Birds and Nature, Vol. 10 No. 3 [October 1901]

The family life of the Lion is very interesting and human. So far as is known, a single male and female remain together year after year, irrespective of the pairing season, the Lion feeding and caring for his Lioness and cubs and educating the young in the duties of life. For two or three years the cubs follow their parents, so that Lions are often found in small troops. Cases have been reported where they have joined for a preconcerted hunt, and the Lioness often goes up the wind to startle game and drive it towards her ambushed mate, following after for a share of the prey. Hon. W. H. Drummond, in “The Large Game and Natural History of South and Southeast Africa,” gives the following account of the feast after the victim had been slain: “The Lion had by this time quite killed the beautiful animal, but instead of proceeding to eat it, he got up and roared vigorously until there was an answer, and in a few minutes a Lioness, accompanied by four whelps, came trotting up from the same direction as the zebra, which no doubt she had been to drive towards her husband. They formed a fine picture as they all stood round the carcass, the whelps tearing it and biting it, but unable to get through the tough skin. Then the Lion lay down, and the Lioness, driving her offspring before her, did the same, four or five yards off, upon which he got up and, commencing to eat, had soon finished a hind leg, retiring a few yards on one side as soon as he had done so. The Lioness came up next and tore the carcass to shreds, bolting huge mouthfuls, but not objecting to the whelps eating as much as they could find. There was a good deal of snarling and quarreling among these young Lions, and occasionally a standup fight for a minute, but their mother did not take any notice of them except to give them a smart blow with her paw if they got in her way. There was now little left of the zebra but a few bones, and the whole Lion family walked quietly away, the Lioness leading, and the Lion often turning his head to see that they were not followed, bringing up the rear.”

Dane Coolidge.

TROUTING BAREFOOT

’Twas a holiday joy when I was a boy,To follow the brook a-trouting,’Twas gold of pleasure without alloy,To trudge away through the livelong day —Not a bite to eat, or a word to say,And never a failing or doubting.Then home at night in a curious plight —Heavy and tired and hungry quite —With a string of the “speckles” hung out of sight,And a chorus of boyish shouting.Only a line of the commonest twine,Only a pole of alder;None of your beautiful things that shine —Tackle so nice and so high in priceThat a trout would laugh to be taken twice.And sing like a Swedish scalderFor a jump at a sign of a thing so fine,And scorn rough implements such as mine;Only a line of the commonest twine —Only a pole of alder!Wet to the skin in our raiment thin —Never a word of complaining,Never too late in the day to begin;Dropping a hook in the beautiful brookTill day was taking his farewell lookNo matter how hard it was raining!Ah! few, indeed, would fail to succeedIn the angling of life – if they’d only heedThe trout-boy’s patience, whatever impede,And his joy, both in seeking and gaining.– Belle A. Hitchcock.

THE ALASKAN MOOSE

(Alces gigas.)

The Alaska Moose is the largest of the deer family in America. Alces gigas is a comparatively new species, having been described in 1899. At present it is still quite numerous along the Yukon and its tributaries, though the influx of prospectors and the settling of the Klondike region has already resulted in a marked falling off in Moose and an increase of Moose meat. In the winter this is the staple diet of both Indians and whites, and on account of the high price paid – one dollar or two dollars per pound – many prospectors have found Moose hunting even more remunerative than mining.

Alces gigas was first collected by Mr. Dall De Weese, of Canon City, Colo., who spent three months, in 1898, on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, in quest of large mammals for the United States Museum. From the six specimens of the Alaskan Moose which he collected it is seen that this animal differs considerably from the Moose (Alces americanus) inhabiting the east United States and eastern and central Canada, being larger and more richly colored and having a much heavier mandible. Its general color is a grizzle of black and wood brown, darkening along the spine and changing abruptly to clear black on chest, buttocks and lower part of sides.

The horns of the Moose are very characteristic, being of immense size and palmated before and behind so that an average full-grown pair weighs seventy pounds and shows a spread of forty-six inches between the points of the posterior branch as against a length of thirty-eight inches. Our illustration is a photograph of one with horns of remarkable size, measuring about seventy-one inches from tip to tip in a line across the head. It is not until the third year that the horns are palmated, and they increase in size from year to year. In the winter the old horns are cast, but they sprout again in the spring, and by June have shed their velvet and appear a beautiful white. Although so large and characteristic, it is not known that they serve any more useful purpose than as weapons during the rutting season. In running through the woods the Moose throws his head back, and, despite the spread and weight of his horns, he is able to move about without breaking a twig.

