peat bogs. Thus it would seem that the disappearance of the pine from Den- mark caused the capercailzie to leave that country.” Bones of the sparrow are never found in these shell-heaps. (Happy people !)
The ducks, geese, and swans which these fowlers hunted they may have killed in a manner similar to that described, as follows, by Col. W. H. Gilder in “Among the Esquimos with Schwatka” (“Scribner's Monthly,” vol. 22, p. 81):
“A most novel and interesting method of bird-catching is practiced during the spring and early summer, while the ducks and geese are molting and unable to fly. The Esquimo puts his 4y~k—that is, his seal-skin canoe—on his head, like an immense hat, and repairs to the big lake, or the sea-side, where he has seen the helpless birds swimming and feeding in the water. Here he launches his frail bark, and when seated, which is not always accomplished without a ducking, takes his double-bladed oar in his hands, and at once starts in pursuit of the game. Before him, on his £ya’, where he can seize it at the propermoment, lies his duck-spear, together with other implements of the chase. Cautiously approaching the featherless flock, he sometimes gets quite near before his presence is observed; but even then, before he is within striking distance, there is a great spluttering in the water, as the band scatters in every direction, vainly beating the water with the curious looking stumps that soon will wear their plumage and once more do duty as wings. Some dive below the surface and come up a great way off, and always just where you are not looking for them; but as the flock takes alarm, the hunter dashes forward, feeling the necessity for speed rather than for caution. He is soon within fifteen or twenty feet of the struggling mass, and, seizing a curious- looking spear, with three barbs of unequal length, he poises it for a moment in the air, and then hurls it with unerring aim at the devoted bird, impaling it with a sharpened iron or bone spike in the center of the barbs. The handle of the spear is of wood, and floats on the surface of the water, so that the hunter can recover his weapon and the game at his leisure.”
40 The Prehistoric Hunter.
From the existence in these shell-heaps, or ‘ kitchen-middens,” of the bones of the cod, herring, flounder, and eel, we may infer that these fishermen had boats, made like the Esquimo £ya&, of seal- skins; or, more probably, they used dug-outs, hollowed by the action of fire and the cuts of their stone axes and gouges. In these they ventured on the sea to take these fish. They also hunted the stag, the roe, the wild boar, urus, wolf, fox, lynx, beaver, seal, and otter, for the bones of these animals are found in the kitchen-middens, split lengthwise with flint tools, whose marks are seen on them. They thus extracted the marrow from the bones and the brain from the skulls. The bones of the hare are wanting. Perhaps, like the Laplanders of our day, they had superstitious notions concerning this animal which prevented them from slaying him. —
The bones of the animals of the kitchen-middens are gnawed dog-fashion, showing that the dog now first appears as the com- panion of man. He was also man’s victim, for his skull is often found split open so that his brain could be eaten. Let us give these people the credit of supposing that they sacrificed one of their own household only on great ceremonial occasions, as is the case with our Indians.
Tue Hunter anD ANGLER OF THE LAKES.
Far more interesting than the remains in the kitchen-middens are the relics found at the bottom of the lakes of Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. During the winter of 1854, the water in the Swiss lakes sank to a very low level, and gave the dwellers along the shore the opportunity of adding to their lands by building walls along the low water-line. During these constructions at Meilen, on Lake Zurich, stone, bronze, and bone implements and fragments of pottery were brought to light. The tops of piles were also found, and this led to the discovery of the habitations of ancient men. They lived in dwellings built on piles, somewhat after the manner of savages in Venezuela and in some Polynesian and Asiatic Islands. Similar dwellings are inhabited by certain African tribes in Dahomey and in Lake Mohrya. Even in our own country there is a lacustrine village at St. Malo Pass, near Lake Borgne, Louisiana, where dwell Malay fishermen from the Philippine Islands.*
* In “ Harper’s Weekly,” March 31, 1883.
The Prehistoric Hlunter. AI
The houses forming the villages of the pesemmessee
i
European lake-dwellers were constructed of a framework of wood, interwoven with withes and encased in mud. The roofs were thatched, and a hole in the roof let out the smoke, which arose from slabs of stone on which they built their fires. Many of these houses, of rectangular and circular forms, were erected on one large platform, of two or three acres in area, supported by the piles. A narrow causeway, often two thousand yards and more in length, led from the village to the shore, ARROWHPAD FROM PILE-DWELL~
NG IN LAKE BIENNE, SWITZER-
thus giving them protection from hostile tribes 1%4NP—FRom cotLEction oF 5 5 ALFRED M. MAYER.
and from the attacks of ferocious beasts.
In some of the smaller lakes, mounds were formed of sticks, trunks of trees, stones and loam, with piles driven in their midst to give stability to this foundation. The dwellings on these mounds, with their interwoven withes and encasement of mud, must have appeared like huge beaver-houses. Probably the beaver was their first instructor in lacustrine architecture.
From the relics of these people, we can quite accurately reproduce their life. They clothed themselves in skins and fabrics woven of flax, and were armed with axes—no longer roughly chipped, but now handsomely formed and polished—mounted in sockets of elk horn, which were fastened to wooden handles. They carried bows made of yew, and arrows and spears armed with neatly shaped, sharp flints which were fastened to the shafts with asphalt and firm wrappings of the tendons of the stag. It is probable that they were dexterous in the use of the sling. They constructed dug-outs, in which they paddled over the lakes, and angled from them with their bone snigglers, and hooks made of the tusks of the wild boar for the great lake trout and the huge pike. They also fished with nets woven of flax.
During a later period in their history, bronze was introduced, and then their arms became more effective and more elegant in form, although similar to the same weapons previously made of stone and bone. The greatest advance the use of bronze produced was in their angling tools, for their hooks of bronze are nearly as perfect in
42 The Prehistoric Flunter.
form and proportion as those used by the anglers of our own day, as is seen from an inspection of the bronze hook depicted in Mr. Phillips’s chapter on “ The Prehistoric Fish-hook.”
While the aged men, women, and children were employed in forming weapons, canoes, agricultural tools, pottery, or in weaving cloths and nets, the men set out over the causeway,—some to lead their flocks to pasture and guard them from the wolves and bears, while others, taking to the mountains and the dells, hunted the elk, the stag, the urus, the bison, the roe-deer, the wild boar, and the brown bear; while others devoted their time to trapping the fox and the beaver. The hare they did not chase, although they were accom- panied by dogs. Indeed, the dog is now first seen in the history of prehistoric man as a companion, whose friendship, intelligence, and moral qualities were so highly appreciated by these hunters that they would not partake of his flesh. The skull of the dog is found un- broken among the relics at the bottom of the lakes.
“ When evening draws near, smoke begins to rise from the huts, where the women are baking and cooking, for the men who have been hunting in the woods will soon return, armed with spear and bow, and loaded with the game killed by them. Those who have spent the day in fishing guide their boats homeward ; field laborers, returning from the cultivated patches along the shore, are seen to wend their way toward the bridge, driving before them the lowing cattle which were permitted to graze on the land during day-time, and are now to be stabled for the night among the huts, safe from the attacks of wolf and bear.” *
Whence the lake-dwellers came, what language they spoke, and when they first built their lacustrine dwellings, are unanswered ques- tions. We know that men lived on these pile-dwellings many centuries before the discovery of bronze. At some stations, only stone imple- ments are found; at others, bronze and iron arms and tools overlie those of stone, showing that these places were the sites of dwellings during the many ages which must have elapsed from the neolithic, or recent stone age, through the bronze to the iron age.
Among the coins found in the relics of the pile-dwellings at Marin. is one of Claudius, which goes to show that in Switzerland the lake-
* «Barly Man in Europe,” by Charles Rau. A work giving, in the most interesting manner, an account of discoveries relating to prehistoric times.
The Prehistoric Flunter. 43
dwellers were living in their lacustrine villages as late as the first century after Christ; yet neither Caesar nor Pliny mentions these curious dwellings.
The habitations in the eastern lakes seem to belong more to the stone age, while those in the west belong both to the age of stone and of bronze.
Among these bronze implements we find axes, swords, daggers, spear and arrow heads, knives, chisels, sickles, and fish-hooks, which are as well adapted by their forms to their uses as any implements of the period of bronze. With the exception of the cross-bow, which they do not appear to have used, their arms were as _ effective as any which preceded the period when gunpowder introduced entirely different types of weapons.
ui
BANG i GANIE
In pastures, measureless as air, The bison is my noble game; The bounding elk, whose antlers tear The branches, falls before my aim. — 6 ; — Bryant.
DEE BEACK BEAR... va By CHARLES C. WARD.
S
HE black bear ( Ursus A mericanus ) derives its name from its fur, which is a rich, warm, and extremely glossy jet black, except on the muzzle, where, beginning at the mouth, the hair is a fawn color, which deepens into the dark tan color of the face, and ends in rounded spots over each eye. These color-marks and its peculiarly convex facial outline are the distinguishing marks of the species. The tan color becomes, with age, a brownish gray. The largest black bear I ever saw weighed five hundred and twenty-three pounds, and measured six feet and four inches from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail. One of this species seems to possess the power of transforming himself at will into a variety of shapes. When stretched out at length, he appears very long; when in good condition, short and stout; when upright, tall; and when asleep, he looks like a ball of glossy black fur. The black bear of to-day may be termed omnivorous, inasmuch as fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables, fruit, and insects are all eagerly devoured by him. He mates in October, and the period of gestation lasts about one hundred and twenty days. Two to four cubs form a litter. The cubs are always jet black, and not ash color, as some of the older naturalists affirm. If, according to Flourens, the natural life of an animal be five times the period of its growth to maturity, I should think that the black bear's limit was about twenty years. I knew of a cub which increased in size until his fourth year, when he appeared to have arrived at maturity. Many country people and some experienced hunters have seen, as they believe, another species of the black bear, which they name a ranger, or racer. He is described as being a longer, taller, and
4 49
50 The Black Bear.
thinner animal than the black bear proper, extremely savage, and ‘is distinguished by a white star or crescent on his breast. Marvelous tales are related of his ruthless doings, and any act of more than ordinary ferocity and daring, such as the wanton destruction of a large number of sheep, in daylight, in sight of the farm-house, is always attributed to a ranger. It is also said of him that he never hibernates, but prowls about all winter, seeking what he may devour, and keeping the farmers constantly on the alert to protect their stock. I have never had sufficient proof to warrant belief in the existence of a ranger bear, but have occasionally met with specimens of the black bear answering in some points to the above description. For instance, I have seen several black bears with white crescents on their breasts. The truth probably is that at times, during mild winters, a stray black bear may be seen prowling about, when, in accordance with all accepted ideas on the subject, he should be fast asleep. This probable fact, and the variation in size and form common to all animals, no doubt account for the popular belief in the existence of the ranger bear.
The time when the black bear selects the den in which his long winter nap is taken depends on the openness or severity of the season. In any season, he is seldom met abroad after the first of December, and he is not seen again until the first warm days of March. He does not seem particular as to the character of his den, provided it shields him from the inclemency of the weather. A retreat dug by his powerful claws under the roots of a windfall, a rocky cave on the hill-side, or a hollow log, if he can find one large enough to admit him, will serve for a winter home. When he is ready to hibernate, he is in fine condition and his fur is at its best. When he comes out in the spring, he is in a sorry condition, and is seldom molested unless he makes himself troublesome to farmers. Numer- ous, and curious beyond belief, have been the theories and explana- tions offered by naturalists to account for the suspension of the functions of nature during hibernation. An Indian whom I have found to be trustworthy has often called my attention to fir-trees which had been freshly stripped of their bark, to a distance of five or six feet from the ground, and has told me that it was the work of bears that were after the balsam, large quantities of which, according to the Indian, they eat every autumn before going into their dens.
HEAD OF BLACK BEAR (URSUS AMERICANUS).
DRAWN BY JAMES C. BEARD, AFTER A SKETCH BY CHARLES C. WARD.
The Black Bear. 53
It was his theory that the balsam prevented bodily waste, and that when the bears came out in the spring they dug up and ate large quantities of a root which had the effect of restoring bodily functions that had been suspended during the period of hibernation. The den is sometimes revealed by a small opening over the bear’s place of concealment, where the snow has been melted by his breath. When efforts are made to dislodge him, by making a fire of boughs and moss at the entrance to his den, he will attempt to trample the fire out, and often succeeds. He has, however, a natural dread of fire, and at the first signs of a forest-fire becomes greatly alarmed, and flies to the open clearings and roadways. | once passed on horseback through a forest-fire which was burning on each side of the road, and most of the distance I was accompanied by a large black bear, that was fol- lowing that avenue of escape.
It would seem improbable that the young of the black bear were liable to fall a prey to the fox and black cat, or fisher, yet such is the fact. This happens, of course, when the cubs are very young and incapable of following their dam in her search for food. The black cat is the most successful cub-slayer. The fox, notwithstanding his proverbial sagacity, is often surprised by the return of the bear, and is killed before he can escape from the den. An Indian hunter, who knew of two litters of cubs which he intended to capture as soon as they were old enough to be taken from their dam, was anticipated in one case by a black cat, and in the other by a fox. The latter paid the penalty of his adventure with his life, and was found in the den literally torn into shreds by the furious bear. The fox had killed one of the cubs, when the old bear surprised and dispatched him, and went off with the two remaining cubs. The Indian overtook and slew her and captured the cubs. Upon another occasion, he was not so fortunate. Stimulated by the large price offered by the officers of a garrison town fora pair of live cubs, he was indefatigable in his endeavors to find a den. One day, when accompanied by his little son, a boy of ten, he discovered unmistakable traces of a bear's den, near the top of a hill strewn with granite bowlders, and almost impassable from the number of fallen pines. One old pine had fallen uphill, and its upreared roots, with the soil clinging to them, formed, with a very large rock, a triangular space into which the snow had drifted to a depth of ten or twelve feet. The Indian was about to
4A
54 The Black Bear.
pass on, when he detected the whining of bear-cubs. By making a dcétour, he reached a place on a level with the bottom of the bowlder, and there saw the tracks of an old bear, leading directly into the center of the space between the tree-root and the bowlder. The old bear, in her comings and goings, had tunneled a passage under the snow-drift. Getting down on his hands and knees, the Indian, with his knife held between his teeth, crept, bear fashion, into the tunnel. After entering several feet, he found the usual bear device —a path branching off in two directions. | While pondering what to do under such circumstances, a warning cry came from his little son, who was perched on the top of the bowlder, and the next instant the old bear rushed into the tunnel and came into violent contact with the Indian, the shock causing the tunnel to cave in. The Indian, after dealing the bear one blow, lost his knife in the snow, and seized the bear with his hands; but she proved too strong for him, and was the first to struggle out of the drift, when, unfortunately, she met the little Indian boy, who had climbed down to his father’s rescue. He received a tremendous blow on the thigh from the bear’s paw as she passed, which crippled him for life. Four days afterward the Indian, determined to avenge the injury of his son by slaying the old bear, returned to the den and discovered her lying dead upon the snow in front of the bowlder: his one blow had gone home, and the poor creature had crawled back to her young to die. The Indian dug away the snow and found three cubs that were dead or dying.
