IN THE LOUISIANA CANEBRAKES
In October, 1907, I spent a fortnight in the canebrakes of northern
Louisiana, my hosts being Messrs. John M. Parker and John A. McIlhenny.
Surgeon-General Rixey, of the United States Navy, and Dr. Alexander
Lambert were with me. I was especially anxious to kill a bear in these
canebrakes after the fashion of the old Southern planters, who for a
century past have followed the bear with horse, hound and horn in
Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.
Our first camp was on Tensas Bayou. This is in the heart of the great
alluvial bottom-land created during the countless ages through which the
mighty Mississippi has poured out of the heart of the continent. It is
in the black belt of the South, in which the negroes outnumber the
whites four or five to one, the disproportion in the region in which I
was actually hunting being far greater. There is no richer soil in all
the earth; and when, as will soon be the case, the chances of disaster
from flood are over, I believe the whole land will be cultivated and
densely peopled. At present the possibility of such flood is a terrible
deterrent to settlement, for when the Father of Waters breaks his
boundaries he turns the country for a breadth of eighty miles into one
broad river, the plantations throughout all this vast extent being from
five to twenty feet under water. Cotton is the staple industry, corn
also being grown, while there are a few rice fields and occasional small
patches of sugar cane. The plantations are for the most part of large
size and tilled by negro tenants for the white owners. Conditions are
still in some respects like those of the pioneer days. The magnificent
forest growth which covers the land is of little value because of the
difficulty in getting the trees to market, and the land is actually
worth more after the timber has been removed than before. In
consequence, the larger trees are often killed by girdling, where the
work of felling them would entail disproportionate cost and labor. At
dusk, with the sunset glimmering in the west, or in the brilliant
moonlight when the moon is full, the cotton fields have a strange
spectral look, with the dead trees raising aloft their naked branches.
The cotton fields themselves, when the bolls burst open, seem almost as
if whitened by snow; and the red and white flowers, interspersed among
the burst-open pods, make the whole field beautiful. The rambling
one-story houses, surrounded by outbuildings, have a picturesqueness all
their own; their very looks betoken the lavish, whole-hearted, generous
hospitality of the planters who dwell therein.
Beyond the end of cultivation towers the great forest. Wherever the
water stands in pools, and by the edges of the lakes and bayous, the
giant cypress looms aloft, rivalled in size by some of the red gums and
white oaks. In stature, in towering majesty, they are unsurpassed by any
trees of our eastern forests; lordlier kings of the green-leaved world
are not to be found until we reach the sequoias and redwoods of the
Sierras. Among them grow many other trees—hackberry, thorn, honey
locust, tupelo, pecan and ash. In the cypress sloughs the singular knees
of the trees stand two or three feet above the black ooze. Palmettos
grow thickly in places. The canebrakes stretch along the slight rises of
ground, often extending for miles, forming one of the most striking and
interesting features of the country. They choke out other growth, the
feathery, graceful canes standing tall, slender, serried, each but a few
inches from his brother, and springing to a height of fifteen or twenty
feet. They look like bamboos; they are well-nigh impenetrable for a man
on horseback; even on foot they make difficult walking unless free use
is made of the heavy bushknife. It is impossible to see through them for
more than fifteen or twenty paces, and often for not half that distance.
Bears make their lairs in them, and they are the refuge for hunted
things. Outside of them, in the swamp, bushes of many kinds grow thick
among the tall trees, and vines and creepers climb the trunks and hang
in trailing festoons from the branches. Here likewise the bushknife is
in constant play, as the skilled horsemen thread their way, often at a
gallop, in and out among the great tree trunks, and through the dense,
tangled, thorny undergrowth.
In the lakes and larger bayous we saw alligators and garfish; and
monstrous snapping turtles, fearsome brutes of the slime, as heavy as a
man, and with huge horny beaks that with a single snap could take off a
man’s hand or foot. One of the planters with us had lost part of his
hand by the bite of an alligator; and had seen a companion seized by the
foot by a huge garfish from which he was rescued with the utmost
difficulty by his fellow-swimmers. There were black bass in the waters
too, and they gave us many a good meal. Thick-bodied water moccasins,
foul and dangerous, kept near the water; and farther back in the swamp
we found and killed rattlesnakes and copperheads.
Coon and possum were very plentiful, and in the streams there were minks
and a few otters. Black squirrels barked in the tops of the tall trees
or descended to the ground to gather nuts or gnaw the shed deer
antlers—the latter a habit they shared with the wood rats. To me the
most interesting of the smaller mammals, however, were the swamp
rabbits, which are thoroughly amphibious in their habits, not only
swimming but diving, and taking to the water almost as freely as if they
were muskrats. They lived in the depths of the woods and beside the
lonely bayous.
Birds were plentiful. Mocking-birds abounded in the clearings, where,
among many sparrows of more common kind, I saw the painted finch, the
gaudily colored brother of our little indigo bunting, though at this
season his plumage was faded and dim. In the thick woods where we hunted
there were many cardinal birds and Carolina wrens, both in full song.