The clumsy shape of the head is accentuated by the hump on the nose, which is due to the excessive development of the nasal septum and of the upper lip, which is long and supple, and adapted to browsing rather than to cropping grass. The short neck of the Moose would in any case interfere with the cropping of grass, even if it were found in the snowy inlands of Alaska. Its common food is the twigs and bark of willows and birches, which it rides down to reach the tops, lichens and mosses and the aquatic plants of summer.

In winter the Moose herd together in the snow, forming great tramped-down places called moose yards by hunters. In summer comes the rutting season, in which the great males shake their antlers and attack any animal that comes their way. With summer comes mosquitoes also, and these pester the Moose to such an extent that they are galled to a greater fury. So it is that the Moose is a most dangerous animal in the time when the ground is clear, the swamps full of mosquitoes and his horns new-stripped of velvet for the fray.

When the snow lies so deep that he cannot travel even with his long legs, the enemies of the Moose have him at a disadvantage, and often the yards are attacked by wolves or bears or, worse yet, by agile men on snowshoes. Killing in the snow is not recognized as legitimate sport, and is resorted to only by skin hunters or men lacking in the higher ideals of sportsmen. The ordinary method of hunting deer in the summer is by imitating the rutting cry of the male, the reply of the cow and the defiant challenge of the male again, followed by the thrashing and scraping of the trees and branches where the hunter lies concealed. These cries are produced by blowing through a birchbark horn, and on account of the blind fury of the rutting males they are often very successful in bringing them to their death.

The Indians and half-breeds of the far North stalk the wary Moose where he beds himself down after a night of browsing, but so acute is his hearing and sense of smell and so great his cunning that only the trained woodsman can hope for success. Leaving his feed-trail abruptly, the Moose moves off to one side down the wind so that any one trailing him will be surely scented, and there beds himself down for the day. The Indian follows the well-defined trail of the Moose until it becomes fresh, and then by a series of circuits down the wind and leading back to the trail, like the semicircles of the letter B, he gradually approaches the hiding place until at last, coming up the wind, he sights his prey and, startling it by a slight sound, shoots it where it stands.

The young are brought forth in the early summer and stay with their mother until the third year. During this time she defends them with the greatest ferocity from man and wild animals alike, using her sharp hoofs in striking out at wolves and men, often trampling them into the snow in her fury. The new-born young are very helpless at first on their long, tottering legs, and, roaming as they do in a wild land of wolves and beasts of prey, they could scarcely survive at all without the protection of their mother’s knife-like hoofs. So long and awkward are the legs of Moose that in running through the woods the hind feet often interfere with the fore feet, throwing the clumsy animal in a heap. The falling of Moose while running was considered so unaccountable at first that it was assigned to attacks of epilepsy, but it has since been discovered that when galloping the Moose spreads his hind feet far apart in a more or less successful effort to avoid tripping up his fore feet. But when we consider his load of horns and the fallen trees and broken branches of his native haunts it is a marvel that he is able to outrun his foes at all, whereas the Moose is in fact the swiftest animal in the Northern woods.

Dane Coolidge.There’s a wonderful weaverHigh up in the air,And he waves a white mantle,For cold earth to wear.With the wind for his shuttleThe cloud for his loom,How he weaves! How he weaves!In the light, in the gloom.– Wayne Whistler, in the Record-Herald.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DUCK

FOUNDED UPON FACT

“How queer, my child! what a long, broad mouth you have, and what peculiar feet!”

It was my mother, a big brown hen, who spoke. I had stepped from my egg, only a short while before, and as I was the only one hatched out of the whole thirteen, my poor mother was greatly disappointed.

Now, to add to her troubles, there seemed to be something very peculiar about my appearance.

“Yes,” she went on still watching me critically, “I have raised many families, but never a chick like you. Well! well! don’t cry about it. Your yellow dress is very pretty. It doesn’t pay to be too sensitive, as you will find, I am afraid, when you have lived with these chickens. Some of them are dreadfully trying. Dear! dear! how stiff I am! This setting is tiresome work.”

