THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

WILD NEIGHBORS

WILD NEIGHBORS

OUT-DOOR STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES

BY

ERNEST INGERSOLL

AUTHOR OF " THE LIFE OF ANIMALS : THE MAMMALS,

" WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD," " THB

WIT OF THE WILD," ETC.

'I3ooka must folio to Sciences, anD net Sciences iSoofcs."

BACON.

ffcrfe
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1906
AU rights reserved

Q.L5TO

COPYRIGHT, 1897, 1906,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published 1897.
New Edition, revised, October, 1906.

ICorfacol) 3Prt0*

J. S. Gushing <te Co. — Herwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

i

WHO HAS BEEN

MY MOST ENCOURAGING CRITIC

AND MY BEST FRIEND

lt

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

THE substance of several of the essays, or of parts of
them, that follow, has been printed heretofore in The Field
(of London), Harpers Magazine, The Popular Science
Monthly, The Evening Post (of New York), or Frank Leslie >s
Popular Monthly. The author desires to credit these publi-
cations with this priority, and to thank them for permitting
him to make this new and revised use of the material.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PACK

OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS i

American Gray and Red Squirrels.

CHAPTER II

THE FATHER OF GAME 33

The Puma, Cougar, or American Panther.

CHAPTER III

THE SERVICE OF TAILS . 61

Their Use and Importance to various Creatures'.

CHAPTER IV

THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 99

The Coyote, or American Prairie Wolf.

CHAPTER V

THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 119

The American Badger and other Burrowers.

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

PACK

ANIMAL TRAINING AND ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE . . .157
Observations upon Animals in Menageries.

CHAPTER VII

A WOODLAND CODGER 186

The Canada and other American Porcupines.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 209

With Special Reference to his Means of Defence.

CHAPTER IX

A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 251

The Woodchuck, Groundhog, or Maryland Marmot.

CHAPTER X

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 272

Raccoons and 'Coon-hunting.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A CANADA PORCUPINE Frontispiece

From a Photograph by Sanborn.

SUMMER LEAF-NEST OF THE GRAY SQUIRREL . . Opposite 14

From a Photograph by Brownell.

SKULL OF A GRAY SQUIRREL 21

MALABAR SQUIRREL Opposite 29

From a Photograph by Sanborn.

HEAD OF A RED SQUIRREL 30

THE PUMA — THE "FATHER OF GAME" .... 32

From a Photograph by Sanborn.

A PUMA— KEMEYS'S STATUE .... Opposite 50
From a retouched Photograph by Eldred S. Bates.

ZUNI FETICHES OF THE PUMA 56

AN OPOSSUM AND HER YOUNG 60

THE GREAT ANT-EATER 65

A HORSE-SHOE CRAB, USING ITS TAIL AS A LEVER . . 7!

THE JERBOA KANGAROO 75

A SEA-HORSE ANCHORED BY ITS TAIL 78

SPINY TAIL OF A SWIFT 79

THE THRESHER SHARK 82

ARMED TAIL OF THE STING-RAY 9O

A JERBOA, SHOWING TUFTED TAIL 94

xi

Xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A FAMILY OF COYOTES 98

THE AMERICAN BADGER II 8

Drawn by Harley D. Nichols.

FOUR COMMON SHREWS 126

HEADS AND FEET OF MOLES 129

SKULL OF THE BADGER 139

A WOODCHUCK AT DINNER Opposite 148

From a Photograph by Sanborn.
ELEPHANTS PILING LOGS UPON RAILWAY CARS . . .156

Drawn by Harley D. Nickoh.

THE CANADA PORCUPINE 187

Drawn by Harley D. Nichols.

SKULL OF THE CANADA PORCUPINE 197

THE COMMON NORTHERN SKUNK 2O8

Drawn by Harley D. Nichols.

SKULL OF A SKUNK 2l6

WESTERN SKUNK PELTS Opposite 235

" WHO OWNS THE CLOVER PATCH ? " 250

From a Photograph by Sanborn.

SKULL OF THE WOODCHUCK 259

THE LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 273

From a Photograph by Fisher.

SKULL OF THE RACCOON 287

WILD NEIGHBORS

OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS

DOWN past my window, as I sit writing beside
it, falls a twig from the black oak at the corner
of the house. Half a minute later another sinks
wavering downward, buoyed by its broad leaves,
which are green and healthy. This happens in
July, far in advance of their natural time to fall.
What is the cause ? A glance informs me. One
of our gray squirrels is out on the end of an over-
hanging limb, and I am just in time to see him
bite off another leafy twig and carry it away. It
is evident that he had dropped the other one acci-
dentally. What is he doing ? I vault out of the
window, and keep him in view as he makes his
way nearly to the summit of a tall white oak,
where he leaves his branch as a contribution to a
half bushel or so of sticks and leaves lodged in a
convenient notch. Another squirrel is there, and
together they scramble over the mass, packing and
entangling it together, and occasionally disappear-

2 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

ing into its interior, showing that it is hollow.
There seems, however, to be no special entrance,
the inmates pushing their way into the centre, and
escaping from it wherever it seems easiest to part
the twigs. I have never seen more than one pair
at work upon any one nest. The work is done
mainly in the early morning, and the task is ac-
complished very speedily.

I know this particular pair of squirrels very
well. They have been tenants of the grove ever
since we came to live in this edge of the city,
and though the town has now grown beyond and
around us, and the grove is given a perpetual
moonlight from the electric lamp on the corner,
the trees and bushes remain. In midsummer they
may indulge their fondness for toadstools, upon
which, during August, they seem almost wholly
to subsist. Nuts and acorns come with each re-
turning autumn, and in midwinter provender is
spread upon friendly window-sills.

Almost the only advantage the squirrels have
taken of civilization, however, has been to occupy
the boxes that my benevolent neighbor, Dr. J. P.
Phillips, has put up for them in the trees, which
are tenanted more or less all the year round, one
family occupying each box and tree by itself as
long as it wishes, and putting in its own furniture
— a new bedroom set of grass and soft leaves. Of
these boxes they distinctly prefer those which are
simply sections of hollow logs, probably because

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 3

nearest like the natural cavities in decayed tree-
trunks chosen (in cold latitudes) by the squirrels
as their home ; but as none of our pets had been
forest bred, this preference seems to have been
dictated by an inherited taste. By midsummer
these tenements become so hot and vermin-infested
that the squirrels leave them and construct bowers
of leaves, as my friends in the oak were doing
when they attracted my attention ; and they occa-
sionally inhabit them all winter, when the family
nestles into the fluffy mass of loose leaves and
grass forming the centre of the ball, and thus
keeps warm.

Though their nests and burrows become more
or less infected with vermin, all our squirrels are
exceedingly cleanly animals, and spend much time
in rubbing their faces and cleansing their own fur
and that of their young ones. " When they acci-
dentally step into the water," writes Godman, "they
make use of their bushy tail for the purpose of
drying themselves, passing it several times through
their hands."

This squirrel is the one which in the older books
is called the Northern gray squirrel, Sciurus migra-
torijis, in contrast with the Southern gray squirrel.
Several other closely related species have been
described from the interior and the Pacific coast,
besides the very distinct "fox," "red," "flying,"
and other sharply distinguished members of the
family. Certain differences of size and coat notice-

4 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

able between types of our gray squirrel from widely
separated regions, accompanied by local peculiari-
ties of habit, at first misled naturalists, but only one
species is now recognized, — Sciurus carolinensis.

The first litter of young among the wild gray
squirrels is seen in March in the warmer parts of
the country, and somewhat later in the more north-
ern States and in Canada. At least one more
brood usually follows before winter. Our friends
in the grove, however, sure of food and lodging,
bring out their broods with little regard to season.
One female, which has been known to us for years
as the "mother squirrel," seems rarely without a
family ; and Dr. Phillips assures me that he has
known her to bear four litters in a single twelve-
month, thus braving all sorts of weather.

This exhibits the hardihood of these little ani-
mals. No weather seems cold enough to daunt
them. They endure the semi-arctic climate north
of Lake Superior, remain all the year on the peaks
of the Adirondacks, where their only food is the
seeds of the black spruce, and appear in midwinter
in Manitoba; but when a sleet storm comes, and
every branch and twig is encased in ice, then the
squirrel stays at home. I remember one such storm
which was of unusual severity and did vast damage.
The ice clothed the trees for several days in suc-
cession, and the imprisoned animals became very
hungry. The Doctor and I had swung from tree
to tree a line of bridges made of poles along which

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 5

the squirrels scampered, no less to their delight
than to ours, often leaping one over the other with
extraordinary agility and grace when two met on
this single-track, air-line road.

One of these bridges led to a window-sill in each
residence, where food was often spread, and it was
amusing to see the circumspection with which, at
last, they crept toward it along the icy poles, dig-
ging their claws into the glazed surface, and often
slipping astride or almost off the bridge.

In the tree-tops, where they rush and leap at
full speed, they are by no means safe from falling,
but usually manage to catch hold somewhere, often
by only a single toe, apparently, yet are able to lift
the body up, like gymnasts, to a firmer foothold.
Their strength is remarkable, especially in the re-
gion of the great hams, whose development ac-
counts for the really astonishing leaping powers
these animals possess.

Should they fall clear to the ground, as some-
times happens, they alight right side up like a cat,
and seem none the worse for the accident. The
feet are wide-spread in such a case, and the loose
skin over the ribs is stretched and flattened out
very perceptibly. It would seem only a step from
that condition to the parachute with which the
flying-squirrel is provided ; but if the development
of this formation in the latter came about through
natural selection, it must have begun very long
ago, for Cope has found a fossil (Allomys}, which

6 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

he considers representative of the flying-squirrel
type, as far back as the Jurassic. I have read of
a Mexican squirrel that was thrown from a cliff
several hundred feet high, as an experiment, which
spread its body and settled easily to a safe alight-
ing upon the ground.

Dr. C. C. Abbott notes that a certain sycamore
near his home on the Delaware was avoided by
the squirrels, and accounts for it by the supposi-
tion that its scaly bark caused them too many
falls ; but they are incessantly climbing the shag-
bark hickories, — far worse than the buttonball in
the matter of roughness. The latter tree, however,
rewards them in nuts, while the sycamore had
nothing to give them, and the truth probably is
that Abbott's squirrels were wise enough not to
inconvenience themselves for. nothing.

The spring and early summer is most uniformly
the season of reproduction, and this is the period
when we see least of our pets. The mothers are
awaiting the birth of their annual, or perhaps semi-
annual broods, and spend most of their time at rest
in their homes, while all the males of the grove go
wandering away to visit other temporary bachelors.
To call them all temporary husbands, would be
nearer truth, however, for, so far as we can dis-
cover, the mating is only for a single season, and
as soon as gestation begins, the mothers become
vixenish, and not only turn their husbands out-of-
doors, but expel them from the premises.

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS J

Usually four kittens arrive in one litter, blind
and helpless, and during the first month remain
within the nest, closely attended by the mother,
who permits no other squirrel — even her pre-
sumed mate — to come near her. Each family,
in fact, pre-empts a tree, and their sense of prop-
erty is so strong that usually a trespasser will
depart with little resistance, as if conscious of
being where he has no right. Old males will
sometimes kill their young, so that the mother
does well to keep all at a distance.

At the end of a month the young are half grown,
and begin to scramble awkwardly about their door-
way, yet the mother won't let them leave the nest
until she thinks they are fully ready.

One morning in the middle of October I ob-
served that a family of four young squirrels was
venturing forth from a box just outside my study
window. They were not more than six weeks old,
and were very timid. It was not often that more
than two or three would appear at once, and one
of these seemed much farther advanced than the
rest, while another was very babyish. Their prime
characteristic was inquisitiveness. What a fine and
curious new world was this they had been introduced
to ! How much there was to see ! How many de-
lightful things to do ! They ceaselessly investigated
everything about them with minute attention, and
had very pretty ways, such as a habit of clasping
each other in their arms around the neck. They

8 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

frequently scratched and stroked one another,
and once I saw one diligently combing another's
tail with its fore feet.

The tail, indeed, which is flat, and has the wavy
hair growing laterally from a careful parting along
the muscular midrib, is an object of great pride to
its owner. It is, no doubt, useful and comforting
as a wrapper in cold weather, and certainly assists
the agile acrobat as a balancing-pole ; but that it
is highly appreciated purely as an ornament, is
very evident from the abashed demeanor of the
little animal when a portion of its brush is lost.

The generic name Sciurus (from which comes
"squirrel," through Old French esquirel} is de-
rived from Greek words meaning a creature which
sits under the shadow of its tail, and the name
shade-tail is in actual use in some of the Southern
States to-day. We might appropriately translate
the Greek in this case as designating an animal
whose tail puts all the rest of him into the shade.

Gradually they gain strength and confidence,
and then you will see how far the liveliness of the
young can surpass even the tireless activity of old
squirrels. Both old and young are exceedingly
fond of play, springing from the ground as if in a
high-jumping match, and turning regular summer-
saults in the grass ; but the most amusing thing is
this : Finding a place where the tip of a tough
branch hangs almost to the ground, they will leap
up and catch it, sometimes with only one hand,

i OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 9

and then swing back and forth with the greatest
glee, just like boys who discover a grape-vine in
the woods or a dangling rope in a gymnasium.
These and many similar antics seem to be done
"just for fun."

The kittens continue to be nursed by the mother
until they have grown to be almost as heavy as
herself. It seems impossible that her system can
stand such a drain, — in fact she does grow weak
and thin, — and my neighbor, who has been an ex-
tremely close observer of their economy for several
years, has come to the conclusion that the mother
weans the kittens gradually by giving them food
which she has regurgitated, or, at any rate, has
thoroughly chewed up in her own mouth.

No animal is more motherly than one of these
parent squirrels, and it is delightful to watch her
behavior when the nearly grown brood has begun
to make short excursions, and is undergoing in-
struction. All the other families in the grove take
an interest in the proceedings, and chatter about it
at a great rate ; but if one comes too near and at-
tempts any interference in the instruction, he is
likely to be driven away most vigorously by the
jealous mother. Every morning lessons in climb-
ing and nut-hunting are given, and pretty scenes
are enacted. The pride of the little mother as she
leads her train out on some aerial path is very
noticeable. They are slow and timid about follow-
ing. Squirrels must learn to balance themselves

10 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

on the pliant limbs by slow degrees. It is many a
long day after they are able to chase one another
up and down and under and around a rough oak
trunk, in the liveliest game of tag ever witnessed,
before they can skip about the branches and leap
from one to the other with confidence in their
security. The patient mother understands this,
and encourages them very gently to "try, try
again." I remember one such lesson. The old
one marched ahead slowly, uttering low notes, as
if to say : " Come on, my dears. Don't be afraid!"
Every little while she would stop, and the two well-
grown children following would creep up to her,
and put their arms around her neck in the most
human fashion, as if protesting that it was almost
too hard a task.

This loving-kindness is extended to other young
squirrels whenever no question of family rivalry
interferes, as is shown, in a most amiable way, by
incidents I have narrated elsewhere.

In spite of this I do not believe that, broadly
speaking, the gray squirrel is a very intelligent
animal, or has much brain-power. On the con-
trary, to my mind this squirrel, except within a
very limited field, where a part of his brain has
been developed by his necessities, is an unusually
stupid animal. Dr. T. Wesley Mills of Montreal,
who has made a study of brute psychology, has
essayed to show that squirrels are the most intelli-
gent of rodents ; but even granting this (which I

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS II

doubt, when I think of the rat), little is proved,
and even Dr. Mills places the general intelligence
of the red, the flying, and the ground squirrels
superior to that of our gray, which he concedes
to be deficient in docility.

Nevertheless, these animals within a certain nar-
row range of acts and motions are certainly saga-
cious ; and they are somewhat teachable. It took
our squirrels a very short time to learn that cracked
nuts of several varieties, grains of corn, and other
edibles were to be had on the window-sills. The
squirrels know, furthermore, that the nuts are
placed there from the inside, and if, as occasionally
happens, the sill is empty, they will often stand up
and tap upon the glass, as if to attract notice to
their hunger.

Moreover, they know very well when the family
meal-hours come around, and will present them-
selves at the windows pretty regularly then, since
they have learned to expect more than ordinary
attention at that time ; and they do so even when,
occasionally, the meal is omitted, so that no noise
or odors of preparation could have apprised them
of the time. The Doctor has had a few advance
timorously to take food from his fingers, as the
tame squirrels on Capitol Hill in Richmond, and
in some other city parks, will do from almost
any one.

It is plain that they recognize all of us as ac-
quaintances from their indifference to our presence,

12 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

while they will raise a great clamor whenever a
stranger walks about under the trees. More than
this, they seem to know the Doctor's horse and
carriage, and pay no attention to its goings and
comings, but become excited whenever another
vehicle enters the premises. They will stay quietly
eating on the window-sill while one of us sits just
inside the glass, but when they see a visitor in the
room will almost invariably seize a nut and scamper
away as fast as they can go. Furthermore their
actions convince us that when, as often happens
in midsummer, Dr. Phillips meets one of our squir-
rels in some far-away street, the little animal
recognizes him and shows its confidence in his
accustomed kindness ; but I have never been
recognized in that way, to my knowledge.

As pets these squirrels are not greatly in de-
mand, — not so much so as the flying-squirrels,
which crawl inside your coat and appeal to your
affection at once. The grays are so mischievous,
trying their strong teeth on everything and dam-
aging furniture and hangings so rapidly, that we
never dared admit them to the house on terms of
intimacy, and as for confining them in a cage, it
was never thought of.

In spite of some stories I have heard and read,
I am under the impression that an attempt to
make a real pet of one would prove tiresome, if it
didn't fail altogether. The animal is pretty to
Jook at, and pleasant to handle, but seems to have

i OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 13

little affection, or, at any rate, makes little demon-
stration of it. It is selfish. It wants you as a
friend only for what it can get out of you, and
these are not terms upon which love grows. Its
big eyes are like jewels, but they never melt with
the fond delight of the dog in your companionship
and approval. The squirrel may climb to your
shoulder, and explore your pockets for sweets;
but never will he leap into your lap and curl up
there for the enjoyment of being with you, and
purr contentedly over it as does your cat. He has
no monkey-like antics with which to amuse you —
no melodious tones to beguile your ear ; and one
who knows him as an acrobat of the tree-tops can
only look with pity upon his performance within
the limits of a whirling treadmill, such as is usu-
ally attached to squirrel cages.

Though the squirrels in this rus in urbe of our
grove have few enemies, they have never lost their
wariness. Sometimes a tremendous clamor will
break out in the tree-tops — a mixture of sharp
ch-r-r-r-rs and whines, easily intelligible to us as
notes of alarm and indignation. These usually
mean that a strange dog or cat is somewhere near.
No hawks or owls (save the little screech-owl) ever
come to disturb them, and, of course, none of the
wild-cats, weasels, or large serpents which kill
them in the wild forest is here to molest or make
them afraid, yet the population of the grove never
seems to increase, though the eight or ten pairs

14 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

more than double their numbers every six
months.

The explanation is that the young leave us on
coming to maturity. As a rule, their family had
moved from the house where they were born to
new quarters as soon as the young could take care
of themselves, and here a new litter would soon be
forthcoming.

These family flittings are often amusing specta-
cles. Sometimes the mother transports her kit-
tens when blind and hairless, carrying them in her
teeth ; but generally she waits until they are able
to travel. I recall one instance where early in the
morning a mother had got her kittens down from
the old nest to the end of a bridge that ran across
to the chinquapin, in which her new home was to
be. But to go out on that bridge was too much
for the youngsters. She would run ahead, and
one or two of them would creep after her a few
yards, then suddenly become panic-stricken and
scramble back. Again and again did the little
mother, with endless patience and pains, counsel
and entice them, until at last one was induced to
keep a stout heart until he was safely over. Then
ensued another interval of chattering and repeated
trials and failures, and so the second and third were
finally got across. It was now noon, and the poor
squirrel looked quite fagged out, her ears drooped,
her fur was ruffled, her movements had lost their
verve, her tail hung low, and her cries became

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 15

sharp and short. Her patience was exhausted.
Instead of tenderly coaxing the last one of the
four, she scolded at him, driving rather than lead-
ing the terrorized youngster along the shaky cable,
and when it had reached the further tree, she seized
it in her mouth, and fairly shoved it through the
door of the new box.

It is probable that in their wild state, before
their forest range was restricted and men began to
slaughter them, all the arboreal squirrels were able
by longevity and rapid increase to more than keep
pace with the deaths in their ranks. Their natural
term of life probably approaches twenty years.
We have known continuously for twelve years one
female who was apparently an old mother when
she came, and is yet hale and hearty. During
this time she has regularly produced at least two
broods a year. At such a rate squirrels would
multiply until they overbalanced the ratio of num-
bers assigned them by nature. Accounts by early
writers show that they must formerly have been
amazingly numerous. Godman says that the gray-
coat was a fearful scourge to colonial farmers, and
that Pennsylvania paid ^8000 in bounties for their
scalps during 1749 alone. This meant the destruc-
tion of 640,000 within a comparatively small district.
In the early days of Western settlement regular
hunts were organized by the inhabitants, who
would range the woods in two companies from
morning till night, vying as to which band should

1 6 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

bring home the greater number of trophies; the
quantities thus killed are almost incredible now.

Out of these excessive multitudes grew those
sudden and seemingly aimless migrations of innu-
merable hosts of squirrels which justly excited
wonder half a century ago. Thousands upon
thousands, of this species usually, would suddenly
appear in a locality, moving steadily in one direc-
tion. These migrations occurred only in warm
weather, and at intervals of about five years, and
all that I have been able to find notes upon were
headed eastward. Nothing stopped the column,
which would press forward through forests, prai-
ries, and farm fields, over mountains and across
broad rivers, such even as the Niagara, Hudson,
and Mississippi. This little creature hates the
water and is a bad swimmer, paddling clumsily
along with his whole body and tail submerged. A
large part, therefore, would be drowned, and those
which managed to reach the opposite shore were
so weary that many could be caught by the hand.
Of course every floating object would be seized
upon by the desperate swimmers, and thus arose
the pretty fable that the squirrels ferried them-
selves over by launching and embarking upon
chips, raising their tails as sails for their tiny
rafts.

The motive which impelled the little migrants to
gather in great companies from a wide area, and
then in a vast coherent army to begin a movement.

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS I/

and continue it steadily in one direction for hun-
dreds of miles, is hard to discover. It did not
seem to be lack of food, for they were always fat.
The migration was leisurely performed, too —
never in too great a hurry to prevent feasting
upon any fields of corn or sometimes of unripe
grain that came in the way. Such a visitation,
therefore, was like a flight of devouring locusts,
one chronicler alleging that the sound they made
in the maize in stripping off the husks to get at
the succulent kernels was equal to that of a field
full of men at harvesting. There is no difficulty,
moreover, in judging of the effect such migrations
would have in restoring equilibrium in sciurine pop-
ulation, since, of the surplus which started, few sur-
vived long, and the remnant at last faded away
among the Alleghanies or in some other distant
locality without seeming to .increase the number of
squirrels there.

The curiosity and gayety of the gray squirrel
are perhaps his strongest personal characteristics.
Nothing unusual escapes his attention, and he is
never satisfied until he knows all about it. He is
the Paul Pry, the news-gatherer, of the woods.

When a new building is in course of erection in
or near the grove, the workmen no sooner leave it
than half a dozen squirrels go over and under and
through it, examining every part. If I trim away
branches and lay them in a heap, or repair a
fence, or do anything else, Mr. Gray inspects it

1 8 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

thoroughly the moment my back is turned ; and
when once the house was reoccupied after a long
vacancy, we caught the squirrels peeping in at the
windows and hopping gingerly to the sill of each
open door, to make sure the matter was all right.

It is most amusing to watch them on these tours
of inspection. Two or three times a day each one
makes the rounds of the premises, racing along
the fences, and into one tree after another, as if
to make certain that nothing had gone wrong.
He will halt on the summit of each post, rear up,
and look all about him ; or, if his keen ears hear
an unwonted sound, will drop down upon all-fours,
ready to run, his tail held over his back like a
silver-edged plume, twitching nervously and jerk-
ing with each sharp utterance, as though it were
connected with his vocal organs by a string. " All
his movements," said Thoreau, "imply a spectator."

The excessive inquisitiveness I have described
often gets them into trouble, and is taken advan-
tage of by their enemies. A wise serpent will coil
himself at the foot of a tree where squirrels are
playing, and will slowly wave his tail or display
his red tongue, sure that the squirrels will see him.
Doubtless they know him for what he is — a deadly
enemy ; but they cannot resist a nearer look at
the curious object and that extraordinary motion.
Whining, chr-r-r-ring, barking, they creep down
the tree-trunk. The snake lies ready, his unwink-
ing eyes fixed upon the excited little quadruped.

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 1 9

Step by step, impelled by a fatal desire to learn
more about that fascinating thing in the grass,
Bunny steals forward — and is lost !

The male squirrels come back from their sum-
mer vagabondage looking very much the worse
for wear, the result of many a battle, no doubt,
for they are incorrigible fighters. In the season
of courtship the males are especially pugnacious,
and will bite one another severely, or hurl one
another from lofty limbs.1 The red squirrels, or
chickarees, though hardly half as big, will whip
the grays in a running fight every time ; but when
it comes to a clinch, the superior size and weight
of the gray give him the victory. There is an
eternal feud between them because the gray squir-
rels are continually raiding the hoards of nuts and
acorns which the provident chickarees stow away
in odd corners against the coming of winter. The
holes in our long post-and-rail fence is a favorite
place of deposition, and in autumn this fence is
pretty regularly patrolled by a chickaree. If a
reconnoitring gray even approaches this fence,
the red will dash at him like wildfire.

One day a pan of shelled corn stood outside the

1 There is no truth in the long-lived supposition that the victor
in one of these knightly combats will mutilate his conquered foe ;
but squirrels are much troubled by parasites in the skin, and in
certain external organs, and these sometimes cause sores which
resemble wounds. They fight a good deal, especially the red
squirrels, which are often obliged to defend their scattered winter
stores against robbers of their own race, as well as against outsiders.

2O WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. I

door of the Doctor's barn, and a chipmunk (the
striped ground-squirrel) approached it cautiously
from one side while a rat came from the barn on
the other. They met at the corn, whereupon, with-
out an instant's hesitation, the chipmunk sprang
into the air like a cat, and alighted squarely on
the back of the rat, which, astounded and cowed
by this unlooked-for attack, turned tail, shook off
his fierce little foe, and raced for shelter, leaving
chippie to fill his cheek-pouches at leisure and go
home in triumph.

The only bird-enemy is the blue-jay, who seems
to love to tease the squirrels in winter, just for mis-
chief; and two jays, working together, can make it
very unpleasant for Bunny. One will dash at him
with a joyous shout, whereupon the scared and
nimble animal will slip around to the further side
of the tree-trunk, "talking back" the while in the
angriest language he knows ; but there the other
jay is ready for him, and he must immediately
dodge back again to where the first is waiting to
dart at him a second time, striking with wings and
beak until both birds are tired of the sport, or
the squirrel bolts to some place of refuge.

Robins and other thrushes are quick to drive
away any gray squirrel that approaches the tree
in which they are nesting, — an enmity which
seems to show that this species is guilty of despoil-
ing birds' nests ; but there is no good evidence of
this crime. The red squirrel, however, is well

SKULL AND DENTITION OF A GRAY SQUIRREL.

Side view, upper and lower aspects, and lower jaw. — NaturaV :,ize.

After Baird.

21

CHAP. I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 23

known as an incorrigible nest-robber and bird-
catcher, killing fledglings as well as sucking eggs :
sometimes, no doubt, his misdeeds have been laid
at the door of the innocent gray ; and wise robins
take no chances. The flying-squirrel is likewise
overfond of birds' eggs.

In another point my observations were at vari-
ance with the books, which credit this squirrel
with somewhat nocturnal habits. Ours were often
abroad late into the dusk, and were out with the
dawn : but certainly they were never outside their
houses during the night, even in bright moonlight.
Merely wet weather does not daunt them, but a
heavy downpour of rain naturally drives them to
cover. They never take a water-bath, so far as
I know ; but they are fond of rubbing and rolling
in loose sand, by way, I suppose, of ridding their
fur of vermin.

In winter they are more active, if possible, than
in summer, racing about the trees at a furious rate,
as if invigorated to fresh activity by the keen air.
Yet the book-writers insist that their habit is other-
wise, and have described extensively their alleged
hibernation. Certainly our Connecticut squirrels
neither hibernate nor become torpid. During the
twenty-five years they have been under close ob-
servation here in New Haven there has never been
a day — excepting very sleety ones, perhaps —
when they did not appear.

The same denial must be made in respect to the

24 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP

hoards of food reported laid up for winter use.
Our grays store no " hoards " in the ordinary sense
of the word, though both our red and our ground
squirrels do so.

What the gray squirrels do is this : as soon as
nuts and acorns begin to ripen in the autumn, they
gather them with great industry, and bury them
one by one, separately. They do this diligently and
furtively, attracting no more attention than they
can help. Hopping about in the grass until they
have chosen a place, a hole, perhaps two inches
deep, is hastily scraped out, the nut is pushed to
the bottom and covered up. The animal then
stamps down the earth and hurries away, hoping
it has not been seen. They never bury the food
given them or found in the summer, but in the fall
will save and bury along with their wild provender
the nuts and occasionally grains of corn taken from
the window-sills.

Whether any of these are dug up before mid-
winter I do not know ; I think not. The squirrels
wander off into the woods when the mast is ripe,
and get fat upon the oily food. But when this
harvest is over, and their stores must be drawn
upon, their ability in discovering them is wonder-
ful. They seem to know precisely the spot in the
grass where each nut is buried, and will go directly
to it; and I have seen them hundreds of times,
when the snow was more than a foot deep, wade
floundering through it straight to a certain point,

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 2$

dive down, perhaps clear out of sight, and in a
moment emerge with the nut in their jaws.

Two hypotheses have been advanced in explana-
tion of this unerring recovery of their treasures.
One is that the animal remembers. But the diffi-
culty of assuming this, under all the circumstances,
is so great, that it seems easier to believe the alter-
native explanation, namely, that the treasure is
found by aid of the sense of smell. It certainly
seems to us that a hickory nut, after having been
buried three or four months, and covered with a
foot or two of snow, would be as unsmellable as
anything could be ; but it won't do to limit the
sensitiveness of a squirrel's nose until we know
more about it than we do at present.

At any rate, nearly, if not quite all, the nuts
buried are exhumed before spring, for few hickory
or oak saplings spring up in our grove, as would
happen if any considerable number of seeds were
left in the ground. Thoreau has a great deal to
say on this topic in his suggestive essay on the
Natural History of Massachusetts (in "Walden"),
and credits the squirrels with doing an immense
amount of tree-planting.

In confinement these squirrels will often attempt
to bury nuts in the floor of their cages, going
through the digging, covering, and patting motions
as if the article were really buried. A writer in
The American Naturalist for 1883 described this
behavior on the part of a flying-squirrel which had

26 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

been bred in the cage from babyhood, and thus
must have acted purely under the impulse of in-
herited tendency or habit ; moreover, this captive
chose out of a large assortment only the acorns
and hazel-nuts that grew wild in that locality,
never attempting to bury peanuts, pecans, and
other foreign fruits, although it ate them readily
enough. Darwin, in his book on Earthworms,
alludes to this practice, and uses it as an illustra-
tion of his doctrine that " the instincts of even the
higher animals are often followed in a senseless or
purposeless manner."

Our squirrels do not limit themselves to nuts,
however. They are fond of buds, especially in
the spring, devouring the maple and elm buds
in particular ; and in summer they feed largely on
fungi and berries. Raspberries and strawberries
please them especially well, and they are accused
of choosing the biggest and ripest ones — a very
sensible proceeding. They will eat dry kernels of
Indian corn, if they are hungry, but delight in it
when it is soft and milky, and in the early days
of farming in the Western States, where the animals
were very numerous, they committed depredations
so serious that boys were set to patrol the field
and drive them away. I am convinced that they
also eat insects.

The ripening of the mast in the fall is the squir-
rel's gala-day, and the beginning of his work-day,
too. He does not wait for the nuts to get ripe,

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 27

but attacks their green husks, and his paws get
richly stained with their brown juices. His power-
ful chisel-teeth quickly strip the shagbark nuts,
but the clinging shucks of the pignut hickory are
cut through. So rapidly does he work that a hard
dry walnut will be opened and cleaned out in less
than a minute. Those squirrels that inhabit co-
niferous forests subsist upon the seeds of the
spruce and pine. These are procured by snipping
off the scales, beginning at the butt end of the
cone and following the spiral arrangement. They
are also said by a writer in the Bulletin of the
Nuttall Ornithological Club (VII, 54) to suck sap
from certain trees.

Certain differences of size and coat noticeable
between types of the North American gray squir-
rel from widely separated parts of the country,
accompanied by local peculiarities of habit, led at
first to the naming of several supposed species.

This doubt in the past as to specific unity well
illustrates the principle that variations in size and
color among all North American mammals and
birds are correlated with geographical distribution,
and seem to conform to varying conditions of
climate. In general, it may be said that our ani-
mals show an enlargement of peripheral parts,
that is, have longer limbs, tails, etc., in southern
latitudes than toward the northern limits of their
range ; that the colors also increase in intensity
southward; and third, that colors are more in-

28 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

tense in regions of copious rainfall than in arid
areas.

The squirrels exemplify these rules. In this
species (carolinensis\ for instance, a steady grada-
tion may be detected from the light pure gray of
the upper parts, characteristic of New England
specimens, to the yellowish dorsal fur of the Flor-
ida type. In the fox-squirrels (Sciurus niger) of
Wisconsin and Iowa the lower parts are only pale
fulvous, in some specimens nearly white; about
St. Louis they are strong, bright fulvous, and in
lower Louisiana reddish fulvous or deep orange,
while the back is far darker than northward. The
same species fades westward from the bright speci-
mens of the damp Mississippi Valley forests into a
far paler variety along the dry edges of the Great
Plains. The red squirrel (S. hudsonius) and the
chipmunk (Tamtas striatus} are also excellent illus-
trations of the action of climatic influences under
this law — particularly the latter, whose color and
stripes exhibited so many varieties between the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts that early naturalists,
having insufficient specimens, described confidently
as several species what is now conceded to be only
one.

The relative amount of moisture and shade seem
to be the determining causes of this diversity,
drouth and the blanching power of the sun in
the high dry plains fading the pigments in the
hair, or perhaps checking their deposition. The

MALABAR SQUIRREL.

This little animal, the largest and one of the handsomest of
its race, is bright chestnut brown above, with the sides, breast
and under parts yellow.

I OUR GRAY SQUIRRELS 2Q

effect of natural selection in adapting the animal
(in color) to its surroundings, by tending to make
it less conspicuous in an exposed than in a con-
cealed habitat, is also to be considered here.

Quite distinct from this, however, seems to be
the tendency to melanism, which is so strongly
marked in several of our sciurids. Among flying-
squirrels, red squirrels, and chipmunks, a black
one is as rare as an albino — probably more rare ;
but in the cases of the gray and the fox squirrels
black examples are extremely common in some
parts of the country, and are popularly considered
a wholly separate species. But no such rule of
climate as mentioned above seems to control this
phenomenon, since black or dusky forms of both
species are as likely to be southern as northern in
their habitat. Where melanism occurs, it is likely
to prevail over a considerable district, sometimes
nearly if not quite to the exclusion of squirrels of
the normal tint. This shows that, though sporadic,
it "runs in families," descending from parents to
young ; yet not inevitably so, for many litters pro-
duced by black parents will contain a member or
two gray, or red, or grizzled, and black and normal
individuals mate freely. The " color-line " is not
drawn in sciurine society. Black ones, however,
are never, or very rarely, seen east of the Hudson
River ; and, furthermore, the northeastern black is
often rusty or brownish in tone, rather than pure,
especially in its summer pelage.

3O WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, i

NOTE. — An abundance of instructive and entertaining
reading on squirrels is open to one who cares to study them
further. A general guide will be found in Stone and Cram's
" American Animals," with a list of books and scientific papers
relating to their classification, structure, etc. ; another list of
books is contained in the Appendix to my " Life of Mammals,"
which also furnishes, in its chapter on the Rodents, a sketch
of the squirrel tribe generally, showing the relation between
our own and foreign species. Very full histories of eastern
and southern squirrels are to be read in Audubon and Bach-
man's great " Quadrupeds of North America," and in Mer-
riam's " Mammals of the Adirondacks." The " Journals" of
Thoreau, and the various books by Seton, Sharp, Abbott,
Blatchley, Lottridge, Cram ("Little Beasts of Field and
Wood"), and similar writers, include much pleasant informa-
tion upon these animals. A collection of essays by John
Burroughs is entitled " Squirrels " ; and " A Quintette of Gray-
coats," by Effie Bignell, is a story of squirrel life in a village
garden. An explanation of the origin and value of the food-
storing habit may be read in my book " The Wit of the Wild.'

A RED SQUIRREL.

II

THE FATHER OF GAME

I HAVE frequently noticed in menageries a start
of surprise in the eyes of persons before a puma's
cage, when they learned that this splendid cat was
American.

It somehow informs our prosaic northern forests
with a foreign, romantic, and adventurous spirit,
to find such a denizen in them, for pictures of the
lion, tiger, and leopard so fill our imaginations that
all large and fierce beasts seem necessarily tropical.
That, however, is by no means the fact. Even in
America the jaguar wanders north to the Indian
Territory — or once did — and south into Patagonia,
while the puma is to be found from Canada to
Cape Horn. Indeed, the wonder is that any natural
barriers, less than wide spaces of water, restrict
the range of these powerful animals. What pre-
vented the jaguar, able to live along the western
bank of the lower Mississippi, from spreading east-
ward, at least throughout the South Atlantic States ?
Yet we have no record that he ever did so, although
"moving accidents of flood" must again and again
have placed individuals and pairs on the eastern
D 33

34 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

shore of the Father of Waters, whose current the
jaguar is quite competent to swim, if he likes. As
for the puma, he possesses the whole continent as
far north at least as the watershed of Hudson Bay,
in the east, while on the western coast he follows
the mountains to the middle of British Columbia.
Southward he is plentiful throughout the tropics,
and less so even to the Straits of Magellan. No
other kind of cat, not only, but no other sort of
land animal whatever (not domesticated) equals
this species in north and south range (100 de-
grees); and that implies that no other is called
upon to adapt itself to such a diversity of seasons,
climatic conditions, food, and competition. It has
to meet not only the cardinal contrasts of climate
between tropical and subarctic zones, but, as it is
widely distributed on both continents, it encounters
all the differences that can be found between life
in Canadian spruce-woods or on the high cordil-
leras from Alaska to Chile, and the moist, feverish
lowlands from the Mexican coasts to southern
Brazil. One would expect to see in such a species
— the more so as the individual animals are not
far wanderers, but remarkably stationary in habi-
tat— wide variations from the type; but, on the
contrary, few animals exhibit less diversity in size,
structure, or external appearance.

A comparison of the puma with the jaguar is
highly interesting in respect to color as well as in
the matter of distribution. While the yellow hide

n THE FATHER OF GAME 35

of the jaguar is adorned everywhere with black
spots, the adult puma has no spots whatever, ex-
cept that the lips are black, with a patch of white
on each side of the muzzle, the outer rim of the
ear is black, and sometimes the tip of the tail. Its
upper parts are a uniform pale fox-red, more or
less dull in certain lights, owing to the fact that
each hair is fawn gray, red only at the tip ; this
color is more intense along the spine and decidedly
lighter around the eyes, while the throat, belly,
and inside of the legs are reddish white. The
color is so much like that of the Virginia deer
that their backs could hardly be distinguished at
a little distance — in fact, precisely this mistake
has been made by astonished hunters ; and on the
Amazons the puma is called "false deer." How
helpful such a resemblance would prove to this
wily beast, when stealing through the grass upon
a herd of deer or any other prey that would have
no reason to be alarmed by the known presence of
what it took to be a deer, is at once evident.

The common term " American lion " goes back
to the earliest days of European discovery on this
continent, when the colonists supposed the hides
the Indians brought in were those of the true
lion, explaining the absence of maned examples
by the theory that they had seen only female
skins. "California lion," and "mountain lion,"
"red tiger," "panther" (or "painter"), are less
excusable misnomers. " Puma " is said to be

36 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Peruvian, and " cougar " is a shortening, through
the French,1 of a native Brazilian term ; while
" catamount," now rarely heard, is borrowed from
Europe, and is confusing, because often applied to
the lynx.

As everybody recognizes the advantage to the
animal of the inconspicuousness of its plain reddish
coat, and recalls at once the similar case of the
lion, whose tawny hide harmonizes well with the
sere grass of the South African karoo, or with
the arid plains of the Sahara, Arabia, or Turkestan,
it is customary to say hurriedly that this is the
outcome of a beneficent process of natural selec-
tion. The same persons will tell you that the
elaborate spotting of the jaguar is another striking
example of the beneficence of the same law, acting
within a different sphere, pointing out that the
spots of its yellow hide harmonize so exactly with
the dappling of the sunlight as it falls through the
trembling leaves as to make the beast invisible to
an unsuspecting eye. They may be right in these
deductions, but there are certain difficulties in
making the same rule apply to both, or, still more,
to the case of the puma.

