BEASTS OF PREY--THE CARNIVORA
"One of the most striking and significant results of the study of the
later Mesozoic and earliest Tertiary mammalian faunas," remarks Prof.
W. B. Scott, "is that the higher or placental mammals are seen to be
converging back to a common ancestral group of clawed and carnivorous
or omnivorous animals, now entirely extinct, to which the name of
Creodonta was given by Cope. The creodonts are assuredly the ancestors
of the modern flesh-eaters, and, very probably, of the great series of
hoofed animals also, as well as of other orders. From this central,
ancestral group the other orders proceed, diverging more and more with
the progress of time, each larger branch dividing and subdividing into
smaller and smaller branches, until the modern condition is attained."
The story of the creodonts--savage marauders large and small--includes
the rise of the powerful order Carnivora--the beasts of prey, whose
food is the flesh of other animals. There always has been, and always
will be in every department and rank of animal life, some or many
species that live by preying on their neighbors; and every living
thing, from monad to man, has to fear such enemies.
The essential characteristic of the Carnivores is the dentition, which
is adapted to seizing, holding, biting, and cutting. The canines,
rarely prominent in other groups, here become of prime importance--a
dagger and hook in one--a tearing instrument. Naturally this tooth is
most developed in the dogs and the bears, which have little other means
of seizing and holding an animal, whereas the cat has efficient aid
in its claws. The cheek teeth in this order are (typically) not flat
"grinders" but angular and knife-edged, especially the foremost molars
that shut past one another like scissor blades; and it is evident that
such teeth are necessary to animals that must cut their food into
pieces small enough to swallow, and are not concerned about chewing it.
The order contains two distinct divisions, namely:
_Marine Carnivores_--Seals, sea lions, walruses.
_Land Carnivores_--Cats, dogs, weasels, bears, etc.
The marine carnivores (suborder Pinnipedia, "fin-footed") have their
whole organization adapted to an aquatic life, and appear to have
acquired it almost from the beginning of the diverse specialization
that sprang from the generalized creodonts, for nothing is known of
their ancestry that connects them with the known lineage of their kin
on land. The body approaches a fishlike form, and the four limbs are
turned into more or less perfect paddles, or "flippers." The teeth are
of the carnivorous type; the eyes are always large and prominent; and
external ears are lacking except in one family.
The least modified of the three families of marine carnivora is that
of the eared seals--the sea lions and fur seals of the North Pacific
ocean, and southward to Cape Horn. They have kept much independence of
action in the hind limbs, and are able to climb readily about the rocks
of the islands and shores to which they resort in midsummer for the
birth of the young. They have an obvious neck, small external ears,
nostrils at the tip of the snout, and in general more characteristics
like those of land carnivores, especially the bears, than have any
other pinnipeds. They live wholly on fish. Several species termed "sea
lions" were formerly numerous from Oregon southward to Patagonia, and
on certain South Sea islands, but they have been all but exterminated
except in California. These southern species, dwelling in warmer
latitudes, are known as "hair" seals, because their coat lacks the warm
undercoat of the northern species (_Otaria ursina_) which is the "fur"
seal of commerce, and which would long ago have disappeared had it not
been placed under international protection in its breeding places on
islands in Bering Sea. Thither, as summer opens the ice, gather the
herds that have been wandering in the ocean during the winter. The
females are much the more numerous of the two sexes, and having spread
all over the islands, formerly in hundreds of thousands, are collected
into "harems." The "bulls" are three times the size of any of the
females, and there are incessant combats between rival bulls. The young
born here are strong enough to swim away with their mothers in the
early autumn.