“I wonder what sort of home we are going to have.”

Our home, into which we moved a few hours later, proved to be an upturned soap box. Seven little chickens were there before us.

“The same old story,” said my mother with a knowing air. “People imagine we hens have no sense. I did not hatch those chickens, but I am expected to care for them, as though I did. Some mothers would peck them so they would be glad to stay away.”

She had too good a heart for this, however, and I was very glad to have these brothers and sisters.

They were different from me, though, in many ways, principally, in their dislike for water. They hated even to get their feet wet, while I dearly loved to get in the pond, and swim around on its surface, or even dive down to the bottom, where such nice fat worms lived.

My poor mother never could understand my tastes. The first time she saw me on the water, she came rushing towards me, screaming and beating her wings.

“Oh, my child! my child!” she cried, with tears in her eyes. “You will drown! You will drown!”

I loved her, and so could not bear to see her distress. It was hard to be different from all the others.

I had a little yellow sister who was a great comfort to me at these times. I could never persuade her to try the water, – but she always sat upon the edge of the pond while I had my swim. We shared everything with each other; even our troubles.

About this time, my voice began to change. It had been a soft little “peep,” but now it grew so harsh, that some of the old hens made unpleasant remarks about it, and my mother was worried.

“It isn’t talking. It’s quacking,” said an old, brown-headed hen who was always complaining of her nerves.

She was very cross and spent most of her time standing on one leg in a corner and pecking any poor chicken that came in her reach.

“Don’t you know why it’s quacking?” asked a stately Buff Cochin who was a stranger in the yard; having arrived only that morning. “That child isn’t a chicken. She’s a duck.”

“What you giving us?” said a dandified Cock, who was busy pluming his feathers. “Whoever heard of a duck?”

“Not you, I daresay,” answered the Buff with a contemptuous sniff. “It’s easy to see you have never been away from this yard. I have traveled, I would have you understand, and I know a duck, too.”

“Well, I don’t care what you call her,” snapped the cross one. “I only hope she’ll keep her voice out of my hearing. The sound of it gives me nervous prostration.”

As for poor me, – I stole quietly away, and went up into a corner of the chicken house to cry. I was a duck, alas! and different from all about me. No wonder I was lonely.

My mother asked the cause of my trouble, and when I told her she looked sad and puzzled. “I don’t know what a duck is,” she sighed, “things have been strangely mixed. But cheer up. Whatever comes you are still my child.”

That was indeed a comfort to me. For never had chicken or duck a better mother.

There was consolation also, in what the kind old Buff Cochin told me.

I had nothing to be ashamed of, she said, for ducks were much esteemed by those who knew them.

From her this had more weight, for we all regarded the Buff Cochin as very superior. They were well born, and well bred, and had seen life in many places. Their husband, too, was a thorough gentleman.

However, he also was having his troubles now. He was losing his old feathers, and his new ones were long in coming. Consequently, his appearance was shabby, and he staid away from the hens.

Poor fellow, he looked quite forlorn, leaning up against a sunny corner of the barn, trying to keep warm. I believe he felt the loss of his tail feathers most for the young roosters who strutted by in their fine new coats, made sneering remarks about it.

I was very sorry for him, but my own troubles were getting to be as much as I could bear; for just when I needed a sympathetic mother she was taken from me and her place filled by a big, bare-headed hen as high tempered as she was homely.

“Raising a duck,” she said with a contemptuous sniff at me. “I never supposed I’d come to that. Well, I’ll keep you, but understand one thing, don’t go quacking around me, and don’t bring your wet and mud into the house. I’m not your other mother. My children don’t rule me. I won’t have that Mrs. Redbreast saying my house is dirty. There’s no standing that hen anyhow. I’ll give her my opinion if she puts on her airs around me. There’s too much mixture here. One can’t tell where breed begins or ends.”

It was not many days later, before my mother and Mrs. Redbreast came to words and then blows. The cause was only a worm, but it was enough. Mrs. Redbreast insisted that it was hers. My mother thought otherwise, and with a screech of defiance rushed upon her enemy. Dust and feathers flew. We children withdrew to a safe distance, and with necks stretched watched in fear and trembling.

