In the pairing season we always watch for trouble, and the danger signal always is up. In October a male elk may become ever so savage, and finally develop into a raging demon, dangerous to man and beast; but when he first manifests his new temper openly and in the broad light of day, we feel that he is treating fairly both his herd-mates and his keepers. If he gives fair warning to the world about him, we must not class him as a mean criminal, no matter what he may do later on. It is our duty to corral him at night according to the violence of his rage. If we separate him from the herd, and he tears a fence in pieces and kills his rival, that is honest, open warfare, not foul murder. But take the following case.

In October, 1905, the New York Zoological Park received from the state of Washington a young mule deer buck and two does. Being conspicuous members of the worst species of "difficult" deer to keep alive at Atlantic tidewater, and being also very thin and weak, it required the combined efforts of several persons to keep them alive. For six months they moped about their corral, but at last they began to improve. The oldest doe gave birth to two fawns which actually survived. But, even when the next mating season began, the buck continued to be lanquid and blase. At no time did he exhibit signs of temper, of even suspicious vigor.

In the middle of the night of November 6, 1906, without the slightest warning, he decided to commit a murder, and the mother of the two nursing fawns was selected as the victim. Being weak from the rearing of her offspring, she was at his mercy. He gored her most savagely, about twenty times, and killed her.

That was deliberate, fiendish and cowardly murder. The killing of any female animal by her male consort is murder; but there are circumstances wherein the plea of temporary insanity is an admissible defense. In the autumn, male members of the deer family often become temporarily insane and irresponsible, and should be judged accordingly. With us, sexual insanity is a recognized disease.

Such distressing cases as the above are so common that whenever I go deer-hunting and kill a lusty buck, the thought occurs to me,— "another undeveloped murderer, perhaps!"

The most exasperating thing about these corral murders is the cunning treachery of the murderers. Here is another typical case: For three years a dainty little male Osceola deer from Florida was as gentle as a fawn and as harmless as a dove. But one crisp morning Keeper Quinn, to whom every doe in his charge is like a foster-daughter, was horrified at finding blood on the absurd little antlers of the Osceola pet. One of the females lay dead in a dark corner where she had been murdered during the night; and this with another and older buck in the same corral which might fairly have been regarded as an offensive rival.

The desire to murder for the sake of killing is born in some carnivorous animals, and by others it is achieved. Among the largest and finest of the felines, the lions and tigers, midnight murders very rarely occur. We never have known one. Individual dislike is shown boldly and openly, and we are given a fair chance to prevent fatalities. Among the lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars and pumas of the New York Zoological Park, there has been but one murder. That was the crime of Lopez, the big jaguar, who richly deserved instant death as a punishment. It was one of the most cunning crimes I have ever seen among wild animals, and is now historic.

For a year Lopez pretended, ostentatiously, to be a good- natured animal! Twenty times at least he acted the part of a playful pet, inviting me to reach in and stroke him. At last we decided to give him a cage-mate, and a fine adult female jaguar was purchased. The animals actually tried to caress each other through the bars, and the big male completely deceived us, one and all.

At the end of two days it was considered safe to permit the female jaguar to enter the cage of Lopez. She was just as much deceived as we were. An animal that is afraid always leaves its traveling- cage slowly and unwillingly, or refuses to leave it at all. When the two sets of doors were opened, the female joyously walked into the cage of her treacherous admirer. In an instant, Lopez rushed upon her, seized her whole neck in his powerful jaws, and crushed her cervical vertebrae by his awful bite. We beat him over the head; we spiked him; we even tried to brain him; but he held her, as a bull-dog would hold a cat, until she was dead. He had determined to murder her, but had cunningly concealed his purpose until his victim was fully in his power.

Bears usually fight "on the square," openly and above-board, rarely committing foul murder. If one bear hates another, he attacks at the very first opportunity, He does not cunningly wait to catch the offender at a disadvantage and beyond the possibility of rescue. Sometimes a captive bear kills a cage-mate or mauls a keeper, but not by the sneaking methods of the human assassin who shoots in the dark and runs away.

I do not count the bear as a common criminal, even though at rare intervals he kills a cage-mate smaller and weaker than himself. One killing of that kind, done by Cinnamon Jim to a small black bear that had annoyed him beyond all endurance, was inflicted as a legitimate punishment, and was so recorded. The attack of two large bears, a Syrian and a sloth bear, upon a small Japanese black bear, in which the big pair deliberately attempted to disembowel the small victim, biting him only in the abdomen, always has been a puzzle to me. I cannot fathom the idea which possessed those two ursine minds; but I have no doubt that some of the book-making men who read the minds of wild animals as if they were open books could tell me all about it.

On the ice-pack in front of his stone hut at the north end of the Franz Josef Archipelago Nansen saw an occurrence that was plain murder. A large male polar bear feeding upon a dead walrus was approached across the ice-pack by two polar-bear cubs. The gorging male immediately stopped feeding and rushed toward the small intruders. They turned and fled wildly; but the villain pursued them, far out upon the ice. He overtook them, killed both, and then serenely returned to his solitary feast.

In February, 1907, a tragedy occurred in the Zoological Park which was a close parallel of the Lopez murder. It was a case in which my only crumb of satisfaction was in my ability to say, "I told you so,"—than which no consolation can be more barren.