Similar in general organization, and in the freedom and usefulness
of the hinder limbs for creeping on land or ice, are the walruses
(Trichechidæ), of which there are two arctic species, one in the North
Atlantic, and one in the seas of Alaska and Kamchatka. In old times
they came as far south in winter as Nova Scotia and the coasts of
Britain. A full-grown male walrus is a very bulky animal, ten to twelve
feet long, and his skin is covered with a short coat of hair that in
old age almost disappears, while his bulldoglike muzzle bristles with
quill-like whiskers. The especial feature of the walrus, however, is
the pair of great ivory tusks, often two feet or more long, which are
the canines of the upper jaw. They are the tools with which the animal
digs from the mud of the bottom the clams and other shellfish on which
it feeds, and are formidable weapons enabling it to protect itself and
its family and mates, for which the walrus shows remarkable affection
and loyalty, from the attacks of the polar bear, the only enemy besides
man that it has to fear.
The true seals (Phocidæ) have become still further specialized toward
a completely aquatic life. Their hind limbs are extended straight
behind the body, and take no part in progression, the fore flippers
alone enabling them to swim and dive with ease and speed. Their strong,
clawlike nails enable them to climb onto ice floes or the shore, to
which they resort for rest and sunshine and to bear their young. These
are usually only one, or at most two, at a birth, and in some species
they have to be carefully taught how to swim, fearing the water.
All of the many kinds of seals of this family are confined to the
northern hemisphere, and mostly to the arctic region; but the great sea
elephant, now almost extinct, lived in the antarctic, with one colony
on the coast of southern California. Most seals are gregarious, and
some congregate in immense herds on ice floes far from land, but the
majority of species stay near shore. Seals feed chiefly on fish, of
which they consume enormous quantities; some, however, subsist largely
on crustaceans, especially prawns that swarm in the northern seas; also
on mollusks, echinoderms, and even occasionally on sea birds.
We are now ready to turn to the land carnivores, which, by the larger
opportunity, better food, and varied conditions the land affords, have
advanced far beyond their marine cousins. In these more favorable
circumstances, and by their struggle for a living against the powers
of defense or escape of their intended prey, and the competition of
one another, they have become widely diversified in organization and
habits, and in some of their representatives have developed the highest
intellectual and physical ability in the animal kingdom.
BEARS, DOGS, WOLVES, FOXES AND JACKALS
The bears (Ursidæ) stand lowest in the scale of rank among the
Carnivora because they retain more than the others archaic
characteristics in their anatomy. The family is singularly
uniform--that is, all bears are much alike in their heavy bodies, broad
heads, powerful limbs with "plantigrade" feet, resting the whole sole
on the ground (whereas most other quadrupeds are "digitigrade," i. e.,
standing on their toes), and an extremely short tail, almost invisible
in the coat of long hair that clothes their bodies. Distinction into
species has been found difficult. An English naturalist once exclaimed
that he knew but two in the whole world--the polar bear for one and all
the rest for the other. At the other extreme the American systemist,
Dr. C. Hart Merriam, announced in 1918 that the American brown and
grizzly bears alone were divisible into eighty-eight species and
subspecies, based on variations in their skulls! For ordinary readers
all the big brown bears of Japan, Asia, Europe, and Canada, inclusive
of the grizzlies (of which few now remain) may be regarded as one
species; the polar bear, with its elongated head and body, and
pure, white fur, as another; the small gray "glacier" bear of the St.
Elias Alps in Alaska as another; the "blue" one of Tibet, the shaggy,
long-lipped, sloth bear of India, and the miniature sun bear of Borneo,
as three more; and finally the common yellowish-nosed American black
bears, the Andean "spectacled" bear, and the very similar black bears
of the Himalayas, as together constituting a seventh species.