The principal strongholds of the black bear at the present day are the great forests of Maine and New Brunswick. My own obser- vation and the reports of farmers lead me to think that Bruin is growing more carnivorous and discontented with a diet of herbs Assuredly, he is growing bolder. He is also developing a propen- sity to destroy more than he can eat, and it is not improbable that his posterity may cease to be frugi-carnivorous. It is fortunate that an animal of the strength and ferocity which he displays when aroused seldom attacks man. The formation of his powerful jaws and terrible canine teeth are well adapted to seize and hold his prey, and his molars are strong enough to crush the bones of an ox. His great strength, however, lies in his fore-arms and paws. His mode of attacking his prey is not to seize it with his teeth, but to strike terrific blows with his fore-paw.
The Black Bear. 5S
Bruin’s weakness is for pork, and to obtain it he will run any risk. When the farmers, after suffering severe losses at his hands, become unusually alert, he retires to the depths of the forest and
solaces himself with a young moose,
>
SKULL OF BLACK BEAR.
caribou, or deer. He seldom or never attacks a full-grown moose, but traces of desperate encounters, in which the cow-moose has battled for her offspring, are frequently met with in the woods. The average value of a bear, including the bounty, is twenty dollars. This being the case, it may appear sur- prising that larger numbers are not taken. But the black bear com- bines extreme cunning with great sagacity, and every year he seems
‘to be getting more on his guard, and suspicious of all devices in-
tended for his capture. Large, full-grown animals are seldom killed. A black bear skin, taken at the proper season, is not excelled by any other kind of fur. If prop- erly dressed, it possesses great softness and a gloss peculiar to itself. The fur is highly esteemed in Europe, where it is used for
sleigh and carriage robes and coat linings and trimmings. It is also in much request ae ae
in England and other parts of Europe, for the shakos of certain infantry regiments and the housings and trappings of cavalry.
In the autumn of 1879, in the Red Rock district, Province of New Brunswick, eighteen bears were killed, only two of which had arrived at maturity ; some of them were only yearlings. Only ten or twelve settlers and their families inhabit the district, and during that year seventy-three head of stock, including sheep, hogs, and horned cattle, were destroyed by bears. This dis- trict, situated on the extreme outskirts of civilization, is the bear’s paradise. The houses in most cases are built of logs, and the occupants are a stalwart, simple race, whose manners and customs carry you back to the frontier life of half a century HIND-PAWS. ago. They are hospitable to a degree not
56 The Black Bear.
often met with at the present day. The farms on which they live are clearings in the primeval forests. During a visit to this district, I had the luck, unexpectedly, to see Bruin at home in one of his wild- est retreats. North of the settlement a range of rocky hills rises perpendicularly from the shores of a forest lake. The hills are strewn with gigantic bowlders, over which the hunter must pick his way with no little difficulty and danger. But by that expert climber, the black bear, such rugged ground is easily traversed. Our tramp had been a long one, and on our return my Indian guide proposed that we should cross the Red Rock hills, and thus save much time, Great black clouds threatened an autumn storm. After much hard climbing, we reached a place where the whole hill-side seemed riven apart. On every side we were surrounded by precipices and deep
gulches, partly filled with great bowlders and sharp fragments of | rocks. Although the dangers were not of Alpine magnitude, they might just as well have been, inasmuch as they were greater than we had any means of overcoming. In attempting to find a way out, we clambered along a ledge of rocks that afforded only insecure footing, and gradually diminished in width until all farther progress in that direction became impracticable. Retracing our steps, almost in despair of finding an outlet, we came to a fissure in the cliff just wide enough to admit one at a time. Fora distance of twenty feet we were able to walk in an upright position; then the passage narrowed rapidly, and we had to crawl upon our hands and knees in almost perfect darkness. Presently we came to a place where the opening was so low that, if one attempted to straighten up, his back came in contact with a solid wall of rock; thence the passage took a sharp downward pitch, at the bottom of which we found a space sufficiently large to permit us to regain an upright position. The darkness was now complete, and, not daring to move for fear of getting a fall, I thought it prudent to return to the ledge, and imparted my intention to the guide. I received no reply, and called out in a louder voice. To my surprise, the answer came in a muffled tone from a locality apparently directly under me. By this time my eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and I detected a bluish, glimmering light on the rocky wall overhead, proceeding from a distant cor- ner of the space in which I stood. Creeping to the source of the light, I found a wedge-like opening, decreasing in
The Black Bear. 57
BEAR AND CUBS.
width as it descended. While debating with myself what to do next, the guide’s head appeared at the bottom of the opening. He called to me to come down. Entering in a recumbent position, feet foremost, I slipped down and discovered that the passage led into another chamber-like space, with the difference that it was in open daylight, the sky being visible beyond an overhanging ledge of rocks. The rocky platform was strewn with bones, and plentifully sprinkled with porcupine quills. The information of the guide was not needed to convince me that we were in the ante-chamber of a bear’s den, and that the room above was the den proper. It seems almost incredible that the black bear should permit such an offensive animal as the porcupine to occupy the same den with him, but there is good reason to believe that he sometimes does so. Although it was too early in the season for Bruin to seek permanent winter quarters, I did not feel at all certain that he might not pay occasional visits to his den, and urged the guide to get out of the place as soon as possible. As there was likely to be more than one entrance to the den, we looked about us and discovered that, by climbing over a jutting ledge of rock, we should be able to get upon a lower and
53 The Black Bear.
ars ih
“
holes NNT y i ses. &,,
THE INDIAN.
much more extensive plateau of rock immediately under the den. We reached the platform safely, and, selecting a spot where we were sheltered and concealed by bowlders, we called a halt and lighted our pipes. A slight tap on the shoulder caused me to turn around, and, looking in the direction indicated by the guide, I saw a large bear seated on his haunches and looking intently at something. Farther away I saw another bear, crossing a chasm on an old pine- log that bridged it, and which afterward helped us out of our dilemma. Another tap on the shouider, and another surprise in store for me; for, up the hill-side, above the den, sat another bear with his head partly turned to one side, and looking in an inquiring manner at the two bears below him. By this time the one on the log had nearly crossed over, and the one sitting on his haunches growled frightfully. We were not fifty yards from him, and he might at any moment de- tect our presence; fortunately, we were well to leeward of him. We had been exploring a stream connecting a string of lakes, to exam-
The Black Bear. 59
ine a very extensive and perfect beaver-dam, and, not expecting to hunt, had left our rifles at the camp. All I had to fight with was a solid sketch-book, while, by some strange fatality, the Indian had in our climb even lost his knife out of its sheath. I was looking
THE BEAR PASS,
about for some way of escape, when I noticed that the bear on the hill-side had vanished, and the one that crossed over on the log had moved toward the one sitting on his haunches. They sat about ten feet apart, and made the strangest noise | ever heard. Commencing with the sniff peculiar to the bear, the noise was prolonged into a deep, guttural growl, accompanied by a peculiar champing of the jaws. At that moment, a large stone, evidently dislodged by the bear that had vanished from the hill-side, came tumbling down the ravine. It struck on the solid ledge on which we were crouching, and broke into pieces. Instinctively looking up, in apprehension that the fragment might be the advance guard of an avalanche, we lost sight of the two bears, and never saw them again. Alarmed by
60 The Black Bear.
AFTER HONEY.
the falling stone, they had swiftly and stealthily gone away. The guide said that the two bears which were on the ledge with us were males, and that, as it was the pairing season, the growling we were. treated to was merely the preliminary of a terrible fight. During the pairing season, the males congregate in bands and scour the forest, growling, snarling, and fighting. On such occasions, all pru- dent hunters avoid an encounter with them. The females are savage when suckling their young, and will fight to the death in their pro- tection. At all other seasons, both males and females avoid a meet- ing with human beings, but if attacked and wounded, or brought to bay, the black bear is a foe to be dreaded. Their keen scent and acute hearing enable them to detect the approach of an enemy, and to keep out of his way.
Sometimes the black bear is hunted with dogs trained for the purpose. The dogs are not taught to seize the game, but to nip his heels, yelp around him, and retard his progress until the hunters come up and dispatch him with their rifles. Common yelping curs pos- sessed of the requisite pluck are best adapted for the purpose. Large dogs with sufficient courage to seize a bear would have but a small chance with him, for he could disable them with one blow of his powerful paw. Another way of hunting is to track Bruin to his
The Black Bear. 61
winter den, and either smoke or dig him out, when he may be dis- patched by a blow on the head with the poll of an ax as he struggles out. Various kinds of traps, set-guns, and dead-falls are also em- ployed against him. A very efficient means of capture is a steel trap, with double springs so powerful that a lever is necessary in setting it.
A DEAD-FALL TRAP.
The trap is placed in runs or pathways known to be frequented by bears, and concealed, care being taken not to handle the trap. A stout chain, with a grapnel or a large block of wood attached, is fast- ened to the trap. Even with this an old bear often manages to escape altogether, his sagacity teaching him to return and liberate the grapnel or block whenever it catches upon anything and checks him. He dies eventually, of course, if unable to free himself from the trap, but in some cases he has been known to gnaw off a part of his paw and leave it in the trap. This mode of capture is open to the charge of cruelty, as the bear is usually caught by a paw, and sometimes by the snout, and the injury not being immediately fatal, the animal may die a lingering death of great agony. The set-gun, if properly arranged, kills the bear instantly. The gun is placed in a horizontal position, about on a level with a bear’s height; one end of a cord is fastened to the trigger and brought forward in such a way that when
62 The Black Bear.
the bait is attached to the other end of the cord it hangs over the muzzle of the gun, and the least pull on the bait discharges the gun, which is protected from the weather by a screen of bark. The ordi- nary dead-fall consists of a number of stout poles driven in the ground in the form of a U. In front of the opening is placed a heavy log. The bait is suspended from a string within the inclos- ure so that it will be necessary for the bear to place his fore legs over the log in order to reach it. The string has connection with a piece of wood which props up the dead-fall, consisting of a heavy log of beech or birch timber weighted with other logs. When the bear pulls at the bait, the prop is drawn from under the heavy timber, which falls across his back. It sometimes happens that the hunter, to his discomfort, finds that his dead-fall has proved fatal to one of his own or his neighbor's cattle.
In the autumn, bear-hunters take advantage of Bruin’s known partiality for raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, and set traps and dead-falls in the approaches to the patches. He also frequents the beech-forests, and his expertness as a climber enables him to obtain the rich mast, on which he grows corpulent. In the spring, when he first comes from his win- ter quarters, he feasts upon the ants and grubs he discovers by industrious diggin
reine, or by turn- ing over decayed logs. Later in the season, when the herrings and alewives run up the streams to spawn, Bruin turns fisherman, and captures the fish by inter- cepting them as they pass over shallow places, and scooping them out with his paws. His taste for pork and molasses and such delicacies often encourages him to visit the camps of lumbermen, where he sometimes makes sad havoc.
If captured when very young and carefully trained, the black bear becomes tame, but I doubt if he ought to be trusted as a pet. My own efforts to tame young bears have not always proved successful. Tt is unpleasant, on returning from a journey, to find your house sur- rounded by the neighbors armed with old muskets and _ pitchforks, the windows broken, the gardens trodden down, your family impris-
The Black Bear. 62
SACKING A LUMBER CAMP.
oned in the dining-room, and to be told by your man-servant, who has prudently kept outside of the house, that the pet bear, in a state of ferocity, is in possession. Nevertheless, if one is willing to endure that sort of thing, a vast amount of amusement can be got out of a tame bear.
I really think that Bruin possesses the sense of humor ; at all events, his actions point that way, and there is no doubt that he is extremely cunning and observing. I once had an English friend visiting me, who played the flute. He was in the habit of marching up and down, while playing, near a tame bear I had at the time. The bear had a piece of stick about two feet long, which he tossed about for amusement. After a time, he came to handle the stick very much as my friend did his flute. This annoyed my sensitive friend, and in revenge he teased the bear with uncouth noises. Bruin sniffed and whined, and waited his opportunity for delivering a
64 The Black Bear.
tremendous blow with his paw at his enemy, whose tall hat was knocked completely over his eyes. He escaped being scalped by dropping flat and rolling out of the reach of the bear. This bear spent much of his time in the tree to which he was chained, and when climbing usually got his chain twisted over and under the branches in a most intricate manner, but never failed to take out every turn as he descended. A friend, who owned a tame bear, told me that, for a long time, he could not account for the mysterious way in which the poultry disappeared. Observing, at different times, a good many feathers around Bruin’s pole, he began to suspect that the bear was the culprit. Close watching confirmed his suspicions. When Bruin thought he was unobserved, he would seize any unfort- unate hen or chicken within his reach and devour it; but if any one approached before he could complete the meal, he would sit upon his prey until the danger of discovery had passed. He was betrayed, at last, by the cackling of an old hen that he had failed to silence.
BEAR-HUNTING IN THE SOUTH.
By JAMES GORDON.
ROM my youth, bear-hunting has been to me a fascinating sport, and, after an experience of more than thirty years in all kinds of Southern sports, during which I have seldom
failed to spend a portion of the winter camp-hunting in the Missis- sippi bottom, I think I may venture to relate one of my bear-hunts, and give the inexperienced sportsman some idea of the characteris- tics of the bear.
We had pitched our tent on the banks of a beautiful sheet of water, one of the chain of lakes that drains the swamps of Tunica County, Mississippi, when the Father of Waters inundates the val- leys. Through these lakes and the bayous leading from them the annual overflows are carried off into the Coldwater, Tallahatchie, and Sunflower rivers, thence into the Yazoo, and back into the Mississipp1.
Besides old Hannibal, a negro servant, there were only four of us in camp. One was a professional hunter, two were cotton-pl.nt- ers and experienced hunters—not simply sportsmen who occasion- ally spent a day of recreation in quail-shooting over a brace of pointers, but hunters who had studied wood-craft until it seemed like instinct to thread their way through the wilderness by day or night, without other compass than the moss on the north side of the trees.
When a novice in wood-craft joins a party of old hunters, he is often subjected to many a practical joke ; although, at the same time, old hunters are very generous in imparting information or in rescu- ing him from danger. On this occasion, the target of our jokes was James Rogers, a fair-haired Northerner from “old Long Island's sea- girt shore,” an enthusiastic sportsman, a crack shot at pigeons, but
5 6s
66 Bear-Hunting wn the South.
in our section almost as helpless as a babe,—the opposite, in every respect, of our backwoods hunter, whose pen-portrait I will endeavor to give. Living by hunting and trapping from boyhood, an unedu- cated frontiersman, he was the deaz zdeal of a hunter—clad in buck- skin hunting-shirt and leggins, with an otter-skin cap on his head and a’coon-skin pouch in which he carried his ammunition swung across his shoulders, and a short rifle in his hand; about five feet ten inches tall, round-bodied, but with no surplus flesh, and with muscles like corded steel. His hair was steel gray and inclined to curl where it fell below the temples. His features were regular, and by long exposure to sun, rain, and miasma were wrinkled and bronzed; but, clear and brilliant through a complexion like a tanned alligator-skin, sparkled a pair of merry blue eyes that indicated a soul as gay and free as the wild woods he loved so well. All through the swamps he was known as ‘‘Old Asa, the bear-hunter.” The two planters were Major Duncan and myself.