For seven years there had lived together in the great polar bears' den of the Zoological Park two full-grown, very large and fine polar bears. They came from William Hagenbeck's great group, and both were males. Their rough-and-tumble wrestling, both in the swimming pool and out of it, was a sight of almost perennial interest; and while their biting and boxing was of the roughest character, and frequently drew blood, they never got angry, and never had a real fight.

In the autumn of 1906 one of the animals sickened and died, and presently the impression prevailed that the survivor was lonesome. The desirability of introducing a female companion was spoken of, but I was afraid to try the experiment.

By and by, Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, who had handled about forty polar bears to my one, wrote to us, offering a fine female polar as a mate to the survivor. She was conceded to be one-third smaller than the big male, but was fully adult. Without loss of time I answered, declining to make the purchase, on the ground that our male bear would kill the female. It was my belief that even if he did not at once deliberately murder her, he soon would wear her out by his rough play.

Mr. Hagenbeck replied with the assurance that, in his opinion, all would be well; that, instead of a tragedy taking place, the male would be delighted with a female companion, and that the pair would breed. As convincing proof of the sincerity of his views, Mr. Hagenbeck offered to lose half the purchase price of the female bear in the event that my worst fears were realized.

I asked the opinion of our head keeper of bears, and after due reflection he said:

"Why, no; I don't believe he'd kill her. He's not a bad bear at all. I think we could work it so that there would be no great trouble."

Mr. Hagenbeck's son also felt sure there would be no tragedy.

Quite against my own judgment of polar-bear character, but in deference to the expert opinion arrayed against mine, I finally yielded. The female bear was purchased, and on her arrival she was placed for three weeks in the large shifting-cage which connects with the eastern side of the great polar bears' den.

The two animals seemed glad to see each other. At once they fraternized through the bars, licked each other's noses, and ate their meals side by side. At night the male always slept as near as possible to his new companion. There was not a sign of ill temper; but, for all that, my doubts were ever present.

At last, after three full weeks of close acquaintance, it was agreed that there was nothing to be gained by longer delay in admitting the female to the large den. But we made preparations for trouble. The door of the sleeping-den was oiled and overhauled and put in thorough working order, so that if the female should dash into it for safety, a keeper could instantly slide the barrier and shut her in. We provided pike-poles, long iron bars, lariats, meat, and long planks a foot wide. Heartily wishing myself a hundred miles away, I summoned all my courage and gave the order:

"Open her door, a foot only, and let her put her head out. Keep him away."

The female bear had not the slightest fear or premonition of danger. Thrusting her head through the narrow opening, she looked upon the world and the open sky above, and found that it was good. She struggled to force the door open wider; and the male stood back, waiting.

"Let her go!" Forcing the door back with her own eager strength, she fearlessly dropped the intervening eighteen inches to the floor of the den, and was free. The very next second the male flung his great bulk upon her, and the tragedy was on.

I would not for five thousand dollars see such a thing again. A hundred times in the twenty minutes that followed I bitterly regretted my folly in acting contrary to my own carefully formed conclusions regarding the temper, the strength, and the mental processes of that male bear.

He never left her alone for ten seconds, save when, at five or six different times, we beat him off by literally ramming him away. When she first fell, the slope of the floor brought her near the cage bars, which gave us a chance to fight for her. We beat him over the head; we drove big steel spikes into him; and we rammed him with planks, not caring how many bones we might break. But each time that we beat him off, and the poor harried female rose to her feet, he flung himself upon her anew, crushed her down upon the snow, and fought to reach her throat!

Gallantly the female fought for her life, with six wild men to help her. After a long battle,—it seemed like hours, but I suppose it was between twenty and thirty minutes, the male bear recognized the fact that so long as the female lay near the bars his own punishment would continue and the end would be postponed. Forthwith he seized his victim and dragged her inward and down to the ice that covered the swimming-pool in the centre of the den, beyond our reach. The floor of the den was so slippery from ice and snow that it was utterly unsafe for any of our men to enter and try to approach the now furious animal within striking distance.

Very quickly some choice pieces of fresh meat were thrown within six feet of the bears, in the hope that the male would be tempted away from his victim. In vain! Then, with all possible haste, Keeper Mulvehill coiled a lasso, bravely entered the den, and with the first throw landed the noose neatly around the neck of the male bear. In a second it was jerked taut, the end passed through the bars, and ten eager arms dragged the big bear away from his victim and close up to the bars. Another lariat was put on him to guard against breakages, and no bear ever missed being choked to death by a narrower margin than did that one. That morsel of revenge was sweet. While he was held thus, two men went in and attached a rope to the now dying female, and she was quickly dragged into the shifting-cage.

But the rescue came too late. At the last moment on the ice, the canine teeth of the big bear had severed the jugular vein of the female, and in two minutes after her rescue she was dead. It is my belief that at first the male did not intend to murder the female. I think his first impulse was to play with her, as he had always done with the male comrade of his own size. But the joy of combat seized him, and after that his only purpose was to kill. My verdict was, not premeditated murder, but murder in the second degree.