Thrashers were even more common; but so cautious that it was rather
difficult to see them, in spite of their incessant clucking and calling
and their occasional bursts of song. There were crowds of warblers and
vireos of many different kinds, evidently migrants from the north, and
generally silent. The most characteristic birds, however, were the
woodpeckers, of which there were seven or eight species, the commonest
around our camp being the handsome red-bellied, the brother of the
red-head which we saw in the clearings. The most notable birds and those
which most interested me were the great ivory-billed woodpeckers. Of
these I saw three, all of them in groves of giant cypress; their
brilliant white bills contrasted finely with the black of their general
plumage. They were noisy but wary, and they seemed to me to set off the
wildness of the swamp as much as any of the beasts of the chase. Among
the birds of prey the commonest were the barred owls, which I have never
elsewhere seen so plentiful. Their hooting and yelling were heard all
around us throughout the night, and once one of them hooted at intervals
for several minutes at midday. One of these owls had caught and was
devouring a snake in the late afternoon, while it was still daylight. In
the dark nights and still mornings and evenings their cries seemed
strange and unearthly, the long hoots varied by screeches, and by all
kinds of uncanny noises.
At our first camp our tents were pitched by the bayou. For four days the
weather was hot, with steaming rains; after that it grew cool and clear.
Huge biting flies, bigger than bees, attacked our horses; but the insect
plagues, so veritable a scourge in this country during the months of
warm weather, had well-nigh vanished in the first few weeks of the fall.
The morning after we reached camp we were joined by Ben Lilley, the
hunter, a spare, full-bearded man, with wild, gentle, blue eyes and a
frame of steel and whipcord. I never met any other man so indifferent to
fatigue and hardship. He equalled Cooper’s Deerslayer in woodcraft, in
hardihood, in simplicity—and also in loquacity. The morning he joined us
in camp, he had come on foot through the thick woods, followed by his
two dogs, and had neither eaten nor drunk for twenty-four hours; for he
did not like to drink the swamp water. It had rained hard throughout the
night and he had no shelter, no rubber coat, nothing but the clothes he
was wearing, and the ground was too wet for him to lie on; so he perched
in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much as if he had been a wild
turkey. But he was not in the least tired when he struck camp; and,
though he slept an hour after breakfast, it was chiefly because he had
nothing else to do, inasmuch as it was Sunday, on which day he never
hunted nor labored. He could run through the woods like a buck, was far
more enduring, and quite as indifferent to weather, though he was over
fifty years old. He had trapped and hunted throughout almost all the
half century of his life, and on trail of game he was as sure as his own
hounds. His observations on wild creatures were singularly close and
accurate. He was particularly fond of the chase of the bear, which he
followed by himself, with one or two dogs; often he would be on the
trail of his quarry for days at a time, lying down to sleep wherever
night overtook him, and he had killed over a hundred and twenty bears.
Late in the evening of the same day we were joined by two gentlemen to
whom we owed the success of our hunt: Messrs. Clive and Harley Metcalf,
planters from Mississippi, men in the prime of life, thorough woodsmen
and hunters, skilled marksmen, and utterly fearless horsemen. For a
quarter of a century they had hunted bear and deer with horse and hound,
and were masters of the art. They brought with them their pack of bear
hounds, only one, however, being a thoroughly staunch and seasoned
veteran. The pack was under the immediate control of a negro hunter,
Holt Collier, in his own way as remarkable a character as Ben Lilley. He
was a man of sixty and could neither read nor write, but he had all the
dignity of an African chief, and for half a century he had been a bear
hunter, having killed or assisted in killing over three thousand bears.
He had been born a slave on the Hinds plantation, his father, an old man
when he was born, having been the body servant and cook of “old General
Hinds,” as he called him, when the latter fought under Jackson at New
Orleans. When ten years old Holt had been taken on the horse behind his
young master, the Hinds of that day, on a bear hunt, when he killed his
first bear. In the Civil War he had not only followed his master to
battle as his body servant, but had acted under him as sharpshooter
against the Union soldiers. After the war he continued to stay with his
master until the latter died, and had then been adopted by the Metcalfs;
and he felt that he had brought them up, and treated them with that
mixture of affection and grumbling respect which an old nurse shows
toward the lad who has ceased being a child. The two Metcalfs and Holt
understood one another thoroughly, and understood their hounds and the
game their hounds followed almost as thoroughly.
[Illustration:
THE BEAR HUNTERS
From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]
They had killed many deer and wildcat, and now and then a panther; but
their favorite game was the black bear, which, until within a very few
years, was extraordinarily plentiful in the swamps and canebrakes on
both sides of the lower Mississippi, and which is still found here and
there, although in greatly diminished numbers. In Louisiana and
Mississippi the bears go into their dens toward the end of January,
usually in hollow trees, often very high up in living trees, but often
also in great logs that lie rotting on the ground. They come forth
toward the end of April, the cubs having been born in the interval. At
this time the bears are nearly as fat, so my informants said, as when
they enter their dens in January; but they lose their fat very rapidly.