The jaguar confines his career to forests and

1 Bates, in "The Naturalist on the Amazons," explains in a foot-
note on sassu-ardna, " false deer," that " the old zoologist Marcgrave
called the puma the cuguacurana, possibly (the c's being soft or f~)
a misspelling of sassu-ardna ; hence the name couguar employed
by French zoologists." Alfred Russel Wallace ("Travels on the
Amazon ") spells it sasurana and attributes it to the Lingoa Geral.

ii THE FATHER OF GAME 37

swamps, among whose flickering lights his form
is certainly easily lost to view, as also are those
of the margay and ocelot, though the marblings
of the latter are very different from the jaguar's
sharp black rosettes ; but unfortunately for the
correlative half of the argument, the puma is also
an inhabitant of the very same deep woods that
are the home of the jaguar, ocelot, and margay in
the south, and of the much-spotted lynx in the
north ; and so are the jaguarondi and eyra, neither
of which have any variegations of hide to imitate
the dapplings of light and shadow.

Another thing : We are told that the bold stripes
of the Bengal tiger match so well with the vertical
lights and shadows among the tall grasses and
bamboos of an Indian jungle as to conceal that
beast almost entirely when he lies within it ; but
a similar covert is a favorite lurking-place, along
the River Plate, for our jaguar, yet he does not
need, or at any rate does not possess, the vertical
stripes regarded as indispensable to his East Indian
cousin under the same circumstances.

When one surveys the whole family, he dis-
covers that there are as many spotted cats on the
plains and deserts as in the forests, and vice versa ;
and then, remembering that the habits of all are
substantially the same, he begins to doubt the
value of any conclusion in this direction drawn
from one species. Moreover, it must not be for-
gotten that the cats are for the most part nocturnal

38 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

animals, so that their color is of no great conse-
quence, since the wisdom of the ages declares that
"all cats are gray in the dark." The truth seems
to be that there is a very forcible inherited ten-
dency to spottedness in this family and its imme-
diate allies, as the civets. In most members this
persists in a remarkable degree, with interesting
variations of pattern ; while a minority have riearly
outgrown it, and a few have lost the markings
altogether, though even these, it should be noted,
are born with spotted hides. There seems no reason
to suppose that natural selection has had anything
traceable to do with the origin of these markings,
and but little to do with their modification or dis-
appearance.

As to the size of the puma, one reads of speci-
mens ten or eleven feet long ; but no satisfactory
evidence exists of a length greater than eight feet,
measured from tip of nose to tip of tail, and the
average will fall below seven feet. The jaguar
has a longer and heavier body, but its tail is far
shorter. Proportions vary somewhat, those from
the tropics being a trifle larger than specimens
taken in cool latitudes, following the law that an
animal will reach its greatest size where the con-
ditions are most favorable to its kind as a whole.
The comparative fulness of the skull forward
gives to the head a rounded solidity not usual in
cats, and bears out the creature's reputation for
craft. This gives to the face, also, an expression

II THE FATHER OF GAME 39

of intelligence quite different from the flat-headed,
brutish, ferocity of many feline countenances.
Yet, when the ears are laid flat back, the eyes
half closed, the lips withdrawn in a snarl, and the
animal crouched, with muscles tense and the corn-
colored claws half-protruded, in readiness for a
spring, its aspect is sufficiently terrifying.

This animal, nevertheless, is probably the most
cowardly and least dangerous of all the larger car-
nivores. The South Americans dread it much less
than the jaguar, and the Indians of our continent
would far rather meet it than a bear. The in-
stances are few where it has seriously resisted men
when it could get away, and then it was almost in-
variably in defence of its young ; and still fewer
are the instances where it has made an unpro-
voked attack. One has often, it is true, ap-
proached a lone wood-chopper, or dogged the trail
of a hunter or traveller through the wilderness, or
prowled about some camp-fire or remote frontier
cabin ; but this behavior was evidently dictated in
some cases by extreme hunger, but more often by
mere curiosity and desire for company, and has
been rarely followed by a harmful attack, though
credible cases of its springing upon children have
been recorded.

To this timidity is largely due the easy and early
extinction of the beast in the eastern half of the
Union, where, had it possessed the courage and
power of resistance shown by the Old World leop-

4O WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

ard and tiger, it might have remained to this day
a source of terror in many thinly settled neighbor-
hoods, such as the Catskill Mountains, which are
supposed to have been named in reference to it.
The rocky wilds of northeastern Quebec and New
Brunswick may shelter a few, and a small number
of pairs survived in the Adirondacks until towards
1890, but the State bounty paid after 1871 has-
tened their extermination. Twenty years ago one
heard of an occasional panther in the Alleghanies,
and some probably remain in the swamps along
the western side of the lower Mississippi, and in
the Ozarks ; but the whole northern-central region
of the Union has long been free from them. Prac-
tically, therefore, we may say that the puma has
disappeared east of the Black Hills and western
Texas; yet a century has not elapsed since one
was taken in Westchester County, N.Y., adjoining
New York City.

This animal seems never to have been very nu-
merous— much less so than bears, wolves, or
lynxes. Nature, indeed, provides against undue
multiplication of these powerful and predatory
beasts. No machine with automatic governor,
however delicate, equals the self-acting influences
that preserve, in a state of nature, unbroken by
civilized interferences, the balance of an equal
chance for all — a true animal socialism. Thus a
single pair of these destructive and long-lived cats
seems originally to have occupied alone a certain

II THE FATHER OF GAME 41

territory, the extent of which was determined by
their ability to hunt over it, and to defend it from
rivals of their own species, for they had nothing
else to fear.

It is an interesting speculation, indeed, whether
the apparent cowardice of the northern puma is
not in reality ignorance of danger, since he may
not suppose that man is more to be feared than
other large animals, whose attack he has no reason
to dread, even though, as in the case of the moose
and bison, he might hesitate to become himself the
attacking party. The conspicuously greater cour-
age of the African and Asiatic cats might easily
have arisen from the need of frequently fighting
for their quarry with competitors as capable as
themselves, and from their constant encounters
with large and well-armed game, such as the rhi-
noceros, buffalo, and long-horned antelopes. Fierce
battles are reported, however, as occurring between
the California puma and grizzly bears.

It is not the habit of the puma to wander far
from the den, where a single family seems to make
its home. Whether a mate is taken for life is not
known, but at least it seems probable that a change
of partners is not made with each recurring season.
The male and female hunt separately, however, and
sportsmen assert that the latter is the better hunter
of the two. This, if true, is perhaps a result of
greater need and more constant practice, since she
must get food not only for herself, but for her

42 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

young, because the father does not summon his
family to share with him a feast, as the African
lion is said to do. The mother leads her half-
grown kittens about with her, and doubtless gives
them useful instruction; but, according to Merriam,
she leaves them somewhat behind when actually in
pursuit of prey, fetching them to share the results.

The amatory season occurs during the early win-
ter (varying according to latitude and climate),
when the female's softened mood and desire for
companionship apparently lead her to strange
doings, for it is hard otherwise to account for the
actions related of certain cougars that have in-
sisted upon an unpleasantly close acquaintance
with, rather than have made an attack upon,
human beings. Thus several cases have been
related as occurring in broad daylight in the State
of Washington, where unarmed men or women
have been approached by a puma, which came
close, and even leaped upon them, knocking them
down and scaring them nearly to death, then re-
treated a little way, danced and rolled about, but
at first, at least, offered no harm, beyond playfully
seizing and tearing their clothes. Later, however,
a realization of human helplessness, together with
impatience at the lack of sympathy with feline
humor, sometimes provoked a more savage attack.

Nowhere is the puma more numerous and famil-
iar, in spite of the war of extermination waged
against it by the ranchmen, than on the pampas

II THE FATHER OF GAME 43

of southern Argentina; and it is interesting to
read the following from " Gold Diggings at Cape
Horn," by an excellent observer, John R. Spears,
the most recent writer upon Patagonia :

" The lonely wayfarer is not often found there
afoot, but men have been on the desert unmounted,
and the panthers have come to play around them
too. But it is not as a predatory cat that they
come. It is as a playful kitten. Individual pan-
thers play by themselves — old ones as well as
young — by the hour. They will chase and paw
and roll an upturned bush or a round rock or
any moving thing, and lacking that will pretend
to sneak up on an unwary game, crouching the
while behind a bush or rock for concealment, to
spring out at last and land on a hump of sand or
a shadow. Then they turn round and do the
same thing over again. When it is in this frame
of mind, if a lone human being comes along, the
panther is as glad to see him as a petted cat to
see its mistress. It purrs and rolls over before
him, and gallops from side to side, and makes no
end of kitten-like motions, and all because of the
exuberance of its youthful spirits. . . . The plains-
men of all Argentina call the panther by a name
which means ' friend of man.' "

The young are born as early as February in
Central America, where a second litter may occa-
sionally be produced, as it is stated that kittens
have been taken in August; but in the northern

44 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

United States the birth is considerably later. The
period of gestation, according to observations in
zoological gardens, varies from ninety-one to ninety-
seven days. The kittens are brought forth among
the mountains in some den beneath overhanging
rocks; but in flat countries the mother secretes
herself inside a dense thicket or cane-brake, where
she prepares a bed of sticks and leaves. Four or
five kittens may come at a birth, but usually only
two or three; and Merriam thinks that in the East,
at least, many more females are born than males.
At first, as has been hinted, these kittens are
covered with black spots and stripes, and the tail
is ringed. Bonavia makes merry over the puzzled
mind of the young father, when he beholds these
varicolored offspring, and pictures the conjugal
anxiety of the mother to convince her suspicious
spouse that it is all right. The markings mostly
disappear by the end of six months, but obscure
reminders of them remain several months longer,
and now and then are never quite outgrown.
William A. Conklin, late keeper of the Central Park
Menagerie, in New York, noted, from much ex-
perience with them, that the kittens opened their
eyes after eight or nine days, cut their front teeth
in eighteen or twenty days, and were weaned when
three months old. The cubs do not become well-
grown before the end of the second year, and dur-
ing most of this time associate with the mother,
who is valiant in their defence; and if we may

n THE FATHER OF GAME 45

believe an account in that quaint old sportsmen's
magazine, " The Cabinet of Natural History," pub-
lished in Philadelphia in 1830-31, of a deadly
attack by a cougar upon a bear, the explanation
is probably found in the fear of a mother that her
kittens were in danger.

Dr. Merriam concludes that in the Adirondacks
the puma breeds only once in two years. If this
be true, it is a striking example of one of nature's
limitations of these destructive beasts, which would
seem, at first thought, to have a clear field for
indefinite multiplication. But, though their food
is ordinarily abundant, no active enemies are to
be feared, and the climate holds no terrors, there
are certain insidious foes that they are powerless
to resist, in the form of parasites. To these, and
especially to the internal sorts, the pumas, in com-
mon with other cats, seem to be peculiarly lia-
ble. Various nematodes (thread-worms), trematodes
(flukes), and many kinds of tape-worms, are known
to attack this family. Some of them grow in the
stomach and bowels, until the animal perishes of
exhaustion and starvation, while others penetrate
the lungs or liver, or encyst themselves among the
muscles, setting up there so fierce an inflammation
as to cause death unless (as doubtless often hap-
pens) the sufferer is sooner murdered by some
savage rival. These parasites are taken into the
system from the living animals upon which the
cat feeds, especially from hares and other rodents.

46 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

This introduces the subject of the puma's food,
which might be succinctly disposed of by the
statement that he ate anything he could get his
teeth upon in the way of flesh. As Spears pictu-
resquely writes of it (in Patagonia) : " It claws
down the whirring partridge, as she springs from
her nest, which it afterward robs of its eggs ; it
kills the ostrich as he sits on his nest, and then,
after hiding his body, it returns to the nest and
eats the eggs with gusto ; it snatches the duck or
the goose from its feeding-place at the edge of a
lagoon ; it crushes the shell of the waddling arma-
dillo ; it digs the mouse from its nest in the grass ;
it stalks the desert prairie-dog, and, dodging with
easy motion the fangs of the serpent, it turns to
claw and strip out its life before it can coil to strike
again. The mainstay of his natural bill of fare in
the North was the Virginia deer, especially fawns
and yearlings, and in South America the guanaco."

Elks and moose could fight him off, as cattle
are able to do, except when seized by surprise and
from behind. In his admirable history of the
quadrupeds of the Adirondacks, Dr. C. Hart Mer-
riam gives the following lucid description of the
cougar's method of hunting :

" Panthers hunt both day and night, but un-
doubtedly kill the larger part of their game after
nightfall. When one scents a deer he leaps to
the leeward and creeps stealthily toward it, as a
cat does after a mouse. With noiseless tread and

II THE FATHER OF GAME 47

crouching form does he pass over fallen trees and
ragged ledges, or through dense swamps and tan-
gled thickets, till, if unobserved, within thirty or
forty feet of his intended victim. If he can now
attain a slight elevation and a firm footing, he
springs directly upon his prey, but if upon level
ground makes one or two preliminary leaps before
striking it. The noise thus made frightens the
deer, who makes a sudden and desperate effort to
escape. But, if lying down, several seconds are
necessary to get under full headway, and the pan-
ther follows so rapidly, in a series of successive
leaps, that it often succeeds in alighting on the
back of its unhappy quarry. Its long claws are
planted deep into the quivering flesh, and its sharp
teeth make quick work with the ill-fated sufferer.
If, however, the deer sees him in season, and can
get a good footing for a sudden move, it commonly
escapes, and the panther rarely follows it more
than a few rods, for as soon as he finds that the
deer is gaining on him he at once gives up the
chase. In fact, a panther rarely secures more
than one out of every four or five deer upon which
he attempts to spring. Then, too, it not infre-
quently happens that he strikes a deer when it is
under such headway that it escapes ; and when
panthers were more plenty here than they now
are, it was no uncommon thing to shoot a deer
bearing deep scars upon its flanks — scars that
were clearly made by the claws, of this powerful

48 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

beast. The female is by far the better hunter and
does not lose so many deer as the male."

The puma by no means restricts himself to
venison, however, and latterly has been able to
get very little of it. He eats rabbits, ground-
squirrels, and all the small animals that come in
his way, including many sorts of birds, like par-
tridges, that nest upon the ground. " Cougars are
either particularly fond of porcupines," says Mer-
riam, " or else are frequently forced by hunger to
make a distasteful meal, for certain it is that large
numbers of these beasts are destroyed by them.
Indeed, it often happens that a panther is killed
whose mouth and lips, and sometimes other parts
also, fairly bristle with the quills of this formidable
rodent." Even mice are not despised.

Like other cats it is fond of fish, and can some-
times catch them alive. Though not addicted to
bathing, it is by no means afraid of the water.
Dr. Suckley tells us that one exhibited for several
years in San Francisco, a generation ago, was capt-
ured by being noosed from a steamboat, while
swimming the Columbia River there, a mile and a
half wide. Probably reptiles are not refused at
a pinch, as the jaguar is known to eat iguanas, and
to be fond of the crocodile, which it seizes and con-
quers in its native element. Insects and snails,
even, do not come amiss. Carrion, however, seems
never to be touched, though hunters agree that an
animal lately killed by other hands, will be accepted,

II THE FATHER OF GAME 49

for instances are numerous where the panther has
carried off not only deer that had been left out
over night, but has taken game from before the
very eyes of the sportsman. " One day," says
Perry, " when shooting rabbits, I tied together a
number that I had killed, and hung them on the
branch of an alder which overhung the path.
Returning along the same path shortly after, I
met a cougar trotting leisurely along with my
rabbits in his mouth. Having a shell loaded with
buckshot, he paid for his dishonesty with his life."

The puma was quick to avail itself of the intro-
duction of domestic cattle, and began to prey upon
the settlers' pastures from the start. It has a par-
ticular penchant for horseflesh, and ravages the
herds of Indian ponies on the plains and pampas,
attacking first the colts, but often killing full-grown
horses and mares. This may explain several re-
corded incidents of cougars leaping upon the horse
of a traveller, but fleeing when they discovered the
man in the saddle, even when, as usually happened,
he had been dismounted by the plunging of the
animal. The cougar probably failed to recognize
the human being in that unaccustomed attitude,
and was as much surprised as the man.

Calves, sheep, and hogs are also preyed upon ;
and in the grazing districts of South America and
our far West the cougars are yet so numerous,
wherever a rough country offers them secure re-
treats, as to make a serious drawback in some

ijO WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

localities to profitable ranching. These forays
happen as often by day as by night ; and the de-
plorable feature of them is, that the marauder,
with true brutish ferocity, is not content with sat-
isfying his present hunger, but keeps on slashing
right and left until he has struck down every ani-
mal within reach. Thus in many cases nineteen
or twenty sheep have been slaughtered in a single
foray, a little blood only being sucked from
each one. The same story comes from the cattle,
sheep, horse, and llama owners of South America,
where, in the Andes, this animal abounds nearly
up to the snow-line. Patagonian shepherds told
Mr. Spears of losing from forty to one hundred
and twenty sheep in a single night.

The manner of attack has been described, — a
stealthy approach, followed by a lightning-like
spring. The attempt, in the case of a large quad-
ruped, is to knock it down with one blow of the
muscular paw, then instantly to seize and pull
back the head, breaking the neck ; Darwin notes
in his " Voyage," that he examined the skeletons
of many llamas, said to have been killed by pumas,
whose necks were dislocated in this manner. If
that fails, a single bite of the long, lance-like, sec-
torial teeth on each side of the upper jaw, com-
pletes the work.

The quarry is not eaten on the spot, but is taken
away to be devoured at leisure. Small animals
are lifted free from the ground, but those as heavy

n THE FATHER OF GAME 51

as a calf or deer are dragged away into the bushes,
the accounts in some books of its " flinging its prey
over its back," and galloping away with it, being
manifest exaggerations. Often he does not devour
the flesh at once, or only begins upon it, then drags
it away, covers it with leaves and brush, and waits
to finish his meal when he is more hungry. When
he has gorged himself, he retires a little distance
and lies down to sleep. Hunters, knowing this
habit, search the neighborhood of a " kill " as soon
as they learn of one, sure that the puma is near
by, and well aware that he is little to be feared in
that state. Few men would be foolhardy enough
to poke round in the brush in the hope of arousing
a leopard from his after-dinner nap !

There is a widespread notion that the puma
always lies in wait for prey upon the limbs of
trees, and thence leaps upon its back. It appears
that it may do — and has done — so in special
places, as at the salt-licks of Kentucky, and at cer-
tain springs in Texas, where deer regularly came
to drink, but certainly it is not a general, nor would
it be a profitable, habit. Indeed, this animal shows
a marked reluctance to climbing, rarely taking to
trees except when pursued by a pack of peccaries,
coyotes, or dogs, and then only for safety, and not
as a point for advantageous attack. It frequently
leaps from rocky elevations, however, and to an
astonishing distance. Merriam says that on level
ground a spring of twenty feet is by no means

52 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

uncommon, and gives an account of one measur-
ing sixty feet, where the cat leaped from a ledge
twenty feet high and pushed the deer he struck a
rod farther by the force of the impact. I have
read somewhere of a pair known to have their lair
on top of a rock that could be reached only by a
vertical jump of twenty feet.

Their ordinary gait is a slouching walk or trot,
and they are not swift of foot, except for a short
succession of leaps. Otherwise, their movements
have all that union of grace and quickness charac-
teristic of cats.

The "blood-curdling screams" of the puma have
furnished forth many a fine tale for the camp-fire,
but evidence of this screaming, which will bear
sober cross-examination, is scant. I myself have
heard in the Rocky Mountains at night, shrill
screams, so piercing and cat-like, yet of so much
force and loudness, that it did not seem likely any-
thing less than a cougar could utter them. I be-
lieved then, and am still of the opinion, that these
were the cries of a puma : but I did not see the
animal. Indeed, evidence so positive as this will
be difficult to obtain, since loud yells are heard
mainly at night, and would be unlikely to be
emitted in the presence of a listener at any time.
Says Mr. W. A. Perry, who has had a long per-
sonal acquaintance with these beasts, and in " The
Big Game of North America " has written an ex-
cellent account of their habits in the Northwest :

ii THE FATHER OF GAME 53

" Sometimes, when the hunter is stalking the
deer in the deep recesses of the forest, he is star-
tled by a fiendish cry, — a cry so unearthly and so
weird that even the man of stoutest heart will
start in affright ; a cry that can only be likened to
a scream of demoniac laughter. This is the cry
of the male panther. If it is answered by the
female, the response will be similar to the wail of
a child in terrible pain."

To this may be added the testimony of Mr. W. A.
Baillie-Grohman, one of the sanest and most trust-
worthy writers upon life in the Rocky Mountains,
quoted from his excellent book " Camps in the
Rockies " :

" Other strange sounds fall on the ear as I pro-
ceed with quickened step toward camp, sounds
that you never hear in daytime, when, usually,
oppressive stillness reigns in the great upland for-
ests. The hoot of the owl is one of the most
quaintly weird; but it is not like the unearthly
wail of the puma, or mountain-lion, demoniacal
and ghoulish as no other sound in the wide realm
of nature. As it re-echoes through the forests
you involuntarily shudder, for it is more like a
woman's long-drawn and piteous cry of terrible
anguish than any other sound you could liken it
to. Once heard, it will never be forgotten ; and it
can no more be compared to the jabber of the
coyote or the howl of the hyena, than a baby's cry
of displeasure to its mother's piercing shriek as

54

WILD NEIGHBORS

she sees the little one in a position of danger.
Out only at night, they are of all beasts the most
watchful, and most difficult to shoot ; and, though
their fearful call, in very close vicinity, has fre-
quently stampeded our horses, and startled some
of us from sleep, I have only been near enough to
shoot, and kill, one single specimen in all my wan-
derings."

It does not appear, even here, however, that the
writer had any better evidence than his " startled
affright" in support of his assertion that the
"fiendish cry" came from a cougar. In view of
this uncertainty, some men go to the extreme of
denying that any puma does or ever did utter such
noises as have been described, saying that the
story is a composition of fox-howl, screech-owl-
hoot, imagination, and plain lying. This seems to
me going too far. There is no reason why this
animal should not caterwaul at times as well as its
humbler relative of the back fence ; and if we may
be deceived for a moment, — as we sometimes are,
— by Tom's or Julia's doleful wail, into thinking we
hear a child in mortal pain, so we need not scoff
unduly at those who hear in the naturally far
louder caterwauling of the bigger cat-of-the-moun-
tain, the agony of a man or woman under torture.
Pumas do not shriek loudly in confinement, but
they mew, whimper, and growl, like a house-cat,
" only more so."

As winter approaches, the mountain lions de-

n THE FATHER OF GAME 55

scend from their summer haunts in the higher
parts of the mountains and increase the number
in the valleys, — in other words, they follow the
game; and it is then that the rancher's herd suffers
most, and that in severe weather his corrals are
most often invaded. Now and then a particular
panther is known to be the author of several suc-
cessive outrages, and when he has been killed it is
usually found that he is an old fellow whose age
and worn teeth have put him behind in the com-
petition of the woods, and led him to devote his
declining energies to the easier and safer raiding
of cattle and sheep.

At present the business of breeding horses and
donkeys in the mountain valleys of northern Mexico
is almost prevented by the prevalence of pumas.

When taken early, the kittens become interesting
and docile pets, as is frequently seen in South
America; but, as a rule, they become too treacher-
ous and uncontrollable, with advancing age, to make
them safe companions. It is, of the larger cats, the
one least frequently seen in the shows of animal-
trainers, although common in zoological gardens
and travelling menageries, where it breeds freely.

The hunting of the puma is hardly classed as a
sport in this country. The Gauchos and aboriginal
nomads of Patagonia ride it down on horseback,
and kill it with their bolas or lances at short range.
Our Texan cow-boys occasionally meet one on the
prairie, and then have the fun of lassoing and

WILD NEIGHBORS

CHAP.

dragging it to death, unless they prefer to end
its life with their pistols. Everywhere dogs are

ZUNI FETICHES OF THE PUMA.

regarded as indispensable to success in regularly
hunting them, — any sort of a cur will do.

Having reason to suspect the presence of a
cougar, the hunter moves about until his dog goes
away upon a scent, when he follows as best he can.
It will not be long, usually, before the barking will
tell him that his cur has discovered the quarry ;
and by the time he can overtake it he is pretty
sure to find that the animal has taken to a tree, as
this cat will almost invariably do as soon as it
notices the approach of the dog, which seems to
terrify it to a degree comical when we consider
the difference in size. The jaguar, on the other
hand, while hating a dog above all other creatures,

n THE FATHER OF GAME $f

is unterrified by it, and will do its best to catch and
eat it. One shot usually ends the matter, but
should the puma be wounded, but not crippled, it
is likely to charge with tremendous force and fury,
and become an exceedingly dangerous antagonist.

The hide is of no great value, though a favorite
material among the Indians of the Southwest for
bow and gun cases, perhaps with a half-supersti-
tious idea that the skin of so mighty a hunter is
peculiarly suited to such a purpose. The flesh
(usually boiled) is eaten by all Indians, and is not
despised by white men, since it is white and tender,
with the taste and appearance, when roasted, of
young pig. The fat of the panther is the most satis-
fying food of the Argentine desert, supplying the
craving felt by the nomads of the Pampas for
those nutritive elements elsewhere furnished by
vegetable food, there so scarce.

Not many myths of the red men have clustered
about this animal, despite its great size and strength,
a fact perhaps due to the absence in it of attractive
mental qualities. The cougar leaves little to the
imagination. Clavigero's " History of Lower Cali-
fornia" informs us that 150 years ago that prov-
ince was so overrun with "lions" that the natives
were kept in absolute subjection to the brutes,
and were often glad to make a meal from the
remains of their prey. This unchecked increase
was owing to a superstition which prevented the
Indians from killing a puma or even disturbing it

ijg WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, n

in any way, recalling the veneration felt and re-
straint exercised toward the tiger by certain sects
in India. Dampier adds, subsequently, that the
Jesuit missionaries there were not able for a long
time to make any headway against this notion, and
could keep no live-stock in consequence. Clans in
various tribes of the Southwest have been proudly
named after this successful hunter and model
guerilla ; and it stands at the head of the curious
" prey-god " theogony of the Zuftis, who call it the
" Father of Game."

NOTE. — In addition to the books above mentioned, one
should read the writings of President Theodore Roosevelt, —
especially his "Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter";
and the publications of the Boone and Crockett Club. Long
and interesting accounts of both animals will be found in the
great work of Audubon, and in Godman's " Natural History."
For the puma and jaguar in Central and South America, read
Porter's "Wild Beasts"; Bates's "Naturalist on the River
Amazons " ; Belt's " Naturalist in Nicaragua " ; Hudson's " The
Naturalist in La Plata"; and Azara's "Natural History of the
Quadrupeds of Paraguay." The question of protective color-
ing, etc., is well summarized in Beddard's " Animal Coloration."
Stone and Cram's " American Animals " gives references to
several authorities on classification and structure ; and in my
" Life of Mammals " I have sketched both the puma and
jaguar at length, and have noted many books relating to them,
to which may be added a late publication by Bailey (No. 25
of North American Fauna), describing these animals as they
appear in southern Texas.

Ill

THE SERVICE OF TAILS

A TAIL,1 properly speaking, is a prolongation of
the backbone behind (or beyond) the pelvic arch,
which supports the hinder limbs.

Sometimes this prolongation is the larger half
of the entire length of the spinal column, as in
some reptiles and ,a few mammals, — the acme
being reached by one of the African pangolins
(Manis tricuspis\ whose tail is nearly twice as
long as its body, and contains forty-nine caudal
vertebrae, the largest number known among mam-
mals ; sometimes it is extremely short, or altogether
abortive, as among frogs and in our own case, for

1 To the light-minded a better title would be A Tale of Tai/s, or
something of that miserable sort — perhaps A Caudal Lecture —
instead of the words at the head of the page. That would be a
pun of the most brutal kind, as obvious and headlong as one of the
bulls of Bashan. A pun should not come gradually bulging out
towards one's intelligence — looming up slowly before the mind
like a light-house in a fog. It should appear unexpectedly at your
elbow, startling, yet not affrighting you, after the manner of the
Cheshire Cat. Not on the lookout, you do not at once perceive
the allusion, but an instant later the essence of wit encased in the
quibble declares itself, as certain candies, disappointing and flavor-
less at first, presently disclose a liquid centre of sweets to the
surprised palate.

6l

62 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

even humanity possesses -the rudiment of a tail
concealed beneath the skin. The same is true of
the more human-like kinds of monkeys (the apes).

Some tails, like those of the bear, deer, and goat,
are so short, stubbed, and immovable as to defy
any attempt to perceive a present purpose in their
existence. Of what possible use to a turtle, for
example, is its tail ? None, apparently, whatever
might have been the case in the differently con-
stituted ancestors of the turtle. This part has sim-
ply remained after its service in chelonian economy
had been long outgrown, as buttons are still sewed
upon the sleeves of our coats, although a century
has elapsed since men thus fastened back their
too voluminous cuffs.

It is a survival of the misfit.

Indeed, it would not be easy, were one to insist
upon visible utility in every case, to prove the
serviceability of some of the most pretentious of
these appendages. Look at the wild cats. The
panther and the ocelot have long and graceful
tails ; the lynxes own the merest apology for one,
and are irreverently dubbed "bobcats" in the
West. Yet you cannot say that the former species
thrives better than the latter. Length or brevity
of tail seems to have nothing to do with either
habits or happiness. Thus the wrens and our
various thrashers (Harporhynchi) are cousins-ger-
man ; yet the wren's tail is an absurd little tuft of
short leathers " weel cockit " over his rump, and

in ' THE SERVICE OF TAILS 63

that of the thrasher is long and drooping. The
brilliant sun-birds and gaudy parrots content them-
selves with short rectrices, while the no less orna-
mented humming-birds and trogons of our tropical
woods trail behind them plumes of vivid color, often
three times as long as the body.

Sometimes the tail carries out the general con-
tour of the body, and its origin is scarcely dis-
cernible, externally, as among snakes and most
fishes ; again, it is an almost naked appendage, as
among the rats ; while a third class can be made
of tails plentifully furnished, and, as a rule, highly
adorned, with hair or feathers, such as those of
the horse, the squirrels, the ant-eater, the fox, the
malodorous skunk, and the gorgeous peacock,1
pheasants and birds-of-paradise.

But a more interesting line of inquiry is to trace
the manifold ways in which wild animals turn their
tails to practical account. These appendages are
as a fifth limb to a great number of creatures who
would be sadly deficient without them. They serve
their various owners as shelters ; as garments ; as
receptacles, carriers, and tools ; as respirators ; as
badges for friend or foe; as weapons, both for
offence and defence ; as anchors, supports and
aids to locomotion on land as well as under the
water and through the air ; as musical instruments
(for example, by the rattlesnake), or as a means

1 In this bird, however, the resplendent train really consists of
tail-coverts and not of the rectrices, or true tail-feathers.

64 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

of expression in a great variety of gestures; as
matrimonial advertisements; as egg-holders and
incubators ; and finally, as baby carriages, — for in
all these ways do tails enter into the ministry of
limbs to one or another animal.

And here it is well to broaden out the word
" tail " so as to include more posterior appendages
than are included in my first strict definition.
Nevertheless, we must draw the line inside of
popular usage even here. The prolongations of
the wings of certain butterflies, for instance, are
not "tails," though entomologists term them so in
a special sense; nor would it be allowable to in-
clude the spinnerets of spiders, nor the stings
of bees, nor the ovipositors of many insects,
although these sometimes extend in hair-like tubes
beyond the tip of the abdomen, nor the apparently
similar breathing-tubes of the Ranatra bugs.

But it is right to speak of the "tail" of the
scorpion-fly (Panorpa), — which is articulated ex-
actly like that of a scorpion, — of the skip-jack
beetle, and of a few other insects ; while the word
is fairly applied to certain worms, to all the
swimming crabs, the cuttle-fishes, and even tc
gasteropod mollusks, wherever the body is length-
ened out into a more or less serviceable hinder part.

Let us take up some of these utilities in their
order and illustrate them. What animals, to begin
with, employ their tails as a shelter? Well, the
great ant-eater does so, for one. The tail of the

THE SERVICE OF TAILS

ant-eater is an enormous brush, which he is said
to bend over his body like an umbrella. His
home is in the Amazonian forests, where tremen-
dous rains fall ; and as it is his business to be abroad
in the forest, pushing his way through the drip-
ping undergrowth at all hours, such an umbrella,
as Mr. Wallace assures us, is of great service
to him, — except when it gets him into trouble.

This usually hap-
pens by reason of
an Indian's rat-
tling the leaves

THE GREAT ANT-EATER.

in imitation of a
shower, and taking "
advantage of the

poor beast's haste to elevate his umbrella, to rush
forward and kill it. Hence the wisest of the ant-
eaters have concluded that there are times when it
is well to know enough not to go in when it rains.
The long and ample tail-feathers of East Indian
pheasants form a pent-house, with sloping roofs
beneath which the chicks huddle, warm and dry

66 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

during showers, — a habit especially illustrated in
the Himalayan peacock-pheasants (Polyplectron),
whose young spend most of their time beneath
the shelter and concealment of their mother's fan-
like tail, coming out only when called to pick up
the food she scratches out of the leaves. Here
the tail is a nursery.

As for the hermit-crabs, while one could not say
they make a shelter of their tails, it is certain that
they could not obtain and hold the shell-homes
with which they provide themselves, and that are
necessary to their existence, were it not for their
ability to hold on to them by means of their flexi-
ble tails, which grasp the inner whorls, and form
an effective lease of the premises.

As for garments, — who that ever has seen a
squirrel humped up on a cold day with its tail
pressed close along its back ; or a raccoon, a fox,
or a cat, sitting with its feet wrapped in the furry
"boa " of its tail, can doubt that this is the putting
on of an overcoat ? Only warmly furred animals,
by the way, have bushy tails ; and all these sleep
curled up, with the tail around the face as birds
place their heads beneath their wings. As such
animals usually sleep alone, they need more pro-
tection against an undue loss of heat while asleep
than do animals that take their repose huddled
together in groups that warm one another ; hence
their blanket-like tails. An attendant benefit of
sinking the nose into the brush, as Mr. Law-

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 67

son Tait has pointed out, is that it answers the
purpose of a respirator, warming the air, before
it is breathed, to a temperature more suitable for
health, and one that will detract less heat from
the body than would air entering the lungs wholly
untempered.

An extension of this overcoat idea into that of
a coat of mail is exhibited in certain of the arma-
dillos, as the tatusids, where the scaly investiture
of the long tail is a part of the protection of the
soft under-parts when the animal rolls itself into
a ball and defies its enemy's teeth. The same is
true of the larger pangolins, whose tail, covered
with scales on the outside, and held closely
appressed to its rolled-up body, is a very impor-
tant part of its self-protection. In that excellent
book, William T. Hornaday's " Two Years in the
Jungle," you may read a most instructive account
of the Indian species of pangolin (Hants pentadac-
tyla\ a live example of which was kept by the
author for some time, as follows :

" My new pet evidently expected fair treatment
at our hands, for he soon uncoiled himself and
stood up for examination. He was just three feet
long, including his tail, — which by itself measured
seventeen inches, — and his weight was eighteen
pounds. This tail was a most useful appendage,
for it was very broad, measuring five and a half
inches across where it joined the body, slightly
hollowed underneath and rounded 'on the top, its

68 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

official purpose being to protect the animal's head.
In walking, he carried his back very highly arched
in the middle, and ... his heavy tail barely cleared
the ground. . . .

" If ever a small animal was especially created
to resist the attacks of destroyers, that manis must
have been the one. In such plate-armor as he
wore he could roll himself up and defy the teeth
of the jackal, or leopard, or the fangs of the cobra.
Having no teeth at all, and claws fashioned only
for digging, he would have fared badly in the
jungle without his defensive coat of mail. From
the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail he was
covered with broad, flattened, shield-shaped plates
of clear, gray horn. . . .

" Not having any one to introduce me, I under-
took to get along without that formality; but it
was of no use. He immediately tucked his head
down between his fore legs, brought his tail under
his body and up over his head, and held it there,
forming of himself a flattened ball completely cov-
ered with scales.

" I said to him, ' My fine fellow, I really must
insist upon knowing you more intimately ; so here
goes.'

" I then undertook to uncoil him, but found I
could not accomplish the task alone. I called
Henrique to help me, but the tail stuck to the
body, as if it had been riveted there.

" I also called Canis to help, and while I held

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 69

the body, the other two braced themselves against
me and pulled on the tail with all their strength,
to uncoil it. We wrestled with it until we were
fairly exhausted, failed utterly, and gave up beaten.
Such was the wonderful power in the tail of that
small animal."

As a receptacle and carrier of eggs the tail parts
of certain among the lower animals serve an im-
portant purpose in their economy. In the lobster,
and its miniature, the fresh-water crayfish, the
latter segments of the abdomen form a fan-shaped
tail, on the under surface of which are small ap-
pendages called swimmerets. When the eggs have
ripened between the ovaries of the female (whose
swimmerets are especially adapted to their purpose,
and different from those of the male), they are ex-
truded from openings in the second pair of legs,
just back of the great front claws. These eggs
are covered with a viscid matter, something like
those of the frog, which is readily drawn out into
threads. These threads become entangled with
the hairs covering the swimmerets, and thus sev-
eral hundreds of eggs attach themselves to each
swimmeret, and appear as large grape-like bunches,
filling the whole space beneath the tail. Here they
develop under the most favorable conditions, and
after the young have hatched, these hold on to the
swimmerets, and are carried about and protected
by the mother until they are able to care for them-
selves. Here is another caudal nursery.

JQ WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to speak
of one of the most comical uses to which a tail is
put — that in the opossum family. Here the rat-
like, wiry tail is decidedly prehensile — a feature
to be spoken of later. The opossum uses it con-
stantly to grasp the limbs and assist her climbing
and holding on. When her young are large enough
to go out with her, which is soon after they are
born, she endeavors to lead or carry them through
the tree-tops, and struggles to climb about the
branches, and make use of her prehensile tail as
she is accustomed to do; but she often finds that
member of no use, for eight or ten squeaking little
brats, miniatures of herself, are digging their sharp
toes into her fur and clinging with their own tails
tightly twisted around hers, which is curved over
her back to form a hand-rail for the young crew.
If one lets go of this convenient member, it is
only to take a convulsive half-hitch around some
twig, and thus anchor the whole company, or to
choke the poor mother by a twist around her throat
or impede her movements by a death-like grasp of
one or more of her legs. The same useful mem-
ber — a fifth hand, as it has often been called —
enables baby monkeys of the prehensile-tailed
South American kinds, to cling to the mothers
in their almost aerial flights through the tree-
tops.

The use of its tail as a tool (distinguished from
a weapon) is common enough in the animal king-

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS Jl

dom, without going into the region of fable for
instances, as the old writers used to do when they
told how the beaver brought mud and laid it, ma-
son-like, with his tail for a trowel. If this member
has any part in the beaver's architecture, it is only
by the accidental slaps and rubs it may give to the
muddy structure as the animal swims around it.
The scaly, vertically compressed, knife-like tail of
the muskrat would be much better adapted to such
a service, but the muskrat puts little or no mud
into its house building. What the stout, scaly,
spatulate tail of the beaver really does do, is to
serve as a powerful sculling oar and rudder in
swimming and diving ; and the same is true of the
muskrat.

One of the most curious features of that curious
creature, the king-crab, or horse-foot, of our sea-
shores, is the flexibly
jointed, bayonet-like
spine which forms its
tail, and has no ana-
logue elsewhere among
crustaceans. Keenly
acquires it as he ap-
proaches adult age, so that it is, as Lockwood
expresses it, "a sword of honor," betokening the
end of youth. Whether or not this sharp rapier
is of value as a weapon nobody seems to know,
but it certainly makes a capital alpenstock. The
horse-foot is light, and is liable, by the least agita-

/2 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

tion of the water, to be turned on its back, when
it would be as helpless as a tortoise but for this
sharp spike, the point of which it deflects and
forces into the sand, thus lifting its hinder parts,
and enabling it to roll over upon its feet again.
Moreover, were it not for this natural leaping-pole,
which is planted firmly in her rear as a brace, the
female horse-foot would be unable to push her
carapace into the sand, and thus make the burrow
which she requires for her eggs.

Many of the smaller, bivalved mollusks, or
"shell-fish," of sandy ocean-shores are persistent
burrowers, and all delve tail foremost. The com-
mon soft clam is a good example. Here the
pointed, pliable tip of the body, which may be
called its tail, is the tool used ; and on page 159 of
my " Country Cousins," l the way in which the
operation is cleverly performed by the pretty little
Donax, or wedge-shell, is fully explained.