[Illustration: WOLVES IN WESTERN NORTH AMERICA
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood]
[Illustration: BEAR IN A ROCKY MOUNTAIN FOREST
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood]
All these are as alike in habits, allowing for different surroundings
and food supply, as in appearance. Eating everything from nuts,
berries, and insects, to fish, ground squirrels, and big game, their
dentition comprises not only powerful canines, but molars capable of
smashing bones. Bears are too slow and clumsy, however, to do much as
big game hunters, save, perhaps, the polar giant in seizing seals, and
it is therefore necessity rather than choice that reduces these really
formidable beasts to the petty business of nibbling berry bushes,
digging up bulbs or the nests of wasps and gophers, and tearing rotten
logs to pieces in hope of finding ants and beetle grubs. The most
inveterate insect hunter of the tribe is the Indian sloth, or honey
bear. Sir Samuel Baker remarks that its favorite delicacy is termites,
for which it will scratch a large hole in the hardest soil to the
depth of two or three feet. "The claws of the forepaws are three or
four inches in length, and are useful implements for digging. It is
astonishing to see the result upon soil that would require a pickax to
excavate a hole." Having reached the large combs at the bottom of the
cavity the bear blows the dust away with a strong puff, and then draws
the honey and larvæ out of the comb into its mouth by sucking in its
breath.
Nevertheless bears eat a good many young and small animals, and in
the neighborhood of farms steal many calves, colts, and pigs. It is
an animal to be feared by men when met, although as a rule bears are
inclined to run away rather than resist, except when a she-bear feels
that her young are in danger. Bears are rather solitary, the males
wandering about alone, the females accompanied by cubs often as big
as themselves. The young, two as a rule, are born in midwinter in the
family den, which may be a rocky cave or the hollow of an old tree,
the center of a dense thicket or simply a bed beneath the snow. The
cubs at birth are surprisingly small--not larger than rabbits--and are
naked, blind, and very slow to develop; hence the mother is extremely
solicitous about them, and heedlessly brave in their defense. Bears
hibernate only in the coldest regions.
Allied to the bears is the large black and white "coon bear"
(Æluropus), a rare, vegetable-feeding brute of eastern Tibet, which is
a relic of the Pleistocene. Near it in structure is the queer Ælurus of
the same region, which connects the bears with our raccoons and those
other "little brothers of the bear," the kinkajous and coatis of the
American tropics.
THE DOG FAMILY--WOLVES, FOXES AND JACKALS
Some of my readers may have asked themselves how the order of the
families or other groups of mammals is determined--why the edentates
follow the marsupials, the Rodentia come next, and so on. The reason is
that their ancestors, so far as we know them as fossils, seem to have
been related in a way that indicates such a succession of development
in time. It is scarcely more than an indication, however, for although
in describing them, or making a list, we must set the animals in a
row, naturalists long ago ceased attempting to show that any linear
arrangement of that kind represented the reality. The present variety
among mammals (as in other classes) is the result of development along
different lines from one or more points of beginning.
Throughout a long period in the early part of the Tertiary era there
prevailed a class of beasts of prey, some as big as tigers, which,
however, were by no means Carnivora, as we now know them, for their
teeth in most cases were still of the insectivore type. These were the
creodonts, of which I spoke a few pages back. They combined in their
structure the features of all the different families of Carnivora, and
it was not until there had developed from their stock a single family,
Miacidæ, and the rest had died out, that the canine, or carnassial,
teeth became prominent in their jaws, and nature found in this the
right road to progress. To this anciently extinct family we may trace
all the varieties of existing Carnivora. The oldest and most central
stock appears to be that of the dog family (Canidæ).
The least of these are the jackals of Africa and Asia, small, active,
noisy, reddish and variously marked animals like miniature wolves,
which dwell in deserts and open districts, where they hide in dens
during the day, and come out at night in search of mice and anything
else they can get. They haunt the suburbs of towns, and do great
service as scavengers, but also raid farms and villages, killing great
numbers of poultry, lambs, and weakly sheep and goats by methods much
like those of our American coyotes.
The coyote is a true wolf; and the wolves are connected with the
jackals by a small intermediate species in India. Formerly the coyote
ranged eastwardly throughout the prairie east of the Mississippi,
but farmers gradually killed it off. On the sparsely settled plains,
however, it survives from the Arctic Circle to the tropics in several
species, and continues to maintain itself because its natural enemies
have been killed off, and because it is extremely clever in dodging
new perils. It is far more destructive to the ranchman's chickens,
pigs, and lambs than even the big timber wolf, but, on the other hand,
benefits the industry by aiding him in exterminating troublesome
gophers, prairie dogs and rabbits.