On first coming out in the spring they usually eat ash buds and the
tender young cane called mutton cane, and at that season they generally
refuse to eat the acorns even when they are plentiful. According to my
informants it is at this season that they are most apt to take to
killing stock, almost always the hogs which run wild or semi-wild in the
woods. They are very individual in their habits, however; many of them
never touch stock, while others, usually old he-bears, may kill numbers
of hogs; in one case an old he-bear began this hog-killing just as soon
as he left his den. In the summer months they find but little to eat,
and it is at this season that they are most industrious in hunting for
grubs, insects, frogs and small mammals. In some neighborhoods they do
not eat fish, while in other places, perhaps not far away, they not only
greedily eat dead fish, but will themselves kill fish if they can find
them in shallow pools left by the receding waters. As soon as the mast
is on the ground they begin to feed upon it, and when the acorns and
pecans are plentiful they eat nothing else; though at first berries of
all kinds and grapes are eaten also. When in November they have begun
only to eat the acorns they put on fat as no other wild animal does, and
by the end of December a full-grown bear may weigh at least twice as
much as it does in August, the difference being as great as between a
very fat and a lean hog. Old he-bears which in August weigh three
hundred pounds and upward will, toward the end of December, weigh six
hundred pounds, and even more in exceptional cases.
Bears vary greatly in their habits in different localities, in addition
to the individual variation among those of the same neighborhood. Around
Avery Island, John McIlhenny’s plantation, the bears only appear from
June to November; there they never kill hogs, but feed at first on corn
and then on sugar cane, doing immense damage in the fields, quite as
much as hogs would do. But when we were on the Tensas we visited a
family of settlers who lived right in the midst of the forest ten miles
from any neighbors; and although bears were plentiful around them they
never molested their corn fields—in which the coons, however, did great
damage.
A big bear is cunning, and is a dangerous fighter to the dogs. It is
only in exceptional cases, however, that these black bears, even when
wounded and at bay, are dangerous to men, in spite of their formidable
strength. Each of the hunters with whom I was camped had been charged by
one or two among the scores or hundreds of bears he had slain, but no
one of them had ever been injured, although they knew other men who had
been injured. Their immunity was due to their own skill and coolness;
for when the dogs were around the bear the hunter invariably ran close
in so as to kill the bear at once and save the pack. Each of the
Metcalfs had on one occasion killed a large bear with a knife, when the
hounds had seized it and the men dared not fire for fear of shooting one
of them. They had in their younger days hunted with a General Hamberlin,
a Mississippi planter whom they well knew, who was then already an old
man. He was passionately addicted to the chase of the bear, not only
because of the sport it afforded, but also in a certain way as a matter
of vengeance; for his father, also a keen bear-hunter, had been killed
by a bear. It was an old he, which he had wounded and which had been
bayed by the dogs; it attacked him, throwing him down and biting him so
severely that he died a couple of days later. This was in 1847. Mr. W.
H. Lambeth sends the following account of the fatal encounter:
“I send you an extract from the _Brother Jonathan_, published in New
York in 1847:
“‘Dr. Monroe Hamberlin, Robert Wilson, Joe Brazeil, and others left
Satartia, Miss., and in going up Big Sunflower River, met Mr. Leiser
and his party of hunters returning to Vicksburg. Mr. Leiser told Dr.
Hamberlin that he saw the largest bear track at the big Mound on
Lake George that he ever saw, and was afraid to tackle him. Dr.
Hamberlin said, “I never saw one that I was afraid to tackle.” Dr.
Hamberlin landed his skiff at the Mound and his dogs soon bayed the
bear. Dr. Hamberlin fired and the ball glanced on the bear’s head.
The bear caught him by the right thigh and tore all the flesh off.
He drew his knife and the bear crushed his right arm. He cheered the
dogs and they pulled the bear off. The bear whipped the dogs and
attacked him the third time, biting him in the hollow back of his
neck. Mr. Wilson came up and shot the bear dead on Dr. Hamberlin.
The party returned to Satartia, but Dr. Hamberlin told them to put
the bear in the skiff, that he would not leave without his
antagonist. The bear weighed 640 pounds.’
“Dr. Hamberlin lived three days. I knew all the parties. His son
John and myself hunted with them in 1843 and 1844, when we were too
small to carry a gun.”
A large bear is not afraid of dogs, and an old he, or a she with cubs,
is always on the lookout for a chance to catch and kill any dog that
comes near enough. While lean and in good running condition it is not an
easy matter to bring a bear to bay; but as they grow fat they become
steadily less able to run, and the young ones, and even occasionally a
full-grown she, will then readily tree. If a man is not near by, a big
bear that has become tired will treat the pack with whimsical
indifference. The Metcalfs recounted to me how they had once seen a
bear, which had been chased quite a time, evidently make up its mind
that it needed a rest and could afford to take it without much regard
for the hounds. The bear accordingly selected a small opening and lay
flat on its back with its nose and all its four legs extended. The dogs
surrounded it in frantic excitement, barking and baying, and gradually
coming in a ring very close up. The bear was watching, however, and
suddenly sat up with a jerk, frightening the dogs nearly into fits. Half
of them turned back somersaults in their panic, and all promptly gave
the bear ample room. The bear having looked about, lay flat on its back
again, and the pack gradually regaining courage once more closed in. At
first the bear, which was evidently reluctant to arise, kept them at a
distance by now and then thrusting an unexpected paw toward them; and
when they became too bold it sat up with a jump and once more put them
all to flight.
For several days we hunted perseveringly around this camp on the Tensas
Bayou, but without success. Deer abounded, but we could find no bears;
and of the deer we killed only what we actually needed for use in camp.