When old Asa sounded his horn, about twenty-five dogs of all descriptions gathered around him; like their master they were trained hunters, and many bore the marks of Bruin’s claws. If you should ask the pedigree of old Beargrease or Bravo, the two most noted leaders of the pack, | should be compelled to admit that the vilest mongrel strains coursed through their veins. For there is no certainty in breeding them: often the most ‘ornary”-looking cur makes the best bear-dog. On my annual expeditions to the swamps, I was accustomed to buy, borrow, and “persuade” to follow, every specimen of the canine race I could pick up; and if out of a dozen I secured one who “took to bear,” I was lucky.
A bear-pack requires dogs of various sizes. A few rough-haired terriers, active and plucky, that can fight close to Bruin’s nose and dodge under the cane when pursued; some medium-sized dogs to fight on all sides, and a few large, active curs to pinch his hind- quarters when he charges in front or crosses an opening in the woods. Bear-dogs must fight close, but not attempt to hold a bear ; you want them to hang on but not to hold fast. A well-trained pack will only seize hold at the same time when one of their number is caught; then they boldly charge to the rescue of their comrade, and as soon as he is freed, loose their holds and run. Then gathering around the bear again, they worry him until he climbs a tree, where
Bear-FHlunting in the South. 67
/
he falls an easy prey to the hunter. The hunter never cheers his pack unless he is in trouble and wants their assistance.
IN THE FOREST.
The bear usually makes his bed in the most impenetrable cane- brake. He cuts and piles up heaps of cane until he has a comfort- able spring mattress. He is very fastidious in his taste, and will not remain in a wet bed; so, after every spell of bad weather, he changes his quarters. In diet he has a wide, almost omniverous taste. In the summer, he is very destructive to the farmer's corn- fields, showing a decided relish for green corn or roasting ears, or fat pig or mutton as a side-dish, not refusing a pumpkin by way of des-
sert. As the fall season approaches, he climbs after the wild grape,
the succulent muscadine, the acorn, and the persimmon, and leaves his sign everywhere he travels, in heaps of hulls of pecan and scaly- bark hickory nuts. This is called the lapping ‘season, as he en- sconces himself in a tree-lap and breaks the limbs to pieces, in gathering nuts and fruits. He is also excessively fond of honey, and is utterly regardless of bee-stin
wild bees from a hollow tree.
rs while tearing to pieces a nest of
os 5
68 Bear-Hunting in the South.
Hunters sometimes entrap him by placing in his path a vessel containing whisky made very sweet with honey. Bruin is easily in- toxicated, and.very human in his drunken antics. I have seen him killed by negroes while lying helpless upon his back catching at the clouds; but such slaughter is unsportsmanlike, and no true hunter would resort to it.
But old Asa and the dogs are off down the lake-side, and we fol- low in single file.
Here, indeed, is the hunter’s paradise. Flocks of mallard, teal, and wild duck, covering acres of surface, are floating lazily upon the limpid water; on the other side, a dozen swans are gracefully glid- ing along. A flock of ungainly pelicans, with their huge mandibles scooping after minnows, waddle about the opposite shore. The wild goose is heard overhead, while the sentinel of the flock on the water replies. The white and blue crane, motionless as the sentinels of Pompeii, line the shore. The tall cypresses in the lake, with their fringed foliage, lift their weird knees out of the water and look lonely and desolate ; while the oaks and gums upon the shore, draped in clinging vines, festooned with moss, and reflected in the lake, add to the somber picture of the wilderness. The sycamores and cotton- woods are of immense size, some being ten feet in diameter.
Bear-Flunting in the South. 69
Old Asa turned from the lake and boldly entered a canebrake, we following. Here the foremost horse has the hardest time, for he must break the way for the rest through cane and bamboo-vines. Old Asa’'s horse, however, like his master, was a trained hunter, and would wait the stroke of the hunting-knife which cut the vines, to push on through the tangled mass. Going through cane, every one is required to take the cartridge from his gun; or, if he has a muzzle- loader, to take the cap from the tube.
A HUNTER'S PARADISE.
After crossing a canebrake ridge of half a mile, we entered a large, open wood, where we found a quantity of overcup acorn mast, upon which bear and deer feed during the winter months. Under the limb of a pawpaw we saw a fresh buck-scrape. This is made by the male deer, while scratching his antlers amid the branches above; he scrapes the earth with his feet, as a sign for his tawny mate. A little farther on, within easy range, we startled the antlered monarch from his lair; but not a gun was raised to arrest his flight. As the deer lifted his white flag and bounded off, the younger dogs pricked up their ears and looked anxiously forward, ready to burst forth in full cry; but a word ina harsh tone from old Asa caused
5A
70 Bear-Hunting in the South.
= ~ = = 7
OLD ASA CUTTING THROUGH THE CANEBRAKE.
them to fall to the rear. ‘This is a bear-hunt, and these are bear- dogs,” said Asa, and we understood that no other game must be shot before them. On rainy days, we go out from camp, singly, and ‘still-hunt” for deer; for then they are easily found, as they avoid the wet cane and feed in the open woods.
‘“Here’s a b’ar sign!” exclaimed Asa, as he pointed to the foot of a large overcup acorn tree. Just then, a sound that vibrates through the hunter’s heart with a thrill of pleasurable emotion fell upon our ears. Of our pack of dogs only the reliable hunters, such as Bravo and Beargrease, are allowed full liberty in rang- ing the woods. There was the sound again! Bravo had struck a trail! Every dog rushed forward at the well-known signal
Bear-Hunting in the South. 7
of their leader; but the track was cold, and every nose was busy smelling among the leaves, trying to unravel its mystic wind- ings. We rode slowly along; old Beargrease made a circle, and struck the trail farther ahead. The old dog seemed to know he had solved the problem this time, for, sitting upon his haunches, he raised his head, and uttered his prolonged cry—which was to us a note of exquisite joy. Bravo, Granger, and twenty more joined in the chorus, and slowly, but surely and _ steadily, they moved along on the trail. ‘More sign!” shouted old Asa, presently; “here’s his stepping-path,” and he pointed to a path made by the bear as he passed to and fro from the canebrake. Here he explained to Rogers that the path was made by a habit the bear has of always putting his feet in precisely the same tracks ; this habit is often taken advantage of, and a trap is set in his path, or a gun is placed so as to kill or mortally wound him.
“And this one, I can see by his signs, is a big fat old he,” added old Asa.
“Now, look here, old fellow,” replied Rogers, ‘don’t test my credulity too far. I would like to know how you can tell a fat bear from a lean bear, or a he bear from a she bear, when you have never seen it.”
“Little boy,” replied Asa, while a benevolent expression mocked the gay humor in his clear blue eye, ‘“‘ your education has been sadly neglected ;_ book-l’arnin’ may be very useful in town, but one grain of common sense is worth a bushel of college diplomas in the swamps. Now listen and l’arn wisdom; I know this is a fat b’ar, because his hind toe marks do not reach the fore ones; had he been poor, they would well-nigh have overlapped.”
“ But how do you know it is a he bear, and a big he besides ?”
“The Lord pity your ignorance, child! don’t you see whar he writ it up on that hackberry ?”
“Well,” replied Roger, “you will have to interpret it; I can see nothing but meaningless scratches up there on the tree; what do you make of it?”
“Look close,” replied Asa, ‘and you will see the tallest marks are the freshest; a young b’ar, feeling very large all by himself, wrote his name thar first; the way he does it, he places his back ag’in’ the tree and, turning his head, bites the bark as high as he can
72 Bear-Hunting in the South.
BEAR HIEROGLYPHICS.
reach, which means, in b’ar lingo, ‘I’m boss of the woods—beware how you trespass on my domains.’ The next b’ar that comes along takes the same position and tries to outreach the first. Now, this old fellow has written in b’ar hiroglyphics*a foot higher, ‘Mind your eye, young un, you're a very small potato; I’m the hoss that claims preémption rights to these pastures.’ Another reason for knowing it’s a he b’ar is that the she’s have young about the third week in January, and it’s about that time. We hunt them in February by examining the cypress-trees, where they have left their marks climb- ing to their dens. The young ones, when first born, are not larger than a rat.”
‘“T have read that the bear was a hibernating animal; how about that?” asked Rogers.
“The b’ar becomes very fat in winter,” said Asa, “and his insides are so covered with fat that he has no room for food; ina cold climate he would lie up, but here he is tempted by the mild winters to keep traveling around.”
While old Asa was giving our city friend this bit of natural history, the dogs were busy at work on the trail; the track was
Bear-Hunting in the South. 72
growing warmer. Suddenly they all dashed into the cane, when, whew /—with a snort and crash through the cane, as if all the fiends had broken loose from Tartarus, the bear was started from his lair. With a wild yell, we all followed, pell-mell, in pursuit. For a mile or more the bear seemed to gain upon his pursuers ; but, like a relent- less fate, the fierce pack stuck to his heels, while the hunters were slowly cutting their way through the cane. Old Asa led the way, with that intuition which belongs to the practiced woodsman and aids him in avoiding the heaviest canebrakes.
Reaching a boggy bayou, we paused to listen for the pack. The baying of dogs underneath the heavy cane cannot be heard at a great distance; and, as we halted on our horses, we could hear no sound but the melancholy soughing of the winds through the lonely cypress. Old Asa leaped from his horse, and, telling us to keep silent, knelt and placed his ear close to the ground. For a few moments the silence was almost painful. Then springing to his feet, he exclaimed :
“All right, boys! The b’ar has turned toward camp; I heard them distinctly; they are fighting very close.”
‘How will we cross the bayou?” asked Rogers. “It would bog a saddle-blanket here.”
“Follow me, young un,” said old Asa, “and I'll larn you what your school-master never did—how to cross a boggy bayou.”
Then proceeding up the bayou, he selected a spot where the cypress-knees were thickest, and led the way safely across; then pushing rapidly forward, flanking the canebrake and keeping to the open woods, after a detour of a mile we were again in hearing of the pack.
“He has turned back!” shouted old Asa. “Scatter out across the opening and some of us will get a shot!”
We promptly obeyed the order, and soon heard ‘them coming, crashing madly through the canebrake. Presently out jumped the bear near Major Duncan’s stand, with the dogs pressing him like a legion of furies. As the major attempted to shoot, his horse wheeled, and before he could turn, the bear had seen him and turned back into the cane, preferring a score of dogs to one hunter; going farther down the cane, he again burst into the opening and crossed close to Rogers, who had dismounted and was standing by
74 Bear-Hunting in the South.
a fallen tree. As the bear leaped the log, Rogers fired. Although a bear is a large animal, yet when he is running he is not so good a target as one would think. If the reader will attempt to put a ball through the center of a barrel-head while it is in rapid motion he will have some idea of shooting at a running bear. Rogers missed, but the dogs, encouraged by the report of his gun, attacked with renewed vigor. Across the open woods, in plain view, we beheld a grand sight. As the dogs charged at the report of Rogers’s gun, Rocket, a large, active fellow (a cross between a mastiff and a greyhound), seeing the way clear, made a dash, and catching one of the bear's hind feet, tripped him so adroitly that he rolled over on his back, and before he could recover was covered with dogs. But a sweep of his huge paws scattered his foes in every direction. A few leaps and he again reached the canebrake, and soon we heard the dogs at bay. We dismounted, hitched our horses, and proceeded on foot to the scene of action. But it was slow work, for the bear always seeks the heaviest canebrake for his battle-ground. We had to creep and crawl, sometimes prostrate upon the ground, under the tangled mass of cane and vines, often having to use our hunting-knives in disen- tangling ourselves.
Except old Asa, who carried a rifle, we were all armed with short, double-barrel shot-guns, loaded with buck and ball. This, in my judgment, is the most effective weapon for bears, as they are generally shot in a tree or on the ground at close quarters; and after the labors of a bear-chase the nerves are apt to bea little shaky for drawing a fine bead with a rifle.
Cutting our way through the mass of cane, we reached the outer circle of dogs and beheld the bear sitting with his back against the trunk of a tree, his fore paws just touching the toes of his hind ones as they projected up in front of him. Thus, with his rear protected, he stood at bay, occasionally making a rush for a dog who had vent- ured too near, and when he had scattered his foes, returning to his position, pressed again in turn by the dogs he had pursued. It was a splendid picture—the huge beast, shaggy and grim, with the white froth dripping from his red lips and lolling tongue, beset on every side, fighting a host, relying alone upon the strength of his mighty arm to keep his foes at bay. At length, greatly worried, he resolved to do what a large, fat bear greatly dislikes, viz. take a tree.
ae
Bear-Fflunting in the South. 75
AT BAY.
Making a rush, as a feint to scatter his enemies, he sprang up into an oak and seated himself in a fork about twenty feet from the ground,
By this time my companions had arrived, and it was agreed that Rogers, who had never killed a bear, should have the shot. He took his position in front of the tree and attempted to get a sight at the bear's head; but a bear's head is a bad target, as it is in constant motion, and the frontal bones are so sharp and hard that, unless the hunter makes a center shot, the ball will glance and do but little harm; moreover, when wounded, however slightly, the bear is almost sure to abandon the tree. At the report of Rogers’s gun, though slightly stunned by the glancing ball, Bruin threw his arms around the tree on the opposite side, and came down, as old Asa said, ‘like a streak of greased lightning.” The pack covered him as he touched
76 Bear-Hunting tn the South.
THE DEATH.
the earth. Major Duncan rushed to the rescue of the dogs, who are almost sure to, get hurt if a bear is wounded; but the dogs were so thick the major could not shoot. I saw Bravo caught in Bruin’s arms, and saw the major push a couple of dogs aside and fire, but he only succeeded in knocking the brute down and releasing the old dog. At the same moment, a stroke of Bruin’s paw sent the major’s gun spinning through the air. The bear then rushed away into the canebrake. Around and around, within the space of a few hundred yards, the battle raged fiercely. The hunters were all scattered through the canebrake, when the bear chanced to head directly for Rogers, who fired and, as the bear charged, took to his heels, and but for the courage of the dogs would have been caught.
At the report of the gun, the maddened pack covered the game again, and he had to stop to shake them off. Rearing on his hind feet, he would strike down with his fore paws, his long, sharp claws making the “fur fly” wherever they struck. The bear generally strikes downward, as he is pigeon-toed, and from the conformation of his fore-arm cannot well strike laterally when rampant.