In the order of carnivorous animals, I think the worst criminals are found in the Marten Family (Mustelidae); and if there is a more murderous villain than the mink, I have yet to find him out. The mink is a midnight assassin, who loves slaughter for the joy of murder. The wolverine, the marten, mink and weasel are all courageous, savage and merciless. To the wolverine Western trappers accord the evil distinction of being a veritable imp of darkness on four legs. To them he is the arch-fiend, beyond which animal cunning and depravity cannot go. Excepting the profane history of the pickings and stealings of this "mountain devil" as recorded by suffering trappers, I know little of it; but if its instincts are not supremely murderous, its reputation is no index of its character.

The mink, however, is a creature that we know and fear. Along the rocky shores of the Bronx River, even in the Zoological Park, it perversely persisted long after our park-building began. In spite of traps, guns, and poison, and the killing of from three to five annually in our Park, Putorius vison would not give up. With us, the only creatures that practiced wholesale and unnecessary murder were minks and dogs. The former killed our birds, and during one awful period when a certain fence was being rebuilt, the latter destroyed several deer. A mink once visited an open-air yard containing twenty-two pinioned laughing gulls, and during that noche triste killed all of those ill-fated birds. It did not devour even one, and it sucked the blood of only two or three.

On another tragic occasion a mink slaughtered an entire flock of fifteen gulls; but its joy of killing was short-lived, for it was quickly caught and clubbed to death. A miserable little weasel killed three fine brant geese, purely for the love of murder; and then he departed this life by the powder-and-lead route.

All the year round captive buffalo bulls are given to fighting, and for one bull to injure or kill another is an occurrence all too common. Even in the great twenty-seven thousand acre reserve of the Corbin Blue Mountain Forest Association, fatal fights sometimes occur. It was left to a large bull named Black Beauty, in our Zoological Park herd, to reveal the disagreeable fact that under certain circumstances a buffalo may become a cunning and deliberate assassin.

In the spring of 1904, a new buffalo bull, named Apache, was added to the portion of our herd which up to that time had been dominated by Black Beauty. We expected the usual head-to-head battle for supremacy, succeeded by a period of peace and quiet. It is the law of the herd that after every contest for supremacy the vanquished bull shall accept the situation philosophically, and thereafter keep his place.

At the end of a half-hour of fierce struggle, head-to-head, Black Beauty was overpowered by Apache, and fled from him into the open range. To emphasize his victory, Apache followed him around and around at a quiet walk, for several hours; but the beaten bull always kept a factor of safety of about two hundred feet between himself and the master of the herd. Convinced that Black Beauty would no longer dispute his supremacy, Apache at last pronounced for peace and thought no more about the late unpleasantness. His rival seemed to accept the situation, and rejoined the herd on the subdued status of an ex-president.

For several days nothing occurred; but all the while Black Beauty was biding his time and watching for an opportunity. At last it came. As Apache lay dozing and ruminating on a sunny hill-side, his beaten rival quietly drifted around his resting-place, stealthily secured a good position, and, without a second's warning plunged his sharp horns deep into the lungs of the reclining bull. With the mad energy of pent-up and superheated fury, the assassin delivered stab after stab into the unprotected side of the helpless victim, and before Apache could gain his feet he had been gored many times. He lived only a few minutes.

It was foul murder, fully premeditated; and had Black Beauty been my personal property, he would have been executed for the crime, without any objections, or motions, or appeals, or far-fetched certificates of unreasonable doubt.

During the past twenty years a number of persons have been treacherously murdered by animals they had fed and protected. One of the most deplorable of these tragedies occurred late in 1906, near Montclair, New Jersey. Mr. Herbert Bradley was the victim. While walking through his deer park, he was wantonly attacked by a white-tailed buck and murdered on the spot. At Helena, Montana, a strong man armed with a pitchfork was killed by a bull elk. There have been several other fatalities from elk.

The greater number of such crimes as the above have been committed by members of the Deer Family (deer, elk, moose and caribou). The hollow-horned ruminants seem to be different. I believe that toward their keepers the bison, buffaloes and wild cattle entertain a certain measure of respect that in members of the Deer Family often is totally absent. But there are exceptions; and a very sad and notable case was the murder of Richard W. Rock, of Henry's Lake, Idaho, in 1903.

Dick Rock was a stalwart ranchman in the prime of life, who possessed a great fondness for big-game animals. He lived not far from the western boundry of the Yellowstone Park. He liked to rope elk and moose in winter, and haul them on sleds to his ranch; to catch mountain goats or mule deer for exhibition; and to breed buffaloes. His finest bull buffalo, named Indian, was one of his favorites, and was broken to ride! Scores of times Rock rode him around the corral, barebacked and without bridle or halter. Rock felt that he could confidently trust the animal, and he never dreamed of guarding himself against a possible evil day.

But one day the blood lust seized the buffalo, and he decided to assassinate his best friend. The next time Dick Rock entered the corral, closing the gate and fastening it securely,—thus shutting himself in,—the big bull attacked him so suddenly and fiercely that there was not a moment for either escape or rescue. We can easily estimate the suddenness of the attack by the fact that alert and active Dick Rock had not time even to climb upon the fence of the corral, whereby his life would have been saved. With a mighty upward thrust, the treacherous bull drove one of his horns deeply into his master's body, and impaled him so completely and so securely that the man hung there and died there! As a crowning horror, the bull was unable to dislodge his victim, and the body of the ranchman was carried about the corral on the horns of his assassin until the horrified wife went a mile and a half and summoned a neighbor, who brought a rifle and executed the murderer on the spot.