The adroitness with which animals have caught
fish with their tails as lures and sometimes as
lines, forms the theme of many a barbaric legend
and myth. The Norse people say that the bear
once had a long tail, but under the advice of the
fox, who was jealous of bruin's rivalry in the
matter of caudal adornment, he lowered it through
a hole in the ice as a fish-line, and held it there

1 Country Cousins. Short Studies in the Natural History of the
United States. By Ernest Ingersoll. Pages 252. Illustrated.
Square 8vo. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1884. Cloth, $2.50.

Ill THE SERVICE OF TAILS 73

until it froze in, and its discomfited owner could
get away only by breaking it off — mighty near
its root, as any one can see to this day. This
story, paralleled elsewhere in folk-lore, is an amus-
ing fancy ; but one might imagine a monkey really
able to do something of that kind, if any monkey
could be found which cared for fish.

An actual instance, however, is afforded by the
fish-eating bat of Trinidad (Noctilio leporinus),
which finds its tail, and the membranes that con-
nect that appendage with the thighs, of eminent
service to it. Observers in the Trinidad Field
Naturalists' Club report (see their Journal, Vol. I,
page 204) that this bat catches its prey (a fish) by
throwing it up with the interfemoral membrane.
Simultaneously the bat bends its head toward its
tail to seize the fish as it is thrown from the water.
Probably its long, sharp, curved toe-nails are also
of assistance in this queer method of fishing.

Similarly, ingenious rats have been known to
purloin oil, jelly, and such desirable liquids from
bottles too narrow for their entrance, by inserting
their tails, and then licking the dripping member,
or giving it to a neighbor to lick. Professor
George J. Romanes proved beyond question that
they did so, by experiments which are detailed
in his book, " Animal Intelligence," to which the
reader is referred.

A like utilization of resources is the strategy of
the puma, as observed on the Patagonian pampas,

74

WILD NEIGHBORS

where he lies flat down within view of a herd of
guanacos that are feeding towards him, and hold-
ing up the end of his tail (which is nearly black)
lets it tremble there. It is sure to attract the at-
tention of the animals, who are certain to approach,
led by curiosity, near enough to give the big cat a
certain capture of one if not more of their number.

The tails of creatures that swim or fly perform
a very important service in these methods of loco-
motion; while in many cases this is a helpful or
even indispensable member in progression upon
land. The tremendous leaps of the minute skip-
jack beetles, and of the agile sand-fleas, are made
by springing from the bent hinder parts of their
body, and not by leg-force, as in the cases of the
grasshopper and true fleas. Certain fishes, like
the file-fish, are accustomed to poise themselves
upon their tails, almost motionless, for long peri-
ods, when it is well-nigh impossible to distinguish
one of them from the ribbons of the eel-grass in
the midst of which they dwell ; while the eels and
many serpents are able to stand erect upon almost
the very tip of the tail, or to hang thereby, and
some can even spring off from it, if we may be-
lieve the statement of Professor Owen, though I
do not know of any snake quite so acrobatic.

It is related in the older books of natural history
that the kangaroo sits, when reared up, upon his
massive tail and strong hind limbs, as upon a tri-
pod ; and that it is by the elastic force of the tail

THE SERVICE OF TAILS

that it is enabled to make its long, running leaps,
which, in the case of the large wallaby, will aver-
age eight or ten yards at each jump. This is now
known to be largely an error ; the truth (as shown
by its tracks in the mud and by careful observa-
tion) is, that the tail only just touches the ground
now and then ; yet it is plain that this heavy mem-
ber serves a useful purpose in balancing the creat-
ure. The same must
have been true of those
vast reptiles of the
Mesozoic days, the
dinosaurs, whose

IKE JERBOA
KANGAROO.

tracks are
impressed so plen-
tifully upon the
brownstone rocks
of the Connecticut

valley, and of similar animals, in other parts of the
ancient world, known to have had enormous caudal
parts — a characteristic of primitive forms.

One very distinct service the tail of one modern
marsupial may perform, is illustrated in the be-
havior of the jerboa kangaroo, which collects the

76 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

grass for its nest and takes it home in a bundle or
thick wisp, grasped in the curled-up extremity of
its strongly prehensile tail. Gould illustrates this
in his monograph on the Macropodidae ; and re-
marks that, " as may be easily imagined, their ap-
pearance, when leaping toward their nests with
their tails loaded with grasses, is exceedingly
amusing."

Referring again, for a moment, to the suggestion
that the tail in the large wallabies, and creatures of
similar proportions, is useful as a balancing-pole, it
may be added that a similar explanation has been
offered for the long tails that characterize most of
the mice, especially those like the zapus and jerboa
that are powerful leapers ; at any rate, the service
of a balancing-pole is unquestionably performed by
the tails of many climbing and jumping mammals,
and by all birds, as can be well seen in the act of
alighting. As for the tufts common at the ends of
many of the long-tailed mice, etc., it has been said
that that was an extra advantage in the same direc-
tion, comparable to the string of knotted papers
that boys attach to their kites.

Another quaint explanation of the tufted and
brush-tipped tails will be noticed farther on.

To many tree-haunting animals, such as the
opossum, the South American forest monkeys, and
some others, the tail has been modified into a most
effective instrument for grasping and holding on,
even in sleep, by the acquirement of what is called

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 77

prehensibility in its tip, similar to that in the toes
of perching-birds, which close tightly around a
twig, without any effort on the bird's part, simply
as the result of the pressure of its weight.

Charles Waterton points out that this faculty is
of manifest advantage to the animal, either when
sitting in repose on the branch of a tree or during
its journey onward through the gloomy recesses
of the wilderness. "You may see this monkey,"
he writes, " catching hold of the branches with
its hands, and at the same time twisting its tail
around one of them, as if in want of additional
support; and this prehensile tail is sufficiently
strong to hold the animal in its place, even when
all its four limbs are detached from the tree, so
that it can swing to and fro, and amuse itself,
solely through the instrumentality of its prehen-
sile tail — which, by the way, would be of no man-
ner of use to it did accident or misfortune force
the monkey to take up a temporary abode upon
the ground. For several inches from its extremity,
by nature and by constant use, this tail has as-
sumed somewhat the appearance of the inside of
a man's finger, entirely denuded of hair or fur
underneath, but not so on the upper part."

Prehensibility is equally well developed in the
naked, rat-like tail of the 'possum of our Northern
woods, and to a less extent in the manis; in the
Old World, or true, chameleon ; in the tips of the
tails of tree-clinging serpents ; and among fishes

WILD NEIGHBORS

it exists perfectly in the quaint little sea-horse
(Hippocampus), which is a poor swimmer, and rests
by hooking its tail
around a bit of sea-
weed or coral, or
through a hole in a
broken shell, thus an-
choring itself securely.
A service of the
same nature is per-
formed by the tail of
many birds that are
accustomed to climb
about the trunks of
trees, and cling to
upright rocks, etc., in-
stead of walking on
the ground or perch-
ing upon the branches.
Familiar examples are
the woodpeckers, nut-
hatches, creeping-
wrens (Certhiadae), and swifts. Whenever these
birds rest a moment they press the tail hard against
the bark or other surface to which they cling with
muscular toes, and lean upon it. Such a leverage
is very important to enable the woodpeckers and nut-
hatches to deliver their sturdy and repeated blows ;
and without such a support the swift could hardly
hold itself, as it does for long periods, at rest

PREHENSILE TAIL OF THE
SEA-HORSE.

Ill THE SERVICE OF TAILS 79

against the wall of a hollow tree, rock-crevice, or
chimney. As a result, the end of the tail-feathers
of such birds has become stiffened and capable of
this special work to a remarkable degree ; while in
the case of the common chimney swift, and some
similar, rock-climbing species of
the East, the shafts of the
feathers project beyond the
vanes in long, sharp spines,
equal in effect to the climbing-
irons of a telegraph lineman.

Among animals that live in
the water, the tail becomes of
supreme importance in loco-
motion. The shrimp's swim- SPINES TERMINATING
r . THE TAIL-QUILLS

ming is wholly by reaching its OF A SWIFT.

tail out and pulling itself back-
ward. This, of course, is the principle of the oar ;
and the shrimp is able to "feather," since the
plates of his tail shut up like a fan in recovering
for a new stroke.

It is mainly as a screw-propeller, however, that
their tails serve the swimmers — precisely the mo-
tion a man makes when sculling a boat by a single
oar held over the stern. This motion is plainly
visible in fishes, the most swift and powerful among
which have the smallest body-fins ; and it is solely
by this sculling movement of the tail that the shark
and bluefish make such terrific rushes after prey,
that the trout is able to give the angler so much

80 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

work, and the salmon to climb or leap up water-
falls, the ascent of which excites our amazement.
Alligators, crocodiles, and aquatic lizards, such as
those of India and Egypt,. have little other means
of progress under water, yet they are powerful
swimmers; the Nile monitor, in fact, can swim
much faster than young crocodiles of its own size,
of which it captures and devours large numbers,
by reason of the vertical flattening of its tail.
The profound diving of a whale, the follow-my-
leader bounding play of the porpoise and dolphin,
and the impetus for soaring gained by the flying-
fish, are all due to the propulsion of the tail, the
principle of which is embodied in the two-bladed
propellers of our swift steamships. Even some of
the diving-birds make their way under the surface
by closing their wings and sculling the short and
stiff feathers of the tail, though other diving-birds
paddle with their wings under the water just as
they fly in the air.

In all these flying and swimming creatures, not
only birds and fishes, but the marine mammals and
the flying quadrupeds, the tail is a rudder, as well
as a propeller and balance. This is easily observa-
ble not only in the flight of any bird, but in that of
the flying and leaping squirrels ; and no doubt it
is an essential part of the apparatus for flight pos-
sessed by these animals, — including the checking
and controlling of the speed, as observation of a
bird passing or alighting will quickly show ; while

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 8 1

the same observation may prove true of winged
insects having hinder appendages or prolonged
abdomens, such as dragon-flies. "Short-tailed
birds," remarks Frank M. Chapman, "generally
fly in a straight course, and cannot make sharp
turns, while long-tailed birds can pursue a most
erratic course with marvellous ease and grace.
The grebes are practically tailless, and their flight
is comparatively direct, but the swallow-tailed kite,
with a tail a foot or more in length, can dash to
right or left at the most abrupt angle."

Many a wild creature trusts to its tail for defence
in time of danger, and finds in it an offensive as
well as a defensive weapon of no mean worth. The
" fighting formation " of the American porcupine,
for instance,1 is to turn its back on its foe, hide its
head beneath its thorny neck, and strike right and
left with its short, spade-shaped tail : this organ
is armed with the longest and strongest spines,
and it is astonishing what a quick, forcible, and
effective blow the little animal can thus deliver.
It is probable that the heavy, knobbed tail of
the gigantic Mesozoic glyptodon was similarly
used. Whales will stave a boat to pieces by
a stroke with their powerful flukes ; and the
"thresher" shark takes his name from his habit
of swinging violently back and forth the long
scythe-like prolongation of the upper half of his
tail-fin. It is said that he kills small fishes for his

1 See also Chapter VII, page 188.

82 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

prey by thus thrashing about in a school of them,
and that several of these sharks, combining in
their attack, will beat a whale to death ; but there
is little evidence of the truth of either assertion.

THE THRESHER SHARK.

As for crocodiles and alligators, although their
dreadful jaws are their principal weapon, the blow
one of these great saurians can give, when he
" swings the scaly horror of his folded tail," is
justly to be dreaded by anything it may come
into contact with. How serviceable this member
may be to the East African crocodile, for instance,
appears from the narrative of Dr. J. W. Gregory,
the author of "The Great Rift Valley," who re-
lates his experience with them on the Tana River
as follows :

" The animals are surprised when asleep on the
bank, and killed with spears ; but the work is
rather dangerous, and inexperienced men are fre-
quently knocked over by a blow from the reptile's
tail, and dragged into the river. ... I was once
fishing in the river Ngatana, from a bank about
six feet above it, when the chief came and warned
me not to sit so near the water, as a crocodile
might knock me into it by a blow with his tail. . . .

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 83

Later on, I found that the natives of other Pokomo
villages attribute the same power to the crocodile,
and the German missionaries at Ngao knew of
cases where people had been thus swept into the
river and killed. The natives on the Nile told
Sir Samuel Baker the same story, and it is hardly
likely that it would have been independently in-
vented in two such distant localities, and by such
different tribes, if it had no basis in fact."

Of course if a man, then an antelope, or fish-
seeking cat, or any other animal of similar size,
could be knocked into the stream and preyed
upon; and that this must often happen is mani-
fest from the great numbers of these reptiles which
inhabit streams too small to furnish sufficient food
in the way of fishes alone.

The same habit belongs to the lesser land-lizards,
all of which whip severely with their tails when
fighting, large ones, like the South American
teguexin, being able to keep dogs at a dis-
tance by their fear of these blows ; and it is
said that in their quarrels most lizards seek first
of all to disable the opponent's tail, success in
which manoeuvre wins the battle. This seems to
be a trifling casualty in the case of many species,
such as the geckos, and some American lizards,
whose tails break off on the slightest provocation,
sometimes, apparently, as a wilful stratagem on
the creature's part, of which a good example
is found in the behavior of the very common

84 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

ground-lizard of the Southern States (Oligosoma
laterali), as described by Mr. H. C. Bumpus and
others :

"If captured, — a by no means easy task,—
they make no violent effort to escape, but, with a
most droll expression, they eye their captor ; soon
winning his confidence, but betraying it at the
most unexpected moment, for with a quick strug-
gle the tail is dropped off, and, before one has
recovered from his surprise, no lizard is to be seen,
the tail only remaining, which for some little time
twists about with as much vigor as when attached
to its owner.

"The self -mutilation of the lizard offers a re*
markable instance of protection," comments Mr.
Bumpus. " It will be seen that the animal, being
comparatively slow of foot, cannot ordinarily seek
safety in flight, and having no organs of defence,
it, on being attacked, breaks off a portion of its
tail, which, still alive and twisting about by reflex
action, attracts the attention of the enemy, and
the lizard, unencumbered and unnoticed, glides
into some crevice and is safe.

"The muscles of the tail are so arranged thai
they, by contraction, close over the place of
amputation, and bleeding is prevented. From
the thus blunted appendage a new rudiment
soon appears, which, in a short time, replaces the
lost part."

Now this is all matter of fact, and true of several

ill THE SERVICE OF TAILS 85

other lizards ; l and I have no disposition to deny
the practical service it is to the species possessing
such brittle tails, on the principle that a man thanks
his stars for the fire-escape that enables him to save
his life even at the expense of all his property : but
some of the darwinizing it has received is beyond
my following, at any rate. Mr. Poulton, for in-
stance, reasons that the very length of the tail is
a protective product of natural selection, it having
been so increased for the express purpose of
making it easier for an enemy to seize it, and thus
more surely fail (by reason of its breaking off) to
catch the body of the lizard; we are told that
"tails " on the wings of certain butterflies are made
conspicuous for a like reason. Then Mr. Poulton
goes on to argue further that the long tails charac-
teristic of most mice, and especially of the many
species which have a racket-shaped or brush-like
tuft of hair at the end, are due to the same influ-
ence : and, furthermore, that an explanation of the
bushy tails of the squirrel, fox, wolf, jackal, etc.,
is contained in the same protective hypothesis.

1 It is also true of a small snail in the Philippines, whose " tail "
(properly the hinder end of its body or foot) will break off if seized :
as it is more highly colored than any other part, it is the most con-
spicuous point for seizure, but the bird or lizard that takes hold
there gets nothing but a wriggling tip for his pains, while the snail
drops to the ground and hides. Semper, who expounds this doc-
trine at length, says that he lost specimens frequently by trying to
pick them up by their tails ; and that ten per cent, of these snails
(Helicarion) showed the scar of a previous loss.

86 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Now from appearances alone one might build up
a pretty bit of logical fancy-work like this, but
habits as well as structure must be considered, —
use as well as shape. Otherwise we shall make
the mistake of the birds who sit on telegraph wires
and point out to one another the beneficence of
humanity, which has considerately provided them
with perches : and how, in beautiful adaptation, the
perches are most extensive and numerous precisely
in those cleared and cultivated parts of the country
where the birds are in greatest number and most in
need of such conveniences !

Let us look at the matter from the side of actual
habits. In the first place, we notice that many of
the long-tailed lizards (and some among them
having the most whip-like tails) are not provided
with the detachable arrangement, at all, so that in
their case the slenderness and length of this ap-
pendage must be due to other causes; while, on
the other hand, many lizards have very short and
stubbed tails, yet seem to thrive as well. Next, of
all the natural enemies of the lizard only one kind
— -the snakes — might be supposed to creep upon
them from the rear, and hence seize the extended
tail first ; and these would be obliged to let go later,
and take a new hold of their prey, in order to
profit by it, — a movement which would set the
quick lizard free in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred. A snake must swallow this or any large
animal headforemost, and always endeavors to seize

Ill THE SERVICE OF TAILS 8/

it by the head, because the ordinary serpent having
once seized a victim never lets go until he has
swallowed it. Lastly, there is no observable dif-
ference, so far as this point is concerned, between
the behavior of those lizards with long brittle tails
and those with firm tails or scarcely any tail at all ;
and the most brittle one of all, the " glass snake,"
so called, is a subterranean species that rarely ex-
poses either end of its body to capture.

As to the mice, they do not ordinarily carry their
tails in an extended position, but almost invariably
keep them curled about their feet, as if they were
afraid something might bite them, instead of anx-
ious to induce a possible foe to seize them, in order
that they might jerk them out of his clutch and
laugh at his discomfiture at finding only a mouth-
ful of fur instead of a fat morsel in his teeth. No
mouse or squirrel is fool enough for that ; and if
by accident, the situation is ever created, no pur-
suer is fool enough to sit still and curse his luck
while the mutilated mouse or squirrel ambles gaily
away. Moreover, there are short-tailed mice. With
such bushy-tailed quadrupeds as the wolves, jack-
als, and foxes, the case is still worse for the argu-
ment. The very last thing such an animal does,
when in danger, is to straighten out his tail. His
first impulse, on the contrary, is to tuck it as far
between his hind legs as he can. The very hard-
est part for an enemy to seize would be its bushy
toil, and the worst ; for instantly the head would

88 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

fly around, and, finding the attacker engaged,
would have an advantage in a fight for life which
no wild animal would ever allow another. Who
ever heard of a fox saving himself by yielding his
brush, as Siberian travellers are said to throw mit-
tens, children, and the like, to bears that chase
their sledges. The fact is, that about all of a fox
which remains uninjured, and is preservable as a
trophy, after the huntsman's pack has pulled him
down, is his brush, in which the dogs take no
interest.

If, instead of this wild escapade in evolution the
writer quoted had devoted himself to showing that
the short tail of most of the deer, antelopes and
goats, and of rabbits and burrowing rodents, which
are regularly chased by swift-footed canine beasts,
was due to the gradual reduction of this append-
age through natural selection, because length was
a disadvantage in bulk and otherwise, without cor-
responding service, he might have made an argu-
ment both credible and interesting. These animals
are pursued by the carnivora, which, when overtak-
ing them, might seize a long tail, as they would
have nothing to fear from their jaws. As a matter
of fact this often happens to wild cattle, as used
to be illustrated on our western plains — the fore-
most wolf of the pack fastening himself to the
buffalo's tail, and dragging back until its compan-
ions had reached and seized the nose and flanks
of the retarded animal. It might be adduced in

m THE SERVICE OF TAILS 89

support of this that the tails of the horse, zebra,
and other equines, and such large horse-like ante-
lopes as the gnus, had remained long, and often
really bushy, because these animals were kickers,
and able to prevent with their heels any attempt to
bite this long appendage. A natural corollary of
this would be the fact that the secretive habits of
the mice, which live in holes, are mainly nocturnal,
and are attacked by large animals only by being
pounced upon or dug out, rendered the length of
their tails neither helpful nor harmful to them so
far as enemies are concerned ; having probably no
more to do with their means of defence than have
their large ears — nor so much !

Let us, after this digression, return to the main
line of our story, and ascertain further how certain
of these appendages serve as weapons, and are
even armed to that end.

In the geological long-ago there lived flying
saurians with long tails ; and one of these, de-
scribed by Professor Marsh, had spines two feet
long on the side of its tail, running outward and
backward.

A fish more unpleasant to meet than even this
long-departed animal is well known along our
Eastern coast, as well as in many other parts of
the world, under the name of sting-ray, or stinga-
ree. The rays (or skates) are flat, triangular-shaped
brutes, allied to the sharks in structure ; and they
have slender, whiplash-like tails. That of the

gQ WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

stingaree (which sometimes reaches a length of ten
feet) bears upon its top, near the root, a long, sharp
and barbed spine, with which it is able to inflict

deep and danger-
ous wounds, when
aroused to self-de-
fence. Some acrid
or poisonous sub-
stance seems to en-
ter the lacerations
thus made, and fish-
ARMED TAIL OF THE STING-RAY. ermen nierced in

the feet or hands by this species, or by the
tropical whip-ray, as often happens, find their
wounds slow and painful in healing.

Something of the same kind, but even worse, is
the stabbing apparatus of the surgeon-fish of
Florida and the West Indies. " Each side of the
tail," says Goode, " is provided with a sharp,
lancet-like spine, which, when at rest, is received
into a sheath, but it may be thrust out at right
angles to the body, and used as a weapon of
offence ; sweeping the tail from side to side as
they swim, they can inflict very serious wounds,
and I have seen in the Bermudas large fishes, con-
fined in the same aquarium-tank with them, cov-
ered with gashes inflicted in this manner."

In the philosophy of animal coloring brought
about by natural selection, which has been elabo-
rated by Alfred Russell Wallace, Mr. Poulton, and

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 91

others, a prominent part is often assigned to the tail
as a badge of identity, especially among mammals
and birds. In many species of mammals it is con-
spicuously colored above, but is white underneath,
in which case it is likely to be carried erect.
Deer, goats, and certain antelopes are good ex-
amples; and their white cocked-up tails are the
most noticeable part of them as they flee away,
forming an unmistakable mark to guide their
companions whose safety lies in keeping in a close
herd. Our common little gray rabbit, or " Molly
Cotton-tail," is another good example ; and a still
more striking one is afforded by the skunk, as is
explained in the chapter on that interesting ani-
mal. Such badges are called " recognition colors " ;
and their primary purpose — if the correctness of
the theory be conceded — is to bring the sexes
together. I have spoken of tails of this conspicu-
ous sort as serving the purpose of marriage-
advertisements to their wearers.

This term applies even more exactly to the
adornments of the tail (or tail coverts) of many
birds, such as are seen in the resplendent fan of
the peacock, the immensely long and exquisitely
ocellated trains of the argus and other oriental
pheasants, the lustrous expanse of the wild turkey,
and in many other large birds, which display these
ornaments to their fullest extent, while they pose
and strut before the females to attract their
preference. But there are many smaller birds in

92 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

which the tail-feathers are greatly prolonged, modi-
fied and highly ornamented in the males, appar-
ently for the same purpose. Such, for example,
are the trogons, and particularly Guatemala's
national bird, the quesal, which opens and curls
and displays the long emerald plumes that descend
from his tail in a most magnificent manner for
the benefit of his plainly dressed mate. How
curious are the tails of some birds of paradise!
The humming-birds offer similar examples: but
here it is the curious shape of a pair or so of
prolonged rectrices rather than their color; and
one may guess a reason for this when he watches
a hummer on the wing, for so exceedingly rapid is
the movement of the wings as it poises before a
flower, or in front of its demure little mate, that
it seems only a jewel flaming in a mist of scintil-
lant light. No particular ornament or pattern
of color is or could be visible, but above it, raised
and steady, are the long tail-feathers, straight,
curved, emarginate, thread-like or variously rack-
eted, which declare its identity like a badge to the
knowing eyes of the other bird. These are stand-
ards— recognition marks — in shape as well as
color; and they signal the language of courtship
at the same time, — an ornithological flirtation.

A reminder of facts like these — especially as
regards the mammals — called forth recently some
suggestive remarks from Dr. E. Bonavia, of Eng-
land, as follows :

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 93

" As regards the white tip of the tail of certain
mammals, there are some curious phenomena
connected with tips. . . . White and black are
interchangeable. There are many mammals which
have black tips to their tails, and this, in allied or
other individuals, may change to white. The
Arctic hare in its summer dress is brown with black
tips to his ears; and the ermine is also brown with
half the tip end of the tail black. When these
two animals get their snow-white winter clothing
the tips of the ears of the one, and the tip of the
tail of the other, remain black."

These peculiarities of color may be correlated
with the fact that the tips of ears, occasionally, and
the tips of tails, very frequently, are adorned with
tufts of hair, in the case of animals not otherwise
long-furred. That is the case with all the hoofed
beasts that have long tails, as the horses and asses,
cattle, camels, giraffe, and several of the South
African antelopes ; the practical service of this as
a wisp to drive away biting insects is recognized by
every one ; and it results in the ability of such ani-
mals to stay on the plains all summer, while their
short-tailed relatives are obliged to migrate to moun-
tain-tops and other regions of sometimes poorer
pasturage in order to escape the flies.

This phenomenon of marked color and increased
hairiness at "tips" may be further correlated with
the fact that in the tip of the tail, particularly,
seems to be centred or focalized, an unusual de-

94 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

gree of nervous force, or sensitiveness, or both,
which induces an extra supply of nutrition or
stimulus at that point to the pigment or hair cells,
or both, — for it must be noted that terminal tufts
of hair are likely to be strongly colored, as, for ex-
ample, in the lion, puma, and giraffe. If this is so,
it furnishes an explanation of the tufted condition
of the tails of so many mice, for which doubtless
the animal has a use of its own, — very likely as a
balancing pole or weight; and so natural selection

A JERBOA, SHOWING TUFTED TAIL.

has had an intimate structural basis upon which to
bring about modifications in each species beneficial
to it "after its kind."

How much outward evidence there is of extreme
nervousness in the tip of the tail — not to refer
now to the expressive mobility of the whole mem-
ber as manifested by dogs — will be plain to any
one who will watch a collection of cats in a
menagerie. Even when they are in repose, the
dark end of the tail seems to be involuntarily
curling and twisting, like the head of an uneasy

in THE SERVICE OF TAILS 95

serpent; and are they aroused, this agitation be-
comes very marked indeed. I do not suppose that
the puma which lies in wait for the guanacos, and
attracts them by his lifted tail as hunters some-
times toll up the pronghorn by lying on their faces
and kicking up their heels, thought that strategy
out and put it into deliberate execution ; but the
waving of the tail was practically involuntary, and
he has learned to adapt his hunting to a method
whose success we can explain, but which he prob-
ably never has fathomed or sought to fathom, for
that matter.

Serpents give a conspicuous example of this
nervous condition of the tail. Every snake, when
excited, elevates the tip of it, which is highly sen-
sitive to touch, and vibrates it with more or less
rapidity. This is most marked in the viperine
species, and it is here that we find the horny tips,
and the rattles of the rattlesnake, which can be
agitated with such extreme rapidity as to make
merely a fan of light — the eye cannot follow the
motion — and can be sustained for hours. There is
good reason to believe that the presence of the
rattle is connected with, if not the result of, this
maximum nervousness. How great the importance
of this is in the economy of this kind of serpent,
and the way in which it is important, I have en-
deavored to show elsewhere.1 The rattling of the

1 " Rattlesnakes in Fact and Fancy," — Chapter IX of my book
" Country Cousins," published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1 884.

96 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, in

quills of the tail of the European porcupine, under
circumstances of alarm, is another interesting fact
discussed in Chapter VII.

But the large part the tail plays in the expres-
sion of brute emotions, .from furious anger to
extravagant joy, is familiar to most persons and
need not be dwelt upon here. Mr. Darwin has
treated of it extensively in his capital book " The
Expression of the Emotions." Foxes, wolves,
jackals, et id omne genus, exhibit excitement and
alarm by elevating or depressing their brushes,
and no doubt wag them in welcome to their
friends. The nervous organization and moral sen-
sitiveness of dogs have been greatly enhanced by
their long association with man, and domestic
dogs have many more emotions to express, no
doubt, than their wild, or semi-wild, congeners.
I have been struck by the lack of affectionate
demonstrativeness among the yelping and often
savage dogs about an Indian camp. It was rare
that any of them were made pets of, and they had
never been led to show that welcome and grati-
tude and joy which are so plainly expressed by
the flexible tails of the terriers, and poodles, and
collies of our houses.

9s

IV

THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS

A PICTURE of the Great Plains is incomplete
without a coyote or two hurrying furtively through
the distance. The coyote is a wolf, about two-
thirds the size of the well-known European species
represented in North America by the big gray or
timber-wolf. He has a long lean body, legs a
trifle short, but sinewy and active; a head more
fox-like than wolfish, for the nose is long and
pointed ; yellow eyes set in spectacle-frames of
black eyelids; and hanging, tan-trimmed ears
that may be erected, giving a well-merited air of
alertness to their wearer; a tail (straight as a
pointer's) also fox-like, for it is bushy beyond the
ordinary lupine type ; and a shaggy, large-maned,
wind-ruffled, dust-gathering coat of dingy white,
suffused with tawny brown, or often decidedly
brindled.

" Blown out of the prairie in twilight and dew,
Half bold and half timid, yet lazy all through,

Lop-eared and large-jointed, but ever, alway,
A thoroughly vagabond outcast in gray."
99

IOO WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Such is the coyote: genus loci of the plains:
an Ishmaelite of the desert : consort of rattlesnake
and vulture : the tyrant of his inferiors : the jackal
of the puma : once a hanger-on upon the flanks
of the buffalo herds, and now the pest of the
cattlemen and sheep herders : the pariah of his own
race, and despised by mankind.

Withal, he maintains himself, and his tribe in-
creases. He outstrips animals fleeter than him-
self. He foils those of far greater strength than
his own. He excels all rivals in cunning and in-
telligence. He furnishes the Indian with a breed
of domestic dogs, and makes an interesting exhibit
in menageries and trick-shows.

The coyote is little known at present east of the
bunch-grass plains. In early days, however, he
was common enough in the open country of Ar-
kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and northward, whence
he received the names "prairie-wolf," "red" and
"barking" wolf. Threading the passes regardless
of altitude, he wanders among all the foothills of
the complicated mountain-system that forms the
"crest of the continent," and dwells too plentifully
in the Californian valleys, thriving upon what he
can pilfer from the ranch-yards and corrals, and
on the young calves or lambs that he is now and
then able to steal from the flock. Hence he there
passes his life continually on guard against guns,
traps, and poison.

In the United States and the Canadian North-

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS IOI

west, then, he is a creature of the open country,
leaving high mountains and forested regions to
the large gray "mountain" or "timber" wolf
(Cants lupus). Perhaps this is less his choice than
his necessity, for in Mexico and Central America
he seeks his food more often in forests than else-
where, yet keeps his characteristic cunning and
cowardice, becoming there the wild dog of the
jungles, as in the north he is the hound of the
plains. It is that tropical region, indeed, which
gives us his name, for " coyote " comes from the
pure Nahuatl word cqyotl, the final / softened into
an e. This ultimate must not be lost in the pronun-
ciation, which is coy-o'te, in three syllables, — not
ki-yot, as often heard. The word is translated in
the old Nahuatl-Spanish dictionaries by the Span-
ish adibe, a term applied to the African jackals.
It is also employed as a terminal of generic signifi-
cation for all similar animals, as Dr. Daniel G.
Brinton has explained. Thus tlal-coyotl, from
tlallit earth, and coyotl, is a big burrowing animal
found in Mexico. The derivation of coyotl, indeed,
appears to be from the root coy-, which means a
hole, alluding, of course, to the burrowing habits.
I have met, in an indigenous Californian language,
a very similar word which is said to mean " hill-
dog."

When this wolf cannot find a natural hollow in
the earth to suit him, nor evict some unhappy
hare, prairie-dog, or badger, he digs for himself a

AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY

(.;• ! , SiTY Of CALIFORNIA

ClTPUo ;<LtEARCH CENTER AND

AGKiOJLTU:V L EXPERIMENT STATION

RiVLRbiDE, CALIFORNIA

IO2 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

dry burrow, or prepares a den among loose rocks.
The butte districts of the upper Missouri and
lower Colorado valleys are therefore his strong-
holds. There the decay of sandstone strata, and
the breakage due to volcanic eruptions and upheav-
als, give him the choice of a large number of cran-
nies, while the desolation and remoteness of wide
tracts untenanted by men still afford him the seclu-
sion he covets.

In such seclusion his young family of from five
to eight pups is brought forth during the latter
part of spring, the date varying with the latitude.
It is just before and after the birth of the puppies
that the old dog-coyotes work their hardest and
the most systematically. In hunting at this time
our wolf adds to his ordinary pertinacity and zeal,
the sagacity and endurance necessary to turn his
victims and drive them back as near as possible to
his home, knowing that otherwise his mate and
her weaklings will be unable to partake of the
feast.

A remarkable picture of this was given some
years ago in an English magazine (unfortunately
I have lost the exact reference) by a traveller who,
in one of the best " animal chapters " it has ever
been my privilege to read; detailed a chase of this
kind as witnessed by him in the grand forests
near Lake Nicaragua.

The traveller and his Indian hunter-companion
had discovered, just before encamping for the

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 1 03

night, that a band of coyotes was on the hunt in
the neighborhood ; and were aroused before day-
light next morning by the sudden outburst from
their clamorous throats.

"Their musical cry, reckless and unguarded
now, resounded from hill to hill, and echoed in the
deep forest. All at once it burst upon the ear, as
if some messenger from the front had just arrived.
Past the lower ridge, down the forest to our left,
swept the pack, each hound seeming to rival the
other in noisy glee. Across the wind they gal-
loped, and the rising gusts bore to us that cheery
music long after they had passed far away through
the long glades and green savannahs."

It is plain that an Englishman wrote that para-
graph. No one but a fox-hunter could take and
communicate such enjoyment from a chorus of
wolfish notes.

Expecting their return, the hunter placed himself
at sunrise on a ridge overlooking Lake Nicaragua,
and makes us envy him by his description of the
scene, "of a grandeur and variety and loveliness,"
he exclaims, " not to be surpassed in any Eden
of the world."

" At length," he continues, " I fancied the breeze
brought a, faint clamor, as of dogs upon the scent.
Five minutes more and a tall buck, his coat all
staring and wet, his tongue hanging low, bounded
across a rocky stream choked with big-leaved plants,
which intersected one of the glades within my sight.

104

WILD NEIGHBORS

He vanished in the forest. And now there was
no possibility of mistake. The distant cry of the
pack came each instant louder to the ear ; at top
speed they swept along the trail, heads up high
and bushy tails waving. They followed over the
stream without a check, and disappeared under the
arches of the wood. Presently I heard the crash-
ing of undergrowth and threw myself flat upon the
ground. Laboring terribly, the buck broke cover
at the foot of the ridge, and ran along the forest
on my left. The coyotes' triumphant cry rang
louder and louder, and then they, too, appeared,
running as fresh as at the beginning of the chase.
They dashed along in a compact mass, eight or
ten couple of grown dogs, and toiling after were
three or four heavy bitches, and a dozen sturdy
pups of all ages: these had plainly joined the
chase only a few moments before, for they were
playing and biting one another.

" I rose to my feet and watched with the greatest
interest, for it seemed certain that the buck must
have over-run the coyotes' trail and his own scent.
My guess was correct. On the edge of the forest,
a big old dog which had led the pack, raised his
muzzle and howled. Each hound stood still, and
then I could mark that some of the finest animals
were much more blown than the others, thus show-
ing that the game had been turned by a forced
gallop. The leader sniffed about for a moment,
then uttered a sharp whine, on which the pack

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 1 05

opened like a fan, while the whelps sank far into
the rear. Scarcely had the last dog vanished in
the undergrowth, nose and tail to earth, when a
short challenge rang out. There was a moment's
pause, while the old dogs verified the fact, I sup-
pose. A bolder cry proclaimed that all was well,
and the pups, which had been standing still as
statues in their place, dashed off into the wood.
Then the music of the pack broke out again ; they
swept away under the mysterious trees and I saw
them no more.

" Certainly," exclaimed the narrator, at the con-
clusion of this brilliant and instructive story, " no
training could have bettered that day's run. To
drive a grown buck back to his starting-place ; to
send on a portion of the pack to that point where
he would strive to break cover ; to head him again
and again into the covert, where his speed could
not be exerted to the full, were facts which might
puzzle all the best dogs in England, and the human
intelligence which directs them."

His game and its getting are not always so noble
as this, however, and the coyote knows well the
pinch of famine, especially in winter. It has been
remarked that the main object of his life seems
to be the satisfying of a hunger which is always
craving ; and to this aim all his cunning, impu-
dence, and audacity are mainly directed. Noth-
ing comes amiss. Though by no means the
swiftest-footed quadruped upon the plains, he runs

IO6 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

down the deer, pronghorn, and others, tiring them
out by trickery and overcoming them by numbers.
The buffalo formerly afforded him an unfailing
supply in the way of carrion and fragments left
by his Brahmins, — the timber-wolves, — who stead-
ily followed the herds and seized upon decrepit
or aged stragglers, and upon any calves that they
were able to "cut out" and pull down. In such
piracy the coyotes themselves engaged whenever
they saw an opportunity, although it tried their
highest powers ; and success, when attained, fol-
lowed a system of tireless and sanguinary worry-
ing. The poor bison or elk upon which they
concentrated might trample and gore half the
pack, but the rest would stay by him and finally
nag him to exhaustion and death.

I remember once reading an account of the strat-
egy by which a large stag was forced to succumb
to a pack that had driven it upon the ice of a
frozen lake, as they had deliberately planned to
do. Part of the wolves then formed a circle about
the pond, within which the slipping and exhausted
deer was chased round and round by patrols, fre-
quently relieved, until, fainting with fatigue and
loss of blood, the noble animal fell, to be torn to
pieces in an instant.

Far less worthy game attracts him, however.
In California and New Mexico he has become so
destructive to the sheep that incessant war is
waged upon him by the ranchmen. In Kansas

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 1 07

and Nebraska he is accused of making havoc
among the domestic poultry, but it is quite likely
he gets the discredit of many depredations by
foxes, weasels, and skunks. Similar misdeeds
were justly charged against him by the farmers
of Illinois and Wisconsin, when, fifty years ago,
the prairies of those States were the frontier.
Two or three times a year, therefore, a general
holiday would be declared, and a wolf-hunt organ-
ized, in which volunteers from all the surrounding
settlements would gather, form a circle miles in
diameter around the spot to which the game was
to be driven, and then, systematically marching
forward, would concentrate until they had cor-
ralled the animals into a small district. Such
battues would result in the destruction of great
numbers not only of prairie-wolves, but also of
lynxes, polecats, and other "vermin," and free
the neighborhood of these pests for that season
at least, besides being the occasion of a social
merrymaking rare enough to be keenly enjoyed
among the frontiersmen.

Tactics similar to those in coursing a stag upon
the ice, as already mentioned, are pursued by the
coyote when he sets his heart upon a hare. Alone,
he could neither overtake nor surprise it. Two
wolves assist one another, therefore, one giving
instant chase while the other squats upon his
haunches and watches the operation. The runner
turns the hare in a circle that presently brings it

108 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

back near to the point of starting, where the sec-
ond wolf is ready to keep puss going while the
first rests. Then the wolf in chase bowls the hare
over, and seeks to appropriate the whole of his
not over-big carcass before the resting partner can
come up and claim his share, whereupon a row is
very likely to ensue.

To capture the sage-hen, grouse, or quail, the
coyote roughly quarters the ground, somewhat like
a trained dog, but with frequent crouching pauses,
all the time wending his way toward the quarry.
At the right moment he will drop flat in the grass
and creep stealthily forward, as a cat would do,
until near enough to make a fatal spring. The
birds do not seem to lie to him as they will to a
setter or pointer, but get up and fly the instant
they discover his presence.

In fact, nothing edible escapes this omnivorous
prowler. It is the arch-enemy of such small deer
as prairie-dogs and gophers ; and one reason why
the rabbits have become such a pest in central
California is that this wolf has been mercilessly
killed off there.

If no better food offers, it will revel in carrion
of any sort. " It resorts in great numbers to the
vicinity of settlements where offal is sure to be
found, and surrounds the hunter's camp at night.
It is well known to follow for days in the trail of
a traveller's party, and each morning, just after
camp is broken, it rushes in to claim whatever

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS I<X)

eatable refuse may have been left behind. But
it cannot always find a sufficiency of animal food.
Particularly in the fall, it feeds extensively on
'tunas,' which are the juicy, soft, scarlet fruit of
various species of prickly pear (opuntia); and in
the winter upon berries of various sorts, particu-
larly those of the juniper."