The big gray wolf--the wolf _par excellence_--which our Western men
usually call "timber" wolf, to distinguish it from the coyote (the
wolf of the plains) is the most widely distributed of all beasts of
prey, for despite the various names given it this fierce and capable
animal is to be found throughout the northern zones of the globe,
from Kamchatka, Japan, and northern India right around to Alaska.
Where civilization prevails it has been killed off, yet lingers where
mountains give it hiding places even in the oldest settled parts of
Europe. In North America wolves abound in all the wilder parts of
the West and North, contesting with skill and courage the effort of
advancing civilization to get rid of them. This wolf, in its largest
examples, such as the often pure white specimens of the Arctic coasts
and islands (where it travels as far north as do the caribou and other
game), may measure three and a half feet in length, exclusive of the
bushy tail, and may weigh 150 pounds. Its color is typically rusty or
yellowish gray above, more or less grizzled, while the underparts are
whitish, and the tail is often tipped with black. These hues are paler
in northern than in southern specimens, and in warm regions totally
black races are known, one of which exists in Florida.
The wolf's mode of life is virtually that of the whole canine family,
making allowances for differences in climate and circumstances.
Choosing a convenient little cave among the rocks of a mountainside,
or, when this is not handy, digging a burrow for themselves, a pair
will establish a "den" in early summer, where presently six or eight
whelps may be born; but usually only two or three survive babyhood. At
this season small game is abundant, and the animals wandering around
alone by day as well as by night, pick up a good living, grow fat and
lazy, and are little to be feared save by the mothers of fawns or
lambs. As the onset of winter fills the forests with snow, cold gales
moan through the trees, and the long, dark nights enshroud an almost
dead world, this peaceable disposition changes into a hungry ferocity
and a force of craft and caution born of the direst need, which at last
make the animal formidable to man himself. Yet actual attacks on men
are much more rare than stories and traditions would lead one to think.
It is at this season, when the rabbits and other small creatures are
gone or hidden in hibernation, and large game must be depended on for
food, that the wolves form themselves into small companies, or "packs,"
and assist one another. To this class of animals hunting is truly "the
chase," for their method is, having found their quarry (in which the
good nose for a trail and a keen hearing assist them), to keep it in
sight and run it down. Having overtaken the quarry, a sideways leap
enables them to thrust in the long canine, and drag on it--and the
result is death unless the hunted creature is able to turn and fight
off its foe with hoofs and horn.
The forests of southern Brazil harbor a long-legged, reddish species
called "maned," which is a true wolf; and South America generally has
several kinds of "fox dogs" (genus Lycalopex) that sufficiently make
up for the absence of true wolves, as do jackals the lack of wolves in
Africa and Arabia.
Foxes have long been regarded as constituting a separate genus under
their Latin name Vulpes, but conservative naturalists now think they
belong with the wolves in the genus Canis ("a dog"). The type is that
of a smaller, more agile and delicate animal than a wolf or jackal,
with a broader skull and sharper muzzle, larger ears, a longer, more
bushy tail, and usually longer fur. Weaker than its wolfish relatives,
though endowed with great swiftness, and used to playing the double
rôle of hunter and hunted, its brain has been developed to a high
degree to make up for its bodily deficiencies, and shows capacity
for further development. Nevertheless the fox is not quite such a
marvel of shrewdness as he is reputed to be, and fox hunters in Great
Britain--under whose combination of care and chase his education has
been more advanced than anywhere else--note much diversity in brain
work among them.
Although the North American red fox has a different name from the
typical European one it is virtually the same, and shows its skill and
adaptability by continuing to live and flourish in the midst of our
civilization, where it practices quite as much sly craft and success
in chicken stealing as does "Reynard" on the other side of the ocean.