Such sudden onslaughts as this make it unsafe to trust implicitly, and without recourse, to the good temper of any animal having dangerous horns.

If bird-lovers knew the prevalence of the murder instinct among the feathered folk, no doubt they would be greatly shocked. Many an innocent-looking bird is really a natural villain without opportunity to indulge in crime. It is in captivity that the wickedness inherent in wild creatures comes to the surface and becomes visible. In the open, the weak ones manage to avoid danger, and to escape when threatened; but, with twenty birds in one large cage, escape is not always possible. A "happy-family" of a dozen or twenty different species often harbors a criminal in its midst; and when the criminal cunningly waits until all possibilities of rescue are eliminated, an assassination is the result.



Here is a partial list of the crimes in our bird collection during one year:

A green jay killed a blue jay. A jay-thrush and several smaller birds were killed by laughing thrushes,—which simply love to do murder! A nightingale was killed by a catbird and two mocking- birds. Two snake-birds killed a third one—all of them thoroughly depraved villains. Three gulls murdered another; a brown pelican was killed by trumpeter-swans; and a Canada goose was killed by a gull. All these victims were birds in good health.

It is deplorable, but nevertheless true, that in large mixed companies of birds, say where forty or fifty live together, it is a common thing for a sick bird to be set upon and killed, unless rescued by the keepers. In crimes of this class birds often murder their own kind, but they are quite as ready to kill members of other species. In 1902 a sick brant goose was killed by its mates; and so were a red-tailed hawk, two saras cranes, two black vultures, a road-runner, and a great horned owl. An aged and sickly wood ibis was killed by a whooping crane; and a night heron killed its mate.

Strange as it may seem, among reptiles there is far less of real first-degree murder than among mammals and birds. Twenty rattlesnakes may be crowded together in one cage, without a family jar. Even among cobras, perhaps the most irritable and pugnacious of all serpents, I think one snake never wantonly murders another, although about once in twenty years one will try to swallow another. The big pythons and anacondas never fight, nor try to commit murder. And yet, a twenty-foot regal python with a bad heart—like Nansen's polar bear—could easily constrict and kill any available snake of smaller size.

At this moment I do not recall one instance of wanton murder among serpents. It is well known that some snakes devour other snakes; but that is not crime. The record of the crocodilians is not so clear. It is a common thing for the large alligators in our Reptile House to battle for supremacy and in these contests several fatalities have occurred. Some of these occurrences are not of the criminal sort; but when a twelve-foot alligator attacks and kills a six-foot individual, entirely out of his class and far too small to fight with him, it is murder. An alligator will seize the leg of a rival and by violently whirling around on his axis, like a revolving shaft, twist the leg completely off.

Among sea creatures, the clearly defined criminal instinct, as exhibited aside from the never-ending struggle for existence and the quest of food, is rarely observed, possibly because opportunities are so few. The sanguinary exploits of the grampus, or whale-killer, among whales small enough to be killed and eaten, are the onslaughts of a marine glutton in quest of food.

Among the fishes there is one murderer whose evil reputation is well deserved. The common swordfish of the Atlantic, forty miles or so off Block Island or Montauk Point, is not only one of the most fearless of all fishes, but it also is the most dangerous. His fierce attacks upon the boats of men who have harpooned him and seek to kill him are well known, and his unparalleled courage fairly challenges our wonder and admiration. But, unfortunately, the record of the swordfish is stained with crime. When the spirit of murder prompts him to commit a crime in sheer wantonness, he will attack a whale, stab the unfortunate monster again and again, and pursue it until it is dead. This is prompted solely by brutality and murder lust, for the swordfish feeds upon fish, and never attempts to eat any portion of a whale. It can easily be proved that wild animals in a normal state of nature are by no means as much given to murder, either of their own kind or other kinds, as are many races of men. The infrequency of animal murders cannot be due wholly to the many possibilities for the intended victim to escape, nor to difficulty in killing. In every wild species murders are abundantly possible; but it is wholly against the laws of nature for free wild beasts to kill one another in wantonness. It is left to the savage races of men to commit murders without cause, and to destroy one another by fire. The family crimes and cruelties of people both civilized and savage completely eclipse in blackness and in number the doings of even the worst wild beasts. In wild animals and in men, crime is an index to character. The finest species of animals and the noblest races of men are alike distinguished by their abhorrence of the abuse of the helpless and the shedding of innocent blood. The lion, the elephant, the wild horse, the grizzly bear, the orang-utan, the eagle and the whooping crane are singularly free from the criminal instinct. On the other hand, even today Africa contains tribes whose members are actually fond of practicing cruelty and murder. In the Dark Continent there has lived many a "king" beside whom a hungry lion or a grizzly bear is a noble citizen.