Rogers had gained on the bear by the dogs’ renewed attack, but as soon as Bruin had shaken them off, he again pursued his human
Bear-Hunting in the South. 77
foe, when old Asa, pushing Rogers aside, heroically stepped in front, and dropping on one knee, threw his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bear, though mortally wounded, sprang upon him. I was close at hand, but could not shoot without the risk of hurting my friend. | shouted to the pack. Regardless of danger, the brave dogs rushed to the rescue, and again covered the bear, just as he had seized old Asa by the leg. I sprang forward, and reaching the opposite side struck a well-directed blow and fell back, leaving my knife in the
OLD ASA IN TRIUMPH.
monster's heart. The experienced hunter always strikes a bear from the opposite side to which he stands, as the bear is sure to turn to the side from whence he receives the blow; and woe to the unlucky hunter caught in his death-grasp. As the bear rolled over and expired, old Asa sprang to his feet and exclaimed, as he grasped my hand, ‘Bully for you, old pard! A leetle more an’ I would have been mince-pie for that tarnal critter, tryin’ to save Greeny, thar. Hoopee, good dogs!” And, at the voice of affection from their mas- ter, they gathered around him, while the old hunter sat on the carcass of the bear and caressed his battle-scarred pets, examining all of their wounds before he looked at his own. It proved to be an ugly, though not dangerous, bite on the calf of the leg.
“Boys,” he said, “we are only a mile from camp, and if I can get to the bayou just outside of this cane, I can walk with less pain than I can ride through the brake.”
Refusing all assistance, the old hunter started for camp alone,
78 Bear-Hunting in the South.
and, getting into the bayou, waded into the cold water, as he said, to numb the pain. We skinned and cut up the bear, which was no easy task, as a bear's hide does not peel off like a deer’s, but is tight on his body, like a hog’s, the removal of every inch requiring the assistance of the knife. We reached camp by dark, and found old Asa with his leg poulticed with medicinal herbs, in the virtues of which he was well acquainted. Wounded as he was, the old man was the life of the camp. He smoked his pipe and cracked jokes at everybody. Calling Hannibal, he instructed him in the mysteries of making a “filibuster.” He first took the caul-fat, or bear’s hand- kerchief, and spread it out on the inside of the fresh hide; then he cut slices of liver and choice bits of bear-meat, in the selection of which he was'a connoisseur. Between the layers he placed a very thin slice of bacon, all the time rolling it in the caul-fat, occasionally inserting sprigs of fragrant spice-wood, as he said to give it a flavor, until a large meat sandwich was made. Then, sticking a wooden skewer through it, he roasted it before the fire. Anda more savory dish never regaled the palate or olfactories of a hungry hunter.
In summing up the casualties of the fight, we found two dogs killed and seven wounded—three severely. Quiet at length settled upon our camp, the hoot of the barred owl alone breaking the still- ness of the night. But it did not disturb the peaceful dreams of dogs or hunters, or of Hannibal, snoring to the accompaniment of the kettle, which hummed a lullaby as it prepared the head of Bruin for to-morrow’s repast.
eS ee ee ———— ee cad
FOX-HUNTING IN NEW ENGLAND.
| By ROWLAND E. ROBINSON.
In New England and some of the northern and middle States, the fox is hunted with two or
three hounds, or oftener with only one, the hunter going on foot and
armed with a shot-gun or rifle, his method being to shoot the fox as
it runs before the hounds. The fox is proverbially the most cunning of beasts, often eluding by his tricks the most expert hunter and the truest hounds. Long walks are required, which take one over many miles of woods, hills, and fields, and 2 = _ this in fall and winter when the air is always pure and bracing.
In New England, the hunt is for the red fox and his varieties; the silver and cross foxes, the gray fox of the south and west being almost, if not quite, unknown. From the tip of his nose to the root of his tail, the red fox measures about twenty-eight or thirty inches, his tail sixteen to eighteen inches including hair, and his height at the shoulder thirteen inches. His long fur and thick, bushy tail make him look larger and heavier than he is. Of several specimens which I have weighed, the largest tipped the beam at twelve pounds; the least at seven pounds. The general color is yellowish red; the outsides of the ears and the fronts of the legs and
* feet are black; the chin and usually the tip of the tail, white; and
79
80 Fox-Hunting in New England.
the tail darker than the body, most of its hairs being tipped with black. The eyes are near together and strongly express, as does the whole head, the alert and cunning nature of the animal.
The cross fox, much scarcer than the red, is very beautiful. It is thus described by Thompson: ‘A blackish stripe passing from the neck down the back and another crossing it at right angles over the
‘“AN HONEST FOX MUST: LIVE.”
shoulders; sides, ferruginous, running into gray on the back; the chin, legs, and under parts of the body, black, with a few hairs tipped with white; upper side of the tail, gray; under side and parts of the body adjacent, pale yellow; tail tipped with white. The cross upon the shoulders is not always apparent, even in specimens which, from the fineness of the fur, are acknowledged to be cross foxes. Size, the same as the common fox.”
The black or silver fox is so rare in New England that to see one is the event of a life-time. The variety is as beautiful and valuable as rare. Its color is sometimes entirely of a shining black, except the white tip of the tail, but oftener of a silvery hue, owing to an intermixture of hairs tipped with white. It has probably always been uncommon here, for it is said to have been held in such estima- tion ‘by the Indians of this region, that a silver fox-skin was equal in value to forty beaver-skins, and the gift of one was considered a
Fox-Hunting in New England. 81
sacred pledge. One often hears of silver foxes being seen, but, like the big fish so often lost by anglers, they almost invariably get away.
AFTER A BREAKFAST.
Foxes are less rare in settled countries and on the borders of civilization than in the wilderness, for, though they find no fewer enemies, they find more abundant food in the open fields than in the forest. The common field-mouse is a favorite in their bill-of-fare ; and the farmer's lambs and the good wife’s geese and turkeys never come amiss therein. These are all more easily got than hares or grouse. In justice to Reynard it must be said, however, that when mice are plenty, lambs and poultry are seldom molested. In times of scarcity, he takes kindly to beech-nuts in the fall, and fills him- self with grasshoppers and such small deer in the summer. When these fail—why, what would you? An honest fox must live.
When not running before the hounds, he is seldom seen in day- time, except it may be by some early riser whose sharp eye discerns him in the dim dawn, moving in meadow or pasture, or picking his stealthy way across lots to his home woods. In these woods he spends his days, sleeping or prowling slyly about in quest of some foolish hare or grouse.
It is doubtful if the fox resorts to his burrows much except in great stress of weather and during the breeding season, or when driven to earth by relentless pursuit. For the most part, he takes his hours of ease curled up on some knoll, rock, or stump, his dense fur defying northern blasts and the “nipping and eager air” of the
6
82 Frox-Hunting in New England.
A HAPPY FAMILY.
coldest winter night. Shelter from rain or snow-storms he undoubt- edly will take, for he is not overfond of being bedraggled, though it is certain he will sometimes take to the water and cross a stream without being driven to it.
Reynard goes wooing in February, and travels far and wide in search of sweethearts, toying with every vixen he meets, but faithful to none, for his love is more fleeting than the tracks he leaves in the drifting snow. In April, the vixen having set her house in order by clearing it of rubbish, brings forth her young,—from three to six or more at a litter. This house is sometimes a burrow in sandy soil with several entrances ; sometimes a den in the rocks, and sometimes, in old woods, a hollow log. In four or five weeks the queer little pug-nosed cubs begin to play about the entrance. The mother hunts faithfully to provide them with food, and may sometimes be seen on her homeward way with a fringe of field-mice hanging from her mouth. About the entrance to the den may be seen the wings of domestic poultry, wild ducks, and grouse, and the legs of lambs,—the frag- ments of many a vulpine feast.
It is a curious fact, and one | have never seen mentioned in print, that while the cubs are dependent on the mother, a hound will only follow her for a few minutes. Of the existence of this provision for
fox-funting in New England. 33
the safety of the young foxes I have had ocular proof, confirmed by the statements of persons whom I believe. In June, 1868, an old vixen was making sad havoc with one of my neighbors’ lambs, and an old fox-hunter was requested to take the field in their defense. He proceeded with his hounds (tolerably good ones) to the woods where her burrow was known to be, and put the dogs out. They soon started her and ran her out of the woods, but greatly to the surprise of the hunter they returned in a few moments, looking as shamefaced as whipped curs, with the old fox following them. Dis- gusted with the behavior of his own dogs, he sought the assistance of an old hound of celebrated qualities, belonging to a neighbor. She was put out with the other dogs, with just the same result. The vixen was at last shot, while she was chasing the hounds, who then turned upon her, biting and shaking her as is their wont when a fox is killed before them; but my friend, the hunter, told me they were as sick and distressed as ever dogs were after an encounter with a skunk. About the last of May, 1875, I witnessed a like incident. A stanch old hound of my own having accompanied me on a fishing excursion, started a fox in a piece of woods where a litter of young were known to be. Anxious to preserve the litter for sport in the fall, I hastened to call in the dog. I found him trotting along with lowered tail, the vixen leisurely trotting not more than five rods in advance, stopping every half minute to bark at him, when he would stop till she again went on. I called him in as easily as if he had been nosing for a mouse, though under ordi- nary circumstances it would have required a vigorous assertion of authority to have taken him off so hot a scent.
If the life of the vixen is spared and she is not continually harassed by men or dogs during the breeding season, she will remain in the same locality for years, and rear litter after litter there ;_per- haps not always inhabiting the same burrow, but one somewhere within the same piece of woods or on the same hill. If she is much disturbed, or if she perceives that her burrow is discovered, she speedily removes her young to another retreat. The young foxes continue to haunt the woods where they were reared for some months after they have ceased to require the care of their mother, and then disperse. The habits above mentioned are common to the cross and silver foxes, as well as the red fox.
34 Fox-Hunting in New England.
a aes And now for the hunt. From his
Wa nae helpless babyhood in leafless April, — Reynard has come, by the middle of
\ the autumn, to months of discretion \ and to a large and increasing capacity | for taking care of himself. The weap- | ons are double-barrel shot-guns, of such weight and caliber as may suit the individual fancy. <A very light gun will not do the execution at the long range sometimes required, while
on the other hand, a very heavy one will become burdensome in the long tramps that may be necessary ; for a man of ordinary strength, an 8-lb. gun will be found quite heavy enough. It should be of a caliber which will properly chamber its full charge of, at least, B B shot,—for I hold that the force of lighter shot will be broken by the thick fur of the fox; indeed, I would suggest still heavier pellets, say B B B, or even A.
Our hounds, not so carefully bred as they should be, cannot be classed in any particular breed. They are more like the old South- ern fox-hound than like the modern English, and for our purpose are incomparably superior to the latter. They are not fleet, like him (fleetness here being objectionable, as will be shown), but of great endurance, and unsurpassable scenting powers,—for they will follow a fox through all his devious windings and endless devices, from dawn till dark, through the night and for another day. Our best dogs are well described by Shakspere in ‘‘ Midsummer Night's Dream ”
“My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-kneed, and dew-lapp’d like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells, Each under each.”
Their colors are blue-mottled, with patches of black and tan or yel- low, with tan eye-patches; white, flecked with yellow, termed by old-time hunters “ punkin-an’-milk”; white and black and black and tan, with variations and admixtures of all these colors. It is an old
ee
Fox-FTlunting in New England. 85
saying, “that a good horse can-
a Aa not be of a bad color”; and the
color of a hound is more a matter of fancy than of excellence. A loud and melodious voice is a most desirable quality, and this many of our native fox-dogs pos- sess in perfection. A hound with a weak voice is a constant worry, and one with a discordant voice vexes the ear. When the game is
started the dog should tongue, so that you
continually — give (and the fox as well) may always know just : woeremme ass ihe wrinkled brows and THE DOG'S DREAM. foreheads, and long pendent ears and flews of many of these dogs, give them an ex- tremely sad and troubled expression. Perhaps (who knows?) this solemn cast of visage comes of much pondering on the knavish tricks of the wily fox, and of schemes for circumventing his many artifices. Their tails are not at all inclined to be bushy, like those of the English fox-hounds of the present day, but are almost as slender and clean as the tail of the pointer.
6A
86 Fox-Hunting in New England.
It is the early morning of one of the perfect days of late October or early November. In the soft gray light of the growing day, the herbage of the pastures and the aftermath of the meadows are pearly with frost which is thick and white on boards and fence-rails. The air is chill but — unstirred
by the lightest breeze, and if the day keeps the promise of the morning it will be quite warm enough for comfortable tramping when the sun is fairly up. The hounds, called from their | straw, come
yawning and limping — forth, stiff from the chase of yester- Hl day, butareelec- 4 trified with new life by the sight Wy of =the guns. They career f about, sounding
CALLING THE DOGS.
Fox-Hunting tn New England. 87
THE START.
bugle-notes that wake the echoes for a mile around. Reynard at the wood- edge, homeward bound from his mousing or poultry stealing, is warned that this is to be | no holiday for him. Very likely the hounds are |’ too eager for the hunt to eat their morning Johnny-cake ; if so, let them have their way,— they will gobble it ravenously enough to-night, if they have the chance.
And now, away! across the frosty fields toward yonder low hill, which we dignify with the name of mountain. No song-birds now welcome the coming day; almost the only sound which breaks the gray serenity is the clamor of a flock of crows in the distant woods, announcing their awakening to another day of southward journeying, or the challenge of a cock in a far-off farm-yard. As you hurry across the home pasture, the cows stop chewing the cud, to stare curiously at hounds and hunters, and then arise, sighing and stretch- ing, from their couches on the dry knolls. A flock of sheep start from their huddled repose and scurry away, halting at a little distance to snort and stamp at the rude disturbers of their early meditations. Almost the only signs of life are these, and the upward crawling smoke of kitchen chimneys, where sluggards are just making their first preparations for breakfast. Yours has been eaten this half hour. The old dog plods along, with serious and business-like air, dis- daining and repelling all attempts of his younger companion to
88 Fox-Hunting in New England.
beguile him into any unseemly gambols; but when you cross the fence which bounds the pasture lying along the foot of the hill, where the rank grass, mixed with last year’s growth, is ankle deep, and where grass and innumerable stumps and logs afford harbor for col- onies of field-mice, you find ‘there is life in the old dog yet.” He halts for an instant and snuffs the air;
draws toward a tuft of grass and noses aS it carefully ; his sensitive nostrils dilate ; E his staid and sober tail begins, not to
ON THE TRAIL.
wag, but to describe circles; the serious lines of his brow become a frown; he mounts that log and snuffs it from end to end and back again with studious care. Now his loud, eager snuffing has grown to a suppressed challenge, and every muscle seems strained to its utmost tension, as he leaves the log and makes a few lopes toward the woods, stops for an instant as if turned to stone, raises his good gray muzzle skyward, and awakens all the woods and hills with his deep, sonorous voice! That way has Rey- nard gone, and that bugle-note has perhaps given him premonition of his doom. This note has recalled the young dog from his wild ranging, and he joins his older and wiser companion, without bring- ing much aid, however, for, catching the scent, he proclaims his discovery till long after he has overrun it, now and then slightly disconcerting the old truth-teller; but the veteran soon learns to
Fox-Hunting in New England. 89
ignore the youngster, and works
his way steadily toward the wooded edge of the hill, never increasing his speed, nor abat- ing the carefulness of his scenting. Now his tuneful notes become more frequent. If you have the heart of a fox-hunter, they are the sweetest music to your ears in all the world. Up the steep side
of the hill he takes his way, the young dog
following, and
THE RUN-WAY.
both giving tongue from time
slowly work the
to time. They trail to the top
of an overhang- ' ing ledge, and now there is a hush ; bu: almost before the echo of their last notes has died away, forth bursts a wild storm of canine music. Reynard is afoot, or, as we Yankees say, “the fox is started,” and the reeking scent of his recent footsteps steams hot in the nostrils of his pursuers. The hounds are now out of sight, but you hear every note of their jubilant song as they describe a small circle beyond the ledge, and then go northward along the crest of the hill. Their baying grows fainter and fainter as they bear away to the further side, till at last it is almost drowned by the gurgle of the brook.