Under the pangs of excessive hunger these
small wolves are compelled to a furtive boldness
of which th*ey are incapable under ordinary cir-
cumstances. Thus I have known them to come
repeatedly within pistol-range of my camp-fire in
southern Colorado, and hunters tell me that they
have been known to pull, or try to pull, the boots
or the leather straps of a saddle, from under the
head of a slumbering camper. Sitgreaves records
that when, for two days and nights, his party had
kept possession of some solitary springs in an arid
part of Arizona, the coyotes became so desperate
from thirst that they would come to drink while
men and mules were at the spring.

In the account of their habits in Nicaragua, to
which I have already referred, is included the
opinion of the Indian who was accompanying the
writer, and who evidently held this wolf in higher
respect than do those of us who know the animal
only on the plains.

" You see [says Manuelo] they are not like other
beasts, afraid of fire. . . . They cluster round it
at night, and the larger your fire, the more coyotes.

HO WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Ay ! there's cause for fear when one is alone and
the pack is out. They're worse then than tigers
or the cowardly pumas, though there are few who
believe it. They come sneaking up through the
black glades, noiseless and silent, and they squat
on their haunches and their eyes shine like stars.
They wait and watch and will not be driven off.
You shoot one, but others come. They sit like
ghosts — like pale devils — round your fire. Ah! I
tell you, seftor, it is terrible to be beset by coyotes !

" Hour by hour they sit there, just out of reach,
in a circle around you. It is a nightmare ! From
very weariness you doze off, and, waking with a
horrid start, you shout to see how near the devils
have crept. As you spring up, they slink back
again, and take the former ring, licking their foxy
jaws, but making no sound. And you — you rush
at them ; and they glide away and vanish on the
instant in the black undergrowth. But, as you
return, they come forth again, they sit down, and
stare with never a wink in their green eyes. It is
terrible, senor ! "

As a rule, on our western plains, they are cow-
ardly to the last degree, and trust to superior num-
bers and well-laid plans to effect their object. I
remember at a place where I once encamped for
two or three days in southwestern Wyoming, the
rough ledge of a butte-face, just across the creek,
was the home of a family of these wolves, and I
often saw them, — the mother lying at the mouth

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS III

of her den, and the four whelps romping in the
sunshine. The father of this family kept out of
sight, but the second day I caught sight of him in
pursuit of a doe antelope and her fawn.

The doe was backing away on the plain, keep-
ing the little one, who seemed to understand its
part perfectly, close to her hind legs. Following
her closely was the wolf, frequently making a dash
to the right or left, to get at the fawn, but each
time the brave little mother, whirling alertly, would
present to him her lowered head, and make a dash
at his skull with her sharp fore hoofs. Thus she
retreated ; but I fear that the pursuer's longer
breath and varied tactics won the day at last. It
is said that this wolf can even kill the rattlesnake,
by sheer quickness of onslaught.

A prime characteristic of the coyote is his aston-
ishing voice, which differs so much from the well-
known wolfish howl of other members of his race
as to have suggested the specific name Cants
latrans, or barking wolf. It begins with a series
of sharp yelps which quickly run into a prolonged
howl that may strike you as dismal or simply in-
teresting — hardly alarming — as you happen to
feel. Often these yelps and howls are repeated
with such rapidity and ventriloquistic force, as to
seem to fill the whole horizon, and the unsophisti-
cated traveller will be certain a large pack is near
him, when in fact the whole clamor is raised by
one, or at most two, lean and hungry barkers.

H2 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Remembering these astonishing vocal perform-
ances, it is amusing to read the story told by the
Kaibabits Indians, of northern Arizona, to account
for the diversity of languages, for what animal
could better figure in such a history ?

The old men of the Kaibabits say, the grand-
mother goddess of all brought up out of the sea a
sack, which she gave to the Cin-au'-av brothers, —
great wolf-gods. This sack contained the whole
of mankind, and the brothers were bidden to carry
it from the shores of the sea to the Kaibab Plateau,
and by no means to open the package on the way
lest, as with Pandora's box, untold evils should be
turned loose. But, overcome by curiosity, the
younger Cin-au'-av untied the sack's mouth, when
the majority of people swarmed out. The elder
Cin-au'-av hastened to close it again and carry it
to the Kaibab Plateau, where those who had re-
mained in the bag found a beautiful home. Those
who had escaped were scattered, and became
Navahos, Mokis, Dakotas, white men, and all the
rest of the outside world — poor sorry fragments
of humanity without the original language of the
gods ; and it was all the fault of that careless coy-
ote, Cin-au'-av.

The quick wits and inquiring mind of the prairie-
wolf serve him not only in chasing, but in saving
himself from being chased. A new enemy has
lately arisen, however, that puts him on his mettle.
This is the practice of chasing him with hounds

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 113

after the manner of fox-hunting which is largely
pursued now as a sport at army posts in the West,
and here and there by townspeople and ranchmen.
It began, I think, and has been most diligently
developed among the colonists in the interior of
British Columbia, where a pack of hounds, re-
cruited largely from the famous Badminton Ken-
nels, in England, has long been maintained at
Ashcroft, in the Fraser valley.

The hounds take to this new sport readily, yet
the wily and swift-footed wolf is often able to keep
out of their way, and save his brush in some rocky
retreat, after leading the horsemen a run which
sets every nerve a tingling.

Next to the wolverine, the prairie-wolf is, per-
haps, the wariest of the animals — not excepting
the fox — against which the trapper pits himself.
To poisoned meat he falls a victim through his
gluttony, and in this way the ranchmen destroy
great numbers annually ; but he is rarely trapped.
The old writer Say tells, with a touch of glee, how
his friend Titian Peale, who was a naturalist as
well as a painter, was baffled in trying to catch a
live coyote for his father's famous Museum — one
of the sights of old Philadelphia.

Peale's first experiment was with a " figure-four,"
and came to nought because a wolf burrowed under
the floor and pulled the bait down between the
planks. "This procedure," sagely remarks Mr.
Say, "would seem to be the result of a faculty

114 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

beyond mere instinct." A cage was next con-
structed, into which the wolves might enter, but
out of which they could not depart. The coyotes
came, admired the arrangement, sang doleful
lamentations over the bait, which they could see
and smell but could not taste, and went away
again.

Disappointed here, Mr. Peale next began a series
of experiments with steel traps, one of which, pro-
fusely baited, was concealed among the leaves.
Plenty of tracks alone rewarded this effort. "You
can't live on tracks " is one of the aphorisms of
the Plains. Then a seductive bait was suspended
above the trap in the midst of several other pieces ;
but the expected victims, stepping circumspectly,
carried off all the meat except the one piece it was
intended they should take. Baits were next hung
up as before, the trap was buried in leaves and
these were burned, so that the trap, scorched free
from any odor of human hands, lay covered with
ashes; still the one bait over the steel jaws was
avoided, and no sinewy foot was pinched. Finally
a wicked arrangement of innocent-looking logs set
on a trigger was made to fall upon the wolf and
destroy him. Peale got his "specimen," but it
was only by brute force : the coyote had been a
match for him in brains.

The remarkable craftiness of this animal, to-
gether with its secretive disposition, nocturnal
prowling, and power of annoyance, have caused

iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 11$

the coyote to figure prominently in the myths and
religious histories of nearly all the native races of
the far west, especially southward ; and a collection
of these stories from the writings of Powell, Powers,
Bandelier, Gushing, Curtin and others would sug-
gest to every reader the Reynard of European folk-
lore, not to speak of other interesting parallels.

The skins of these wolves are not as highly
valued as those of the bigger gray wolf, yet
formerly they entered largely into the shipments
of the Hudson's Bay Company, for whom they
were " cased," or stripped off inside out, as is
done with smaller fur-bearers, such as the beaver
and ermine. At present they are in demand to
some extent for making sleigh-robes, rugs, and so
forth, and to a less degree for mantles and boas,
but can scarcely be accounted among the com-
mercial furs.

The striking resemblance between the coyote
and the majority of the snappish curs thronging
in the camps of the redskins long ago attracted
attention, and with good reason, for these dogs
are descended from tamed wolves and foxes of
one kind or another, and the stock was, and is yet,
constantly replenished by their masters through
mixture with the wild wolves.

As a pet the coyote is not in great favor. He
will, indeed, stay at home, and will consent to
friendly, and even affectionate, terms with his
owner, but he seems to have not a particle of

Il6 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, iv

gratitude, nor any of that responsive attachment
that makes the well-bred dog so lovable as a friend.

Moreover, in spite of his natural subtlety and
shrewdness, he shows little aptitude for learning
the ordinary accomplishments of dogs, and so fails
to sustain an interest in him after the novelty
of first acquaintance passes off. Perhaps this
seeming inaptitude is really unwillingness, since
he may easily regard the things sought to be taught
him as beneath his serious attention. If so, the
fact that he is occasionally seen as one of the
showman's performing animals is all the more
noticeable; since unquestionably he could say to
the audience, —

" I could show you a trick worth two o' that."

NOTE. — Recently the prairie wolves, formerly regarded as
a single species (Cam's latrans)^ have been re-classified in
several species and subspecies, the names and distinctions of
which may be learned from Dr. D. G. Elliot's " Synopsis of
Mammals," — a storehouse of technical descriptions of North
American mammals. The publications of the United States
Department of Agriculture, since 1899, have contained much
information as to the habits of coyotes, especially Bailey's
" Biological Survey of Texas," and Lantz's " Coyotes in their
Economic Relations." The hunting of these small wolves has
been the subject of many recent essays, — none better than a
chapter in Roosevelt's " Pastimes of an American Hunter."
A large collection of Indian myths and legends in which this
animal is the hero may be studied in Power's " Indians of
California," and in Powell's " Exploration of the Colorado
River," both published by the Government.

u8

V

THE BADGER AND HIS KIN

MANY an animal lives beside us, of which we
are told by those genial vagabonds, the hunters,
or whose traces constantly present themselves,
but of which we rarely catch even a glimpse.
These creatures continue to pursue their own
secluded manner of living, while men increase
around them, and civilization alters their environ-
ment, accommodating themselves as well as they
can to human interference with their habits and
subsistence, and surviving or even profiting by the
changes, but keeping aloof from the eyes of men.

I have been using the word " animals " here in
its special popular sense of designating the four-
footed, hairy creatures technically termed Mam-
mals ; and it is a curious and notable lack in our
English speech that we have no vernacular word
which exactly stands for this most definite and
familiar of zoological groups : " quadruped " won't
do, where precision is desirable, since many rep-
tiles, as lizards and turtles, have four feet ; and I
see no help for it but to popularize the word
"mammal," which is not a very "hard" one to
learn.

119

12O WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

The birds, or at any rate many of them, seem
to welcome the coming of mankind, and to make
friends with him at once, and occasionally to fol-
low him into wider countries. Thus the swift, the
barn-swallow, and the eave-swallow have aban-
doned in the east their habits of nesting in hol-
low trees and upon rocky cliffs or clay-banks, and
now make their homes altogether in the chimneys
of houses and under the eaves and roofs of barns
and outhouses. The phoebe-bird so generally
chooses the exposed timbers of bridges that it is
more widely known as the bridge-pewee than by
any other name ; yet it as often places its adobe
cabin on the beam of a shed or porch, as if seek-
ing human company. The grouse, quail, crow,
and some other birds have moved westward with
the advancing migration of agriculture ; and every-
where, no doubt, the total of singing-birds has
been greatly increased by the civilizing of the
land. Thus we make daily observation of most
of the birds, and only need to attend to them more
minutely to become aware of the presence of those
kinds more rare or occasional.

With the mammals the case is different. Almost
the only kinds, not voluntarily domesticated, that
have attached themselves to mankind, are the rats
and mice — cosmopolitan pests, presumably of
Asiatic origin, which have now spread all over
the world. Many beasts, as the big game and
fiercer carnivores, have almost or quite disappeared

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 121

from the more completely civilized regions, for
one reason or another ; while others, as the hares
and squirrels, because of their prolificacy and com-
parative worthlessness, can maintain themselves
everywhere, despite their conspicuous manner
of life. The muskrat is a singular example of
this faculty, and it has probably augmented rather
than diminished in numbers in the United States
since the civilization of the land, in the face of
steady persecution on account of its value on the
one hand, and, on the other, because it is harmful
to certain human enterprises.

But besides these classes there is a group of
mammals, fellow-denizens with us of the cultivated
parts of the country, that persist, and in some
cases increase, yet escape the notice of all but a
few persons, and continue to live their own lives
regardless of us and our operations.

What do the most of us see or know, for ex-
ample, of the wild mice, half a dozen species of
which are numerous everywhere in our woods
and fields? Yet thousands of these small and
active creatures, — the lovely long-tailed red-and-
white deer or vesper mice, the various short-tailed
brown meadow-mice or voles, the far-leaping,
kangaroo-like jumping-mouse (genus Zapus), and
several others allied to them, — inhabit all our
forests, prairies, fields, and gardens. They are
beyond counting, and form the principal game
of a large number of wild animals, — mammals,

122 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

birds, and reptiles, without whose assistance we
should be unable to endure their hordes, — while
the results of their pernicious activity are con-
stantly apparent. Read this extract from Kenni-
cott's masterly but nearly forgotten papers on the
mammals of Illinois, and note how important a
factor in the relations of men and animals are
these unseen foes : he is speaking more particu-
larly of the true meadow-mice of the genus Arvi-
cola, but we may take his statements as good for
the whole class.

"The food and general habits of the different
species are much alike, though some prefer high,
and others wet ground ; while others inhabit the
woods, prairies, etc. All the species burrow, and
none climb trees. The common food of those I
have observed is the grasses and other herbaceous
plants, their seeds and roots, and the seeds and
acorns, as well as the bark, of trees in the woods,
with grain and vegetables, when inhabiting culti-
vated fields. Some are omnivorous, as has been
observed in their habits while in captivity. To
what extent they eat animal food when at liberty,
I am unable to say, though it is probable that
they consume some insects in summer ; and they
may even obtain a few, with the pupae and eggs
of more, concealed in the grass traversed by them
in winter. Some kinds, at least, lay up stores of
food for winter. All are active at this time, mov-
ing about in the coldest weather, and never hiber-
nate like marmots.

"One characteristic, certainly possessed by all
the species in common, is their ability to destroy

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 123

the products of the farm. I know of no mam-
mals more injurious to the farmers in northern
Illinois than these seemingly insignificant meadow-
mice. Few, if any, escape their depredations,
though the full amount of damage done by them
is but little known ; and yet they are usually
thought unworthy of consideration. Such of our
farmers as cut their corn and leave it standing
for some time in the field, as is usually done here,
will find, upon examination, that in many, if not
every one, of the shocks there may be found one
or more pair of meadow-mice, which have dug
for themselves burrows in the ground beneath,
and have carried thither a store of corn ; while
in these, or ensconced in the protecting corn-
stalks above, they have built themselves a nest,
in which they can lead a very comfortable sort
of life, regaling themselves, when hungry, upon
the corn. Now a pair of mice will not, it is true,
eat enough corn to alarm a farmer for the safety
of his crop; but let any one examine a large
field of corn, thus cut and left standing on the
ground a month or two, where these mice abound,
and carefully estimate the amount of corn de-
stroyed in each shock, observing that which has
been buried in the burrow, and then multiply
that by the number of shocks inhabited by these
pests, and it will often be found that they have
really consumed or destroyed a large amount. In
meadows they do much injury by devouring the
roots and stems of Timothy, clover, and other
plants used for hay. This mischief, however, is
seldom noticed by farmers ; or, if it is at all, in
districts where moles abound, all the blame is
laid upon them, as, indeed, is very much of the

124

WILD NEIGHBORS

damage done by meadow-mice wherever the two
exist together. They also do great mischief by
killing young plants in grain-fields; and, soon
after the seed is sown, they destroy many of the
grains, little stores of which may be found col-
lected in shallow excavations. These are often
not eaten, and, germinating, astonish and scandal-
ize the farmer by the appearance of a thick clump
of plants where he thought he had sown his seed
quite uniformly. They also dig up grain that has
just sprouted ; and, by examining fields of young
wheat, oats, etc., spots will be seen where they
have dug dov/n, guided by the growing blades,
and taken off the grain. In a nursery, where
apple-seeds were planted in autumn, I have ob-
served that, during fall and spring, so many of
the seeds were dug up by these mice as to leave
long gaps in the rows of seedlings, the empty
shells of the seeds being found lying about the
rows from which they had been taken. They
congregate in stacks of grain and hay, — some-
times in exceedingly great numbers, — destroying
all the lower parts by cutting galleries through
them in every direction.

"The greatest mischief done by meadow-mice
is the gnawing of bark from fruit-trees. The
complaints are constant and grievous throughout
the Northern States of the destruction of orchard
and nursery trees by the various species of arvi-
colae. The entire damage done by them in this
way may be estimated, perhaps, at millions of
dollars. . . . This is especially the case at the
West, where no care is taken to protect the trees
against them, — careless orchardists allowing grass
to grow about the roots of their fruit-trees, and

CHAP.V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN I2/

thus kindly furnishing the arvicolae with excellent
nesting-places in winter, and rendering the trees
doubly liable to be girdled. In the nurseries in
northern Illinois, I have seen whole rows of
young apple-trees stripped of their bark for a
foot or two above the ground. Thousands of
fruit-trees, as well as evergreens and other orna-
mental trees and shrubs, are at times thus killed
in a nursery in one winter. . . . Many times in
spring, when a florist uncovers some choice plant
he has carefully protected during the winter by
straw, etc., he is grieved and chagrined to find,
instead of a fine Dianthus, or half-hardy rose,
two nimble, black-eyed arvicolae, which have
found good winter quarters in the shelter pro-
vided for the plant that has furnished them food.
No little injury do they to vegetables of all kinds,
destroying the young plants of peas, beans, cab-
bages, etc., as well as digging up seeds of all
sorts, and gnawing potatoes, beets, and other roots."

How often do we see these creatures, so numer-
ous and ubiquitous ? How unexpected would be
an accidental discovery of their presence, were it
not for their too familiar assaults upon our grain-
fields, granaries, and gardens ? And how clever
they are in their mischief !

Then there are the shrews.1 Two or three
kinds of these tiniest of quadrupeds, looking like
miniature mice, until you examine them, — note

1 See Plate of Shrews, opposite : Blarina brevicauda, — com-
mon short-tailed shrew of the eastern United States. Sorex
cooperi, — an eastern long-tailed shrew; the smallest of known
mammals. Sorex vagrans, — a common Western long-tailed shrew.
Urotrichus gibbsi, — the curious shrew-mole of the Pacific coast.

128 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, v

the prolonged flexible snout and delicate rows of
needle-pointed teeth, made to seize, hold, and
crush the hard, slippery bodies of insects, — inhabit
by thousands every part of the country, and are
active at all seasons of the year ; yet only now and
then is one seen, and that one is usually dead.
Mainly nocturnal in their work, and sneaking from
point to point under leaves and through runways
concealed by the arching grasses, they elude our
notice while existing in multitudes about our feet.
Of the moles we seem to know somewhat more,
for the heaved-up lines of turf that mark their sub-
terranean lines of research for bugs and worms,
and the hillocks of loose earth, showing where, at
intervals, they have cast out the excavated soil,
are familiar to all dwellers outside of large cities.
Nevertheless, so infrequently is the miner himself
met with, that many a person who has grumbled
all his life at the depredations on his lawn, would
not recognize the culprit when brought before
him, and certainly could not tell whether it were
the common garden-mole, or the star-nosed one,
or Brewer's hairy-tailed mole.1 These animals, it

1 See Plate of Common Moles, opposite : i. The eastern Garden-
Mole (Scalops aquaticus) ; a, head, side view; b, palm of fore-foot;
f, semi-naked tail. 2. The Star-nosed Mole ( Condylura cristata) ;
a, head, under side; b, palm; c, tail; d, "star" of the muzzle,
front view. 3. The California Shrew-mole (Urotrichus gibbsi);
a, head, under side; b, head, side view (see also Plate of Shrews;
e, palm. 4. The Hairy-tailed, or Brewer's Mole (Scafanus
breweri}; a, muzzle, side view; b, tail; c, palm.

CHAP, v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 131

is true, are mainly nocturnal, but they often come
to the surface and wander about, even on the
snow, as also do the shrews. These open-air excur-
sions are made usually in the dusk of early dawn and
late evening, or during rains ; but they also have
the curious custom of coming out for a saunter
precisely at noon, so that it is surprising that they
are not more often seen.

The moles are blind, having only rudimentary
eyes, but their ears and sense of touch are extremely
acute, enabling them to detect not only the sound,
but the jar of approaching footsteps, and hasten
into their shelters. The mole is frequently re-
vealed to us for the first time by finding one lying
dead on the turf. There will be no sign of vio-
lence about its body, nor of disease; and it is
lying out on the grass in the daylight, careless of
the exposure that all its life long had been its
dread. What killed it? Does it feel death ap-
proaching and creep out of its cellar to end its days
under the blue sky and in the sweet air ? Do the
other moles, foreseeing its fate, drive it forth ? I
have no answer ; but the explanation is probably
far more prosaic than that. Shrews, closely allied
to the moles, and among the hardiest of animals,
dwelling upon almost arctic mountain tops, and
braving the severest winter weather, often perish
in an equally mysterious manner. I have more
than once had one die in a short time after capt-
ure, although it had not been hurt in the slightest

!32 WILD NEIGHBORS CHA?.

degree, and everything had been done to make it
comfortable. Was this death due to nervous
alarm ? There seems no other explanation of it.

The deer, wild-cat, bear, raccoon, mink, weasel,
skunk, muskrat, porcupine, beaver (but how rare
is the sight of a living beaver, even after one has
found its tenanted dams !) and the great company
of squirrels, gophers, and the like, we know pretty
well, and feel their presence in our woods, waters,
and prairies ; but who has seen, or ever hopes to
see, an otter, although these fine animals still se-
crete themselves in all parts of the Union ? Tho-
reau relates that when he spoke of this animal to
the oldest doctor in Concord, who should be, he
thought, ex officio, a naturalist, the worthy physi-
cian was greatly surprised at the suggestion that
it lived in Massachusetts, although he recalled
that the Pilgrims sent home a great number of
otter skins, among other peltries, in the first ship
that returned to England. Then Thoreau pro-
ceeded to inform him of what he had seen that
day, — the 6th of December, 1856, at 2 P.M., as
recorded in his diary :

"To Hubbard's Bridge and Holden Swamp,
and up river on ice. . . . Just this side of Bittern
Cliff, I see the very remarkable track of an otter,
made undoubtedly December 3d, when the snow-
ice was mere slush. It had come up through a
hole (now black ice) by the stem of a button-bush,
and apparently pushed its way through the slush,

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 133

as through snow on land, leaving a track eight
.inches wide, more or less, with the now frozen
snow shoved up two inches above the general
level on each side. ... I saw where these creat-
ures had been playing, sliding or fishing, appar-
ently to-day, on the snow-covered rocks, on which
for a rod upwards, and as much in width, the snow
was trodden and worn quite smooth, as if twenty
had trodden and slid there for several hours.
Their droppings are a mass of fishes' scales and
bones, loose, scaly, black masses. . . . The river
was all tracked up with otters from Bittern Cliff
upward. Sometimes one had trailed his tail edge-
wise, making a mark like the tail of a deer-mouse ;
sometimes they were moving fast, and there was
an interval of five feet between the tracks. . . .
These very conspicuous tracks generally com-
menced and terminated at some button-bush or
willow where black ice now marked the hole of
that date. ... In many places the otters ap-
peared to have gone floundering along in the
slushy ice and water."

But even Thoreau did not see the animal itself,
then nor at any other time, though once one
crawled past the door of his Walden house in the
night and set him a-thinking — but it didn't need
a noble otter to do that !

Dr. Charles Abbott saw them several times,
twenty or thirty years ago, in the Delaware and
its tributaries near Trenton; Merriam mentions

134

WILD NEIGHBORS

encountering three at once in the Adirondacks, and
Audubon and Bachman had one or two personal in-
terviews in the South ; but these were naturalists and
trappers who made it their business to seek and
find the sly creature in its haunts, yet succeeded
rather by perseverance and good luck than by
foresight. JVfany have tried equally hard, perhaps,
and have failed.

I know where one lives, in a little river not far
from the city of New York ; but I shall by no
means tell you the river's name, for he must not
be disturbed. It is a great pleasure to me to think
that this stream, which for a large part of its
course flows between cultivated fields, is spanned
by highways and bound like Ixion to the miller's
wheel, still harbors an animal so truly wild and
aboriginal. It is a picturesque and poetic relic of
the prehistoric wilderness, and a romantic reminder
of the free, primitive, savage state of things, as
refreshing to the imagination as the pungent odor
of spruce-leaves in a winter drawing-room.

A more remarkable example, perhaps, of an
animal that secretes itself well from observation
while numerous throughout its range is found in
the badger. Although it is comparatively large,
predatory, and common, it spends most of its time
underground, rarely comes abroad except during
the hours of darkness, and makes haste to hide
itself the moment it detects the approach of any
human being. The sight of a living badger is

V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 135

therefore an uncommon accident, even where the
species abounds and its burrows may be seen in
all directions ; and the animal disappears rapidly
before the advance of any considerable settlement
in its territory. Audubon and Bachman imply
that its habitat was always limited by the eastern
extent of the Great Plains, but the fact is that
these animals formerly were spread as far east as
the open country extended, dwelling upon all the
prairies of southwestern Michigan, northern Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin (which has been called
the Badger State since its early days), Minnesota,
Iowa, and northward. Now they have disappeared
from all this area, and are rare in the easterly and
more cultivated districts of Kansas, Nebraska, and
Dakota, where their range is annually withdrawing
westward. Northward they are found as far as
the Peace River, and eastward to Hudson Bay;
so that the fullest early accounts of them were
given in the writings of Pennant, Richardson, and
other naturalists who explored the Fur Countries
years ago.

Everywhere the badger is truly a " beast of the
fields" — an inhabitant of the open country — dig-
ging or stealing underground holes, and preying
upon everything it can catch or conquer. Its body
is two feet long, extraordinarily low-hung and broad,
so that the creature appears to be, and perhaps is,
wider than it is tall ; but this effect is partly due to
the fact that the long fur, which parts upon the

136 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

spine as if carefully brushed toward each flank, is
loose and flaring at the sides, giving the animal
the appearance of having a rather stiff fur blanket
balanced across its back. The legs are short and
firm, and the large feet are furnished with long
and very strong claws, making them powerful
digging-tools. The tail is short and thick. The
head is broad, massive, and dog-like, with round,
furry ears, a hairy muzzle, and jaws filled with
formidable teeth, scarcely less terrible than those
of the wolverine. The whole squat, compact, large-
boned, massively skulled form indicates great mus-
cular power ; and it is controlled by a capable brain
and an indomitable spirit.

" As gray as a badger " is a proverbial expres-
sion that originated, probably, almost in the begin-
nings of speech, and in reference to the European
badger, which has much the same general appear-
ance and methods as ours, but anatomically is
somewhat different. The loose fur is a " grizzle of
blackish, with white, gray, or tawny," each hair
having all these colors on some part of its length,
and the whole blending handsomely. The colors
vary greatly, however, with season, age, and health,
and in the high, arid interior of the country are
always much lighter, less tawny, than in the
moister, easier climate of the Pacific Slope. The
fur of the under side of the body is more uni-
formly whitish than on the upper parts, except as
to the feet, which are blackish brown. The head

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN l$?

is strikingly marked, the general color, from the
back of the neck forward, being dark brown,
broken by a distinct white stripe from the bridge
of the nose back to the nape of the neck, and a
somewhat irregular white stripe on each cheek,
reaching from the corners of the mouth to near
the top of the ears ; below this, on each side, is
a crescentic, dark-colored patch, separating the
stripes from the white of the ears and throat.
These conspicuous markings give to the counte-
nance an expression of native ability and shrewd-
ness in the disguise of a painted clown ; and they
set one a-thinking.

Belonging to the great family of " fur-bearing "
carnivores, the Mustelidae, which begins with the
weasels and ends with the sea-otters, and is related
to the bears on one side and to the dogs on the
other, the badgers occupy a midway place in their
own group, between the skunks and otters, and
form the subfamily Melinae. Species of this sub-
family inhabit Europe, Asia, and America, but
those of the Old World are of different genera
from ours. Thus, the common badger of Europe,
well known in Great Britain and elsewhere, is
Meles vulgaris, and allied species belong to most
parts of Asia ; their habits are much like those of
the American forms. The small, fetid, burrowing
teledu, or stinking badger of the mountains of Java
and Sumatra, is Mydaus meliceps. The sand-
badger, a large pig-like species of the mountains

138 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, v

of northeastern India and Assam, is Arctonyx
collaris, having near relatives in the farther East.
By recent authors the skunks, the honey-badgers,
(Mellivora), the Cape of Good Hope polecats
(Ictonyx), and the small Oriental burrowers of the
genus Helictis, are also put into this section. Our
American species have a genus of their own named
Taxidea, of which there are two species, Taxidea
americana, our common Northern form, and the
Mexican badger, tejon or tlacoyote ( T. berlandieri\
but the latter is probably only a geographical variety
of the former. Everywhere these animals agree
in having long fur, without much ornament, in
their choice of open, somewhat elevated habitats,
in exhibiting courage and voracity, in nocturnal
disposition, in making their homes in burrows, and
in possessing perineal glands secreting a fetid
liquor, which in some species, and especially at
the breeding season, makes them extremely offen-
sive to human nostrils.

So much for the badger's place in nature.

In regard to the habits of our American badger
not much is to be said, due both to the fact that
the animal is so secretive that we have small op-
portunity to study it, and to the further circum-
stance that its life is exceedingly simple. In such
favorable regions as the dry plains that stretch
from the Rio Grande to the North Saskatchewan,
the animal is still numerous. Besides the countless
herds of buffaloes, antelopes, and the lesser, but

139.

CHAP, v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 14!

still numerous, bands of deer that originally roamed
over them, and gave sustenance to a much larger
population of Indians than we are now accustomed
to remember, these vast pastures teemed with small
creatures. Everywhere, in spite of their early rep-
utation as a desert, the plains were clothed with
vegetation, and this harbored hordes of insects.
Thousands of square miles of grasses, forage
plants, and low, fruit-bearing shrubs not only fur-
nished almost unlimited pasture for the bison,
antelope, and deer, but also gave, in the way of
stems, leaves, seeds, and fruits, food for an in-
numerable population of small animals able to
exist without a great amount of water. Thus the
plains abounded in a large variety of seed-eating,
ground-haunting birds, together with many insect-
catching and predatory kinds ; in snakes of many
species and certain other land reptiles ; and in a
long list of rodents — ground-squirrels, gophers,
and the like ; while even some aquatic and arboreal
animals followed the larger rivers far into the
plains country.

Such an aggregation of peaceful animal life,
whose unfortunate part it seems to be, in the
inscrutable ordering of the world, to furnish food
for the other, fiercer, half of the denizens of the
globe, would of course attract an army of flesh-
eating creatures, eager to prey upon their weaker
brethren, and able to struggle with one another
for the spoils of rapine and robbery. After the

142 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

big grazers — the buffaloes, deer, antelope and,
later, the wild horses — came the bears, the puma,
the jaguar, wild-cats, and wolves, none of which
despised more humble prey in moments of hunger ;
while the birds, reptiles, and lesser mammals were
incessantly pursued by a host of smaller birds and
beasts of prey, among which our badger took a
prominent rank.

The existence of all these — marauder and ma-
rauded— depended, and still depends, upon their
ability to cope with a climate which adds to its
cardinal disadvantage of great aridity the char-
acteristic of going to great extremes of both heat
and cold. These details may seem wide of our
subject, but it is highly interesting to note the
kind of country in which our " hero " chooses to
dwell, and also who are his companions, and the
means by which they maintain themselves in the
competition of life. Now, whatever may be their
relations with each other, the year's weather — the
climate — is a fact that all have to reckon with
alike.

The dry summer heats are not very prejudicial
to the birds, and when pasturage has been parched
out in one locality the grazing quadrupeds can
move to another ; therefore these are able to avoid
the rigors and famine of winter by fleeing to a
gentler Southern region, as all such animals do,
according to their various necessities, followed by
the big cats and wolves. But with all the smaller

V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 143

animals, from the badger down to the mouse and
lizard, who cannot migrate, it becomes a case,
literally, of "Root, hog, or die!" Shelter must
be had, and as the only shelter possible is beneath
the ground, every creature that cannot get away
in the fall digs a hole in which to pass the winter.
When human pioneers decide to brave a winter on
the plains they do substantially the same thing, and
for the same reason; for an Oklahoma "dugout"
is scarcely more than a burrow, furnished with
skins and cloth instead of grass and leaves ; and
both boomers and gophers find these homes beneath
the sod highly serviceable against the heats and
dust-storms of summer, as well as against the blasts
and snows of winter.

In plainer language, then, no resident mammals,
with a few rare and partial exceptions, can make
their homes upon the open plains of our West, or
on the pampas of South America, on the Karoo of
southern or the Sahara of northern Africa, or
the steppes of Russia or Central Asia, unless they
have acquired the knowledge and power of bur-
rowing. It. is probable that in all stages of the
globe's development, since land animals began to
roam upon it, at least, there have been wide areas
devoid of forest, and these were no doubt inhab-
ited from the beginning, inasmuch as some of the
earliest mammalian forms of which we have any
traces seem by their structure to have been adapted
to this manner of life. It is, moreover, almost

144 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

wholly among the plains-dwelling, burrow-making
animals that the phenomenon of hibernation is
observed, and a reason for this coincidence will
be apparent to any one who gives the subject a
few moments' thought.

A burrow, however, affords safety against their
enemies to only a few of the largest and strongest
of the animals habitually digging or using it, of
which our badger is himself, perhaps, the best
example. With him, his house is a castle. He is
a rapid and powerful digger, and seems to make
more holes than he has use for. Audubon and
Bachman describe the work done in this direction
by one they had in captivity, as follows :

"He would fall to work with his strong feet and
long nails, and in a minute bury himself in the
earth, and would very soon advance to the end of
a chain ten feet in length. In digging, the hind
as well as the fore feet were at work, the latter for
the purpose of excavating, and the former (like
paddles) for expelling the earth out of the hole,
and nothing seemed to delight him more than
burrowing in the ground ; he never seemed to
become weary of this kind of amusement; and
when he had advanced to the length of his chain
he would return and commence a fresh gallery
near the mouth of the first hole ; thus he would
be occupied for hours, and it was necessary . to
drag him away by main force."

Jt is noticeable, in view of the above, that the

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 145

captive mentioned hereafter seemed to know noth-
ing about tunnelling — had had no chance to learn
the art, in fact !

This animal is firm on its feet, very strong,
armed with formidable teeth, and is an indomitable
fighter. It was accounted high in the list of beasts
giving " greate dysporte " according to the ancient
canons of venery ; and badger-baiting, once a pop-
ular recreation among our British forefathers, has
not yet been wholly abandoned by the ruder of
their descendants. In early times it was customary
to place the captive destined to furnish the amuse-
ment near a hole dug in the ground for his refuge,
and then to send the dogs at him singly. The
favorite sort for this work was a long-bodied,
long-jawed hound, which, as the badger was then
frequently called the "grey," came to be known
as a "greyhound." Nowadays, when the spcrt is
attempted, a barrel is furnished instead of the
snugger hole in the ground, and a number of dogs
are set upon the poor beast at once — an example
of how such cruel sports naturally descend into
mere torture. This villanous practice will soon
entirely disappear, but its memory will be per-
petuated in the expressive verb, "to badger."

While, then, he can and does put up a good
fight if attacked when abroad, he never fails to
make strenuous efforts to gain the strategic posi-
tion afforded by the mouth of his tunnel, — the
sallyport of his fortress, — where he makes a

146 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

stand against anything no bigger than a wolf, at
least, without hesitation. But such encounters
are no doubt rare, for he seems to have no enemy;
that is, no beast, so far as I know, habitually preys
upon or wars against him, though he must quarrel
with a savage rival, now and then, and occasionally
have to exert himself to overcome resistance by
his victims. The only creature he has much
reason to dread is the rattlesnake, and he proba-
bly knows how to manage him, not to speak of
the considerable protection his long coat and loose
hide afford against harm from the serpent's fangs.
The animal's strength is remarkable, measured
otherwise than by its fossorial feats. Lying flat
on its back, it rises with ease to a sitting posture,
unaided by its fore paws. A captive one, less than
two years old, would shove aside a loaded Saratoga
trunk that it required two men to handle, and
once moved a heavy kitchen range from the corner
to the middle of the room.

The badger feeds upon whatever animal food
he can kill or catch that is not carrion. He may
pounce upon a slow-moving snake, toad, or lizard ;
may creep up to the hare in its form, or to a bird
upon its nest, and if he fail in the latter case, for
he is not very spry, will console himself with a
mess of eggs ; even insects are acceptable, and
captives take almost anything that is offered them,
usually sitting up and holding the morsel in their
paws like a squirrel.

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 147

His principal food, nevertheless, consists of the
ground-squirrels, gophers, and field-mice among
which he lives. It is beyond his ability to chase
and catch these nimble fellows, for the badger is
slow and clumsy ; but it " is the work of a very
few minutes for this vigorous miner to so far en-
large their burrows that it can reach the deepest
recesses."

Right here an interesting point may be con-
sidered. Where the prairie-dogs and other sper-
mophiles are especially numerous (and they exist
in countless thousands in certain districts of the
Great Plains, Columbia Basin, and southern Cali-
fornia), there badgers gather in corresponding
numbers, attracted by the abundance of food ; and
they must often encounter one another, as well as
the coyote, kit-fox, ferret, and other raiders, bound
upon the same bloody quest. To this contingency
the curious pattern of coloring on the badger's face
seems to bear direct reference, if the speculations
of the natural-selectionists have any basis in fact ;
but I am not aware that this point has been men-
tioned by Poulton or other exponents of the phi-
losophy of animal coloration. Let us examine it.

The only part of a badger visible when it is sit-
ting in the mouth of its burrow, as it likes to do,
or is threading its way through some underground
passage, must be its face. Now this is the only
part of the animal that bears any distinctive color-
mark, the remainder of the body being simply

148 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

an indeterminate gray. The sharply contrasted
stripes of white and dark brown upon its counte-
nance would be visible when anything could be
seen at all, and would instantly apprise any creat-
ure what kind of visitor was approaching. These
stripes, then, are really excellent examples of what
Mr. A. R. Wallace calls " recognition colors," and
frequently also of "warning colors." Man or brute
catching a glimpse, in the shadow of a hole, of this
clownish visage, as impersonal as the bodiless grin
of the Cheshire Cat that astonished Alice in Won-
derland, would know at once that a badger's form
and ferocity were behind it, and would act accord-
ingly. An exact parallel is found in the black-
footed ferret, whose dwelling-place and methods
of underground foray are similar to those of our
subject, and which is conspicuously marked only
on the face. In neither case would awkward mis-
takes arise when friends or allies met in the corri-
dors of their own or an enemy's castle, for their
very foreheads would bear the family crest. The
badger's name itself is a curious historical affirma-
tion of this scientific proposition. It means simply
the wearer of a badge, — the marked animal. The
old French blaireau, still current among the
French-Canadians of the far Northwest (in the
corrupt form "braro"), had an identical signifi-
cance ; and apparently the same is true of the
early English term brock, — probably of Celtic
origin, — which survives to this day in the north-

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 149

ern dialects of Great Britain. This last is the con-
temptuous epithet that Shakespeare employs in
"Twelfth Night" (Act 2, Scene 5) when he makes
Sir Toby Belch mutter an aside of annoyance over
Malvolio's reading of the dropped letter, — " Marry,
hang thee, Brock ! " And do you not remember the
curious part of "next friend," or counsel and go-
between, that Grimbart, the badger, plays in the
legend of Reynard, the Fox ?

It is amazing to see, in such favorable tracts as
have been mentioned, how the ground is pitted
and honey-combed with old and new burrows of
all sorts. The danger of your horse stepping into
an open hole is doubled by the chance of his crush-
ing through the roofs of unsuspected excavations.
Cattle-herding horses must acquire dexterity in
avoiding such accidents, or they would break their
limbs and risk their riders' necks fifty times a day.
I shall never forget a wild morning I once spent
near Cheyenne, hunting antelopes with deerhounds.
The prairie horses — mine was a nervous gray that
seemed unable to stand on all four legs at once —
were eager to enter into the fun, and bore us
straight across the country, up the ridges and
down the hollows, over or around the clumps of
sage and grease-wood, at topmost speed, twisting
and dodging to avoid badger-earths, ant-hillocks,
prairie-dog holes, and tall bushes; and more than
once my horse seemed to take a new flight in the
air, when he rose to leap over a thicket, and caught

150 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

sight of an unexpected hole on the other side. I
managed to stay with him wherever he went, and
came back all right ; yet it is a marvel that none
of us lost our seats, if not our lives, in that wild
chase. But we caught the antelope !