The red fox is to be found all over the continent as far south as
Georgia, and where the winters are cold his long and silky fur becomes
of marketable value, especially in its darker varieties. The animal has
touches of black on the tail and the legs, and this seems liable to
affect the whole pelage in the North. Thus some are all black; others
are black with every hair tipped with white, and are called "silvers";
others have a blackish band along the spine and across the shoulders.
To these the name "cross-foxes" is given. The skins so marked bring
high prices, and an extensive industry has arisen in Canada by breeding
black and marked foxes in captivity, where pure color strains have been
developed, whereas in nature one or more of these melanistic varieties
may occur in any litter of normally red parents.
North America has three or more other species of fox, one of which,
the gray fox, is common throughout the country east and south of
the Appalachian heights, as far north as the lower valley of the
Hudson River. It is smaller and grayer than the red fox, is more of
a forest-keeping animal, and does not burrow, but makes its nest
in the bottom of a decayed tree or stump, or within a hollow log.
Living in a climate where small game is abundant the year round, and
chicken-stealing comparatively easy, he has not been driven to the
straits of getting food in winter to which the northern foxes are
driven, and hence has developed less of the ingenuity and cleverness
they show. On the high plains of the West dwells a small, active fox,
known as the kit fox, or "swift," which feeds on the ground squirrels
and mice of that region, and makes its home in a burrow (often one dug
by a prairie dog), where it hibernates in winter. It is now rare and
very wary.
Throughout the polar regions right around the globe is found the
arctic fox in great numbers, and wandering in summer, at least, to
the farthest islands, where its prey consists of lemmings, rabbits,
ptarmigan and fish. This is a shy little beast, with blunt nose, short,
rounded ears, a very long, bushy tail, and the soles of the feet well
shod with hair, giving them a firm and warm grip on the snow and ice
over which they leave tiny tracks from Labrador to Siberia. In summer
its dress is brown with whitish or drab underparts; but in autumn this
is replaced by a coat of long, pure white hair beneath which is an
undercoat of fine wool. A small proportion, however, are never either
white or dark brown, but are slate gray all the year round. In some
rather southerly places the "blues" prevail, forming a local race. Such
is the case in Greenland, Iceland, and the Aleutian Islands, where blue
foxes are now carefully preserved and cared for in a semi-domestic
condition for the sake of their valuable fur. Several small kinds of
foxes occur in Asia, and in India one affords some sport with hounds.
The prettiest of all are the little sand-colored, big-eared "fennecs"
of the deserts of northern Africa and Arabia. No foxes tame well, nor
do any of them cross with dogs as wolves and jackals constantly do,
and apparently no fox blood has entered into the composition of the
domestic dog.
There remain in this ancient and cosmopolitan family a considerable
number of animals which from their general appearance we call "dogs."
Among these is the long-bodied, short-legged, primitive "bush dog" of
Guiana; the "bakoor" of South Africa; several Oriental species; and
the hated "hunting dog" of Africa. The last named is a terror even to
a lion. It ranges the country in swift-footed packs, dreaded by every
creature of both forest and veldt, and every writer increases its
reputation for both strategy and ferocity. This has led to its being
killed off, until now it is common only in the remote wilderness.
Formerly it was known even in Egypt, and it is the party-colored,
prick-eared dog represented on the ancient mural paintings at Beni
Hasan and elsewhere.
Of the Asiatic wild dogs the most familiar is that one of India called
in the north "buansuah" and in the south "dhole." Like the others it
is normally rusty red in color, and makes its lair in rocky jungles,
whence, more often by day than by night, it makes its forays usually
in packs from which even the leopard and tiger flee--just as in this
country half a dozen curs will send a cougar or jaguar up a tree in
fright. But it avoids settlements, and does little damage to domestic
animals.