XXV

FIGHTING WITH WILD ANIMALS

The study of the intelligence and temperaments of wild animals is by no means a pursuit of academic interest only. Men now are mixing up with dangerous wild beasts far more extensively than ever before, and many times a life or death issue hangs upon the man's understanding of the animal mind. I could cite a long and gruesome list of trainers, keepers and park owners who have been killed by the animals they did not correctly understand.

Not long ago, it was a park owner who was killed by a dangerous deer. Next it was a bull elk who killed the keeper who undertook to show that the animal was afraid of him. In Idaho we saw a death-penalty mistake with a bull buffalo. Recently, in Spain, an American ape trainer was killed by his big male chimpanzee. Recently in Switzerland a snake-charmer was strangled and killed on the stage by her python.

Men who keep or who handle dangerous animals owe it to themselves, their heirs and their assigns to know the animal mind and temperament, and to keep on the safe side.

In view of the tragedies and near-tragedies that animal trainers and keepers have been through during the past twenty years, I am desirous of so vividly exhibiting the wild animal mind and temper that at least a few of the mistakes of the past may be avoided in the future. Fortunately I am able to state that thus far no one ever has been killed by an animal in the Zoological Park; but several of our men have been severely hurt. The writer hereof carries two useless fingers on his best hand as a reminder of a fracas with a savage bear. How Dangerous Animals Attack Men. The following may be listed as the wild animals most dangerous to man:

1. In the open: Alaskan brown bears, the grizzly bears, lion, tiger, elephant, leopard, wolf, African buffalo, Indian gaur and buffalo, and gorilla.

All these species are dangerous to the man who meddles with them, either to kill or to capture them. If they are not molested by man, there is very little to fear from any of them save the man- eating lions, and tigers, the northern wolf packs, Alaskan brown bears and rogue elephants.

2. In captivity, or in process of capture: Under this head a special list may be thus composed:

Male elk and deer in the rutting season; male elephants over fifteen years of age; all bears over one year of age, and especially "pet" bears; all gorillas, chimpanzees and orangs over seven years of age (puberty); all adult male baboons, gibbons, rhesus monkeys, callithrix or green monkeys, Japanese red-faced monkeys and large macaques; many adult bison bulls and cows of individually bad temper; also gaur, Old World buffalo, anoa bulls, many individually bad African antelopes, gnus and hartebeests; all lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards, wolves, hyenas, and all male zebras and wild asses over four years of age.

How they attack. The lion, tiger and bear launches at a man's head or face a lightning-quick and powerful fore-paw blow that in one stroke tears the skin and flesh in long gashes, and knocks down the victim with stunning force. Before recovery is possible the assailant rushes to the prostrate man and begins to bite or to tear him. Instinctively the fallen man covers his face with his arms, and with the lion, tiger and leopard the arms come in for fearful punishment. It is the way of carnivorous beasts to attack each other head to head and mouth to mouth, and this same instinct leads these animals to focus their initial attacks upon the heads and faces of their human quarry.

After a man-eating lion or tiger has reduced the human victim to a state of non-resistance, the great beast seizes the man by a bite embracing the chest, and with the feet dragging upon the ground rushes off to a place of safety to devour him at leisure. Dr. David Livingston was seized alive by a lion, and carried I forget how many yards without a stop. His left humerus was broken in the onset, but the lion abandoned him without doing him any further serious harm.

Once I could not believe that a lion or a tiger could pick up a man in his mouth and rapidly carry him off, as a fox gets away with a chicken; but when I shot a male tiger weighing 495 pounds, standing 37 inches high and measuring 35 inches around his jaws, I was forever convinced. In the Malay Peninsula Captain Syers told me that a tiger leaped a stockade seven feet high, seized a Chinese woodcutter, leaped out with him, and carried him away.

In a scrimmage with a lion or tiger in the open, the fight is not prolonged. It is a case of kill or be killed quickly. The time of times for steady nerves and perfectly accurate shooting is when a lion, tiger or bear charges the hunter at full speed, beginning sufficiently far away to give the hunter a sporting chance. The hunter can not afford to be "scared!" It is liable to cost too much!

The Alaskan brown bear has a peculiar habit. Occasionally he kills the hunter he has struck down, but very often he contents himself with biting his victim on his fleshy parts, literally from head to foot. More than one unfortunate amateur hunter has been fearfully bitten without having a bone broken, and without having an important artery or vein severed. Such unfortunates lie upon their faces, with their arms protecting their heads as best they can, and take the awful punishment until the bear tires of it and goes away. Then they crawl, on hands and knees, to come within reach of discovery and help. In the annals of Alaska's frontier life there are some heart-rending records of cases such as I have described, coupled with some marvellous recoveries. Strange to say, bear bites or scratches almost never produce blood poisoning! This seems very strange, for the bites of lions, tigers and leopards very frequently end in blood poisoning, incurable fever and death. This probably is due to the clean mouth of the omnivorous bear and the infected mouth of the large cats, from putrid meat between their teeth.

The wolf is particularly dangerous to his antagonists, man or beast, from the cutting power of his fearful snap. His molar teeth shear through flesh and small bones like the gash of a butcher's cleaver; and his wide gape and lightning-quick movements render him a very dangerous antagonist. The bite of a wolf is the most dangerous to man of any animal bite to which keepers are liable, and it is the law of zoological gardens and parks that every wolf bite means a quick application of anti- rabies treatment at a Pasteur institute. Personally, I would be no more scared by a wolf-bite than by a feline bite, but the verdict of the jury is,—"it is best to be on the safe side."

