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HALF HOURS 
 
 TH E MAM M ALS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ELEMENTS OF ZOOLOGY," "STORIES OF ANIMAL 
 LIFE," "LIFE OF LOUIS AGASSIZ," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1907, by 
 CHARLES F. HOLDER. 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 THE MAMMALS. 
 
 "YV. p. I 
 
PREFACE 
 
 At the present day education is not complete without 
 definite courses of nature study. We are living in an age 
 of strenuous business life and activity, where the best 
 equipped students along the various lines secure the best 
 positions. Time was when zoology, botany, and kindred 
 nature studies were classed 'with music and the so-called 
 dead languages, and were taken up as incidentals or were 
 employed in "mind training"; but to-day there are a 
 thousand branches of trade and commerce which require 
 knowledge that can be obtained only through nature 
 study. 
 
 It is not necessary that the student, unless he intends 
 to be a teacher of science or a professional naturalist, 
 should be able to pass examinations in the abstruse clas- 
 sification of animals or delve into difficult anatomical 
 studies. What the average student needs is a broad and 
 general idea of animal life, its great divisions, and notably 
 the relationship of the lower animals to man in an eco- 
 nomic sense, the geographical distribution of animals, etc. 
 It is vastly more important for the coming lumber mer- 
 chant to know the relationship which forests bear to the 
 water supply, and to have a general idea of forestry and 
 the trees which make forests, than to be able to recite a 
 long formula of classification or analysis, of value only to 
 the advanced student or specialist. The future merchant 
 who is to deal in alpaca, leather, dye, skins, hair, bone 
 products, shell, pearl, lac, animal food products, ivory, 
 whalebone, guano, feathers, and countless other articles 
 
 S 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 derived from animals is but poorly equipped for the strug- 
 gle for business supremacy if he is not prepared by nature 
 study, nature readings, and other practical instruction along 
 these lines. 
 
 It is believed to-day by those who have given the sub- 
 ject the closest attention that the initial move of the 
 teacher should be to call the attention of the child to the 
 beauties of nature, the works of the Infinite, and thus 
 early inculcate a habit of observation. The toys of the 
 kindergarten should be fruits, flowers, shrubs, trees, peb- 
 bles, and vistas of mountains, hills, lakes, and streams, 
 and nature study in some form should be continuous in 
 school life. 
 
 In the following readings the story of the mammals 
 has been presented on broad Unes, divested of technicality, 
 and at almost every step supplemented by forceful and 
 explanatory illustrations as ocular aids to the reader. The 
 subject has been divested of dry detail, and I have intro- 
 duced notes and incidents, the results of personal obser- 
 vation and investigation in various lands and seas, and 
 have given attention to the often neglected fauna of the 
 Pacific coast as well as that of other regions. 
 
 While the volume is a supplementary reader, the matter 
 is so arranged that it can be used by the teacher as a text- 
 book, and the pupil who undertakes the various "half- 
 hour readings" of this series will have covered in the 
 main the ground of the ordinary text-book for interme- 
 diate grades in the form of readings. In a word, I have 
 endeavored to make this volume a popular combined re- 
 view and supplemental reader on the mammals. 
 
 CHARLES F. HOLDER. 
 Pasadena, California. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 I. 
 
 Mammals . 
 
 
 
 
 II. 
 
 Ancestors of Mammals . 
 
 . 
 
 III. 
 
 The Egg-laying Mammals 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 Value of Mammals to Man . 
 
 . 
 
 V. 
 
 The Pouched Animals 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 Some Toothless Mammals 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Sea Cows .... 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Whales .... 
 
 
 
 IX. 
 
 Some Insect Eaters . 
 
 
 
 X. 
 
 The Gnawers .... 
 
 
 
 XI. 
 
 Some Hoofed Animals 
 
 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Extinction of Animals . 
 
 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Elephant . 
 
 
 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Deer . 
 
 
 
 
 XV. 
 
 Goats and Sheep 
 
 
 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Antelopes . 
 
 
 
 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Ox and the Bison 
 The Camf.t.s 
 
 
 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Flesh Eaters . 
 
 
 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Bears 
 
 
 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Seals . 
 
 
 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Sea-lion Rookeries 
 
 
 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The Monkeys 
 
 
 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Early Man 
 
 
 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXV. Early Americans . . . . 200 
 
 XXVI. American Native Races of Men . 208 
 
 XXVII. Adaptation of Mammals to varied Conditions 219 
 
 XXVIII. The Games of Mammals 226 
 
 XXIX. The Intelligence of Mammals . . 230 
 
 XXX. Geographical Distribution of Mammals 240 
 
 XXXI. Mammals Underground .... 248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 251 
 
HALF HOURS WITH THE MAMMALS 
 
 I. MAMMALS 
 
 Some of the greatest artists have become famous by 
 painting scenes which typify the homes of farmers or 
 ranchers. In these the life of the husbandman is depicted 
 — beautiful fields with herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, or 
 droves of horses. They portray outdoor life so distinctly 
 that one can almost hear the lowing of the herds, and 
 catch the rich odor of new-mown hay and clover. 
 
 Horses, cattle, sheep, and many others, composing the 
 highest forms of animal life, are called mammals. They 
 differ from all the rest of the animals in their method of 
 caring for their progeny or young. These are nourished 
 upon milk, a fluid secreted in the so-called mammary glands. 
 Another peculiarity which separates the mammals from the 
 birds, reptiles, and fishes is that the body is more or less 
 covered with hair, instead of scales or feathers. 
 
 The skeleton of a mammal (Fig. i) shows many differ- 
 ences from the lower forms. The bones, instead of being 
 hollow and light, as in the birds, are solid and ponderous, 
 the limb cavities being filled with marrow. The spinal 
 column, or vertebrae, is long and apparently divided into 
 several distinct regions, as the neck, the back, the loins, 
 and the tail. As a rule, there are seven bones in the neck 
 
 9 
 
lO 
 
 MAMMALS 
 
 region, this being true of both the giraffe and the whale. 
 In the former each bone is lengthened out, while in the 
 whale it is so very short that this huge creature, the larg- 
 est of all animals, can hardly be said to have a neck at all. 
 In the back there are usually thirteen bones, sometimes 
 more. In the tail the bony links, or vertebra, number 
 from four to forty-five. The head is large and solid, form- 
 
 ,-■^7'^*^^ 
 
 Fig. I. — Skeleton of « Wild Ass. 
 
 i, incisor teeth ; ^, grinding teeth, with the gap between the two sets as in all large 
 grass feeders; k, knee; /i, heel; /, foot; /, middle toe of three joints carrying 
 the hoof; s, splint, or remains of one of the two lost toes; t;, elbow; w, wrist; 
 Aa, hand bone; i, 2, 3, joints of the middle toe. 
 
 ing a perfect and heavy covering for the brain. It moves 
 easily from side to side, or up and down, permitting the 
 animal to see in almost any direction. The lower jaw is 
 composed of two pieces. It is joined directly to the skull, 
 and not to a quadrate bone, as in the birds. The vertebrae 
 of the back support the ribs, which curve downward and 
 
MAMMALS 
 
 II 
 
 form the staves to the barrel-shaped 
 body, supporting and protecting the 
 chest and vital organs. The tail is 
 very useful in the horse and its 
 kind, being provided with long hairs, 
 hence a fly brush. In the whale 
 it supports a prodigious fin. In 
 the monkey it is developed into a 
 hand which enables the animal to 
 cling to trees. In many animals 
 the tail is a very expressive organ, 
 as in the dog. It wags when the 
 animal is pleased, stiffens when it 
 is enraged, while in the cat it be- 
 comes three or four times its usual 
 size. 
 
 The hmbs of the mammals, if we 
 compare them with those of other 
 animals, are particularly interesting. 
 As a rule, there are four, except in 
 the whales and manatees, in which 
 only the front limbs are well devel- 
 oped. In the horse the knee (k) is 
 found high up where it is least ex- 
 pected, the heel (/i) being at the end 
 of a very long foot upon which is the 
 hoof, which is in reality the toe nail 
 of a middle toe of three, two of 
 which have disappeared in the course 
 of time, one being represented by a splint (s, Fig. 2). 
 In the ruminants, as the ox, there is a remarkable modi- 
 
 FiG. 2. — Fore Leg of 
 Horse. 
 
 ca, carpus; m, metacarpal 
 of the third digit; s, 
 " splint bone," or rudi- 
 mentary metacarpal ; 
 I, first phalanx, or 
 "great pastern " ; 2, sec- 
 ond phalanx, or " small 
 pastern " ; 3, third pha- 
 lanx, or " coffin bone." 
 
12 
 
 MAMMALS 
 
 fication of the foot, the digits numbering two, each bearing 
 a hoof (Fig. 3). 
 
 Nearly all the mammals have teeth, to grind or tear 
 their food (Fig. 4), those of the chimpanzee to some extent 
 
 resembling those of man. 
 
 Fig. 3. — a, Fore Leg of Ox {Bos 
 iauriis). B, Hind Leg of Stag 
 ( Cervtis elaphus) . 
 
 ca, carpus; ta, tarsus; c, "canon bone," 
 composed of the united metacarpals 
 or metatarsals of the third and fourth 
 digits. 
 
 Fig. 4. — Teeth of the Right 
 Side of th e Lowkr Jaw of the 
 Chimpanzee (after Owe_\'). 
 
 z, incisors; c, canine tooth; pm, pras- 
 molars ; w, molars. 
 
 The teeth of the elephant 
 (Fig. 5) are enormous. In 
 all mammals they have 
 sockets. Perhaps the most 
 remarkable development 
 
MAMMALS 
 
 13 
 
 Fig. 5. — Upper Molar Tooth of Indian Elephant {Elephas Indicus). 
 
 Showing transverse arrangement of dentine, d, with festooned border of enamel 
 
 plates, c ; c, cement ; one third natural size. 
 
 Fig. 6. — Skull of the Babirusa, or Malayan Hog. 
 Showing growth and curvature of the canines. 
 
 of teeth is seen in the mammoth, in which the tusks were 
 sometimes thirteen feet long and weighed three hundred 
 pounds. The teeth of the hog, babirusa (Fig. 6), show a 
 
14 
 
 MAMMALS 
 
 strange and abnormal development, being in the case of 
 the upper ones useless. Instances have been known 
 in which these strange tusks turned and grew into the 
 flesh. 
 
 The anatomy of the mammals (Fig. 7) is interesting. 
 Food taken in at the mouth is chewed or ground up by 
 the teeth, mixed with saliva. Thence it passes down the 
 esophagus (^) into the stomach {Ji). Here it is mixed 
 
 Fig. 7. — Ideal Section of a Mammalian Vertebrate. 
 
 , pectoral, or lore limb ; B, pelvic, or hind limb ; a, mouth ; b, cerebrum ; c, cere- 
 bellum ; d, nose ; e, eye ; f, ear ; g, esophagus ; k, stomach ; z, intestine ; /, dia- 
 phragm, or midriff; k, rectum, or termination of intestine;- /, anus; m, liver; 
 «, spleen ; o, kidney ; p, sympathetic system of nerves ; q, pancreas ; r^ urinary 
 bladder ; s, spinal cord ; u, ureter ; v, vertebral column ; w^ heart ; x , lung ; 
 y, trachea, or windpipe ; z, epiglottis. 
 
 with a secretion called gastric juice. Known as chyme, it 
 passes into the smaller intestine (/), where it is brought 
 into contact with various secretions, as pancreatic juice and 
 bile. It is now known as chyle, and finally passes to the 
 blood vessels. Food is literally fuel for the hving machine, 
 and the simple act of eating is, roughly speaking, a mar- 
 velous transformation of crude matter into the bone and 
 sinew of animal life. 
 
MAMMALS 
 
 15 
 
 The heart of mammals (Fig. 8) is four-chambered, a 
 feature easily seen if a section is made (Fig. 9). It is the 
 
 f e k g 
 
 Fig. 8. — Heart of the Dugong, a 
 Four-chambered Heart, the 
 Parts being more separated 
 than in the higher animals. 
 
 E, right ventricle; L, left ventricle; 
 D, right auricle; F, pulmonary ar- 
 tery; K, left auricle; A, aorta. 
 
 Fig. 9. —Theoretical Section of 
 THE Human Heart. 
 
 a, right ventricle ; b, inferior vena cava ; 
 c, tricuspid valve; d, right auricle; 
 e, pulmonary veins ; f, superior vena 
 cava ; g, pulmonary arteries ; h^ 
 aorta; ^, left auricle ; /, mitral valve; 
 m, left ventricle ; //, septum. 
 
 pump which forces blood through the body to the lungs, 
 where it is aerated. 
 The blood contains two 
 kinds of corpuscles 
 (Fig. 10), red and 
 white. The red cor- 
 puscles differ so much 
 in different animals 
 that experts can read- 
 ily distinguish animals 
 by them. No more 
 attractive sight under 
 the microscope can be 
 imagined than the web 
 
 Fig. 10. — Red Blood Corpuscles of Man. 
 
 a, shows circular contour ; b, a biconcave sec- 
 c, a group in chains. 
 
 tion; 
 
i6 
 
 MAMMALS 
 
 of a frog's foot (Fig. ii), where the corpuscles can be seen 
 following one another through the veins in an endless 
 procession. 
 
 Fig. II. — Capillary Circulation in the Web of a Frog's Foot, x ioo. 
 
 a, b, small veins ; d, capillaries in which the oval corpuscles are seen to follow one 
 another in single series ; c, pigment cells in the skin. 
 
 In the mammals and higher animals in general, the 
 blood vessels are of two kinds, arteries and veins. The 
 former take blood from the heart, while the latter conduct 
 it back to that great reservoir. The veins have curious 
 valves (Fig. 12). 
 
 The mammals breathe by means of lungs (Fig. 13), which 
 are elastic, spongelike organs permeated with air cells. 
 Air, by the breathing process, is taken in at the nostrils or 
 mouth, and reaches the blood in the lungs, there aerating it. 
 
 The brain of mammals is larger than that of many 
 
MAMMALS 
 
 17 
 
 other animals. Extending from it is the long, protected 
 cerebro-spinal cord, with its myriads of nerve branches. 
 All the impulses arise in the brain, and what are equiva- 
 lent to orders are sent along the nerves to the various 
 organs, which obey the desire or impulse. 
 
 Fig. 13. — Distribution of Air 
 Tubes in Mammalian Lungs. 
 
 a, larynx ; d, trachea ; c, d, left and right 
 bronchial tubes; e, f, g, the ramifi- 
 cations. In man the subdivision 
 continues until the ultimate tubes 
 are one twenty-fifth of an inch in 
 diameter. Each lobule represents 
 in miniature the structure of the 
 entire lung of a frog. 
 
 Fig. 12. — Venous Valves. 
 
 They usually occur in pairs, as repre- 
 sented. 
 
 All the mammals, if we 
 except the mole, have well- 
 developed eyes, and all but the whale and some seals have 
 external ears. Nearly all mammals are covered with hair, 
 the whale being an exception. Some, as the armadillos, 
 are protected by horny plates. 
 
 holder, mammals- 
 
II. ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 
 
 In studying the history and habits of the mammals, 
 or milk givers, it is interesting to look into the past and, 
 where possible, glance at the ancestry, the origin, of this 
 large and important group of animals which includes man. 
 To do this we must turn to the geologist or paleontologist, 
 who has made it a study, and we find that the mammals of 
 the past, at least the land forms, were far more remarkable 
 than at present. 
 
 The mammals appeared upon the scene, so far as we 
 know, in what is known as the Tertiary time; the first 
 being small marsupials, or pouched animals, whose bones 
 have been found in the rocks of the new red sandstone. 
 
 In early days America presented a totally different ap- 
 pearance from what it does to-day ; thus in the Eocene 
 time the west section, as Wyoming, had a tropical climate, 
 and strange animals wandered by the shores of a great 
 tropical lake. To obtain an idea of the vast size and 
 weird appearance of these animals, the reader should 
 visit the Museum of Natural History, New York, or the 
 one at New Haven, or the National Museum, where the 
 skeletons of these strange ancestors of the mammals are to 
 be seen. One group is known as the Dinocerata, terrible 
 horned monsters calculated to strike terror to the human 
 hunter had he lived at this time. 
 
 One of the most interesting is the Tinoceros (Fig. 14), 
 which, so far as general appearance is concerned, resembled 
 
 18 
 
o 
 ti 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 z 
 
 z 
 o 
 
 ►J 
 a 
 
 en 
 
 w 
 
 
 19 
 
20 ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 
 
 a combined rhinoceros and elephant. Its legs were long, 
 its feet covered with thick pads, the eyes deeply set ; and 
 in the upper jaw it had two caninelike teeth, or tusks. 
 This monster was twelve feet in length, with a body resem- 
 bling that of an elephant; its head was like that of a rhi- 
 noceros with the saberlike tusks of a tiger. It had two 
 large rhinoceroslike horns with two smaller ones below, 
 while on top of the head rose a pair of tall prominences 
 like the covered " horns " of a giraffe. About thirty or 
 more forms of these strange creatures have been found, 
 the late Professor Marsh of Yale University having made 
 a special study of them, with results that can best be seen 
 at the Yale Museum. 
 
 These wonderful creatures are known to have wandered 
 along the tropical lakes of Wyoming, browsing amid rich 
 and luxuriant herbage. What a contrast to-day! By some 
 marvelous change this location is now far from tropical 
 and is in part a desert. Some fearful catastrophe seems 
 to have occurred, and what a few million years ago was a 
 garden is to-day a desert, and what was once a vast 
 inland lake is now on the crest of the continent, a jumble 
 of broken strata tossed, bent, broken, a maze of buttes 
 painted in fantastic colors, rising like ruined castles, a pic- 
 ture of sedimentary ruin. 
 
 All this marvelous series was deposited at the bottom of 
 some lake, and in the soft mud the hard parts of the va- 
 rious animals that lived during that time have been pre- 
 served. By some marvelous cataclysm the old lake beds 
 were tossed upward; they hardened in the suns of an 
 eternity; then began their demolition by wind, rain, and 
 snow. The deposit was cut by floods, rent in every way, 
 
ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 21 
 
 and the bed of the old lake exposed ; to-day it is known as 
 the Mauvaises Terres, or Bad Lands, through which ex- 
 plorers ride or walk, hunting for the bones of the giants 
 which once lived in the old lakes. 
 
 No more fascinating hunt can be imagined than this. 
 Here is found the head of some monster ; a ravine has cut 
 away the center portion, and on the opposite butte are 
 found the legs. For years these skeletons aiid bones were 
 found by herders, and used for various purposes ; then 
 when their value was appreciated, they were collected and 
 sold to the great museums of the world. I well remember 
 passing through similar " Bad Lands " between Salt Lake 
 and the coast. Tall buttes rose in every direction, colored 
 in all the splendid tints of the rainbow, telling of the wear 
 and tear of centuries. They seemed to be the spires of 
 churches, towers of castles. 
 
 In the Bad Lands are the monuments of a lost race. 
 Professor Marsh discovered this marvelous Eocene col- 
 lecting ground in 1870, and investigated it with a guard of 
 troops as a protection against the Indians who, as might be 
 expected, had no interest in science or sympathy with its 
 disciples. In the lands east of the Rocky Mountains, in 
 Nebraska, Dakota, and in Colorado, he discovered many 
 strange mammalian remains. One of the largest was 
 the Brontops (Fig. 15), which lived on the borders of an 
 old lake in the Miocene time. It was, in effect, an Ameri- 
 can rhinoceros, twelve feet long, eight feet high, with a 
 peculiar head calling to mind the rhinoceros. The head 
 was three feet long and twenty inches between the tips of 
 the two enormous blunt tusks that stood side by side. In 
 all probability this uncanny monster had a long flexible 
 
22 
 
 ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 
 
 trunk like an elephant, and must have presented a strange 
 appearance as it wandered along shore. 
 
 Fig. 15. — Skeleton of Brontops. 
 
 In South America to-day is found the sloth, one of the 
 most remarkable of all animals ; a hairy, moplike crea- 
 ture which passes its life cUnging to the limbs of trees. 
 This sloth had a remarkable progenitor, a giant in every 
 sense, known as the Megatherium, skeletons or casts of 
 which may be seen in many American museums. 
 
 In appearance the animal resembles the effigy of a kan- 
 garoo standing on its hind legs, doubtless a favorite po- 
 sition, which enabled it to reach the tops of trees and 
 tear them down. Its hind legs were short and of colos- 
 sal dimensions ; its fore legs, long ; its tail, which aided 
 in its support, was also long and powerful. The length 
 of this monster was eighteen feet, and its general appear- 
 
ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 23 
 
 ance very much like that of the ordinary sloth of to-day. 
 What the weight of such a monster could have been is 
 a question, but that it weighed many tons can readily be 
 believed. Another of these giant sloths, the Mylodon, 
 not less interesting, was eleven feet long. 
 
 These animals roamed the forests of South America 
 in the Pleistocene period, when North America was cov- 
 ered in part by an ice sheet — the so-called glacial period, 
 during which the mammoth lived. In studying these 
 giants, and the times in which they lived, a fascinating 
 field is opened up, and the question, why such huge ani- 
 mals should have been entirely wiped out of existence, 
 
 Fig. 16.— The Megatherium. 
 
 arises. It is believed that the huge Megatherium (Fig. 16) 
 was the victim of droughts, which from time to time sweep 
 over South America, killing the cattle. These sometimes 
 last for three years, and then the great rivers are mere 
 streams running between vast walls of soft mud. To 
 reach the water, animals of all kinds make their way into 
 
24 ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 
 
 this and are caught and entombed. Untold ages afterward 
 the hardened skeletons may be washed out of the disinte- 
 grating rock, long after the river has disappeared. 
 
 Crossing to the Old World, we shall find in India a re- 
 markable animal called the Sivatheriiun gigatitetim, a 
 seeming connecting link between the giraffe and the an- 
 telope, resembling somewhat a giant moose. It had a 
 short proboscis, the teeth of a giraffe, and four horns 
 instead of two, which resembled those of an antelope. 
 Its jaw was enormous, being twice the size of that of a 
 bison. What is known as the Irish Elk is one of the 
 splendid ancestors of the present stag or deer — an ani- 
 mal that, in all probability, was hunted by early man. 
 The skeleton of one of these stags can be seen in the 
 American Museum of Natural History, New York, and 
 presents a commanding, indeed noble, appearance. To 
 the summit of the royal antlers it is ten feet four inches ; 
 the span of the antlers is eight feet — twice that of the 
 living moose ; the weight of head and antlers is from 
 seventy-six to ninety pounds. 
 
 The remains of this fine deer were discovered in caves, 
 and in shell marls, and under peat beds. In one ancient 
 Irish lake about one hundred heads and six complete 
 skeletons have been found, showing that the big deer 
 swam or walked in, and doubtless became bogged ; or the 
 heads may have been cut off and thrown away by the early 
 hunters, and the bodies cut up and carried off. 
 
 One of the most interesting of the early mammals was 
 the wooly rhinoceros, contemporaneous with the mam- 
 moth ; it was a giant covered with wool, and provided with 
 two enormous horns. Among the elephantine animals of 
 
ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 
 
 25 
 
 former days the mastodons were particularly interesting, 
 being giant elephants with from one to four tusks. Mas- 
 todon turiensis, of the Pliocene time, had two tusks in the 
 upper jaw, straight, turning toward each other at the 
 points. In M. ohiotecus the tusks tipped up gradually in 
 a graceful curve; and in the lower jaw was a single tusk, 
 so that the animal was a three-tusker. In M. longirostris 
 there were, besides two long upper tusks, two short sharp 
 ones in the lower jaw — a formidable defense. Four spe- 
 cies of these huge creatures formerly roamed America, 
 besides an elephant proper, and the mammoth. Five 
 species have been found in India, and two or three in 
 
 England. With these large elephants were pygmies, ani- 
 mals not larger than the common sheep. 
 
 Larger than the elephants was the Dinotherium (Fig. 17), 
 
 a huge elephantine animal with a proboscis and two large 
 
 tusks, calling to mind those of 
 
 the walrus, inasmuch as they 
 
 turned down and in toward the 
 
 body, and doubtless could be 
 
 used by the animal in pulling 
 
 down limbs or even hauling it- 
 self up a steep bank from the 
 
 water, in which it is supposed 
 
 to have been as much at home 
 
 as the hippopotamus. 
 
 Besides these strange forms 
 
 there were countless others, 
 
 large and small, that must have roamed the world in this 
 
 age — the forerunners of the mammals of to-day. Herds 
 
 of horses (Hipparion) galloped over the plains ; the fierce, 
 
 Fig. 17. — Skull of the 
 dinothekium. 
 