Now, get with all speed to “the Notch,” which divides the north from the south hill, for this the fox will pretty surely cross when he comes back, if back he comes, after making a turn or two or three at the north end. On this habit of his, of running in circles, and in certain run-ways as he goes from hill to hill, or from wood to wood, is founded our method of hunting him. If he“ plays” in small circles, encompassing an acre or so, as he often will for half an hour at a time before a slow dog, you cautiously work up to leeward of him and try your chances for a shot. If he encircles the whole hill, or crosses from hill to hill, there are certain points, which every fox,
go Fox-Hunting in New England.
IN NOVEMBER,
whether stranger or to this particular woodland born, is /zkely to take in his way, but not sw7e to do so. Having learned these points by hearsay or experience, you take your post at the nearest or likeliest one, and between hope and fear await your opportunity. Such a place is this Notch, toward which with hasty steps and beating heart you take your way. When the fox returns, if he crosses to the south hill, he will come down that depression between the ledges which you face ; then cross the brook and come straight in front of you, toward the wood-road in which you stand, or else turn off to the right to cross the road and go up that easy slope to the south hill, or turn to the left and cross on the other hand. Standing midway between these points, either is a long gun-shot off, but it is the best place to post yourself; so here take breath and steady your nerves.
fox-flunting in New England. gl
How still the woods are!) The hounds are out of hearing a mile away. No breeze sighs through the pines or stirs the fallen leaves. The trickle of the brook, the penny-trumpet of a nut-hatch, the light hammering of a downy woodpecker are the only sounds the strained ear catches. All about rise the gray tree-trunks; overhead, against the blue-gray sky, is spread their net of branches, with here and there a tuft of russet and golden and scarlet leaves caught in its meshes. At your feet, on every side, lie the fading and faded leaves, but bearing still a hundred hues; and through them rise tufts of green fern, brown stems of infant trees and withered plants; frost-black- ened beech-drops, spikes of the dull azure berries of the blue cohosh, and milk-white ones, crimson-stemmed, of the white cohosh; scarlet clusters of wild turnip berries; pale asters and slender golden-rod, but all so harmoniously blended that no one object stands forth con- spicuously. So kindly does Nature screen her children, that in this pervading gray and russet, beast and bird, blossom and gaudy leaf, may lurk unnoticed almost at your feet. The rising sun begins to glorify the tree-tops. And now, a red squirrel startles you, rustling noisily through the leaves. He scrambles up a tree, and, with nervous twitches of feet and tail, snickers and scolds till you feel almost wicked enough to end his clatter with a charge of shot. A blue- jay has spied you and comes to upbraid you with his discordant voice. A party of chickadees draw nigh, flitting close about and pecking the lichened trunks and branches almost within arm’s-length, satisfying curiosity and hunger together.
At last, above the voices of these garrulous visitors, your ear discerns the baying of the hounds, faint and far away, swelling, dying, swelling, but surely drawing nearer. Louder rings the “musical confusion of hounds and echo in conjunction,” as the dogs break over the hill-top. Now, eyes and ears, look and listen your sharpest. Bring the butt of your gun to your shoulder and be motionless and noiseless as death, for if at two gun-shots off Rey- nard sees even the movement of a hand or a turn of the head, he will put a tree-trunk between you and him, and vanish altogether and “leave you there lamenting.”
Is that the patter of feet in the dry leaves, or did the sleeping air awake enough to stir them? Is that the fox? Pshaw! no— only a red squirrel scurrying along a fallen tree. Is that quick,
g2 Fox-Hunting in New England.
muffled thud the drum of a partridge? No, it never reaches the final roll of his performance. It is only the beating of your own heart. But now you hear the unmistakable nervous rustle of Rey-
TO DESTROY THE SCENT.
nard’s footsteps in the leaves; now bounding with long leaps, now picking his way; now unheard for an instant as he halts to listen. A yellow-red spot grows out of the russet leaves, and that is he, coming straight toward you. A gun-shot and a half away, he stops on a knoll and turns half-way round to listen for the dogs. In great sus- pense you wonder if he will come right on or sheer off and baffle you. But a louder sounding of the charge by his pursuers sends him onward right toward you. His face is a study as he gallops leisurely along, listening and plotting. He picks his way for a few yards along the outcropping stones in the bed of the brook, and then begins to climb the slope diagonally toward you. He is only fifty yards off when you raise the muzzle of your gun, drop your cheek to the stock, and aim a little forward of his nose; your finger presses the trigger, and while the loud report is rebounding from wood to hill, you peer anxiously through the hanging smoke to learn whether you have cause for joy or mortification. Ah! there he lies, done to death, despite his speed and cunning. The old dog follows his every foot- step to the spot where he lies, stops for a breath in a half surprise as he comes upon him, then seizes him by the back, shaking him savagely, and biting him from shoulders to hips. Let him mouth his fallen foe to his heart’s content, no matter how he rumples the sleek fur; it is his only recompense for the faithful service he has so well performed. And now the young dog comes up and claims his reward, and be
fox-Hunting in New Fngland. 93
ANOTHER STRATAGEM.
sure this morning’s work will go far toward making him as stanch and true as his chase-worn leader.
But think not thus early nor with such successful issue is every chase to close. This was ended before the fox had used any other trick for baffling the hounds, but his simplest one of running in circles. An hour or two later, and old fox, finding the dogs still holding per- sistently to all the windings of his trail, would have sped away to another hill or wood a mile or so off, and would have crossed newly- plowed fields, the fresh earth leaving no tell-tale scent; would have taken to traveled highways, where dust and the hoofs of horses and the footsteps of men combine to obliterate the traces of his passage ; or have trod gingerly along many lengths of the top rails of a fence and then have sprung off at right angles with it to the ground, ten feet away; and then, perhaps, have run through a flock of sheep, the strong odor of whose feet blots out the scent of his. These artifices quite bewilder and baffle the young dog, but only delay the elder, who knows of old the tricks of foxes. Nothing can be more admirable than the manner of his working, as he comes to the edge of the plowed field. He wastes no time in useless pottering
94 fox-Hunting in New England.
among the fresh-turned furrows, but with rapid lopes skirts their swarded border, till, at a far corner, his speed slackens as his keen nose catches the scent again in the damp grass; he snuffs at it an instant to assure himself, then sounds a loud, melodious note, and goes on baying at every lope till the road is reached. Along this he zigzags till he finds where the fox has left it. And now comes the puzzling bit of fence. The old dog thinks the fox has gone through it; he goes through it himself, but finds no scent there; puzzles
about rapidly, now trying this side, now that; at last, he be- thinks himself of the top, to which he clambers and_ there
finds the missing trail. But his
big feet cannot tread the ‘‘ giddy footing” of the rail as could Rey- nard’s dainty pads, so down he goes and tries on either side for the point where the fox left the fence. Ranging up and down, too near it to hit the spot where Reynard struck the ground, he fails to recover the scent, stops, raises his nose, and utters a long, mournful howl, half vexaticn, half despair. Now he climbs to the top rail further on and snuffs
it there. ‘No taint of a fox’s
‘*HOLED.”
Fox-Hunting in New England. 95
foot is here,” so he reasons, “and he must have jumped from the fence between here and the place where I found it,” and acting on this logical conclusion, he circles widely till he has picked up the trail once more, and goes merrily on to the sheep pasture. Here satisfying him- self of the character of this trick, he adopts the same plan employed at the plowed field, and after a little finds the trail on the other side and follows it to the hill, but more slowly now, for the fox has been gone some time; the frost has melted, the moisture is exhaling, and the scent growing cold. The fox has long since reached the hill and half encircled it, and now hearing the voices of the hounds so far away and so slowly nearing, has bestowed himself on the mossy cushion of a knoll for rest and cogitation. Here he lies for a half hour or more, but always alert and listening, while the dogs draw slowly on, now almost losing the trail on a dry ledge, now catching it in a moist, propitious hollow, till at last a nearer burst warns poor sly- boots that he must again up and away. He may circle about or “play,” as we term it, on this hill, till you have reached a run-way on it where you may get a shot; or, when you have toiled painfully up the steep western pitch and have just reached the top, blown, leg- weary, but expectant, he will probably utterly disappoint and exas- perate you by leaving this hilland returning to the one he and you have so lately quitted,—yea, he will even intensify the bitterness of your heart by taking in his way one or two or three points where you were standing half an hour ago! What is to be done? He may run for hours, now on the hill where he was started, or he may be back here again before the hunter can have regained that. To hesitate may be to lose, may be to gain, the coveted shot. One must choose as soon as may be and take his chances. If two persons are hunting in company, one should keep to this hill, the other to that, or while on the same hill, or in the same wood, each to his chosen run-way, thus doubling the chances of a shot.
At last, the hounds may be heard baying continuously in one place, and by this and their peculiar intonation, one may know that the fox, finding his tricks unavailing, has run to earth, or, as we have it, ‘has holed.” Guided to his retreat by the voices of the hounds, you find them there, by turns, baying angrily and impatiently and tearing away, tooth and nail, the obstructing roots and earth. If in a sandy or loamy bank, the fox may, with pick and spade, be dug
ole) Fox-Hunting in New England.
ignominiously forth, but this savors strongly of pot-hunting. If he has taken sanctuary in a rocky den, where pick and spade avail not, there is nothing for it but to call the dogs off and try for another fox to-day, or for this one to-morrow, when he shall have come forth again. This is the manlier part, in either case, for Reynard has fairly baffled you, has run his course and reached his goal in safety. Sometimes an old fox, when he hears the first note of the hounds on the trail he made when he was mousing under the paling stars, will arise from his bed, and make off at once over dry ledges, plowed fields and sheep pastures, leaving for the dogs nothing but a cold, puzzling scent, which, growing fainter as the day advances and the moisture exhales, they are obliged, unwillingly, to abandon at last, after hours of slow and painstaking work. A wise old hound will often, in such cases, give over trying to work up the uncertain trail, and guessing at the direction the fox has taken, push on, running mute, at the top of his speed, to the likeliest piece of woodland, a mile away perhaps, and there, with loud rejoicings, pick up the trail. When after a whole day’s chase, during which hope and disappoint- ment have often and rapidly succeeded each other in the hunter's breast, having followed the fox with untiring zeal through all the crooks and turns of his devious course, and unraveled with faultless nose and the sagacity born of thought and experience his every trick,—the good dogs bring him at the last moment of the gloaming within range, and by the shot, taken darkling, Reynard is tumbled dead among the brown leaves, great is the exultation of hunter and hound, and great the happiness that fills their hearts. After tramping since early morning over miles of the likeliest ‘ starting-places ” without finding any trail, but cold and scentless ones made in the early night, and so old that the dogs cannot work them out, as the hunter takes his way in the afternoon through some piece of wood- land, his hounds as discouraged as he, with drooping tails and increased sorrow in their sad faces, plodding, dejected at heel, or ranging languidly,—it is a happy surprise to have them halt, and with raised muzzles and half-closed eyes, snuff the air, then draw slowly up wind with elevated noses, till they are lost to sight behind gray trunks and mossy logs and withered brakes, and then, with a crashing flourish of trumpets, announce that at last a fox has been found, traced to his lair by a breeze-borne aroma so subtle that the
Fox-Hunting in New England. 97
BEARING HOME THE BRUSH.
sense which detects it is a constant marvel. A fox started so late in the day seems loath to leave his wood, and is apt to play there till a shot gives to the hunter and hounds their reward.
When one sees in the snow the intricate windings and crossings and recrossings of the trail of a mousing fox, he can but wonder how any dog by his nose alone can untangle such a knotted thread till it shall lead him to the place where the fox has laid up for the day; yet this a good hound will unerringly do, if the scent has not become too cold. -To see him do this, and to follow all his care- ful, sagacious work, are in nowise the least of the pleasures of this sport.
It is a favorite season for fox-hunting when the first snows have fallen, for though the walking is not so good, and hounds are often much inclined to follow the track by sight as well as by smell, the tell- tale foot-prints show pretty plainly which way the fox has gone, how
6 /
98 Fox -Hunting in New England.
long he has been gone, and whether it is worth your while to allow the dogs to follow his trail ; and you are enabled to help the hounds in puzzling places, though a dog of wisdom and experience seldom needs
TANTALIZING THE DOGS,
help, except for the saving of time. A calm day is always best, and if warm enough for the snow to pack without being at all ‘“ sposhy,” so much the better. Though it is difficult to “start” a fox during a heavy snow-fall, if you do start him, he is pretty certain to “ play” beautifully, seeming to reckon much on the obliteration of his track by the falling snow. At such times he will often circle an hour in the compass of two or three acres. Glare ice holds scent scarcely more than water. This, no one knows better than the fox, and you may be sure he will now profit by this knowledge if naked ice can be found. He will also run in the paths of the hare, pick his way care- fully along rocky ridges swept bare of snow by the wind, leaving no visible trace of his passage, and, at times, take to traveled highways. If the snow is deep and light so that he sinks into it, he will soon, through fatigue or fear of being caught, take refuge in den or
fox -FHunting in New England. 99
burrow. If the snow has a crust which bears him, but through which the heavier hounds break at every step, he laughs them to scorn as he trips leisurely along at a tantalizingly short distance before them. Hunting in such seasons is weary work, and more desirable then is the solace of book and pipe by the cozy fireside, where the hounds lie sleeping and dreaming of glorious days of sport, already past or soon to come.
In winter as in autumn, the sport is invigorating and exciting, and Nature has now, as ever, her endless beauties and secrets for him who hath eyes to behold them. To such they are manifold in all seasons, and he is feasted full, whether from the bald hill-top he looks forth over a wide expanse of gorgeous woods and fields, still green under October skies, or sees them brown and sere through the dim November haze, or spread white and far with December snows. The truest sportsman is not a mere skillful butcher, who is quite unsat- isfied if he returns from the chase without blood upon his garments, but he who bears home from field and forest something better than game and peltry and the triumph of a slayer, and who counts the day not lost nor ill spent though he can show no trophy of his skill. The beautiful things seen, the ways of beasts and birds noted, are what he treasures far longer than the number of successful shots.
