It was in the latter part of the month of March that we started out from
Fresno for a day’s outing on the San Joaquin river, hunting for hawk and
owl eggs. The day was bright and warm, and we keenly enjoyed the ride of
nine miles across the plains. Out past the old, deserted Holland Colony,
where stumps of vines showed that the settlers had once made an honest
attempt to win their daily bread out of the hard pan. The last half of
the way lay across the hog-wallow country, that peculiar effect which
has puzzled many scientists, but which all attribute to the action of
water in long past ages. The rolling motion of rising over and
descending these mounds was like the riding of a small boat over the
waves of the sea. Here and there a burrow in the top of one of the
mounds, the domicile of the frisky ground-squirrel or the billy owl,
gave the landscape the appearance of a dish of mush cooking, with the
air bubbles swelling up, and some bursting, leaving the little holes. On
across canals, past a wheat country, and then the virginal hog-wallow
lands that no plowshare has ever touched, covered with a short green
growth which gives nourishment to bands of sheep, dirty, and with
numerous lambkins, guarded by a few sagacious shepherd dogs and lonely,
and equally dirty, bearded Mexican herders.
The mounds grow higher and the hollows deeper until we wonder if they
stretch on forever and if we are lost among them, when all at once we
come out right on the top of a high bluff overlooking the San Joaquin.
The unexpectedness is quite startling. One could not possibly have
suspected a moment before that we were within miles of a great river bed
more than a mile wide, with steep bluffs more than 300 feet high on
either side and a swift river sweeping down its channel in the center,
but here we were right on the edge of it. We can look down almost
perpendicularly and see, three or four hundred feet below us, great
green meadows stretching to the north and south and to the trees and
thickets that edge the river. The river from this distance and height
seems but a thread in its once vast bed. What a sight—what a power it
must have been when once it filled all this vast bed, which often is
more than a mile across from bluff to bluff. On the further side a few
trees grow right on the edge of the water, and then the bluff rises
abruptly even higher than on our side. Buzzards and hawks are sweeping
around us in the air, and dark spots in the tops of far-off trees
betoken the presence of the objects of our search, the nests of the
hawks. We begin the descent, which at first seems extremely hazardous,
and even on further trial sufficiently steep to make walking down more
of a pleasure than riding, as we find. The road or path winds around and
around, as necessarily it must unless one would go head-first to the
bottom. It is narrow and steep and the ruts deeply worn in places by the
action of water. About half way down we come upon what was once a canal,
and we can see the level ridge of its embankment stretching away above
and below us along the side of the bluff, as it curves in and out. What
a vast undertaking it must have been to build this great waterway along
the face of the bluff. As we near the bottom clumps of elderberry and
scraggly greasewood appear, and we come upon two little white eggs of
the dove, laid in a hollow in the ground—an early bird surely.
At last we are safely down in the valley and across the meadow, which is
one vast bed of poppies, a field of the cloth of gold. Then we come down
among the huge cottonwoods and river oaks that line the river bank and
unharness our horse and tie him where the grazing is good and then start
on our search. We first make our way down to the river’s edge and, lying
flat on the sand and rocks, drink to our content of the cool water fresh
from the snow of the Sierras. The river is about five hundred feet wide
and varies from two hundred to a thousand at this point. It is not high
now, for the spring floods come later, with the melting of the snow, and
in its deepest part is not probably over eight or ten feet, but it is
swift—terribly swift. It is a good swimmer that can hold his own with
the current for five minutes, and in the swiftest part it is impossible
for a man to make any headway. The bottom is of shifting sand and the
channel is ever changing. It is a deceitful and treacherous river,
though laughing and sparkling in the sun to-day. It has taken value for
value for all the gold it has given up. Here and there in the deep
places under the shadow of the bank we can see catfish and big carp
moving lazily about. The catfish and a fish known as the river trout can
be caught with a hook and line, but the carp never touches bait, but
there is considerable sport in spearing them.