I killed one myself by a good shot, in which, however, I fear that the
element of luck played a considerable part. We had started as usual by
sunrise, to be gone all day; for we never counted upon returning to camp
before sunset. For an hour or two we threaded our way, first along an
indistinct trail, and then on an old disused road, the hardy
woods-horses keeping on a running walk without much regard to the
difficulties of the ground. The disused road lay right across a great
canebrake, and while some of the party went around the cane with the
dogs, the rest of us strung out along the road so as to get a shot at
any bear that might come across it. I was following Harley Metcalf, with
John McIlhenny and Dr. Rixey behind on the way to their posts, when we
heard in the far-off distance two of the younger hounds, evidently on
the trail of a deer. Almost immediately afterward a crash in the bushes
at our right hand and behind us made me turn around, and I saw a deer
running across the few feet of open space; and as I leaped from my horse
it disappeared in the cane. I am a rather deliberate shot, and under any
circumstances a rifle is not the best weapon for snap shooting, while
there is no kind of shooting more difficult than on running game in a
canebrake. Luck favored me in this instance, however, for there was a
spot a little ahead of where the deer entered in which the cane was
thinner, and I kept my rifle on its indistinct, shadowy outline until it
reached this spot; it then ran quartering away from me, which made my
shot much easier, although I could only catch its general outline
through the cane. But the 45–70 which I was using is a powerful gun and
shoots right through cane or bushes; and as soon as I pulled trigger the
deer, with a bleat, turned a tremendous somersault and was dead when we
reached it. I was not a little pleased that my bullet should have sped
so true when I was making my first shot in company with my hard-riding,
straight-shooting planter friends.
But no bears were to be found. We waited long hours on likely stands. We
rode around the canebrakes through the swampy jungle, or threaded our
way across them on trails cut by the heavy wood-knives of my companions;
but we found nothing. Until the trails were cut the canebrakes were
impenetrable to a horse and were difficult enough to a man on foot. On
going through them it seemed as if we must be in the tropics; the
silence, the stillness, the heat, and the obscurity, all combining to
give a certain eeriness to the task, as we chopped our winding way
slowly through the dense mass of close-growing, feather-fronded stalks.
Each of the hunters prided himself on his skill with the horn, which was
an essential adjunct of the hunt, used both to summon and control the
hounds, and for signalling among the hunters themselves. The tones of
many of the horns were full and musical; and it was pleasant to hear
them as they wailed to one another, backward and forward, across the
great stretches of lonely swamp and forest.
A few days convinced us that it was a waste of time to stay longer where
we were. Accordingly, early one morning we hunters started for a new
camp fifteen or twenty miles to the southward, on Bear Lake. We took the
hounds with us, and each man carried what he chose or could in his
saddle-pockets, while his slicker was on his horse’s back behind him.
Otherwise we took absolutely nothing in the way of supplies, and the
negroes with the tents and camp equipage were three days before they
overtook us. On our way down we were joined by Major Amacker and Dr.
Miller, with a small pack of cat hounds. These were good deer dogs, and
they ran down and killed on the ground a good-sized bobcat—a wildcat, as
it is called in the South. It was a male and weighed twenty-three and a
half pounds. It had just killed and eaten a large rabbit. The stomachs
of the deer we killed, by the way, contained acorns and leaves.
Our new camp was beautifully situated on the bold, steep bank of Bear
Lake—a tranquil stretch of water, part of an old river bed, a couple of
hundred yards broad with a winding length of several miles. Giant
cypress grew at the edge of the water; the singular cypress knees rising
in every direction round about, while at the bottoms of the trunks
themselves were often cavernous hollows opening beneath the surface of
water, some of them serving as dens for alligators. There was a waxing
moon, so that the nights were as beautiful as the days.
From our new camp we hunted as steadily as from the old. We saw bear
sign, but not much of it, and only one or two fresh tracks. One day the
hounds jumped a bear, probably a yearling from the way it ran; for at
this season a yearling or a two-year-old will run almost like a deer,
keeping to the thick cane as long as it can and then bolting across
through the bushes of the ordinary swamp land until it can reach another
canebrake. After a three hours’ run this particular animal managed to
get clear away without one of the hunters ever seeing it, and it ran
until all the dogs were tired out. A day or two afterward one of the
other members of the party shot a small yearling—that is, a bear which
would have been two years old in the following February. It was very
lean, weighing but fifty-five pounds. The finely chewed acorns in its
stomach showed that it was already beginning to find mast.
We had seen the tracks of an old she in the neighborhood, and the next
morning we started to hunt her out. I went with Clive Metcalf. We had
been joined overnight by Mr. Ichabod Osborn and his son Tom, two
Louisiana planters, with six or eight hounds—or rather bear dogs, for in
these packs most of the animals are of mixed blood, and, as with all
packs that are used in the genuine hunting of the wilderness, pedigree
counts for nothing as compared with steadiness, courage and
intelligence. There were only two of the new dogs that were really
staunch bear dogs. The father of Ichabod Osborn had taken up the
plantation upon which they were living in 1811, only a few years after
Louisiana became part of the United States, and young Osborn was now the
third in line from father to son who had steadily hunted bears in this
immediate neighborhood.