Buck elk and deer very, very rarely attack men in the wilds, unless they have been wounded and brought to bay; and then very naturally they fight furiously. It is the attacks of captive or park-bred animals that are most to be feared.

All the deer that I know attack in the same way,—first by a slow push forward, in order to come to close quarters without getting hurt, and then follows the relentless push, push, push to get up steam for the final raging and death-dealing drive. Even in fighting each other, buck elk and deer do not come together with a long run and a grand crash. Each potential fighter fears for his own eyes, and conserves them by a cautious and deliberate engaging process. This is referred to in another chapter.

Fortunately for poor humanity, the same slow and cautious tactics are adopted when a buck deer or wapiti decides to attack a man. This gives the man in the case a chance to put up his defense.

The attacking deer lowers his head, throws his antlers far to the front, and pushes for the body of the man. The instant a tine touches the soft breast or abdomen, he lunges forward to drive it in. But thanks to that life-saving slow start, the man is mercifully afforded a few seconds of time in which to save himself, or at least delay the punishment.

No man ever should enter the enclosure of a "bad" deer, or any buck deer in the rut, without a stout and tough club or pitchfork for defense. Of the two weapons, the former is the best.

In the first place, keep away from all bad deer, especially between October and January first. If you are beset, follow these instructions, as you value your life:

If unarmed, seize the deer by the antlers before he touches your vitals, hold on for all you are worth, and shout for help. Keep your feet, just as long as you possibly can. Never mind being threshed about, so long as you keep your feet and keep the tines out of your vitals. Your three hopes are (1) that help will come, (2) or that you can come within reach of a club or some shelter, or (3) that the animal will in some manner decide to desist,—a most forlorn hope.

With a good club, or even a stout walking-stick, you have a fighting chance. As the animal lowers his head and comes close up to impale you on his spears of bone, hit him a smashing blow across the side of his head, or his nose. In a desperate situation, aim at the eye, and lay on the blows. If your life is in danger from a buck elk or a large deer, do not hesitate about putting out an eye for him. What are a thousand deer eyes compared with a twelve inch horn thrust through your stomach? My standing instructions to our keepers of dangerous animals are: "Save your own life, at all hazards. Don't let a dangerous animal kill you. Kill any animal rather than let it kill you!"

It is useless to strike a charging deer on the top of its head, or on its antlers. Give a sweeping side blow for the unprotected cheek and jaw, or the tender nose. There is nothing that a club can do that is so disconcerting as the eye and nose attack, for a badly injured eye always shuts both eyes, automatically. Once when alone in the corral of the axis deer herd, I was treacherously and wantonly attacked by a full-grown buck. I had violated my own rules about going in armed with a stick, and it was lucky for me that the axis deer was not as large as the barasingha or the mule deer. As the buck lowered his head, threw his long, sharp beams straight forward, and pushed for my vitals, I seized him by both antlers, to make my defense. At that he drove forward and nearly upset me. Quickly I let go the right antler and shifted myself to the animal's left side, where by means of the left antler I pulled the struggling buck's head around to my side. Then he began to plunge. Throwing the weight of my chest upon his shoulders I reached over him and with my free hand finally grasped his right foreleg below the knee, and pulled it up clear of the ground. With that I had him.

He tried to struggle free, but I was strong in those days, and angry besides, and he was helpless. Up beside the deer barn, most providentially for the finish, I saw a very beautiful barrel stave. It was the very thing! I worked him over to it, caught it up, and then still holding him by his left antler I laid that stave along his side until he was well punished, and glad when released to rush from that neighborhood.

Female "pet" deer, and female elk, can and do put up dangerous fights with their front hoofs, standing high up on their hind legs and striking fast and furiously. A gentleman of my acquaintance was thus attacked, most unexpectedly, by his pet white-tailed deer doe. She struck about a dozen times for his breast, and his vest and coat were slit open in several places. I once saw two cow elk engage with their front feet in a hot fight, but they did no real damage.

Of course an angry bison, buffalo or gaur lowers its head in attacking a man, and seeks to gore and toss him at the same moment. The American bison will start at a distance of ten or twenty yards, and with half lowered head jump forward, grunting "Uh! Uh! Uh!" as he comes. When close up he pauses for a second and poises his head for the toss. That is the man's one chance. At that instant he must strike the animal on the side of his head, and strike hard; and the region of the eye is the spot at which to aim.

Once we were greatly frightened by the determined charge of a savage cow bison upon Keeper McEnroe, who was armed with a short- handled 4-tine pitchfork. As she grunted and came for him we could not refrain from shouting a terrorized warning, "Look out, McEnroe! Look out!"

He looked out. He stood perfectly still, and calmly awaited the onset. The cow rushed close up, and dropped her chin low down for the goring toss. The keeper was ready for her. Swinging his pitchfork he delivered a smashing blow upon the left side of the cow's head, which disconcerted and checked her. Before she could recover herself he smashed her again, and again. Then she turned tail and ran, followed by the shouts of the multitude.