A MEET AT NEWPORT.
PepwkeALO HUNT IN NORPHERN MEXICO.
By GEN. LEW. WALLACE,
AUTHOR OF ‘' THE FAIR GOD," ‘‘BEN HUR,"” ETC.
PArr ies Goine to) tae Elund
NE traveling to the far city of Chihuahua by way of Monterey and Saltillo must cross what the Mexicans call El] Desierto, which is not to be understood as a region of shifting sand and
mud-gray mountains, like the deserts of the Bedawee. It is only a rainless belt—rainless in the summer and fall and part of the winter. More fertile land, speaking of the land itself, is not on the globe. The results of irrigation by the sufficient water-courses are incredible to strangers, while the plateaus and long swales between mountains, and frequently the mountains clear to their crests, are covered with rank grasses which, grown in the brief season of rain, are peculiar in that they cure themselves in the standing stalk. Such are the fas- turas of Durango and Chihuahua, vast enough and rich enough to feed and fatten all the herds of whatever kind owned by men.
The resting-places on the way to the desert are Parras, celebrated for its sweet red wines and the wonderful beauty of its site and sur- roundings; Alamos, most rural of Mexican towns, dominating the great Laguna district, once so coveted by the dead president of the Latter Day Saints; and Mapimi, whence, off the road right or left, lo, the dreaded wilderness ! ;
The towns named are two and three days apart, with certain ranchos between them, but for which the wayfarer would be com- pelled to bivouac where the night found him, on the open plain or
7A
102 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
under some great rock, and I am not certain but the plain or the rock would furnish preferable lodging. The peon, however, to whom the sunburnt and perishing habitations have fallen, is of simple soul, full of easy content. He and Nature live close neighbors, and what with much borrowing from her, he has few needs ungratified, and no experience of better things to dog him with vain wishes. Of these places of torment—I speak as somewhat used to civilized ways— there rise vividly to mind Seguein, Bocarilla, Tierra Leon, and Salitre. Should my reader be of the class sometimes smitten with a longing for a home in a desert, let me recommend to him a day and night in Salitre. Besides the solitude of the waste place it is squatted in, the flavor of masca/, in constant distillation, hangs round it all the year. Superb specimen of a low-down rancho, nothing need be said of it as a hotel.
But these midway stops are not all Bocarillas and Salitres. The hacienda of Patos was the residence of the administrator of the great Carlos Sanchez, who, in Maximilian’s day, was monarch of over seven thousand peons, settled on his estate of 8,131,242 acres. With such possessions it is not wonderful that Carlos was overcharmed by the prospect of an empire; and when he accepted the office of Grand Chamberlain to the short-lived emperor, it is not more strange that Juarez, the Lincoln of his country, followed him with a decree by which Patos became the property of the nation, subject to purchase. A more beautiful place will scarcely be found in Mexico. He who has seen the fatzo of the Casa Grande, and rested in the coolness of its broad colonnade, may not soon forget Patos, which he comes upon from the hill-country between Saltillo and Parras, an unexpected Paradise on a grim, purgatorial road.
Then Hornos will not out of mind. First heard of at Alamos, it is finally overtaken at the end of a long day’s journey. Its externals are nothing,—four dead faces of cream-white stone, originally softer than the coquina of Florida,—no windows, one door with two mighty valves which look as if they might have once hung in the Joppa gates of Jerusalem.
A hospitable Spaniard told me the story of the house. Sefior Don Leonardo Zuloaga was a European by birth and education. He owned a great estate on the edge of the unexplored Bolson, extend- ing quite to Alamos on the south. The fortune was ducal. There
es a ee a.
ON THE ROAD.
was in his tastes a streak of savagery, and to indulge it he wandered out so far in the desert and built this fortalice. Then he brought pictures, books, wines, guns, dogs, horses; friends followed in swarms, his hospitality was semi-regal; when his guests palled of feasting, drinking, gambling, and hunting deer and wolves, not seldom he led them in long pursuit of the Comanche, or Lipan, or Apache, all quite as untamable as wolves. The Lagunieros were of his tenantry—fierce, idle, independent republicans, upon whom not even the French could make an impression, though they plied them with fire and sword. One day, they came up and demanded that he rent them certain lands upon their terms. He refused; war ensued, and regular battles. Zuloaga was driven off, and finally died of sheer
104 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
mortification, a disease with all over-proud souls. Gonzales Herrera, 4 brutal ranchero, assumed the estate by right of conquest, and sup- planted the unquestioning hospitality of the proprietor with an out-
JUAN.
lawry strong enough to defy the state, backed by the national government.
To the door of this sadly haunted dwelling in the wilderness we drove, the evening of an October day in the year 1867. The party consisted of Colonel C , an American; Mr. Roth, a German; myself, and three #ozos,—that is to say, three native Mexicans, chat- tels of his excellency Don Andreas Viesca, governor of the State of Coahuila—brave men, true, honest, affectionate, at home on the highways of the desert, and brimful of experience derived from life- long pilotage to and fro on all the beaten marches of Northern Mexico. Juan, Teodora, and Santos,—only their baptismals are given, as in the sister republic nobody troubles about the surname of a peon. Of the trio, the first was our coachman, and the second our
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 105
SANTOS.
rear guard; while the third went always before to spy out the land for which he had eyes of the far reach of an eagle’s, good for the unusual in any form,—dust in the valley, smoke on the mountain, or what not. This half-military order of travel, be it remarked, was not affected by the party as a choice or an eccentricity; it was merely a precaution against the enterprise of ladrones in general, and just then a necessity, as the journey carried across the line of a raid for scalps and plunder, in vigorous execution by a band of Apaches from the region of the Conchas river, of whom more anon.
To the very door we drove without seeing a soul. I pleased myself thinking how different in the day of the romantic Don Leon- ardo. Then swarthy retainers held the portal in swarms, and, seeing us afar, they would have run to meet us, the effusion of their welcome being but notice in advance of the politer reception in store for us by
106 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
the generous master himself. Then the great house, so tomb-like in its present silence, would have been noisy as a populous khan in an Orient desert. As it was, we halted outside, while Santos rode in
THE ‘‘MOZO.”
through the half-opened entrance unchallenged, unsaluted. We heard the hoofs of his horse ring the echoes of the arched, but dirty, pas- sage to the patio. Was there no warder—no steward? Did the castle keep itself? Our ozo at length appeared with answer—a sleepy-looking wretch in jacket and breeches of rusty leather, under a great sombrero of the genuine old style, and withal a swagger so easy-going, yet so perfect as an emphasized insolence, that only the pencil can do it justice.
The man announced himself master of the house, and gave us permission to pass the night within. We would have to find our own beds; his only contribution to our supper would be a mess of warm /rzjoles; he had fodder for our cattle. Ay de mz, Zuloaga!
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 107
IN THE REAR COURT.
To be sure, there was no barbican defending the entrance, nor portcullis a-swing on creaking chains, nor overshadowed grass-grown ditch ; yet, as we rolled in, I thought of Branksome tower ; of the stag-hounds, weary of the chase, and asleep upon a rushy floor; of the kinsmen of the bold Buccleuch—the nine and twenty knights of fame, of whom the matchless master sang:
“They carved at the meal With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr’d.”
A very martial vision, by the troth of a paladin! But instead, some nomadic children of the desert, going, they knew not where nor for what, were in full possession of the patio, resting happily from their travel of the day.
We alighted from the -carriage in a square court-yard,—faézo, in the Spanish,— paved and quite spacious. On the four sides door- ways without doors yawned darkly at us. The purposes the cham- bers served in the golden time I knew not; when we found them they were stables ; out of some, the long-horned cattle of the nomads looked, bellowing for food; into others, our mules were taken.
108 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
THE SCHOOL OF THE LARIAT.
“There is plenty of room; take your choice,” he of the mild manner said, when we spoke of disposing of ourselves for the night. We set out forthwith to find the cleanest and best aired unoccupied room.
Through another arched passage, into another square court; and company, nice-looking people, who actually arose and touched their hats to us, though at the moment of our appearance they were laughing with great gusto. Two children—brown-skinned, naked little fellows—had opened a school of the lariat, for the entertainment of the strangers. Gaunt goats, exceedingly tall and strong, served them as steeds; a gander answered for game. They rode with the skill of monkeys and the grace of cupids. The
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 109
“UNDER THE COLONNADE.”
victim fled, hissing and cackling, on wings of fear. When at length the loop hitched around his neck, the exhibition was at an end, and, paying our contribution, we went our way. Next day, we found the polite gentry were travelers like ourselves, only they were going to Parras from Parral, their place of residence.
On into the heart of the castle, another passage and another court,—this latter marked by lingering remains of magnificence,— in the center a ruined fountain, and on all sides a continuous colon- nade with fluted pillars and chiseled capitals. There were reminders also of a garden, such as sunken beds thinly garnished with flower- less shrubs, and old rose-trees sickly and untended, and other trees, amongst which I recognized a languishing orange and some stunted figs. Half a dozen bananas, their leaves unfurled broad and bright as new banners, arose out of the basin of the fountain in undiminished vigor, relieving the desolation of the place, and filling it with the glory of flame. Here, before the fatal heart-break struck him, Zulo- aga and his guests tasted their much pleasance. Under the colon- nade yonder it was easy to imagine the hammocks yet swinging,
110 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
SSS
IN THE CORRIDOR.
while the gentlefolk smoked, read, or dozed about them; meanwhile, the largesse of flowers and the cantata of falling waters. There, at the basin, by a table, in the shade of the flaring bananas, the prodi- gal master used to stand laughing, as, dice-box in hand and high
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. Diet
overhead, he rattled the white tessare careless of fortune, so soon and so utterly to turn against him. From that room, marked by the carven door, music flowed stream-like out into the moonlit court, voices of women leading, beautiful women taught by the maestros of Durango, may be by the maestros of the capitai. Well, into that room we went—in honor of the shade of the departed, | took off my hat; there, too, were traces of the glory’s time—tessel- lated floor, frescoed ceiling, on the walls frame-marks of pictures and
THE PATIO.
mirrors. Ay de mz, Zuloaga! Evil the hour War came in grim- visaged and cruel, and dispersed the waltzers, the singers, and the smokers, and, of all the dainty furniture, left us but one long table on which to spread our pallets in rest of our weary bones. Needless to say, we adopted the table; it was hard, but it lifted us above the range of fleas, and then—ah, if the gallant Spaniard should wake from his sleep and come to us in dreams! Vzva /
We returned then to the first patio in search of our 7020s, and were greatly astonished there. The house, apparently so deserted, had in our absence given up an unexpected tenantry ; men, women, and children—so many! where did they all come from ?—were crowded around a delicate-looking shepherd lad
112 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
who sat on a tough little jenny telling a story, to which we also gave instant ear.
About noon, he said, while with his flock in the desert, he had seen away across the fastwrva a black mass come slowly toward him, spreading as itcame. Indians it was not; he rode toward it, and— Madre de Dios / it was a herd of buffaloes. And thereupon every one in the patio listening took fire, and cried Madre de Dios! One of the gentlemen bound down the road to Parras, cooler than the rest, pushed through the excited throng and put to the lad a series of questions.
‘“ Buffaloes, did you say?”
Wes, Sili”
‘“‘ How far out were they ?”
‘From here?”
“ Ves,” .
‘About three leagues.”
“Tn what direction were they moving?”
“ From the sun.”
The lad meant to say northward.
‘Was it a big herd?”
“Very big, sir. I could not count them.”
‘A thousand ?”
“Oh, many more, sir.”
We were satisfied, my friends and I, and walked away, leaving the patio all calcitrant with excitement. Soon the strangers followed us. One of them introduced himself as Don Miguel de (the last of the name has slipped my memory), a merchant of Santa Rosalia, going to Parras for a supply of #zazta—coarse cotton stuff.
‘“We have about concluded,” he said, ‘to lie over to-morrow and go hunting. It has been many years since buffalo came so far south;
in fact, we cannot any of us remember to have heard of such a visi- tation in these parts. The opportunity is too rare and good to be lost. Will you go with us, gentlemen? We shall be delighted with your company.”
My friend, the colonel, had been a soldier from beginning to end of the great war, and earned his title; now, ez passané, his name is a familiar one in Brazil and in the far up-country Bolivia, whose land- lock he is about to break. They know him, too, in the tight little
A Buffalo Hunt tn Northern Mexico. 113
THE START.
isle where to be known argues a merit out of the common. His spirit arose at the suggestion of the courteous Mexican; he spoke to me, then replied that nothing would make us happier, only we had no horses.
Don Miguel smiled.
“You cannot have been long in these parts,” he said. ‘“ Horses here are to be had for the asking. We will see you supplied.”
The offer was accepted, and the party was to start at five o'clock next morning, under guidance of the shepherd.
Prise IU, Wisi, eligi.
We did not get started till day, though we breakfasted by candle-light. The sally from the patio in which, midst the confu- sion and the seethe and boil of several tempests in an unclean tea-
8
114 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
A GROUP OF VAQUEROS.
pot, the final preparations were made was like a charge of untrained cavalry; nor might one have said which were most excited, the horses or the men. For a mile-or more, after the exit, there was furious racing through a dense cloud of dust. When at last we drew together and halted to let the guide front, we found the party, about twenty in number, all Mexicans but the colonel and myself. Mr. Roth had declined the sport.
‘‘Who are these people ?” I asked.
Don Miguel glanced over the motley crowd.
“‘ Quien sabe, senor?” (‘Who knows, sir ?”’)
I called Santos and asked him the question. The good fellow immediately rode here and there amongst them, and returned with this answer :
“Fay rancheros—todos.” (‘They are all rancheros.”)
A ranchero is an independent son of the Mexican soil, generally a renter of lands, always owner of a horse, on which he may be said to live and have his being. To-day a cattle-herder (vaguero ), to- morrow a soldier, this week a gambler, next week a robber: with all his sins, and they are as his hairs in number, he has one supreme
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 115
excellence—you may not match him the world over as a rider, not though you set against him the most peerless of the turbaned knights of the jeveed. Once it was my fortune to see a thousand vancheros, in holiday garb and mounted, sweep down at a run to meet President Juarez, then ex route to begin his final campaign against the hapless Hapsburger. They literally glistened with silver—silver on saddle and bridle, silver on jacket and trowsers, silver on hats, silver on heels ; and, as with vzvas long and shrilly intoned, and stabs of rowel merciless and maddening, they drove their mustangs—the choicest of the wild herds—headlong forward, the spectacle was stirring enough to have made the oldest hetman of the Cossacks young again. No wonder Kleber never ceased admiration of the Mame- lukes who charged his squares over the yellow sands under the Pyra- mids. These, my compfaneros of the hunt, were not in holiday attire. Their clothes were plain tan-colored leather, yet they rode like the thousand, and when I looked in their faces there was no mistaking the tribal relation. The vancheros of the desert of Durango are lineally akin to the vancheros of Tamaulipas and their brothers of Sonora.