On reaching the cypress slough near which the tracks of the old she had
been seen the day before, Clive Metcalf and I separated from the others
and rode off at a lively pace between two of the canebrakes. After an
hour or two’s wait we heard, very far off, the notes of one of the
loudest-mouthed hounds, and instantly rode toward it, until we could
make out the babel of the pack. Some hard galloping brought us opposite
the point toward which they were heading,—for experienced hunters can
often tell the probable line of a bear’s flight, and the spots at which
it will break cover. But on this occasion the bear shied off from
leaving the thick cane and doubled back; and soon the hounds were once
more out of hearing, while we galloped desperately around the edge of
the cane. The tough woods-horses kept their feet like cats as they
leaped logs, plunged through bushes, and dodged in and out among the
tree trunks; and we had all we could do to prevent the vines from
lifting us out of the saddle, while the thorns tore our hands and faces.
Hither and thither we went, now at a trot, now at a run, now stopping to
listen for the pack. Occasionally we could hear the hounds, and then off
we would go racing through the forest toward the point toward which we
thought they were heading. Finally, after a couple of hours of this, we
came up on one side of a canebrake on the other side of which we could
hear, not only the pack, but the yelling and cheering of Harley Metcalf
and Tom Osborn and one or two of the negro hunters, all of whom were
trying to keep the dogs up to their work in the thick cane. Again we
rode ahead, and now in a few minutes were rewarded by hearing the
leading dogs come to bay in the thickest of the cover. Having galloped
as near to the spot as we could we threw ourselves off the horses and
plunged into the cane, trying to cause as little disturbance as
possible, but of course utterly unable to avoid making some noise.
Before we were within gunshot, however, we could tell by the sounds that
the bear had once again started, making what is called a “walking bay.”
Clive Metcalf, a finished bear-hunter, was speedily able to determine
what the bear’s probable course would be, and we stole through the cane
until we came to a spot near which he thought the quarry would pass.
Then we crouched down, I with my rifle at the ready. Nor did we have
long to wait. Peering through the thick-growing stalks I suddenly made
out the dim outline of the bear coming straight toward us; and
noiselessly I cocked and half-raised my rifle, waiting for a clearer
chance. In a few seconds it came; the bear turned almost broadside to
me, and walked forward very stiff-legged, almost as if on tiptoe, now
and then looking back at the nearest dogs. These were two in
number—Rowdy, a very deep-voiced hound, in the lead, and Queen, a
shrill-tongued brindled bitch, a little behind. Once or twice the bear
paused as she looked back at them, evidently hoping that they would come
so near that by a sudden race she could catch one of them. But they were
too wary.
[Illustration:
LISTENING FOR THE PACK
From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]
All of this took but a few moments, and as I saw the bear quite
distinctly some twenty yards off, I fired for behind the shoulder.
Although I could see her outline, yet the cane was so thick that my
sight was on it and not on the bear itself. But I knew my bullet would
go true; and sure enough, at the crack of the rifle the bear stumbled
and fell forward, the bullet having passed through both lungs and out at
the opposite side. Immediately the dogs came running forward at full
speed, and we raced forward likewise lest the pack should receive
damage. The bear had but a minute or two to live, yet even in that time
more than one valuable hound might lose its life; when within half a
dozen steps of the black, angered beast, I fired again, breaking the
spine at the root of the neck; and down went the bear stark dead, slain
in the canebrake in true hunter fashion. One by one the hounds struggled
up and fell on their dead quarry, the noise of the worry filling the
air. Then we dragged the bear out to the edge of the cane, and my
companion wound his horn to summon the other hunters.
This was a big she-bear, very lean, and weighing two hundred and two
pounds. In her stomach were palmetto berries, beetles and a little
mutton cane, but chiefly acorns chewed up in a fine brown mass.
John McIlhenny had killed a she-bear about the size of this on his
plantation at Avery’s Island the previous June. Several bears had been
raiding his corn fields and one evening he determined to try to waylay
them. After dinner he left the ladies of his party on the gallery of his
house while he rode down in a hollow and concealed himself on the lower
side of the corn field. Before he had waited ten minutes a she-bear and
her cub came into the field. Then she rose on her hind legs, tearing
down an armful of ears of corn which she seemingly gave to the cub, and
then rose for another armful. McIlhenny shot her; tried in vain to catch
the cub; and rejoined the party on the veranda, having been absent but
one hour.
After the death of my bear I had only a couple of days left. We spent
them a long distance from camp, having to cross two bayous before we got
to the hunting grounds. I missed a shot at a deer, seeing little more
than the flicker of its white tail through the dense bushes; and the
pack caught and killed a very lean two-year-old bear weighing eighty
pounds. Near a beautiful pond called Panther Lake we found a deer-lick,
the ground not merely bare but furrowed into hollows by the tongues of
the countless generations of deer that had frequented the place. We also
passed a huge mound, the only hillock in the entire district; it was the
work of man, for it had been built in the unknown past by those unknown
people whom we call moundbuilders. On the trip, all told, we killed and
brought into camp three bears, six deer, a wildcat, a turkey, a possum,
and a dozen squirrels; and we ate everything except the wildcat.