This brings us to the consideration of the origin of our domestic
dogs, a matter which seems to me more simple than some authors have
regarded it. This was doubtless among the very first animals to become
attached to the camp or family of primitive man, and in every case,
at first, at least, it would be of some local species of wolf, for
anatomists agree that no admixture of any blood outside the genus Canis
is traceable in the dog; and probably would be cherished or tolerated
as a reserve supply of food rather than as an aid in hunting. But it
is not unreasonable to suppose that when famine came and the stone
ax was raised against the poor animals, those that had proved good
watchers, or were the special pets of the women and children, would
be the last to be sacrificed and sometimes would be saved altogether.
Thus an improving and alterative selection would have begun almost
from the start. Moreover, these early camp dogs would become modified
by interbreeding and by the influences of captivity; and as their
vagabondish owners wandered about would be crossed not only with
diverse sorts of tamed dogs, but with the wild stocks of new countries;
and this complication would increase as civilization extended.
Nevertheless this appears not quite to complete the story. There is a
quality which we recognize as "doggy," and as something distinctive.
Whence came it? I am of the opinion that it is derived from one or more
kinds of canine animals, exterminated by primitive man, which were
more "doggy" than wolfish, and which formed in large part the stock
of the first domesticated dogs. This supposition is supported by the
fact that there have been found remains of a distinct canine species,
allied to the Australian dingo, which was domesticated by Neolithic
men, and perhaps contributed to existing varieties of the dog. The
earliest Egyptian monuments show pictures of large dogs with "lop"
ears--denoting one of the most striking differences between dogs and
wild wolves or jackals, whose ears are invariably "pricked."
THE SOURCE OF COSTLY FURS
A descendant of the Creodonta called Cynodictis, which lived in the
Eocene, or earliest of the Tertiary periods, is regarded as the
forefather of the dog family, but its character is such that it might
as well be said to be the progenitor of the weasel family (Mustelidæ),
which may thus be suitably considered the nearest relatives of the
Canidæ. These are the small, but alert, muscular and wide-awake animals
whose coats, adapted to the cold regions in which most of them live,
furnish us with warm and beautiful furs; hence the Mustelidæ may be
called the family of "fur bearers." They resemble the dog tribe in the
breadth of the skull, and in the dentition, which serves well for the
wide variety in their fare; but instead of the long, high-stepping
legs of the galloping dogs they have short, strong limbs adapted
to creeping, digging, climbing, or swimming. The swimmers are the
otters--one marine, the other a denizen of rivers and lakes. The sea
otter is peculiar to our northwestern coast, where it used to be
very abundant from California to Bering Sea, but is now so rare, on
account of the great demand for its unequaled fur, that its pelt is
worth several hundred dollars to the fortunate hunter. It is truly
pelagic, rarely landing anywhere but on some outer reef or isolated
rock, and eating fish, sea urchins, and crabs; and is much larger than
the land otter, and with a short, flattened tail instead of the long,
tapering one that characterizes the latter. Of the river otters about
ten species are recognized, scattered all over the cooler parts of the
world, and much alike in their four webbed feet and fish-eating habits.
They are lively, playful creatures, and by their wariness, nocturnal
habits, and skill in hiding their burrows, made in the bank with an
underwater entrance, they are able to persist here and there in the
midst of civilization.
Allied to the otters in structure are the badgers and skunks. Of
the former, our badger has been killed off everywhere except in
the northwest, where it still digs its deep holes in the ground for
its daylight rest and partial hibernation, and finds plentiful food
among the gophers, doing the ranchmen more good by destroying these
pests than it does harm by its digging. The European badger differs
in various ways; and there is an Oriental one, the "stinking" teledu,
which illustrates the fetid odor that belongs to all of this family.
This disagreeable quality is developed in the skunks into an effective
weapon of defense. The food of skunks consists mainly of insects and
field mice, and is everywhere so abundant that they find civilization
favorable to them rather than otherwise, and remain numerous all over
the country in several species, of which the familiar large northern
skunk, and the small southern striped one, are best known. The skunks
are confined to America, but South Africa has a very similar creature
in the zorilla.