Adult male elephants are among the most dangerous of all wild animals to keep in captivity. They will grow bad- tempered with adult age, keepers will become careless of danger that is present every day, and a bad elephant often is a cunning and deceitful devil. The strength of an elephant is so great, the toughness of its hide is so pronounced, and the danger of a sudden attack is so permanent that life in a park with a "bad" elephant is one continuous nightmare.

Naturally we have been ambitious to prevent all manner of fatal wild beast attacks upon our keepers. We try our best to provide for their safety, and having done that to the limit we say: "Now it is up to you to preserve your own life. If you can not save yourself from your bad animals, no other person can do it for you!"

Either positively, comparatively or superlatively, a bad elephant is a cunning, treacherous and dangerous animal. We have seen several elephants in various stages of cussedness. Alice, the adult Indian female, is mentally a freak, but she is not vicious save under one peculiar combination of circumstances. Take her outside her yard, and instantly she becomes a storm centre. Gunda was bad to begin with, worse in continuation and murderously worst at his finish. At present Kartoum is dangerous only to inanimate fences and doors.

A wild elephant attacks a hunter by charging furiously and persistently, sometimes making a real man-chase, seizing the man or knocking him down, and then impaling him upon his tusks as he lies. More than one hunter has been knocked down, and escaped the impalement thrust only through the mercy of heaven that caused the tusks to miss him and expend their murderous fury in the ample earth.

On rare occasions an enraged wild elephant deliberately tramples a man to death; and there is one instance on record wherein the elephant held his dead native victim firmly to the ground while he tore him asunder "and actually jerked his arms and legs to some distance."

In captivity a mean elephant kills a keeper, or other person, by suddenly knocking him down, and then either trampling upon him or impaling him.

Gunda, our big male Indian tusker, was the worst elephant with which I ever came in close touch, and we hope never to see his like again. When about ten years old he came to us direct from Assam, and when I saw his big and bulging eyes, and the slits torn in his ears, I recognized him as a bad-tempered animal. I kept my opinions to myself. Two weeks later when we started Gunda's Hindu keeper back toward his native land, I sent for Keepers Gleason and Forester to give them a choice lot of instruction in elephant management. They heard me through attentively, and then Forester said very solemnly:

"Director, I think that is a bad elephant; and I'm afraid of him!"

Keeper Gleason willingly took him over, on condition that he should have sole charge of him, and as long as Gleason remained in our service he managed the elephant successfully. Elsewhere I have spoken at length of Gunda's mind and manners. He went steadily from bad to worse; but we never once really punished him. The time was when there was only one man in the world whom he feared, and would obey, and that was his keeper, Walter Thuman. I have seen that great dangerous beast cower and quake with fear, and back off into a corner, when Thuman's powerful voice yelled at him, and admonished him to behave himself. But all that ended on the day that he "got" Thuman.

On that fateful afternoon, with no visitors present, Thuman opened the outside door, took Gunda by the left ear, and with his steel- shod elephant hook in his left hand started to lead the huge animal out into his yard. Just inside the doorway Gunda thought he saw his chance, and he took it.

With a fierce sidewise thrust of his head he struck his keeper squarely on the shoulder and sent him plunging to the floor in the stall corner nearest him. Then, instantly he wheeled about and started to follow up his attack. In the fall Thuman's hook flew from his hand.

At first Gunda tried to step on him, but he lay so close into the corner that the elephant could not plant his feet so that they would do execution. Then he tried to kneel upon the keeper, with the same result.

Thuman struggled more closely into the corner, and tried hard to pull himself into the refuse box, through its low door; but with his trunk Gunda caught him by a leg and dragged him back. Then he made a fierce downward thrust with his tusks, which were nearly four feet long, to transfix his intended victim.

His left tusk struck the steel-clad wall and shattered into fragments, half way up. The resounding crash of that breaking tusk was what saved Thuman's life.

Gunda thrust again and again with his sound tusk, with the terrified and despairing keeper trying to cling to the broken tusk and save himself. At last the point of the sound tusk drove full and fair through the flat of Thuman's left thigh, as he lay, and stopped against the concrete floor.

Experienced animal men always are listening for sounds of trouble.

In the cage of Alice, three cages and a vestibule distant, Keeper Dick Richards was busily working, when he heard the peculiar crash of that shattered tusk. "What's all that!" said he; and "That's some trouble," was his own answer.

Grabbing his pitchfork he shot out of that cage, ran down the keeper's passage and in about ten seconds' arrived in front of Gunda's cage. And there was Gunda, killing Walter Thuman.

Richards darted in between the widely-separated front bars, gave a wild yell, and with a fierce thrust drove all the tines of his pitchfork into Gunda's unprotected hind-quarters, where the skin was thin and vulnerable.

With a shrill trumpet scream of pain and rage, Gunda whirled away from Thuman, bolted through the door, and rushed madly into his yard.

Keeper Thuman survived, and his recovery was presently accomplished. When I first called to see him he begged me not to kill Gunda for what he had done, or tried to do. In due course Thuman got well, and again took charge of Gunda; but after that the elephant was not afraid of him. We adopted a policy which prevented further accidents, but finally Gunda became a hopeless case of sexual insanity and lust for murder.