In the evenings we sat around the blazing camp-fires, and, as always on
such occasions, each hunter told tales of his adventures and of the
strange feats and habits of the beasts of the wilderness. There had been
beaver all through this delta in the old days, and a very few are still
left in out-of-the-way places. One Sunday morning we saw two wolves, I
think young of the year, appear for a moment on the opposite side of the
bayou, but they vanished before we could shoot. All of our party had had
a good deal of experience with wolves. The Metcalfs had had many sheep
killed by them, the method of killing being invariably by a single bite
which tore open the throat while the wolf ran beside his victim. The
wolves also killed young hogs, but were very cautious about meddling
with an old sow; while one of the big half-wild boars that ranged free
through the woods had no fear of any number of wolves. Their endurance
and the extremely difficult nature of the country made it difficult to
hunt them, and the hunters all bore them a grudge, because if a hound
got lost in a region where wolves were at all plentiful they were almost
sure to find and kill him before he got home. They were fond of preying
on dogs, and at times would boldly kill the hounds right ahead of the
hunters. In one instance, while the dogs were following a bear and were
but a couple of hundred yards in front of the horsemen, a small party of
wolves got in on them and killed two. One of the Osborns, having a
valuable hound which was addicted to wandering in the woods, saved him
from the wolves by putting a bell on him. The wolves evidently suspected
a trap and would never go near the dog. On one occasion another of his
hounds got loose with a chain on, and they found him a day or two
afterward unharmed, his chain having become entangled in the branches of
a bush. One or two wolves had evidently walked around and around the
imprisoned dog, but the chain had awakened their suspicions and they had
not pounced on him. They had killed a yearling heifer a short time
before, on Osborn’s plantation, biting her in the hams. It has been my
experience that fox-hounds as a rule are afraid of attacking a wolf; but
all of my friends assured me that their dogs, if a sufficient number of
them were together, would tackle a wolf without hesitation; the packs,
however, were always composed, to the extent of at least half, of dogs
which, though part hound, were part shepherd or bull or some other
breed. Dr. Miller had hunted in Arkansas with a pack specially trained
after the wolf. There were twenty-eight of them all told, and on this
hunt they ran down and killed unassisted four full-grown wolves,
although some of the hounds were badly cut. None of my companions had
ever known of wolves actually molesting men, but Mr. Ichabod Osborn’s
son-in-law had a queer adventure with wolves while riding alone through
the woods one late afternoon. His horse acting nervously, he looked
about and saw that five wolves were coming toward him. One was a bitch,
the other four were males. They seemed to pay little heed to him, and he
shot one of the males, which crawled off. The next minute the bitch ran
straight toward him and was almost at his stirrup when he killed her.
The other three wolves, instead of running away, jumped to and fro
growling, with their hair bristling, and he killed two of them;
whereupon the survivor at last made off. He brought the scalps of the
three dead wolves home with him.
Near our first camp was the carcass of a deer, a yearling buck, which
had been killed by a cougar. When first found, the wounds on the carcass
showed that the deer had been killed by a bite in the neck at the back
of the head; but there were scratches on the rump as if the panther had
landed on its back. One of the negro hunters, Brutus Jackson, evidently
a trustworthy man, told me that he had twice seen cougars, each time
under unexpected conditions. Once he saw a bobcat race up a tree, and
riding toward it saw a panther reared up against the trunk. The panther
looked around at him quite calmly, and then retired in leisurely
fashion. Jackson went off to get some hounds, and when he returned two
hours afterward the bobcat was still up the tree, evidently so badly
scared that he did not wish to come down. The hounds were unable to
follow the cougar. On another occasion he heard a tremendous scuffle and
immediately afterward saw a big doe racing along with a small cougar
literally riding it. The cougar was biting the neck, but low down near
the shoulders; he was hanging on with his front paws, but was tearing
away with his hind claws so that the deer’s hair appeared to fill the
air. As soon as Jackson appeared the panther left the deer. He shot it,
and the doe galloped off, apparently without serious injury.
I wish those who see cougars kill game, or who come on game that they
have killed, would study and record the exact method employed in
killing. Mr. Hornaday sent me a photograph of a cougar killing a goat,
which he had seized high up on the back of the neck in his jaws, not
using his claws at all. I once found where one had killed a big buck by
seizing him by the throat; the claws also having evidently been used to
hold the buck in the struggle. Another time I found a colt which had
been killed by a bite in the neck; and yet another time a young doe
which had been killed by a bite in the head. In most cases where I came
across the carcasses of deer which had been killed by cougars they had
been partially eaten, and it was not possible to find out exactly how
they had been slain. In one instance at least the neck had been broken,
evidently in the struggle; but I could not tell whether this had been
done designedly, by the use of the forepaws. Twice hunters I have known
saw cougars seize mountain sheep, in each case by the throat. The
information furnished me inclines me to believe that most game is killed
by cougars in this fashion. Most of the carcasses of elk which had been
killed by cougars that I have examined showed fang marks round the
throat and neck; but one certainly did not, though it is possible in
this case that the elk died in some other way, and that the cougar had
merely been feeding on its dead body. But I have read of cases in which
elk and large deer were slain where the carcasses were said to have
shown wounds only on the flanks, and where the writers believed—with how
much justification I cannot say—that the wounds had been inflicted by
the claws. I should be surprised to find that such was the ordinary
method with cougars of killing game of any kind; but it is perhaps
unsafe to deny the possibility of such an occurrence without more
information than is at present available; especially in view of the
experience of Brutus Jackson, which I give above. In a letter to Mr.