The entrance to the burrow of a badger is much
larger than that to a prairie-dog's hole, and no
hillock is raised about it. It reaches below the
frost-line, and may be almost any length. The
animal changes its abode frequently, and con-
stantly digs more holes than it needs, thereby sav-
ing a great deal of labor for coyotes, foxes, ferrets,
etc., who take possession of its abandoned en-
trenchments and probably are welcome to them.
They form a retreat for snakes, too, Dr. Suckley
making the gruesome note that in western Minne-
sota, about 1857, he found old badger-earths in-
habited by vast numbers of a gregarious species
of garter-snake : " I have seen at times, at the bot-
tom of a vacated hole, a dozen or more in a knot
— the writhing, excessively serpentine mass dis-
gusting all but the naturalist." The rattlesnake
is a frequent and dangerous tenant in the South-
west ; and the prairie-owl a comical one.

This ubiquitous turning up of the soil, by which,
within a century or less, over the widest districts,
every square yard of earth, to the depth of several
feet, must be brought to the surface, and exposed
to the air, while an enormous amount of fertilizing
material has, meanwhile, been dragged into the

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 151

holes, and there ultimately mingled with the earth,
is a most important natural process of soil-prepa-
ration, equivalent to the farmer's ploughing and
manuring. To the influence that fossorial animals
have thus exerted must be largely attributed the
decomposition of the surface-rock over an exten-
sive area of the plains, and its change into good
soil, highly fertile wherever water is obtainable in
suitable quantity. The spread, growth, and decay
of plants would accomplish much, and is, perhaps,
the chief agency in the production and enrichment
of earth ; but crumbling rock-sand would be very
slowly enriched by such a plant-growth as the
short, dry, and sparse herbage of the plains af-
fords, were it not continually exposed to the chem-
istry of the air, mixed with vegetable and animal
manure, and pulverized, by these precursors of
agriculture.

Little is known of the reproduction of the badger.
Godman tells us that three or four young are born
in summer, and that the period of life may reach
fifteen years. In the United States the animal is
more or less active all winter, being able to search
out or dig out enough sleeping ground-squirrels,
marmots, etc., in spite of the frost, to satisfy its
needs if not its appetite. Farther north, however,
the greater cold and enforced famine induce or
compel it to pass in semi-torpidity the more severe
months of winter.

Year by year the range of this animal is nar-

152 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

rowed and its numbers are decreased through the
encroachments and persecution of mankind. The
Indians kill it for food when they can, but few
white men have been able to stomach the flesh,
which is tainted to the fancy, if not actually to the
palate, with the musky odor that belongs to the
animal, and arises from the possession of anal
glands, similar to those that make the skunks and
many other mustelines odious to us ; but our Amer-
ican badger is far less offensive in this respect than
are the "stinking" species of the Old World. The
fur is prized by the Indians for various special pur-
poses, and enters largely into modern trade, being
well adapted and beautiful for robes, overcoats,
and the like. The animals, consequently, are
trapped and poisoned extensively for the sake of
their pelts; while the farmers, with a sadly mis-
taken sense of propriety, poison and drown them
out as nuisances. I say mistaken, because the only
harm badgers do, is by digging here and there ;
while they serve the farmer beneficently by killing
off the gophers, rabbits, and ground-squirrels, which,
unless their multiplication is restrained, may speed-
ily become a serious pest, as has been shown in
California and Kansas. Since badger-baiting has
gone out of fashion, and as the animal is not in
demand as a pet, efforts are rarely made to take
one alive by smoking it out as used to be done.
It is a waste of time to try to dig one out, for it can
go deeper and deeper as fast as you can follow it.

v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 153

The following extracts from an account of a
tame badger printed by the Youth's Companion, in
1896, contain interesting facts. He had not yet
opened his eyes when captured, and was brought
up on a nursing-bottle. He thrived, and soon
became a mischievous pet, constantly under foot.
His voice was that of a very young crying baby,
but much more noisy; and in extreme anger he
would squeal like a pig. When a terrier, whom he
was constantly teasing, turned on him, he would
tuck his head between his feet and roll himself
into a compact furry ball with which the dog could
do nothing ; but he had not the patience to main
tain this attitude of defence very long. He ran
almost as well backward as forward, but liked
better to reach his destination by rolling over and
over instead of walking. As he grew larger, a fa-
vorite trick was to open the door of the stove and
rake out coals and ashes upon the floor. Although
quick to resent any harm (and the grandmother was
the only one of the family that dared punish him —
before her he was meek), he seemed never to bear
resentment or be treacherous, and was well dis-
posed toward strangers. He became fond of
chasing the chickens, and would make havoc
among the poultry unless prevented.

"Badge," his master records, "is a model house-
keeper in his way. He is very fond of cherries,
nibbling the food daintily and rejecting the pit.
When he has finished eating the cherries he care-

154 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, v

fully carries the pits to a knothole in the floor of
the porch and drops them through it to the ground.

" Every morning when he gets up he carries his
bed out of his little house, shakes it thoroughly,
and throws it over the boards that fence him in.
At night he always carries it back, but through
the day it gets thoroughly aired.

" He will beg and scold vociferously if he is not
given his daily bath. This he takes in a large
dripping-pan, washing first his face and paws,
then getting in, first on his belly, then turning on
his back. When a mere baby, he fell into a tub of
water, which gave him such a scare that any large
amount of water will still frighten him ; but he
enjoys his shallow pan immensely."

NOTE. — The vast and destructive spread of prairie dogs
on the Plains, especially from Texas southwestward, which in
some places has almost prevented agriculture, and in others
is greatly damaging the cattle ranges, have made the squirrel-
hunting badger one of the most useful animals of the region,
and one which should be zealously protected and encouraged
by both farmers and ranchmen. In western Texas, where the
plague is the worst, the badger is the most persistent and ef-
fective foe of the prairie dogs and gophers, easily digging them
out of their deepest burrows, and subsisting almost wholly
upon their flesh. As each badger may be expected to destroy
a family of one or the other of these pests every day, its ser-
vices are well worth having, and to kill one for the few cents
its hide is worth, or, worse, just for fun, is wasteful and foolish.

'56

VI

ANIMAL TRAINING AND ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

IT is a long time since naturalists and philoso-
phers maintained the doctrine that animals were
mere machines controlled by an inflexible and im-
pulsive something vaguely called " instinct." All
reflective men now believe that the mind of an
animal differs from the human intellect only in
degree, and to say that brutes have no capability
of comprehending new ideas, of acquiring and
memorizing novel information, and therefore of
improving their minds, would be to go counter to
all human experience.

The extent of this capability, however, remains
a question, and one upon which close observation
of our domestic animals, our pets, and particularly
of those animals trained for the amusement of the
public, is calculated to throw much light. The
study of wild animals in their native haunts may
inform us what progress each has made in adapt-
ing itself to the natural conditions of its life ; but
the study of tamed animals, placed under new con-
ditions and influences, will show whether these
are capable of further or, at any rate, divergent

158 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

advancement intellectually, and give some hint of
the probable limits of this progress.

It should be noted that taming and training
are not identical terms. Taming is merely induc-
ing an animal to abandon its natural feral dis-
position so far as to come under human control
and be more or less sociable with man. It is a
matter in respect to which animals vary widely,
not only as between classes, but as between indi-
viduals of the same species. Moreover, tamabil-
ity seems a matter of disposition rather than of
intellect, and perhaps pertains to a lower rather
than a higher grade of intelligence, for it is no-
ticeable that some of the animals most clever in
the school of the menagerie abandon only slightly,
if at all, their native savagery. On the other hand,
some animals thoroughly domesticated seem inca-
pable of any considerable degree of education —
though perhaps nobody has ever tried it in any
proper and continuous way. It would be hazard-
ous to allege that any animal organism is too low
to manifest, have we eyes to perceive it, some
intelligence superior to simple sensitiveness or
unreasoning instinct. It is beyond my purpose,
however, to deal here with these almost imper-
ceptible beginnings of brute mind, or indeed with
natural intellect in animals at all, but, rather, to
hasten on to a view of the acquired knowledge and
abilities of the higher, vertebrated animals.

Much might be said in respect to the inferior

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 159

orders of these, such as fishes, amphibians, and
reptiles. Examples of all these have been made
pets, and taught some very simple actions ; but
the so-called performing serpents of the circus
are not so really, simply submitting to be put
through certain motions in the hands of their
keepers. The South American anaconda seems
to be more amenable than any other snake to in-
struction, really amounting in some cases to a
trained obedience.

Birds open to view a much wider range of men-
tal capability. Sportsmen need not be reminded
by me of the accurate way in which hawks are
trained by falconers, and cormorants are employed
to bring in fish. Here the natural habits of the
birds are controlled at man's behest ; but the edu-
cation of some small birds has led them far be-
yond the range of their natural exertions and
aptitudes. Such are the performances of canary
birds and other trained finches, which equal, in
the mental adaptiveness and grasp implied, those
of most of the four-footed performers of the menag-
erie. These birds will tumble like gymnasts, will
draw tiny carriages, discharge firearms at one
another, drop down in pretence of death, and do
many other diverting feats. They will even sub-
mit to be handled by the clown's dogs and cats,
showing no fear of these, their ancient ogres.

Though finches are usually selected for this
kind of training, there seems no reason why a

l6o WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

variety of other birds would not be as amenable
to the patient zeal of their educators. A long list
of birds have been made pets of, but none more
prettily than the clouds of doves which wheel
about the head of an Equestrienne as she gallops
swiftly about the ring of a circus, displaying her
supple body in graceful attitudes upon the back of
a beautiful horse. One of the quaintest exhibi-
tions I ever saw was that of trained geese and
herons, whose awkward motions made their little
"act" extremely comical. Could some fancier
manage to get a company of cranes to execute on
the stage the extraordinary dances in which these
and some other birds indulge during the breeding
season, he would make a decided hit.

Probably the most satisfactory results of all
would be obtained from careful tuition of the crow,
which seems to me to stand at the head of the
birds in respect to native intelligence ; and it is
curious that so little has been done with him in
this direction.

When we come to the quadrupeds, a great field
is opened to us; but the limits of space require
me to confine my attention to one branch of their
association with man, as illustrating their approach
to him in intellectual power and attributes. Let
me take, then, the "stars" of the menagerie and
variety theatre — the "performing animals" of
the showman.

Highest of these in general organization stand

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE l6l

the four-handed folk, — the apes and monkeys, —
among which exists a vast diversity of tempera-
ment and tractability. Their emotional nature is
highly developed, and this often leads to an un-
certainty of temper, and a ferocity combined with
enormous strength, as age advances, which inter-
fere sadly with the work of the trainer. The
higher anthropoid apes become wholly unmanage-
able in advanced life. The imitative faculties of
monkeys are large, however, and it is these which
are cultivated, the teacher adding as much dis-
crimination as he can impart.

It is hard to force these animals to fix their
attention upon, or persevere in, any one thing;
and it would seem that their minds are too bright,
while lacking balance of judgment, for the trick-
teacher's purpose. Hence, in shows, nowadays,
few monkeys are introduced except as rough-
riders upon ponies, where they lend a comical
element to the programme of the ring. Formerly
their grotesque appearance and gestures were
more taken advantage of. In France one may
see still (or lately could) a troupe of monkeys
managed as a part of a company of small trick
animals, in a performance called "The Roman
Orgy." The manager was an eccentric genius,
M. Corvi. Behind a table well provided with
biscuits and nuts sit a row of them, — some
dressed as monks, others in military style, and
others in the classic toga. A little monkey, with

1 62 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

a basket in his hand, dances about the table,
waiting upon the company ; and the whole affair
is very amusing, but not very edifying. Two cen-
turies ago, if the annals of such resorts as Rane-
leigh Gardens, in London, can be trusted, monkeys
were taught accomplishments far in advance of
anything in modern shows.

Next in zoological rank to the quadrumana, come
the carnivora — the wild beasts — lions, tigers,
leopards, wild-cats, wolves, dogs, foxes, and jackals ;
and those of the sea — the seals, sea-lions, etc.

Here culminates the interest of every circus
performance. The lion-tamer is king of kings.
A man who plays with tigers and juggles with
wolves compels us to admire to the utmost the
dominance of human courage.

For these wild beasts are controlled wholly by
fear. Some men may acquire, for brief periods,
a certain influence over a lion or tiger or leopard,
but they are never safe — never can be trusted for
a moment ; and a lion " tamer " is not really one
— that is, he is not a person who has changed the
disposition of his charges from enmity to friend-
ship, persuading them out of their savagery into
a second nature of trust and self-control ; he
is simply a conqueror who enforces obedience.
And how complete is this human dominance when
it can force, literally, the lion to lie down with
the lamb, and the warring barons of the forest
to form a congress of peace and sit in a tableau !

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 163

During the World's Fair at Chicago, and for
some years afterward, the principal cities of the
United States were treated to exhibitions of Ha-
genbeck's remarkable troupes of trained animals.
Hagenbeck was at the head of a firm in Hamburg
which dealt more largely than any other in the
world in living animals for zoological gardens
and menageries, and it was natural that he should
produce the excellent exhibition he had organized.
In numbers, variety, and freedom from visible
restraint, these troupes exceeded anything seen
upon the modern stage, though it is likely that
the shows in the ancient Roman arenas equalled
or even exceeded them in both skill and audacity.
The crowning spectacle of each performance was,
as I have hinted, a tableau in which lions and
lionesses, tigers and their mates, leopards, jaguars,
pumas, bears, and now and then other beasts,
wholly unchained, mounted upon stands and ar-
ranged themselves into a sort of pyramid, well
worth beholding ; but they were required to keep
this formal position only a few seconds, when
they gladly obeyed the ring-master's permission to
come down and rush away to their dens. But,
after all, interesting as this spectacular " act " was,
it was remarkable only in showing .how the most
savage and naturally jealous and quarrelsome
carnivora can be made to keep the peace in each
other's company.

It is doubtful whether lions, tigers, and their

1 64 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

kin have minds developed in a wild state to any-
thing like the degree of those of many of the
smaller, fur-bearing animals, such as the ermine,
fox, or wolverine. They are endowed with so
much agility, strength, and endurance that they
rarely need exercise much thought in securing
their prey; while the caution and cleverness re-
quired of the weaker species, in order not only
to get food, but to escape from their enemies,
which sharpen their faculties daily, are uncalled
for in the case of these powerful felines, who
dread no enemies except man.

Why they should feel this awe of man it is
difficult to explain. Neither his size nor his erect
position can account for it, and only in long-set-
tled or much-hunted regions can the power of his
firearms be learned. Captives may dread the
sting of his whip, yet they certainly must be
aware that they might disarm and crush him with
a blow. The explanation probably is that they
are unable to comprehend his habits — to fathom
his mental attitude — to learn what he is likely
to do next, and are awed by the mystery of his
conduct, as we might be by that of a supernatural
being of unknown power who came amongst us
and threatened our liberty and happiness.

The minds of the great carnivora are therefore
little exercised in nature, and do not grow ; and,
accustomed to power and to seeing all the denizens
of the forest quail before them, they do not know

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 165

what it is to feel a sense of help needed or of
favors received. It is perfectly natural, therefore,
that almost all trainers should agree that kindness
(beyond ordinary fair treatment) is wasted upon
them. " A tigress," said one of Barnum's tamers,
" is as likely to eat you up after six years of atten-
tion on her as after six days, if she thinks she is
safe in doing so. You must depend on fear —
absolute fear alone. Let the beasts know that
you can and will beat them when they deserve it,
and they will not hurt you."

The celebrated Bidel once tripped and fell in
the cage of a lion with whom he had been work-
ing for years, whereupon the brute pounced upon
him with scarcely a second's hesitation.

Nevertheless, here, as elsewhere, there are ex-
ceptions. European newspapers a few years ago
told the story of a German woman who was in
the habit of performing with a lion said to be
very fond of her. On one occasion, as often
before, she" placed her head within his jaws, and
it was thought her hair tickled him, thus causing
him intuitively to close his mouth. So was the
poor woman killed. When the lion saw what he
had done, down he lay by the body, and refusing
to allow it to be removed, declined food, and in
three days pined away and died. The story may
be true, and if so, records one case against a
thousand.

Nerve — that is the great secret of the lion-

1 66 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

trainer's success; and ceaseless vigilance is the
price of his life. He endeavors first to get ac-
quainted with his charges — to accustom them to
his presence and voice. The voice is more to
them than the appearance. To enter the cage
*in a new costume, without first speaking, would
be to invite death, for the lions would probably
not recognize their master until they heard his
voice.

The would-be trainer must study his beasts,
doing his best to ascertain their individual char-
acters in order that he may adapt himself to
them. A few early prove themselves quite un-
manageable; and it is said to be easier to teach
an adult captive, fresh from the wilderness, than
an animal born and reared in the menagerie. As
for the training, it consists, to quote Le Roux,
who declares himself giving the words of an
expert, "in commanding the lion to perform the
exercises which please him ; that is to say, to
make him execute, from fear of the whip, those
leaps which he would naturally take in his wild
state."

Barnum's trainer, alluded to above, says that
lions are the smartest of wild beasts. " You can
train a lion to do the ordinary tricks in trade —
jumping through hoops and over gates, standing
on his hind legs, and so on — in about five weeks'
constant work. In this time-table of wild beasts,
you can estimate that it would take a lioness

VI ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 167

about a week longer, and a leopard, which comes
next in intelligence to a lion, about six weeks, to
learn the same feats. The tiger would take seven
or eight weeks ; a tigress, eight or nine weeks."

Lions have been taught to ride on horseback
and on a tricycle, draw a chariot, to form living
tableaux by grouping themselves together, some
upon the backs of others, etc. ; but it is said that
the most difficult feat of all is to teach a wild
beast to let you lie upon it. This used to be
done every night during one of Barnum's tours,
but the performer said the tigress underneath
him was never contented with it.

Though the trainers prefer to give their ex-
hibitions just after the beasts have been fed, this
is often impracticable and does not make much
difference. The danger lies in the instinct of
ferocity, not in a desire for food ; and it often
happens that performances in travelling shows
are given with animals which have not been fed
for two or three days. There is this difference
between the ferocity of a lion and a tiger: the
former will attack its master now and then out
of spite or temper, while the tiger seizes him
through sheer love of blood. All tigers are
"man-eaters" if they dare to be.

Lions have been a part of public shows since
history began. They were led as trophies in the
"triumphs" of semi-barbarians, and were ex-
hibited and sacrificed by thousands in the Roman

1 68 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

amphitheatre. Six hundred were provided by
Pompey for a single festival.

It was with the idea of reviving something
of the glory of those old shows that an arrange-
ment was made at the Paris Hippodrome, re-
cently, for the exhibition of lions upon a grand
scale. Instead of a cage mounted upon a wagon,
these bold managers proposed an arena, and in
place of one lion a score.

When the time comes in the programme for
the introduction of this " act," the hippodrome
is cleared, and the audience awaits in tense silence
what is to come. Suddenly, out of the ground
arises a palisade of sharp iron pickets twenty
feet high and curved inward at their top. It
encloses an oval fifty yards long and twenty
yards wide. The moment it ceases to rise, and
stands fixed in its slot, an opening appears in the
centre where flooring has been removed, and half
"a dozen men, dressed like Roman gladiators, and
each bearing a whip and a steel trident, enter
by a little gate. They shut this securely behind
them, and take their positions. They are none
too soon, for already, pushed upward upon a
platform-elevator, which rises like a stage-trap
in a theatre to fill the central opening, are com-
ing a drove of lions and lionesses. They growl
and roar as their great manes and restless bodies
rise above the surface, arousing the greetings of
the audience.

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 169

The instant the platform rests they leap off, rush
over to the palisade, and follow one another around
it in a swift, creeping trot, seeking some outlet, and
now and then pausing with upraised heads to gaze
through the thick bars or to examine whether it
may be possible to leap over that bristling hedge.
This is their first, natural, invariable behavior —
their march of display, like the grand procession
that begins the circus. Not until it has been done,
not until they have let themselves be seen as they
might look when stealing through the twilight of
the desert, not until they have again satisfied them-
selves that they cannot escape, do the trainers
crack their whips, call them by name, and put the
huge beasts clustering about their feet through the
leapings, groupings, and various familiar tricks
they have been instructed in. When the pro-
gramme has been finished the lions return to the
platform and sink out of sight.

The same thing has been seen more lately in
the United States, except that the dramatic en-
trance upon a rising platform was dispensed with,
and the brutes came bounding into the arena
through a side door in the palisade.

Trained elephants probably come next to these
great cats in popular esteem; but none of their
show tricks, in my opinion, evince their sagacity
as well as the feats they do in the Orient for some
useful purpose, under the tutelage of the native
mahouts, especially in moving and piling timber.

170 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

The elephant has been called by many students
of his character the most intelligent of all beasts.
Whether he is entitled to this distinction is a ques-
tion still undecided, but it is to my mind an evi-
dence of high intelligence on their part that they
are reluctant to practise stage-tricks which must
seem to any self-respecting animal in the highest
degree foolish. That elephants have a very keen
sense of dignity and propriety is plain. They are
influenced by kindness, susceptible of insult and
ridicule, and remember for a long time an injury,
seeking steadily a sate opportunity to avenge it
upon the person who did them the harm. They
take great pride in their trappings and proficiency
and are jealous of rivals. This feeling an intelli-
gent trainer will take advantage of.

African elephants, by the way, are said to show
little aptitude for tricks ; but this may be a false
observation due to the fact that very few African
elephants have been available for experiment, in
modern times, at least. Probably the tamed and
trained elephants of ancient times were mainly of
the African species.

The first of the elephant's lessons is to stay in
the ring and walk around it without running away.
Some elephants show early that they never can be
persuaded not to bolt, whereupon their schooling
is abandoned ; and all are prone to stop their
tricks abruptly and go out — no doubt in disgust
at the uselessness of it all.

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE I?!

When the animal has learned to stay in the ring,
and to walk obediently wherever he is directed,
his weight and personal idiosyncrasies are taken
into consideration in deciding what he shall do
next ; and the list of things a well-instructed troupe
will do in a modern menagerie is long and varied.
Take for example the young — and hence light
and comparatively nimble — Indian elephants ex-
hibited first in Europe a few years ago, and later
shown in circuses and theatres in this country,
where they are still ( 1 897) on exhibition, the star
of whom is " Boney."

At a signal from hand or whip one will lie down
to permit another to place the fore feet on his
prostrate body ; or, mounting upon short pillars,
some three feet in height, they will stand on their
fore legs or on their hind legs alone, or on the two
legs of one side, or the two diagonal legs. Not
only do they march to music in a manner bur-
lesquing the action of a circus horse, but will play
on a hand-organ and a drum simultaneously. The
couple then dine at a table, ring violently for a
second course, and pay the bill in the most courte-
ous manner.

But the most interesting part of the performance,
as I saw it, is that in which they show that their
intelligence or their schooling (or both together)
has led them to overcome that fear of movable
objects which is apparently innate in all elephants,
and due, no doubt, to an appreciation of their

172 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

great weight. To quote a concise and authentic
account :

" A cylindrical barrel being placed on its side on
the stage, one of the elephants mounted on to it,
its four feet being close together, and then, pre-
serving its equilibrium, it moved the feet so as to
cause the barrel to roll with it to the opposite side
of the stage. This was done without any hesita-
tion on the part of the animal, or enforcement on
that of the manager. But the most astounding
performance was a game at seesaw, played by the
two animals. A strong trestle was placed in the
centre of the stage ; across this was laid a stout
beam, oscillating freely up and down, its centre
resting on the trestle. Going to that end of the
beam that was resting on the ground, one of the
animals walked up it to the centre, and then, pre-
serving its equilibrium, it rocked the beam up and
down. . . . Still more remarkable was the seesaw-
ing of the two animals at the same time ; sometimes
they were on the narrow beam with their heads in
the same direction; then placing themselves fac-
ing one another at the opposite ends, they swayed
their big bodies to and fro with such regularity of
rhythm that the seesawing took place with con-
siderable rapidity. It was most singular to see
these two enormous animals swinging with as much
freedom and ease as two children on a plank across
a prostrate tree."

Mr. Adam Forepaugh, Jr., explained some time

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 173

ago to a New York Sun reporter how some of
these antics were taught. To make an elephant
stand on his hind legs, he is first lifted by an
apparatus of ropes and pulleys, until he ascertains
what is expected of him. The military drills and
so-called dances in figure are acquired by repeated
rehearsals with men to guide them, but he does not
keep time with the music, as he seems to do — it
keeps time with him.

To make him stand on a barrel or roll it is
simply a matter of inducing him to remain there ;
the balancing he attends to himself. The same is
true of the seesawing, which begins with a plank
flat on the ground. In order to teach an elephant
cycling, he is first placed on a wooden arrange-
ment, with his feet in the right position. When
he is acquainted with this he is advanced to the
tricycle itself, which is held steady until he has
taken his place, when the blocks are removed, the
pedals go round under his tread, and he soon
knows that he will not fall and is expected to work
them.

These methods are very simple, but several
months of time, expended in short and frequently
repeated lessons, delivered with great patience,
and without missing a day, must be given to in-
struction, in order to make a success of it. The
brevity of the lessons is an important considera-
tion. What is to us no appreciable exertion at
all requires an effort in the mind of an animal

1/4 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

which soon wearies it, and makes it both incapable
and unreceptive of further instruction until it has
rested. This is a fact worth remembering by
amateurs who teach tricks to their pets, and often
err by lessons too long continued.

In the St. Nicholas magazine for February,
1882, appeared a valuable article upon " Men-and-
Animal Shows," in which the following remark-
able statement is made ; I have never known of
its parallel: "During the winter of 1881, a num-
ber of elephants were in training at Bridgeport,
Conn., for the summer campaign of Mr. P. T.
Barnum. They submitted, from day to day, with
vast grumbling and trumpeting, to have one leg
or another tied up, and be driven around on what
they had left. They lay down; got up; obeyed
every order of the teacher as well as ever they
could ; carefully imitated one another ; but their
great sagacity was shown after the animals were
left a little to themselves. The keepers observed
them on their exercise ground, with no human
teacher near to offer a word of suggestion or ex-
planation, and yet, singly or in pairs, the huge
scholars gravely repeated their lessons, and did
their 'practising' on their own account. This
was the secret of the wonderful proficiency they
afterward exhibited in the ring."

These facts, which I have verified, form quite
the most noteworthy evidence I have ever learned
in regard to animal intelligence as affected by

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 175

special training. It seems to me better than the
often-observed behavior of riderless troop-horses,
which join their squadron, or even another, and
perform all the evolutions at command of the
bugle as though guided by a rider. Here their
naturally gregarious tendencies are only confirmed
and regulated by discipline, for they are acting in
concert with a great number of fellows.

The performing horses of the circus never fail
to win admiration ; and the training of what are
called waltzing horses appears to have greatly im-
proved of late. Still, that must have been a very
striking programme carried out before Louis XIII,
where horses danced upon their hind legs to the
music ; but here again, as in the case of elephants,
it was the musicians who kept time with the horses,
and not the horses with the playing.

The horse has often been named by enthusiastic
lovers of this noble-hearted friend and servant of
mankind the most intelligent of animals. Natu-
ralists deny this. They assert that in some facul-
ties, as memory, his brain is marvellously endowed.
He is kind in disposition, grateful and quick to re-
spond to what he understands ; but in a wild state
he shows little intellect, and outside of a very limited
range of ideas is dense and slow. No animal is
more liable to fits of unreasoning panic, when he
forgets the lessons of a lifetime, and will dash
headlong against a stone wall or over a precipice
without a thought of where he is going.

176 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

One of the greatest modern trainers of perform-
ing horses is the Frenchman Loyal. He makes no
secret of his methods, which have often been pub-
lished— latest in that curious and entertaining
book by Le Roux and Gamier, "Acrobats and
Mountebanks."

The horse, in the opinion of this experienced
man, is one of the dullest animals created ; it has
but one faculty — memory. It must be forced to
learn its tricks, which are imprinted on its mem-
ory by the whip if it resist, and by presents of
carrots if it obey. These are associated in its
mind with certain words or gestures, and it goes
through the list from fear of punishment on one
hand, and in hope of reward on the other. This
is certainly different behavior from the lively in-
terest taken by horses in racing, fox-hunting and
cattle-herding, the active obedience and self-dis-
cipline of war chargers or of the steeds used by
firemen ; but in these and similar instances the
animal, naturally gregarious and accustomed to
compete with his fellows, is doing what seems
natural to him, and his exertions have an object
and result that he can comprehend. The feats of
the circus, on the contrary, depend for their popu-
larity largely in forcing the animal to do what is
contrary to his nature, such as strutting about on
his hind legs, poising himself on pedestals where
there is scarcely room for his feet, lying down to
be tramped upon by his master or mistress, balanc-

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 1 77

ing upon a narrow pathway in imitation of an
equilibrist, and other things — the more out of the
way, the better in the estimation of the populace
— in which a horse can take no interest, and in
doing which he must lose that self-respect and
pride so manifest in him under better circum-
stances. While these feats are astonishing, they
are rarely graceful or agreeable to the better
taste.

The ring-master of Barnum and Bailey's present
circus makes a very picturesque arrangement of a
large number of trained horses which group them-
selves about him upon a stand consisting of a cir-
cular series of rising steps, where the horses stand
facing toward the top, their fore feet resting upon
the next higher step in front of them ; after which
they move rapidly round and round, the line upon
each step heading a different way from that above
and below it. This is a very attractive, but not
a particularly difficult "act," deriving its worth
mainly from the large number of free horses that
act in unison.

Any horse, according to M. Loyal, can be
trained by judicious force ; yet certain breeds,
as the Arabian horses and those from Old Prussia,
are easier to teach than any others, and the age is
of great importance. The best education is re-
ceived between the fifth and seventh years of the
animal's life ; before that the horse is too excita-
ble ; afterward, likely to be stiff.

1/8 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

The intelligence and cunning of mules are sur-
prising. Few, however, have been trained to per-
form in public. The donkey, on the contrary,
has been the clown's accompanist for centuries,
caricaturing his nobler brethren of the ring, as
his master caricatures the ring-masters and gym-
nasts. Twice within a few years troupes of asses
have been exhibited, performing in concert most
of the feats usually taught to horses, and doing
them quite as well. The male ass is regarded as
a dangerous animal, however. His gaudy halter
is really a strong muzzle to prevent his biting,
and his hoofs are never shod, for he is likely to
kick at times when it is not his cue to do so.
Lately a good deal has been done toward domes-
ticating and training to harness the zebra — that
is, Burchell's zebra ; but though this has met with
considerable success in South Africa, the zebra
takes no part in the show-ring as yet beyond
drawing a wagon now and then.

Even bulls have been put into the show-tent.
An old book records that in 1270 oxen were ex-
hibited in England which could ride on horse-
back. During the summer of 1883, two young
bulls were performing at the Westminster Aqua-
rium in London, whose docility was at least
remarkable for novelty. They marched and
countermarched, stood upon pedestals, operated
the seesaw, walked up and down stairs, fired
pistols and rang bells by pulling cords with their

VI ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 179

mouths, and one jumped over the other's back.
These were young animals, but whether they im-
proved as they grew older, or, instead, became
stolid and unwieldy, I am not informed. Per-
forming bulls equal to them in extent of pro-
gramme, at least, have been exhibited in the
United States more recently and are still to be
seen.

The natural agility of goats has often been
taken advantage of by trainers, who have taught
them to climb precarious structures and to stand
on the tops of bottles, and in other ticklish situa-
tions. This is in pursuance of the rule that all
trainers ought to follow, namely, to make an animal
do difficult things only in the line of his inherent
abilities. The goat is a natural climber and equili-
brist, or he never could have been taught to walk
an ordinary and legitimate tight rope, as one did
nightly in London some time ago.

Clowns often exercise the bear and pig in
public. Two or three centuries ago, trick-bears
were constantly travelling about Europe. The
bear exhibits great ingenuity and wit in his native
forest; but trainers say he is one of the hardest
and most unsatisfactory animals to teach.

The educated pig is a more modern addition to
the theatrical menagerie. No animal looks more
stupid, but every farmer can tell you this is an
error. The wiles and sagacity of the animal in
a wild state, or when allowed to run loose and

ISO WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

root in the forests or fields, are the subjects of
many anecdotes. They have been trained in
several instances to scent and point game-birds
like a dog; and have been a feature at country
fairs in Great Britain for many years, picking
out letters of the alphabet as they were called,
and forecasting the fortunes of rustic damsels by
selection of cards.

The French clown Corvi, of whom I spoke
a little while ago, trained pigs effectually, and
says that it requires extreme patience and tender-
ness of treatment. The least touch of the whip
disfigures the tender skin and disgusts the ani-
mal with work. Only coaxing succeeds. There
is an Irish proverb which runs thus : " Beat your
wife with a cudgel, and your pig with a straw."

The minor carnivora have furnished the theatre
with several profitable animals, as dogs, cats,
wolves, jackals, hyenas, seals, and others.

Of the dog we would expect a great deal under
the tutelage of a practical teacher of animal tricks,
and the public, perhaps, has not been disappointed,
though to the naturalist the result does not seem
very extensive or encouraging. Of all animals, it
is the one most closely associated with man, and
probably has the deepest insight into the human
mind — quite as deep, perhaps, as we have into
the canine mind. Through unnumbered genera-
tions of special breeding, his inclinations have
been modified toward those things in which he

VI ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE l8l

serves his human masters, and his mind, accus-
tomed to the complexity of human methods, is
ripe to acquire new ideas.

In fact, it cannot be too strongly urged that the
work of the sheep-herding collie, of the dogs used
in finding, attracting, or retrieving game, in dis-
covering truffles, in rescuing lost or drowning per-
sons, etc., exhibit far more real brain-power,
sagacity, and true education than all of the ac-
complishments of trick-dogs put together. These
latter are merely doing over and over a routine
of things of no real importance or object, and
which, as they are always precisely the same,
call for nothing more than memory and willing-
ness on the part of the performers ; whereas the
work of a shepherd's or drover's dog, of a setter
on the shooting-ground, and of many other dogs
in the service of mankind, requires a constant
exercise of judgment, discrimination, and adapta-
bility, and furnishes an incessant stimulus to their
minds. No automaton could serve their purpose ;
and could they not accommodate their conduct
intelligently to their master's movements and to
constantly varying circumstances, they would be
comparatively useless. Any sportsman or herder
will tell you that good sense is the most essential
quality in his four-footed assistant. As a matter
of fact, trick-dogs are usually chosen from breeds
that are good for nothing else.

This introduces a general and, I believe, a just

1 82 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

criticism of most, if not all, the exhibitions of
trained animals seen in modern days ; namely,
that the " tricks " they are taught are in them-
selves trivial and without any purpose likely to
interest or reward the performer. They tend to
stultify rather than improve the animal's mind ;
and, so far from being marvels of intelligence,
rarely show even the extent of the natural capa-
bilities discernible by an appreciative eye in the
untrained animal. The truth is the trainer is
exhibiting himself, not his animals, and it is the
teacher rather than his pupils that we ought to
admire.

Wolves have always been regarded as nearly
intractable; but that they could be both tamed
and trained has been shown within the past few
years by a French trainer who had a pack that
would perform like dogs. The hyena, too, is
taught tricks, but it is said to require a long
time and many lessons to force anything into
his head. Seals, on the contrary, are docile, and
are taught to do a number of feats which derive
their interest mainly from seeing the attempts
of such awkward animals to do what a dog
or cat would do naturally and easily. They show,
at any rate, bright minds and great docility.

A pretty young woman lately caused much inter-
est in Paris by an exhibition of trained rabbits, and
Mademoiselle Claire's white pets seemed greatly
to enjoy their mimicry of the big elephants of

VI ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 183

the circus. A series of illustrations shows a rab-
bit sitting on top of a long paper cylinder or
tunnel, supported upon a stick, while a procession
of bunnies bolts incontinently through it. Just
below, a clown-rabbit is seen jumping through
a paper drum, while another circus rabbit fires
a pistol, and still a third drags a miniature chariot
around the arena. While a dissipated little creat-
ure stands on his head and shows other signs
of over-indulgence, another pet rocks gently to
and fro in a little swing. Others of Mademoi-
selle Claire's performers scamper under burning
wickets, and vault between blazing candles over
a succession of candelabra arranged as hurdles.

This is much prettier than the trained rats and
mice which have been shown in the same city of
clever people, for all our associations with the
rabbit are endearing ; and the success that has
followed the training of these pets, which do not
stand high in brain power, goes to show what I
have suggested hitherto, that if its disposition is
favorable, a weak-minded animal learns tricks
more satisfactorily than a strong-minded one.

With some account of a most interesting troupe
of trained cats this essay must come to a close ;
and this account has been left until the last be-
cause it is perhaps the most recent, and one of
the most striking of the trainer's triumphs. This
troupe is that of the young Dutchman Bonnetty,
which formed one of the main attractions of the

1 84 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Winter Circus at Paris some years ago. These
cats were all of a Dutch breed, which Bonnetty
says are especially docile; and his method was
simply patient persistence in informing the cat
what was wanted of it, and persuading it to
do that thing. Here whipping and harsh words
are of no use. Pussy's nature is quite different
from the dog's. If the cat refuses to do what you
wish, and cannot be coaxed, violence will only
harden her heart. You must simply abandon the
matter for that time at least. The hardest work
was to teach the first cat. It required months of
patient attention. Adding them one by one, he
found the training of the late recruits much easier,
because they imitated quickly what the older per-
formers were doing. Bonnetty has never been
able to succeed in teaching Persian or Angora
cats, and does not find kittens much more ready
to learn than full-grown cats. He says, also, that
some cats, able and willing to go through their
antics well in private, cannot be induced to attempt
them amid the noise and glare of the circus.

There were fifteen or twenty cats in his troupe.
When the curtain rose a flock of canaries was seen
perched upon a cord stretched across the stage.
Near them some white mice and dappled gray
rats were resting quietly. M. Bonnetty opened
the door of the cats' palace, and in Indian file all
the artists marched slowly out, striding over the
rodents and birds, some of which flew off and fear-

vi ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 185

lessly returned, alighting on the heads of the cats.
They caught these little animals, their natural
prey, and played with them, holding them in
their paws, and even in their teeth, without doing
them the slightest injury; they jumped through
a blazing hoop held up by the trainer, made sur-
prisingly long leaps over hurdles ; turned summer-
saults, and did other gymnastic exercises on the
backs of thirty-two chairs placed in a row ;
marched around in time to music like little sol-
diers, and grouped themselves in many graceful
and comical attitudes. In all these capers the
pussies, who live a life of royal comfort and in-
dulgence, seemed to enjoy themselves as much as
if the whole affair were a spontaneous frolic ;
but it is noteworthy that these trained cats, while
tamed to a very unusual degree by their kind,
patient, and persistent master, must be kept strictly
captive, since otherwise they would run away
upon those nocturnal expeditions in which the
house pet becomes once more the wild cat, taking
to the roofs and back fences of the city only be-
cause there is no jungle convenient ; and M. Bon-
netty has lost two or three of his best performers
by such escapades.

Their education and training, after all, is only
skin deep — an acquired polish affecting character
to only a small degree. This is true of nearly the
whole menagerie, which lives at best an artificial
life ; and nowadays I rarely go to see it.

VII

A WOODLAND CODGER

THE porcupine is one of the queerest, and by
no means the prettiest, of our sylvan friends.
His broad, lumpish body, twice the bigness of a
woodchuck, is modelled upon the shape of an
egg ; the nose is blunt, the legs are short, and one
wonders how this Falstaff of the woods can
scramble over the rocks and up and down trees
as well as he does. But for something to laugh
at, get the queer little codger to sit up on his hams,
with his tail planted behind, like one foot of a
tripod.

He seems truly a witless, slow, unsociable beast,
working at night for the most part, more from
churlishness than for any practical reason, minding
his own business, and insisting that his neighbors
attend strictly to theirs. He may even be quarrel-
some when interfered with, and Shakespeare hit it,
as usual, when he characterized the porcupine as
" fretful." He will never take the trouble to be
aggressive; but he knows he is well prepared,
and resists an enemy with such vigor that he is
rarely overcome. He is much better armed than
1 86

i87

CHAP. vii A WOODLAND CODGER 189

the European porcupine, whose forward parts are
so largely unprotected that a wolf or a big cat need
only be agile enough to seize or strike the head in
order to kill it, while our subject is completely
clothed with stiff quills, which, by their peculiar
construction, form as efficient an armor as do the
more solid shields of the armadillo, — more effi-
cient, in fact, since a jaguar or puma will simply
crush a small armadillo and eat it, shell and all,
as a man might an almond ; whereas, the longer
a wild-cat gnaws at the urson (as Buffon called
it), the greater its discomfiture, even when, as
sometimes happens, he succeeds in devouring the
prickly meal. This very week, I have read an ac-
count of a lynx, ravenous with hunger, to judge
by its empty stomach and very gaunt appearance,
found dead beside a stricken porcupine, its mouth
full of quills, one of which, in its struggles to rub
them out, the creature had pushed through its eye
into its brain. Here is a tragedy of the woods.