The fight, though fierce, was short. Our mother was victorious, but she had lost the tail feathers of which she had been so proud, and I am sure she never forgave Mrs. Redbreast.

Like children, chickens and ducks grow older and bigger with the passing days.

In time we were taken from our mothers and put to roost with the older hens and cocks. I was not made to roost so I spent my nights alone in a corner of the chicken house.

It was quieter down there – for up above the chickens all fought for best place, and their cackling and fluttering was disturbing.

The old gentleman was very heavy. Not only was it hard for him to fly up to the roost, but equally hard for him to hold on when once there. Yet I could never persuade him to rest on the floor with me. Like his kind, he preferred the discomfort of sleeping on a pole – a taste I cannot understand.

I was four months old before I saw one of my own kind. Then, one day three ducks were brought into the yard. They did not seem to mind being stared at, but fell to eating corn and talking among themselves.

“Horribly greedy,” said Mrs. Redbreast. “I for one don’t care to associate with them.”

“Now you know what you look like, old quacker,” snapped the cross hen, with a peck at me. “My poor nerves will suffer sadly now.”

These unkind remarks scarcely disturbed me, however. There was a new feeling stirring in my heart. I am afraid you will have to be a duck, and live a long time without other ducks, to understand it. Here were companions, whose natures and tastes were like mine, and I was content.

Louise Jamison.

A LOST FLOWER

More than a hundred years ago a new flower was found in the wild and rugged mountains of North Carolina by Michaux, a Frenchman, who had traversed many lands and known many perils and adventures in his search for rare plants. He had traveled through his native country and Spain, climbed the Pyrenees, crossed sea and desert, been despoiled by Arab robbers, so that he arrived in Persia with nothing but his books left to him of his baggage. Luckily he cured the Shah of an illness, and was allowed to carry back to France many Eastern plants. He was then sent by his country to explore the forests of North America. In the mountainous country of North Carolina there were no roads, only Indian trails, traversed by a few missionaries and traders. In this wild and lonely region he found a new flower, that belonged to no recognized genus, and was mentioned by no previous botanist. It was a modest little flower; its pure white cup rises on a wand-like stem in the midst of shining and tender leaves, round in shape and prettily edged. He secured a specimen, but he had no leisure to study its habits in the “montagnes sauvages,” as he called these mountains in his own language. Rumors reached him of the French Revolution, and he immediately hastened to return home. He was shipwrecked on the voyage and lost nearly all his collections.

From this time the flower was lost, so far as any knowledge of its existence was concerned. But after the death of Michaux, our botanist, Dr. Asa Gray, happened to be in Paris with the son, the younger Michaux, also a lover of plants. Very naturally Michaux showed his American guest his father’s new specimens of American plants that had escaped the shipwreck, and Dr. Gray was much interested in this little flower, marked “Unknown.”

When he returned to the United States he sought it in vain. All trace seemed to have disappeared. Year after year when he heard of anyone going to the North Carolina mountains he would beg the person to look for the lost flower.

At last, someone, by chance, found a blossom, in early spring, growing in a different locality, and not recognizing its genus or species, sent it to Dr. Gray, as one of the highest botanical authorities.

As soon as Dr. Gray saw it he exclaimed, with delight: “Why, this is the little unknown flower of Michaux.”

After its strange disappearance of a century it had again come to light. It has since been found in various parts of upper South Carolina, and is now cultivated by more than one florist and grower of rare plants. Its leaves are like those of the southern wild flower, the Galax, akin to the Pyxie or flowering moss, so it has been placed in the same family and named Shortia galacifolia, i. e., with a leaf like Galax. The first name is given in honor of Short, the botanist, a lovely way of keeping alive the remembrance of one who loved flowers.

Ella F. Mosby.

THE POLAR BEAR

(Ursus maritimus.)

The Polar Bear is the only aquatic member of the family being often called Sea Bear, as the scientific name (Ursus maritimus) signifies. It is practically confined to the arctic zone, although various unwilling visitants have come as far south as Iceland and Newfoundland on the floating cakes of ice. In size the Polar Bear ranks next to the grizzly, with a doubt, perhaps, in his favor. He has the longest neck of any bear and finds it very useful in catching seals and fish under water. The coat is a silvery or creamy white, very long and thick, as might be expected in an animal which swims about in the Arctic Ocean and rests upon cakes of ice. The soles of the feet are very long and are covered with thick fur, which gives it a large unslippery surface, and enables it to climb over ice with facility.