26 ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 
 
 saber-toothed tiger lay in wait for its prey. Here was the 
 Helladotherium, larger than a giraffe, but with shorter 
 legs; the thick-skinned Clialicotherinni , Xhe Erymantkian, 
 wild boar ; while giant lions and panthers stalked the 
 smaller game. 
 
III. THE EGG-LAYING MAMMALS 
 
 The young of most mammals are born alive, but a 
 few years ago it was discovered that the strange animals 
 
 r 
 
 Fig. i8. — EcG-LAYiNG Echidna. (A Momotreme.) 
 
 known as monotremes (Fig. i8) laid eggs, the discovery 
 creating a widespread sensation in the scientific world. 
 
 The ornithorhynchus (Fig. 19) is a remarkable creature, 
 seemingly being made up of a number of entirely differ- 
 ent animals. When the first specimen was sent to Eng- 
 land, the skin was very carefully examined, as it was 
 
 27 
 
28 
 
 THE EGG-LAYING MAMMALS 
 
 believed to be a hoax. The animal has a ducklike bill. 
 The male has a spur on the hind foot, while the fore foot 
 is webbed, suggesting the duck. The duck mole, as it is 
 also called, also lays an egg — but here the resemblance 
 
 Fig. 19. — The Duck Mole that lays Eggs. 
 
 to a bird ceases. The animal is covered with soft hair, and 
 nourishes its young. The duck mole is peculiar to Aus- 
 tralia and the adjacent island of Tasmania. It frequents 
 the streams of those countries, having very much the same 
 habits as the muskrat of America. It is perfectly at home 
 in the water, diving to the muddy bottom and using its 
 
THE EGG-LAYING MAMMALS 
 
 29 
 
 bill like that of a duck to aid it in capturing worms and 
 various insects which serve as food. 
 
 The nest is a long tunnel in a bank (Fig. 20), calling 
 to mind that of the swallows, though the burrow of the 
 duck mole is 
 entered from 
 the water as 
 well as above 
 it. It rises un- 
 til it is some- 
 times forty 
 feet from the 
 water, and 
 then is en- 
 larged, form- 
 ing a commo- 
 dious room 
 lined with 
 soft grasses. 
 The hunter 
 watching this 
 quaint lit- 
 tle creature 
 swimming or 
 
 coming to the surface might well mistake it for a duck, 
 and even when compared with some of these animals it 
 shows a remarkable resemblance. If it becomes suspi- 
 cious when on the shore, it will rise upon its hind legs, 
 presenting a singular appearance. It is very rarely seen 
 in the broad daylight, and so well is this understood that 
 natives rarely hunt for the animal in the daytime. The 
 
 Fig. 20. — Nest of the Duck Mole. 
 
30 THE- EGG-LAYING MAMMALS 
 
 approved method is to walk along the bank, probing the 
 soft earth with an iron bar ; and so skillful are some of the 
 natives that they can tell at once when this rod passes into 
 the nest of a duck mole. 
 
 The duck mole deposits two small, oblong eggs. Each 
 of these is inclosed in a white skin, strong and flexible, 
 and is three fourths of an inch in length and half an inch 
 in width. Although the duck mole is very timid, it makes 
 an interesting pet and is readily trained. An Australian 
 naturalist kept several in confinement. The little crea- 
 tures proved most amusing companions, climbing upon 
 the chairs and even upon his shoulders and displaying a 
 very curious disposition. 
 
 Almost as interesting as the duck mole is the echidna, 
 a little monotreme called also the spiny ant-eater. It has a 
 ducklike bill, but is covered with hard, sharp spines like 
 a hedgehog. The tongue is long hke that of an ant-eater. 
 The claws are powerful and formed for digging into ant- 
 hills, where their food is found. The skull is very simple. 
 They have no teeth, the margins of the jaws or bills being 
 sheathed with horn. The echidna is a land animal, the 
 claws not being webbed. The Australian species measures 
 about eighteen inches in length and is entirely nocturnal, 
 prowhng abroad at night, and conceahng itself by day in 
 its long tunnel in which the young are reared. A species 
 is found in Tasmania and two in New Guinea. The most 
 remarkable feature of the animal is that it lays an egg, 
 which is placed in a ventral pouch. The nest is found 
 at the end of a long tunnel. 
 
IV. VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 In the study of nature it is necessary in this age of 
 progress to have in mind the practical value of animals 
 and their economic relations to mankind. Every animal 
 has some use, fills some niche in the economy of nature. 
 
 Fig. 21. — The Whalebone Whale. 
 
 All the large mammals are of value. The great whale- 
 bone whales have been followed with such success that 
 they may be said to be on the border land of extinction, 
 and it will be remarkable if the present century does not 
 see the last of some of them. They are valued for their 
 oil held in the blubber or fat, and for the whalebone, the 
 peculiar fringes of the mouth which act as strainers. The 
 
 31 
 
32 
 
 VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 valued ambergris is a product of the whale, and even its 
 great bones arc saved ; indeed, there is a fishery in Nor- 
 way, or in some of the adjacent islands, where the entire 
 whale is brought in and every part of it utilized and con- 
 verted into a valuable product. 
 
 The seal family is exceedingly valuable, and this coun- 
 try has been on the verge of serious trouble many times 
 on account of the depredations of illegal sealers on Ameri- 
 can fur-seal preserves. Exact and careful laws are enacted 
 for the protection of the fishery; but despite this, the ani- 
 mals are butchered by fishermen who follow them to sea 
 and shoot them. The government protects the catch 
 
 ashore and is doing what 
 it can to preserve the 
 animals ; but the end of 
 the century will doubt- 
 less see the last of the 
 seals, which afford the 
 finest sealskins for per- 
 sonal wear. The return 
 from this source is very 
 large and if the entire 
 proceeds per annum of the fur trade could be estimated, 
 it would approximate a vast sum, showing that fur has an 
 important bearing as a commercial factor. 
 
 Even the sea Hon of the Pacific coast has a value as an 
 exhibit in zoological gardens and shows of various kinds, 
 and at Santa Barbara a number of men skilled in throwing 
 the riata capture them on the off-shore islands for market. 
 In the South Pacific, on Kerguelen, Heard, and other 
 islands, a war of extermination is being carried on against 
 
 Fig. 22. — The Harbor Seal. 
 
VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MaVN 
 
 33 
 
 the sea elephant, the largest of the tribe, an animal often 
 twenty-five feet in length. The men outfit at the Cape of 
 Good Hope, go to the islands under contract for one or 
 two years, and are left in the most desolate place in the 
 world. At one island the beach is so situated that the men 
 kill the animals and haul them off through the surf. The 
 climate here is cold and windy, yet men inure themselves 
 to it, and the aggregate sum derived from the fishery is 
 
 Fig. 23. —The Fox. 
 
 very large, the oil being the most valuable article. This 
 means the extinction of the animal in a few years. 
 
 Almost as large is the walrus, also killed for its oil, 
 although the long beautiful tusks are the most valuable 
 article from this source, and many hundred pounds are 
 taken yearly. 
 
 The mink, sable, ermine, fox, and many small animals 
 of the north are valuable, the Russian sable and ermine 
 especially being valued. As fashions change, many furs 
 are used and valued whose nature is unsuspected. Thus 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 3 
 
34 VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 the skunk has a beautiful fur and is bred for the purpose; 
 but as it would not sell under that name it is called by 
 some other title. Rabbit skins are sold by tens of thou- 
 sands, also those of goats, cat, dog, and rat — in fact, there 
 is hardly an animal that can be mentioned that is not of 
 value. Over a million catskins are sold yearly in America, 
 dyed and made into cheap furs. Rat skins are used in the 
 manufacture of gloves. Mole skins, which are very beau- 
 tiful, are used for the finest furs, while monkey skins also 
 have a value. The rug business alone in lion, tiger, cat, 
 ocelot, and other skins represents several million dollars 
 in America, and the government derives a large revenue 
 from those imported, while we send elk horns and others 
 to Europe. The best-known skin a few years ago was that 
 of the bison, and almost every farmer and owner of a horse 
 had a "buffalo robe." In the early days these could be 
 bought for a few dollars, but to-day they are preserved by 
 those who have them as legacies to hand down, and are 
 very valuable. 
 
 A curious business was seen on the plains after the 
 destruction of the bison, in the collection of its bones. 
 Hundreds of tons of these skeletons were collected, piled 
 up in enormous heaps at stations, and hauled away by the 
 train load to be ground up as a fertilizer. Thus the bones 
 of the splendid bison were used to lend vigor to roses and 
 other flowers, and so turned into gold. 
 
 In former years there were few if any restrictions on 
 game or its taking off, but now the various state govern- 
 ments realize the value of game to them and they are care- 
 fully protected and placed under certain limitations. The 
 State of Maine affords an excellent illustration of the 
 
VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 35 
 
 value of game, for the State game commissioners testified 
 
 several years ago that the game — deer, moose, and others 
 
 — was worth five million , 
 
 dollars to the State. In 
 
 other words, that amount 
 
 of money was expended 
 
 by the sportsmen every 
 
 year, going to hotels, 
 
 railroad guides, gun and 
 
 powder dealers, and 
 
 others. 
 
 „ . . ,, , Fig. 24. — The Moose. 
 
 Statistics tell us the 
 
 enormous sum, far up in the millions, represented by cattle 
 
 alone in America. Chicago is the center of this vast trade, 
 
 and great cattle ranges are found all over the West where 
 
 cattle are raised for the market and sent to Chicago, where 
 
 Fig. 25. — Roping Cattle. 
 
 the business of preparing them has been made a science. 
 Animals are reduced to their component parts in a remark- 
 
36 VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 ably short space of time. No part is wasted ; every item 
 is of some value, from the blood used in dye, to the hairs 
 used for mixing with plaster. 
 
 The great packing houses sell their products to the re- 
 tailer, who in turn charges a larger sum, and the beeves 
 of a year, which often reahze millions in the hands of 
 
 Fig. 26. — The American Trotter. 
 
 raisers, produce many more in the hands of the retailer. 
 Fortunes have been made in building ice cars to carry 
 and transport meat, and millions are invested in the prod- 
 ucts, prepared meats, ham, dried beef, and various other 
 articles, which require a large force of men, tens of thou- 
 sands, all over the world to handle. Few mammals are 
 more valuable to man than the ordinary cow. 
 
 The horse represents a vast outlay and income. Large 
 
VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 37 
 
 Stock farms for horses are found all over the world, and 
 thousands, yes millions, of dollars are spent in experiment- 
 ing with this animal to produce a better breed, or to reduce 
 trotting, running, or pacing records a few seconds, and 
 great fortunes are paid for the best and fastest horses. In 
 France, the horse is eaten ; and in all civilized nations it 
 is used as a beast of burden. 
 
 Africa is famed for its large game among mammals, of 
 which the elephant is the largest. In former years vast 
 
 Fig. 27. — Natives carrying Elephant Tusks. 
 
 sums have been made by the dealers in tusks, and ele- 
 phants have been slaughtered very much as was the 
 buffalo, and had not the various governments interfered 
 they would have been wiped out of existence. The hide 
 of the elephant is used for leather, its feet are used as seats, 
 and the tusks are employed in the manufacture of billiard 
 balls and other objects, while the flesh is valued by the 
 natives. For every tusk that is brought to the coast, it is 
 said several slaves lose their lives. 
 
38 VALUE OF MAMMALS TO MAN 
 
 A few years ago all the tusks were brought out by 
 slaves, the unfortunates bearing them on their heads, and 
 often falling dead under the strain and intense heat. To- 
 day the government charges a license to all hunters, and 
 the elephant brings the country a large revenue. 
 
V. THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 In passing the entire animal kingdom in review we note 
 many animals which have pouches, as the echinus, the sea- 
 horse, several toads, some of the penguins, the spiny ant- 
 eater, and others. All these, however, differ from the large 
 and singular group of animals called marsupials, which 
 have a very perfect pouch on the lower or ventral side, 
 where the immature young are placed and kept and nursed 
 until they are large enough to care for themselves. 
 
 The kangaroo (Fig.- 28) is the highest type of this form, 
 the pouch being so large that the young seek refuge in it 
 long after they can care for themselves. It is an amusing 
 sight to see them when alarmed plunge into this recep- 
 tacle, turning quickly and thrusting out their little heads 
 to see what the disturbance is about. 
 
 The kangaroos are among the most interesting of all 
 animals. Some are six feet in height, and all have a re- 
 markable development of the hind legs by which they 
 can leap enormous distances, literally flinging themselves 
 through the air. A kangaroo has been known to leap 
 over a horse and rider, and the hare kangaroo, which is 
 only twenty inches in length, has been seen to leap over a 
 man's head. The hind legs of the large kangaroos (Fig. 29) 
 are their weapons of defense. These have three toes, 
 the middle one being very long and armed with a sharp 
 daggerlike claw with which the animals cut and wound 
 their enemies. Even men have been killed by them. 
 
 39 
 
40 
 
 THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 The spectacle of a band of large kangaroos fleeing 
 before a pack of hounds is very exciting. The animals 
 are tall and naturally stand on the hind legs, the fore 
 limbs being very short, the large and powerful tail acting 
 
 Fig. 28. — Kangaroos. 
 
 as a support. When they jump, their tails possibly aid 
 them. A large kangaroo can clear from twenty to twenty- 
 five feet at a leap, easily distancing anything but a fast 
 horse. When attacked it makes a hard, even desperate, 
 fight for its Hfe. 
 
 In general appearance the animal is attractive. When 
 
THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 41 
 
 standing upright it holds its short paws in a drooping 
 position, its ears erect, its mild and beautiful eyes 
 glancing about. When feeding, it drops 
 on all fours and moves along with a 
 half leap. 
 
 There are many species of kangaroos 
 in Australia. Some are such pests that 
 the planters combine against them at 
 times and have " kangaroo drives." 
 At such times the men for miles about 
 come on horseback with their dogs and, 
 forming a long line across the country, 
 gradually drive the stricken animals to 
 their death. 
 
 The young of the kangaroo, generally 
 two, are very helpless when born. They 
 are at once placed in the pouch, where 
 they are carried for a long time. The 
 mother is often seen leaping with the 
 head of the big baby kangaroo looking 
 out of its nest. In the sea horses it is 
 the male that has the pouch, but in the 
 kangaroo it is the mother. The pouch 
 of the kangaroo is supported by two 
 bones which spring from the front of 
 the pelvis. 
 
 All the kangaroos are confined to 
 Australia, living on the great grassy plains or prairies of 
 the country. The tree kangaroo, as its name indicates, 
 affects trees, eating the leaves and branches, while the 
 rock kangaroo frequents sterile locations. 
 
 Fig. 29. — Hind Leg 
 AND Claws of a 
 Kangaroo. 
 
42 THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 The bandicoots are singular little creatures bearing 
 some resemblance to kangaroos. They are found in 
 Australia and Tasmania. Some, as the choeropus, re- 
 semble pygmy deer and have remarkable feet, all the toes, 
 except the fore ones, being very small ; the animal walk- 
 ing upon two toes of each fore foot. This strange creature 
 burrows in the ground. It is a timid little creature, pre- 
 senting a strong contrast to the Tasmanian wolf (Fig. 30, 3), 
 a handsome carnivorous animal with a long tail, wolflike 
 head, and marked stripes across the back. The latter 
 is a night lover, and when exposed to daylight a third 
 eyelid can be seen working backward and forward over 
 the sensitive eye. It lives in inaccessible places and is 
 rarely captured. 
 
 Of somewhat similar habit is the Tasmanian devil (Fig. 
 30, 2), an animal confined to Australia and somewhat resem- 
 bHng the badger, though more ugly and bearlike. There 
 are few animals that are not susceptible to taming, but the 
 Tasmanian devil is one exception. When in confinement 
 it retires into the farthest corner and snarls at all comers, 
 utterly repudiating any advances that may be made. 
 When Hobart Town was first settled, the animals were 
 very common. They preyed upon the poultry of the 
 settlers, and were killed and eaten by the convicts. They 
 are nocturnal, and when confined occupy their time in 
 fighting. 
 
 The wombat (Fig. 30, i) is about two feet in length, with 
 a rudimentary tail, a short neck, and a very large head for 
 so small an animal. Its legs are short, giving it a singu- 
 lar, waddling walk. The wombat lives in burrows, which it 
 digs with its powerful claws. It feeds upon roots, having 
 
THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 43 
 
 sharp incisor teeth. A remarkable feature of the animal 
 is its persistency. When traveling at night it has been 
 known, according to Brehm, to roll into a stream, but even 
 the sudden plunge does not interfere with its journey, 
 which is continued without deviation. It differs from the 
 Tasmanian wolf and others in being very good-natured in 
 confinement, though doubtless well able to defend itself 
 when attacked. 
 
 Fig. 30. — i; Wombat; 2, Tasmanian Devil; 3, Tasmanian Wolf. 
 
 A very interesting marsupial is the koala, or native 
 bear, a curious little creature with long woolly hair and 
 prominent ears. It is found in. the forests, often carrying 
 its young upon its back, and is there hunted. The 
 natives, who often follow it to the tops of the tallest trees, 
 are as fond of its flesh as the negro is of opossum. 
 
 Among the most beautiful of the marsupials are the 
 flying phalangers, which we call the flying squirrels. 
 
44 THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 These have a soft membrane between the fore and hind 
 pair of legs, which spreads out as they leap and serves as 
 a parachute. Some are as large as cats, and all are mild- 
 eyed, attractive little creatures. The young are carried 
 in a pouch, and later are seen upon the back of the 
 mother. 
 
 The only marsupial found out of Australia is the 
 opossum. It is about twenty inches in length and is 
 covered with white hair tipped with brown, giving it a 
 dirty appearance. The tail, which is long and slender, is 
 really a fifth limb, being prehensile, or having the faculty 
 of winding about a limb and swinging from it with perfect 
 ease. " Playing 'possum " is a familiar term and applies 
 to a trick the animal has of feigning death, often remain- 
 ing motionless though pushed and even tortured. 
 
 The pouch is well developed, the ears are naked like 
 those of a bat, the tail is long and scaly like that of a rat. 
 To appreciate its resemblance to a fifth hand one must 
 see an old opossum walking along, its tail thrown over its 
 back (Fig. 31), and five or six young ones clinging to it, 
 each little tail wound about the large one. The young 
 when born are perfectly helpless and about half an inch 
 in length. They sometimes number as many as thirteen. 
 They are placed in the pouch, each one attaching itself to 
 the mammary gland and retaining its position for several 
 weeks. For the first two weeks the pouch is kept closed. 
 In six weeks the young opossums have attained the size of 
 mice, but they do not leave the pouch for two months. 
 
 The opossum is a night animal, sleeping during the day. 
 It forms its nest in a tree trunk, lining the hollow with 
 grasses. 
 
THE POUCHED ANIMALS 
 
 45 
 
 Fig. 31. — Opossum and Young. 
 
 Opossums have a wide range, even to California. In 
 Brazil and other provinces of South America there are 
 several species, one of which is as large as a squirrel. 
 Some species have no pouches or only rudimentary ones. 
 One from Surinam resembles a brown rat. Another 
 form is not larger than a mouse and preys upon birds. 
 Still another opossum, found in Peru, is a fruit eater. In 
 Guiana and Brazil is found one of the most interesting 
 of the tribe, the water opossum, with webbed hind feet 
 and a perfect pouch. The yapoch, as it is called, re- 
 sembles the otter in its habits, eating small animals. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that almost all the marsupials 
 are natives of Australia, and that all the native mammals 
 of that isolated continent are marsupials, a rule that held 
 far back in the Quaternary times, when the pouch bearers 
 were giants. The diprotodon was a kangaroo as large as 
 a rhinoceros, its skull alone being three feet in length. 
 
VI. SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 Certain curious animals, as sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos, 
 and others, have no incisor teeth, or are entirely toothless. 
 For this reason they are called edentates. They are 
 among the most remarkable and singular of all animals, 
 some being clothed in scales instead of hair, and others 
 so completely covered by the latter that they resemble 
 brush or mounds of vegetation. 
 
 Fig. 32. — The Megatherium. 
 
 In South America geologists have discovered the 
 remains of gigantic animals of this group, so huge, in 
 fact, that it is difficult to understand how they could 
 move. In excavating in the side of a river bed some 
 workmen uncovered the skeleton of a megatherium 
 (Fig. 32), which when mounted was eighteen feet high. 
 
 46 
 
SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 47 
 
 Hv« 
 
 ■ ', Va ' ' ' If, 
 
 Another form, the megalonyx, was as large as a rhi- 
 noceros. These giants were sloths, and they reared their 
 ponderous forms against the trees and tore them down, 
 stripping them of verdure for food. They were the 
 ancestral forms of the strange sloths found in South 
 America to-day 
 
 (Fig- 33)- 
 
 These sloths 
 are peculiarly 
 adapted to life 
 in trees, their 
 long claws en- 
 abling them to 
 clingto the limbs 
 and hang pen- 
 dent. When on 
 the ground they 
 are very help- 
 less and at the 
 mercy of any 
 enemy. Their hind limbs dragging upon the ground, 
 their movements are very slow. But once in a tree they 
 can swing from limb to limb with great cleverness and 
 speed, and so closely do they resemble clumps of moss 
 that it is difficult to distinguish them. The body is cov- 
 ered with long gray and black hair. The head is small 
 and blunt. Some are two-toed, while others have three 
 toes. 
 
 Sloths are rarely seen out of the trees in which they 
 feed. They even sleep at night clinging to the branches 
 by their powerful claws, recalling the bats. Sloth hunters 
 
 Fig. 33. — The Sloth. 
 
48 SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 are often deceived by the remarkable protective coloring 
 of these animals. This is peculiarly true in the case of 
 one, bradypus, as the hair naturally has a grayish tone 
 that compares admirably with the bark of trees. Still 
 more remarkable, the long, coarse hair becomes cov- 
 ered with a minute plant, known as Chlorococciis, which 
 changes it to green, and the clinging animal has the 
 appearance of leaves or moss, and easily escapes obser- 
 vation. Even trained observers have been known to mis- 
 take the sloth for a clump of feathery mistletoe. 
 
 The sloths seldom come to the ground unless forced to 
 do so. A Tobasco farmer informed Dr. Oswald that he 
 had kept a family of them under observation for eleven 
 years and had never seen one descend from its leafy 
 perch. Many rarely left the bough which they affected. 
 Seemingly helpless as are the sloths, they have been known 
 to throw themselves upon their backs and seize a dog, lit- 
 erally tearing it in pieces. Ordinarily, however, no animal 
 is so utterly indifferent to the events occurring near it. It 
 is almost impossible to annoy one, the animal being a type 
 of all that is patient and negative, resembhng an autom- 
 aton more than anything else. At times they utter 
 petulant grunts, and in the tropical forest where they are 
 found sometimes a strange, mournful cry is heard, startling 
 in its intensity. 
 
 The ant-eaters are among the strange animals from South 
 America that are utterly devoid of teeth. They are cov- 
 ered with enormous masses of hair, and provided with a 
 brushlike tail, and a very long tongue for sweeping up 
 ants. The first one I saw could easily have been mistaken 
 for a heap of brush, as it held its enormous tail (Fig. 34) 
 
SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 49 
 
 -Yfc,? 
 
 over its back, covering and concealing its young, which 
 were standing on it. The huge tail is an umbrella as well, 
 and must afford its owner no little protection from the sun. 
 No stranger animal can be imagined, and with its long 
 head and small eyes, it excites the liveliest curiosity. 
 It is large and powerful, and lives almost entirely upon 
 the white ants, 
 tearing down 
 their nests with 
 its strong claws 
 and licking up 
 the enraged 
 swarms with its 
 long tongue. 
 In walking, the 
 animal is dis- 
 commoded by 
 its claws and 
 forced to step 
 on the side of 
 its feet. AI- 
 
 FiG. 34. — Giant Ant-eater. 
 
 though slow in its movements, it is an adversary not to be 
 trifled with. Natives have been killed by a downward 
 blow of its daggerlike claws. The specimen that I saw 
 was perfectly docile. It licked my hand and rubbed its 
 curious bill-like head against my arm like a cat. 
 
 The little ant-eater is almost as much of a tree climber 
 as the sloths and is rarely found elsewhere than among 
 the branches of some favorite tree. 
 
 Incased in perfect armor, the armadillos represent a 
 family having a very ancient ancestry. In the deposits 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 4 
 
50 
 
 SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 of South America remains have been found which show 
 that the armadillos of old were giants. One, the glyptodon 
 
 (Fig. 35), resem- 
 bled a huge turtle 
 and was eight feet 
 long. The finest 
 specimen of its 
 shell known was 
 found by the side of 
 a native hut where 
 the children were using it as a playhouse. Near the 
 Plata the bones of an armadillo have been found as large 
 as those of a rhinoceros. 
 
 The armadillo (Fig. 36) is a harmless animal. One 
 which I had an opportunity to observe was an interesting 
 
 Fig, 35. — The Fossil Glyptodon. 
 
 Fiu. 36. —Armadillo. 
 
SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 51 
 
 pet, continually running about the room, and not resisting 
 when picked up. Stranger than all else, it paid not the 
 slightest attention to its young. When I took them away, it 
 appeared not to notice the loss, and when they were re- 
 turned, no demonstration was made. This peculiarity was 
 so marked that I was 
 convinced that the 
 animal had little af- 
 fection for its young. 
 
 The little arma- 
 dillos were interest- 
 ing creatures, their 
 armor being soft like 
 rubber. They were 
 very active and play- 
 ful, and it required 
 several hours to pho- 
 tograph the group, 
 as they were contin- 
 ually running about. 
 
 The armor on the 
 adults is arranged in 
 three different re- 
 gions. One shield 
 protects the head, 
 another the shoulders, still another the back of the body, 
 while between them are bands, which, while they work 
 freely, are protective. The tail and feet are also protected. 
 
 The three-banded armadillo has a very clumsy walk. 
 When alarmed, it immediately drops to the ground and 
 rolls itself in a ball (Fig. 37), almost impervious to any 
 
 Fig. 37. 
 
 Armadillos rolled up to escape 
 THE Puma. 
 
52 SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 animal except the great cats. An armadillo has been 
 seen to roll itself up suddenly on the slope of a hill and 
 then go bounding down like a cannon ball. 
 
 One of the armadillos, the peba, is found in Texas. 
 It is about thirty inches in length, the shell having eight 
 or nine bands. 
 
 All these animals have an unpleasant, musky odor, 
 extremely penetrating and disagreeable. They dig bur- 
 rows five or six feet in length and spend most of the 
 time in them. The largest of these animals is the giant 
 armadillo, which attains a length of five feet. It is a 
 powerful creature, and has a habit of burrowing into 
 graves. A common musical instrument in South America 
 is made of the hardened armor of one form. The Boto- 
 cudos, an Indian tribe in South America, famous for cut- 
 ting and mutilating their faces, use the hard tail of a 
 species as a trumpet. 
 
 The pichiciago is a remarkable allied form, bearing its 
 shell upon its back, and appearing as though cut off 
 abruptly. The lower part of the body is covered with 
 hair. The animal passes much of the time under- 
 ground, being very molelike in its habits. 
 
 The pangolins (Fig. 38) are still other allied forms, 
 resembling lizards in form or shape. They are mammals 
 covered with overlapping scales which constitute a perfect 
 armor. They are found in tropical Africa and South 
 America, and, despite their somewhat ferocious appearance, 
 are harmless. They live upon ants, which they secure 
 by digging into ant-hills and thrusting the long tongue 
 into the hole and withdrawing it covered with ants. One 
 of the African species is five feet in length. When 
 
SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 53 
 
 attacked it coils up, thus throwing out the scales which 
 point in every direction, like blunt spines. 
 
 In the island of Ceylon there is a pangolin that is often 
 used as a pet. One kept by Sir Emerson Tennant wan- 
 dered about the house Hke a cat, ridding it of ants. 
 When it desired to attract his attention, it would climb 
 into his lap and twist its prehensile tail about his legs. 
 
 Fig. 38. — Aakd-vark and Pangolin. 
 
 In Eastern Africa is found another form which has a very 
 broad tail. Some of the species are, while clumsy, very 
 skillful tree climbers. 
 
 Allied to these interesting creatures is the aard-vark 
 (see Fig. 38), a South African ant-eater with a long pig- 
 hke snout and extraordinary ears. Ground hog is the 
 common name, and it resembles a hog in many ways; 
 but it is a burrowing, underground animal with large, 
 
54 SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 
 
 powerful clawed feet which enable it to make its way 
 into an ant heap with remarkable celerity. The aard- 
 vark spends most of the time in its den, a commodious 
 room in which several adults may usually be found. The 
 rapidity with which it digs is almost beyond belief. One 
 has been sighted on the plains by a hunter and, before it 
 could be caught, it disappeared in a burrow formed in hard 
 soil. When an attempt was made to dig it out, it easily 
 kept ahead of the human worker. 
 
 Aard-varks are found over a wide ■spread of country. 
 They are considered valuable game by th.e natives and 
 many others, who claim that the diet of ants and the 
 resulting flavor of formic acid lends an additional value to 
 them in a gastronomic sense. I have seen nearly all these 
 animals alive, and recall a pungent, disagreeable odor that 
 would prejudice almost any one against them as a class. 
 
VII. THE SEA COWS 
 
 When the Russians first discovered Alaska and began 
 to send expeditions to investigate what has now proved 
 to be a valuable possession, they found alongshore and 
 in the sheltered bays herds of huge animals resembling 
 sea:ls or gigantic sea lions. The real discoverer was 
 Steller, and the animal was named Steller's rhytina in his 
 honor. 
 
 The rhytina was a sea cow, differing in many respects 
 from the seals. It belonged to the manatees, in which the 
 tail formed a broad caudal fin instead of feet as in the sea 
 lion. The rhytina was a magnificent specimen of a large 
 animal, resembling a manatee in general shape, but 
 having a whalelike tail. Large individuals attained a 
 length of thirty-five feet and a weight of nearly four tons. 
 Without means of defense, heavy, almost colossal, living 
 on land as well as in the water, and browsing on the sea- 
 weed alongshore, the rhytina was a conspicuous mark for 
 the whites, who proceeded to destroy it, partly in wanton 
 sport, and partly to supply the larder. 
 
 It is well to be charitable, but there is every reason to 
 believe that the great sea cows, one of the wonders of 
 the animal world, were wiped out of existence to gratify 
 the brutal pleasure of ignorant Russian sailors, as in a few 
 years after its discovery this animal became extinct. To-day 
 specimens are extremely rare, and the skeletons occasion- 
 ally found bring large sums. There was an excellent one 
 
 55 
 
56 THE SEA COWS 
 
 in the Museum of the Academy of Sciences of San Fran- 
 cisco, before its destruction, from which an idea could be 
 obtained of the appearance of this strange animal. 
 
 The skin was very thick and leathery. The fore limbs 
 were Hke paddles, without fingers. The jaws were tooth- 
 less, their place seemingly taken by two horny plates, one 
 covering the palate, one in the lower jaw, showing that 
 the rhytina, Hke the manatee and dugong of to-day, 
 browsed upon seaweed. 
 
 
 m 
 
 Fi<;. 39. —The Manatee. 
 
 In 1 74 1 these animals were discovered by Steller at 
 Berings Island, and in 1769, twenty-eight years later, the 
 last of the race had been destroyed, and the name joined 
 to the large list which includes also the great auk, the 
 buffalo, the dodo, and others either extinct or soon to pass 
 away. But two representatives of this group of animals 
 are alive to-day, the manatee of Florida (Fig. 39) being 
 the best known ; but even this is on the verge of exter- 
 mination. 
 
 The manatee is found from the region of the Amazon 
 
THE SEA COWS 57 
 
 to southern Florida. It is almost nine feet in length and 
 resembles a huge seal. The tail instead of being whale- 
 like, as in the rhytina, is flat, but rounded at the corners, 
 or semi-oval. It is an interesting example of a milk-giving 
 animal adapted to life in the water, frequenting the warm 
 rivers, and occasionally coming ashore. The nostrils are 
 upon the upper side of the snout, so the animal can rest 
 just at the surface, unobserved, and breathe. The hind 
 limbs are entirely absent, being represented by the flat tail, 
 which in swimming strikes the water horizontally instead 
 of vertically. The skin is covered with scanty bristles, 
 well developed in the upper lip like a mustache. The 
 individuals observed by me remained concealed under 
 water most of the time. In Florida the manatee is rarely 
 seen, hving in and about the mouths of rivers. It often 
 goes far inland, and is now confined to the most remote 
 regions or rivers, practically inaccessible. 
 
 The manatee and its cousin, the dugong, are often men- 
 tioned in ancient works on natural history. Undoubtedly 
 they are the mermen referred to by the old writers, who 
 easily fell into the error, as the animals when standing 
 upright in the water had a very human appearance. The 
 young are frequently supported on the forearms, in much 
 the same manner as a baby is held by its mother. 
 
 Another species of manatee is found in South America. 
 It is not so rare as the Florida form, ranging north to the 
 West Indies, where it lives in small herds and is noted 
 for its affectionate disposition. When the young or the 
 female are attacked, the male almost invariably remains by 
 and so loses its life. One which I observed stood either 
 upright in the water, with its tail touching the bottom, or 
 
58 THE SEA COWS 
 
 with the head bent over, the body thus being much arched. 
 Every six or seven seconds it would rise to the surface and 
 breathe by the valved nostrils, then sink beneath the 
 surface again. 
 
 The young of this manatee, one of which is generally 
 born at a time, is easily tamed, and one has been seen to 
 follow its master about as does a dog, though very slowly. 
 A law has been passed to protect these animals from 
 hunters ; but the extinction of the manatee is being 
 hastened by the severe winters of the past years. In 
 February, 1894, a strange and unprecedented cold wave 
 swept over the land, freezing the trees, killing the tropical 
 vegetation, and causing untold distress and disaster. At 
 that time but a small herd of manatees was known, and 
 on the following day two were found frozen and dead. 
 These were the survivors of a small herd that had lived 
 for a number of years in the St. Lucie and Sebastian 
 rivers and on the Indian River between the mouths of 
 these streams. They were well known by the people of 
 the vicinity and could often be seen passing beneath the 
 railroad bridge of the Sebastian River. Every winter de- 
 pleted them. Three were washed up at Palm Beach 
 during the cold wave of 1896, and doubtless none of the 
 herd of eight are still alive, though it is believed that a 
 few may be seen in the Sebastian River. Everything 
 relating to the manatee is of the greatest interest, as it is 
 doomed to extinction. The animal is highly regarded as 
 food along the rivers of South America, the natives fol- 
 lowing it with the harpoon. Another manatee is found on 
 the west coast of tropical Africa. 
 
 Very similar to the manatee is the dugong (Fig. 40), 
 
THE SEA COWS 
 
 59 
 
 which ranges from Western Australia to the Red Sea and 
 from Mauritius to the Indian Archipelago. The animal to 
 some extent resembles the rhytina, having a large, whale- 
 like tail, entirely different from that of the manatee. The 
 head is large and deep; the mouth large; the fore limbs 
 are long but clawless. The prevailing color is a deep black. 
 In former years ,,- _ . 
 
 large herds of du- 
 gongs were to be 
 seen, especially at 
 the Mascarene Is- 
 lands, where they 
 browsed upon the 
 beds of seaweed ; 
 but they were, un- 
 fortunately, con- 
 sidered dainties 
 and were killed 
 off by the natives. 
 
 Dugong oil is valued in trade. To supply this com- 
 modity a fishery was established in Australia some years 
 ago, which has almost resulted in the destruction of the 
 animal in that region. The male dugong has large incisor 
 teeth ; but in the female the teeth do not penetrate the . 
 upper jaw sufficiently to be of any use. They grow with 
 the skull and are really tusks sheathed in the bone of the 
 jaw. Like the manatees, the dugongs are slow, cumber- 
 some creatures, frequenting the mouths of rivers and 
 naturally not timid. They attain a length of twenty-five 
 feet, and when standing upright in the water bear a close 
 resemblance to a human being. 
 
 Fig. 40. — The Dugong. 
 
VIII. THE WHALES 
 
 The whales are visible evidences that the age of giants 
 has not passed away. These mighty animals range from 
 fifty to one hundred or more feet in length, being, despite the 
 
 Fig. 41. — Whale and Nursing Young. 
 
 constant warfare against them, still fairly common in many 
 seas. They are carnivorous, milk-giving animals (Fig. 41), 
 adapted to life in the ocean. They are fishlike in form, 
 with a dorsal fin. The two fore limbs are powerful pad- 
 dles with bones similar to those of the arm and hand of 
 man. The hind limbs are absent or rudimentary (Fig. 42), 
 a flat, fishlike tail taking their place, which is at once a 
 weapon of great power and a swimming screw, forcing 
 the animal along at great speed. I have followed a whale 
 in a power launch, being for some seconds near it and 
 
 60 
 
THE WHALES 
 
 6i 
 
 just above the tail, where the water boiled as though an 
 enormous wheel was working just below the surface; the 
 water being forced upward so 
 violently that it rose above 
 the surface, and doubtless 
 lifted the boat somewhat. 
 
 The whales breathe air as 
 other mammals, but they have 
 a provision which enables 
 them to remain over an hour 
 beneath the surface if neces- 
 sary. This peculiar power, 
 which is rarely exerted, is de- 
 rived from a large number of 
 reserve blood vessels, which 
 line the interior of the chest 
 and spaces between the ribs, 
 a small portion only of the 
 blood passing into circulation 
 from time to time. The nose 
 or nostrils of the whale are 
 placed at the top of the head 
 so that it can breathe without 
 rising out of the water. 
 
 The spout of the whale is 
 not water but steam, — the 
 hot air of the lungs, forcibly 
 shot into the cold air, where 
 it condenses and falls as 
 spray. With this air there is 
 mucus and some water tossed 
 
62 
 
 THE WHALES 
 
 iaipililiBi 
 
 upward by the force of the escaping breath. When the 
 whale opens its valves, just before it reaches the surface, 
 this from a distance resembles a column or two of water. 
 But the whale can no more take in water at its mouth and 
 spout it through its nostrils than can a man ; and the tales 
 
 in some old books to that effect, 
 which still hold in the popular 
 mind, are merest fancy. 
 
 The whales are of two gen- 
 eral kinds : the toothed forms 
 and the whalebone whales. 
 The former is represented by 
 the sperm whale, in which the 
 teeth are large and confined to 
 the lower jaw, or the dolphins, 
 in which both jaws are armed. 
 In the whalebone whales there 
 are no teeth but a series of 
 elastic plates called baleen, 
 which grow from the long up- 
 per jaw, and hang in rows, 
 three or four hundred in num- 
 ber, frayed and bristling at the 
 lower end (Fig. 43). This 
 whalebone is a strainer and 
 forms a trap for the jellyfishes and other fishes upon 
 which the whales rely. In feeding, the animal opens the 
 mouth, the huge lower lips forming a large cavity with 
 the tongue in the bottom and the baleen at the two sides. 
 Swimming slowly through a mass of jellyfishes, the whale 
 fills its mouth, then closes it, the baleen acting as a sieve 
 
 Fig. 43. — Whalei:one. 
 
THE WHALES 63 
 
 to allow the water to escape, but holding the jellyfishes, 
 which slowly pass down the small throat. 
 
 One of the best places to observe the whalebone whale 
 is the Santa Catalina Channel, off Southern California, a 
 body of water between the island of that name and the 
 mainland. This is a famous feeding ground for the 
 California gray whale, abounding in vast numbers of jelly- 
 fishes of large size. I have seen the water so filled with 
 jellyfishes a foot across and from three to twenty or more 
 feet in length, that from the deck of a fast moving steamer 
 numbers were constantly in sight. At other times 
 smaller forms were seen, constituting such a solid mass 
 that a bucketful could be lifted almost anywhere. Such a 
 condition of affairs has many attractions for the whales ; 
 and the daily steamers from San Pedro to Avalon fre- 
 quently pass one or more, and occasionally so near that 
 the passengers see these giants at close hand. It is not 
 uncommon for a school of whales from fifty to seventy 
 feet in length to swim in the same direction for some 
 time. On a certain occasion one remained alongside the 
 steamer so close that several photographs were obtained 
 of its black back and the " spout." It sometimes occurs 
 that the whales rise in front of the steamer and gambol 
 about, being perfectly harmless, and the captain will stop 
 the vessel and blow the whistle loudly several times. The 
 steamer Hermosa has plunged into whales, killing at least 
 two to my knowledge, the animals drifting ashore several 
 days later and each being exhibited as the whale that almost 
 stopped a large steamer. The shock when the vessel struck 
 the whale was almost sufficient to knock over persons who 
 were standing, but occasioned no damage to the vessel. 
 
64 THE WHALES 
 
 The whales in this vicinity are very sociable and have 
 been known to follow a yacht and to lie by it for several 
 hours, perhaps assuming that the vessel was another 
 whale of some kind. 
 
 A whale followed a ship from San Francisco to a South 
 American port, several thousand miles, and could not be 
 driven away by bullets, though an effective method would 
 have been to pour over ashes and oil, any impurity in the 
 water being offensive to the huge animals. Several years 
 ago a large school formed off Santa Catalina Island, 
 occupying about five acres, for several days, boats going 
 out to watch their majestic evolutions. I saw one individ- 
 ual rise out of the water until it appeared to stand on its 
 tail, resembling a rock rising from the sea. 
 
 While colossal and cumbersome in every way, the whale 
 is very active. In the harbor of Bermuda a large whale 
 jumped fairly over a boat from a British man-of-war, the 
 men seeing the tail clear them by twenty feet. All old 
 whalers tell of prodigious leaps they have seen the animals 
 make. The young, generally one or two, are tenderly 
 cared for, the mother often supporting the calf on her 
 flippers. The California gray whale is so solicitous for its 
 offspring that it is very dangerous to approach it when 
 the whales are young, the parent charging boats and 
 destroying them with every evidence of fury. The tail 
 is the principal weapon. The whalebone whale when at- 
 tacked will lie on the surface and thrash the water from 
 side to side with blows which sound like explosions and 
 which can be heard for several miles. 
 
 The whale is one of the most valuable of all animals. 
 A single individual captured by a New London whaler 
 
THE WHALES 
 
 65 
 
 produced in whalebone ;^ 12,000, and in oil $3490, or a 
 total of ^15,490. The oil is produced from the fat, or 
 blubber, with which the whale is covered, a provision of 
 nature to protect it from the cold waters it affects, either in 
 the. far north or sometimes in the deep sea into which it is 
 supposed at times to make sudden plunges after food. The 
 whalebone whales include the humpback, the California 
 gray, sulphur bottom, silver bottom, razorback, the bow- 
 
 FiG. 44. — The Si'Ekm Whale. 
 
 head, right whale, Biscay whale, and many others. All 
 depend upon the smallest animals for food, fishes or jelly- 
 fishes, and hence are obliged to pass a great part of their 
 lives in the pursuit of the elusive game. 
 
 The toothed whales constitute a large and interesting 
 group, the great sperm whale (Fig. 44) being a notable 
 example. It has an enormous, blunt head, with large, tusk- 
 like teeth in the lower jaw, which suggests food of a differ- 
 ent nature from the fragile jellyfishes, which are ninety-five 
 per cent water. The principal food of the sperm whale is 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 5 
 
66 THE WHALES 
 
 the giant squid, enormous specimens of which are found in 
 its stomach and in that of other toothed whales. Dolphins, 
 white whales, and others prey upon fishes, seals, and any 
 living thing. 
 
 The sperm whale is a tropical species, found in large 
 schools. It has a single blow hole near the extremity of 
 the snout. The teeth are large, conical, curved, and fit 
 into orifices in the upper jaw, and constitute a trap that 
 has easily crushed large whale boats. The most valuable 
 product of this whale is spermaceti, a clear, fatty liquid 
 found in the head and in various places throughout the 
 body. Another valuable article of the sperm whale is 
 ambergris, used by perfumers. It is supposed to be a 
 secretion formed about the bills of cuttlefishes in the in- 
 testines of whales ; it is sometimes found floating on the 
 surface. 
 
 The throat of the cachelot is large enough to admit the 
 body of a man, that of the whalebone whales being very 
 small. The eye is small. The ear even of the mighty 
 rorqual, which is one hundred feet long, is but a quarter of 
 an inch across. The rorqual is the largest of living animals, 
 few in the ancient history of the world exceeding it. 
 
 The male cachelot is a conspicuous object at sea, rising 
 very regularly to respire. It throws up a " spout " which 
 can be distinguished five miles away, and which often has 
 the appearance of a huge fountain on the surface of the 
 ocean. This is due to the fact that the whale allows its 
 breath to escape violently just before it reaches the sur- 
 face, causing the intervening water to be hurled violently 
 upward, and materially adding to the volume of the 
 "spout." This whale spouts a number of times, about 
 
THE WHALES 
 
 67 
 
 seventy, occupying twelve minutes ; then it tosses its 
 ponderous tail high in the air and plunges into the sea, 
 to remain over an hour searching for food. These whales 
 display great affection for their young, and a bull will often 
 remain by a wounded mate and so lose its life. When 
 enraged, no animal is more to be dreaded. An estimate of 
 its power is shown in the instance of the ship Essex, 
 which was deliberately rammed and sunk by a maddened 
 cachelot, the vessel going down in ten minutes. The ship 
 Ann Alexander was destroyed in a similar manner; and 
 Captain Scammon expressed the opinion that many vessels 
 never heard from were victims of infuriated whales. 
 
 Among the small-toothed cetaceans the white whale 
 (Fig. 45) is a handsome creature common at the mouth of 
 the St. Lawrence ^^^^^ __ 
 
 and in northern --— ^~ -=— ^— - ^ -=^ ^ 
 
 waters generally. 
 It is almost white, 
 has a rounded 
 head, and attains a 
 length of about fif- 
 teen feet. One of 
 these whales was 
 brought to New 
 York from the vi- 
 cinity of the St. 
 
 Lawrence, and I watched its final lodgment in a huge 
 tank in the New York Aquarium. It was caught by sink- 
 ing a box about twenty feet long and eight feet wide in 
 the mud of a bay which these whales enter at high water. 
 While several were in the bay, the entrance was closed 
 
 Fig. 45. — The Beluga or White Whale. 
 
68 THE WHALES 
 
 with a net. As the water ran out with the tide, the 
 whales sought the lowest portion, and one was secured in 
 the box. At high tide it was towed to a neighboring town 
 and transferred to a car. The whale was packed with 
 wet seaweed and two or three men accompanied it, giving 
 it constant baths of fresh water at each station. In this 
 way, out of water, the white whale reached New York 
 and was successfully placed in the large tank of the 
 New York Aquarium, where it lived for many months. 
 A white whale was taken to Boston in the same way, and 
 being harnessed to a boat, drew children about. The one 
 I observed was 'a very docile and interesting creature. The 
 white whale has been seen seven hundred miles up the 
 Yukon, where it preys upon the countless salmon, and I 
 have seen numbers lying on the surface like small white 
 ice floes at the mouth of the Saguenay River. 
 
 On our Atlantic shores, a pygmy sperm whale, the kogia, 
 is found. The large sperm and whalebone whales are 
 gradually disappearing, the introduction of steam whalers 
 hastening their extinction. Other species, as the California 
 gray whale, not followed so extensively, are increasing or 
 holding their own ; but the days of these huge animals are 
 numbered. 
 
 The narwhal (Fig. 46) bears a close resemblance in shape 
 to the white whale, but is spotted like a leopard and has a 
 remarkable tusk, sometimes two, projecting ahead like the 
 sword of a swordfish. In it we see the conventional unicorn, 
 that figures so prominently in the books of two or three 
 centuries ago. The tusk is a tooth, eight or ten feet in 
 length, beautifully twisted, and is possessed by the male 
 alone, the female having two, but slightly developed. 
 
THE WHALES 
 
 69 
 
 The orcas are the most ferocious of all the tribe, toothed 
 whales from eighteen to thirty feet in length. They are 
 literally the hounds of the sea, bloodthirsty and insatiate. 
 They follow animals of all kinds — ■ seals, sea lions, gulls, 
 large fishes, even the huge horse mackerel, and in a body 
 attack the whale and destroy it. One species with a lav- 
 ender band near the dorsal fin is very common in the Santa 
 Catalina Channel, California. 
 
 Fig. 46. —The Narwhal. 
 
 The high, enormous dorsal fins of these animals make 
 them conspicuous objects. They are often very curious, fol- 
 lowing boats. Opposite Avalon Bay, some years ago, they 
 gave an exhibition of their prowess which fully justified the 
 sanguinary tales told regarding them. They chased a sixty- 
 foot whale in near shore and killed it. Repeatedly the 
 huge and stricken animal leaped high out of the water, and 
 the party of spectators saw the killers cHnging to it. They 
 attacked its lips repeatedly and finally literally tore out its 
 tongue and killed the animal. 
 
 The ferocity of the orcas of all kinds can only be appre- 
 ciated by those who have seen them. A band has been 
 
70 
 
 THE WHALES 
 
 known to steal a whale from a crew of whalers. The orca 
 which I have observed in the Santa Catalina Channel is 
 jet-black above, and lighter beneath, with a clear, light, 
 oblong spot back of the eyes, and a white, or maroon, 
 crescent-shaped band on the back like a saddle behind the 
 dorsal, which makes it a conspicuous object. I have had 
 
 several of these savage 
 
 monsters pass my boat 
 
 within a stone's throw, 
 
 one behind the other, in 
 
 a line, and I always felt 
 
 that discretion was the 
 
 better part of valor. 
 
 The grampus and blackfish are similar forms, while the 
 
 porpoise (Fig. 47) is an example of the smallest of the 
 
 tribe. The dolphin (Fig. 48) is an equally active animal. 
 
 Fl<;. 47. — I'llE POKI'OISE. 
 
 Fig. 48. — The Dolphin. 
 
 In many seas it is a familiar object, darting swiftly along 
 before the cutwater of swiftly moving vessels. 
 
 The common dolphin is a familiar example of these 
 clever jumpers. To illustrate the jumping powers of the 
 porpoise, a friend in endeavoring to capture a school ar- 
 ranged a line of boats across the entrance of a bay into 
 
THE WHALES 71 
 
 which a number of porpoises had swum. When they 
 found themselves trapped, they turned and swam up the 
 bay, then turning came on at full speed and reaching the 
 boats, despite the shouts of the men, leaped bodily over 
 them and escaped. 
 
 Several cetaceans are found in fresh-water streams ; 
 one, the Inia, swims up the Amazon as far as Bolivia. It 
 is but seven or eight feet long and has a long, narrow beak. 
 
 Another form, the Susu, is found in the Ganges and 
 other streams of India. 
 
IX. SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 Even the casual student of natural history will observe 
 that almost every group of animals has its enemies or 
 those which prey upon it. The insects are very injurious 
 to vegetation, and nature appears to have adapted a large 
 and varied concourse of animals to reduce their number. 
 So pronounced is this taste that animals of this class 
 are all grouped under the name Insectivora. They have 
 
 Fig. 49. — Skull of an Insect Eater. 
 
 well-developed teeth, shaped for the purpose, with sharp- 
 est cusps, or points (Fig. 49). In a word, they are well 
 equipped for the capture of insect game. 
 
 One of the most familiar forms of the insect lovers 
 is the common mole (Fig. 50). This little creature, with 
 pointed nose, beautiful fur, and enormous claws, pushes up 
 the soil in the garden in its search after earthworms and 
 grubs. The common mole is about five inches in length, 
 
 72 
 
SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 n 
 
 and it burrows so rapidly that it readily escapes. By 
 examining its bare, white feet with their enormous claws, 
 the astonished mole hunter can easily understand how the 
 little animal disappears so quickly. 
 
 The mole is a valuable ally to the farmer, plowing 
 through the soil and eating every insect it meets. It preys 
 especially upon 
 grubs, and it has 
 been estimated that 
 a single mole will 
 eat 20,000 insects 
 a year. A record 
 was kept by a curi- 
 ous naturalist, and 
 the mole under ob- 
 servation devoured 
 432 maggots and 
 250 grubs in four 
 days. Another mole 
 consumed 872 maggots and 540 grubs in twelve days. In 
 still another test, two moles ate 341 grubs, 193 earthworms, 
 25 caterpillars, and a mouse in nine days, — suggestive of 
 the vast numbers of insects injurious to vegetation de- 
 stroyed by these useful creatures. 
 
 It is a popular idea that the mole is blind. This is 
 because its eyes aire very small and difficult to find. They 
 are perfect, but deeply embedded and easily overlooked. 
 On the surface, the mole is very helpless, but when it is 
 alarmed it rapidly makes an excavation and disappears. 
 The nest (Fig. 51) is a singular and interesting structure, 
 a perfect fortress to facilitate its escape, there being many 
 
 Fig. so. — The Mole. 
 ii, skull ; b, nose. 
 
74 
 
 SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 byways or streets leading in every direction. In the 
 skeleton (Fig. 52) we observe the powerful hmbs, huge 
 
 
 Fig. 51. — Nest of a Mole. 
 
 claws, long skull with minute, sharp teeth, all telling of 
 the adaptation by nature of this little animal to a life in 
 the ground. 
 
 Fig. 52. — Skeleton of a Mole. 
 
 Very similar to the moles are the shrews (Fig. 53), but 
 they have delicate feet and do not burrow, following their 
 pursuit of insects above the ground. The broad-nosed 
 
SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 75 
 
 shrew is a familiar 
 form, with its long 
 nose, large ears, and 
 long tail. It is one of 
 the smallest of quad- 
 rupeds, weighing but 
 forty-seven grains. It 
 has a protective odor. 
 
 The hedgehogs (Fig. 54), although very common in 
 England, are not found in the Western Hemisphere. In 
 appearance the hedgehog might be taken for a diminutive 
 short-spined porcupine, as it is covered with spines. It 
 
 Fig. 53. — The Shkew. 
 
 
 Fig. 54. —The Hedgehog. 
 
 appreciates the value of its defense by rolling itself into a 
 ball -when attacked, presenting a surface of spines which 
 is invulnerable to almost all of its enemies. The hedge- 
 
76 
 
 SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 hog forms a burrow beneath the ground and spends the 
 larger part of the time there. In winter it sleeps away 
 the cold days in a state of hibernation or winter sleep. 
 At this time even a close examination of the little sleeper 
 sometimes fails to show any outward sign of breathing. 
 For weeks it lies in its soft nest without apparent life, 
 neither eating nor drinking, its life at the lowest ebb. In 
 the spring it comes out and begins its search for insect 
 food. It uses its spiny envelope for a variety of pur- 
 poses, one being as a sort of bumper, the little animal 
 having been seen to climb a wall and deliberately leap 
 into the air coiling as it fell, and landing on its sharp 
 spines, to roll away unharmed. 
 
 Fig. 55. — Bat in Flight. 
 
 Of all the insect eaters, the bats (Fig. 55) are the best 
 known. They are milk-giving animals, with the fore limbs 
 
SOME INSECT EATERS TJ 
 
 modified for purposes of flight. Examining a skeleton of 
 a bat (Fig. 56), the so-called wings are seen to be mere 
 
 Fig. 56. — Skeleton of a Bat. 
 
 webs, connecting enormously developed fingers. This 
 web not only connects four long, attenuated fingers, but 
 connects the legs with the last finger, forming a perfect 
 parachute, or wing. The bats are all night lovers, sleep- 
 ing during the day, hidden away in caves and trees, and 
 coming out at the going down of the sun to feed upon the 
 wing, capturing innumerable gnats and moths to their taste. 
 Caves are particularly affected by the bats. Several are 
 known in the western country which have been used by 
 them for centuries, and at night the silent throng may be 
 seen coming out to spread over the country far and wide. 
 The flight of the bat is as silent as that of the owl, and 
 their sight, or something akin to it, is phenomenal. One 
 night when in the Sierra Madre, California, I felt a gentle 
 breeze playing over my face, and found that it was due to 
 the flight about the room of a very large bat, which swept 
 around in what to me was utter darkness, avoiding every 
 
78 SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 obstruction. Cords have been suspended in dark rooms 
 to test the powers of the bats, which invariably avoided 
 them. In sleeping, the bats cling to the rocks by their 
 feet, hanging head downward. The thumb is provided 
 with a hook, which they use in walking, though they are 
 very clumsy when on the ground and make but little head- 
 way. Certain bats have a sucking disk (Fig. 
 57) by which they cling to rocks. 
 
 The bats, being mainly insectivorous, are de- 
 prived of their food at the approach of cold 
 weather. Unable to migrate, as do the birds, 
 they hibernate, or enter upon a long winter 
 sleep. Snugly packed away in caves and the 
 trunks of trees, they sleep away the days until 
 spring comes again with its horde of insect life. Many 
 interesting experiments have been tried with these sleeping 
 bats, showing how like death the sleep is. Air that has 
 surrounded them has been analyzed, and did not show 
 any evidence of having been breathed. A sleeping bat has 
 been placed in illuminating gas for a short time without 
 fatal results, showing that nearly all the functions of life 
 are at a standstill. During this rest the bats are supposed 
 to exist by drawing upon the fat accumulated during the 
 active period. The young of bats, one or two at a birth, 
 cling to the mother and are carried about by her during 
 flight. The sail turned upward with its webs forms a more 
 or less perfect pouch for them. 
 
 The so-called vampire bats have earned a disagreeable 
 reputation by their habit of attacking horses in South 
 America. They are small bats, and have been known to 
 stampede a band of horses by alighting on their necks 
 
SOME INSECT EATERS 79 
 
 and haunches. That they attack human beings sleeping 
 unprotected out of doors is not improbable. Many of the 
 bats have a disagreeable odor, almost overpowering in some 
 instances. The largest bats are fruit eaters. 
 
 The kalong, or flying fox, of Java, Sumatra, and the 
 Pacific Archipelago, is from four to five feet across the 
 wings. Several of these interesting creatures which I had 
 access to, became very tame, and so far from resenting 
 handling welcomed it. They would put out their foxHke 
 heads to have them scratched, and would scratch my hand 
 with the powerful hook. Their eyes are large, clear, and 
 attractive. Their ears, too, are large. In fact, these ani- 
 mals resemble small foxes endowed with wings. They 
 ordinarily cling to the roost by their feet, head downward, 
 and in walking present an extraordinary appearance, ad- 
 vancing the hooked forearm, clinging to the limbs by it 
 and a foot, and thus making remarkable headway. In 
 their native woods they consort in flocks, and when resting 
 appear like fruit hanging from the branches. They often 
 do great damage in banana orchards. Those observed by 
 me possessed a disagreeable musky odor so strong that 
 their presence could be detected some distance away. 
 
 The bats are very solicitous for their young, and when 
 robbed they have been known to follow the little one for 
 a long distance, and even ahght upon the robber and per- 
 mit themselves to be captured rather than desert it. In 
 many species both male and female care for the young, 
 and when two are born, the male of a certain species holds 
 the little one in a pouch. 
 
 One of the largest of the insect-eating mammals is the 
 colugo, a large, foxlike animal which resembles a flying 
 
8o SOME INSECT EATERS 
 
 squirrel inasmuch as it has a weblike membrane which 
 connects the fore and hind limbs and the tail. When the 
 colugo springs into the air, this membrane becomes a per- 
 fect parachute, bearing it up. The movements of the ani- 
 mal in flying are very graceful. Running upward, it 
 boldly flings itself into the air, swooping downward, per- 
 chance rising to grasp a tree, to mount it rapidly, and 
 then to continue the flight. The colugo carries its young 
 about with it in these aerial pastimes. There are two 
 species of these animals living in Borneo, Sumatra, and 
 Malacca. It is a night-loving animal, rarely moving abroad 
 after dawn, but being very active from sundown on. 
 
X. THE GNAWERS 
 
 A large and interesting group of animals are called 
 rodents, or gnawers, from the fact that they are provided 
 with powerful chisel-like incisor teeth (Fig. 58) to enable 
 them to cut trees, limbs, and nuts, upon which they live or 
 
 Fig. 58. — Incisor Teeth of a Rodent. 
 
 depend. They have no canine teeth, which form so promi- 
 nent a feature in the carnivorous animals. The molar 
 teeth are flat, and the lower jaw is so articulated that it 
 moves forward and back instead of up and down. 
 
 Animals of this kind are typified in the squirrel, which 
 is a familiar object, sitting upright and gnawing into a 
 hard nut with its powerful teeth. The beaver, which 
 chisels down large trees, is another member of this group. 
 
 The rabbit and hare are familiar examples of rodents. 
 The incisor teeth (Fig. 59) of these animals are sharp and 
 powerful, making them troublesome to the farmer from 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS - 
 
 81 
 
82 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 Fig. 59. 
 
 ■Mouth of a Rodent, showing the 
 Gnawing Teeth, 
 
 their habit of chisehng down or girdling trees. They have 
 a wide range. The European hare (Fig. 60) is one of the 
 
 fleetest animals 
 
 known. The 
 West American 
 form, the jack 
 rabbit, is even 
 fleeter, but I 
 have rarely seen 
 one that could 
 not be run down 
 with a fast horse 
 and good grey- 
 hounds. I have spent many hours in this pastime in 
 California, where the hare is a menace to the farmer. 
 No sport is more exciting or exhilarating than to follow 
 the fleet animal in ,~,^ - — 
 the open country, \ ,.'"'~~--,. 
 
 where it has the ad- 
 vantage and leads 
 the horse, rider, 
 and hounds into 
 dangerous paths. 
 Chasing hares in 
 an inclosure, when 
 the animal has no 
 possible chance for 
 its life, is not to be 
 commended. Fol- 
 lowing them in the open country is far more dangerous 
 than fox hunting. The jack rabbit is found in such vast 
 
 Fig. 60. — The European Hare running. 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 83 
 
 Fig. 61. — The Hare, 
 
 numbers in the San Joaquin Valley, that it is found neces- 
 sary to have rabbit drives at certain intervals. Men gather 
 from all the neighboring towns, and form a line several 
 miles long and drive the pests into a corral built for the 
 purpose, where thousands are finally hemmed in and 
 killed. In Australia the common rabbit has become such 
 
 a pest that it is almost a na- 
 tional calamity, and thousands 
 of dollars are expended annually 
 in killing it off. 
 
 Hares differ from rabbits very 
 materially in their habits. They 
 have long hind legs (Fig. 61), 
 while rabbits (Fig. 62) have very 
 short ones. The hare forms its 
 nest on the surface and never makes a burrow, while the 
 rabbit burrows and makes its nest beneath the ground. 
 I have never but once seen a y /y»/ 
 hare take to a burrow when 
 hard pressed. The polar hare, 
 as its name indicates, lives in ^^^X .^^^^^^ _^ 
 the far North, where its white ''' ""^^.^c^* -^-^5H?ii^f/' 
 coat affords it no little protec- fig. 62. 
 tion from the huge owl that 
 preys upon it. One rabbit found in the Mississippi region 
 takes to the water when followed, swimming and diving 
 with great skill, in marked contrast to the rest of the 
 group, which as a rule avoid water. 
 
 All the domestic rabbits sprang from the common Eng- 
 lish rabbit. In 1901-1902 a singular craze for so-called 
 Belgian hares spread to some extent all over the country. 
 
 -The Cottontail 
 Rabbit. 
 
84 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 In Southern California many farmers and others went into 
 the Belgian hare business. Ordinary English rabbits were 
 imported under high-sounding names. Extraordinary prices 
 were paid for rabbits, in some instances five hundred dol- 
 lars, and pedigrees were published extolling Re.x I or Do- 
 minicus II. Rabbitries sprang up everywhere, and special 
 
 Fig. 63. — The Squirrel. 
 
 papers were published on the Belgian hare. Certain men 
 and women became professional Belgian hare judges and 
 traveled about the country from town to town. The papers, 
 and even magazines, were filled with accounts of the hares 
 (which were rabbits) and their owners. Suddenly it was 
 discovered that people would not eat rabbit all the time 
 even if it was given away, and the great Belgian hare 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 85 
 
 Fig. 64. — The Chipmunk. 
 
 bubble exploded. On many a highway, big fat English 
 rabbits could be seen browsing, — once noble scions of 
 Rex I, but now released and driven away to become 
 tramps of the tribe of rabbits. 
 
 The most attractive of the gnawers are the squirrels 
 (Fig. 63), which lend life and beauty to every forest or 
 byway. The old stone fence of New England is the 
 squirrels' highway, and bounding along they are typical 
 of innocence and gayety. Their long, bushy tails, their 
 bright eyes, intelligent faces, and interesting postures all 
 endear them to man. One that I found in the Sierra 
 Madre had an enormous tail, recalling that of a fox, a 
 charming sight among the bays and manzanitas and 
 sycamores of the deep canyons. The small forms, the 
 chipmunks (Fig. 64), are even more beautiful. They are 
 
86 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 found almost all over the country, and everywhere add to 
 the charm of hfe in the forest. 
 
 Among these animals the flying squirrels are perhaps 
 the most interesting (Fig. 65). They have the fore and 
 
 hind limbs cnnnected by a wcb- 
 which thc\ use IS d p II ichute 
 in •plun£,int, dow n 
 from lott) ticcs 
 
 like membrane 
 
 Fig. 65. — Flying Squirrels. 
 
 The sail-like skin bears them aloft and materially aids 
 them in their so-called flight. Of the various pets I have 
 had, a flying squirrel appealed to me most by its fascinat- 
 ing ways. It hid nuts behind all the pictures in the room, 
 and drove an old and dignified lady visitor almost into 
 hysterics by going to sleep in her bonnet and coming 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 87 
 
 out when it was placed upon her head. 
 When I was at my desk, it woul 
 often insist upon sitting upon 
 my hand or on the inkstand. 
 One night I was awakened 
 by a roaring which I sup- 
 posed was in my head, but 
 as I rose it partly ceased, 
 and investigation resulted in the 
 discovery of the flying squirrel be- 
 tween the pillow and the pillow case, directly beneath my 
 ear, wedged into the soft feathers, where it was humming or 
 purring after the fashion of its kind 
 
 The Southern fox squii 1 l 1 
 (Fig. 66) is a large and be ml 
 ful form with a foxlike 
 tail. The thirteen-lined 
 squirrel (Fig. 67) is one 
 
 Fig. 66. — Fox Squirrel. 
 
 Fig. 67. — Thirteen-lined 
 Squirrel. 
 
 of the most conspicu- 
 ous, while the gray and 
 black squirrels (Fig. 68) 
 
 Fig. 68. — Black Squirrels. 
 
88 THE GNAWERS 
 
 are perhaps the most common, the latter forming popular 
 game for sportsmen. The squirrels migrate sometimes, 
 but not with any regularity. At certain seasons a migrat- 
 ing instinct seems to de- 
 velop, and large bodies have 
 been seen moving in a given 
 direction, swimming streams, 
 and doubtless seeking fresh 
 feeding grounds. 
 
 The guinea pig (Fig. 69) 
 is a native of South Amer- 
 ica, but has been carried all 
 round the world as a pet. Its near relatives are the cavies, 
 the agoutis, and the capybara. The last named is the 
 largest of the gnawers, resembling a small pig, but having 
 huge, chisel-like incisors. An interesting water-loving 
 form of South America, at home in either salt or fresh 
 water, is myopotamus (Fig. 70). It suggests that most 
 
 Fig. 69. — Guinea Pig. 
 
 Fig. 70. — Myopotamus, 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 89 
 
 remarkable of gnawers, the beaver (Fig. 71), which for- 
 merly was very common over a large area in America, but 
 is now becoming rarer every year. 
 
 The beaver has a large, broad, flattened, scaled tail, — 
 perhaps the most singular caudal appendage known, — 
 which it uses as an organ of locomotion, as a rudder, and 
 for other purposes. There are five toes upon each foot, 
 the hinder ones being webbed as swimming organs. The 
 first white visitors to America found in New England and 
 
 B'lG. 71. — The Beaver. 
 
 other states singular dams, erected with all the skill that 
 an engineer would employ. When told that the work was 
 performed by an animal, they did not believe it, but they 
 were soon convinced by seeing the beaver at work. 
 
 Beavers are essentially water animals. They build their 
 homes or nests in the water, and dam up streams to pro- 
 duce just the effect and depth of water they wish. When 
 a locality has been selected, the beaver decides that deeper 
 water is necessary for its comfort and safety, and it lays 
 plans for a dam just as a man would. Large trees at the 
 side of the stream are gnawed off by the sharp, powerful 
 
90 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 teeth. The beaver cuts the tree all around with upward 
 and downward strokes until it resembles an hourglass 
 (Fig. 72). The amount of work thus accomplished can be 
 imagined when it is known that poplars nine feet in cir- 
 cumference have been found cut half through. The logs 
 are used in forming the braces for the dam, and are often 
 very skillfully placed, curving against the torrent. The 
 
 dam proper is 
 
 built of mud, 
 brush, and ref- 
 useof allkinds, 
 which the bea- 
 vers bring and 
 heap up, plac- 
 ing logs of va- 
 rious sizes over 
 it until a per- 
 fect dam is the 
 result. This 
 brings the 
 water up to 
 
 the required 
 Fig. 72. — BEAMiRS AT Work felling a Trki:. , , ^, 
 
 level. The 
 
 houses are two-storied. The lower story is in the water, 
 
 and is used as a sort of storeroom; the other is just above 
 
 it. In the latter the beavers live, the opening being under 
 
 water, so that the bea\'er can escape if attacked. In one 
 
 of these strange abodes a family of from si.\ to twelve 
 
 beavers lives. They separate in the spring, but return in 
 
 the fall to repair the winter home, which when frozen on 
 
 the outside is a veritable fortress. Even the fierce wolver- 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 91 
 
 finds it diffi- 
 
 ine — the implacable enemy of the beaver 
 cult to break into one of these houses. 
 
 One of the most singular of all the rodents, so far as 
 appearances are concerned, is the porcupine (Fig. 73), in 
 which the body is covered with stiff, black and white quills 
 from three to twelve inches in length. One of the well-es- 
 
 Fig. 73. — A Group of Rodknts. 
 I, Field mice ; z. Porcupine. 
 
 tablished fictions of zoology is the story that the porcupine 
 can throw its spines like arrows, and many persons can be 
 found who will testify that they have seen the act. A 
 large porcupine was once placed in a box with a rabbit, 
 and irritated in every way to demonstrate to some doubters 
 that such an act was impossible. It was very easy to see 
 how the story became current. When attacked, the animal 
 
92 THE GNAWERS 
 
 threw its tail and its body in the direction of the rabbit 
 so quickly that the movement was almost invisible. Sev- 
 eral quills brushed against the smaller animal and re- 
 mained sticking to it; yet those who did not observe 
 the act were positive that the quills had been thrown — 
 an act quite as impossible as it would be for a man to 
 throw his hair at some annoying enemy. 
 
 Porcupines are found in the temperate regions of the 
 Eastern and Western Hemispheres. They live in burrows 
 very much after the fashion of rabbits, and in winter un- 
 dergo a partial hibernation, sleeping part of the winter. 
 One of the largest, and a formidable creature, is the 
 Canada porcupine, about three feet in length and much 
 lighter than the others. The European crested porcupine 
 has spines twelve inches in length, those on the tail being 
 hollow and very loosely attached. When the animal is 
 undisturbed, the long quills lie_ flat ; but does an enemy 
 appear they rise upward with a rustling, hissing sound, — a 
 menace in itself, — and the animal stands " humped up " 
 with its array of spines turned in every direction. Against 
 such an array few animals have the temerity to advance. 
 In South America the porcupines are tree lovers, and 
 have more or less prehensile tails by which they cling to 
 branches after the fashion of the opossum. 
 
 Allied to them are the chinchillas, found in the Andes 
 at an altitude of twelve thousand feet, and the curious 
 viscacha, common on the lofty plateaus of South America. 
 These little animals have a peculiar habit, calling to mind 
 that of the bower birds, of collecting about their burrows 
 curious objects, as stones, colored shells, flowers, or any 
 articles of a bright or unusual nature. So well established 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 93 
 
 *«v;t 1 
 
 is this habit that once, when a member of a pack train 
 lost his watch, the natives began to search, not along the 
 trail, but on the vis- 
 cacha burrows by the 
 side of the road, and 
 soon returned with 
 the watch, which had 
 been dragged there 
 by one of these mis- 
 chievous collectors. 
 
 The prairie dog 
 (Fig. 74) is a well- 
 
 felifei 4'rJm; IfcAife.'.' 
 -Prairie Dog. 
 
 Fig. 74. - 
 
 known rodent of the Western plains. It forms burrows, 
 and is seen in large communities sitting on its haunches, 
 and diving out of sight at the slightest warning. It is 
 often said that the prairie dog, the rattlesnake, and the 
 burrowing owl live in the same burrow on terms of friend- 
 ship ; but the truth is that the prairie dog builds the 
 burrow, and the owl, too lazy to dig for itself, sometimes 
 forces itself upon the family, while the rattlesnake, with a 
 
 fondness for young 
 prairie dogs or owls, 
 affects the burrows 
 for that purpose, and 
 sometimes as a retreat. 
 In the West, par- 
 ticularly in Southern 
 California, there are 
 Fig. 7s.- Gophers. several small ground- 
 
 loving, gnawing creatures called gophers (Fig. 75), the 
 enemies of every gardener. In general appearance they 
 
94 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 resemble rats, but they have short tails and are entirely- 
 subterranean in their habits. They rarely if ever come 
 above the surface, and literally honeycomb the country 
 they inhabit. I know of instances where water poured 
 into a den ran out nearly half a block distant. It is almost 
 impossible to drive them away by this means, and so small 
 traps are employed. Some ranchers keep large numbers 
 of cats which become very skillful in lifting the gophers 
 from the entrances of their dens. Tht 
 gophers have eiKirnious chcj!; 
 pouches which 
 they fill when 
 eating. They 
 will come to 
 the surface, 
 pushing the 
 earth away 
 with their 
 chests and 
 broad paws, fig. 76. -house rat. 
 
 and if no vegetation is near will sometimes run rapidly a 
 foot or more to some plant. If alarmed, they dart back 
 with the greatest rapidity, tail first, never, at least in my 
 observation, turning around. They form nests near the 
 surface, which they line with grass, and in which the young 
 are born and reared. I have tried to tame the gophers, 
 but found it impossible, the long, chisel-like teeth being 
 employed at the slightest opportunity. They are very 
 cunning in their depredations, rarely coming to the surface 
 in an open place in a garden, but preferring some secluded 
 spot. I have seen choice flowers, as carnations, waving 
 
THE GNAWERS 
 
 95 
 
 Fig. 77. — House mouse. 
 
 wildly, then shooting downward out of sight, being dragged 
 down by the clever gopher working at the roots. 
 
 Allied, to them are the 
 house rats (Fig. 76) and 
 the house mice (Fig. jj), 
 both among the enemies 
 of mankind. One of the 
 largest rats is the Bandi- 
 coot rat, which in India 
 is nearly fourteen inches 
 in length. The rats are 
 very intelligent and 
 clever, but do great damage to man. Being the carriers of 
 disease, their mere presence is a menace. In many large 
 cities a price has been placed upon them, it being known 
 that they are transmitters of the bubonic plague and pos- 
 sibly of other diseases. 
 
 The rat is not a native of America. It was introduced 
 by sailing vessels. It came originally from Central Asia, 
 
 appearing first in 
 Russia, in 1737. The 
 first ones reached 
 America in 1775, be- 
 coming known as the 
 wharf rat, a menace 
 to docks and embank- 
 ments. The black rat, 
 as well as the house 
 mouse, so universally 
 distributed over the country, is an importation from Asia. 
 The muskrat (Fig. 78) is famous for its house, made 
 
 Fig. 78. — The Muskrat. 
 
96 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 of rushes and mud, and the long tunnels in river banks. 
 The harvest mouse forms a dainty nest among the grain 
 above the ground, while the deer mouse (Fig. 79) is a 
 
 most attractive little 
 animal, and is often 
 kept as a pet. The 
 jumping mice (Fig. 
 80) are graceful 
 creatures with pow- 
 erful hind legs and 
 long tails, leaping 
 
 -The Deer Mouse. 
 
 Fig. 79. 
 
 great distances like miniature kangaroos. 
 
 Equally interesting are the jerboas, while the American 
 pocket mouse, dipodomys, is a fascinating little creature. 
 It has a large head, bright, expressive eyes, long mus- 
 tachios, and a slender tail with a white stripe and tuft. 
 
 ) 
 
 Fig. So. — The Jumping Mouse. 
 
 Its hind legs are long and powerful, its fore legs are dimin- 
 utive. In fact, it is a diminutive kangaroo in appearance. 
 They are common along the Sierra Madre in California, 
 
THE GNAWERS 97 
 
 and I have kept them as pets. They have enormous 
 cheek pouches, which they fill, and then they return to 
 their burrows and eat at their leisure. They are very gen- 
 tle little creatures and readily tamed. 
 
 One of the cleverest of the ratlike animals is the Cali- 
 fornia wood rat, very common in the San Gabriel Valley, 
 where it builds enormous nests. Several within gunshot 
 of my home are marvels of constructive ability. The 
 animal resembles an ordinary rat, but has larger eyes and 
 ears, and is particularly agile, leaping long distances. It 
 would be an interesting pet were it not for a disagreeable 
 musky odor. 
 
 The nest is either in a tree or on the ground, generally 
 at the base of an oak, where from one to twenty, or even 
 fifty, bushels of leaves and rubbish of all kinds is collected 
 and piled up to form a perfect protection from the rain. 
 Generally a place is selected where there is a branch 
 touching the ground, and this, covered with the leaves, 
 is utilized as a rafter. In the center of the nest is a room 
 for the young, and a day home formed of the softest 
 material procurable, and near by it is another apartment 
 filled with food of various kinds. From these rooms ex- 
 tend numerous paths in various directions and one or more 
 into the ground, so that it is almost impossible to capture 
 a wood rat without having a watcher at each entrance. 
 Once in the tree top, the wood rat leaps from limb to limb 
 with all the agility of a squirrel. 
 
 A wood rat I kept as a pet permitted itself to be handled 
 with impunity. Like all these animals it had the singular 
 habit of stealing everything available. The first day of its 
 capture it climbed to a table, ascended a vase and cut off 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 7 
 
98 
 
 THE GNAWERS 
 
 a rose larger than itself, which it hid in a closet. To this 
 it added a cigar and other objects, all of no value to itself; 
 and this is the peculiarity of the wood rat, about whose 
 eccentricities much could be written. 
 
 In one camp, the wood rats stole candles, tooth brushes, 
 papers, matches, corks, soap, a brush, combs, collars, 
 everything they could carry off, working always at night, 
 and hiding the articles among the rafters of the cabin. 
 
 Fig. 8i. — Lemmings. 
 
 In another camp a watch disappeared and was found in a 
 wood rat's nest two hundred feet away. These rats in one 
 night took barley enough from a sack to fill the tall boots 
 of a driver, — a vast work performed merely in mischief. 
 
 The lemmings (Fig. 8i)are ratlike creatures of North- 
 ern Europe, famous in the annals of the marvelous as 
 migrants. At certain times they collect in vast numbers 
 and move over the country like an army of locusts, eating 
 everything as they proceed. They hold to one general 
 
THE GNAWERS 99 
 
 direction despite enemies. They swim rivers, and once in 
 Russia, when the swarm was confronted by the sea, all 
 swam into it, impelled by this strange instinct of unrest, 
 the entire horde being lost. 
 
 This instinct is not peculiar to the lemmings alone. In 
 Brazil a rat plague occurs every thirty or forty years, 
 apparently when a certain seed fails. Then the animals 
 swarm over the country in large numbers. A similar rat 
 migration has been observed in Ceylon, when a certain 
 plant dies out, generally once in seven years ; and in Chile 
 rat plagues have been observed whenever a certain bam- 
 boo fails, generally once in fifteen or twenty years. These 
 movements are caused doubtless by the failure of crops 
 and the unusual increase of the animals, which move on 
 to obtain a better food supply. 
 
XI. SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 The feet of mammals, if contrasted, afford an interest- 
 ing study, showing the curious modifications which adapt 
 the milk givers to many strange and opposite conditions 
 of life. The feet of the whale have disappeared, and 
 
 those of the seal are 
 more like fins. In 
 the moles they are 
 digging machines, 
 in the bat they are 
 adapted to clinging, 
 and in the duck 
 moles they are pad- 
 dles. Many, as in 
 the kangaroos, are 
 formed for leaping. 
 Almost every diver- 
 sity is found, and 
 none are more interesting than those called hoofs (Fig. 82), 
 in which the toes are encased in horny enlargements, or 
 are provided with blunt, padlike nails. A similar compari- 
 son of entire limbs is not without interest. 
 
 The hoofed animals include a large number valuable 
 to man, as the horse, camel, pig, elephant, and others. 
 The hyrax (Fig. 83) is one of the smallest, not much 
 larger than a rabbit ; yet it has feet which recall those of 
 the rhinoceros, being protected by pads. The toes, four 
 
 Fig. 82. — Hoof of a Horse. 
 
SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 lOI 
 
 Fig. 83. — The Hyrax. 
 
 in front and three behind, are encased in hoofs. The 
 hyrax is common in Africa. The Syrian hyrax is sup- 
 posed to be the 
 shaphan of the 
 Bible. They pro- 
 duce the secre- 
 tion known as 
 hyraceum, which 
 is employed in 
 the manufacture 
 of perfumery. 
 
 The rhinoceros is one of the largest and heaviest of 
 animals. It is now confined to the tropics, but in former 
 years one species roamed over the northern countries 
 and was adapted for life on the edge of the Arctic regions. 
 The remains of several of these huge creatures have been 
 found entire, having fallen into crevasses in the ice and 
 been so frozen up in nature's cold storage as to be pre- 
 served as monuments of a lost race. In 1771 a specimen 
 was secured that was almost completely covered with hair. 
 It had been buried in the frozen tundra by the banks of 
 the river Wilui, Siberia, for possibly thousands of years. 
 Its horn was four feet in length, showing it to have been 
 a powerful and dangerous foe to any animal. It was 
 doubtless a contemporary of the mammoth. 
 
 To-day the rhinoceros is confined to Africa, India, and 
 the adjacent islands, as Sumatra. Several species are 
 known, and all are distinguished by having growing upon 
 the muzzle one or two horns, from one to three feet in 
 length. These horns have no connection with the bone. 
 They are composed of hairlike fibers closely joined, and 
 
102 
 
 SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 in some instances are slightly movable. They are en- 
 veloped in a thick, leathery, armorlike skin, arranged in 
 folds, having a very artificial appearance. Few animals 
 possess so effective a weapon, and few are so brutish and 
 vindictive. When alarmed, the rhinoceros usually lowers 
 its head and charges ; and if the enemy stands, it is ripped 
 and torn by an upward stroke of the daggerlike horn that 
 is usually fatal. 
 
 Fig. 
 
 The Indian RuiNuCERns. 
 
 The Indian rhinoceros (Fig. 84) is of gigantic stature, 
 weighing three or more tons and being ten feet in length. 
 It has one powerful horn often three feet in length. A 
 Sumatran species has no horn. The African species 
 (Fig. 85) is provided with two horns, one very long and 
 sharp, and another shorter. The huge elephant is no 
 match for this ugly brute, which does not know the mean- 
 ing of fear. The feet of these animals are provided with 
 pads, the three toes with small hoofs. They are found 
 in dense forests or swampy places. Hunters who have 
 Stolen upon them have seen the birds called rhinoceros 
 
SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 103 
 
 Fig. 85.— The African Rhinoceros. 
 
 birds and others perched upon their backs, and these, 
 uttering the first alarm, often save the lives of the huge 
 beasts, as the eyesight of the rhinoceros is very poor, 
 though its scent is keen. The birds see the enemy and by 
 loud cries alarm their host, which goes plunging through 
 the brush, some- 
 times in the 
 wrong direction. 
 The tapirs 
 (Fig. 86) are 
 large and inter- 
 esting animals 
 from South 
 America and the 
 Malay Peninsula. They have a short, fleshy, proboscis- 
 like nose. Their skin is nearly hairless, and a fleshy, hairy 
 crest gives them a ferocious appearance which is not 
 borne out by their methods, as they are very mild and 
 
 Fig. 86. — The Tapir. 
 
I04 SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 inoffensive. They easily fall victims to the great cats, the 
 jaguar and cougar, of South America. The South Ameri- 
 can tapir has a wide range over the continent. It is a 
 good swimmer, readily taking to the water when fol- 
 lowed. Two species of tapirs have been found in Central 
 America. 
 
 The tapir of the Indian Archipelago is about eight feet 
 in length and forty inches high at the shoulder, a very 
 striking creature, due to the stripe of white down the 
 middle section of the body like a gigantic saddle. The 
 young number one at birth. The tapirs come of a long 
 line of ancient and singular animals which roamed the 
 earth millions of years ago. An extinct species, the 
 paleotherium, found in the Paris Basin, was a three-hoofed 
 animal, possibly related to the horses. 
 
 Of all animals, the horse is best known to man. The 
 ancestors of the present animal, according to our geolo- 
 gists, were horselike creatures from which have descended 
 not only the horse, but the zebra, the quagga, and the 
 donkey. In the museums, collections may be seen of the 
 bones of these ancestral horses, some being no larger than 
 foxes. 
 
 The first horse was the eohippus, with four front toes 
 and a splint. Then followed the orohippus ; then the 
 mesohippus, with three toes and a splint ; and, in the 
 upper miocene time the miohippus, with three front toes. 
 After these came the protohippus, with feet having one 
 large and two small toes, to be followed in the upper 
 pliocene by the pliohippus, in which there is but one big 
 toe and two splints, as in the modern horse. The hippa- 
 rion represented a similar form in Europe. Finally came 
 
SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 105 
 
 the horse of to-day (Fig. 87), in which the middle toe 
 prevails, the others being represented by spUnts. The 
 animal stands hterally on the nail of its middle toe, now 
 called a hoof (Fig. 82). 
 
 Fig. 87. — The Domestic Horse. 
 
 The mouth of the horse (Fig. 88) seems especially 
 adapted to hold a bit, there being a vacant space between 
 the front and back teeth, where this appliance for guid- 
 ing the horse rests. 
 
 Of all animals the horse is the most valuable to man. 
 It originated in the Old World and is not known in a wild 
 state, except where mustangs or other horses have been 
 lost, as in some of the western states, and on the eastern 
 
io6 
 
 SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 shores of Maryland. Ponies are merely dwarf horses pro- 
 lurcd in cold rnuntries, as Shetland. 
 X'ei)- tmpiL il ( ountiiCb are not 
 t i\oi iMc to the pro- 
 duLtmn lit the 
 1 iru'cst 
 
 Fig. 88. — Skull of the Horse. 
 
 I, premaxillary bone; 2, upper incisors; 3, upper canines; 4, superior maxillary: 
 5, infraorbital foramen; 6, superior maxillary spine; 7, nasal bones; 8, lachry- 
 mal; 9, orbital cavity; 10, lachrymal fossa; 11, malar; 12, upper molars; 
 13, frontal ; 15, zygomatic arch ; 16, parietal ; 17, occipital protuberance ; 18, oc- 
 cipital crest; 19, occipital condyles; 20, styloid processes; 21, petrous bone; 
 22, basilar process ; 23, condyle of inferior maxillary ; 24, parietal crest ; 25, in- 
 ferior maxillary; 26, lower molars; 27, anterior ma.xillary foramen; 28, lower 
 canines ; 29, lower incisors. 
 
 and best horses, these being found in the temperate zones. 
 The trotters, pacers, "Hnning horses, common 
 dvdv horses, giant ahire horses, are all from 
 the same stock, being the re- 
 It of selection or breeding. 
 The well-broken horse 
 nnveys no idea of the spir- 
 ited animal of the plains. 
 In the W^est, especially 
 in Central California, 
 horses have been lost 
 Fig. 89. — The Wild Ass. from time to time, and 
 
SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 107 
 
 wild herds gradually formed. Each herd is usually led 
 by a beautiful stallion, full of fire and spirit, that acts 
 always as its sentinel and guardian. 
 
 The wild ass (Fig. 89) is an interesting and valuable 
 animal in the East, its tame representatives being invalu- 
 
 FiG. 90. — Zebras and Young. 
 
 able beasts of burden, a type of all that is patient and 
 enduring. One of the most beautiful of the wild horse- 
 like animals is the zebra (Fig. 90), that runs in herds in 
 Africa and Asia and is very difficult to tame. It is prac- 
 
io8 
 
 SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 tically useless for domestic purposes. There are a number 
 of species, all striking in their black and white marking. 
 
 One of the largest of African mammals is the hippo- 
 potamus, two species being known (Fig. 91). They in- 
 habit the great rivers, being thoroughly aquatic in their 
 habits, though nature has not especially adapted them to 
 such a life. They are of enormous bulk ; and although 
 
 Fig. 91.— Hippopotamus and Young. 
 
 they have huge, tusklike teeth, yet they live upon grasses 
 and roots. In the rivers of their choice they are most 
 active at night. During the day they can be seen with 
 their backs or heads just at the surface, often bearing the 
 young, that appear to be walking on the water. When 
 attacked they become savage foes and have been known 
 to crush a boat in their powerful jaws as easily as paper. 
 A large specimen I observed in confinement invariably 
 opened its enormous mouth when approached, — a mute 
 method of begging for food, that was irresistible. 
 
SOME HOOFED ANIMALS IO9 
 
 The pigs (Fig. 92) are among what are termed the even- 
 toed ungulates, having four sharp-hoofed toes upon each 
 foot. The head is long and pointed, and adapted to lift- 
 ing the ground by rooting. The ancestor of all swine was 
 the wild boar, a ferocious animal still found in many- 
 places, especially in Africa. In some civilized countries 
 
 Fig. 92. — The Wild Hog. 
 
 pigs escape and run wild, soon reverting to their original 
 estate. Pig sticking is a famous sport in India, the hunt- 
 ers following the wild boar on horseback with spears. 
 
 One of the most singular of the tribe is babirusa 
 (Fig. 93), found in the islands of the Indian Archipelago. 
 Its canine teeth grow to an enormous size. In one instance 
 which I observed they had turned and grown into the 
 skull, and doubtless in time would have destroyed the 
 animal. The teeth of the ordinary pig show no abnormal 
 
no 
 
 SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 
 
 growth. The masked hog of Africa is a hideous creature, 
 while the wart hog appears to have challenged nature to 
 produce the most 
 disagreeable of all 
 animals. 
 
 Among the small 
 members of the fam- 
 ily are the peccaries 
 (Fig. 94), several 
 species being found 
 in South America 
 and Central America 
 and even in Texas. 
 
 Fig. 93. — Babirusa. 
 
 They travel in bands or herds, and few animals exhibit so 
 
 much actual ferocity as 
 these diminutive crea- 
 tures. They will follow 
 hunters, and have used 
 their teeth so effectively 
 that people have been 
 fatally injured by them. 
 In killing snakes the 
 peccary will leap into the 
 
 air and bring all of its sharp hoofs down upon the reptile, 
 
 cutting it in pieces. 
 
 Fig. 94. — The Peccary. 
 
XII. THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 To readers of American history it seems hardly credible 
 that in the few centuries since the Pilgrims landed in 
 New England entire races have almost been wiped out of 
 existence. The Pilgrims found the country in the hands 
 of native Americans who had lived here, and their ances- 
 tors before them, so long that there is not the slightest 
 legend to point to a date when the American continent was 
 not inhabited ; but the Indians melted away before the 
 whites, the fittest survived, and what was really a war of 
 extermination was carried on. 
 
 When the whites first attempted to clear the forests and 
 establish themselves, the bison or buffalo was common 
 where the city of Washington now stands, and vast herds 
 roamed many of the adjacent States — one of the most re- 
 markable collections of animals, in all probability, in the 
 known world. In the Middle West the herds were of such 
 size that they at times stopped the cars on the first trans- 
 continental lines, and when in motion, or demoralized, be- 
 came a menace to life of all kinds. It is difficult to estimate 
 the number of these animals, but that there were millions 
 is certain, and they had a wide, indeed remarkable, range 
 from far north down into Texas and from the Rocky Moun- 
 tains to the vicinity of Washington, and doubtless to the 
 Atlantic in some places ; indeed, in a general way they 
 were scattered over the whole continent. 
 
 The bison were the mainstay of the natives, who ate the 
 
112 
 
 THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 meat and used the warm skins for tents and for many pur- 
 poses ; but as the country was settled up by the white 
 people, the bison gradually disappeared and at the time of 
 the building of the great railroads the end came, the bison 
 being represented to-day by a few small herds. 
 
 Fig. 95.— The Bison. 
 
 All the large Mammalia are threatened with extermina- 
 tion. At the present time there is a revival in all whaUng 
 industries, but it is merely the result of several years of in- 
 activity, giving the whale an opportunity to increase. Now 
 steam whalers are superseding the old-fashioned ships, and 
 before another century rolls around the right whale will be 
 so rare that whaling will be given up again ; its doom is 
 certain : so large, conspicuous, and valuable an animal can- 
 not last very long, especially when several fleets of vessels 
 are scouring the seas for it. 
 
 When the Spaniards first visited California in 1542 they 
 found herds of elk and antelope everywhere along shore ; 
 now there is hardly an elk to be found on the coast, and 
 
THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 113 
 
 the antelopes have been driven off, killed and run down, 
 until to-day they are extremely rare, while the elk is only 
 saved from extinction by being herded in reserves. Those 
 in the Southern Sierras are to be restocked with them and 
 the animals protected. 
 
 When the Americans took possession of California, or 
 came in great numbers to the coast, the grizzly bear was 
 extremely common, and it was one of the sports to bait 
 up the animals over night 
 and lasso them. They have 
 been killed off so com- 
 pletely that a grizzly is ex- 
 tremely rare in Southern 
 California. In twenty years 
 the author can recall but 
 two having been killed, the 
 huge animals having been 
 driven to the most inac- 
 cessible regions, where they 
 will in time be hunted down 
 and exterminated except 
 those in the Yellowstone 
 and other national reserves. 
 
 In England, Ireland, and other localities are found the re- 
 mains of the so-called Irish elk, a magnificent creature that 
 lived in the Post-tertiary time and doubtless was run down 
 by the early man, suggesting the fate of all the big-horned 
 animals of the country in later times. They fade away be- 
 fore the advance of the human hunter, who too often kills 
 without regard to the future and to satisfy his own de- 
 sires and wants. 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 8 
 
 Fig. 96. — The Grizzly Bear. 
 
114 THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 The gigantic rhytina referred to elsewhere is an interest- 
 ing illustration or example of the complete extinction of a 
 mammal within the memory of man. The Russians found 
 it in Alaska on the Bering Sea and killed it for food and 
 for pleasure. The end soon came, and one of the most re- 
 markable of all animals, a giant thirty feet long, has passed 
 out of existence and is known only by a few skeletons and 
 bones in the museums. Many other mammals will meet 
 this fate ; the fur seal will not outlive the twentieth cen- 
 tury, while the great walrus, so valued for its tusks, will 
 also become extinct. 
 
 Such will be the fate of the narwhal, the white whale, 
 and the seals of Newfoundland coast that are followed by 
 fleets of sealers who kill them by hundreds, just as the 
 fishermen shot the great auk by the boatload, and exter- 
 minated a bird that is now one of the rarest of curiosities, 
 specimens being valued at hundreds of dollars, even an 
 egg ranking with precious stones in value. 
 
 Twenty years ago the sea elephant was not uncommon 
 on the Lower California coast, but the sealers gradually 
 killed it off, until the government was forced to send an 
 expedition to obtain what was left that it might at least 
 have specimens of skins and skeletons. In this way doubt- 
 less the last sea elephant on the west North American 
 coast was destroyed. In 1850 a large herd of these fine 
 animals that attained a length of twenty-five or thirty feet 
 held sway at Santa Catalina Harbor — a fiord on the south- 
 western side of the island ; they were killed off by Captain 
 Scammon and his crew of whalers. The extinction of the 
 South Pacific sea elephant is in progress at the present 
 time, and a few years more and they will be but a memory, 
 
THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 "S 
 
 represented by a few mounted specimens in the museums 
 of the world. 
 
 The male sea elephant is a remarkable animal, attaining 
 truly gigantic size. When aroused or infuriated, the nose 
 becomes filled with air, swells up, and assumes something 
 the appearance of an elephant's trunk, hence the name ; 
 
 Fig. 97. — The Sea Elephant, Male and Females. 
 
 but beyond this the resemblance is imaginary, as the trunk 
 so called could not be used as the elephant uses its most 
 pliable proboscis. 
 
 With the passing of these huge forms will come that of 
 small seals of various kinds, many species being represented 
 by a few animals, comparatively speaking. A case in ques- 
 tion is the manatee. Within the memory of the author the 
 manatee was not a rare animal in Florida, near Biscayne 
 Bay and the Manatee River, and the Indians could capture 
 
Il6 THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 one at almost any time, the animal frequenting the mouths 
 of the rivers ; but man and the cold winds which have 
 swept the country in recent years have almost wiped them 
 out. 
 
 There are at the present time two specimens of these 
 rare and valuable animals in the New York Aquarium, 
 and there is good reason to believe that they are nearly 
 extinct in North America, and doubtless very few are 
 known on the islands or in South America. This is true 
 of the dugong, a similar form found on the islands near 
 Malay, where it was seen by early navigators who be- 
 lieved it to be a mermaid, and it is pictured as such in 
 many of the old books. To-day it is being industriously 
 killed by collectors who have placed a price on the du- 
 gong's head. 
 