These quills are intermixed with long, brownish
black hair, which here and there grows in tufts,
and on the back and sides is sometimes eight
inches long, but on the belly and inside of the
limbs forms a dense fur. The hair of the nose
changes almost insensibly into short spines, an
inch or less long, which gradually increase to a
length of four or five inches on the haunches and
tail. They are white, tipped with blackish brown,
as a rule, but not banded like those of the Old

190 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

World species. All the quills, which are in reality
only modified hairs, and are hollow and rigid like
the stems of feathers, point backwards and ordina-
rily lie close to the body, but may be erected by
the voluntary action of muscles underlying the
skin. This done, their points stand out on every
side, presenting a chevaux-de-frise within which
the animal squats as secure as one of the High-
land squares at Waterloo.

The self-inflating spiny globe-fishes and the
hedgehog (not to speak of thorny invertebrates,
such as the sea-urchins, murices, etc.) enjoy a simi-
lar defence ; but the porcupine's armament is supe-
rior to any of these, for it is offensive as well as
defensive.

It is a long-discredited fable, of course, that the
porcupine shoots his spines at a tormentor, just as
we no longer believe that it lays eggs or brings
water in its quills to its young ; but the seed of
truth in the matter is the fact that the quills are so
loosely attached to the flesh as to be readily de-
tached, and in fact some may be flirted out when
the animal shakes himself vigorously — something
he never does if he can avoid it. Moreover, each
spine is needle-pointed, and minutely but strongly
barbed, so that it sticks in whatever touches it, and
is immediately withdrawn from the skin. Thus
any animal that leaps upon or bites a porcupine
finds its paws, shoulders, and mouth full of de-
tached quills, which so divert its attention for some

vil A WOODLAND CODGER 191

time to come that it rarely notices the escape of its
would-be victim. Every movement of the muscles
causes them to penetrate deeper ; and there seems
no limit to their inflammatory and often fatal trav-
els. Dr. Merriam says that he has found them
everywhere in animals that he has dissected, once
discovering a whole quill between the two leg
bones of the hind limb of a fisher. Nevertheless,
the porcupine is occasionally attacked and killed
by panthers, wild-cats, wolves, martens, eagles, and
owls, but this usually happens, probably, under the
stress of extreme hunger and in winter, as in the
case related a moment ago. Few dogs seem to
have sense enough to let him alone ; and it is be-
cause so many of these are injured that hunters
regard the porcupine as vermin, and kill it at every
opportunity.

But the animal is not content merely to curl up
and let an enemy come to grief upon his defences,
for he possesses in his thick, triangular, muscular
tail, along the sides of which grow the stiffest and
strongest of quills, a powerful weapon for active
warfare. I was once, with a friend, climbing one
of the Catskill peaks, when we ran across a porcu-
pine and quickly cornered it in a nook of rocks.
Ducking its head between its fore feet, swelling up
and turning its back upon us, it instantly bristled
all over until it looked like a big ripe chestnut
burr. Its tail seemed to offer a sort of handle,
however, and before I could remonstrate, my

192 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

friend reached forward for it. He had not fairly
touched it before he leaped back with a howl of
surprise and pain, and held up a hand stuck as full
as a pin-cushion with glistening spines, which the
beast had planted with a lightning-like flirt of its
tail. I thought I heard the old codger chuckle in
unison with my laughing sympathy as I pulled the
prickles out of the smarting hand, but it lay still
and kept its tender nose well out of the reach of a
club. We had no wish to kill it, however, but
wanted to learn more of the creature's skill with
the broadsword, and taking a stick, gently touched
the tail again. It responded by a sideways jerk of
surprising quickness and force, knocking the stick
aside and dropping a few quills ; but it did not
hurl its whole body, as Audubon describes ; nor
did the caudal spines themselves rattle loudly, as
the longer ones of the European species do.

A brief quotation from Darwin's book on " Ex-
pression " will describe this peculiarity of the Old
World porcupine to the best advantage :

" Porcupines rattle their quills and vibrate their
tails when angered ; and one behaved in this man-
ner when a live snake was placed in the compart-
ment. The quills on the tail are very different
from those on the body; they are short, hollow,
thin like a goose-quill, with their ends transversely
truncated, so that they are open ; they are sup-
ported on long, thin, elastic foot-stalks. Now
when the tail is rapidly shaken, these hollow quills

vn A WOODLAND CODGER 193

strike against each other and produce ... a pe-
culiar continuous sound. We can, I think, under-
stand why porcupines have been thus provided,
through the modification of their protective spines,
with this special, sound-producing instrument.
They are nocturnal animals, and if they scented
or heard a prowling beast of prey, it would be a
great advantage to them, in the dark, to give warn-
ing to their enemy what they were and that they
were furnished with dangerous spines."

One now sees how aptly the fellow is named
"porcupine," — a corruption of the Old French
words pore espin, meaning "spiny pig." This, in
fact, seems to have been the original import of
the Latin hystrix, — the family name, derived
from a Greek compound noun signifying " hairy
pig." The Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians use
substantially the same term, while the German
nations have translated it into stachelschwein,
stekel-vark, etc., meaning " stickle-hog." The
early English spellings and quaint variants, such
as porcupig, forkentine, purpentine, and the like
are innumerable. Buff on' s term, I'urson, was a
rather fantastic figment, intended to indicate by
the first syllable that it resembled a bear's cub,
and, by the second, to remind one that its home
was about the bay of Hudson, for whom Buffon
professed great admiration.

The porcupine is a denizen of the woods and
rarely leaves them for the farmers' fields, while

194 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

it is unknown on Western prairies, though in the
Southwest the Pacific Coast species is sometimes
seen far from the sparse groves along the rivers.
In spite of senseless persecution, it is still com-
mon throughout the Northeastern States and Can-
ada, wherever forests remain, and in favorable
districts has really increased of late. In such
places, the lumberman or fisherman, camping in
some glade, is sure to be visited by these guests,
who come blundering about his quarters at mid-
night, nosing around the doorway for something
to eat, and if he is sleeping in a tent, often get-
ting entangled in the guy-ropes or making general
trouble by an attempt to push their way under the
canvas. Mr. E. P. Bicknell relates that when he
was encamped on the summit of Slide Mountain,
the loftiest in the Catskills, in 1882, his cabin was
besieged by porcupines all night long, and that
"their dark forms could be seen moving about
among the shadows in the moonlight, while their
sharp cries and often low conversational chatter,
singularly like the voices of infants, were weird
interruptions of the midnight silence." Mr. Bick-
nell adds that their temerity seemed natural fool-
ishness rather than courage, and that it was
impossible to drive them out of the camp for any
length of time ; even when one had been shot,
while trying to bore its way into the tent, another
repeated the attempt beside the dead body of its
companion. Their great love of salt is probably

viz A WOODLAND CODGER 195

the special attraction that brings them to camps,
where the scraps of bacon-rind and table-crumbs
would be tidbits of the highest excellence in their
estimation. It appears to be extremely fond of
sweets, also, gnawing old sugar-barrels and maple-
sugar utensils, and being especially fond of maple
bark. A. Leith Adams, the author of " Field and
Forest Rambles" (in New Brunswick), informs
us that they eat the tips of the cast antlers of
deer, which are rarely found unharmed by their
incisors; and he also mentions the extraordinary
size of their ordure, which is often mistaken for
that of deer.

The porcupine's natural food, however, is vege-
table, and mainly bark and browse, in search of
which it spends most of its time in trees, although
seemingly as awkwardly built and accoutred for
such a life as well could be ; but the toes have
very long and strong claws, good for clinging.
It is true, however, that our Northern species pur-
sues an arboreal life much less exclusively than do
the tropical American species, being intermediate
in habits as well as structure between the Old
World terrestrial species and the South American
tree-porcupines.

These tree-porcupines (genus Synetheres), of
which eight or ten species are spread from
Mexico to Paraguay, are far better fitted for
climbing, and are almost exclusively arboreal.
They are smaller and lighter than the Canada

196 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, vn

porcupine, have, short, close, many-colored spines,
and a long, tapering, distinctly prehensile tail,
that forms a fifth hand equal to that of the
monkey or opossum. The soles of their feet,
too, are provided with a peculiar fleshy pad on
the inner side, "between which and the toes
boughs and other objects can be firmly grasped."
Two of them — the couiy and the coendou — are
familiar to the people of Guiana, Brazil, and
Bolivia; and, in the former, the spines — which
may be erected — are ordinarily covered by long
gray hairs, which, we are told, effectually conceal
the animal from the notice of predatory birds,
as it lies asleep during the day, heaped up in an
indistinguishable mass in the fork of some moss-
draped tree. Of the coendou, in the island of
Trinidad, a curious fact is recorded by Mr. Frank
M. Chapman, Bulletin Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. V,
p. 227, as follows :

"The presence of this arboreal species [Syne-
theres prehensilis\ is made known by the nauseat-
ing odor it gives forth. This is especially noticeable
in the early morning when the air is humid and
before the daily trade-winds begin to blow. In
walking through the forests at this time, it was not
unusual to encounter odoriferous strata of air pro-
ceeding from individuals of this species. So dense,
however, was the parasitic vegetation on the trees
in which they conceal themselves, that they were
practically invisible from below.

197

CHAP, vii A WOODLAND CODGER 199

Whether suited or unsuited to the life, the
Northern porcupine spends much of his time aloft,
sometimes remaining for weeks in a single big tree,
usually a hemlock. Curled up in some deep fork
or hollow, he dozes away the daylight, and at night
feeds upon twigs and leaves. Beginning at the
topmost spray, he will gnaw and clip away every
bit of fresh bark, sprouting twig and leaf, and
circle regularly downward, taking each branch in
succession out to its very tip, despite his weight
and awkwardness, by pulling the outermost twigs
within reach of his orange teeth, and continuing
until the whole tree has been despoiled of every
edible particle. Then, having literally eaten him-
self out of house and home, he chooses another tree
and repeats the process. Sometimes he knows of
better quarters in some hollow close by, and goes
and comes nightly ; but having found a tree-pasture
to his purpose, he rarely leaves it until it has been
denuded. This is more true of the winter, how-
ever, than the summer, for the animal does not
hibernate, though spells of extremest cold render
him temporarily inactive. Hearne says that in
the far North the Indians frequently leave them
in a tree "till a more convenient season," con-
fident that when they want them they can find
them. The species inhabits British America and
Alaska as far north as the forests extend.

Yet they travel about somewhat, as is betrayed
by their baby-like footprints. They are flat-footed

200 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

or plantigrade, like a bear, and the soles are naked,
but along their sides and between the toes grows
a thick fringe of long coarse hair, which acts like
snow-shoes in sustaining the animal's weight on the
snow, in which its low-hung body leaves a deep rut
as it tramps along. The hemlock, sugar-maple,
basswood, ash, and slippery elm in the East, and
in the West the cottonwood, are its favorites, these
having a thick, juicy underbark. Its depredations
occasionally kill trees, especially its habit of girdling
them, but the total of damage in this way is tri-
fling. Sometimes, in winter, it invades the orchard
and gnaws the bark from young orchard trees or
despoils a nursery, but the harm thus done is
never very great.

In summer the porcupine wanders more widely
and enjoys a more varied fare, eating young leaves
and buds of shrubs, herbage, and many roots and
vegetables. Dr. Merriam mentions their fond-
ness for lily-pads in the Adirondacks and tells us
that they sometimes quarrel for possession of a
stranded log by which these dainties may be
reached, snarling, growling, and pushing one an-
other away or even into the water, but not biting,
although their great front teeth might inflict seri-
ous wounds. In the fall, mast, and especially
beechnuts, forms a staple article of diet, as with
other large rodents. He is fond of apples, Indian
corn, etc., which he eats sitting up on his haunches,
holding the morsel up to his mouth like a squirrel.

vii A WOODLAND CODGER 2OI

The animal can hardly be said to have a home ;
but he uses a hollow tree as a tenement, or even a
hole among the rocks. As warm weather ap-
proaches, the female produces two or three young,
which, according to Dr. Merriam, are monstrous
for the size of the mother. They are actually
larger, he assures us, and relatively more than
thirty times larger, than the young of the black bear
at birth. The female has four pectoral mammae.

Their flesh is eaten by the Indians, but has
never been liked by white men. The use of the
quills in ornamentation by our Indians is well
known, robes, garments, moccasins, belts, pouches,
weapon-cases, baskets, and everything else being
ornamented with them by the squaws with great
skill and often with truly artistic effect; but as
usual the earliest methods and patterns, when the
Indians used their own delicate dyes and sinew
threads, were much better than is seen in these
days of aniline colors and crude imitations of the
white man's art. The application may be made in
any of three or four ways, as, by weaving or sew-
ing the quill into the texture of the object itself ;
by winding it transversely about the thread that
forms the applique pattern ; by interweaving it
with the strands of a basket or lashing ; or by glu-
ing it upon the surface. The native South Amer-
icans did not practise this art, although they made
a somewhat similar use of bird-quills, as, on the
other hand, was not done in the northern continent.

202 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

No similar utilization seems to have been made
of the quills of the European porcupine, although
the longest ones are turned into fancy penholders ;
and in India and Malaya they weave little baskets,
etc., out of them, which are often as pretty as they
are strange.

Reviewing its narrow life, the strongest impres-
sion left upon one's mind seems to be that of the
creature's sluggishness and stupidity. These are
perhaps concomitants, if not consequences, of its
strictly vegetarian life, in which its tastes are so
simple that it rarely seems to have to make the
least exertion for food at any season of the year ;
and of a highly protected condition, which makes
it careless of danger, and hence unvigilant and
steadily inclined to sluggishness of mirid as well as
of body. It is not well for an animal to be too
safe or too comfortable, for its mind grows rusty
with disuse, or, if it never had use, lies inert and
the whole creature exists on a low plane. I do not
know another animal of the American woods that
is so well off and so uninteresting as the Canada
porcupine.

The porcupines are the central figures in a group
of rodents, called after them Hystricomorpha.
This group is one of the sections of the suborder
of Simplicidentates, which have only two upper
teeth (incisors) in front, instead of four, as in the
picas and rabbits (Duplicidentates) ; and it con-
tains eight families, some of which are extinct,

A WOODLAND CODGER

203

including many rat-like animals, small and large,
some belonging to North Africa, but mostly South
American.

In many members of this group the hair has a
peculiar sharpness, with more or less intermixture
of stiff prickly hairs, becoming quills in the most
typical ; while others, as the chinchilla and coypu,
are noted for the extreme softness of their fur,
making it valuable in trade.

The central family is that of the porcupines
(Hystricidae), long ago divided into two branches :
— the synetherine, or New World arboreal porcu-
pines, and the hystricinine, or Old World terres-
trial porcupines ; but this division is made on
anatomical grounds, not upon difference of habitat
or habits, to which the classifiers are more blind
than is always well for the stability of their work.
To the former branch belong our subject and its
South American cousins, the tree-porcupines ; to the
latter, the common European porcupine.

Of the last named (Hystrix cristata) a brief
account by W. S. Dallas may be useful for pur-
poses of comparison with the characteristics of the
American form.

"The head, shoulders, limbs, and under parts
are clothed with short spines intermixed with hairs
usually of a dusky or brownish black hue ; the
neck is marked with a whitish collar; from the
back of the head and neck there arises a great
crest of long bristles, many of them fifteen or six-
teen inches in length, which can be elevated and

2O4 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

depressed at the pleasure of the animal, are gen-
tly curved backwards, and are either dusky with
the extremities white, or whitish throughout; the
hinder portion of the body is entirely covered by
a great number of long sharp spines, ringed with
black and white, but always having the extremities
white. These spines vary considerably in size,
some of them being very long (fifteen or sixteen
inches), comparatively slender and flexible ; others
shorter (from six to twelve inches), but much
stouter. . . . The porcupine lives in holes among
the rocks, or in a burrow, which he makes for
himself in ordinary ground. In this retreat he
passes the day in sleep, coming forth in the even-
ing in search of food, which consists of herbage
of various kinds, fruits, roots, and the bark and
leaves of trees and bushes. He is slow in his
movements, and does not even display much ac-
tivity in burrowing. His habits are solitary, ex-
cept during the pairing-season; and during the
winter he passes most of his time in his habitation,
without, however, falling into a torpid state. The
pairing takes place early in the year, . . . and in
the spring or early summer the female produces
from two to four young in a nest carefully lined
with leaves, grasses, roots, and other vegetables.
The young porcupines are born with their eyes
open, and their bodies are covered with short
soft spines, which are pressed close to the body.
These speedily harden and grow longer, and the
young do not appear to remain very long with
their mother. The flesh ... is eaten in the
countries where the animal occurs. When pur-
sued or irritated, he stands on the defensive, erects
his formidable quills and crest, stamps on the

VII A WOODLAND CODGER 2O5

ground with his hind feet, after the manner of a
hare, jerks himself toward the object of his dread,
as if to wound it with his spines, and at the same
time produces a curious noise, by rattling the open
quills of the tip of his tail."

This animal is still fairly numerous in Greece,
Italy, and Sicily, and formerly ranged throughout
Southern Europe; south of the Mediterranean it
extends from Tunis to Morocco, and southward
into the Soudan. A closely similar species takes
the place of this one in Syria, and ranges thence
eastward to India, where it injures tank-walls by
its burrowing, and often destroys vegetable crops :
hunting it with dogs is a favorite sport in the hill-
regions. Four or five smaller species, without
nuchal crests, inhabit northeast India and the
Malayan coasts and islands ; and fossil species of
Hystrix belong to the upper Tertiary rocks of
both Asia and Europe. South Africa has also a
local kind of porcupine. Lastly, mention must
be made of the brush-tailed porcupines, of the
genus Atherura, two species of which are found
in the Malayan region, and one in West Africa ;
they are smaller than the foregoing, and rejoice in
long tails tipped with a bunch of peculiar flattened
scales. A still more specialized form inhabits
Borneo. Such are the Old World representatives
of the tribe ; and they differ from their New World
cousins more in anatomical peculiarities and an
indisposition to climb trees than in anything else.

206 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.VH

Our common porcupine of the eastern United
States and Canada (Erethizon dorsatus) once
ranged over all the forested parts of the country
north of Virginia and Kentucky ; it seems to reach
northward nearly or quite to the limit of forest-
growth, having been reported from the Mackenzie
valley. Along the Missouri River it mingles spar-
ingly with a second, Western species, the yellow-
haired (Erethizon epixanthus\ which ranges across
the Plains to the Rocky Mountains, and to all
parts of the Pacific Coast southward as far as the
Mexican border. Godman, Audubon, and the older
writers, so far as they spoke of this latter animal
at all, confused it with the Eastern form.

VIII

THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED

THE skunk is among the handsomest animals
in the fields, and carries himself with an air of
genteel leisure, while he makes no effort to hide
himself from our admiration. He is not much
given to going abroad in daylight, though I have
seen him at high noon ; but more frequently you
meet him at twilight, when he is little disposed to
make way for you. "I have come near stepping
upon him," exclaims Mr. Burroughs, "and was
much the more disturbed of the two." If you pay
no attention to him, he will pass, or let you pass,
in dignified indifference, going about his business ;
but if you try to stop him, or follow so inquisi-
tively as to alarm him, he will make ready to re-
sent it; and, as the Greeks were to be dreaded
when bearing gifts, so this foe is most to be feared
when it turns tail to the enemy.

Here we are, right at the start, as is inevitable !

When the word " skunk " is mentioned, the first

thought in every one's mind is of the animal's

extraordinary ability in getting himself into bad

odor. Let us take up this matter of the skunk's

P 209

2IO WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

fetid discharge at once, therefore, and have done
with it.

In the first place, it is to be noted that musky
secretions, more or less intense in their nauseating
effect on the human nostrils, are characteristic of
the whole tribe to which the skunk belongs, —
the Mustelidae. To this tribe belong the Euro-
pean polecat, the mink, — whose discharges, when
excited, are far more disgusting than anything the
skunk utters, — and various other evil-smelling fur-
bearers, while to the closely related badger family
belong not only our own far from fragrant badger,
but also the stinking-badger or teledu of the East
Indies, the honey-badgers of South Africa, and
the wolverine. Of this company, — so abominable
when considered from this single point of view,
— the skunk is by no means the worst, although
none equals him in the power of disseminating
the perfume, nor in its copiousness. The Yan-
kees call him an " essence pedler."

In the skunk, the fetid material is contained
in two capsules embedded in the muscles beneath
the root of the tail, one on each side of the
intestinal outlet, into which, just within the anus,
they open by little nipples perforated by fine
ducts ; another longer duct leads into each of
them from absorbent vessels situated deeper
in the body. These glandular capsules are not
larger than peas, and are enclosed in a thick
envelope of muscles, which, when suddenly and

via THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 211

forcibly contracted by the animal, convert the
capsule, duct, and nipple into a syringe, forcing
its contents out in a thin spurt or double jet,
which may reach more than a dozen feet.
Whether it is possible for the animal to dis-
charge one barrel of his weapon and reserve
the other, I do not know, but I should think
it likely. The liquid is clear yellow in color, and
somewhat phosphorescent, so as to be faintly vis-
ible in the dark ; it is intensely acid in its chem-
ical reaction, and virulently acrid toward any
mucous or tender surface upon which it falls.
This, together with its extreme volatility and
offensive odor, makes it almost suffocating when
inhaled in any considerable amount, and, in ex-
cess, it may produce unconsciousness (anaesthesia)
accompanied by difficult breathing and even fatal
results. The odor has the quality of musk, as,
indeed, do nearly all animal discharges of this
nature, whether they come from deer, civets,
musteline animals, or reptiles ; and, when per-
ceived and calmly considered at a reasonable dis-
tance, it is by no means unendurable, having a
pungent and, perhaps, disagreeable, but not an
unwholesome smell. The nose is pained and
offended rather than disgusted. The liquid also
resembles musk in its extraordinary volatility.
The total discharge is really a very small quan-
tity,— scarcely more than a large drop, — yet it
will perfume the air for a mile in every direction

212 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

in favorable weather, or even more, if we may
trust many accounts; and the minutest particle
sprayed upon one's clothes will make them
entirely unwearable. Its persistence is equally
remarkable and embarrassing. No amount of
washing or disinfection, short of destroying the
fibre of the cloth, suffices to eradicate the taint.
Burying them for any practicable time is of no
use, for even if the garments seem at first to be
free, heat will bring back strong reminders of the
wearer's unsavory experience. Where chloride of
lime can be used, the smell can be destroyed, but
otherwise time alone will rid one of its presence.

The Indians of the Upper Columbia valley,
by the way, tell a quaint legend of the origin
of this savory characteristic of our subject. A
few miles below the mouth of the Spokane River,
the banks become rocky walls and are strangely
broken. "The rocks take all imaginable forms,
showing up as pinnacles, terraces, perpendicular
bluffs, devils'-slides, and giants' causeways, — the
whole forming one of the most beautiful, grand-
est sights in the universe." Among these is a
grayish-white cone, about five hundred feet high,
which is a noted landmark, and concerning which
the Indians have a legend, of which the skunk
is the hero. It has been written down in his
report upon the navigation of the Upper Colum-
bia, made to the War Department by Lieutenant
Thomas W. Symons, U.S.A., as follows:

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 21$

" It would seem that in the long ago a skunk,
a coyote, and a rattlesnake each had a farm on top
of the Whitestone. Those were the days before
the skunk was as odorous as he is now, but was
esteemed a good fellow and pleasant companion by
other animals. As in some other small communi-
ties, jealousies, dissensions, and intrigues arose in
this one. The result was that the coyote and
the rattlesnake took a mean advantage of the
skunk one night when he was asleep, and threw
him off the rock, away down into the river. He
was not drowned, however, but floated on and on,
far away to the south and west, until he came to
the mouth of the river, where lived a great medi-
cine man and magician. To him the skunk
applied, and was fitted out with an apparatus
warranted to give immunity from and conquest
over all his enemies. Back he journeyed along
the river to his old home, where he arrived, much
to the surprise of the coyote and rattlesnake, and
commenced to make it so pleasant for them with
his pungent perfumery apparatus, the gift of the
magician, that they soon left him in undisputed
possession of his rocky home, which he has main-
tained ever since."

It is not surprising to find that this powerful
secretion has a marked effect upon our eyes and
air-passages whenever it comes into contact with
them. When shot into the eye, as has often hap-
pened, intense pain and acute inflammation (con-

214 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, vm

junctivis) follow, and have been known to produce
blindness in a few cases, though usually the injury
disappears in a week or ten days. The effect upon
the throat and lungs of inhaling any considerable
quantity of this substance long ago suggested its
value as a specific " in certain spasmodic affections
of the air-passages, such as asthma, hooping-cough,
and asthmatic croup," but it must be used with
caution, if at all, since more than one sufferer,
while confessing the relief given, has abandoned the
remedy as worse than the ailment. Audubon and
Bachman tell a funny story of how an asthmatic
preacher emptied his church one morning by at-
tempting to take a sniff of the medicine in the pul-
pit, and somehow losing control of the stopper of
the vial. A sequel of this benefit from the gland-
substance has been the application of the oil from
the fat of the animal to the relief of similar ail-
ments, without any real effect, of course.

Dogs howl with pain when they get a charge
full in the face, and rush anywhere in evident
agony, plunging their noses into the dust, drag-
ging their faces against the ground, and showing
every sign of intense pain. It is doubtful whether
the vileness (to us) of the odor has much to do
with their distress ; but this point, and its bearings
on the question of the value of this discharge as a
means of defence, will be considered hereafter.

The animal makes use of its artillery by turning
its stern toward the enemy, elevating its tail, and

SKULL OF A SKUNK.
Natural size. After
Baird.

216

CHAP, viii THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 2I/

raising one of its hind legs. Its aim is taken with
the utmost accuracy, and it can repeat the dis-
charge several times, having a magazine gun at
command. A simple surgical operation, if made
by intelligent hands, will extract these glands, or
cut the duct leading from the capsule to the nipple-
like orifice, after which the animal is powerless for
harm, — a precaution highly judicious in the case
of a domesticated example of this species, if one
values his peace of mind !

Having thus rendered our subject innocuous, we
may now proceed to study him, for he is one of the
prettiest and most interesting of all our wild ani-
mals.

The skunk is about the size of a cat, but has
more nearly the shape of a raccoon, being taller
behind than about the fore quarters, and with a
pointed, somewhat pig-like snout ; this form, and
his plantigrade feet, account for that mincing gait
characteristic of him. His fur is long, thick, and
glossy black variegated with pure white. The
white runs in a narrow stripe up the nose, expands
behind the ears into a saddle-like patch on the
nape of the neck, then narrows backward over the
shoulder, and there divides, a stripe curving back-
ward and downward on each side, leaving an in-
tensely black, wedge-shaped tract between them,
continued over the upper surface of the bushy
tail. The under surface and tip of the tail are also
white. This is the common Northern kind. His

2l8 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Southern relatives are also black and white, but
differently marked. All the skunks form, a con-
spicuous exception to the prevalent rule among
mammals that those parts of the body next the
ground are light, the belly and limbs here being
invariably dark colored. Thoreau pictures the
animal neatly in a June memorandum :

" Saw a little skunk coming up the river bank in
the woods at the white oak, a funny little fellow,
about six inches long and nearly as broad. It
faced me and actually compelled me to retreat
before it for five minutes. Perhaps I was between
it and its hole. Its broad black tail, tipped with
white, was erect like a kitten's. It had what
looked like a broad white band drawn tight across
its forehead or top-head, from which two lines of
white ran down, one on each side of its back, and
there was a narrow white line down its snout. It
raised its back, sometimes ran a few feet forward,
sometimes backward, and repeatedly turned its tail
to me, prepared to discharge its fluid, like the old
ones. Such was its instinct, and all the while it
kept up a fine grunting like a little pig or a red
squirrel."

This resemblance to a fluffy-tailed black and
white kitten has played the mischief with many
kind-hearted but unsophisticated persons, — a reac-
tionary sort of mimicry that it would puzzle Dar-
winians to explain, I fear. As a matter of fact,
these youngsters are much more to be dreaded

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 2ig

than an old skunk, who will not waste his precious
ammunition until he has exhausted every " bluff "
he can practise.

This composure in the presence of mankind,
from whom nearly all wild animals shrink and flee,
has always been ascribed to the creature's confi-
dence in his means of self-defence, which grows
upon him with experience, and inculcates a temer-
ity in the face of danger that often misleads to
his destruction. Even in the skunk discretion is
usually the better part of valor : as it certainly is as
opposed to him. Whether or not the explanation
is good, he is certainly fearless and often serene
in the midst of danger ; he will not trouble him-
self to move out of the way of a wagon fast enough
to save being run over; and half the time will
come inquisitively toward you, when you meet him,
instead of running away.

One effect of this audacity has been the ten-
dency of skunks to cultivate acquaintance with
humanity as fast as the country was settled, — in
fact, before that, for they haunted Indian camps,
no doubt, in the primitive East as they do to-day in
the far West. Originally they possessed the whole
of temperate North America, reached northward
as far as the Barren Grounds in the interior, and
in Alaska to the lower Yukon valley ; while south-
ward they penetrated Mexico, although that un-
happy country and its neighboring parts of the
United States have several smaller, but sufficiently

220 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

effective, species of their own. As to details he
is indifferent, — forest or prairie, open plain or
rugged mountain, seeming all the same to his
catholic taste in geography. If he exercises any
preference, it is for high, dry, rocky situations for
his particular residence, as opposed to waterside
haunts chosen by his cousin the mink; in this
respect he inclines more to the ways of the badger,
to which he is so closely allied. Almost every-
where, moreover, he is seen in greater numbers
around settlements and camps than in the utter
wilderness ; and there are few rural districts where
this animal is probably not quite as numerous
to-day as he was a century or two centuries ago.
It is equally indifferent to climate. The snows
of the North, the rainy districts of Puget Sound,
the Atlantic coast and Alaska, the aridity of the
high plains, are borne with equal patience ; and
everywhere it is resident. It never runs away
from bad weather, any more than from sentient
enemies. In the far North, it hibernates several
months; on the Canadian border, this hiemal
slumber lasts only for some weeks, with more
or less frequent emergences during intervals of
moderation ; in the central and southerly parts
of the United States, it does not "hole up" at
all. The Canadian Indians called March the
"skunk moon," because then the animal began
to appear in some numbers, as they knew by
the frequency of his diagonally placed footprints

viii THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 221

in the snow, — the feet stepping at equal dis-
tances apart and in advance, — thus :

Dwelling under such varied conditions, it is
not surprising to find it making its home in a
variety of tenements. Its fore feet are armed
with long and strong claws, so that it is able
to dig well, and it habitually excavates burrows
in light soil. On the prairies, as Kennicott ascer-
tained, they are five to ten feet long and a foot
or so below the surface ; but sizes vary. At the
innermost end is hollowed out a chamber well
bedded with grass. In the high Western moun-
tains and other rocky places, it usually takes
possession of a crevice ; and hollow trees and
stumps are now and then adopted as homesteads.
Burroughs says it appropriates woodchuck-holes
in New York State ; and, in New England, stone
walls often form part, at least, of the shelter
needed for its den. Lastly, it has adopted every-
where the uncomfortable habit of seeking a lodg-
ing beneath the houses and barns of farmers and
ranchmen, making its presence known sooner or
later during the winter by a stench that compels
the landlord to evict the intruder straightway.

Dr. Elliott Coues avers that this stench is the
result of the necessity the animal feels to evacu-
ate his scent-glands from time to time, when they
are not emptied by some provoked discharge, and

222 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

that the hibernating animal is occasionally aroused
from his torpidity to relieve his physical uneasiness
in this respect. Dr. C. C. Abbott agrees with him
as to the necessity of occasional relief, but says
that a series of observations in 1872 led him to
believe that this forced discharge was made by the
skunk into a hole dug for the purpose, where it
was carefully covered over. This strikes me as a
credible, and, indeed, very natural example of pru-
dence on the part of the animal (which must fully
understand what an advertisement of its presence
to its enemies the effluvium would be), closely com-
parable with the covering of its excrement prac-
tised by so many wild animals, — an act doubtless
precautionary against pursuit. In winter, however,
the frozen ground would prevent doing this, or, at
any rate, prevent doing it well. Certainly skunk
dens are rarely any more offensive to the nose than
is the home of a weasel or marten.

He is a persistent digger, and delights to scratch
holes in ploughed fields, where, if he is alarmed, he
will bury himself out of sight with amazing rapid-
ity, and then may push his way through the light
earth for several yards before he comes to the sur-
face again. Another cunning trick he has, when
trying to escape from a dog that is not right at his
heels, is to climb upon a rail fence and walk along
its top for a considerable distance, so as to break
the scent of his trail ; but any further climbing
than this seems beyond his ability, so that the

viii THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 223

picture illustrating, otherwise admirably, the biog-
raphy of our subject in the ninth edition of the
" Encyclopaedia Britannica," where two examples
are shown in the tops of tall trees, is something
to smile at.

In the burrow or other den, where a large bed
of grass and leaves is arranged, a litter of six to
ten young ones is produced in summer. These
remain in and about the underground premises
until the next season, and by the end of the winter
most of them have grown to the same size and
appearance as the old ones. It was probably
the digging out of single large and well-grown
families supposed to be collections of unrelated
adult individuals, that give rise to the wrong state-
ment found in many early writings that the species
is gregarious. They seem to be more prolific than
any other of the Mustelidae.

Young skunks, when taken early, make pretty
and interesting pets. This was learned from the
Indians, and they have been tamed and enjoyed
by many persons notwithstanding, as Godman puts
it, that " such a pet requires very cautious manage-
ment." No one has had so much experience, or
has so well recorded it, in this direction, as Dr.
Merriam, whose home was formerly in the south-
ern Adirondacks, where he made good use of
many opportunities to study this creature. He
declares that as pets skunks are attractive in ap-
pearance, gentle, cleanly, playful, and sometimes

224 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

manifest considerable affection for those who have
the care of them. He says :

" From some I removed the scent-bags, but the
greater number were left in a state of nature.
None ever emitted any odor, although a couple
of them, when half-grown, used to assume a pain-
fully suggestive attitude on the too near approach
of strangers. . . . These same skunks, when I
came within reach, would climb up my legs and
get into my arms. They liked to be caressed and
never offered to bite."

One particularly clever youngster the Doctor
named Meph, and used to carry asleep in his coat-
pocket while driving about the country on his
daily professional errands. " After supper," he
writes,1 " I commonly took a walk, and he always
followed, close at my heels. If I chanced to walk
too fast for him, he would scold and stamp with
his fore feet, and if I persisted in keeping too
far ahead would turn about, disgusted, and make
off in an opposite direction ; but if I stopped and
called him, he would hurry along at a sort of am-
bling pace, and soon overtake me. He was par-
ticularly fond of ladies, and I think it was the
dress that attracted him ; but be this as it may, he
would invariably leave me to follow any lady that
chanced to come near.

" We used to walk through the woods to a large

1 In the Transactions of the Linnean Society of New York,
Vol. I, December, 1882, p. 74.

vni THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 22$

meadow that abounded in grasshoppers. Here
Meph would fairly revel in his favorite food, and
it was rich sport to watch his manoeuvres. When
a grasshopper jumped he jumped, and I have seen
him with as many as three in his mouth, and two
under his fore paws, at one time ! He would eat
so many that his over-distended little belly actually
dragged upon the ground, and when so full that
he could hold no more, would still catch and slay
them. When so small that he could scarcely tod-
dle about he never hesitated to tackle the large
and powerful beetle known as the 'horned bug/
and got many smart nips for his audacity. But
he was a courageous little fellow, and it was not
long before he learned to handle them with im-
punity, and it was very amusing to see him kill
one. Ere many weeks he ventured to attack a
mouse, and the ferocity displayed in its destruc-
tion was truly astonishing. He devoured the en-
tire body of his victim, and growled and stamped
his feet if any one came near before his repast was
over."

This matter of growling and stamping is worth
a moment's attention. Few animals are so silent
as the skunk. Zoological works contain no in-
formation as to its voice, and the essayists rarely
mention it except by implication. Mr. Burroughs
says : " The most silent creature known to me, he
makes no sound, so far as I have observed, save
a diffuse, impatient noise, like that produced by
Q

226 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

beating your hand with a whisk-broom, when the
farm-dog has discovered his retreat in the stone
fence." Rowland Robinson tells us that: "The
voiceless creature sometimes . . . frightens the
belated farm-boy, whom he curiously follows with
a mysterious hollow beating of his feet upon the
ground." Thoreau, as has been mentioned, heard
one keep up a " fine grunting, like a little pig or a
squirrel"; but he seems to have misunderstood
altogether a singular loud patting sound heard
repeatedly on the frozen ground under the wall,
which he also listened to, for he thought it "had to
do with getting its food, patting the earth to get
the insects or worms." Probably he would have
omitted this guess if he could have edited his
diary instead of leaving that to be done after his
death. The patting is evidently merely a nervous
sign of impatience or apprehension, similar to the
well-known stamping with the hind feet indulged
in by rabbits, — in this case probably a menace
like a doubling of the fists, as the hind legs, with
which they kick, are their only weapons. The
skunk, then, is not voiceless, but its voice is weak
and querulous, and it is rarely if ever heard ex-
cept in the expression of anger. But I wish to
quote a few more sentences from Dr. Merriam's
story of his pet Meph :

" His nest was in a box at the foot of the stairs,
and before he grew strong enough to climb out by
himself he would, whenever he heard me coming,

vni THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 22/

stand on his hind legs with his paws resting on
the edge of the box, and beg to be carried up
stairs. If I passed by without appearing to notice
him, he invariably became much enraged and chip-
pered and scolded away at a great rate, stamping,
meanwhile, most vehemently. ... He was very
sprightly and frolicsome, and used to hop about
the floor and run from room to room in search of
something to play with. . . . During the evening
he occasionally assumed a cunning mood, and
would steal softly up to my chair, and standing
erect would claw at my pants once or twice, and
then scamper off as fast as his little legs could
carry him, evidently anxious to have me give
chase. If I refused to follow, he was soon back,
ready to try some new scheme to attract my
attention."

The food of the skunks is wholly of animal ori-
gin, and I have never known or heard of one eat-
ing anything vegetable. The staple of their fare
in summer is insects of every sort, mainly beetles,
grasshoppers, and the like, for they do not seem
to care to unearth worms and grubs to any great
extent. Thoreau remarks (" Early Spring in Mas-
sachusetts," p. 105): "It has a remarkably long,
narrow, pointed head and [flesh-colored] snout,
which enable it to make those deep narrow holes
in the earth by which it probes for insects." This
is news. The snout is exceedingly pig-like — a
fact especially noticeable when a carcass has been

228 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

skinned, and it is no doubt serviceable in rooting,
and in crowding through the loose earth in which
the animal sometimes hastily buries itself ; but that
it is used for rooting or boring, woodcock-fashion,
after subterranean insects, I am not otherwise in-
formed. The number of insects a single one will
destroy, between his appetite and his love of play,
is enormous ; and almost every one of them is
injurious to grain, vegetable, or fruit crops. Of so
much value to the hop-grower in particular are
his services, that efforts were made some years
ago in New York State to have him brought under
protection of the game-laws. The facts brought
forward then (and since) show that his value in
ridding fields, gardens, and granaries of vermin
compensated, a hundred times over, the occasional
harm he does in the poultry-yard; but the preju-
dices of short-sighted farmers and the opposi-
tion of the fur-trapper^ defeated this beneficent
measure.

Next to insects he probably pursues mice with
the greatest avidity and success. The enormous
destruction of planted seeds, growing and ripening
vegetables and grain, as well as of stored grain,
accomplished by wild mice, in all parts of the
country, is well known to agriculturists, who ought
to welcome, rather than do their best to extirpate,
the natural enemies of these persistent and rapidly
multiplying pests. The mice alone do more dam-
age to the grain and fruit growing interests of

vni THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 2 29

every agricultural district in the Union, each year,
than all the chickens and eggs raised therein are
worth. Yet men go on shooting and trapping
their would-be allies, and thus aiding and abetting
their enemies, in spite of all the facts and advice
that can be laid before them.

Unable, like the swift and supple weasel, to run
mice down or follow them into narrow retreats, —
though doubtless he pounces upon many, — the
skunk uses his strong fore claws to dig them out
of their little burrows and grassy lodging-places ;
and it is the search for this prey, mainly, that leads
him to take up his quarters in the barns and out-
houses of a farm, where he often inhabits the hay-
mow, scrambling even to the top of it. Unless dis-
turbed to the point of odorous resistance by the
dogs — oh, that American farmers would kill off
the host of curs that do so much to keep them
poor! — his presence would scarcely be known,
or if discovered would not be resented ; and hun-
dreds, perhaps thousands, of mice would be killed
or driven away in the course of a season. The
same service is true to a less degree in the West,
by reason of its capture of the destructive striped
gophers and small prairie spermophiles there,
while even rabbits are now and then followed and
attacked, sometimes after following their trail a
long distance. These timid animals have a habit
of running into any sort of a hole, and frequently
enter one at the other end of which dwells a skunk,

230 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

fox, or badger, which makes short work of poor
bunny, and, I hope, is properly grateful to the
providence that thus sends a meal home in its
original package.