We now come to a large number of vigorous, bloodthirsty and cunning
little carnivores, the terror of small game, as are the cats of
larger animals, which are grouped by their similarity of structure
in the "weasel" section of the family (Mustelinæ). Some are mainly
terrestrial, others arboreal in habit of life. All have rather long
bodies, short legs armed with strong, sharp claws, pointed heads,
catlike teeth, and brains equal, if not superior, to any other
carnivore. Among the terrestrial species the glutton of Europe and its
analogue in Canada, the wolverine, are prominent. The wolverine is a
large, shaggy, somewhat clumsy animal that seeks its prey mainly on
the ground, but occasionally climbs to a low branch or an overhanging
rock whence it may leap upon the backs of a deer or sheep. It displays
the greatest sagacity and persistence in getting a living where life
is precarious; and is so clever in robbing the trappers' lures and
penetrating his "caches" that the forest people consider it hardly
anything else than a devil on four legs, and charge it with deliberate
malice. The voracity of its European cousin long ago became the subject
of ridiculous traditions, and has given the word "glutton" to the
language. Two similar, but smaller, mustelines, the tayra and the
grison, inhabit Central and South America. The latter defends itself in
the same manner as the skunk.
The weasels, stoats, polecats, minks, and the like form a group
distinctly northern, except that one species ranges southward into
the Andes. They do their work on the ground, although some are able
to climb trees. Slender, lithe, sharp-clawed, secretively colored,
and endowed with strength, speed and cleverness, the weasels are the
scourge and terror of the ground-keeping animals, and do more than any
other class of agents to restrain mice, gophers and similar nuisances.
Europe and Siberia have the stoat, the ermine-weasel and the polecat,
a domestic form of which is the ferret; and we have in North America
several distinct weasels, as the short-tailed and the long-tailed of
the East, the bridled weasel of the Pacific Coast, the black-footed
ferret of the plains, and the little six-inch "mouse hunter" of the
Northwest, which is the smallest carnivore known. All the northern
weasels become pure white in winter when they live in a region where
the snow lies continuously and the cold is steady; but south of that
line they do not change color. The change from the summer brown to the
winter white--when they become "ermines"--is produced by an actual
loss of color in the hair; but the spring change back to brown is
effected by shedding the old white hair and getting a new brown coat.
In the Middle Ages ermine fur was permitted to be worn only by royalty,
and later by judges on the bench. A somewhat different, and strictly
American, species is the mink. It is somewhat less slender than the
weasels, and is semiaquatic in habits, dwelling always near streams,
where it feeds on earthworms, frogs, and fishes. Having this kind of
food, and being keen-witted and secretive, it has been able to continue
to exist in the midst of civilization, and the vast number of its dark
pelts that come to the fur market are nearly all got by farmers' boys
in traps set near home.
The most valuable of the fur bearers, however, are those that belong
to the forests of the North and dwell in trees--the sables, martens,
and pekans. The sable is Siberian, the marten is North European, and
the pine marten and pekan are North American. The first three are
hardly distinguishable, each averaging about eighteen inches in length,
exclusive of the long, furry tail, and are brown, somewhat lighter on
the underparts, the breast-spot of the Canadian species being orange.
The body is long and supple, the legs short and the toes separate, with
sharp, long claws, as becomes so expert a tree-climber. The martens
exhibit great agility and grace in their movements, and live usually
in trees, furnishing with a bed of leaves a hollow in a lofty decaying
trunk or sometimes in a rocky crevice. Here the young are brought forth
in litters of six or eight early each spring. In winter, however, they
descend daily, and hunt rabbits and other prey over the snow. This
is particularly true of the big Canadian pekan, or "fisher" marten,
which is the least common of the tribe. These martens fade away as
civilization advances toward their forest retreats, and now are to
be obtained only in the wildest parts of the Canadian woods; and the
effort to tame and breed them in captivity has met with little success.