When Gunda became most dangerous, we protected our keepers by chaining his feet, and keeping the men out of the reach of his trunk. Because of this, his fury was boundless; and as soon as it was apparent that he was suffering from his confinement and never would be any better, we quickly decided to end it all. He was painlessly put to death, by Mr. Carl E. Akeley, with a single .26 calibre bullet very skilfully sent through the elephant's brain.

Chimpanzees and Orang-Utans attack and fight men just as they attack each other,—by biting the face and neck, and the hands, shoulders and arms. The fighting ape always reaches out, seizes the arm or wrist of the person to be harmed, drags it up to his mouth and bites savagely. As a home illustration of this method of attack, a chimpanzee named Chico in the Central Park Menagerie once bit a finger from the hand of his keeper. In April, 1921, Mr. Ellis Joseph, the animal dealer, was very severely bitten on his face and neck by his own chimpanzee, so much so in fact that eighteen stitches were required to sew up his lacerations.

One excellent thing about the manners of chimpanzees and orang- utans in captivity and on the stage is that they do not turn deadly dangerous all in a moment, as do bears and elephants, and occasionally deer. The ape who is falling from grace goes gradually, and gives warning signs that wise men recognize. They first become strong and boisterous, then they playfully resist and defy the keeper's restraining hand. Next in order they openly become angry at their keepers over trifles, and bristle up, stamp on the floor and savagely yell. It is then that the whip and the stick become not only useless but dangerous to the user, and must be discarded. It is then that new defensive tactics must be inaugurated, and the keeper must see to it that the big and dangerous ape gets no advantage. This means the exercise of good strategy, and very careful management in cage-cleaning. It calls for two cages for each dangerous ape.

There is only one thing in this world of which our three big chimps are thoroughly afraid, and that is an absurd little toy gun that cost about fifty cents, and looks it. No matter how bad Boma may be acting, if Keeper Palmer says in a sharp tone, "Where's that gun!" Boma hearkens and stops short, and if the "gun" is shown in front of his cage he flies in terror to the top of his second balcony, and cowers in a corner.

Why are those powerful and dangerous apes afraid of that absurd toy? I do not know. Perhaps the answer is—instinct; but if so, how was it acquired? The natives of the chimp country do not have many firearms, and the white man's guns have been seen and heard by not more than one out of every thousand of that chimp population.

Baboons Throw Stones. So far as we are aware, baboons are the only members of the Order Primates who ever deliberately throw missiles as means of offense. In 1922 there was in the New York Zoological Park a savage and aggressive Rhodesian baboon (Choiropithecus rhodesiae, Haagner) which throws stones at people whenever he can get hold of such missiles. We have seen him set up against Keeper Palmer and Curator Ditmars a really vigorous bombardment with stones and coal that had been supplied him. His throw was by means of a vigorous underhand pitch, and but for the intervening bars he would have done very good execution.

Keeper Rawlinson, of the Primate House, who was in the Boer War, states that on one occasion when his company was deploying along the steep side of a rock-covered kopje a troop of baboons above them rolled and threw so many stones down at the men that finally two machine guns were let loose on the savage beasts to disperse them.



THE CURTAIN

On one side of the heights above the River of Life stand the men of this little world,—the fully developed, the underdone, and the unbaked, in one struggling, seething mass. On the other side, and on a level but one step lower down, stands the vanguard of the long procession of "Lower" Animals, led by the chimpanzee, the orang and the gorilla. The natural bridge that almost spans the chasm lacks only the keystone of the arch.

Give the apes just one thing,—speech,—and the bridge is closed!

Take away from a child its sight, speech and hearing, and the whole world is a mystery, which only the hardest toil of science and education ever can reveal. Give back hearing and sight, without speech, and even then the world is only half available. Give a chimpanzee articulate expression and language, and no one could fix a limit to his progress.

Take away from a man the use of one lobe of his brain, and he is rendered speechless.

The great Apes have travelled up the River of Life on the opposite side from Man, but they are only one lap behind him. Let us not deceive ourselves about that. Remember that truth is inexorable in its demands to be heard.

We need not rack our poor, finite minds over the final problem of evolution, or the final destiny of Man and Ape. We cannot prove anything beyond what we see. We do not know, and we never can know, whether the chimpanzee has a "soul" or not; and we cannot prove that the soul of man is immortal. If man possesses a soul of lofty stature, why not a soul of lowly stature for the chimpanzee?

We do not know just where "heaven" is; and we cannot know until we find it. But what does it all matter on earth, if we keep to the straight path, and rest our faith upon the Great Unseen Power that we call God?

Said the great Poet of Nature in his ode "To a Waterfowl:"

"He who from zone to zone Guides through the boundless Sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Will lead my steps aright."

CURTAIN.



BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY



THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS

CAMP FIRES ON DESERT AND LAVA

CAMP FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES

TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING

TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. Illustrated. 8 vo.

THE AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY A Foundation of Useful Knowledge of the Higher Animals of North America. Four Crown Octavo Volumes, Illustrated in colors and half-tones.

THE SAME Royal 8 vo. Complete in one volume.

OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE Its Extermination and Preservation.

THE END