Reptiles, also, form a share of the skunk's sub-
sistence, — toads, frogs, salmanders, serpents, and
the like. Dr. Abbott says that the skunks in New
Jersey are very partial to the last-named. " When
pressed by hunger, and hunting by daylight," he
tells us, in his " Rambles about Home," the skunk
prefers to go after snakes rather than to seek
frogs or risk himself within the poultry-yard.

" Indeed, small snakes are evidently a great
dainty, and the skunk appears to be more active
when he finds a garter-snake, blind-worm, or flat-
head adder, than at any other time. Having dis-
covered a snake, he rises upon his hind feet, and,
giving a bear-like apology for a dance, he endeav-
ors to seize the snake by the tail. If successful,
he shakes the snake vigorously, as a dog would do,
and seizing it, when dead or nearly so, he carries
it off to his burrow, or to a hollow log, or to what-
ever shelter he has at the time."

Of this behavior Dr. Abbott cites the following
remarkable instance :

" In June, 1863, I witnessed a terrific combat be-
tween a large skunk and a black snake, which, I
judge, measured fully five feet in length. The
prowling skunk had evidently seized the snake by
the tail, and endeavored to give it a violent shake,

viii THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 231

as it would a little garter-snake. This angered the
snake, and, turning like lightning, he wrapped
himself about the skunk, completely encircling
both neck and body. The head was so far free
that the skunk could give the snake nip after nip,
though it could not get a strong enough hold to
disable it. Rolling over and over, hissing and
snapping, the snake nearly concealed by the long
hair of the skunk, the two creatures presented a
strange spectacle as they struggled, the one to
conquer, the other to escape. After watching
them for fully five minutes, I ventured to approach,
and dealt the two a hard blow with a club, and
then ran back a few paces, not knowing what
might be the result. Turning about, I ventured
to return part of the way, to see whether the
struggle continued. All was comparatively quiet,
and coming still nearer, I found that the snake had
relinquished his hold, and was slowly retiring in
a disabled condition. The skunk was lying quite
motionless, and proved to be dying, though not
dead. Soon after, I examined the animal carefully,
and found that it had been strangled or nearly so.
During this combat there was no discharge of the
defensive glands of the skunk."

Unfortunately the skunk has also a strong taste
for birds and birds' eggs, and undoubtedly de-
stroys large numbers of the eggs and young of
ground-nesting birds : it digs up and eats snakes'
and tortoises' eggs. Dr. J. K. Lord, whose book

232 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

"The Naturalist in British Columbia" is every-
where interesting, has harsher words to say of the
skunk in that part of the world than the animal
seems to justify elsewhere ; but this may be dis-
counted by the recollection that more legitimate
food is rather scarce along the western part of the
international boundary, where Dr. Lord travelled.
" A more predatory, thievish, treacherous, blood-
thirsty poacher you could not ' skeer up,' " exclaims
this writer, and then adds novel information, as
follows : " His residence (which is always by the
side of some still pool on the open prairie) consists
of a large hole, dug in horizontally. . . . Beaten
roads extend from this hole to the water's edge ;
and the entrance to this den is usually strewed
with ducks' feathers, the tips of the wings, the
heads, beaks, and feet, together with bones deftly
picked. Ducks are his favorite food. . . . When
everything is still and hushed, and the unsuspect-
ing birds are floating in fancied security, with their
heads tucked under their wings, then out steals
the crafty skunk, and creeping noiselessly down
his roadways, swims, without the slightest splash,
towards the drowsy birds, dives under the one
that suits his taste, seizes it by the breast, and
spite of all its flapping, quacking, and struggling,
drags the victim ashore, kills, and eats it."

With such a record as this against him — even
in isolated cases — it is not surprising that the
skunk should now and then play havoc in the hen-

vni THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 233

house. " He is a confirmed epicure, and at plun-
dering hen-roosts an expert," John Burroughs de-
clares with an unction born of bitter experience :
"Not the full-grown fowls are his victims, but
the youngest, most tender. At night Mother Hen
receives under her maternal wings a dozen newly
hatched chickens, and with much pride and satis-
faction feels them all safely tucked away in her
feathers. In the morning she is walking about
disconsolately, attended by only two or three.
What has happened ? Where are they gone ?
That pickpocket, Sir Mephitis, could solve the
mystery. Quietly has he approached, under cover
of darkness, and, one by one, relieved her of her
precious charge. Look closely, and you will see
their little yellow legs and beaks or a part of a
mangled form lying about on the ground. Or,
before the hen has hatched, he may find her out,
and, by the same sleight of hand, remove every

egg."

This is sad ; but I am inclined to think both Dr.
Lord and Mr. Burroughs have let fancy run away
with them, and that such delicate knavery is more
often to be credited to the artistic touch of the
mink or weasel. The skunk is no fool, and may
perhaps be cunning enough, but he is too careless
and bull-headed to do his work with the neatness
and precaution against detection implied in the
operations described above. He goes boldly into
the roosting flock at night and slashes about him

234 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

with the carelessness of a Musketeer of the Guard;
and when the commotion brings the farmer and
his gun, it is ten to one whether he make a single
intelligent effort to get away. As a matter of fact,
roost-robbery is only an occasional wickedness;
or, more truly, perhaps, it is only a few skunks who
adopt the habit of raiding the poultry-yard, and the
total of his depredations does not amount to a tithe
of the return he makes by his nocturnal activity
among the gophers, mice, and injurious insects.
Moreover, he has to bear the blame of most of
the misdeeds of the more stealthy and sagacious
fox, marten, and weasel.

What are the skunk's natural enemies ? Well,
like other of the smaller mammals, he must suffer
from the attacks of the larger ones, though it is
customary to assert — but this is largely an assump-
tion open to dispute — that he is not so frequently
seized as would be another animal equally tooth-
some and incautious, by the puma, wild-cats, wolves,
and large hawks and owls, all of which do some-
times kill and eat him. He must now and then
get into fatal quarrels with the fox, badger, fisher,
mink, and other weasels with which he comes into
competition and contact, but against which he can
make a pretty nearly equal fight, regardless of his
quick-firing battery.

This suggests some interesting speculations as
to the actual value to the animal of its peculiar
defensive armature. One would think, — consider-

WESTERN SKUNK PELTS.

A season's catch of skins by two young trappers in southwestern Kansas.
Note the variety in the markings of the large skunks, especially as to the
amount of white on the tail; also the two pelts, in the lowest row, of the little
spotted skunk, with its cross-barred appearance. Minks, muskrats, and prairie
hares make up the remainder of the catch.

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 235

ing its ability to adapt itself to any kind of country
or climate, as is shown by its almost continental
range; recalling the wide variety and plenty of
its food, not to speak of its faculty for avoiding
winter scarcity by sleeping its want away ; and re-
membering the character of its anal artillery, —
one would think, I say, that, leaving humanity out
of the question, this animal had practically no limit
to its increase and longevity ; and when one adds
to this the fact of its unusual prolificacy, it is sur-
prising that the land is not positively overrun with
skunks. Yet there never seems to have been any
disproportionate abundance of them. One impor-
tant check to their multiplication may be fatal in-
testinal parasites, derived from their prey, but these
are probably no more injurious to this carnivore
than to many others ; and the wonder grows, —
not that there are so many skunks, but that there
are not millions more.

If Mr. Wallace and his friends are right, the
conspicuous coloring of the skunk is designed
(in a Darwinian sense) as a "warning" to all
and sundry in the forest to keep their distance.
On the back of every Northern skunk are bold
white bands and patches alternating with coal-
black, making it an object visible and attractive
to brute curiosity from a long distance ; but, as
if to increase this notoriety to its utmost, the
animal always hoists its tail, and the tip of it
— or, in some species, the whole of this pompon-

236 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

like appendage — is glaring white. Conspicuous ?
You can see it bobbing along above the grass
as far away as you can see anything of its size,
and know that "one o' thim pesky skoonks" is
wandering through the meadow when his body
is entirely concealed. So strong an example as
this has been quickly seized upon, of course, by
the Darwinians as an example of the effect of
natural selection in automatically producing ser-
viceable colors ; but perhaps the display does
not prove as useful to the skunk's welfare as
some less striking pattern would be. In his
highly interesting little book on Nicaragua, for
example, Belt remarks that "at night the skunk
goes leisurely along, holding up his white tail
as a danger-flag for none to come within range
of his dangerous artillery"; and adds: "The
animal is not likely to be pounced upon by any
of the carnivora mistaking it for other night-
roaming animals."

As a matter of fact, however, is it not " pounced
upon " quite as often as are other night-rovers ?
I do not recall at the moment a record of a
puma having actually been known to have killed
a skunk, but there is no reason to suppose this
animal or the lynx or common wild-cat would hesi-
tate to strike one down if he were hungry, — as
when" is he not ? The stealthy approach, sudden
spring, and back-crushing bite of one of these or
any other big cat would be a method of attack

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 237

that in most cases would give the artillerist no
opportunity to wheel into "action front"; and,
furthermore, it appears that when a close and
sudden combat occurs, as in the tussle with the
snake witnessed by Dr. Abbott, or such a fight
over spoil and right of way as would occur in
a burrow between two rival skunks or a com-
peting mink or badger, — a regular teeth-and-toe-
nail scrimmage, — the anal glands are not dis-
charged. A similar restraint would, no doubt, in
most cases attend the fierce and sudden swoop
of an owl, hawk, or eagle, — birds that cause the
death of many a skunk and conepate. If, as is
true, a comparatively slight blow across the small
of the back will paralyze and render powerless
the whole hind quarters of the animal, including
the gland-muscles, the deadly clutch of a heavy
bird's talons are likely to have a similar effect.
If the skunk has not judgment enough to let a
big black snake alone, as we have seen, probably
he must often (especially in the West) tackle a
rattlesnake or copperhead, whose prompt turn
and poisonous stroke could hardly be prevented
by any discharge of the glandular liquid.

(This suggests a parenthetical note to show how
these two creatures must sometimes encounter one
another under undesired circumstances. The rat-
tling of the crotalus is wonderfully similar to that
of a grasshopper, — the skunk's favorite tidbit;
and that animal may occasionally be deceived into

238 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

running heedlessly upon a rattlesnake when it
expected to pounce upon a grasshopper. A fight
might ensue, and both parties might be fatally
injured before explanations could be given ; but a
victory would be of no value to the reptile, at least,
for no rattlesnake could get even a half-grown
skunk down its throat. In such a situation as
this the alleged "warning rattle" of the snake
would become a means of attraction instead of
repulsion, — of harm rather than benefit.)

There remain to be considered only foxes and
wolves as natural enemies of the skunk, other than
men and their dogs ; and as these alone attack
him boldly or by chase, in such a way as ordinarily
to inform him of danger in time to defend him-
self, it is against them mainly that his peculiar
weapon would be of service. Now the fox is so
knowing, so sly and sagacious, that he must be
fully aware of what to expect, and take such pre-
cautions against harm to himself as distinguish
him elsewhere. He has the nature of a dog, but
he has learned the strategy of the cat, and we are
bound to believe, from what we know of his cun-
ning methods in respect to other prey, that he
takes good care to get the skunk at a disadvantage
before he attacks it. Evidence of this is afforded
by the experience of trappers. "To the fox-
trapper," says one intelligent writer on the subject,
" this animal is a pest, so that most of the skunks
of the neighborhood must be caught or got rid of

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 239

before success with the foxes begins. A slight
compensation is made by the fact that the taint
left about the setting-place attracts more foxes;
and trappers know that skunk-flesh is their best
bait. Sometimes when a skunk has been caught
by the foot he will free himself by self-amputation.
In such cases " they seldom get in a second time,
as in their weak and mutilated condition they fall
an easy prey to the fox, who is fond of their flesh :
so much so that he will sometimes gnaw off the
leg by which the skunk is held in the trap, and
carry off his booty to be eaten at leisure."

The wolf, on the other hand, from indifference
to caution, blind ferocity, and pure courage, seems
to take no such care. He knows he can easily
run down this slow-footed animal, and simply rushes
at him with open jaws. If, as usually happens,
no doubt, he gets a blast which burns his eyes and
mouth, and stifles him for the moment, he may
halt, but, maddened with pain and rage, will rush
again at the little animal the instant he recovers
vision and breath, and make mince-meat of it in
half a minute.

That this picture of the behavior of the wolf is
substantially accurate is shown not only by what
we actually know of both the gray wolf and coyote,
but by the behavior of dogs, any of which that
have any hunt in them, will dash at a skunk with
the utmost fury, whenever they get a chance, and
without an instant's hesitation. If the little beast

24O v WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

sees them coming, he prepares to fire, and never
fails to hit his mark. "The instant a dog has
received a discharge of this kind on his nose and
eyes, he appears half distracted, plunging his nose
into the earth, rubbing the sides of his face on the
leaves and grass, and rolling in every direction."
So says Audubon ; and that skunk often goes free.
But this authority adds that the same dogs do not
hesitate to attack other skunks as soon after as
they are able, and this despite severe punishments
by their masters. Many other experiences to the
same purport might be quoted, — for example, the
dog of Mr. Fred Mather, long a Fish Commis-
sioner of New York, which, driven back in his
first attack, recovered spirit enough in a few
minutes to rush in with streaming eyes and demol-
ish the enemy ; and which ever afterward killed
skunks with his eyes shut!

As far as the mere stench is concerned, I doubt
whether that deters any animals from attacking or
consuming this or any other of the many animals
noxious to us by reason of their musky secretions.
We must be careful not to impute to the dogs,
wolves, etc., the mental or physical disgust we feel
at this vile odor. The fluid itself burns their
eyes, nostrils, and throats, but the smell is more
likely to attract than offend them ; and it is proba-
bly the instinctive appreciation of this which leads
the skunk to take the greatest care, by hoisting
its tail and spreading its haunches, to prevent a

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 24!

drop falling upon its own fur. Sometimes the
wind blows the liquid back ; but the animal never
soils itself or its companions or its bed if it can
avoid it. A skunk's den is as nearly odorless as
is that of any wild musteline animal. Moreover,
it seems to regard the secretion as exceedingly
precious, and not to be used except as a very last
resort. Many a dog gets a good grip before the
emission occurs, and under those circumstances
it is likely to be quite wasted. " When caught in
steel traps," says Merriam, "not more than one in
twenty will smell, and the remaining nineteen
suffer themselves to be tormented to an astonish-
ing degree before 'opening the valve.'" Men
who make a business of trapping and breeding
skunks seem to have little fear of them so long
as they approach them quietly and handle them
gently, and they know many ways of putting them
to death without causing a discharge.

It seems to me, therefore, that as a weapon of
defence the discharge of the skunk is not as
unfailing and complete as has been supposed ;
that as many active enemies seek to kill the
animal, and probably succeed in killing it, as if it
did not have such a weapon ; that, on the other
hand, it sometimes serves as an advertisement of
its presence and leads to its discovery by enemies
that might otherwise overlook it ; that in resisting
the tactics of certain antagonists this " weapon "
is, as a rule, practically useless, since they keep

242 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

out of range, and in respect to others is inadequate,
since it often causes only a temporary check (which
the animal is too slow to take great advantage of),
or does not stop the onslaught of all ; lastly, it
appears that the animal is loth to make use of the
"weapon," and often delays doing so until it is too
late. It remains a question, therefore, whether
the possession of this ability is not a disadvan-
tage rather than a help to the animal ; and whether
in the process of development the influences of
natural selection have not freed the other Mus-
telidse from it, as an incumbrance, rather than have
developed it to a high degree in this species as
an advantageous accessory.

As to his conspicuous colors and ostentatious
manner of cocking up his white plume of a tail,
these seem to be a "warning" only to civilized
man, and even to him a signal that leads more
often than otherwise to the animal's premature
discovery and death; while, if the statements
above written are true, this indiscreet display of
himself only shows the big cats, the wolves, birds
of prey, and the farmer's dog, where their quarry
is, and enables them to plan an attack before they
themselves have been observed.

The skunk is coming to be considered more
and more valuable as a fur-bearer ; and his coat,
cleansed of any possible odor, dyed a uniform
black, and made up into garments, clothes many
a fair maid who is told she wears "Alaska sable."

vin THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 243

It is sable only in artificial hue, and probably came
from Connecticut ; but it is a good, warm, hand-
some fur for all that, and there is no occasion to
gird at its real origin. It seems to me that the
use of the skins without dyeing, employing their
natural contrast of white and black, might serve
admirably in certain goods, as robes ; but this is
rarely if ever seen. If the reason is that the prej-
udice against the name is too great to be over-
come with the average purchaser, several better
euphemisms than the false and meaningless
" Alaska sable " might have been chosen by the
furriers. Nobody knows the source of the word
skunk, but it is probably an early Canadian French-
English shortening and corruption of the Abenaki
Indian term secancu or the Huron scangaresst.
The Crees of the Canadian Northwest called the
animal seecawk ; but a better trade name would
have been ckinga, by which the animal became
known to the early European naturalists by speci-
mens from French sources in the Mississippi
valley.

The pelts are now worth from fifty cents to one
dollar and a half to the trapper. The business at
best is not one calculated to make the practitioner
popular in fastidious society ; and reminds one of
the force of the somewhat coarse maxim formerly
quoted in admonishing a person not to spread
abroad home-scandals, — " Let every man skin
his own skunk ! "

244 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

The oil procured by boiling the bodies of skunks
is also a commodity salable to druggists, and worth
at present about fifty cents a pound to the maker.
The demand has increased of late, the oil (applied
externally) having high repute as a relieving agent
in diseases of the chest and bronchial tubes, es-
pecially croup, for which it has been a household
remedy in New England since Colonial days.
There is no reason to suppose, however, that it
has any medicinal value different from or superior
to any other fine animal oil, which easily penetrates
the pores and mollifies and lubricates the air-pas-
sages ; its supposed special efficacy in bronchial dis-
orders is doubtless a superstitious transference to
the oil of the unquestioned value in some phases of
such disorders of the substance of the scent-glands,
— a remedy based upon entirely different qualities
and effects than are possessed by this oil, or that
of the rattlesnake or any other out-of-the-way creat-
ure, highly regarded in " old-woman " doctoring.
When relief follows an application it may be con-
sidered a faith-cure, in so far as any particular
effect of this specific kind of oil is concerned.

However this may be, there is a steady demand
for the commodity ; and as a fat skunk will yield
a pound and a half, there is profit in making it.
Thus the systematic catching of skunks has become
a regular business in certain regions, where they
are plentiful, and many persons are engaged in it,
particularly in Connecticut, New York, and Penn-

vni THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 245

sylvania. In several localities, in fact, large en.
closures have been set apart for the breeding and
rearing of these animals for profit, such places
being known as " skunkeries." No animal is more
easily trapped. He seems to be stupid beyond
belief in this respect, and will walk into a deadfall,
or step into a spring-trap or get himself caught in
almost any simple device that most animals would
simply laugh at. One favorite trick is to climb
into a barrel that he knows or fancies contains
something good to eat, without heeding that he
cannot climb out again. Merriam says that a
steel trap, set at the mouth of an inhabited burrow
will often capture the entire family at the rate of
one a night. " In winter half a dozen or more
may sometimes be taken in a single night, in the
following manner: the hunter treads a narrow
path in the snow, leading from the mouth of the
hole away in the direction of some favorite resort,
and, at intervals along this path, the traps are set
in the snow. At nightfall, when the skunks come
out, they march, single file, down the path, the
mother usually taking the lead. The head one is
generally caught in the first trap, and the others
climb over the resulting obstruction, and move on
till a second is taken, and a third, and so on."

The flesh is edible. Not only were the Indians
everywhere fond of it, but most white men, who
have been able to forget the associations of the
name, agree that the flesh is white, tender, juicy,

246 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

and as good as suckling-pig, which it resembles.
This of course implies that the animal has been
carefully skinned and freed from its glands. The
voyageurs of the Northwest were accustomed to
skin and dissect the animal under running water,
which rid it of its skunkiness ; in Nova Scotia, at
the other end of the continent, the Indians ate it
without minding whether it was tainted or not,
according to Gilpin.

One topic in connection with this subject might
be debated at length here, did it seem worth while ;
namely, the exhibition of rabies in the skunk, com-
municating hydrophobia to any human being bitten
by an affected animal. Very full discussion of this
may be found in the "American Journal of Science
and Art"1 for May, 1874, by the Rev. H. C. Hovey ;
and this has been extensively quoted and com-
mented upon by Dr. Elliott Coues in his " Fur-
Bearing Animals," by William A. Baillie-Grohman
in his " Camps in the Rockies," and by other
competent authorities, so that the facts connected
with the subject are accessible to most readers.
In a word, the occasional appearance of rabies
among skunks is a well-known fact in all parts of
the country, and it has frequently happened that
men and dogs bitten by these animals have subse-
quently died of hydrophobia. It has been alleged
that this was a disease distinguished as mephitic

i Third Aeries, Vol. VII, No. 41, Art. XLIV, pp. 477-483, May,
,1874-

THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED

247

rabies, independent of canine rabies ; while others
assert that it is simply canine madness com-
municated to skunks by some mad dog, fox, or
wolf, and thence started as a local epidemic among
the skunks of the neighborhood. My own view
inclines to the latter opinion. Certainly the bite
of a skunk is ordinarily no more to be feared than
that of any other wild animal, wounds from whose
teeth are always liable to be followed by blood-
poisoning due to particles of corrupt flesh adher-
ing to the teeth and left in the wounds.

What has been said in all the foregoing pages
applies to skunks in general, as a study of char-
acter, habits, and qualities, though more especially
to the common Northern species known in zoology
as Mephitis mephitica. In the southwestern United
States and northern Mexico two other very similar
species are distinguished, — Mephitis macrura and
M. estor. In addition to this a closely allied
group of skunks inhabits the warmer parts of the
continent, known as the Little Striped Skunks,
and constituting the genus Spilogale. These are
decidedly smaller than Mephitis, and instead of the
two more or less broad stripes reaching backward
from the nape of the neck on each side of the
spine (their shape and extent is very variable),
four narrow and often broken and irregular white
stripes lie upon the neck and shoulders, while the
sides and rump are marked by transverse curving
lines and spots; these lines are subject to great

248 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, vin

variation, and often are broken into spots and bars,
which variegate the black pelt in a very handsome
way. One of these little fellows (Spilogale putorius)
is distributed throughout most of the Southern
States and the whole region west of the Missis-
sippi River. They can be domesticated like the
others ; and it is said that in Florida they are
sometimes tamed and kept about the house, like
cats, on account of their usefulness in catching
mice. Several other species of Spilogale are found
in the dry region stretching from Southern Utah
to Central Mexico. Finally, we have, in Texas,
and thence southward throughout Central and
South America, the white-backed skunk, which
the aborigines of Mexico called conepate, and
naturalists call Conepatus mapurito. This species
is rather larger than the common skunk, its head
is narrower, and the snout more pig-like, and bald
and callous on top, as if used to much rooting ; while
the tail, instead of being a long plume, is a short,
stubby brush. In color it is black, like the others ;
but instead of stripes the whole back is white, from
the forehead to and including the tail, giving a very
striking blanket-like effect, but this often stops
short of the tail, or is divided by a narrow black
line along the spine.

An excellent account of these southern skunks
may be read in Bailey's " Biological Survey of
Texas," published by the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture, in 1905, as No. 25 of the
North American Fauna.

250

IX

A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER

WHETHER one considers the woodchuck in its
relation to New England, or New England with
reference to the woodchuck, the singular adaptabil-
ity of each to the other is at once apparent. It is
the foremost success and pride of the Yankee that
he uses his means and material to the best advan-
tage, — gets the utmost effect out of the least
expenditure. It is the boast of the woodchuck
that he has reduced the life of a quadruped in a
northern climate to its lowest terms, and takes
less trouble and worry, in the course of a fat and
happy year, than any other beast of the field.

This is true, and he and the Yankee manage
to thrive together, coming out about even when
the books are annually balanced in October. Each
reflects upon the other's qualities with growing
respect, while separated by winter; and studies
over the next move in the discussion of the
question, " Who owns the clover-patch ? " Then,
some fine spring morning, the man finds only
gnawed stubs in the place of certain succulent
young vegetables he had selfishly saved for his

2$2 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

dinner, shakes his fist over the fence, muttering
" Durn that 'chuck ! " whereupon the animal sits
up peart, as every independent New Englander
has a right to do, and whistles back : " Keep cool ;
your old lettuce wasn't much good anyhow ! "

Surely there are excellent reasons why the
animal should thrive and increase, in spite of
widening civilization, from the Housatonic to the
St. Croix, and from Lake Champlain to Cape Cod,
for not only the physical conditions, but the mental
and moral atmosphere, of New England suit him.
He approves of Yankee institutions, and does his
best to fall in with them and be pleasant about it.
It is therefore disheartening that he is often mis-
understood. He has broad views of hospitality,
for example, and it pains him to find himself
unwelcome in the farmer's garden, — positively in
peril of violence, sometimes, — when he himself
is entirely willing that his human neighbors should
visit his meadow and clover-field, and even carry
away as much of the crop as they like, since the
good Lord has sent enough for all.

Other slight misunderstandings exist ; but, on
the whole, the two New Englanders differ more in
the number of their legs than in anything else, —
except, perhaps, in views as to the object of life,
which is not a matter for quarrelling between
friends. Their aims are substantially the same, —
in a word, to get the most for the least ; and, on
the whole, the four-legged one seems to have.

ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 253

attained to the higher success. The woodchuck
manages, for instance, to shirk the tribulations of
winter altogether, yet at the same time to stay
where he is, and to stop all expenses. Whenever
the Yankee tries to do that, he is obliged to
undertake a toilsome journey and double his ex-
penditures. But to comprehend the nature and
appreciate the success of this admirable economist,
we must acquaint ourselves with his ideals and
methods.

The woodchuck is born in humble circumstances,
as one of four or five equally young and poor, but
honest, brothers and sisters. His natal chamber
is a snug room, retired some three feet under
ground, and his birthday is never far from the
first of May. It is not only well for a little
'chuck to start with regularity upon his methodical
career, but it prevents heartburning and strife
to have all the youngsters in the community of
practically the same age; it also facilitates their
education, both for teachers and taught, when the
whole body of youth can progress together from
the kindergarten to commencement-day, and be
graduated en masse. The concluding studies, no
doubt, are practical instructions as to mining,
courses upon the avoidance of projectiles, and
tactics of warfare with dogs, with occasional lect-
ures upon the mechanics of traps and the art of
tree-climbing. Some of the more ambitious even
emulate their human fellow citizens by going to

254 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

college, — as all the Wellesley girls of a few years
ago are able to testify, regularly joining in the
morning exercises with a clear soprano from the
chapel lawn.

Within a very few days the little ones are able
to stumble down the long hallway that leads to
their castle-door, and to open their brown eyes
upon a beautiful green world preparing to greet
the coming June. The breeze comes soft and
odorous to the fresh nostrils that snuff it up like
an elixir, shadows are trembling upon the emerald,
edible sward, and an infinitude of music salutes
the small ears that now for the first time may be
opened, since there is no longer danger of dust
falling into them. Clinging timorously to the
brown fur of the mother, they trot and tumble
after her, marvelling at everything, and halting in
wonder as with every few steps she rears herself
upon her haunches and gazes far and near over
the heads of the blossoming grass. Some even
try to imitate her, and, until they tumble backward,
sit up with head on one side and ears pricked,
pretending to listen most intently. By and by
they will learn to discriminate, among the confused
murmurs that tremble upon their ears, those that
threaten from those meaning no harm. The
farmer will tell you that no other animal has
hearing so acute, enabling it to perceive noises
that escape his notice altogether ; yet their ears
are small, seem muffled in fur, and may be

IX A NATURAL NEW ENGLAND ER 2$$

pressed down, dust-tight, when the animal is
tunnelling.

The young shoots of the grasses and weeds
smell good, and the cubs exercise their white new
teeth in nibbling these a little, but the mother
guides them on further to a treat — a bunch of
plantain ; and there they get their first out-door
meal. As they grow older they learn to like many
different vegetables, but never lose their special
fondness for the juicy plantain.

Day by day they develop in size, strength, and
accomplishments. As playful as other youngsters,
they roll, and tumble, and chase one another, but
never go so far away that they cannot scuttle back
to the ancestral burrow the instant the warning
whistle of some watchful companion tells them a
boy, or dog, or other dreaded creature is coming.
In the old days, before the Yankees took the
trouble to "improve" a country that, in some
respects at least, was better before they began,
the woodchucks all lived in the woods —

" As their name implies," you say ?

Hold on a bit, my friend. That word "wood-
chuck " is bad English for a half-forgotten Indian
term, and has nothing to do with " woods " at all.
But let us go on.

And although often, doubtless, they sought the
grassy glades and river-bottoms for food, they
were not tenants of the open country, and were
scarcely known on the Western prairies until

256 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

emigrants settled there, planting clover-fields and
garden-patches, when the woodchucks followed to
see that everything was right, and that none of
the good things should be wasted. They still
make their winter homes more often in the woods,
in all parts of the country, than in cleared ground.

Finding an abundance to eat, and being eager
to fulfil their whole duty in that direction, the
young ones grow rapidly, and carry their games
farther and farther afield. Woodchucks do not
dwell in companies, nor make " towns," like their
Western cousins, the prairie-dogs ; but it is never
far to a neighbor's hole, visits back and forth soon
become frequent, and the next thing one knows
the youngsters are big and bold enough to go
wandering off by themselves, seeking adventures
and often finding them.

Now is the time — in these long midsummer
days, when the hay is ripening and garden-sauce is
at its best — when that old quarrel with the farmer
begins, because he will not take their view of
things. The woodchuck can no more see the
propriety of fencing off — though he admits that
stone walls are fine refuges, in case he has to run
for it — a space of the very finest fodder, than the
British peasant can see the right of shutting him out
of a grove where there are wild rabbits, or forbid-
ding him to fish in a certain stream. So he climbs
over, or digs under, or creeps through, the fence,
and makes a path or a playground for himself

ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 2$?

amid the timothy and the clover, and laughs, as he
listens from a hole in the wall or under a stump,
to hear the farmer using language which is good
Saxon but bad morals, and the dog barking him-
self into a fit. Next day he watches his chance,
invites his best friend to the feast, and makes his
way to a certain bed of lettuce, to a field of celery,
to rows of juicy beets and cabbages, or best of all,
to a patch of peas, — he will risk his whiskers for
green peas! — where the two rascals will stuff
their cheeks and fill themselves until their bulging
stomachs fairly drag upon the ground. Then the
farmer swears harder than ever, and if the greedy
marauders try to repeat their performance, ten to
one they will get buckshot inside their ribs, or
find themselves prisoners in the torture of a trap.
Woodchucks seem never to " catch on " to a trap,
until it has caught on to them.

One, having thus, or otherwise, fallen into the
hands of a naturalist many years ago, was labelled
Arctomys monax, — the monk bear-mouse; and the
tribe has never been able to get rid of it.

Another unkindness, in woodchuck opinion, is
the way folks laugh at his gait and movements.
He feels no call to hurry, and he does not consider
it a just matter for ridicule that many other
animals are able to outrun him. His ambitions
are intellectual rather than athletic. If he is loose
in his clothes — well, so is man's favorite, the cat ;
and he thinks it is unfair, when some one sees him

258 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, ix

coming cautiously down a rock, to say that his
flabby body " pours itself over the ledge." His gait,
he asserts, is no more a waddle than that of the
ducks, in which farmers take so much delight. But
all this is only a part of the injustice with which he
feels that mankind regards his race. It does not
lead him to retaliate, being a hater of strife, but
only causes him to withdraw his society as much
as possible from those who will not treat him with
respect. None of us can escape criticism, and
vanity is universal, but life is too short to be
wasted in losing one's temper.

Most persons agree, however, that when our
little friend sits up on the tripod of his hind legs
and short, stiff tail, as he is fond of doing, and
eats his morsel like a gentleman or a squirrel, —
when you come to classify him you find him
nothing but a big ground-squirrel, after all, — the
woodchuck is an interesting fellow, and not in the
least ridiculous. His coat is soft reddish brown,
with a good deal of variety in it, from yellowish
gray to those Canadian ones that are almost black ;
his nose, chin, and cheeks are gray or yellow-
ish ; his cap, tail, and feet are brownish black ; while
his eyes are large and bright ; and when he pricks
up his ears and looks and listens with his head on
one side, and his hands drooped in fine-lady
fashion, there is a "cunning" aspect in his face
that makes you forgive him all his sins. Once in
a while a young one will rise up out of the brown

259

CHAP, ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 261

leaves and look at you with eyes so full of sur-
prised innocence that you haven't the heart to
scare him by even a loud word.

Sometimes folks insist upon a closer acquaint-
ance, and, capturing a young one, take him into
the house. Then the woodchuck does his best to
please, and makes a delightful pet, cleanly, teach-
able, and not too much inclined to mischief.

But even a young woodchuck has to settle down
and be serious after a while; and his way is to
begin by falling in love. This is as easy as falling
off a log, and is not the serious part. I shall not
pry into the secrets of the rustic courtship, what
time the trembling swain invites his shy friend to
the summer-garden of mint and plantain at the
edge of the orchard ; or when, surprised by canine
brigands, he gallantly pushes her behind him into
a cave or refuge beneath the old apple roots and,
facing the foe, clashes his teeth in fierce defiance
until the vagrom dogs retire ; nor, least of all,
shall we follow the enamoured two as they steal
side by side across the midnight meadow, passing
from moonlight to shadow and back into moon-
light again, as lovers must, parting the fragrant
blossoms, nibbling here a tidbit, and taking there a
sip of dew, then hurrying homeward as the golden
crescent hangs in the tree-tops, alarmed at the
lateness they had forgotten.

Now life begins as much in earnest as it is pos-
sible for a pair of woodchucks to know. This

262 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

brother and that have already gone thither and
yon to set up for themselves, some liking to stay
close to the ancestral burrow, others, having a roving
disposition, emigrating to the next farm, or even as
far as the further slope of the hill. Mindful of the
parting advice of the old pair, — "Above all things
choose a place where a freshet or heavy rain will
not flood you out of house and home," — the young
couple take a sunny hillside long ago selected. It
is crowned by rocky woods bounded by an old
stone wall, and thence slopes down in grassy past-
ure to the meadows and gardens along the river.
Many a deep hole — a sort of playhouse — has
the young husband dug when a boy, — you may
see New England pastures pitted with these bach-
elor experiments in tunnelling ; but now he must
work steadily and for a purpose. His feet are
armed with powerful claws, and the toes are partly
webbed, so that they make excellent shovels ; and
when he encounters a bit of hard-packed earth, or
a stone, he has a pickaxe in his strong front teeth,
which quickly cuts down or loosens the obstacle.
Shovelling the dust beneath him, he now and then
stops and backs out, kicking vigorously, until he
has swept all the loose stuff to the entrance of the
tunnel, and has sent it flying outward. First, he
slants steeply down for three or four feet, and
then begins to work upward (and here is the ad-
vantage of a hill-slope site), so that there will be
ready drainage away from his living room at the

ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 263

inner extremity. He does not care much whether
his tunnel is straight or curved. If he meets a
rock or large root, he goes around it ; and he usually
excavates two or three short branches, one of
which is afterward used as a place for depositing
all excrement and refuse. At last, twenty or twenty-
five feet from the entrance, he stops, and scoops
out a chamber big enough for the two of them to
turn around in comfortably. This done, the young
wife makes a basket of her cheeks, and carries in
enough grass for a soft bed. Meanwhile her
mate has extended a branch of the tunnel to the
surface, opening there, beneath a tussock of grass
or stump or stone, a small exit against a time of
need, as when a mink, weasel, or big snake in-
vades the premises; but no hillock of earth is
thrown out around this back door, to attract atten-
tion.

Such is the home of the old-fashioned contented
woodchuck family ; but that admirable disposition
in this race to steadfastly reduce exertion to a mini-
mum, is leading the more thoughtful ones to get
rid of the last vestige of the labor slavery of their
ancestors, and release themselves from even house-
building. Many young 'chucks, nowadays, there-
fore, simply renovate abandoned burrows of the year
before, for it is the fashion in Arctomid society to
change the dwelling-place annually ; or they seek a
retreat in the hollow that nature has kindly opened
for their accommodation beneath and within some

264 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

ancient tree ; or even take possession of a cavity
in the stone wall that the farmer has thoughtfully
provided. The Yankee calls this laziness. Here
again the woodchuck protests that such a view is
calumnious and unphilosophical. He declares that
it is a wicked waste of time and energy to do any-
thing avoidable not in the direct line of happiness,
which, as every one knows, consists in gambolling
among odorous herbage, swinging in the top of a
bush, climbing trees, — a method of seeing the world
every whit as good as laborious travel, — soaking
for hours in the sunshine, strolling in the moon-
light, and contemplating one's increase of fat-
ness as autumn approaches. Why work when
one may play ? Why play when one may loaf ?
Why loaf when one may sleep ? And the 'chuck
further complains of the impropriety of harsh
criticism from men who boast of their labor-saving
machines, which, in his opinion, are labor-making,
since they exist in order that two men shall work —
but differently — where only one worked before.

"And yet," he goes on, as he sits up with his
gray old back leaning comfortably against a smooth
boulder, and chatters at me, with a burr in his
speech and clattering teeth that make his words
difficult to understand at first, —

" And yet they call it ' labor-saving,' and say
that they are doing this ceaseless, prodigious
struggling, in order to get a chance to rest and en-
joy themselves, Jt's too deep for a woodchuck!

IX A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 26$

If they want to get rid of work, why in the world
don't they stop working ? Look at Hiram Coffin
over there. When I was a little cub he lived in
a log-cabin. I never could get up early enough to
be ahead of him in the fields, and couldn't keep
my eyes open late enough to. see him go in. Still
he sang and whistled (almost as good as a wood-
chuck, sometimes), and now and then went on a
spree, so that I concluded he was as happy as he
knew how to be. Next year he put up an addition
to his cabin and then had to work so hard to pay
for it that he had no time to sing at all. Now " —
pointing a black-gloved paw across the valley —
"behold that big brick mansion he's building;
and look at him ! He's bent and stiff and thin.
Thin ? why, he wouldn't last through the winter
in the best burrow on the hill ! He has to wear
tight boots and a close collar, and worries from
morning till night for fear the bank will break,
or bugs will get into his wheat, or his winter fires
burn up his new house.

" Now look at me ! In my first year I nearly
wore myself out digging a long tunnel : some were
good enough to say it was the finest burrow in the
valley. Next year I cleaned out a hole left by
a fool 'chuck that wanted to ' see the world,' and
got nabbed by a dog — and served him right!
Last year I wasted a beautiful day in enlarging
a cave under a stump. This fall I have my eye
on a hollow log, and my wife and I will stuff it with

266 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

grass in half an hour, and sleep there just as
happily as if it had cost a fortnight's digging."

It is too bad that such calm philosophers as this
should be annoyed by dogs and hunters. Even
Thoreau, finding a respectable woodchuck engaged
in its doorway in conversation with some one in-
side, reached in, seized it by the tail, dragged
it out, and flung it far down hill. Could any indig-
nity be greater, or, from that source, more unex-
pected ? Worse than this, some folks, having
learned it from the aborigines, desire marmot
skins for mittens, wallets, and the like ; and even
try to catch the poor things in order to eat their
flesh.

That the animal is not really spiritless and lazy,
but deliberately reposeful, is shown by the way that,
when pursued, he can exert reserve energy to good
purpose in getting into a place of safety ; and hav-
ing his means of retreat strategically secure, is
willing and able to give valiant battle. Then the
chattering and growling of his voice, and the clat-
tering and gritting of his teeth, make any enemy
think twice before proceeding to close quarters.
This gives him time to rush to his castle, into
which he plunges, flinging scorn and defiance at
his impotent foes. If a ferret penetrates his de-
fences, or a man digs them up, he steals from his
postern gate and hurries to new intrenchments.
Hence in the South, when a person is seen work-
ing with feverish energy at a hopeless task, men

ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 267

shake their heads and remark that it is a " ground-
hog case," — that is, a useless proceeding.

When the meadows have been mowed, and from
the stubble springs up a magnificent crop of
clover, comes the heyday of the woodchuck's
year. His midsummer housework is done, his
mind is free from care, and he may eat all he
wants of this daintiest of food. There is nothing
he likes so well and nothing that does him so much
good. His cheeks widen, his ribs are distended,
and his loose skin is stretched out sleek with fat-
ness. At last the 'chucks can hold no more, and
need only loaf in the September warmth and doze
away the time until the sun crosses the equinoctial
line at the end of the month. This is the blessed
date when etiquette permits them to refuse longer
to tax themselves with social amenities, and to
begin their Lenten fast.