CIVETS, MONGOOSES AND HYENAS
This group of Old World animals represents the product of lines of
descent that had their origin very near that of the dogs, as is
particularly evident in the history of the hyenas (family Hyænidæ).
But between the noble courage and fidelity of the dog and the cowardly
brutishness of the hyena lies a great distance in character--as it
appears from the human point of view. Of course it will not do to
apply our highly elaborated standards to a moral estimate of wild
animal behavior, or to use seriously such terms as "cruel," "selfish,"
and the like, especially in the case of the predatory beasts that
work hard for their captures, must kill them the best way they can,
and must satisfy their own wants before yielding place to rivals or
inferiors; yet we cannot help admiring certain qualities in some of
them and disliking others, as if they were inspired by praiseworthy or
blameworthy motives. In the character of the hyenas, thus criticised,
there is nothing admirable except their extraordinary brute strength.
This is shown chiefly in their big heads, where their jaws are filled
with teeth of extraordinary size, and are worked by muscles that
enable them to crunch the leg bones of an ox, or indent and bend thick
iron, of which amazing examples are given by Selous, Neuman and other
African sportsmen. Otherwise they are the meanest of brutes, hated and
despised by every man and beast in the countries (Africa and southern
Asia) that they afflict.
Related to them, but very different in every way are the many species
of ichneumons and civets (family Viverridæ) of the same parts of the
world. The ichneumons, or mongooses, are small, dark-colored, unspotted
animals, varying in size from that of a weasel to the bigness of a
house cat, with compact bodies and pointed muzzles. They are active,
bold and predacious, living on small game of every sort, and making
their homes in holes in the ground. They are noted for their animosity
to reptiles, and in ancient Egypt were protected as "sacred" because
they killed asps and hunted for and ate crocodiles' eggs. The old term
"ichneumon" has disappeared, however, in favor of the term "mongoose,"
which is the name of the East Indian species famous for snake killing.
It is able, by its astonishing quickness, to spring upon and kill
a cobra, even when that deadly snake is prepared to strike at its
little foe. Mongooses were colonized in Jamaica and other West Indian
islands years ago to destroy the rats that were a plague in the sugar
plantations; but they presently turned their attention to the poultry
as easier game, and became a greater nuisance than the rats. These
fierce little snake killers constitute the "herpestine" section of the
family.
[Illustration: BAT WITH YOUNG BAT IN EACH POUCH, FOUND HANGING TO A
TELEGRAPH WIRE, NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
Photo, Keystone View Co.]
The "viverrine" section contains the civets, which have elongated
bodies, terrierlike heads, small, round, five-toed feet with
imperfectly sheathed claws, long, often bushy tails, and coats of rough
dark-colored hair marked with blackish stripes, bars, or squarish
blotches. The species are numerous, and varied, those of central
Africa, called "genets," resembling weasels. They include the
linsangs of the East Indies, with soft, fawn-colored fur; several East
Indian species inhabiting trees and going by the name of "tree cats"
and "toddy cats," one of which is domesticated as a mouser and pretty
pet by the natives; and the black binturong of the Orient, which is the
only animal of the Old World, not a marsupial, that has a prehensile
tail.
[Illustration: BLACK SPIDER MONKEY
Photo, Ewing Galloway]
[Illustration: RUFFED LEMUR, ATTRACTIVE BY ITS COLORING
Photo, Elwin R. Sanborn, New York Zoological Society]
The distinctive peculiarity of the true civet cats is the possession
of a pair of open pouches in the groin holding an oily substance
having an intense musky odor and known as "civet." This is present in
the five Oriental species, but is most copious in the civet cat of
northern Africa, which on this account is kept captive and occasionally
relieved, by the aid of a small spoon, of its civet for which perfumers
will pay a high price.
Madagascar possesses a remarkable animal in the foussa, or fossane,
which is nearly the size of our puma, has a weasellike head and a very
long tail, and is a fierce nocturnal marauder. It is classed with the
Viverridæ, but stands intermediate between them and the cats.