Hornaday a New Mexican hunter, Mr. J. W. Carter, of Truchas, states that
cougars rip with their claws in killing game, and that, whether the
quarry is a horse, deer, or calf, the cougar begins to eat at the neck.
When at bay a cougar kills dogs by biting them, usually in the head; the
claws are used merely to scratch or rip, or to drag the dog within reach
of the jaws, and to hold it for the fatal bite.
Miss Velvin’s studies of dangerous wild beasts in captivity show that
the cougar is ordinarily more playful and less wantonly ferocious than
the big spotted cats; but that there is a wide individual variation
among cougars, a few being treacherous, bad-tempered and dangerous. Mr.
Bostock, the animal trainer, states that the cougar is as a rule rather
stupid and far less courageous or dangerous than the other big cats, the
proportion of vicious individuals being very small. He regards bears as
being very dangerous.
Mr. Charles Sheldon informs me that while on a ranch near Chihuahua he
at different times kept loose, as pets, a female cougar, three wolves,
and several coyotes, all taken when very young. All were exceedingly
tame and even affectionate, save at the moment of eating.
Mr. W. H. Wright, of Spokane, Wash., is a hunter of wide experience, and
has probably made as close a life study of the bear—particularly the
grizzly—as anyone now alive. In speaking to me, he dwells on its wide
variation in habits, not only as among individuals, but as between all
the individuals of one locality when compared with those of another.
Thus, in the Big Horn or the Teton Mountains if an animal is killed, he
has in his experience found that any grizzly within range is almost sure
to come to the carcass (and this has been my experience in the same
region). In the Bitter Roots, where the bears live largely on fish,
berries and roots, he found the chances just about even whether the
bears would or would not come; whereas in the Selkirks, he found that
the bears would very rarely pay any attention to a carcass, this being a
place where game is comparatively scarce and where there are no salmon,
so that the bears live exclusively as vegetarians, save for eating small
mammals or insects. In the Bitter Roots Mountains the bears used to live
chiefly on fish in the spring and early in the fall; in the summer they
fed to a large extent on the shooting star, which grows on all the
marshes and is one of the familiar plants of the region, but did not
touch either the dog-tooth violet or the spring beauty, both of which
have little tubers on the roots. But in the Kootenay country he found
that the bears dug up acres and acres of these very dog-tooth violets
and spring beauties for the sake of the bulbs on their roots; and that
they rarely or never touched the shooting stars. All this illustrates
the extreme care which should be taken in making observations and in
dogmatizing from insufficient data; and also the absolute necessity, if
a full and accurate natural history is to be written, of drawing upon
the experience of very many different observers—provided, of course,
that they are trustworthy observers.
For every one of our large beasts there should be at least one such work
as Lewis Morgan’s book on the beaver. The observations of many different
men, all accurate observers of wide experience, will be needed to make
any such book complete. Most hunters can now and then supply some
interesting experiences. Thus Gifford Pinchot and Harry Stimson, while
in the Montana Rockies last fall saw a she white goat beat off a war
eagle which had attacked her yearling young. The eagle swooped on the
yearling in most determined fashion; but the old she, rising on her hind
legs, caught the great bird fairly on her horns; and the eagle was too
roughly handled to repeat the onslaught. At nearly the same time, in
British Columbia, Senator Penrose and his brother were hunting bears.
The brother killed a yearling grizzly. While standing over the body, the
old she appeared and charged him. She took two bullets without
flinching, knocked him down, bit him severely, and would undoubtedly
have killed him had she not in the nick of time succumbed to her own
mortal wounds.
Recently there has appeared a capital series of observations on wolves
by a trained field naturalist, Mr. Vernon Bailey. These first-hand
studies of wolves in their natural haunts show, among other things,
that, unlike the male cougar, the male wolf remains with the female
while she is rearing her young litter and, at least sometimes, forages
for her and them. According to Mr. Bailey’s observations the female dens
remote from all other females, having a large number of pups in a
litter; but the following interesting letter shows that in exceptional
cases two females may den together or near by one another. It is written
to Mr. Phillips, the joint author, with W. T. Hornaday, of the admirable
“Camp-Fires in the Canadian Rockies,” a book as interesting and valuable
to the naturalist as to the hunter. The letter runs as follows:
“MEYERS FALLS, WASH., _Dec. 23, 1906_.
“_Mr. John M. Phillips, Pittsburg, Pa._
“FRIEND JACK: Your favor of the 18th inst. to hand, and was very
much pleased to hear you had called on the President and to know
that you take so much interest in the protection of Pennsylvania
game. It is a step in the right direction. In regard to wolves I
have hunted them a great deal when they had pups and do not think I
would exaggerate any to say that I had found one hundred dens and
had destroyed the young. Often would be able to kill the mother.