The food of the Polar Bear consists principally of fish and seals, but the walrus often falls a prey to his strength and cunning, and when starved this Bear is known to eat marine grass in large quantities. Carcasses stranded on the beach, dead whales and marine animals afford him an opportunity to gorge himself to the utmost and make enough fat to keep out the chill of arctic waters. So fat do these great bears become that the pregnant female is able to bury herself in the snows of winter and hibernate, at the same time suckling her cubs until spring. The males do not hibernate, but may be seen all winter.

In hunting seals the Polar Bear enters the water at some distance from where his prey is basking on the ice and swims with great rapidity toward it, keeping well under water and raising the tip of his nose to the surface at intervals for breath. At last it rises beneath and in front of the seal and strikes it where it lies, or if it escapes into the water, captures it with ease, for he is a very rapid and expert diver. One has been known to dive from a block of ice and capture a passing salmon as deftly as a kingfisher catches a minnow.

In Greenland the Polar Bear is known to swim from island to island along the shore, eating the eggs and young of the innumerable birds which nest there.

Jacques Cartier, the French navigator, in the narrative of his voyage to Newfoundland in 1534 gives a wonderful account of the Polar Bear’s fondness for birds and eggs and the efforts which he will make to procure them. An “Island of Birds” was discovered off the coast of Newfoundland, “and albeit the sayd island be fourteen leagues from the maine-land, notwithstanding beares come swimming thither to eat of the sayd birds, and our men found one there as great as any cow, and as white as any swan, who in their presence leapt into the sea, and upon Whitsun Munday (following our voyage to the land) we met her by the way, swimming toward land as swiftly as we could saile. So soon as we saw her we pursued her with our boats, and by maine strength tooke her, whose flesh was as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calf of two yeares old.” Captain Sabine reports having seen a Polar Bear swimming strongly forty miles from land and with no ice in sight upon which to rest, so the statement of Cartier is perhaps true. Very few cows weigh fifteen hundred pounds, but this is the recorded weight of Polar Bears, “as great as any cow,” killed by whaling crews in the arctic seas.

In hunting the Polar Bear the Eskimos usually pursue them with dogs and having surrounded them, kill them with spears and harpoons, while they fight the dogs. In the water the Polar Bear is generally able to escape by swimming and diving and often it happens that by his strength and quickness he overturns boats and mangles the occupants before they can be rescued. The skin and fat of the Polar Bear are more valued by the natives of the north than his flesh, which is both fibrous and strong in flavor. The members of various arctic expeditions have been glad to eat it, however, Dr. Kane in particular, having had his life and that of his comrades preserved for some time by the meat from the carcass of a great bear, which fell into a trap baited simply with an old and greasy stocking. Whenever possible his men shot the bears on the ice, and many pathetic scenes were witnessed by them when the mothers of cubs were killed or when the cubs being slain, their mother refused to leave their bodies, even when wounded. So great is the affection of these bears for each other that when one of a pair is killed the mate remains by the body, fondling and caressing it and trying to tempt it by food and endearments to rise again.

It has always been very difficult to keep Polar Bears in confinement, on account of the heat and lack of swimming facilities. The great bears at Bronx Park in New York City are probably the happiest in captivity; with a great pool to swim in, rocks to climb and a deep cave down into the cool heart of a granite rock, where they can always retire and go into cold storage. Their happiness is largely due to the ingenuity and kindliness of William T. Hornaday, the director, who probably understands better what an animal wants than any man in America. But after he had provided everything that a well-regulated bear might desire, he was distressed to see his pets idle and sulking, taking no exercise and declining to utilize any of the facilities except the cold storage department. It was at this crisis that Mr. Hornaday heard from some whalers that in the arctic lands Polar Bears had been seen to play with small boulders by the hour. At once he gave his pets a small boulder and immediately all changed. They pushed, they fought and struggled, rolled the stone up hill and down hill, threw it into the pool and dived for it – and have been happy ever since. They had been like children in a fine house, but with nothing to play with.