We pass up the stream with our eyes directed at the tree tops, but now
and then at the ever-changing aspect of the river, taking in all the
beauties of nature and the curious formation of the steep sides of the
bluff. The face of the bluff represents excellently the different
geological layers of soil and stone, here chalky, there slaty, and here
gaudily daubed with all the brilliant hues of a clay formation. The
cottonwood and the willows are just beginning to show green. Now and
then we come upon a nest in the cottonwood trees, far out over the
water. Sometimes it is an old one, but often we are convinced otherwise
by the sudden departure of a screaming hawk as we throw a dead limb in
that direction. Then comes the hard climb, the toilsome shin to reach
the first limb, with knees and elbows hugging tightly the smooth,
slippery bark, taking advantage of every little knot and twig, and then,
the limb gained, up from limb to branch, up into the air, into the
cooling breeze, feeling for the instant the life of the birds, up into
the swaying lesser branches, up to the tip-top, where the big, rough
nest of sticks is firmly placed, the nether end of a jackrabbit carcass
half hanging over the edge, and numerous ears, paws and small bones
along the rim, and inside four handsome, large, speckled brown eggs of
the squirrel hawk. Into our little sack they go, regardless of the
remonstrances of the angry hawk, which is circling around overhead, and
with the sack firmly held in our teeth we descend to the ground, pack
the eggs into our case and go on. Sometimes in the distance huge clumps
of mistletoe on the river oaks look like nests, but nearer approach
shows the difference. Mistletoe is very plentiful here. What a place for
a party of girls and boys to spend Christmas. Now we come upon a bend in
the river where the ground is all strewed with driftwood left by some
winter freshet. There is enough to keep many families in fuel for a long
time, but it lies there untouched, inaccessible, to be carried on at the
next flood—on to where? Who knows the ending of the travels of a piece
of driftwood that starts from the mills far up in the Sierras? The wood
is washed smooth and round and into every conceivable shape. At places
we pass through thickets of rose bushes, blackberry vines, and
elderberry, which grow profusely all along the river. In a many-limbed
willow tree, an easy climb and not a high one, we find the nest of a
horned owl, with five round white eggs within. The old bird stayed on
the nest until we were nearly to it and then, with a peculiar cry,
scrambled over the side and fell to the ground as if shot, then arose to
a neighboring branch and sat there, uttering a cry like a cat and
swelling out her feathers angrily, but all in vain. Further up the river
ran in close to the bluff on our side, and as the traveling was rather
difficult along land that lay at an angle of only five or ten degrees
from the vertical, we scrambled to the top, at times slipping, and often
pulling ourselves up by the weeds, so steep it was. A misstep would have
sent us rolling into the river below. In the face of the bluff squirrels
had their homes, and we found the dwellings therein of two handsome big
snowy owls, but they had wisely chosen them in places where the five
degrees of slope was in under us and a crumbling of the sand meant a
straight drop of fifty or sixty feet, so we left them with “requiescat
in pace.” For a quarter of a mile we followed along the top of the
bluff, watching the river and the tree tops below us. Flocks of ducks
were flying up and down the river, quacking vigorously. Now and then a
big, ugly “shack” rose from a stump and flapped across the river. Isles
big and little and middlesized were dotted in the stream, all heavily
covered with underbrush, an excellent refuge for the ducks in their
nesting season a little later on. A big white pelican sat on a log
watching its victims in the water. The river curves and bends and
doubles on itself, and never goes straight for forty yards at a time. At
a bend we came upon a scene that delighted our ornithological eyes. One
hundred feet below us, in the tops of a clump of cottonwoods, was a
heronry. Dozens of big, basket-like nests blackened the tree tops, and
perched on the very topmost branches were dozens of long-legged,
crooked-necked, great blue herons. As we came upon them they started up,
flapping their wings, stretching out their necks and pulling in their
legs behind them. Uttering cries like those of the seagulls, they
flapped off and lit away upon the plains, but within sight of us, and
seemed to be holding a consultation. We could see into the most of the
nests, and they were all empty. It was a little too early for the birds
to begin nesting, and they were evidently mating and perhaps deciding
who should have first choice. Some nests looked like old family
residences of many generations, for they had several stories and
additions, porticos and dormer windows, so to speak, in abundance.
We passed on, and when the valley widened out again we descended and sat
down under the oaks to eat our luncheon. It soon disappeared, the last
morsel, and we were on our way again. At long intervals farm houses
appeared on the edge of the bluff, and in the river below one of them,
on the opposite side of the stream from us, was a curious old
water-wheel on a flatboat securely moored to the trees on the bank, and
which laboriously and noisily jerked water up through a pipe to the
bluff above. The meadows along the river are the pasturage of big herds
of horses and cattle, and one is lucky if one’s perambulations are not
interrupted by some inhospitable bull. As we ascend the river it grows
swifter and more rocky and the top of the bluff rolls higher and higher
and the hills appear in the distance. When we came to the first of these
low hills we climbed the bluff and ascended it. It was a peculiar
formation of stone resembling sand in softness or sand resembling stone
in hardness, we could hardly determine which. It was seamed and ribbed,
projecting cliff-like into the air, with boulders lying about and with
caverns and precipitous sides. As we scaled to the top of it we scared
away a number of turkey buzzards that had been watching our ascent, and
it was evidently their nesting place, as we discovered traces of old
nests and a good many bones of the hapless denizens of the plains. We
started several of the big boulders at the edge rolling and plunging
down, and, though most of them broke up in their downward career, they
stopped only when, after a great plunge, they settled in the bed of the
river. Sometimes as they thundered down they would startle a rabbit from
his repose, and off he would scamper in great affright. But it was
getting near sundown and we were miles from our wagon, and even when we
reached that we would be ten miles from home, so we set out on our
return with spirits not lacking, but appetites sorely pressing. The
miles of climbing up hill and down hill in the pure air had done us more
good than months in a gymnasium, and when, long after dark, we reached
our home in Fresno town, what a supper we did eat.