What you read in the East about the dog wolf helping to raise the
young is true. They stay together until the young is large enough to
go with them and they all kill their food together because they can
handle a large brute easier. I found once, in Wyoming, seventeen
wolf pups in one den, eight black ones and nine greys. One of the
females was also black and one grey, and both dogs were grey. One of
the dogs was the largest I ever seen, and had the biggest foot. He
made a track a third larger than any I ever saw. The old ones had
evidently just butchered and was feeding the little ones when I came
in sight about 400 yards away. I believe a wolf has got the quickest
eye of any animal living, and just as my head came up over the hill
the old ones all looked my way apparently at the same time. It was
too far to shoot so I thought I would pretend I did not see them and
just simply ride by. After riding some distance three of the old
ones began to move away and to my surprise the big fellow came over
to head me off. He was just on top of a bench about 100 feet high,
and I knew it would not do to get down to shoot as one jump would
take him out of sight so I cracked my heels and let my pony have
them in the abdomen and ran for the top of the hill, but was running
against the wind and when I reached the top my eyes was watering so
I could not kill him, but give him a close call as I got a lock of
his hair. I found another den the same spring (in 1899) and I got
eight pups and there was five old ones. They had to go some distance
to find horses and cattle and there was a plain trail that I could
follow at least five miles without snow. Colts seem to be their
favorite dish when they can get them.[6] Wolves mate in January and
have their pups in March, but found one den once in February. Have
known a few to have their young as late as April 1st. The pups grow
faster than our domestic animals and usually leave the dens in May.
I do not think the mother enters the den (after the pups get large
enough to come out) in order to suckle them, as you can call them
out by hiding and making a whining noise. For example, I set a No. 4
beaver trap in a hole where there was a lot of large pups and hid a
little way off and made a noise like the female when calling and
apparently they all started out at the same time and I caught two at
once in the same trap and of course each one thought the other was
biting his leg and I saw the most vicious scrap I ever seen out of
animals of their size. They just held on to one another like bull
dogs and apparently did not know I was around.
Footnote 6:
My own experience has been that wolves are more apt to kill cattle
than horses, whereas with cougars the reverse is true. It is
another instance of variability—doubtless both in the observed and
the observers. Wolves may seize an animal anywhere in a scuffle,
and a pack will literally tear a small deer to pieces; but when
one or two wolves attack a big animal, like a bull caribou, elk or
moose, or a horse or a steer, the killing or crippling wounds are
inflicted in the flanks, hams or throat. Very rarely an animal is
seized by the head. To any real naturalist or hunter, or indeed to
any competent observer, it is unnecessary to say that no wolf, and
no other wild beast, ever bites, or can by any possibility bite,
one of these large animals, like a horse, moose, or caribou, in
the heart; yet an occasional “nature fakir,” more than usually
reckless in his untruthfulness, will assert that such incidents do
happen; and, what is even more remarkable, uninformed people of
more than average credulity appear to believe the assertion.
“Wolves go a long way sometimes for their food. I have tracked them
twenty-five miles from where they made a killing before finding
their den. The old dog will sometimes go off alone but does not
often kill when by himself. Would just as soon have a male track as
a female to follow for if you will stay with it it is dead sure to
lead to a den and it is easy to distinguish the difference between
the two tracks if you are on to your job.
“Wishing you a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year, I am,
“Your same old friend,
“R. M. NORBOE.”
Mr. Bailey is one of a number of faunal naturalists, who, together with
certain big game hunters who care more for natural history than for mere
slaughter, are doing invaluable work in preserving the records of
wilderness life. If Mr. George Shiras will put in book form his
noteworthy collection of photographs of game, and of other wild
creatures, and his numerous field notes thereon, he will render a real
and great service to all lovers of nature.
The most exciting and interesting hunting book that has recently
appeared deals with African big game. Many thrilling adventures with
lions have been recorded since the days when the Assyrian kings engraved
on stone their exploits in the chase; but the best lion stories that
have ever been written are those in Colonel Patterson’s “Maneaters of
Tsavo.”
It is now (January, 1908) nearly five years since my last trip to the
Yellowstone Park. General Samuel Young, who is now in charge of the
park, informs me that on the whole the game and the wild creatures
generally in the park have increased during this period. The antelope he
reports as being certainly three times as numerous as they were ten
years ago, and nearly twice as numerous as when I was out there. In the
town of Gardiner they graze freely in the streets; not only the
inhabitants but even the dogs recognizing them as friends. Their chief
foes are the coyotes. Last October four full-grown antelope were killed
by coyotes on the Gardiner and Yellowstone flats, and many fawns were
destroyed by them during the season. Practically all of the antelope in
the park herd on the Gardiner flat and round about during the winter,
and during the present winter there is a good supply of hay on this
flat, which is being used to feed the antelope, mountain sheep, deer and
elk. The sheep are increasing in numbers. Probably about two hundred of
them now exist in the park. There are probably one hundred whitetail and
one thousand blacktail deer, both of which species are likewise
increasing; and the moose, although few in numbers, are also on the
increase. General Young reports that from his best information he
believes there are 25,000 wapiti in the park. Of the buffalo there are
now in fenced pastures fifty-nine. These increase very slowly, the
number of calves being small. There are probably about twenty-five of
the original wild buffalo still alive. The bears are as numerous as
ever. Last summer it became necessary to kill one black and two
grizzlies that had become dangerous; for some individuals among the
bears grow insolent under good treatment. The mountain lions, which five
years ago were so destructive to the deer and sheep, have been almost
exterminated. The tracks show that one still exists. Coyotes are
numerous and very destructive to the antelope, although ninety-nine were
destroyed during the past year. Beaver are abundant and are increasing.
Altogether the American people are to be congratulated upon the success
of the Yellowstone Park, not only as a national pleasure ground, but as
a national reserve for keeping alive the great and beautiful wild
creatures of the wilderness.