One after another each pair of woodchucks
retreat dozily to their beds, curl up side by side
into two balls of warm fur, and fall fast asleep. A
week later the most diligent searcher will not once
hear the "chuckling diminuendo of the wood-
chuck's whistle" of which Mr. Robinson speaks,
for not a single siffleur is to be found on top of
the ground. Warm sunny days may succeed one
another, frost and snow may hold off for weeks,
but the woodchuck pays no heed. His rule en-
joins him to go to sleep by the first of October ;
therefore to sleep he goes, and stays there with

268 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

that fixity of purpose that only the devotee of
method can attain to. Even the pet in your house,
kept warm the year through, will curl up in his
kennel (or, better, in your cellar) and be indifferent
to the world until his duty of sleep has been ful-
filled. Pick him up, and you will think him dead,
so rigid, cold, and insensible is he. Only the most
delicate instruments show that his heart beats and
that the blood still oozes sluggishly through his
inert veins. He will survive for hours in a jar of
carbonic-acid gas, where he would drown, when
awake, in two minutes. It is true that you may
carefully thaw him out, but the moment you let
him alone he will drop into slumber again, regard-
less of temperature. And so his winter passes in
one long dream of summer.

Could anything be sweeter or more convenient ?
Having only provided a shelter, he forthwith rids
himself of winter. He need make no other
preparation. Wrapped in his own fur, warmed
and fed by the slow consumption of the fat which
it was the supreme pleasure of his life to acquire,
apathetic to cold, hunger, fear, or fretting, he
escapes not only the famine and freezing to which
such animals as are abroad all the year are ex-
posed, but the hard work required of those, like
the chipmunk, which must fill a storehouse in
advance, in order to feed during the months of
scarcity. Ah, he is a canny old marmot !

But, sad to say, few things in this world are.

ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 269

still quite perfect, and even the woodchuck's sys-
tem of life has room for improvement. As it
sends him to bed at the autumnal equinox, so it bids
him awake at the vernal equinox, and this is too
early in modern New England. They say that he
often comes out even earlier, — some will tell you
on Candlemas Day, and others on St. Valentine's
Day (sometimes called Woodchuck Day by the
Yankees, who do not take much stock in foreign
saints); then he looks for his shadow, and if he
can see it he takes it as a sign that he would better
return to his bed.

" The festive ground-hog wakes to-day,

And with reluctant roll
He waddles up his sinuous way

And pops forth from his hole.
He rubs his little blinking eyes

So heavy from long sleep,
That he may read the tell-tale skies —

Which is it — wake or sleep?

" And next he turns three times around,

For it is written so,
That if his shadow 's on the ground

Or outlined in the snow,
He fain must tumble in again,

For so tradition says,
And snooze away down in his den

For forty more long days."

That is the way a poet of the newspaper-corner
expresses it; but I have never beheld such an

2/O WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

inquirer abroad, and am inclined to think the tale
an idle fancy : the woodchuck is too level-headed
to be likely to take counsel of a shadow.

He does certainly appear at the end of March,
however, even though, as usually happens, he
must bore his way out through a snow-bank. He
is then weak and lean and hungry, and is likely to
starve before the fresh grass appears.

I am at a loss how to explain this defect in the
woodchuck's system (unless he is accounted a Jack-
sonian Democrat from the South, unwilling to con-
cede anything to Northern ideas, even of climate),
except by the theory that his conservatism has for
once led him into disadvantage. There is such a
thing as the precession of the equinoxes, those cos-
mic dates upon which the marmot's whole reckon-
ing appears to be based ; these change a trifle every
year, and the effect in the course of time is to
bring the seasons and the names long ago applied
to them out of coincidence. The woodchuck
family is a very ancient one, and highly connected ;
when it first knew the autumnal equinox by name,
the late frosts had killed the herbage, nights were
cold, and bed-time was truly at hand. Similarly
in those days the vernal equinox really marked the
end of cold weather, the disappearance of snow,
and the sprouting of green leaves. But while, with
a commendable clinging to ancient ways, the wood-
chucks have been faithfully following old traditions,
the rascally earth has been wabbling in its orbit

IX A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 2?I

until the seasons have slipped back, and now the
animal goes to sleep long before he need, and
wakes up a month or two before he ought.

An astronomer tells me that there is much
force in this theory, but points out a trifling diffi-
culty in the fact that it is wrong end to, since the
effect of the /recession of the equinoxes is to
advance, rather than retard, the /recession of the
seasons ! You can study the matter out for your-
self and welcome. The woodchucks have shown
themselves otherwise possessed of so much clear-
headedness and philosophic wisdom, that I expect
soon to hear of their calling a council like that
which reformed our human calendar, and setting
this matter straight. That done, I see nothing left
for the most captious woodchuck to desire, and the
rest of us may then admire one bit of the world
perfected !

NOTE. — Much has been written about our woodchucks.
Technical descriptions of all the species and varieties will be
found in Dr. Elliot's " Synopsis " (see page 1 16). Their hiber-
nation is discussed in my "Life of Mammals"; and more fully
treated of in Wesley Mills's " Nature and Development of
Animal Intelligence." A very full and pleasing biography of
the animal in New England is that by W. E. Cram in Stone
and Cram's "American Animals'1; while other detailed ac-
counts may be found in Merriam's " Natural History of the
Adirondacks " (Transactions Linnaan Society of New York,
Vol. I, 1882), in Audubon and Bachman's "Quadrupeds of
North America," in Godman's " American Natural History,"
in Mrs. Wright's " Four-footed Americans," John Burroughs's
"Pepacton," Rowland Robinson's "In New England Fields
and Woods," Silas Lottridge's "Animal Snapshots," and in
various scientific periodicals.

X

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR

THE raccoon is a truly American animal, even to
its name. Captain John Smith, in his report upon
Virginia, mentions "a beast they call Aroughcun,
much like a badger, but vseth to Hue on trees
as Squirrels doe." The rapid Americans quickly
shortened these sonorous syllables to " raccoon,"
with the emphasis thrown strongly on the last
syllable, and now we usually cut even that down
to 'coon.

Truly if you were to dock his tail to a mere
scut, and not compare the markings on his face
too closely, he is " much like a badger " as the
observant Smith said ; but this is an accidental
and outward likeness soon forgotten, for the sharp,
flexible nose, the delicate, flat-soled feet, the arched
hind quarters, and the long ringed tail quickly im-
press themselves upon a new acquaintance. You
soon see that he is really a miniature Bruin —
"that brief summary of a bear," as Burroughs
styles him. In fact the early zoologists simply
put him in the genus Ursus, and had done with
it; but closer examination of his anatomy, while
272

CHAP.X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 2J$

it left him in the bear family, gave him a separate
genus, — Procyon. Our common Eastern raccoon
is Procyon lotor: another belonging to Central and
South America is Procyon cancrivorus, — the crab-
eater.

According to Mr. J. A. Allen, a comparison of
Northern with Southern specimens shows a gradual
increase in size southward, amounting to a seventh
or eighth of the bulk. There is also a tendency
to an increase in the intensity of the colors in the
same direction ; and this anatomist considers that
these variations explain away the "blackfooted,"
" psora," and two or three other nominal species
formerly distinguished.

Its range extends throughout the wooded parts
of the country as far northeast as central New
Brunswick, and northwest into northern British
Columbia, while it occurs sparingly on the North
Saskatchewan.

The raccoon is one of the most thoroughly noc-
turnal of all our mammals; and he hibernates
throughout the northern part of his range, more
or less unbrokenly, according to the weather, so
that only those know him well, in his wild condi-
tion, who are in the country at all seasons. Fortu-
nately, however, he is easily trapped and makes a
contented pet and convenient subject for study.

This simplicity of mind, which makes him un-
suspicious of novelties, seems to show that he is
not entitled to all of the reputation for acuteness

2/6 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

that has been given to him. Perhaps the fox is
his superior in real mental capacity, but the rac-
coon is so far beyond Reynard and many other
highly sagacious beasts in manual dexterity, that
he appears to be quite as clever as the best of
them. Add to this the remarkable acuteness of
his hearing, aided by sharp eyes and a quick nose,
and it is no wonder that "sly" has come to be
an accepted epithet describing him.

The 'coon most often makes his home in a hollow
tree, and is an excellent climber, yet he is not an
arboreal animal, in the sense that a squirrel is. As
Dr. Merriam puts it :

" They do not pursue their prey amongst the
tree-tops, after the manner of the martens ; nor
make a practice of gathering nuts from the
branches, like squirrels; nor do they, like the
porcupine, browse upon the green foliage. Trees
constitute the homes in which they rest and bring
forth their young, and to which they retreat when
pursued by man or beast; but their business is
transacted elsewhere."

The home of the raccoon family is usually in a
hollow high up in a tree, where a limb has been
wrenched off by the wind or water has rotted a
hole (perhaps begun by a woodpecker) large
enough for their accommodation ; but now and
then a place is selected nearer the ground, as a
hollow log; and Kennicott tells us that in the
open regions of Illinois and the neighboring States

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE SEAR 277

it will occupy the burrows of other animals and
even rear its progeny in them. It never digs a
hole of any kind for itself ; nor does it care for
much bedding, — those in captivity preferring the
bare boards of their pen to any litter that may be
furnished to them. It is a forest animal, then, and
rather inclined to swamps; but this may be merely
because wet lands most often contain damaged
trees, and also furnish more food than the hard,
dry, upland groves. More rarely in the West, it
takes excursions out on the prairies, doubtless in
search of insects and crayfish.

In such a hole are produced in early spring a
litter of five or six young ones that by and by
grow large enough to leave home and follow the
parents in their nocturnal vagabondage, staying
with them for a year or so, until they found fami-
lies of their own. Hence in the summer and au-
tumn, when 'coons are mainly in evidence, they
are most often met with in these little family com-
panies. It is rare to see a wild 'coon out of doors
in daylight, however ; or, if he does appear, it is
usually rolled up asleep in some lofty crotch, where
he dozes in the sunshine, rocked by the breeze.
In summer, however, when the young are old
enough to travel, they move about a good deal,
and -in the West often leave the woods altogether
and wander far out upon the prairies, taking
shelter in the deserted holes of skunks, badgers,
and similar temporary retreats. As winter comes

2/8 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

on they restrict their roving, seek a permanent
abode, and in the coldest weather hibernate com-
pletely. This, however, is only in the North, and
even there they are liable to awake and stir around
during warm spells, and usually emerge from their
torpidity in February or early March. They sleep
with their heads curled down against their stom-
achs and with their faces protected by the furry
wrap of the tail, so that they are mere balls of fur.
That they are often abroad in winter is manifest
from the mark in the snow of their feet, which
have five toes both before and behind.

These tracks show that, although the animal is
plantigrade, and when quiet stands on the whole
soles of his feet, like a bear, when he walks he
treads only on his toes.

The raccoon eats anything he can get hold of ;
and Kennicott has summed up the matter so
tersely that I cannot do better than quote his
concise phrases.

"The raccoon," he says, "is omnivorous. It eats
flesh of any kind, preying upon small birds and
mammals, when it can catch them, and sometimes
making destructive forays into the poultry-yard.
It devours birds' eggs whenever within reach, pro-
curing the eggs of woodpeckers by thrusting its
paws into their holes; it also watches turtles when
depositing their eggs in the sand, and, upon their
departure, digs them up. This animal is fond of
fish, and displays remarkable dexterity in capturing

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 279

them with his fore paws. It is also a most suc-
cessful frog-hunter, and may frequently be tracked
along the river's edge, where it has been searching
for frogs, crayfish, water-snails, and dead mussels.
In summer frogs often form a large portion of its
food, when some species leave the water and there-
fore are easily caught. Insects are eaten to some
extent, as are slugs and snails. It also feeds
largely upon various vegetables in summer; and
its particular fondness for green corn (maize) is
well known to every farmer. ... In winter they
will occasionally eat the ripened grain, and have
been known to visit corn-cribs for that purpose.
They are also said to eat acorns, and to gnaw
through pumpkins to procure the seeds ; probably,
like the bear, they feed more or less on berries.
In confinement they are exceedingly fond of sugar.
Like the squirrels and spermophiles, they some-
times dig up newly planted corn."

The common name along the southern coasts
of the United States for the small, narrow, tangled,
wild oysters that grow so abundantly in the salt-
marshes and inlets, is " 'coon-oyster," in reference
to the practice of the raccoons, who come down
to feed upon them at high tide. It is an old tra-
dition, that the animals now and then get caught
by a big one closing upon its paw and holding it
until the tide rises and drowns the animal; but I
have never known of such a case, though I have
seen the animal searching the oyster-reefs in

280 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

broad daylight, as well as by the light of the
harvest moon. I question whether it ever hap-
pens, for the 'coon is not only too quick-witted
but too nimble to be caught in a trap acting so
slowly as that.

He is as clever as a monkey with his front paws
— and with the hind ones, too, for that matter.
A palmist would find, curiously enough, the same
arrangement of " lines " and " mounts " in his palm
as in those of a cat or a weasel, and would deduce
similarity of acumen and behavior to those animals
and be more nearly right than palmists usually
are. These palms seem to be extremely sensitive,
and by them he is able to distinguish objects very
nicely. The fore feet, in fact, are never still, but
are everlastingly moving in examination of what-
ever is within reach ; and to see one sit up with
his back against a log, holding something to eat
between his hind feet, and daintily picking away
and handing morsels to his mouth with his paws,
is irresistibly comic. An egg is thus managed
without wasting a drop, the teeth breaking a small
opening in one end, and the tongue lapping up the
contents while the shell is held firmly in the feet.

Raccoons are fond of many kinds of fruit and ber-
ries. Dr. C. C. Abbot puts into his " Upland and
Meadow " a pleasant note of experience on this point.

"There in a small gum-tree, largely overgrown
by a fox-grapevine, sat a small raccoon . . . and
simply stared without winking as I approached.

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 281

When within a dozen paces I saw that its chops
were literally dripping with gore. There were no
feathers at the foot of the tree or caught in the
tangled undergrowth, and no bits of fur ; but drops
of blood were spattered everywhere. The poor
thing must be wounded, I thought. Hoping, there-
fore, to put the creature out of its misery, I planned
to reach it; but as I had no gun, I could only
climb. This failed, but, as I was looking up the
straight stem of the tree, the 'coon moved a little
upward and outward, as though determined to
keep the space between us unchanged. The ease
of its movements did not suggest a wound or a
weakness from loss of blood, and I was again at
sea in the matter, but only for a moment. Scat-
tered about the vine were single grapes and bunches
of two and three. A beggarly show for grapes ;
but then their size made up for the lack of num-
bers. Each grape was black as anthracite, a
perfect sphere an inch in diameter. Such grapes !
No wonder the raccoon had jaws dripping with
gore ; no wonder the leaves below were spattered
with purple blotches. Every grape was nigh to
bursting with the richest of ruddy wild fruit-juices,
crimson and blood-thick. My little 'coon was an
epicure."

One of the singularities of the raccoon is its habit
of dipping its food in water or washing it, to which
it owes its specific name, — lotor, the washer. If
water is not at hand, it will often rub it vigorously

282 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

before eating it. Various explanations of this have
been given; but it is probable that the simplest —
namely, that it seeks to wash the food — is the
nearest the truth. An acquaintance of mine was
once mischievous enough to give a captive 'coon a
raisin covered with cayenne pepper, which kept the
poor animal sneezing for half an hour. The next
day he was given another ; but this time he sniffed
at it in advance, and discovering more pepper, took
the raisin to his dish and washed it. Smelling of
it cautiously, he was not satisfied with his work,
but continued to rub it between his palms and
wash it under the water until he was sure nothing
remained upon it to annoy his throat and nose.

The animal is partial to the water, being a good
swimmer and loving to dwell near streams or the
sea and to dabble in the shallows, fishing many a
morsel out of the pools and capturing agile crabs
and crayfish by overturning the stones.

His partiality for crayfish is notorious, those liv-
ing in the far Southwest subsisting almost wholly
upon these subterranean creatures, which they
scratch out of their tubular burrows. This taste
has given rise to a fable among the O jib ways,
related by Dr. Henry Schoolcraft, long ago, in his
"Algic Tales." The Indian story regards it as
the result of an enmity between the two animals,
in the fabulous antiquity, which caused such wari-
ness on the part of the latter that the poor raccoon,
with all his stealthiness, was at last put into great

x A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 283

straits for a meal, since no crayfish would venture
near shore. At length he bethought him of an
expedient to decoy his enemy. Knowing that the
crayfish feed on worms, he procured a quantity of
old rotten wood (filled with worms), and stuffing it
into his mouth and ears, and powdering it over his
body, he lay down by the water's edge, to induce
the belief that he was dead. An old crayfish came
warily out of the water, and crawled around and over
the body of his enemy ; then called to his fellows :

"Assibun is dead,- — come up and eat him!"

When a multitude had gathered the raccoon
sprang up and devoured the whole crowd. While
he was still busy with the fragments of his feast,
a little female crayfish, carrying her infant sister
on her back, came up, seeking her relatives. Dis-
covering what had happened, she went boldly up
to the monster, and said :

"Here, Assibun, you behold me and my little
sister. We are all alone. You have eaten up our
parents and all our friends, — eat us, too."

Then she sang a long death-chant, the end of
which was in this strain :

" Once my people, lodge and band,
Stretched their numbers through the land ;
Roving brooks and limpid streams,
By the moon's benignant beams.
First in revel, dance, and play,.
Now, alas! ah! where are they?
Clutch us, monster, — eat us soon

Assibun, amoon."

284 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

The raccoon felt reproached by this act of cour-
age and magnanimity, and refused to dishonor
himself by exterminating the whole race. At this
moment Manabozha, the Deity, happened to pass
by. Seeing how things were :

" Tyau ! " he shouted to the raccoon. "Thou art
a thief and an unmerciful dog. Get thee up into
the trees, lest I change thee into one of these same
wormfish, for thou wast thyself originally a shell,
and bearest in thy name the influence of my trans-
forming hand."

He then took up the little supplicant crayfish
girls, and cast them into the stream.

" There," said he, " you may dwell. Hide your-
self under the stones, and hereafter you shall be
playthings for children."

Mr. Schoolcraft explains that the name of the
raccoon, Assibun, in the Chippewa language, seems
to be a derivation from the noun meaning shell;
but he says that no tale of a transformation, such
as is here alluded to, has come to his knowledge.
The raccoon also figures in another tale, where the
giant (red-headed) woodpecker saves Manabozha
from starving to death, on one occasion in winter,
by digging out of a tree with his powerful bill a
family of torpid 'coons, and laying them at the
sovereign's feet.

Dr. Godman relates that a pair of raccoons in
his keeping were never happy except when pro-
vided with a tub of water, in which they played

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 285

incessantly ; and never were gayer at this sport
than in midwinter — this was in Philadelphia —
paddling about and playing with fragments of
floating ice. " Indeed," says Dr. Godman, " these
animals have never evinced the slightest dislike
to cold, or suffered in any degree therefrom ; they
have in all weathers slept in a flour-barrel thrown
on its side, with one end entirely open, and with-
out any material of which to make a bed. They
show no repugnance to being sprinkled or dashed
with water, and voluntarily remain exposed to the
rain or snow, which wets them thoroughly, not-
withstanding their long hair, which, being almost
erect, is not well suited to turn the rain."

It is evident that creatures so tough as this
would not waste much time in winter torpidity
anywhere south of New York or St. Louis. Cer-
tainly they do not hibernate to any extent in
southern New Jersey, where, by the way, they
are becoming rare. Wherever hibernation does
take place it is probably due more to hunger than
to cold. Thus Mr. Burroughs tells us that in the
western Catskills the 'coons appear in March and
go " creeping about the fields, so reduced by starva-
tion as to be quite helpless, and offering no resist-
ance to my taking them up by the tail and carrying
them home." It is at this inhospitable season
that they come to the farmer's house, burrow
under his haystacks in search of mice, and invade
his poultry-yard ; a little later, too, as soon as the

286 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, x

frost is out of the ground, they capture more
insects, noxious and otherwise, than at any other
time, except, perhaps, when grasshoppers are preva-
lent. Some captive 'coons are 'cute about beguil-
ing chickens within reach. Mr. C. L. Herrick
relates, in his " Mammals of Minnesota," that his
pet abstained for weeks from harming the hens
and chickens until they lost all fear and clustered
about the animal to pick up the crumbs whenever
he was fed. Then suddenly he profited by this
education and had many a good dinner off his
dupes before his credit was lost. I have been
told of another pet raccoon, in western Pennsyl-
vania, which was kept chained in a yard and fed
on bread and vegetables until he longed for flesh.
One day he was observed to break up his bread
between his palms and scatter the crumbs in a
line from the uttermost reach of his tether to the
mouth of his artificial burrow. Then he went and
lay down, very quietly, as if asleep. The chickens
wandering about struck the trail of crumbs, and
innocently followed it up to the nose of the hum-
bug -in fur, who snatched one or more with a leap,
and twisted their heads off. I cannot so vouch
for the accuracy of observation here, as to be
certain that the scattering of the crumbs was
intentional ; but I believe that such a device is
quite within procyonine capability.

The prime delicacy of the world in the 'coon's
opinion, however, is Indian corn, in that same

CHAP. X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 289

milky condition of sweet half-ripeness which so
attracts the squirrels, the mice, the birds and —
you and me, if you please; and when he has
found it he strips back the husk as deftly as any
" neat-handed Phyllis," and disposes of the succu-
lent kernels with ease and rapidity. This is his
occupation and delight in the still hot August
nights, and no one has pictured it forth to our im-
agination as delicately as does Rowland Robinson
in his " New England Fields and Woods" :

" Above the katydid's strident cry and the
piper's [green cricket's] incessant notes, a wild,
tremulous whinny shivers through the gloom at
intervals, now from a distant field or wood, now
from the near orchard. One listener will tell you
that it is only a little screech-owl's voice, another
that it is the raccoon's rallying-cry to a raid on the
cornfield. There is endless disputation concerning
it, and apparently no certainty, but the raccoon is
wilder than the owl, and it is his voice that you hear.

" The corn is in the milk ; the beast is ready.
The father and mother and well-grown children,
born and reared in the cavern of a ledge or hollow
tree of a swamp, are hungry for sweets remem-
bered or yet untasted, and they are gathering to
it, stealing out of the thick darkness of the woods
and along the brookside in single file, never stop-
ping to dig a fiery wake-robin bulb, nor to catch a
frog, nor to harry a late brood of ground-nesting
birds, but only to call some laggard, or distant

2QO WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

clansfolk. So one fancies, when the quavering cry
is repeated and when it ceases, that all the free-
booters have gained the cornfield and are silent
with busy looting."

Now is the time when 'coon-hunting is most fun
and best rewarded, for now the animal is so fat
that a large one may weigh twenty-five pounds, and
his flesh is tender, juicy, and well-flavored, whereas,
at other times of the year, it is rather poor proven-
der, even for a stew, and sometimes as rank as that
of a muskrat ; nevertheless, our colored friends in
the South are willing to eat it at any time.

'Coon-hunting is one of the truly American sports
of the chase, though its devotees have found diffi-
culty in persuading folks to take their sport seri-
ously. It is, in truth, a comical aspect of hunting,
and is scarcely less wanting in dignity than a
'possum chase, which confessedly has none at all.
If 'coon-hunting be regarded as a step higher than
that, it loses the advantage at the end, for a fat
'possum is certainly better eating than a 'coon,
however rotund. The chase, nevertheless, calls
for endurance, since an old 'coon may run four
or five miles after he has been started, zigzagging
hither and yon, circling round and round trees,
leaving a track calculated to make a dog dizzy,
swimming streams, and running along the tops of
logs and snake-fences, hiding his trail with the
craftiness of a fox.

The hunt is always organized late at night.

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 29 1

Nobody ever heard of a real 'coon-hunt by day-
light. The animals are moving about then, leav-
ing trails that, starting at the edge of the woods,
lead into the fastnesses where they take refuge.
Such trails would grow " cold " before noonday.

There are dogs called 'coon-dogs, but of no
particular breed or pedigree. A local pack will
consist of Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, with all of Bob-
tail's friends and connections. One of them is
known to be best and takes the lead. They call
him the trailer. The rest rush yelping after, and
as fast as possible follow the hunters, with torches
or lanterns or by moonlight, carrying axes and
hatchets, guns, and antidotes for snake-bite in
flat, black bottles. Trailer's motley crew catch a
sniff of the trail and disappear in the darkness
of the brushy woods, baying, barking, yelping,
squealing, each after its kind. After them go the
whooping hunters, following by ear as the dogs do
by nose, for none can use the sense of sight. They
crash through the bushes, dodge the trees, but are
tripped up by the roots, stumble over logs and
rocks, bruise their legs against stumps and snags,
flounder into holes and puddles, are whipped by
elastic branches, scratched by briers, pierced by
thorns, drenched with dew, and spattered with mud
and dead leaves. The strongest get far ahead,
and calling on to the dogs and back to their fellows,
discourage instead of aid the breathless laggards
by their lessening voices.

2Q2 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

Finally a chorus of eager barking in a different
tone from what has thus far been heard announces
to experienced ears that the dogs have some game
at bay. The hunters dispute as to what it is as
they crash and stagger on through the gloom,
each swearing he knows by his cur's voice what
sort of an animal he has in view. Arrived at the
scene of the clamor, the dogs are found in frantic
excitement around the foot of a tree, in whose
shadowy foliage something is supposed to be hid-
den. Will it be a 'coon, or will it turn out a 'pos-
sum, a wild-cat, or mayhap an owl ?

First of all a fire is lighted, and its upreaching
blaze sends fitful rays of yellow light far among
the overhanging branches. Now there may be dis-
cerned a hollow near the summit of the trunk, and
as dead branches are heaped upon the fire sharp
eyes may detect a triangular head peering out of
what was once, perhaps, the front door of a wood-
pecker's home, and glints of green are reported to
be the glare of a raccoon's eyes.

To shoot him there would now be easy enough,
but the eager hunters have no wish to dispose of
him so summarily. They have other uses to put
him to. The Iroquois felt the same way when
they had tracked and caught a Huron or a Jesuit.
The nimblest man in the party is sent up the tree,
and given a stick wherewith to frighten or poke or
pry the cornered animal out of his castle. Com-
pelled to leave the hole, it creeps out upon a limb,

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE SEAR

293

and squatting down snarls at the stranger, who
tries to shake loose its hold. But this is a vain
attempt. A raccoon can cling like a burr. Try to
drag your pet 'coon off the top of a fence, and if
he chooses to resist, you may pull him limb from
limb before he will let go. So they take the severer
method of chopping the branches, until the poor
little beast has none left to clutch in falling, and
comes down a heap of fur and teeth and claws into
the midst of the dogs. Instantly there follows a
scrimmage, where often an honest bark is changed
in the middle to a yelp of pain, until many a time
the mel/e changes to a ring of hurt and angry but
vanquished curs around a 'coon lying on his back,
with bloody teeth and claws ready to try it again ;
and then he is shot by the hunters, merciless to the
last. More often the whole tree must be cut down,
and the brave 'coon falls with it, and is dashed out
among his enemies to fight for his life at the end
of his fall. If meanwhile a large 'possum has been
taken alive, he is usually pitted against the 'coon,
and it is even betting which will win. This noc-
turnal foray, where the prey may be either an
opossum or a raccoon, or perhaps both, and now
and then a bear, is especially the sport of the
Southern negroes, who have got the name " coons "
in consequence, — that is, 'coon-hunters.

Young ones taken on these expeditions or in
traps — spring-traps are said to be most effective
when set under water, beside some lily-coated frog

294 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

pond — are often kept captive, and make interest-
ing pets. They must be kept chained, however,
or they will wander away and forget to return ;
and also because of their mischievous pranks.
They grow slowly, and change from the summer
to winter pelage by the loss of the under-fur in
tufts, replaced by longer hair than forms the warm-
weather coat. They are not only intelligent, but
show marked love of companionship, a pair getting
on together most lovingly, missing each other very
decidedly when separated, and exhibiting some
affection for their master. This, however, seems
to depend, as it should, upon the animal's appre-
ciation of kindness, for an abusive person will ex-
cite an undying enmity. Godman found that the
common fear of their biting was not justified by
their disposition, those he kept being entirely harm-
less even to little children ; but they always in-
stinctively bite when suddenly hurt, as might often
happen from a careless child. He mentions that
his young raccoons would spring in a fury and bite
at the leg of a table or corner of a door against
which they had knocked themselves in their play.
Dr. Godman's account contains many other inter-
esting and suggestive particulars as to their habits.
Another excellent history of pet raccoons is con-
tained in Merriam's " Mammals of the Adirondacks,"
showing among other things their innate inquisi-
tiveness and propensity for mischief, so that it will
not do to give them the liberty a pet skunk enjoys.

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 29$

" If not closely watched they will slyly enter the
house through some open door or window, and are
liable to do considerable damage, for their natural
curiosity prompts them to examine everything
within reach, and anything out of reach of a 'coon
must be inaccessible indeed. They invariably
manifest an insatiable desire to investigate the
pantry shelves, and rarely neglect to taste every
edible thing that happens to be there. They have
a special penchant for sweetmeats, and greedily
devour preserves, honey, molasses, sugar, pies, and
cakes ; and even bread, butter, lard, milk, etc.,
are by no means disregarded. They remove the
covers from jars and pails, and uncork bottles,
with as much ease and facility, apparently, as if
they had been instructed in this art from earliest
infancy. Doors that latch, as they do in most old
country houses, are soon opened, even by unso-
phisticated 'coons, and it takes them but a short
time to acquire the method of opening knob doors.
Their fore paws are employed as hands, and can
be put to almost as great a variety of uses as those
of the monkey, — which animal they further re-
semble in the propensity for mischief-making."

The common raccoon is about thirty-three inches
in length, of which from ten to eleven inches rep-
resent the tail ; and when in good condition it will
weigh about twenty pounds. The prevailing color
is light gray, tinged with pale rusty across the
shoulders and much overlaid with black-tipped

296 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP.

hairs. The under parts are of a similar gray,
without the black tips, and, like the rest of the
body, allow the dull sooty brown under-fur to show
through. The upper surfaces of the feet are
whitish, the hind feet being about 4 inches in
length, and the fore feet 2f inches. The brush of
the tail is nearly uniform in diameter (2^ to 3
inches) throughout, only the end being rounded
off. It has five distinct black rings, separated by
grayish rusty intervals of about the same width,
and the tip is black. The face shows a large
oblique black patch on each cheek, continuous
with paler ones beneath the jaws, and others be-
hind the ears, which are whitish ; this gives a
spectacled appearance to the front face. The
muzzle is naked and flexible. Specimens have
been seen nearly black all over, and albinos are
not infrequent.

The pelt of the raccoon is a valuable object
when taken in cold weather, when the animal is
in good condition. The fur is thick and warm,
and the skin very durable. Hence it is in large
demand in Canada and northern Europe for mak-
ing coats, such as are worn by drivers and others
that can afford something a little better than the
sheepskin of the Russian peasant. North America
furnishes half a million skins a year, nearly all
of which are trapped in the region of the Great
Lakes. The hair has been famous for felting
purposes ever since the little beast became known

X A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR 297

to the pioneer fur-traders ; and vast quantities of
it are consumed in Germany and elsewhere to-day
in the manufacture of hats. A 'coon-skin cap
used to be the common headgear of the Western
man of the early part of the century, and many of
Washington's hardiest soldiers wore them with
the ringed tail drooping behind as a barbaric orna-
ment. The fur of the South American species is
shorter and less dense.

Let us bid the 'coon farewell in the pleasant
language of Rowland Robinson :

"This little brother of the bear is one of the
few remaining links that connect us with the old
times, when there were trees older than living
men, when all the world had not entered for the
race to gain the prize of wealth, or place, or
renown ; when it was the sum of all happiness for
some of us to 'go a-'cooning.' It is pleasant to
see the tracks of this midnight prowler, this de-
spoiler of cornfields, imprinted in the mud of the
lane or along the soft margin of the brook, to
know that he survives, though he may not be the
fittest. When he has gone forever, those who out-
live him will know whether it was his quavering note
that jarred the still air of the early fall evenings,
or if it was only the voice of the owl — if he, too,
shall not then have gone the inevitable way of all
the wild world."

INDEX

ANIMAL TRAINING AND ANIMAL
INTELLIGENCE, 157-185.

Animals varying in color with local-
ity, 27.

Ant-eater, Great (Myrmecophaga

Armadillos, 67.

BADGER, THE, AND HIS KIN, 119-
154 ; American ( Taxidea ameri-
cana), 134, 154.

Badger-baiting as a sport, 145.

Badger, Mexican. See Tejon.

Badgers, Old World, 137; tame,

153-
Bat, a fish-eating (Noctilio lepo-

rinus), 73.
Beaver, American ( Castor fiber) ,

7i, 132-

Birds, educated and performing,
159 ; making friends with men,
120 ; tails of, 63, 78, 80, 92.

Bobcat (lynx) , 62.

Bulls, educated, 178.

Burrowing animals, considered, 142.

Carnivora, education of, 162.
Catamount, name, 36.
Cats, performing, 185.
Chipmunk or ground-squirrel, 28.
Color in animals, 27, 29, 34, 37, 236.
Color-marks in burrowing animals,
147.

Colors, warning, 235, 242.
Conepate (Conepatus mapurito),

248.

Cougar. See Puma.
Courage in beasts of prey, 41.
Coyote, the ( Cants latrans) , 99-1 16 ;

and antelope, in; cunning and

wariness of, 114 ; hunting in

Nicaragua, 102.
Crocodiles, power of the tails of,

80, 82.
Crustacea, egg-carrying, 69.

Dog, education of, 180.
Donkeys, trained, 178.

Elephants, 69, 156.
Eyra (Felis eyra) , 37.

FATHER OF GAME, THE, 33-58.
Fishes, uses of tails of, 74, 77, 79.
Flying-squirrel and birds' eggs, 23.
Fox-squirrel (Sciurus niger) , 28.

Greyhound, origin of the, 145.
Ground-hog. See Woodchuck.
Ground-lizard (Oligosoma laterale) ,
78.

Hagenbeck's trained-animal circus,

163.

Hermit-crab (Eupagurus),(&.
Horses, performing, 175.

299

INDEX

Horse-foot crab (Limulus poly-

pAemus), 71.
HOUND OF THE PLAINS, THE, 99-

116.

Jaguar (Felis onca), 33, 34, 37, 48.
Jaguarondi (Felis jaguarondi ) , 137.
Jerboa kangaroo, 75.

Kangaroos, use of the tail, 75.
King-crab (Limulus polyphemus),

Lion-taming and training, 165.
LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BEAR,

A, 272-296.

Lizards, fragile tails of, 83.
Lynx, the common (Lynx rufus),

62.189.

" Mammal," as a convenient term,

119.
Mammals, effect of civilization on,

lai ; fishing, 72, 73.
Margay (Felis tigrina), 37.
Marmot, the Maryland. See Wood-

chuck.

Melanism, 29.
Mice, tails of, 87; trained, 183;

wild, 121.

Migration of squirrels, 16.
Moles, American, 128.
Mollusks, as diggers, 72.
Monkeys, education, 161 ; prehen-

sile tails of, 77.
Mountain lion. See Puma.
Mules, trained, 178.
Muskrat (Fiber zibetkicus), 71.

NEW ENGLANDER, A NATURAL,
251-271.

Ocelot (Felis par dalis), 37.
Opossum (Didelphys virginiana),

7°. 77-
Otter, the American (Lutra cana-

densis), 132.

Pangolin (Manis pentadactyld) , 67,
77 ; (Manis tricuspis), 6s.

Panther. See Puma.

Peacock-pheasants, 65.

Pig, education of, 179.

Porcupine, the Canada (Eretkizon
dorsata} , 188-206 ; European
(Hystrix cristatd) , 203 ; tree, 195.

Porcupine-quills, in ornaments, 201.

Porcupines, Old World, 205.

Porcupines, tails of as weapons, 81,
191.

Protective coloring, 37, 236.

Puma (Felis concolor) , the, 33-58 ;
breeding of, 42 ; hunting methods
of, 46, 95, 189 ; origin of names
°f. 35. 36 ! screaming of, 52.

Rabbits, educated, 182.

Raccoon, the common (Procyon
later), 272-296; the crab-eating
(Procyon cancrivorus) , 275.

Raccoon-hunting, 290.

Rats, trained, 183 ; use of tail by,

73-

Rattlesnake, rattling of, 95.
Recognition colors, 90, 147, 236.

Sand-badger (Arctonyx collaris) ,
137, 248.

Sea-horses (Hippocampus), 78.

Shrews, American, 127.

SKUNK, THE, CALMLY CONSID-
ERED, 209-248; the North
American (Mephitis mephitica).

INDEX

301

209-248 ; little striped (Spilogale),
247 ; means of defence, 234 ;
remedies supplied by, 244 ; white-
backed (Conepatus mapurito),
248.

Snail (Helicarion) , with fragile
tail, 85.

Snakes, education of, 159 ; nervous
tail of, 95.

SQUIRRELS, OUR GRAY, 1-30; and
bluejays, 20; black, 29; fox
(Sciurus niger) , 28 ; flying (Sciu-
ropterus volucella) , 23 ; gray (Sci-
. urus carotin fttsis) , 1-30; gray,
migration of, 16 ; ground, 28 ;
melanism and albinism in, 29;
red (Sciurus hudsonius), 26, 30.

Sting-ray (Dasybatis centrums), 89.

Stinking badger. See Teledu.

Surgeon-fish (Acanthurus xan-
thopterus) , 90.

Swifts, spiny tails of, 78, 79.

TAILS, THE SERVICE OF, 61-96 ; as
objects of attack, 85, 88 ; pecul-

iarity of tips of, 93 ; prehensile,
70,77; tufted, discussed, 76, 85,
91, 94; used in swimming, 79.

Tejon (Tax idea berlandiert) , 138.

Teledu (Mydaus meliceps), 137,
248.

Th resh er-shark ( Alopias vulpes) , 82.

Tree-porcupines (Synetheres) , 195.

Tricks taught to animals unwisely,
182.

Wallabies. See Kangaroo.
Wolf, barking or red. See Coyote.
Wolf, gray (Can is lupus), 101 ;

prairie (coyote), 99; mountain

or timber, 101.
Wolves, educated, 182.
Woodchuck, the (Arctomys monax),

251-271 ; superstitions as to the,

269.

WOODLAND CODGER, A, 188-206.
Woodpeckers, tail-supports of, 78.

Zebra, education of, 178.

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A collection of fifty delightful jingles and nonsense verses. .The
illustrations by Oliver Herford do justice to the text.

WILSON. DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN GRAMMAR GRADES. A
Reader. By Lucy L. W. Wilson. 12mo. ix + 193 pages.

Descriptions of homes and household customs of all ages and
countries, studies of materials and industries, glimpses of the
homes of literature, and articles on various household subjects.

WILSON. HISTORY READER FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
By Lucy L. W. Wilson. 16mo. Illustrated, xvii + 403

Stories grouped about the greatest men and the most striking
events in our country's history. The readings run by months,
beginning with September.

WILSON. PICTURE STUDY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. By
Lucy L. W. Wilson. 12mo. Illustrated.

10

Ninety half-tone reproductions from celebrated paintings both
old and modern, accompanied by appropriate readings from the
poets. All schools of art are represented.

WRIGHT. HEART OF NATURE. By Mabel Osgood Wright.
12mo. Illustrated.

This volume comprises "Stories of Plants and Animals,"
" Stories of Earth and Sky," and " Stories of Birds and Beasts,"
usually published in three volumes and known as "The Heart of
Nature Series." It is a delightful combination of story and
nature study, the author's name being a sufficient warrant for its
interest and fidelity to nature.

WRIGHT. FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS AND THEIR KIN. By
Mabel Osgood Wright, edited by Frank Chapman. 12mo.
Illustrated, xv + 432 pages.

An animal book in story form. The scene shifts from farm to
woods, and back to an old room, fitted as a sort of winter camp,
where vivid stories of the birds and beasts which cannot be seen
at home are told by the campfire, — the sailor who has hunted the
sea, the woodman, the mining engineer, and wandering scientist,
each taking his turn. A useful family tree of North American
Mammals is added.

WRIGHT. DOGTOWN. By Mabel Osgood Wright. 12mo.
Illustrated, xiii + 405 pages.

"Dogtown" was a neighborhood so named because so many
people loved and kept dogs. For it is a story of people as well as
of dogs, and several of the people as well as the dogs are old friends^
having been met in Mrs. Wright's other books.

YONGE. LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE. By Char-
lotte M. Yonge. 12mo. Illustrated, xi + 140 pages.

An interesting and ingenious introduction to geography. In
her dreams Lucy visits the children of various lands and thus
learns much of the habits and customs of these countries.

YONGE. UNKNOWN TO HISTORY. By Charlotte M. Yonge.
12mo. Illustrated, xi + 589 pages.

A story of the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots, told in the
author's best vein.

DATE DUE

DEMCO 38-297

LIBRARY FACILITY

Wild neighbors: out-door
studies in the United
States .

153
1906

Ingersoll, Ernest

Wild neighbors: out -door
studies in the United
States.

AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

CITRUS RESEARCH CENTER AND

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT SIATION

RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA