Part 7

Like the black bear, the grizzlies are commonly nocturnal, but in remote districts often wander about in search of food by day. They roll over stones and tear open rotten wood in search of grubs and insects. They also dig out ground squirrels and other rodents and eat a variety of acorns and other wild nuts and fruits. As an offset to this lowly diet, many powerful old grizzlies, from the Rocky Mountains to California, have become notorious cattle-killers. They stalk cattle at night, and, seizing their prey by the head, usually break its neck, but sometimes hold and kill it by biting. These cattle-killing grizzlies still occur on the Western ranges. One or more wily marauders of this kind have run for years with a bounty of $1,000 on their heads.

Like other bears, grizzlies hibernate in winter, seeking small caves, or other shelter, and sometimes digging a den in the ground. The young, from one to four in number, are born in midwinter and are very small, naked, and but partly developed at birth. They go about with the mother throughout the summer and commonly den up with her the following winter. Although full-grown grizzlies are ordinarily solitary in habits, parties of from four to eight are sometimes seen. The object of these curious but probably brief companion-ships is not known.

Grizzlies are disappearing so rapidly that it is very desirable that they be placed on the list of game protected during part of the year, except in the case of the few individuals which become stock-killers. They are among the finest of native animals and their absence from the rugged slopes of the western mountains would leave a serious gap in our wild life.

=ALASKAN BROWN BEAR= (=Ursus gyas= and its relatives)

(_See frontispiece of this Magazine for the illustration of this remarkable animal_)

The Alaskan brown bears form a group of gigantic animals peculiar to North America and limited to the coast and islands of Alaska, from the head of Norton Sound to the Sitka Islands. The group includes a number of species, individuals of two of which, _Ursus gyas_, of the Alaska Peninsula, and _Ursus middendorffi_, of Kodiak Island, sometimes attain a weight of 1,500 pounds or more, and are not only the largest existing bears, but are the largest living carnivores in the world. They can be likened only to the great cave bears, which were the haunting terror of primitive mankind during the “Old Stone Age” in Europe. Brown bears still exist in Europe and Asia, but they form a distinct group of much smaller animals than the American species.

The Alaskan brown bears vary much in color, from a dull golden yellowish to a dusky brown, becoming almost black in some species. In color some of the darker species are indistinguishable from the great grizzlies, with which in places they share their range; but the relatively shorter, thicker, and more strongly curved claws on the front feet of the brown bears are distinctive.

As a rule they are inoffensive giants and take flight at the first sign of man. The taint left by a man’s recent track or the faintest odor on the passing breeze, indicating the proximity of their dreaded enemy, is enough to start the largest of them in instant flight. Instances are reported of their having attacked people wantonly, but such cases are extremely rare. When wounded or suddenly surprised at close quarters, the instinct of self-defense not infrequently incites them to attack their enemy with furious energy. Many Indian and white hunters have been killed or terribly mauled by them in such encounters. At close quarters their great size, strength, and activity--astonishing for such apparently clumsy beasts--render them terrific antagonists.

Some of the species occupy open, rolling, or hilly tundras, and others live on the steepest and most rugged mountain slopes amid glaciers, rock slides, and perpetual snow-banks. On the approach of winter all retreat to dry locations, usually in the hills, where they dig dens in the earth or seek other cover to which they retire to hibernate, and here the young, usually two or three in number, are born. They usually emerge from hibernation in April or early May and wander about over the snow-covered hills and mountains. At this time their dark forms and their great tracks in the snow are so conspicuous that hunters have little difficulty in finding them.

Despite their size, brown bears devote much of their time to hunting such game as mice, ground squirrels, and marmots, which they dig from their burrows with extraordinary rapidity. During the salmon season, when the streams swarm with fish, bears frequent the lowlands and make trails along the watercourses, where they feed fat on this easy prey. During the summer and fall these great carnivores have the strange habit of grazing like cattle on the heavy grasslike growth of sedge in the lowland flats and benches, and also of eating many other plants.

Although Alaska was long occupied by the Russians and has been a part of our territory since 1867, not until 1898 was there any definite public knowledge concerning the existence of these bears, notwithstanding their size and abundance. Since that time they have become well known to sportsmen and others as one of the wonders of the remarkable region they occupy. Their comparatively limited and easily accessible territory renders their future precarious unless proper measures for their reasonable protection are continued. They are certain to be exterminated near settlements; but there are ample wild and inhospitable areas where they may range in all their original freedom for centuries to come, provided man permits.

=AMERICAN BEAVER= (=Castor canadensis= and its subspecies)

When North America was first colonized, beavers existed in great numbers from coast to coast, in almost every locality where trees and bushes bordered streams and lakes, from near the Yukon Delta, in Alaska, and the Mackenzie Delta, on the Arctic coast, south to the mouths of the Colorado and the Rio Grande. Although now exterminated from most of their former range in the eastern United States, they still occur in diminished numbers over nearly all the remainder of their original territory, even in the lower Rio Grande and the delta of the Colorado. Their vertical distribution extends from sea-level to above an altitude of 9,000 feet.

Beavers are heavily built, round-bodied animals, with powerful chisel-shaped front teeth, short legs, fully webbed hind feet, and a flat, scaly tail. They are covered with long, coarse hairs overlying the short, dense, and silky underfur to which beaver skins owe their value. Their range covers the northern forested parts of both Old and New Worlds. The American species closely resembles in general appearance its Old World relative, but is distinctly larger, averaging 30 to 40 pounds in weight, but sometimes attaining a weight of more than 60 pounds. Owing to the different physical conditions in its wide range, the American animal has developed a number of geographic races.

Beavers mate permanently and have from two to five young each year. Their abundance and the high value of their fur exercised an unparalleled influence on the early exploration and development of North America. Beaver skins were the one ready product of the New World which the merchants of Europe were eager to purchase. As a consequence competition in the trade for these skins was the source of strong and bitter antagonisms between individuals and companies, and even caused jealous rivalries among the Dutch, English, and French colonies.

Disputes over the right to trade in certain districts often led to bloodshed, and even to long wars, over great areas, where powerful rival companies fought for the control of a new empire. This eager competition among daring adventurers resulted in the constant extension of trading posts through the North and West, until the vanguard of civilization reached the far borders of the continent on the shores of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

Among the fur traders the beaver skin became the unit of value by which barter was conducted for all sorts of commodities. This usage extended even throughout northern Alaska, where it was current among the American fur traders until the discovery of gold there upset old standards.

Beavers belong to the rodent family--a group of animals notable for their weak mental powers. The beaver is the striking exception to the rule, and its extraordinary intelligence, industry, and skill have long excited admiration. It is scarcely entitled to the almost superhuman intelligence many endow it with, yet it certainly possesses surprising ability along certain lines. Furthermore, it can alter its habits promptly when a change in environment renders this advantageous.

In wild places, where rarely disturbed, beavers are unsuspicious, but where they are much trapped they become amazingly alert and can be taken only by the most skillful trapping. They are very proficient in building narrow dams of sticks, mud, and small stones across small streams for the purpose of backing up water and making “beaver ponds.” In the border of these ponds a conical lodge is usually constructed of sticks and mud. It is several feet high and about 8 or 10 feet across at the base.

The entrance is usually under water, and a passageway leads to an interior chamber large enough to accommodate the pair and their well-grown young. From the ponds the animals sometimes dig narrow canals several hundred feet long back through the flats among the trees. Having short legs and heavy bodies, and consequently being awkward on land, beavers save themselves much labor by constructing canals for transporting the sticks and branches needed for food and for repairing their houses and dams.

Along the Colorado, lower Rio Grande, and other streams with high banks and variable water level, beavers usually dig tunnels leading from an entrance well under water to a snug chamber in the bank above water level. Under the varying conditions in different areas they make homes showing every degree of intergradation between the two types described.

Beavers live almost entirely on twigs and bark, and their gnawing powers are surprising. Where small trees less than a foot in diameter abound they are usually chosen, but the animals do not hesitate to attack large trees. On the headwaters of the San Francisco River, in western New Mexico. I saw a cottonwood nearly 30 inches in diameter that had been felled so skillfully that it had fallen with the top in the middle of a small beaver pond, thus assuring an abundance of food for the animals at their very door.

In the cold northern parts of their range, where streams and ponds remain frozen for months at a time, beavers gather freshly cut green twigs, sticks, and poles, which they weight down with mud and stones on the bottoms of ponds or streams near their houses, to be used for food during the shut-in period.

The mud used by beavers in building dams and houses is scooped up and carried against the breast, the front feet being used like hands. The flat tail serves as a rudder when the animal is swimming or diving, and to strike the surface of the water a resounding slap as a danger signal.

Beavers are usually nocturnal, but in districts where not disturbed they sometimes come out to work by day, especially late in the afternoon. Among the myriads of small streams and lakes in the great forested area north of Quebec they are very plentiful; their dams and houses are everywhere, sometimes four or five houses about one small lake. Their well-worn trails lead through the woods near the lake shores and frequently cross portages between lakes several hundred yards apart.

Where beavers continue to occupy streams in settled districts, they often make regular trails from a slide on the river bank back to neighboring cornfields, where they feast on the succulent stalks and green ears. They also injure orchards planted near their haunts, by girdling or felling the trees. Within recent years laws for their protection have been passed in many States, and beavers have been reintroduced in a number of localities. They should not be colonized in streams flowing through lands used for orchards or cornfields, nor where the available trees are too few to afford a continuous food supply.

FISHER, OR PEKAN (Mustela pennanti)

The fisher is one of the largest and handsomest members of the weasel family. Like others of this group, it is a long-bodied, short-legged animal. It attains an extreme length of from 3 to 3½ feet and a weight of 18 or 20 pounds, but the average is decidedly lower than these figures. In general, it is like a gigantic marten, and from its size and dark color is sometimes known locally as the “black cat” or “black fox.”

It lives in the forested parts of Canada and the United States, where it originally occurred from the southern shores of Hudson Bay and Great Slave Lake south throughout most of eastern Canada and New England and along the Alleghanies to Tennessee; also in the Great Lakes region, south to the southern end of Lake Michigan; along the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming, down the Cascades to northern California, and from the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and Maine to the Pacific coast of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia. They still occur regularly in the Adirondacks of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont and in Maine, but are gone from most of the southern border of their former range.

Fishers are powerful and agile animals, probably for their size by far the swiftest and most deadly of all our forest carnivores. So swift and dextrous are they in the tree-tops that they not only capture squirrels without difficulty, but are able to overtake and kill the marten, almost an incredible feat. When in pursuit of their prey or when alarmed, they make astonishing leaps from tree to tree. While not so speedy on the ground as some other animals, they have the tireless persistence of their kind and capture snowshoe hares in fair chase.

Among the habitants of the forest the fisher is a fearless and savage marauder, which feeds on frogs, fish, and nearly every bird and mammal its domain affords, except species so large that their size protects them. Porcupines are among its favorite victims and are killed by being turned over and attacked on their underparts. As a consequence of such captures, the fisher often has many quills imbedded in its head and the foreparts of its body.

The fisher, like many other predatory animals, has more or less regular “beats” along which they make their rounds over the territory each occupies. These rounds commonly require several days to accomplish. In winter they keep mainly along wooded ridges, where they are trapped.

It follows trap lines like the wolverine and eats the bait or the captured animal, but, unlike the wolverine, appears to have no propensity for further mischief. When overtaken by dogs or when at war with any of its forest rivals, it is so active and ferocious that it is worthy all due respect from antagonists several times its size.

Although essentially a tree animal, much of the fisher’s time is spent on the ground. In summer it appears to be fond of heavy forests in low-lying situations and the vicinity of water. Its dens are usually located in a hollow high up in a large tree, but sometimes in the shelter of fallen tree trunks or crevices in the rocks, where, the last of April or early in May, the young are born. These may number from one to five, but are usually two or three. The young begin to follow the mother in her wanderings when quite small and do not leave her guardianship until nearly grown.

The fisher is not a common animal and only about 8,000 of its skins are marketed each year. Owing to its size, it is conspicuous, and its very fearlessness tends to jeopardize its existence. It is gone from most of the southern part of its former range and will no doubt continue steadily to lose ground with the increasing occupation of its haunts.

=OTTER= (=Lutra canadensis= and its relatives)

Land otters are common throughout a large part of the Old World, and when America was explored the animals were found generally distributed, and sometimes common, from the northern limit of trees in North America to southern South America. Within this great area a considerable number of species and geographic races of otters occur, all having a close general resemblance in appearance and habits.

The Canadian otter is the well-known type throughout the United States, Canada, and Alaska. It is a slender, dusky brown animal, from 4 to 5 feet in length, frequenting streams and lakes which contain a good supply of fish. Otters are too short-legged to move easily on land, but are remarkable for their admirable grace, agility, and swiftness in the water. Although so poorly adapted to land travel, they are restless animals, constantly moving up and down the streams in which they live and often crossing from one stream to another. In the far north in midwinter they travel surprising distances across snow-clad country, following the banks of streams or passing between them searching for an entrance to water, whether through the ice or in open rapids.

In Alaska I saw many otter trails in the snow crossing the Yukon and through the adjacent forest. In such journeys it was evident that the animals progressed by a series of long bounds, each leaving a well-marked, full-length impression in the snow, so characteristic that it could not be mistaken. These trails, often leading for miles across country, always excited my deepest interest and wonder as to how these animals could succeed in finding holes through the ice in this vast snow-bound waste. Nevertheless they seemed to know full well, for the trails always appeared to be leading straight away for some known objective.