 The places of last resort for great and notable mammals 
 appears to be Africa and Asia, and for the past fifty years 
 great inroads have been made on them. The tiger, a 
 splendid cat, is systematically hunted in India, and killed 
 wherever it is found. It is a menace to human hfe, but is, 
 in all probability, holding its own. Were it not for the 
 strong arm of the government the Indian elephant would 
 long ago have been destroyed by the class of hunters who 
 strike for large game and seem to think that he is the 
 greatest sportsman who kills the most ; this is not an Ameri- 
 can idea, at least among the real sportsmen of the country, 
 who have an unwritten law tliat it is only permissible to 
 kill what can be used in the camp, and that only savages 
 kill merely for the sake of killing. 
 
 Africa is the most remarkable field for game in the 
 world. It abounds in a great variety of antelopes alone, 
 
THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 117 
 
 which have been ruthlessly shot and butchered for years, 
 and were it not for the vast supply they would have been 
 killed off long ago ; as it is, regions which not many years 
 ago knew them by thousands know them no more. The 
 European governments which have gained control of dif- 
 ferent parts of Africa now charge a large fee for hunting 
 privileges, and even then the big game is restricted. 
 Even this will doubtless not save the African elephant 
 
 Fig. 98. — The Tiger. 
 
 from extinction during the next century. The great value 
 of the ivory, and the honor that is supposed to attend the 
 killing of so stupendous a beast, are sure to have their 
 effect. So long as the natives followed the elephant with 
 their traps, and the Hamran Arabs with their swords, the 
 elephant held its own ; but against magazine guns, ex- 
 press rifles with explosive bullets, this splendid animal 
 has no chance. 
 
 Another giant doomed to extinction is the hippopota- 
 mus, that formerly was very common in nearly all the 
 
ii8 
 
 THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 rivers of tropical Africa ; but the sportsman who kills for 
 number is responsible for its gradual disappearance. 
 
 «!>**"*«!^, 
 
 Fig, 99. — The Hipi'Opotaml-!>. 
 
 The gorilla has always been so rare that for years the 
 stories told regarding it were considered myths. I recall 
 spending an evening with Du Chaillu some years ago, 
 when he referred pathetically to the fact that his expe- 
 riences were not credited until other hunters had actually 
 killed gorillas. Doubtless these animals are so very few 
 in number that they will disappear during the present 
 century, when Africa will have a railroad from Cairo to 
 the Cape, and lateral branches in every direction. This 
 will mean the opening up of the country to the whites ; 
 then will come the struggle for supremacy. Indeed, this 
 has long been going on. The splendid game that a few 
 years ago swarmed everywhere and is now found in great 
 
THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 119 
 
 numbers will be shot to sustain the inpouring throng. 
 The natives will give way before the new order of things ; 
 civilization is fatal to many, — at least the type of civiliza- 
 tion that has been applied to the American Indian, and 
 the tragedy of the American Indian will be repeated ; in 
 fact, so far as the Zulus are concerned, it began long 
 ago. 
 
 All Southern Africa long has been in the possession of 
 the Dutch, English, and other nations, and the Zulus and 
 other natives are 
 pushed to the wall, 
 and the wild game 
 driven farther back. 
 With this passing of 
 wild Africa, hun- 
 dreds of strange and 
 interesting animals 
 will disappear, — the 
 African lion, the wild 
 ostrich, the hippo- 
 potamus, the several 
 species of rhinoce- 
 ros, the gorilla, and 
 the large antelopes. 
 
 Australia and 
 New Zealand have 
 many animals that 
 are peculiar to that region, and these in the ordinary course 
 of events may be swept away with the setthng up of that 
 country in the present century. These are the kangaroos 
 and the other peculiar pouched animals found here. With- 
 
 FiG. 100. — The Gorilla. 
 
I20 
 
 THE EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS 
 
 KANGAROO 
 
 in the memory of man, 
 giant birds, the moas, 
 lived in New Zealand ; 
 but they have passed 
 away. Here is found 
 the peculiar duck mole. 
 This hedgehog-like ani- 
 mal is a milk giver ; yet 
 its young comes from a 
 reptile - like egg. Al- 
 ready there is a price on 
 every duck mole, and na- 
 tive hunters prowl about 
 the bank of the rivers 
 FIG. loi.- KANGAROOS. armed with long rods of 
 
 iron, which they thrust into the ground, testing it to find 
 the burrows of the valuable duck mole, which they sell to 
 collectors. 
 
 So extermination is going on all over the world. It 
 seems to be a natural result of man's development and 
 progress. But it can be arrested, and it should be the 
 duty of all intelligent 
 boys and girls to famil- 
 iarize themselves with 
 the conditions of ani- 
 mal life in the land in 
 which they live, and to 
 see that just laws are 
 established to prevent 
 the unnecessary de- 
 struction of animal life. fig. to2. — the duck mole. 
 
XIII. THE ELEPHANT 
 
 When the Santa Fe Railroad extended its route from 
 Los Angeles to San Diego, the laborers working near the 
 town of San Juan Capistrano uncovered the skeleton of a 
 huge elephant. I reached the place some days later and 
 found that it was one of the great forms that roamed this 
 country thousands of years ago. The peculiar situation 
 of the skeleton told the story of the death of the animal. 
 The bones were discovered on the side of a cliff about 
 forty feet above the bed of a stream, lying in a light sand. 
 When the elephant lived, the bed of the stream was forty 
 feet higher, and the huge animal had, in wandering along, 
 stepped into a quicksand, been mired or trapped, and so 
 covered and held for thousands of years. 
 
 The elephants of yesterday were much larger than those 
 of to-day. They were the mastodons and mammoths. 
 Indeed, the milk givers seemed to culminate in the Qua- 
 ternary age, the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, and others 
 being of gigantic size. Several species of mastodons 
 (Fig. 103) at one time wandered all over this country, 
 their huge teeth (Fig. 104) being frequently found in 
 many states, and easily recognized by the marked depres- 
 sions, those of the mammoth being flat, bearing some 
 resemblance to the teeth of the African and Indian ele- 
 phants. In size the mastodon was probably equal to two 
 modern elephants, and the several species differed much, 
 especially in their tusks, which were marvels of beauty and 
 
122 THE ELEPHANT 
 
 symmetry. In some species they were straight columns 
 of ivory turning up at the tips. Some had three tusks ; 
 others had two in the upper jaw and one in the lower, the 
 latter generally small though sometimes large and power- 
 ful. These tusks gave to the owner an armament un- 
 equaled among animals; in fact, the mastodon must have 
 
 Fig. 103. — The Mastodon. 
 
 been the terror of the ancient world. The Big Bone Lick 
 of Kentucky has been a prolific source of discovery, and 
 a splendid skeleton of the mastodon was found at Cohoes, 
 New ^'ork, the skeleton being packed in a pothole, show- 
 ing that the animal had been swept downstream and 
 washed into the hole. This specimen, mounted in the 
 New York State museum, is twenty feet in length. 
 
THE ELEPHANT 
 
 123 
 
 Fig. 104. — Tooth of Masfodon 
 {Af. Americanus). 
 
 Doubtless the mastodon roamed every continent. They 
 lived in what is known as the Quaternary time, and proba- 
 bly were hunted by early man. Nine species are known 
 from Europe alone, five from India, four from North 
 America, two from South 
 America, and two from Eng- 
 land, while the discovery of a 
 tooth in New South Wales 
 shows that they undoubtedly 
 ranged in the Australian con- 
 tinent. Teeth have also been 
 found on Santa Rosa Island. 
 In many of the old Chinese 
 legends there is found an account of a creature called 
 tyn-schu, a huge, subterranean, ratlike animal, a monster 
 provided with long, curved horns which plowed its way 
 through the earth. When it moved through the solid rock, 
 it shook the earth ; hence the earthquake. Some inquisi- 
 tive person attempted to follow up this legend to learn 
 
 what basis of fact there 
 was in it, and it was 
 found that the discov- 
 ery of the mammoth 
 in all probability origi- 
 nated the picturesque 
 story. As this great- 
 est of elephants was 
 nearly always found buried in the earth, the Chinese or 
 those from the North readily assumed that it had been 
 killed while tunneling through the crust. 
 
 The mammoth, in a general way, resembled the African 
 
 Fig. 105. — Molar Tooth of a Mammoth 
 {_Elephas primigenius), GRINDING SURFACE. 
 
124 THE ELEPHANT 
 
 elephant. With the mastodon and the elephant {Elephas 
 Avicricaiins, referred to as having been found near San 
 Juan Capistrano, California), it roamed in Quaternary times 
 in what is now the United States. 
 
 The mammoth was confined to the north. It affected 
 colder regions than the others, and was probably as com. 
 mon there as the musk ox is at present. It was a huge, 
 impressive beast, with colossal tusks thirteen or fourteen 
 feet in length, curved in a remarkable manner upward and 
 outward. Each of these tusks weighed several hundred 
 pounds. As a protection from the cold, this king of all 
 the elephants had a thick coat of hair, some of which can 
 now be seen in the museum at St. Petersburg. The hair 
 was of three kinds. First and next to the skin was a coat 
 of reddish wool; over this was a layer of long, reddish 
 hair ; and upon the neck grew a thick, heavy mane. 
 
 Several specimens of the mammoth have been discov- 
 ered in the frozen tundras of Siberia as well preserved as 
 though the animal had died yesterday ; and if appliances 
 had been at hand a perfect mammoth, perhaps millions 
 of years old, could have been secured. The discoveries 
 have all been sensational and have created great interest. 
 One of the first was found by a poor fisherman in the 
 mouth of the River Lena, in Siberia. He first saw the 
 huge tusks protruding from the ice and frozen earth. 
 When he returned southward in winter he told the story, 
 but was not believed. Perhaps the discoverer and others 
 thought it but another tyn-schu killed in its burrow. In 
 the following spring Schumarhoff visited it again and 
 found it more exposed, and again told the story. The 
 third year he found that it had rolled out upon the sand, 
 
THE ELEPHANT 125 
 
 and that the wolves and bears were eating the flesh, which 
 had been frozen for untold ages and perfectly preserved. 
 Upon the fifth visit he secured the tusks and brought 
 them south. Seven years after this a Mr. Adams visited 
 the spot and secured the long mane, much of the wool, 
 and one of the eyes, which is now in St. Petersburg and 
 in nearly as good condition as though taken from a freshly 
 killed elephant. 
 
 Several skeletons have been found in England, also in 
 France ; but the great burying ground of these monsters 
 was upon the borders of the Arctic Ocean. So many have 
 been found on the New Siberian Islands that their collec- 
 tion for years has constituted an important and productive 
 business. One of the most interesting finds was made 
 by a Russian engineer named Benkendorf, in 1846. The 
 spring of that year was very warm, and the thaw washed 
 out new channels on the Indigirka and carried away banks 
 that had stood for ages. While rowing up one of these 
 new channels he discovered a mammoth just washed out 
 of a frozen tundra. He says : " A black, horrible, giant- 
 like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a 
 colossal elephant's head armed with mighty tusks, with its 
 long trunk moving in the water in an unearthly manner." 
 The men immediately seized the mammoth and fastened 
 it to the shore with chains and ropes, and for several days 
 examined it. "Picture to yourself," says the finder, "an 
 elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen 
 feet in height and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet 
 long, thick and curved outward at the ends, a stout trunk 
 of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and a half feet 
 in thickness, and a tail naked up to the end, which was 
 
126 THE ELEPHANT 
 
 covered with thick, tufty hair. The animal was fat and 
 well grown. Death had overtaken it in the fullness of its 
 powers. Its parchmenthke, large, naked ears lay fear- 
 fully turned up over the head. About the shoulders and 
 the back it had stiff hair about a foot in length, Hke a 
 mane. The long outer hair was deep brown and coarsely 
 rooted. The top of the head looked so wild and so 
 permeated with pitch that it resembled the bark of an old 
 oak tree. The whole appearance of the animal was fear- 
 fully strange and wild." From the perfectly preserved 
 contents of the stomach, young shoots of fir and pine, 
 they could tell exactly what had constituted the last meal 
 of the mammoth, so that almost its complete history could 
 be worked out. The men had secured the tusks and were 
 at work on the skin when a flood came and literally tore 
 the body from them and carried it away. 
 
 The fate of this and other mammoths it is not difficult 
 to determine. This one had been "bogged" in a morass, 
 and its enormous weight had been the means of its death. 
 It had gradually sunk until out of sight, and then had 
 been frozen, to remain for centuries, or until the freshet 
 washed out the old morass. In America three or four 
 skeletons of mastodons have been found together, all 
 standing upright, showing that a small herd had ventured 
 into a quicksand or a bottomless mud deposit, and their 
 combined weight had carried them down. We can imagine 
 their trumpeting and their fierce struggles to escape from 
 the trap into which they may have been driven by human 
 enemies. 
 
 Such were the elephants of yesterday. Those of to-day 
 are still the largest of all land animals. There are two 
 
THE ELEPHANT 
 
 127 
 
 well-known species. The African elephant (Fig. 106) is 
 the largest, and ranges equatorial Africa. They attain a 
 
 Fig. 106. — The African Elephant. 
 
 weight of three tons, and have a long proboscis which 
 
 serves as a fifth limb, an arm or hand, performing work 
 
 of all kinds. It is really a prolongation of the nose and 
 
 upper lip. It is hollow 
 
 (Fig. 107), six or eight 
 
 feet in length, and made 
 
 up of forty thousand 
 
 muscles so arranged as 
 
 to afford it the greatest 
 
 possible motion. At the 
 
 extrerhity of the trunk 
 
 are two orifices, the 
 
 openings of the nostrils, 
 
 and it ends in a fingerlike tip endowed with an exquisite 
 
 sense of touch. With this trunk the elephant pulls down 
 
 Fig. 107. — Section of Trunk. 
 
128 THE ELEPHANT 
 
 branches, lifts the smallest objects, blows dust over itself, 
 sucks up water ; in fact, performs all the work that could 
 be expected of a pair of lusty arms. 
 
 The jaws (Fig. io8) are ponderous objects. The upper 
 incisor teeth are tusks, the weapons of the elephant. 
 The lower jaw bears two molars of large size, ridged 
 
 Fig. io8. — The Jaws and Teeth of an Elephant. 
 
 transversely and filled with cement or crusta petrosa. 
 The skeleton of the elephant (Fig. 109) is massive and 
 ponderous, yet it is a very active animal for so large a 
 one. The tusks are of ivory, one of the most beautiful 
 of all the objects derived from animals and long used in 
 the arts. It is said that the people of India built ivory 
 palaces. In the " Odyssey " we read, 
 
 " The spoils of elephants the roofs inlay." 
 
,.#111''^%,,, 
 
 ^-''s■•. 
 
 n 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 9 I29 
 
130 THE ELEPHANT 
 
 To supply the demand of the world for ivory (eight 
 hundred tons per annum), over seventy-five thousand ele- 
 phants are killed, which means the extinction of the 
 animal in the near future. So rapidly has the African 
 elephant been killed, that the various powers have agreed 
 to protect it, and sportsmen now pay a heavy fee, or fine, 
 for killing one of these animals. 
 
 Every tusk brought out of Africa is at the expense of one 
 or more human lives. Fifty-one thousand elephants are 
 annually killed on the west coast of Africa, and twenty- 
 five thousand in other parts. Tusks range in weight up 
 to one hundred and fifty pounds each. The ivory cross 
 of the high altar at the cathedral at Goa weighs one hun- 
 dred and eighty pounds and is straight. A native king in 
 Africa had a pair of tusks which were eight feet long 
 and measured two and a half feet at the base. They 
 weighed two hundred pounds each. In Amsterdam a 
 tusk was sold some years ago which weighed three hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds. The tusks often take strange 
 shapes. An elephant was killed in 1856 and seen by 
 Thomas Barnes, F.R.S., which had nine tusks ; five on 
 the right side, and four on the left. The tusks in the 
 African elephant are much the largest, and they occur in 
 both sexes, while in the Asiatic form the male alone pos- 
 sesses them. The African elephant is at least a foot taller 
 than the other, being about eleven feet high. Its ears 
 are enormous and distinguish it at once, covering the 
 shoulders and measuring three and one half feet in width. 
 
 In Africa the elephant is found in the warm regions, 
 feeding on herbage of its choice. A single young is born 
 at a birth, weighing about one hundred and seventy-five 
 
THE ELEPHANT 
 
 131 
 
 pounds and standing two feet ten inches. In eleven 
 months such a baby will gain seven hundred pounds. 
 The proboscis of the infant elephant is at first twelve 
 inches in length. 
 
 The Asiatic elephant is smaller than the African. The 
 ears are not so conspicuous and the tusks are much 
 smaller, yet the animal is much more valuable as a 
 
 Fig. iio. — Economic Value of the Elephant. 
 
 worker. Indeed, the African elephant has never been of 
 any domestic use to man, owing to its uncertain temper, 
 while the Indian elephant (Fig. no) is employed in vari- 
 ous ways. The government maintains large herds which 
 display the most remarkable intelligence, performing 
 labor that requires the most exact obedience. In the 
 lumber yard they may be seen handHng big logs with 
 great dexterity. In the great pageants of the East the 
 
132 THE ELEPHANT 
 
 elephant has always been a conspicuous feature, and the 
 kings and emperors of old maintained armies of hundreds 
 of elephants which they equipped in the most gorgeous 
 fashion. In times of war the tusks were fitted with 
 daggers of steel or iron and the bodies protected with 
 armor of leather and iron. In Siam the white elephant is 
 held in reverence by some. It finds a place upon the flag, 
 and the animals are kept with the greatest care. These 
 elephants are merely albinos and are pink or splashed 
 with pink, the term " white " conveying a very erroneous 
 impression. Pygmy elephants existed in former times. 
 One from Malta was three feet high, and its young must 
 have been about the size of a cat. Dwarf elephants are 
 occasionally seen to-day. 
 
XIV. THE DEER 
 
 There is no more perfect picture of contentment than a 
 cow lying in the high grass on a warm day " chewing her 
 cud." As we watch her, she chews and chews, finally 
 swallowing. Then with a convulsive movement some- 
 thing comes up into the throat, and she begins to chew 
 again with eyes half closed, the embodiment of comfort 
 and happiness. This act gives to the cow, deer, goats, 
 sheep, and others the name Ruminants, because they chew 
 their food twice. To understand the operation thoroughly. 
 
 B,v,. 
 
 Fig. III. — Stomach of a Ruminant (Sheep). 
 
 E, esophagus; ffu, paunch; Rei, honeycomb; Ps, manyplies ; A, true digestive 
 
 stomach or rennet; Z>u, beginning of intestine, 
 
 some idea of the stomach of a ruminant (Fig. in) should 
 be gained. There appear to be four compartments in it. 
 The grass is bitten or pulled off, and swallowed at first with- 
 out much preparation. It passes through the esophagus, 
 being large and poorly prepared, and enters the paunch, 
 or stomach number one. There it is mixed with water, 
 
 >33 
 
134 THE DEER 
 
 and is passed on to stomach number two {Ret), where there 
 are honeycomblike spaces which form it into balls or cuds. 
 From here, by a simultaneous contraction of the diaphragm 
 and abdominal muscles, this molded cud is forced up 
 into the mouth again, where it is chewed very fine while 
 the animal is resting. Finally it is again swallowed, and 
 being soft, it has not sufficient bulk to press open the 
 slit and drop into the first stomach, but passes along 
 over it to the third stomach, or manyplies {Ps), and so 
 reaches the true digestive organ {A). 
 
 The deer are among the most attractive of all animals — 
 graceful, timid, delicate of limb, with soft eyes and dainty 
 colors. They well adorn the leafy coverts which they 
 affect in all lands. The male deer is larger and has fine 
 branching horns, or antlers, which attain their full per- 
 fection and are cast yearly. The finest example of these 
 animals is the American elk, or wapiti, closely allied to 
 the famous red stag of England. It stands over five feet 
 at the shoulders, and is eight feet long and of command- 
 ing presence. The fully developed male has a veritable 
 crown in its spreading horns, the tips or points of which 
 increase with age. As many as forty-five of these points 
 have been counted on the English stag. 
 
 The wapiti is a valiant foe when antlered, but it is help- 
 less when it loses its antlers. Some sections of the coun- 
 try, in Idaho, Wyoming, and other regions, seem to be 
 casting grounds, so plentiful are the antlers lying about. 
 In one Western town they have been collected by hundreds 
 and a fence made of them near the station. Bereft of its 
 horns, the stag is very defenseless. Near the end of 
 spring there is an increased flow of blood to the head, the 
 
THE DEER 
 
 135 
 
 veins are greatly enlarged, and budding new horns soon 
 appear. They are soft, very sensitive and delicate, and 
 are covered with seeming velvet. They grow so rapidly 
 that in a little over two months the antlers are perfectly 
 formed, and a burr or rim forms at the ball, cutting off the 
 
 Fig. 112. — The Wapiti. 
 
 blood vessels, which in a, short time disappear, leaving 
 nothing but grooves to tell the story. The dehcate velvet 
 also dries and is worn off, and the stags now appear 
 anxious to test their newborn antlers. 
 
 A group consisting of the male, female, and young 
 wapiti (Fig. 112) is a picture long to be remembered, 
 
136 
 
 THE DEER 
 
 Not many years ago this splendid animal had a wide range 
 over the middle and western country, but poor laws, in- 
 satiate hunters, and various other causes are rapidly 
 causing its extinction. To-day there are small herds in 
 California and some large ones in the region of the 
 Yellowstone Park ; but even there, where they are sup- 
 posed to be protected, thousands have frozen or starved 
 in the cold winters of the past five years, and another 
 quarter of a century doubtless will see the last of the 
 noblest of the deer family. Many are hunted by poachers 
 
 in the winter, the stags being 
 followed down into canyons 
 by men on skis or snowshoes 
 and easily roped or killed. 
 
 The Virginia deer (Fig. 
 113) is smaller than the wa- 
 piti, but more beautiful. It 
 ranges the eastern United 
 States and is holding its own. 
 The young are dainty, spotted 
 creatures, easily tamed or domesticated. The stags are 
 very courageous and indulge in terrible combats, some- 
 times succeeding in locking their horns — a dilemma which 
 results in the death of one or both. Deer are still 
 common even in the well-populated East. I have often 
 seen them in the Adirondacks and Virginia, where deer 
 hunting is one of the popular sports. In some regions 
 where they are protected they have become a nuisance 
 and a menace to the farmer. 
 
 The roebuck is a small English deer of graceful form, 
 fleet, and cunning in avoiding the hunter. In the fine 
 
 ^" 
 
 Fig. 113. — Virginia Deer. 
 
THE DEER 
 
 137 
 
 English parks is found the fallow deer (Fig. 1 14), a tawny 
 brown, domesticated animal that lends beauty to these 
 ancient holdings. 
 _ The reindeer of the Arctic regions (Fig. 115) is one of 
 the most valuable forms, especially in Lapland, where it 
 
 Fig. 114. — The Roebuck 
 takes the place of the horse. If it were not for these 
 animals, the Hfe of man in the far North doubtless would 
 be still more precarious. The United States government 
 some years ago purchased a large number of reindeer and 
 carried them to Alaska for the natives. They require but 
 little care, living almost entirely on moss, to obtain which 
 in winter they dig into the deep snow, using their singular 
 
138 
 
 THE DEER 
 
 spreading hoofs (Fig. 1 16) for the purpose. In Lapland 
 the wealth of a Laplander is estimated not by dollars, but 
 
 4fiifFS*- 
 
 "^K 
 
 Fig. 115. — The Reindeer. 
 
 by his reindeer, these animals being the standard of values. 
 They provide milk, their skins are made into leather, and 
 
 their horns are used as 
 handles for various imple- 
 ments. They are so fleet 
 of foot that they easily 
 travel from fifty to sev- 
 enty-five miles a day. In 
 India the rich rajas as- 
 semble with their herds 
 of elephants; and in Lap- 
 land a millionaire is he who possesses one thousand or 
 more reindeer. In Kamschatka the reindeer is saddled 
 
 Fig, 116. — Feet of the Reindeer. 
 
THE DEER 
 
 139 
 
 and ridden as a horse, and the Tunguses use it as a pack 
 animal, traveling with long trains loaded down with prod- 
 uce. The Koreki have herds of forty or fifty thousand. 
 The reindeer is milked by the Lapps, but submits very 
 ungraciously, often having to be tied head and feet. Even 
 then it butts the women over and drags them about. 
 