My friend and I were well mounted,—Don Miguel had dealt fairly by us,—yet we could not ride like the Mexicans. Their system is essentially different from ours; whereas we use the rein for every movement of the horse,—forward, right, left, backward, check,— they will ride all day keeping it loose over the little finger; a press- ure of the knee, an inclination of the body, a wave of the bridle hand, in extreme cases a plunge of the spur, are their resorts. A pull on one of their bits, one pull such as our jockeys are accustomed to at the end of a race, would drive the beasts mad, if it did not make fine splinters of their jaws.
In connection with the excellences of my comrades, it may be well to add that their arms were of every variety, from a Sharpe’s repeater to an escofeta, some of the latter being identical with the bell-mouthed blunderbusses of good Queen Bess. I noticed one which had on it a stamp of the Tower; it was smit with a devouring leprosy of rust, and looked as if Raleigh or one of the later bucca- neers had taken it from the old arsenal and dropped it overboard, as he sailed and sailed. Verily, | had rather been a buffalo fired at with such a piece, than the hunter at the other end to do the firing.
116 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
We moved rapidly along a plain road; after a league or more, the road faded into a dim path; another league, and we were in the mid-desert. Moved by the novelty of the situation, I let the party pass me, that I might be alone.
Mira! A world of grass, each blade brown or yellowing on the stalk, not dying so much as curing itself—just far enough gone to rustle at the touches of the winnowing winds; a world of grass with- out a flower, nor even a wee anemone. The trees are few in number and variety. Off yonder is a solitary cabbage-palm, tall, shaggy, crowned with a shock of green bayonets; it stands motionless, the image of a listening watchman. Here and there groves thinly fleck the broad brown face on which they endure, in the distance wear- ing the air of neglected apple-orchards. They are mesquite trees, for which I confess partiality, not for their beauty, but for their courage. The idea and the word, as applied, may startle the reader ; yet I sometimes please myself thinking that in the kingdom of plants there is a degree of the royal quality. The lichen, up in the realm of the reindeer, and the willow, which survives long burial by the snows everlastingly whitening the echoless shores of Lincoln Sea, must be braver than the palm on the Nile or the redwood on the Amazon. So with the mesquite of the desert. Ah, here is one of them close by,—knotted, gnarled, dwarfed, brittle, black of bark, vaster of root than top, yet with a certain grace derived from its small, emerald green leaves, so delicately set on trembling fronds. I have only to look at it once to recognize a hero, not of many tilts with storms, but of an endless battle with drought and burning sun, living sometimes years on nothing but faintest dews. Is it wonderful that it grew branching from the ground so low as to be trunkless? Or that its limbs separated in the beginning, and did their feeble climbing wider and wider apart each day of life, as hate- ful of each other and the humble stem which generated them? Or that at last, when full grown, yet comparatively a shrub of low degree, thin and wan of foliage, its shade ill suffices to cool the gophers nestling down deep amongst its sprawling roots, or the crickets, panting as they sing in the gray mosses of uncertain life, stitched like prickly patches on its weather side ?
Nevertheless, the tree was disposed to serve me. As I looked at it, thinking of its struggle for life, I was conscious of a warning,— what if I should get lost ?
——
8A
HEAD OF AMERICAN BUFFALO (BISON AMERICANUS).
DRAWN BY JAMES C. BEARD.
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 119
I glanced at the sun, that first compass of the first hunters, and rose in my stirrups essaying to single out the direction to the house of Zuloaga. To point the locality of the Spaniard’s Fountain of Youth had been as easy. Oh, you say, the path of coming was plain! Yes, but—as I found before the day was done—that path was one of millions winding in and out, never a skein of silk so hope- lessly tangled, in and out as impossible of straightening by a novice like me as some sad lives we all have known; paths worn by wolves galloping in howling packs through the South moonlight; deer paths; and paths known only to the unlovely red children of Uncle
)
THE TANGLE OF PATHS.
a.— House of Zuloaga. 4.— Estanque.
Sam, who perennially tear down that way for scalps of women and children and the loot of undefended ranchos; paths now along the prairie, now through the chaparral, devious and past following and past finding when once lost as the flight of swallows. Oh, if I did know the right oze amongst the multiplied zigzag many, and could keep it in shade and shine—keep it truly against the tempting promises of this and that other so friendly and familiar-looking, then doubtless I could make the house. Not caring to make the trial, or to be put to the necessity of making it, I snatched the rein and gave spur to my willing horse.
The gallop was over a great fastura, one of the sheep-ranges of our little guide. I did not like the life of the lad,—following the flock as he does day after day, without other companionship except of his dog and donkey, must be lonesome,—yet it is not altogether void of charm. The glories of the enchanter Distance are about him everywhere. If from grasses crinkling under foot, and dwarfed
120 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
A MAGUEY FIELD.
trees scarce vigorous enough to cover their nakedness with the sug- gestion of foliage, he gazes off over them all, who ever saw a horizon with a span so very, very wide? If he looks higher to the sky, nay into it, how the blue inverted bowl widens and deepens as the clear eye shears on, on, through depths to other depths immeasurable! And looking, lo! out of them, by some deft magic,—out of the remove of horizon or the added depths of sky, illusions most likely of atmos- phere absolutely purified, or out of them all, it may be,—the En- chanter evolves for me all the effects of space. Did it the same for him? And did he feel them as I did?
We came at length to a body of water, in the Mexican, an es¢angue ; in English, a pond. Off a little way a herd of sheep and goats,
A Buffalo Hunt tn Northern Mexico. [21
thousands in number, having slaked their thirst, were wending slowly to fresh feeding-grounds. A man, joint keeper with our guide, sat by the shore preparing his humble breakfast. Then | knew how the pond made life possible out so far in the afflicted land. The radius of the migration of herd and herdsmen might be wide enough to take in the mountain showing off to our right, like a dab of purple pigment. Whatever its boundary, however, this was its center —this rippling sheet, clear and bright enough to live in my memory another Diamond of the Desert.
While the horses drank, and some of the more careful xazchervos refilled the water-gourds they habitually carried at their saddle-bows, Don Miguel and the colonel interviewed the herdsmen, whose re- plies were very satisfactory. Our game had spent the night in the vicinity; the water the other side of the pond was muddy with their wading; he had even made fires to drive them away, and they left about sunup, going toward the mountains.
“You see the trees yonder?” he said; “well, two bulls were there not an hour ago, fighting; they may be there now. QOzzex sabe, senores?”
“Tt is but a minute’s ride—shall we.go?” said Don Miguel to the colonel. The latter called to me; next moment we were off, leaving the party to follow as they severally made ready.
I remember yet the excitement of that ride, the eagerness and expectancy with which we neared the knot of trees, our dash through, pistol in hand. In quiet hours | hear the shout with which the colonel brought us together. In an opening scarce twenty yards square lay a dying bull. He was of prodigious girth, and covered head and shoulders with a coat of sunburnt hair to shame a lion. Long, tangled locks, matted with mud and burs, swathed his forelegs down to the hoofs. The ponderous head of the brute rested help- lessly upon the rotting trunk of a palm-tree; the tongue hung from his bloody lips; his eyes were dim, and his breath came and went in mighty gasps. The death-wound was in his flank, a horrible sick- ening rent. The earth all about bore witness to the fury of the duel. Long time he confronted his foe, and held him with locked horns; at last, he slipped his guard—that broad forehead with its crown of Jove-like curls —and was lost. Who could doubt that the victor was worth pursuit ?
122 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
We helped the unfortunate to a speedier death, and lingered to observe him. His travels had been far, beginning doubtless up
“Tn the land of the Dakotah,”
whence winter drove him with all his herd down the murky Missouri. On the Platte somewhere he passed the second summer; then, from the hunting of the Sioux and their fierce kinsmen, he escaped into Colorado; after a year of rest, in search of better pastures, he pushed southward again, lingering in the fields about the head-waters of the Arkansas; there the bold riders of the Comanche found him; breaking from them, he disappeared for a time in the bleak wilder- ness called The Staked Plains; thence to the Rio Grande, and across into Chihuahua, the pursuer still at his heels; and now there was an end of travel and persecution. As we returned from the chase, I saw him again, lying where we found him, a banquet for the whimpering wolves. Already he was despoiled of his tongue.
The incident, as may be thought, whetted the ardor of the party to the sharpest edge. A wide interval stretched between us and the mountain toward which the game had disappeared; in some of the long swales ahead we knew they were feeding; possibly we might strike them before noon; nobody felt tired. Santos rode forward at a canter; we followed in a body, saying little, but never so observ- ant. Two more miles were put behind. Suddenly, as the ozo was making the ascent of a long up-grade, he stopped, and, turning in his saddle and pointing forward, shouted: ‘ Ola, los bufalos /”
Not a man but felt a great heart-beat and a thrill which shocked him from head to foot. As at command, we raised the guns, lying across the saddles before us. As at command, too, we all broke into a gallop. Santos, like a sensible fellow, came back to meet us.
‘“Where are they?” everybody asked in a breath.
‘Just over the hill,” he answered, suppressing his excitement.
‘Are there many of them?” I asked.
‘“ Caramba, senor / Ne cannot kill them all before night.”
We gained the top of the grade, and there they were—not a quarter of a mile away, grazing slowly onward—/os demonios del Norte.
To the left, under a well-grown tree, I caught sight of one, solemn, sedate, magnificent in proportion, magnificently draped in
OUR FIRST VIEW OF THE HERD.
flying fur. He alone kept his place motionless and with full front toward us, the perfect picture of confidence, self-collection, and power of toughened thews in wakeful repose. In every flock of living things there is a sentinel who watches, a philosopher who thinks, a law- maker who ordains, a king who governs; and there they were all in one—and more, he was the victor of the morning’s duel. I knew it all with the certainty of intuition.
The exceeding peacefulness of the scene was not lost on me, and the monitor of the low voice did some whispering ; but—my blood was running races. The heart was beating in my throat, and the hot parch of the hunter’s fever was on my tongue. Pity there is no gauge for the measurement of a man’s excitement of spirit ; some- thing of the kind should be our next great gift from the wiseacres ; and then, if the invention should happily be simple of reference and easy of portage like a pencil or a knife, we could have with us always a doctor to save us from apoplexies, and a guardian to say stop at that point in our pleasures where conscience is in the habit of obtrud- ing, like the ghost at the banquet.
We had no thought of strategy—scattering, flanking, heading off had no places in our heads, and without an inquiry from us the wind continued to blow as it listed. A common impulse seized every man and communicated to every horse. A shout, some fierce gouging with rowels, and away we dashed pell-mell, guns in hand,
124 A Buffalo Hunt tn Northern Mexico.
Don Miguel in the lead. The startled herd, executing a volt to the rear, stood a moment at bay. The king under the tree shook his crowned head, and viewed us askance. Ha! ha! was he scared? Or, like a veteran general, was he coolly counting the odds before resolving on battle? If, at a signal, his army had closed ex masse and charged us horns down, what a hurry-scurrying rearward there would have been on our part! But no—he had heard the whoop of assault before, and knew all its significance. The pause was from curiosity, as natural to his kind as to a high-bred lady. We heard his bellow, ragged as the mot of a Mexican trumpet; then he went right-about; whereat there was a general stampede—a blind sauve gui peut, which, interpreted literally, means, may the devil take the hindmost. Away they went, all alike, the king forgetful of his dignity, and all the queens for once at least self-dependent.
Now, if the reader will resolve a buffalo into a machine and make study of his locomotive capacities, it will be seen he was not made for speed. He is too weak in the hind-quarters, too ponderous in the fore; and as if the fatted hump on his shoulder were not a suffi- cient handicap of the poor brute, Nature fashioned his head after the model of a pork-barrel, and hung it so low as to be directly in the way of his forefeet—the very reverse of a horse or a deer. A /or- tiord, as the lawyers are so fond of saying, he does not leap when in flight, but rolls and plunges, like a porpoise at play. In short, there would have been shame everlasting in the house of Zuloaga if our mustangs, outfliers of the desert winds, had failed to overtake the lumbering fugitives in less than a half mile.
I do not know what my companions did—a quick concentrating of self seized me, insomuch that I became to the world else the merest husk of a purpose; the circumstances of the charge, those the eye catches and those the ear hears, looks, actions, words, yell ; even the stirring rataplan of the horses’ drumming hoofs and the deep bass earth-rumble of the game in multitudinous flight — all failed my perception; for as we drew near the chase one straggler claimed my attention —a heifer, clean built and clean of hide. She was running freely, and could have made better speed but for the slower hulks in her way. I had a thought that she might make better meat than the bigger specimens, and yet another, she might be more easily killed; and to kill her I bent every faculty.
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 125
NOW, FIRE!
The mustang caught the spur; forward—close—closer—by bending in the saddle I could have laid hand on my prey; then, fully conscious that she was singled out, how she struggled to get away! How the muscles of her flanks swelled and knotted in des- perate exertion! The time came to use my Winchester. I selected the place to shoot at, just behind the shoulder, and brought the rifle down. Goodness! - I was left of the game, when, being right- handed, I should have gone to the right. Three times I tried to get aim, but in vain. I laid the gun across the saddle, and drew my pistol—a Smith & Wesson, the best of revolvers then, yet not near so good as now; for that I was in place. Forward again, and closer in—closer—now, fire! The bullet lodged in the shoulder. Again, and in the heart; hurrah! My horse shied; the rifle fell to the ground; I barely escaped tumbling after; the victim moaned, stag- gered, stumbled, fell. Aye, count me ove, and, better yet, count me the FIRST ONE !
126 A Buffalo Hunt tn Northern Mexico.
Upon coming to,—observe all the words imply,—I was dis- mounted, and in the act of picking up my gun. The conduct of man was never more purely instinctive than mine had been throughout. I make the confession without shame, for ] am not of those who believe thought must govern and direct what all we do, other- wise there is no credit. In cases of peril bullet-swift, to wait on reflection is to die. Instinct moves us; we obey, and live. Thought implies conditions, and a final judgment upon them; instinct implies instant action—something dull men are incapable of.
Let me pass the pride and happiness of that triumphant moment. The fisherman who has landed the traditional trout of a famous brook, or a ten-pound golden salmon from the golden beds of the Kankakee, can tell you my feelings; and to enable a hunter to inter- pret for me, it is only required that he should have bagged a wild goose, flying full-quilled from the Arctics.
The mustang was at last reduced to quiet; then I looked about. The huntsmen and the herd were out of sight in a trough of the land ahead; yells and frequent shots signaled their whereabouts. Not another carcass was to be seen; I had made the first capture ; what if it should be the only one? While so thinking,—the faintest semblance of a selfish wish lurking under the reflection,—suddenly the noise ceased. Strange! Something had certainly occurred. I swung into the saddle; then up from the hollow rode a ranchero, coming to speak to me, I supposed; he went by like a ricochetting shot. Others appeared; the same haste possessed them, only they shouted: ‘“Preesa, sewor! Los Indios, los Indios!” (‘« Make haste, sir! Indians, Indians! ”)
Ah, the cursed Apaches !