Although never very abundant, otters are so shy and solitary in their habits that they have managed to retain almost all of their original range. They occur now and then in the Potomac, near Washington, and in other rivers throughout the country, where their tracks may occasionally be detected on sand-bars and in the muddy shallows along the banks. A sight of the animals themselves is rare. Their dens are usually in the banks of streams or lakes above or below the surface of the water, under the roots of large trees, or beneath rocky ledges.

Otters are extremely playful and amuse themselves by sliding down steep banks into the water, repeatedly using the same place until a smooth chute or “slide” is defined. They usually have two to five young, which remain with the mother until nearly grown.

While close relatives of the weasel, they are much more intelligent, have a gentler disposition, and make playful and most interesting pets. Their fur is highly prized and always brings a good price in the market. As a result, they have been persistently hunted and trapped since our pioneer days. That the species should continue to exist, though in much diminished numbers, throughout most of its original range is a striking evidence of its retiring habits and mental acuteness.

COLLARED PECCARY, OR MUSKHOG (Pecari angulatus)

The numerous and extraordinarily varied species of wild pigs of the Old World are represented in America by the peccaries, a specialized group containing two species of small pigs peculiar to North and South America. One of the many differences between them and their Old World relatives is their having but two young. The name muskhog, applied to them, is based on their possession of a large gland, located high up on the middle of the rump, which emits a powerful odor. The musky odor from this quickly permeates the flesh of a peccary unless it is cut out as soon as the animal is killed.

The collared peccary is the smaller of the two species, usually weighing less than 75 pounds. It ranges from the southwestern United States south to Patagonia. Within this range numerous geographic races have developed, varying from light grizzled gray to nearly black. It formerly occurred within our border north to the Red River of Arkansas, but is now limited to the southern half of Texas and the southern parts of New Mexico and Arizona.

In tropical America collared peccaries are found in dense forests or in low jungles, but in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States they are equally at home among scattered thickets of cactus and other thorny plants on plains and in the foothills. They are strictly gregarious and live in bands of from a few individuals up to thirty or more, usually led by the oldest and most powerful boar. They are omnivorous, feeding on everything edible, from roots, fruits, nuts, and other vegetable products to reptiles and any other available animals. They are specially numerous in many tropical forests where wild figs, nut palms, and other fruit-bearing trees provide abundant food. In the arid northern part of their range dense thickets of cactus and mesquite afford both food and shelter. Their presence in a locality is often indicated by the rooted-up soil where they have been feeding.

Young peccaries become very tame and make most intelligent and amusing pets. One moonlight night on the coast of Guerrero two of us, after a bath in the sea by a small Indian village, strolled along the hard white sand to enjoy the cool breeze. Suddenly a little peccary, not weighing over eight or ten pounds, came running to meet us and, after stopping at our feet to have its head scratched, suddenly circled about us, away and back again in whirling zigzags, with all the joyous frenzy of a playful puppy. Continuing this performance, it accompanied us for several hundred yards, until we returned to the village.

Tales of the ferocity of bands of the collared peccaries and of their treeing hunters who have disturbed them read well to the novice, but have little foundation in fact. In reality the animals are shy and retiring and fight only when forced to do so for self-protection. When brought to bay by dogs or other animals, they fight viciously, and with their sharp, knife-edged tusks can inflict serious wounds. Their natural enemies are mainly the jaguar in the south and bobcats and coyotes, which prey upon their young, in the north.

The increasing occupation of our Southwest has already resulted in the extermination of peccaries from most of their former range within our border, and unless active steps are taken to protect the survivors their days will be few in the land. They are such unique and harmless animals that it is hoped interest in their behalf may be awakened in time to retain them as a part of our wild life.

=ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP= (=Ovis canadensis= and its relatives)

Wild sheep inhabit mountain ranges in both Old and New Worlds. Northern Africa and southern Europe have representative species, but Asia appears to be the true home of the group. There the greatest variety of species is found, including such giants as _Ovis poli_.

In the New World they occur only in North America, where there are two or three species, with numerous geographic races. Among these the sheep inhabiting the main Rocky Mountain region is best known. It is a heavier animal than its northern relatives of the Stikine country and Alaska, with larger and more massively proportioned horns. It occupies the main range from south of Peace River and Lake Babine, in British Columbia, to Colorado, and possibly northern New Mexico. Closely related geographic races occur elsewhere in the mountains of the western United States and northern Mexico.