 The moose (Fig. 117), a fine large deer, is found in 
 North America, Europe, and Asia. The most available 
 region in which to observe it is the northern part of Maine, 
 where large 
 specimens are 
 taken yearly. 
 The moose is 
 an animal of 
 remarkable ap- 
 pearance. Its 
 enormous head 
 and rounded 
 muzzle, its ^ 
 huge flat horns, 
 its humped back, and sloping body give it a personality 
 not easily forgotten when seen in the open or dashing 
 across country at a swinging trot. 
 
 The moose is the giant of the deer family ; its horns 
 alone weigh eighty pounds, and call to mind the pine 
 branches of the forests of its choice. It stands very high, 
 with long, muscular legs, so that it easily steps over a five- 
 foot wall. The horns are cast in December and appear 
 in April, attaining their full size in June. When the 
 " velvet " first peels off, they are a vivid white, and the 
 huge creature presents a weird and remarkable appear- 
 
 FiG. 117. — The Moose. 
 
140 
 
 THE DEER 
 
 ance. In America the moose is followed over the snow 
 on snowshoes and is a most difficult animal to approach, 
 being very timid, rushing off at the slightest alarm. In 
 some parts of northern Europe it is sometimes hunted on 
 horseback. 
 
 The smallest deer is the little kanchil of Borneo, Java, 
 and Malacca, which is hardly as large as a small dog, and 
 whose young at birth are the size of rats. It has singular 
 canine tusks. 
 
 The axis deer of India is one of the most attractive 
 forms, spotted with white after the fashion of many young. 
 
 The musk deer (Fig. 
 118) of Thibet is an 
 interesting little crea- 
 ture with tuskhke 
 canines in the male 
 which are used as 
 weapons, neither sex 
 possessing horns. 
 The musk of com- 
 merce comes from a 
 peculiar gland in the stomach, containing about an ounce 
 of musk, so penetrating, when the animal is shot, as almost 
 to overpower the hunter. The collection of this musk 
 is an important business in Indo-China. The little animal 
 is very shy and is caught only in traps, to which the Tun- 
 guses attract it by imitating the bleating of the pygmy 
 young. 
 
 In western North America there are several interesting 
 deer, among which are the white and the black tail and 
 the mule deer. The black tail is a small, beautifully 
 
 Fig. 118. — Musk Dekr. 
 
THE DEER I41 
 
 shaped creature which I have taken hi the Sierra Madre, 
 where it affects the thickest brush and is difficult to reach. 
 Several were placed upon the island of Santa Catalina, 
 where they became so tame that it was impossible to keep 
 them away from gardens. Then they were decorated with 
 cow bells and placed on the north ranch or end of the 
 island and were so tame that when a boat landed they 
 would run down to the beach to meet it. The mule deer, 
 so called from its long ears, is a large, clumsy form common 
 in the northwest and in Southern California and Arizona. 
 Several other interesting deer are found in Central and 
 South America and in various parts of the world, but none 
 equal in size and beauty the wapiti and its British cousin. 
 
XV. GOATS AND SHEEP 
 
 The ruminants, or cud chewers, it will be observed, differ 
 greatly in their horns. Those previously referred to cast 
 them at regular intervals, and with the general exception 
 of the reindeer the males alone possess these weapons. 
 There are many others, as the goats, sheep, oxen, buffaloes, 
 and antelopes, in which horns are permanent, with one 
 exception never being cast, and are in the main hollow. 
 
 The goats and sheep are peculiarly valuable to man, 
 the wool of sheep alone being one of the most valuable of 
 all commodities. One hundred thousand lambskins, six 
 hundred thousand astrakhan skins, and two million com- 
 mon sheepskins are used annually in trade, while millions 
 of pounds of wool are used for cloth and garments of every 
 kind. The cheapest and coarsest varieties are employed 
 by the carpet weavers. The goats are quite as valuable, 
 mohair and cashmere being made from them, and fifteen 
 million pounds of Angora wool alone are used annually. 
 The horns, hoofs, and other portions all possess a value to 
 the manufacturer. 
 
 On the island of Santa Catalina are found the only large 
 herds of the wild goats in America, several thousand run- 
 ning wild on the picturesque mountains of this isle of per- 
 petual summer. They differ but little from the ordinary 
 goat, but have attained a greater growth of hair. They 
 were placed there about fifty years ago and have become 
 so wild that they afford excellent sport. 
 
 142 
 
GOATS AND SHEEP 
 
 143 
 
 Fig. 119. — The Mountain Goat. 
 
 The mountain goat (Fig. 119) is found in the inacces- 
 sible mountains of the Northwest. It is pure white, the 
 horns being short and jet-black. It is very shy, and the 
 hunter who obtains it may 
 well be congratulated. Many 
 attempts have been made to 
 bring it to civilization, almost 
 all failing. In one instance 
 the hunters caught the kids 
 by running them down and 
 started out of the mountains 
 with prepared milk in bottles 
 to feed them ; but the little 
 animals soon died. In the 
 next attempt, a tame goat will be taken in and the little 
 ones transferred to her, and if this succeeds, they will be 
 brought out with their adopted mother. The mountain 
 goat is about the size of an ordinary sheep, but has a de- 
 cided hump upon its 
 withers. 
 
 Over forty-five va- 
 rieties of the com- 
 mon sheep (Fig. 1 20) 
 have been noticed, 
 some so singular 
 that there appears 
 to be very little re- 
 semblance between 
 them. The maned sheep of the Atlas Mountains is a fine 
 animal, seemingly possessing characteristics of both sheep 
 and goat. It bears a close resemblance to our splendid 
 
 Fig. 120. — Sheep. 
 
144 
 
 GOATS AND SHEEP 
 
 American form, the big-horned sheep (Fig. 121). The lat- 
 ter is a large, powerful animal with splendid horns, which 
 ranges the mountains of western North America. The 
 horns in the female resemble those of a goat, but those of 
 the males are enormous, veritable battering-rams, which 
 
 they use to good pur- 
 pose. I have seen sev- 
 eral specimens taken 
 within forty miles of 
 Los Angeles, but the 
 animals are now rare, 
 even in the solitudes 
 about Mount San An- 
 tonio, where these 
 specimens were cap- 
 tured. They are still 
 common in small herds 
 in the mountains of 
 Lower California. 
 Of the many foreign goatlike forms the ibex (Fig. 122) 
 is the best known, a noble European species having 
 remarkable horns with longitudinal ridges. The Alpine 
 ibex is about three feet high at the shoulder and weighs 
 two hundred pounds. It is a very conspicuous and com- 
 manding animal, highly regarded as game by sportsmen, 
 who penetrate the higher ranges of the Pyrenees and 
 other ranges to capture it. 
 
 The curious musk ox (Fig. 123) is closely allied to the 
 sheep and is confined to the Polar regions, where it has 
 often served as a forlorn hope for starving explorers. In 
 former years it was a common animal over Siberia, Ger- 
 
 BiG-HORNED Sheep. 
 
GOATS AND SHEEP 
 
 145 
 
 many, France, 
 
 and England, 
 
 but it now has 
 
 a very re- 
 stricted range. 
 
 The horns are 
 
 large at the 
 
 base, bend 
 
 down, and 
 
 curve upward. 
 
 The entire ani- 
 mal is covered 
 
 with a coat of 
 
 long hair and 
 
 wool, which 
 
 being amber 
 
 colored, gives 
 
 the animal a very singular appearance. When met in the 
 
 white snow, it is well 
 -:__ - -^^^£ calculated to startle 
 
 the novice in this sport. 
 The odor of its musk 
 is very strong. It runs 
 in herds of from ten 
 to twenty, and, when 
 feeding, sentinels are 
 stationed about, which 
 warn the others by 
 stampeding. Its cry is 
 unlike that of any 
 FIG. 123: — The Musk Ox. other ruminant, being 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 10 
 
 Fig. 122. — The Ibex. 
 
146 GOATS AND SHEEP 
 
 a " whine." The musk ox is doomed to extinction, though 
 the last Peary expedition reports seeing large numbers. It 
 is mostly confined to the regions around the Great Bear 
 and Great Slave lakes and along the upper tributaries of 
 the Mackenzie River. As food the animal is very valua- 
 ble to the dwellers of the far North. In its best condition 
 an ox will weigh four hundred and fifty pounds, the flesh, 
 when the animal is fat, resembling venison. 
 
XVI. THE ANTELOPES 
 
 The antelopes are the types of grace, speed, and beauty. 
 They find their finest expression in Central Africa, where 
 scores of rare and shapely antelopes make the country a 
 paradise for the hunter. The pronghorn is the only rep- 
 resentative in America, an attractive creature fast disap- 
 pearing before the advance of civilization. This antelope 
 receives its name from the singular prong midway up the 
 curved horn (Fig. 124). We find in it the only instance 
 in which the animals of this class cast their horns, the 
 latter being dropped every October or November. The 
 horns are from eight to ten inches in length. 
 
 The little animal is larger than a sheep, standing about 
 two feet six inches at the withers. Its coat is brownish 
 and white, the buttocks pure white. The eyes are large 
 and expressive, and in the males are placed directly be- 
 neath the base of the horns. The antelope now ranges 
 from the Missouri River to the Pacific, but is being re- 
 stricted year by year, and very few are now to be found 
 in California, though a small band makes its home on the 
 western Mojave. They are very inquisitive, and sports- 
 men approach them by making strange motions, when the 
 little animals will sometimes run directly for them. When 
 chased they often run in a circle and lead horse and rider 
 a most difficult chase. The country frequented by the 
 antelope also abounds in rattlesnakes, which the antelope 
 
 147 
 
148 
 
 THE ANTELOPES 
 
 Fig, 124. — The Pronghorn. 
 
 kills by leaping into the air and coming down upon it with 
 its sharp hoofs. 
 
 Quite as graceful and even more difficult to capture 
 is the chamois, a mountain-loving antelope with small ver- 
 tical horns. It is about two feet six inches in height at 
 
THE ANTELOPES 
 
 149 
 
 the shoulder. It is still found in Switzerland in the high 
 Alps, but is more common in Austria. Few antelopes are 
 so rapid in their 
 movements or so 
 sure of foot. The 
 stories told by 
 Alpine hunters of 
 its climbing pow- 
 ers are very re- 
 niarkable. No 
 spot seems too 
 inaccessible for 
 them, and when 
 in danger they do 
 not hesitate to 
 leap down high 
 cliffs. 
 
 Africa is the 
 
 1 J- ii F'G- 125. — The Kudu. 
 
 home of the an- 
 telope. The kudu (Fig. 125) is one of the largest, and 
 
 possesses the most beautiful 
 horns of any antelope in the 
 Kaffir country. In Zululand 
 it is famous game. The males 
 have fine horns, spiral, often 
 four feet in length and two 
 feet apart at the point, highly 
 valued as trophies. Almost as 
 striking in appearance is the 
 oryx (Fig. 126) of Africa, the 
 gemsbok of the Dutch. The 
 
 Fig. 126. — The Oryx. 
 
ISO 
 
 THE ANTELOPES 
 
 
 'H'. 
 
 horns are long, slender, and beautiful. They are but 
 slightly curved, being so straight, in fact, that they are 
 often used as canes. 
 
 The gazelle (Fig. 127) is a type of beauty and speed. 
 Indeed, all these antelopes are famous for their activity, 
 
 it being almost im- 
 possible to catch 
 them. The gazelle 
 is a desert-loving 
 form. Its close al- 
 lies nu mber twenty- 
 three or twenty- 
 four species, found 
 in different parts 
 of the Dark Conti- 
 nent. This little 
 creature is often 
 chased 'with grey- 
 But it will tire the fleetest hound, its speed and 
 its wonderful resemblance to the dry, sandy soil making it 
 difficult game to capture. The antelopes are highly val- 
 ued as game, and the natives use the skins as water jars. 
 
 Among the large and powerful antelopes are the gnus 
 (Fig. 128), which are by no means so attractive as the pre- 
 viously mentioned forms. They appear more like horses 
 with horns, and in fact a common name for them is the 
 horned horse. They stand about four feet at the shoulder, 
 and have a length of nine feet. Both sexes possess horns. 
 With heavy manes, flowing, horselike tails, and fiercely 
 whiskered faces, they are not the most attractive of ani- 
 mals. They run in herds of fifty, and are hunted by the 
 
 Fig. 127. — The Gazelle. 
 
 hounds. 
 
THE ANTELOPES 
 
 151 
 
 natives for their skins, which are valued for various pur- 
 poses. When alarmed, they have a singular habit of 
 wheeling in a circle several times before running. They 
 are often seen with zebras and with other antelopes on the 
 great plains of Zululand. 
 
 The most remarkable discovery of modern times was the 
 finding by Sir Harry Johnston in the heart of Africa of an 
 entirely new and remarkable antelopelike creature called 
 the okapi (frontispiece). It is supposed to be related to 
 the giraffe, and is allied to the fossil halladotherium. It 
 differs from all other animals, except the giraffe, in hav- 
 ing a very long 
 space between 
 the eyetooth and 
 the first molar. 
 The okapiis about 
 a third the size of 
 the giraffe. The 
 hair is smooth 
 like that of a 
 horse, and in gen- 
 eral appearance 
 it bears a close re- 
 semblance to the 
 eland ; but it has 
 on its hind quarters and fore legs, stripes, calling to mind 
 those of the zebra. The early Egyptians were familiar 
 with it, according to Professor Wiedemann, who claims 
 that the head of the god Set is a copy of that of the okapi. 
 
 The discoverer of the okapi also found in Uganda a 
 new five-horned giraffe, the ordinary form having but two, 
 
 Fig. 128. — The Gnu. 
 
152 
 
 THE ANTELOPES 
 
 which are covered with flesh and hair. The giraffe, while 
 
 a familiar animal, often seen in menageries, is one of the 
 
 most remarkable and wonderful of all living animals. It 
 
 is literally a huge antelopelike creature with a neck 
 
 stretched out of all seeming proportion 
 
 (Fig. 129), that it may browse upon the 
 
 leaves of trees. The bones in the neck, 
 
 however, do not number more than in other 
 
 ruminants, each vertebra being lengtliened 
 
 out. So long is this singular neek that the 
 
 giraffe can feed upon foliage nineteen feet 
 
 from the ground. The tongue, being 
 
 nearly seventeen inches m li n^th 
 
 materially increases the leieh 
 
 ing power of the animal. The 
 
 back of the giraffe slopes 
 
 rapidly down from the 
 
 neck and gives the im- ,^ 
 
 pression that the fore 
 
 legs are the longest ; 
 
 but all are equal. 
 
 Tall and clumsy as 
 is the giraffe, it is a 
 difficult animal to cap- 
 ture and succeeds in at- 
 taining a high rate of speed, 
 foot or horseback, and hamstring it with swords, or shoot 
 it down, its skin being highly valued. So tall is the giraffe, 
 and so remarkable its color, that when feeding among lofty 
 trees it is often lost to sight, resembling a tree itself and 
 escaping by what is termed a protective resemblance. 
 
 I'lG. 129. — The Giraffe. 
 The Africans follow it on 
 
XVII. THE OX AND THE BISON 
 
 Fig. 130. — a Durham Bull. 
 
 The oxen are typical herbivora. They are heavy and 
 slow of motion. Their horns are short except in the 
 peculiar Texan 
 longhorns and 
 a few others. 
 They include 
 the animals 
 really the most 
 valuable to 
 man ; beef, of 
 all foods, being 
 the most uni- 
 versal among civilized nations. In America stock raising 
 and the various industries connected with it constitute a 
 
 trade the mag- 
 nitude of which 
 has not been 
 fully estimated. 
 Domestic 
 cattle have 
 been bred so 
 thoroughly 
 that they pre- 
 sent many va- 
 rieties, as the shorthorn or Durham (Fig. 130), the Jersey, 
 so famous for its milk (Fig. 131), and the Ayrshire 
 
 153 
 
 Fig. 131. — A Jersey Cow. 
 
154 
 
 THE OX AND THE BISON 
 
 Fig. 132. — Aykshire Cow. 
 
 (Fig. 132). All are mere varieties of the same form, 
 like the wild cattle, some of which are still preserved in 
 
 the Chillingham Park, 
 England. 
 
 Of this group the 
 American bison is 
 perhaps the most in- 
 teresting, as an exam- 
 ple of the swift and 
 almost complete ex- 
 termination of a very 
 proHfic race. As late as 1870 the Western plains in places 
 were covered with countless bisons (Fig. 133), a huge, 
 humped, griz- 
 zly giant that 
 roamed the 
 country in vast 
 herds and con- 
 stituted the 
 food and rai- 
 ment of a ma- 
 jority of the 
 American In- 
 dians. To-day 
 
 hardly two hundred pure-blooded bisons can be found in all 
 America. These are in private parks, the owners holding 
 them at extraordinary prices, and striving by every means 
 to save the race from extinction. No more remarkable 
 spectacle of the reckless killing of animals is known ; men 
 were hired to shoot them for their tongues and the skin, 
 and tens of thousands fell. Fifty years ago these herd§ 
 
 Fig. 133. — The Bison. 
 
THE OX AND THE BISON 
 
 155 
 
 were one of the wonders of the West, and the Indians 
 followed them with reckless daring, but to-day they are a 
 mere memory. 
 
 There is a European bison that bears a close resem- 
 blance to the ordinary American form. It has been 
 saved from extinction by the various emperors of Russia, 
 
 who have succeeded 
 in collecting a herd 
 of about eight hun- 
 dred in the forest of 
 Bialowicza, Lithu- 
 ania, and have pre- 
 vented the destruction 
 of those running wild 
 
 FIG. 134.-THE INDIAN BUFFALO. j^ ^^^ CaUCaSUS. 
 
 Allied to the bison is the Indian buffalo, with its enor- 
 mous horns and slight hump. It is a most savage animal to 
 hunt (Fig. 134), yet it has been domesticated, 
 and in the Philippines is one of the most 
 valuable of animals, in litt 
 the only one that 
 can be used in the 
 flooded rice fields. 
 This buffalo is 
 a water-loving 
 form, more 
 at home in 
 
 some swamp 
 
 ., J 1 J Fig. 13s. — THE Yak. 
 
 than on dry land. " 
 
 In Central Asia the yak (Fig. I35)is one of the valu- 
 able animals. It is found wild in the semi-mountainous 
 
156 
 
 THE OX AND THE BISON 
 
 districts and is easily domesticated. Imagine an ordinary 
 cow covered with long hair, and having the tail of a horse, 
 and some idea may be had of this strange but valuable 
 
 creature. In India 
 the zebu (Fig. 136) 
 roams and is. util- 
 ized to some extent. 
 To this group be- 
 longs the small sa- 
 cred bull of the Hin- 
 doos. One of the 
 remarkable sights in 
 India is to see this 
 sacred bull walking 
 through the streets, pushing men and women to one side, 
 eating from stands, and pilfering where it will, without 
 the slightest objection on the part of the owner. 
 
 The zebu has a small but very prominent hump, while 
 the huge gayal, another East Indian buffalo, has an enor- 
 mous hump, huge, conical horns, and a broad, massive 
 head. A similar form is the gaur. 
 
 Fig. 136. — Thf Zebu. 
 
XVIII. THE CAMELS 
 
 For ages the camel has been an aid to man, especially 
 on the African deserts, where it has made trade possible. 
 The long caravans are the substitutes for railroads in those 
 regions. These animals (Fig. 1 37) are particularly adapted 
 by nature to life in heated wastes. The feet are provided 
 with remarkable 
 cushions, or pads, 
 while the paunch 
 contains a series 
 of cells, or acces- 
 sory water tanks, 
 for holding an extra 
 suppty of water 
 upon which the an- 
 imal can draw as 
 occasion demands. 
 They have either one or two humps of fat, which enable 
 the animals to pass days without food. Add to these great 
 endurance, pluck, and courage, and we can easily under- 
 stand why the camel can cross the great deserts with a 
 short supply of food and water, and brave conditions 
 which would result in the death of other animals. 
 
 In Arabia, Syria, Persia, and Africa the single-humped 
 camel, or dromedary, is employed as a beast of burden 
 and for riding. A corps of native cavalry is mounted 
 upon them, and such a steed will carry a man at a rapid 
 
 '57 
 
 Fig. 137. — The Camel. 
 
158 
 
 THE CAMELS 
 
 rate one hundred miles a day. In a caravan, from six hun- 
 dred to one thousand pounds weight is considered a fair 
 load. The finest camels bring a high price. To their 
 owners they have gaits which are as well defined as those 
 of horses, though to a novice the best gait is a tiresome 
 and nerve-racking series of jerks. The camel has all the 
 appearance of docility and meekness ; but in reality it is 
 an ill-tempered beast, as obstinate at times as the worst 
 
 «- tc-s^- 
 
 
 Fig. 138. — The Bactrian Camel. 
 
 of mules. The young camels which I have seen are most 
 interesting little creatures and are about three feet high 
 when born. They attain their full growth in seventeen 
 years, and live for about fifty years. 
 
 The two-humped or Bactrian camel is a native of Cen- 
 tral Asia (Fig. 138), and is equally valuable, long trains 
 being seen all over India, China, and neighboring coun- 
 tries, performing all the work of the modern railroad. 
 Every part of the camel is of use, from its milk to its hair, 
 
THE CAMELS 
 
 159 
 
 which is made into 
 the famous shawls. 
 No other animal, per- 
 haps, with the ex- 
 ception of the horse, 
 has served man so 
 well, and certainly 
 no other receives 
 such hard treatment. 
 A number of years 
 ago our government 
 introduced a num- 
 ber of camels into 
 the desert regions of 
 the West, hoping to 
 use them in transpor- 
 tation, but they were 
 
 \ 
 
 -The Llama. 
 
 Fig. 140. — Claws 
 OF THE Llama. 
 
 Fig. 139. 
 
 found unavailable. Several broke 
 away, and for a number of years, it is 
 said, increased; and possibly some 
 may be found there to-day. 
 Allied to the camels is the llama of 
 South America (Fig. 139). As in the 
 camel, each toe has a cushion, or pad 
 (Fig. 140), and the toe itself is curved, 
 aiding it in climbing the rocky mountain 
 passes. The animal has, like the camel, 
 a very questionable temper, yet it is forced 
 to do good service as a domestic animal. 
 Very similar are the guanaco and the al- 
 paca, both valued highly for their hair. 
 
XIX. THE FLESH EATERS 
 
 A large and varied group of animals is known as the 
 carnivora from their flesh-eating habits. They include the 
 
 lion, the tiger, 
 and others, and 
 are found all 
 over the world. 
 They range 
 from the great 
 cat of India 
 down to some 
 of the small- 
 est of the mam- 
 mals. All, or 
 nearly all, prey 
 upon other ani- 
 mals, and are 
 supplied with 
 sharp teeth 
 and claws. 
 No one could 
 mistake the 
 lion (Fig. 141) 
 for a seed or 
 fruit eater. Its 
 huge canine 
 Fig. i4.i.— IttiH OF A Lion. teeth(Fig. 142) 
 
 160 
 
 Fig. 141.— a Family of Lions. 
 
THE FLESH EATERS 
 
 l6l 
 
 Fig. 143. — Claws of a Lion. 
 
 are adapted to tear and rend its prey, and are of enormous 
 dimensions, recalling the teeth of the saber-toothed tiger 
 of Quaternary 
 times. If the 
 teeth did not tell 
 the story of the 
 habits of the car- 
 nivores, the claws 
 (Fig. 143) surely 
 would do so. The 
 lion is one of the 
 highest of the 
 group, a noble, 
 fear- inspiring, 
 and beautiful cat, 
 fierce of countenance and almost human in its dignity. 
 The lion is a typical cat. It steals upon its prey and is 
 actuated by motives not the most admirable. When faced 
 in the open a lion or even a tiger will often sneak away, 
 but on a dark night it will crawl upon animals or men, and 
 suddenly spring upon them exactly as a cat leaps upon a 
 helpless mouse. In a word, the alleged noblest of animals 
 is a sly, treacherous pot hunter that would lie in wait a 
 day to take an enemy at a decided advantage, and is rarely 
 known to make a brave, open fight. 
 
 There are two lions : one from Africa, with a full mane; 
 and one from Asia, with little if any. Few other animals 
 are so powerful and strong for their size. One has but to 
 study the skeleton of a lion to understand how it can 
 carry off an animal as large as a cow. One of the most 
 interesting families it h^s been my fortune to see was 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — II 
 
1 62 
 
 THE FLESH EATERS 
 
 a number of lion pups, the mother of which had died at 
 their birth. The cubs had been adopted by a large dog, 
 who cared for them tenderly. As the lions grew, she 
 seemed at times to be amazed at their size and strength, 
 and finally they were so rough with her that they had to 
 be separated. 
 
 Fig. 144. — The Tiger. 
 