Charles Elmer Jenney.
[Illustration: BENGAL TIGER.
(Felis tigris.)]
THE BENGAL TIGER.
(_Felis tigris._)
The Bengal Tiger (_Felis tigris_) inhabits the hotter regions of
Southern Asia, but the species is found with certain color variations
throughout the lower levels of all Asia from Siberia to the River
Euphrates and as far south as Sumatra and Java. Next to the lion it is
the strongest and most ferocious of carnivorous animals, and, on account
of the heavily wooded country in which it lives being densely populated,
the Tiger is even more destructive of human life. In Bengal alone three
hundred and forty-seven persons were reported killed by Tigers in a
single year, and this in spite of the best efforts of the government and
people to mitigate the evil by poisoning, hunting and trapping.
Mr. William T. Hornaday, who hunted Tigers on his collecting trip in
India, says in his book, “Two Years in the Jungle,” that only a limited
number of Tigers, and those of the old and decrepit sort, ever kill men
at all, but once they have tasted human flesh they continue to kill
until some hunter reciprocates and brings peace again to the ravaged
district. According to their habits in procuring food the people of
India divide Tigers into three classes—the “game killer,” the “cattle
lifter” and the “man killer.” The “game killer” lives in the dense
forest, catches his own deer and wild hogs and is very self-respecting
and honest, for a Tiger. The “cattle lifter” is a fat and lazy cat, who
hangs around villages and kills a steer from the herds whenever he is
hungry. Dragging away the carcass he returns to it until it is all
eaten, when he kills again, while the timid and defenseless natives flee
in terror or hover about, unable to protect their herds. It is after
these fat “cattle lifters” get old and mangy that they turn “man eater,”
finding it easier to catch the herdsman than to drag off a bullock. Then
after the first taste they haunt the paths and villages, pouncing upon
men, women and children until there is no safety, except within doors,
until some hunter has slain the foe.
Among the English of India Tiger hunting is a favorite sport. A most
picturesque and safe way is to mount on an Elephant and be driven about
through the country beating up the Tigers from cover and shooting them
with the huge four-bore rifles which the English sportsmen affect. The
principal danger lies in the stampeding of the elephant or the attack of
a wounded Tiger on the elephant himself. The more common way is to build
a shooting platform by some water hole or carcass and lie in wait for
the Tiger, or, better yet, have a small army of beaters drive him from
his lair and past the spot where the platform has been erected.
Sometimes men who like to take chances follow the Tigers on foot and
shoot them where they find them, which is often coming straight through
the air. A glance at the illustration will show what powerful forearms
and shoulders the tiger has. One blow from that paw will break a
bullock’s back, and a wounded Tiger is more dangerous than one unhurt.
Unless the brain is reached or the spinal column broken a Tiger will not
stop in his charge, and the most active man can hardly avoid his
clutches.
An adult Bengal Tiger measures ten feet from tip to tip, stands over
three and a half feet in height and weighs five hundred pounds. If we
consider the strength, activity and ferocity of the ordinary house cat
and then think of it multiplied a hundred times we can form some
conception of the Bengal Tiger as he lies down by his water hole and
wonders what he will kill next.
In color the Tiger matches the foliage of his native jungles. When lying
in grass or even upon the ground the dark markings and rufous fawn
colors of his body blend almost perfectly with his surroundings, and it
has often happened that his presence was only guessed by the thrashing
of his nervous tail in the grass as he gathered for a leap. Grassy
plains and swamps are his favorite abiding places, and he does not
hesitate to swim from island to island in search of prey. Curiously,
again, for a cat, the Tiger does not climb trees except when forced to
do so by floods.
The Tigress gives birth to from two to six cubs and is most affectionate
toward them and aggressive toward intruders while she has them in
charge. As soon as they can eat she begins to kill for them, and teaches
them by a thousand cruel tricks to imitate her example. Not until they
are nearly grown and able to kill for themselves does she separate
herself and leave them to shift for themselves. Young Tigers are far
more destructive than old, killing three or four cattle and eating one,
as if they wished to learn their duties in life well or were mad with
the rage to kill.
Dane Coolidge.