The interruption was not an agreeable one; in fact, the effect was decidedly chilling ; yet | managed to control myself, and ride forward. The last of the zazcheros passed in flight; only the colonel, Don Miguel, his friends, and Santos and Teodora, remained.
“What's up now?”
The colonel answered coolly:
“The fellows say they came upon Indians in the grass down yonder. I think they are lying.”
Don Miguel shrugged his shoulders nearly to the top of his head, and fairly hissed:
A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 127
“Jt is nothing, sir,” with an expression of contempt without an equivalent in English.
Santos touched his hat, indicating a wish to speak.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“There are no Indians there.”
DINO!”
“T stopped one of the men long enough to have him show me ” he laughed heartily.
where the ambush was, and
“Well 2?” I said, impatiently.
“And the buffaloes had run right over the place.”
We looked at each other curiously. Don Miguel suggested we go see for ourselves, and the colonel supported him with a round declaration that they had taken eight or ten good fat cows, and he didn’t like to run away from them to accommodate anybody, much less a thieving Apache. A reconnoissance was determined upon.
We rode into the hollow and up it, cautiously following the trail of the herd.
“Hist!” cried Santos, a little in advance. ‘‘ Look there!”
We looked, and were startled. Not twenty yards away stood a sorrel pony rudely housed in Indian style. At sight of us it raised its head and whinnied piteously. Santos went to it, and stooped to catch the lariat about its neck.
“ Fesu Christo/” he yelled as if shot. I thought he would roll out of his saddle.
“For love of God, gentlemen, come and see,” he next exclaimed.
We stood not upon the order of going.
“Caramba/” said Don Miguel, reining back.
Then the colonel blew a long whistle of disgust, as well he might. An Indian warrior was lying face downward in the grass at the fore- feet of the pony—dead/ The stampede of the vancheros was explained.
A worn knife, butcher’s pattern; a hatchet, such as_ plasterers use ; a redwood bow, short but broad, and variously painted on the back ; a quiver of arrows; a lance, of the Mexican sort; a dirty clay-pipe, in a dirty bag of raw tobacco—were the assets of the dead man.
In the division of spoils, my friend the colonel took two feathers found in the scalp-lock, indicative, as he was pleased to believe, of
128 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico.
the high rank of the deceased. A pair of moccasins, taken from the saddle, fell to me; they were unworn, and soft as a castor glove. I have them yet, and keep them because they were beaded by the warrior’s love, the daughter of an arrow-maker who lives ina painted tepee off over the Sierras, by the loud-singing, but lonely, Gila. A visitor now and then comes and casts a doubt upon the tale of the moccasins; but he always leaves me in disfavor.
We agreed to attribute the end of the savage to ugliness, compli- cated with original sin. When the shepherds were told about him, they turned pale and crossed themselves. They knew why he was in wait where death found him, mercifully for them.
It remains to say the discovery finished the hunt.
The Indian’s pony, seven superb buffalo hides, and any amount of meat, were our trophies. The bivouac by the estaxgue that night was savory with the smell of roasting joints, and next day, when we bade adieu to Don Miguel and his friends at the door of the house of Zuloaga, all the patios were beautiful with festoonery, which, at the end of a week, was taken down, weighed, and divided. No one ever tasted better carne seca.
TENOR PH AME RICAN? CERVIDZ:.
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, Pu. D.
HE deer family includes the most important of our large game
animals. Deer, of one species or another, are found through-
out the whole of North America, from within the Arctic circle south to Mexico. They are most numerous in the northern United States, where the Arctic forms and those inhabiting more temperate regions overlap, and here two of the most magnificent represen- tatives of the family—the moose and the elk value of the deer to the aborigines of this continent ¢an scarcely be over-estimated, In many sections of country, the natives formerly depended for animal food almost wholly upon the deer at certain seasons; and at the present day the Esquimaux rely, for several
are found. The
months of the year, entirely upon the reindeer for subsistence. Until some time after the settlement of this country by the whites, the clothing of the natives was manufactured chiefly from deer-skins. Shirts, leggings, and moccasins were and are made from the dressed skins of the red, the mule, and the black-tail deer; while the coarser and heavier hides of the moose and elk were used for covering lodges, for robes and blankets, and for moccasins, as well as in the manufact- ure of ropes and lines and for a variety of other purposes. At present, blankets and cheap cotton cloths have, to a considerable extent taken the place of buckskin in the manufacture of Indian garments. But to-day, the clothing of the Innuit is made almost entirely from the skins of the reindeer, dressed with the hair on, the garments worn next to the skin being made from the summer hides, on which the hair is short and fine, and the outer ones from skins taken later in the season, and therefore coarser.
9
130 The North American Cervide.
Six unquestioned species of deer inhabit North America. These are the moose (4 de Americana—Jard.), the barren ground caribou ( Rangifer Grenlandicus—Baird), the elk ( Cervus Canadensis — Erx- leben), the mule deer (Cariacus macrotis (Say) Gray), the black-tail deer (Carzacus Columbianus (Rich.) Gray), and the Virginia deer (Cartacus Virginianus (Bodd.) Gray). Beside these, there are several geographical races or varieties, the zodlogical status of some of which is, however, doubtful. The woodland caribou is a distinct race of the Arctic reindeer, and the California form of the mule deer appears also to be a good variety. In the several supposed races of Cariacus Virginianus, such as macrurus, leucurus, Mexicanus, and Coues?, size appears to be the distinguishing varietal characteristic. In the six species already mentioned, we have every variety of size and form, from the gigantic moose, which is taller than the largest horse, down to the little dwarf deer of Arizona, which at the withers meas- ures scarcely thirty-two inches in height. Not less is the difference in grace and beauty of form between the various North American mem- bers of this family. On the one hand stands the Virginia deer, whose very name is symbolical of elegance and beauty of motion; on the other, the moose, huge, ungainly, and, in most of its movements, awkward. With a head more hideous than that of a mule, a neck so short that it cannot reach the ground, legs of immense length, and huge horns shaped like coal shovels, it is as far as possible from being graceful or attractive. But regard it with the hunter’s eye, as, when startled, it dashes along with swinging trot, crashing through the forest and making the dead sticks snap and fly in its impetuous career, taking in its stride without any apparent effort the great fallen logs that lie in its course, and in a moment disappearing shadow-like among the bare tree trunks in the distance, and it will be acknowl- edged that, if not a graceful, it is at least a grand animal. Most of the North American deer, however, are beautiful and graceful.
Before speaking in detail of the various species of Cervzde found in North America, it is desirable to explain just what a deer is.
Roughly speaking, all hoofed animals are contained in the order Ungulata. This division of the Wammatia includes, therefore, the formerly accepted orders Pachydermata, Ruminantia, and Solidun- gula, which have been discarded by modern naturalists. The group is a very large one, its families being the horses, tapirs, rhinoceroses,
The North Amencan Cervide. 131
hippopotami, hogs, camels, musk-deer, deer, giraffe, and the Lovde, in which stand the cattle, sheep, and antelopes. The order is divided into Perrissodactyla and Artiodactyla, or odd and even toed ungu- lates. The distinction between the living representatives of these two groups is well marked, and the division is a convenient one; but it is probable that the future discovery of fossil forms of ungulates will show that the artiodactyles and perrissodactyles grade into one another, so that it will be impossible accurately to define the terms. Although these groups are loosely called odd-toed and even-toed ungulates, the fundamental difference between them does not consist in the number of digits on the foot, but in the fact that in the perris- sodactyles the development of the foot takes place in the line of the middle toe, which is usually symmetrical in itself, whereas in the artiodactyles the third and fourth digits share equally in this develop- ment, and together form a symmetrical pair.
To make this clear, it is perhaps necessary to go a little further, and, by explaining the manner of progression of two of the more familiar forms of the order, to give an idea of the construction of these two types of ungulate foot. The horse is a perrissodactyle, having a single visible toe, which is symmetrical in itself. He walks upon the extremity of this toe, the hoof corresponding to the nail of the third or middle finger in man. Comparing it with the human hand and arm, it will be seen that the fore leg of the horse, from the hoof to the fetlock joint, corresponds to the middle finger, and the portion between the fetlock and what is isually termed the knee, to the middle metacarpal—the bone which lies between the knuckle of the third finger and the wrist. Following the leg up toward the body, it appears that the ‘‘ knee” of the horse is really its wrist; that the elbow is high up close to the body, while the humerus—the bone between the elbow and the shoulder—lies within the body, and out of sight. In the hind leg a similar sequence will be found. The animal walks on the toe corresponding to the third digit in the hu- man foot, the hock is the ankle, while the true knee is close to the body. The horse, therefore, supports his weight on the third digit of each foot. His thumb and little finger, and the first and fifth digits of the foot, have been wholly lost; but in the fore and hind foot the metacarpals and metatarsals of the second and fourth digits still per- sist in the form of the slender, sharp-pointed bones, called by horse-
182 The North American Cervide.
men side-bones or splints, which lie hidden beneath the skin, close to the large third digit, metacarpal or metatarsal.
Now the ox is an artiodactyle. His weight is supported on the tips of two toes, which represent the third and fourth digits of the human hand, or foot, as the case may be. The first has been wholly lost, but the second and fifth are represented by the two little supple- mentary hooflets behind and above the main hoofs. The functional hoofs are symmetrical in pairs, the third and fourth digits being equally developed, and taking an equal part in the constitution of the foot and in performing its work. The metacarpals and metatar- sals of the third and fourth digits are equally developed, but are anchylosed together, so that they appear like a single bone, with, how- ever, two distinct articular surfaces at their lower ends to support the phalanges of the digits. The Cevvzd@ belong to the Artiodactyla, and their feet are constructed upon the same plan as those of the ox. They are also ruminants, and belong in a subdivision of the A r¢zo- dactyla styled Pecora, to which belong the Camelopardide (giraffes) and Bovede (cattle, sheep, and antelopes).
All the Cevvzd@ have horns, and these alone are enough to distin- cuish this family from any other. The horns of the Loved are per- manent osseous outgrowths from the frontal bone of the skull, and are enclosed in a horny epidermic sheath, which is usually persistent, a single species —our prong-horn antelope — being the only exception to the rule. These bony outgrowths, which form the core of the horn, are usually permeated by large air sinuses, and from this fact the group have been called Cazzcornza (hollow-horned). In the deer family, however, the horns are constructed on quite a different plan. They are still outgrowths of bone from the frontals, but the outer epidermic sheath encloses them for a short time only, and, as soon as their growth is completed, is shed. The perfect horn is now mere dead bone. It remains firmly attached to the skull for a few months, and then drops off, to be renewed again the following year. These horns are, in fact, true bones, and in their constitution do not differ materially from the other bones of the body.
Their method of growth is as follows: From each of the frontal bones there arises a short, stout process, growing outward and up- ward, forming what is called the pedicel. This pedicel is covered
The North American Cervide. 133
with ordinary hairy skin, except upon the upper flat circular surface of its extremity, on which the horn of the preceding year was sup- ported. Here the skin is naked and black. In the spring, usually about May 1, the time varying somewhat in the different species, and even in different individuals of the same species, this flat surface becomes convex, gradually swells outward, becomes longer, and soon takes the shape of a short spike. At first, it is straight and swollen and is shaped somewhat like a cucumber. It is now little more than a mass of coagulated blood inclosed in a sack of thin skin, which is covered by a coat of fine brown hair called “velvet,” and during the first part of its growth there is but little trace of bony structure apparent in it. The horn is soft to the touch, and may be somewhat compressed in the hand or bent a little in any direction. It is hot and feverish, too, and the pulsation of the arteries which supply it with blood may be felt. It is also extremely sensitive and tender, and the deer is extremely careful to avoid striking it against the trees or undergrowth near which he may pass.
When the point is reached at which the first tine is to be put off, the extremity of the growing horn becomes somewhat flattened from side to side and then divides, the tine at first being quite small, and increasing in length much more gradually than the beam. The same thing takes place with each of the succeeding branches, so that the beam and all the tines attain their full length at the same time. During the whole period of their growth, the horns are abundantly supplied with blood-vessels, three distinct sets of arteries, according to Caton, passing up through and without the pedicel. The horns grow with very great rapidity, usually attaining their full size in about three months. Huxley, in speaking of this marvelously rapid growth, refers to a pair of antlers, weighing seventy-two pounds, which were produced in ten weeks. As might be imagined, the pro- duction of such a mass of osseous tissue in so short a time is a severe drain upon the animal’s system, and in most species the males at this time become very thin and weak. During the growth of the horn a circular notched and jagged ridge makes its appearance at the base of the horn just above the pedicel. This “burr” serves in a measure to protect the blood-vessels which pass along beneath the skin of the pedicel, and these take their way through it and between its projections, and thence along the channels in the surface of the
QA
134 The North American Cervide.
horn beneath the periosteum—the membrane which incases the living bone.
The horns reach their full size in August, and, from being at first very soft and afterward spongy, have at length become quite hard. They are, however, still covered with the ‘ velvet,” and beneath this the blood continues to circulate, but now more slowly than at any time since the horn began to grow. The time at which the horn becomes fit for use as a weapon of offense or defense varies slightly in the different species of our deer, but is usually about Septem- ber 1. The animal’s head now appears to trouble him, and to be irri- tated like a healing wound, and he rubs his horns violently in the bushes or against the branches and trunks of trees. The tender “velvet” is thus torn off and hangs in bleeding strips about his horns and head, but he continues to rub for several days, until at length the antlers are quite free from skin, their tips white and polished, and the inequalities about the burr filled with finely crushed fragments of bark. He is then ready for the rutting season, which immediately ensues.
The horn is now dead, and at its connection with the skull—the extremity of the pedicel—absorption begins to take place, and in the course of four or five months the attachment to the frontal is so weakened that the horn drops off of its own weight. The end of the pedicel bleeds a little at first, but almost at once heals over, and until the following spring is covered with the black skin already mentioned.
As a rule, these weapons are borne only by the male deer; but the female caribou always has small horns, and in very rare instances the female Virginia deer has been killed with a single spike, or a pair of straight, short, and scarcely branched horns. The horns of all our North American deer become fit for service in September, and they are shed at various times from December to March.
From what has already been said, it will be seen that a deer is an artiodactyle ruminating ungulate, with solid, deciduous horns.
The arrangement of the teeth in this family is as follows: In- cisors, §; Canines, j-9,or wanting ; molars, 7%. Canines are said to be always wanting in the female, but this is by no means true of all species, for they are usually present in the female of Cervus Cana- densis, and I have also detected small ones occasionally in Carzacus Columbianus.
The North American Cervide. 135
The keenness of the deer’s olfactories has become proverbial, and the experienced hunter, when starting out, always first satisfies him- self as to the direction of the wind; for a deer, when its nose has told it that a man is in the neighborhood, waits for no more definite information on the subject, does not seek to learn just where he is, nor how far off, but makes the best of its way from the spot. All deer are alike in possessing this keen power of scent and in the readiness with which they