 The tiger (Fig. 144) is a royal beast, and so far as 
 bravery is concerned may be placed at the very head of 
 the cat family. Beautiful, sleek, richly marked, with a 
 terrible eye, fiery and blazing, it is a type of the majesty 
 which characterizes these splendid animals. The tiger 
 belongs in India, and every year the death rate charged 
 to this great cat is appalling. In a single year nearly one 
 thousand men, women, and children have been carried off 
 by them in southern India alone; and in Singapore it is 
 estimated that a native a day is the average for the tigers 
 
THE FLESH EATERS 
 
 163 
 
 of that locality. Sometimes the great cat meets an enemy 
 in the crocodile, which overpowers it. Tiger hunting in 
 India is royal sport, and is generally conducted on ele- 
 phants. Often the powerful cat will leap upon the back 
 of one of these huge animals and endeavor to strike down 
 the rider. 
 
 Almost as powerful is the leopard (Fig. 145), a beautiful, 
 spotted creature, shy, courageous, active. In India the 
 
 Fig. 145. — The Leopard. 
 
 leopards kill about a third as many human beings annually 
 as do the tigers. All these animals are protected in a 
 certain sense by the resemblance of their skins to their 
 surroundings. The tawny color of the lion simulates 
 the gray tones of the arid desert. The leopard is one of 
 
1 64 
 
 THE FLESH EATERS 
 
 the most beautiful of animals and ranges the dense 
 jungles of Asia, Africa, and the Indian Archipelago. The 
 black leopard is one of the most ferocious of the tribe, 
 almost the only cat that can not be tamed or is not amen- 
 able to kindness. 
 
 The ounce is as large as the leopard and is an allied 
 form. In America the largest cat is the jaguar (Fig. 146), 
 the tiger of America, ranking third from the lion in size, 
 
 power, and ferocity. 
 What the tiger is to In- 
 dia, this beautiful leop- 
 ardlike cat is to South 
 America, which is at its 
 best in the deep forests 
 of the Amazon, preying 
 upon all animals. It finds 
 its way into Texas and 
 New Mexico and as far 
 Everywhere it is 
 
 Fig, 146. — The Jaguar. 
 
 north as the Red River in Louisiana, 
 dreaded by man and beast. 
 
 The typical big cat of North America is the panther 
 (Fig. 147). It has a remarkable range from the far North 
 to Patagonia. In the East and in Florida, where I have 
 known it to swim out to small keys to steal the pigs of a 
 planter, it is the cougar. In the Adirondacks it is the 
 panther. In the Southwest it is the mountain lion, a 
 vigorous and cunning hunter, but more cowardly than 
 a lion when faced by man. Its principal prey is deer, to 
 obtain which it makes remarkable leaps of forty or fifty 
 feet from an elevation. 
 
 Among the minor carnivora the ordinary cat and the 
 
THE FLESH EATERS 
 
 165 
 
 lynx (Fig. 
 148) may 
 be men- 
 t ion ed . 
 The latter 
 is a fierce 
 cat with 
 tufted ears, 
 preying 
 chiefly up- 
 on rabbits. 
 Several va- 
 rieties are 
 common in 
 the South- 
 west, where they are known as 
 wildcats. Within a rifle shot of my 
 home the hounds 
 
 147. — The MiJUN'lAlN 
 Lion or Puma. 
 
 time, and this on the bor- 
 of Pasadena and in the 
 city limits of Los An- 
 geles. The ocelot 
 is a beautiful cat 
 from the Southwest. 
 The margay, the chee- 
 tah, or hunting leop- 
 ard, and the eii»aeal 
 are others of this interest 
 ing group of cats or catlike animals 
 
 town 
 
 Fig. 148. — The Lynx. 
 
XX. THE BEARS 
 
 The bears have a wide range all over the world and are 
 more or less valuable to man. In the far North we find 
 
 Fig. 149. — The Polar Bear. 
 
 the polar bear (Eig. 149), with its pure white coat render- 
 ing it almost invisible on the snow. It is a powerful 
 creature capable of killing the largest animal. 
 
 The bear has peculiar feet; in a word, it is a planti- 
 grade animal, walking with the heel flat upon the ground. 
 The skeleton of the bear shows the enormous power of the 
 
 166 
 
THE BEARS 
 
 167 
 
 animal, while a glance at its teeth explains how the polar 
 bears can tear down the heaviest rock, and play havoc 
 with almost any contrivance that man can think of. 
 
 The polar bear has the soles of its feet covered with 
 short bristles or hair, a provision to enable it to walk on 
 the ice. The foot, its principal weapon, is a sixth the 
 
 Fig. 150. — The Black Bear. 
 
 length of the entire body. This huge bear preys upon 
 seals, walruses, and other animals. It is often seen float- 
 ing on ice floes in the polar sea, where it has been 
 trapped. A portion of the year it spends in a state of 
 hibernation, a winter sleep, in which all the functions 
 of life are at an almost complete standstill, the animal 
 drawing upon its reserve supply of fat to sustain life. At 
 
1 68 
 
 THE BEARS 
 
 this period the polar bear forms a den and is literally 
 snowed in, coming out lean and ugly in the early 
 spring. 
 
 The black bear (Fig. 150) is a well-known form. I 
 have seen it crossing my path in the Adirondacks, and 
 its tracks are common in the mountains in California. In 
 the Yellowstone Park these bears are so tame that they 
 come up to the hotels to eat the garbage thrown out to 
 them. The black bear is fond of berries and fruit, not 
 being confined to flesh, though it will not refuse it. 
 
 Fig. 151. — The Grizzly Bear. 
 
 The king of the bears is the famous grizzly (Fig. 151), 
 the largest and most powerful of the entire tribe, easily 
 killing large animals with a blow of its enormous claw. 
 In the early days in California it was one of the sports to 
 ride out and lariat the grizzly, so plentiful were these 
 animals. But they are now so rare that in the San 
 Gabriel Valley only one or two have been killed in ten 
 years. 
 
THE BEARS 
 
 169 
 
 Fig. 152. — Raccoon. 
 
 The Syrian, the Malay, and the slolh bear of India are 
 others of this interesting family. All are famous honey 
 lovers and robbers of bees (Fig. 150). Allied to the bears 
 are the raccoon (Fig. 
 152) and the inter- 
 esting night animal, 
 the raccoon fox (Fig. 
 
 153)- 
 
 The dogs, foxes, 
 and wolves consti- 
 tute a well-known 
 group. They have 
 a wide range, being 
 found nearly all over the world. Even on the islands of 
 San Nicolas and Santa Catalina, off the Pacific coast, a 
 little fox is found. It resembles the common fox of the 
 mainland, but is smaller. The Arctic fox is a rare and 
 beautiful form, pure white in winter and brown in summer. 
 It lives in burrows, twenty or thirty together. The gray, 
 
 prairie, silver, coast, 
 and cross foxes are 
 others more or less 
 familiar. 
 
 The wolf, a huge 
 form (Fig. 154), is 
 confined to the moun- 
 tains of the South- 
 
 FIG. 153.- RACCOON Fo.v. ^gg^ ^^^ to j-he 
 
 wooded regions of Europe and Asia. It is a fierce, preda- 
 tory animal, with far greater courage than the lion or 
 tiger. It attacks man or beast, and is possessed of an 
 
I70 
 
 Fig. 154.-1111-. Wolf. 
 
 amount of cunning that makes it at times more than a 
 
 match for man. 
 
 The jackal (Fig. 155) 
 is a European form. The 
 h)'ena ( I~ig. i 56) a]5pears 
 to I'Cjiresent the wolflike 
 animals in the warmer 
 regions of tlie C)]d World, 
 and is a disagreeable, 
 cowardl\- scavenger. 
 
 V\i,. 155. - |.\rK.\L. 
 
 Some of these animals 
 are a menace to the rani.h- 
 ers but affnrd excelleut 
 s|)n|-t til the InuUer. The 
 ninst iii\'igiii-atiiig, excit- 
 ing, and daiiger(.)us sjiort 
 T have o\'er indulged in i.,,;, ivx — ii\in,\. 
 
THE BEARS 
 
 171 
 
 was chasing the lowland wolf or coyote with greyhounds. 
 In England the red fox, a cunning, clever creature 
 
 Fig. 157. — The Red Fox. 
 
 (Fig. 157), is hunted with foxhounds. The smaller flesh 
 eaters are almost innumerable, and many are very inter- 
 
 FiG. 158. — The Otter. 
 
 esting. Among them is the otter (Fig. 158), found for- 
 merly in great numbers in America from Hudson Bay to 
 
172 
 
 THE BEARS 
 
 the Gulf of Mexico. It is now very rare. The Pacific 
 coast islands were formerly the seat of important fisheries, 
 but in eighteen years I have seen but one otter, the little 
 animals having been almost entirely exterminated. 
 
 Fig. 159. — The Sea Otter. 
 
 The sea otter (Fig. 159) is a large animal attaining a 
 weight of eighty or more pounds. It is famous for its 
 playfulness. It has enormous hind feet, which are webbed; 
 
 Fig. 160. — Feet of Mammals. 
 
 indeed, its feet are so peculiar that it is interesting to com- 
 pare them (Fig. 160) with those of other animals to 
 illustrate the strange modifications to suit place and 
 circumstance. 
 
THE BEARS 
 
 173 
 
 The skunks, so far as color is concerned (Fig. 161), 
 are among the most attractive of animals; but they se- 
 crete so power- 
 ful a fluid that it \^'^^' 
 places them be- 
 yond practical 
 ownership; yet 
 the flesh of the 
 skunk is said to 
 be one of the 
 most delicate of 
 all meats. The 
 secretion which is 
 so disagreeable is 
 confined to a pe- fii^- 161. —the skunk. 
 cuHar gland and is a protection to the animal, being simply 
 overpowering in its effects. 
 
 Fic. 162. — The Badger. 
 Similar forms in general appearance are the badgers 
 (Fig. 162), which are common in the West. They flatten 
 
174 
 
 THE BEARS 
 
 themselves out upon 
 the ground so that 
 they can hardly be 
 seen, and I have often 
 almost walked over 
 them in California 
 
 Fig. 163. — The Wolverine, 
 
 when hunting on the 
 mesas. They dig deep 
 burrows. 
 
 One of the fiercest 
 
 , . ., -NT iU • Fig, 164. — The Mink. 
 
 animals m the North is 
 
 the wolverine (Fig. 163), the inveterate enemy of the 
 
 beaver. The mink (Fig. 164), the ermine (Fig. 165), the 
 
 Fig. 165. — The Ermine in Summer. 
 
 fisher, and the marten (Fig, 166) are others all valuable 
 for their fur. The ermine is remarkable for its winter 
 
THE BEARS 
 
 175 
 
 Fig. 166.— The Marten. 
 
 change of color, being brown in summer ; but as winter 
 comes it changes to white and is almost invisible on the 
 
 Fig. 167. — The Ermine in Winter. 
 
 snow (Fig. 167). It is one of the most valuable of the 
 fur-bearing animals. 
 
XXI. THE SEALS 
 
 The flesh eaters are by no means all land animals. 
 The seals, sea lions, and walruses are all carnivora of the 
 sea, living upon fish, which they capture with ease. The 
 sea lion is common on our Western coast, and at the islands 
 off the California coast there are several rookeries. The 
 Catalina animals are so tame that they allow boats to 
 approach so closely that they can be photographed. At 
 
 night the sea lions 
 leave their rocks, 
 which are at the 
 south end, and 
 swim around the 
 shore, entering the 
 Bay of Avalon with 
 loud barks, eating 
 the dead fish, and 
 proving themselves 
 valuable scaven- 
 gers. They often 
 steal fishes from nets, and on the north coast near San 
 Francisco have proved such a nuisance that they are being 
 killed off. The sea lion is of little use to man, the oil 
 having only a small value. 
 
 The seals are common in many bays. The harp seal 
 (Fig. i68) is one of the most attractive, while the Green- 
 land seal is also a valuable catch for its oil and skin. The 
 
 176 
 
 Fig. 168. —The Hakp Seal. 
 
THE SEALS 
 
 177 
 
 fore limbs of the seals are flippers for swimming, the hind 
 
 limbs being close together. In the water they are very 
 
 active, easily catching almost any fish ; but on land they 
 
 are clumsy and ill at 
 
 ease. They are mild _ (^ "^ a- 
 
 and gentle creatures, a 19Hi^[mHMi^fe> ^^" 
 
 sharp contrast to the 
 
 bull sea lions, which I 
 
 have had charge at me 
 
 with open mouth in the 
 
 rookeries on the island 
 
 of Santa Cruz. fi°- 169. -The Fur Seal. 
 
 The seals, like the sea lions, live in herds, and the mothers 
 are very solicitous for their young, holding them while in the 
 water and teaching them to swim as would a man. The 
 breeding season sees the beach covered with huge sea 
 lions and the small young ones, which are almost helpless. 
 The fur seals are very valuable on account of their fur. 
 They go to the south in winter, returning to the rookeries 
 in Alaska in early spring (Fig. 169). They assemble there 
 by thousands, where they are carefully guarded and killed 
 under a system that will not deplete them. Piratical fur 
 traders have threatened the existence of the herds more than 
 
 once, and in- 
 ternational 
 complica- 
 tions have 
 ensued. The 
 harbor seal 
 (Fig. 1 70) is a 
 common form 
 
 ' — fa^tS3»*P*iT... 
 
 
 WliV 
 
 FiG. 170. — The Harbor Seal. 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 12 
 
178 
 
 THE SEALS 
 
 in Atlantic harbors. It is very intelligent, and easily 
 trained to perform many tricks. 
 
 In the North, amid the ice floes on the shores of 
 
 Fig. 171. — The Walrus. 
 
 the Arctic Ocean, is found the walrus (Fig. 171). It 
 is a huge seal-like creature in which the tusks are enor- 
 mously developed as weapons of defense and offense, 
 and by which it clings to the ice and hauls itself up. 
 
THE SEALS 
 
 179 
 
 It is hunted by the natives for the blubber and skin, 
 while the tusks are highly valued as ivory, or to be made 
 into various objects. The skull 
 is very solid (Fig. 172), a pon- 
 derous brace for the powerful 
 tusks. 
 
 One of the most interesting 
 animals of this group is the sea 
 elephant, a huge seal, twenty feet 
 in length. It is now confined to 
 the Antarctic islands, where it is 
 hunted for its oil, and is destined to 
 extermination in the near future. 
 A characteristic feature is the short proboscis, calling to 
 mind the trunk of an elephant, which becomes inflated 
 when the animal is enraged. Up to 1859 these animals 
 were common at Santa Catalina Island, a large herd living 
 at what is called the Isthmus. The last ones were de- 
 stroyed in that year by Captain Scammon and his crew. 
 
 Fig. 172. — Skull of a 
 Walrus. 
 
XXII. SEA-LION ROOKERIES 
 
 The sea lions of the Pacific coast have been so well 
 protected by local laws or sentiment that they have in- 
 creased in numbers, and it is now possible, especially in 
 Southern California, to visit several of their rookeries, or 
 homes, and observe the animals at leisure. The most 
 available locality is at the island of Santa Catalina, off 
 Los Angeles County, where these animals have been 
 especially protected. The principal rookery is on the 
 extreme southeast end of the island, on what are known 
 as Seal Rocks, where a number of large sea lions have 
 made their home. They are so tame that glass-bottom 
 boats approach them within a few yards, and visitors 
 photograph the big animals in a variety of positions ; as 
 a rule, they refuse to leave the rocks until the boat is 
 alongside. They generally lie basking in the sun most 
 of the day, doing much of their feeding at night, though 
 this is by no means a rule. Their positions are often 
 striking. 
 
 The bulls, heavy and ponderous, sit upright generally, 
 with heads pointed into the air, and doubtless doze in this 
 position. In early summer they all leave the rocks and go 
 ashore on the beach, a few yards distant, and here the 
 young are born, the herd remaining until the little ones have 
 learned to swim — a matter of several weeks, for they are 
 very helpless at first. For a long time the herd, or part of 
 it, left the rocks in the evening and came up to the town 
 
 1 80 
 
SEA-LION ROOKERIES 
 
 I8l 
 
 of Avalon on the little bay of that name, swam alongshore, 
 leaping and diving, and went up the island no one knew 
 how far ; but so many fishes are brought into Avalon now 
 that the herd, or two large bulls and a number of females, 
 come up to Avalon every day and take part in a remark- 
 able exhibition — that of being fed from the beach by the 
 boatmen. 
 
 The herd is in the water eight or ten feet from the shore 
 leaping and playing, the young and females gamboling like 
 
 Fig. 173. — Sea Lions: Male (right) and Female. 
 
 sea otters, darting out of the water two or three at a time 
 in a most graceful series of movements ; while the pon- 
 derous bulls, which appear to weigh at least half a ton 
 each, hover about waiting for an invitation from the beach 
 to land. 
 
 This soon comes. A tourist asks if they are really wild 
 sea lions, and if they are tame. At this a man takes an 
 albacore from a hook and walks down to the water, out of 
 which comes the extraordinary bull sea Hon known as 
 
1 82 SEA-LION ROOKERIES 
 
 " Bill," a colossal animal appearing more like a huge cat- 
 erpillar, or a gigantic slug, than anything else. He would 
 doubtless take the fish from the man's hands, but the lat- 
 ter backs up the beach and the bull follows, galloping 
 along head high in air, eyes gazing fixedly at the fish, 
 while his companion follows not far behind, the females 
 and young remaining in the water. In this way the fisher- 
 man leads the bull up the beach twenty or more feet from 
 the water, a remarkable and interesting spectacle hardly 
 to be believed if not witnessed. The secret of the confi- 
 dence which the animals display Ues in the fact that the 
 sea lions are never frightened or abused in any way and 
 have perfect confidence in the men. 
 
 Often during this strange exhibition great flocks of sea 
 birds — pelicans, cormorants, divers, and gulls — gather at 
 the feast, the collection affording a striking illustration 
 of the tameness of wild animals. The sea lions have in- 
 creased so rapidly that there has been a separation, and a 
 new rookery has been established halfway up the island, 
 and they are found at various other points on the south 
 side. 
 
 On the island of San Nicolas, ninety miles from here, I 
 found several large rookeries, and at San Clemente Island 
 there are a number. I also located several at the island of 
 Santa Cruz ; indeed, all the channel islands have them, but 
 the most remarkable place is the large oceanic cave north 
 of Point Diablo at Santa Cruz Island. Here the ocean in 
 ages has eaten into the mountain until three distinct rooms 
 or chambers have been formed, beautifully colored, pro- 
 ducing a strange assortment of tints so vivid that the name 
 Painted Cave is given the place. The opening resembles 
 
SEA-LION ROOKERIES 1 83 
 
 a Gothic arch and is so situated that its entrance is in 
 smooth water when the wind is in the west, as the prevail- 
 ing wind is all summer. The day I rowed into the outer 
 cave the entrance was perfectly smooth, but every few 
 minutes a swell came in which did not break. 
 
 The arch is forty or iifty feet in height and leads into a 
 great room. From this we rowed into a second, and here 
 the opening into the real cave under the mountain was 
 visible. It was large enough to admit a rowboat by push- 
 ing with hands against the side walls. As we floated into 
 the clear water in which myriad colors appeared to play, 
 I heard a distant roar and knew that we were in a den 
 of the sea lions. At that moment a wave rolled in, com- 
 pletely filling the opening and passing on. It was evi- 
 dent that to be caught in the opening was to court disaster, 
 so waiting until the next wave came we pushed the boat 
 through the narrow tunnel immediately after it, and 
 entered the largest room in total darkness, the opening 
 appearing like a star. How high this chamber was, or 
 how deep, we could not determine, our flambeaux not show- 
 ing the ceiling. When the next wave came in, its noise 
 aroused a thousand echoes which seemed to swing back 
 and forth from the unseen wall, creating a pandemonium 
 of sounds. 
 
 Exactly how large this cave is, was difficult to determine, 
 but that it had radiations and lateral caves running off in 
 every direction was very evident, as the sea lions leaped 
 from the sides into the black water with loud roars, and 
 their barking could be heard far away, reverberating in the 
 unknown caves seemingly in the heart of the mountain 
 itself. It was easy to realize how the report gained ere- 
 
l84 SEA-LION ROOKERIES 
 
 dence that the entire mountain is undermined with caves 
 filled with water. 
 
 As the sea lions leaped from the ledges, frightened by 
 the flambeaux we waved, they rushed for the small star- 
 like opening, crowding through it, and we reached the 
 entrance in time to see them swimming away, led by 
 a large bull, with heads high out of the water, uttering 
 angry barks. 
 
 Not far from this strange rookery I found a large one 
 on a ledge of rocks and went ashore to investigate, when 
 the sea lions came sliding down the kelp toward me in a 
 menacing manner, particularly a large bull who, opening 
 his mouth, came at me with a peculiar rolling gait, pre- 
 senting a formidable appearance. I had the alternative 
 of holding my ground or jumping overboard, so faced the 
 bull and put on a front of boldness I did not exactly feel, 
 as the big animal on the slippery kelp could easily have 
 bowled me over. But I succeeded in intimidating him so 
 that he passed several feet from me and plunged into the 
 sea followed by the band. There are a number of rooker- 
 ies on this island and on the others of the group. 
 
XXIII. THE MONKEYS 
 
 The primates constitute the highest group of animals: the 
 monkeys, apes, and man. Many have a manlike appearance, 
 and a comparison of the skeleton of a man with that of the 
 
 Fig. 174.— (a) Hand, (6) Foot, of 
 Chimpanzee. (After Voght.) 
 
 Fig. 17s, 
 
 - {c) Hand, (d) Foot, 
 OF Man. 
 
 higher forms of monkeys shows a rernarkable resemblance 
 (Fig. 177). The body is carried very erect, the arms are 
 used as in human beings, and the hands (Figs. 174, 175) 
 
 are very similar to those 
 of man. The hind foot 
 of the monkey is also a 
 hand, in which the thumb 
 is apposable to the other 
 fingers. 
 
 Among the lower forms 
 are the beautiful little le- 
 mur of Madagascar, and 
 the aye-aye (Fig. 176), 
 
 Fig. 176. — The Aye-aye. 
 
 18s 
 
a <: 
 
THE MONKEYS 
 
 187 
 
 noted for its enormously long fin- 
 gers, its large ears, and bushy tail. 
 Another, the specter, found in the 
 East Indies (Fig. 178), has singu- 
 lar pads upon its fingers and toes, 
 and large round eyes, telling of 
 its nocturnal habits. It has long 
 hind legs like a kangaroo, and is 
 altogether one of the strangest of 
 animals. The loris is a graceful 
 little creature, found in the for- 
 ests of Ceylon and Java. It is a 
 night lover, preying upon birds. 
 
 Fig. 178. — The Specter. 
 
 though it is a fruit 
 eater as well. 
 
 Approaching 
 the typical mon- 
 key form is the 
 marmoset (Fig. 
 179), many beau- 
 tiful varieties be- 
 ing known in 
 South America, 
 all making inter- 
 esting pets. All these small animals serve as introduc- 
 tions, as it were, to the manlike forms of the Old and New 
 Worlds, comprising monkeys and apes of many kinds. 
 
 Fig. 179. — The Marmoset. 
 
1 88 
 
 THE MONKEYS 
 
 Fig ioo — The \\ o(lLL^ \I \vr\ 
 
 The woolly monkey (Fig. 
 1 80) is a typical form show- 
 ing the prehensile tail by 
 which they cling to branches, 
 really a fifth hand. A re- 
 markable form is the bearded 
 monkey (Fig. 181), which 
 has a perfect beard and a 
 head of long, black hair. 
 The howling monkey is fa- 
 mous for its vocal accom- 
 plishments, for which, in- 
 deed, nearly all the tribe are 
 known. The ease and skill 
 
THE MONKEYS 
 
 189 
 
 with which the prehensile tailed monkeys cross rivers and 
 hurl themselves from tree to tree can hardly be imagined 
 unless seen. One monkey will grasp another (Fig. 182) 
 
 Fig. 182. — Monkeys crossing a River. 
 
 until a chain is formed which is started to swinging. 
 Finally the lowest monkey grasps a tree on the opposite 
 side, and a living bridge is formed over which the young 
 
igo 
 
 THE MONKEYS 
 
 Fig. 183.— The Proboscis Monkey. 
 
 and others pass. Such a performance requires no little 
 
 intelligence to carry out successfully. I have seen one 
 
 of these monkeys lower its 
 tail from a tree, and seizing 
 a puppy, lift it up and carry 
 it to the top of the tree. 
 
 The proboscis monkey 
 (Fig. 183) is a singular form, 
 almost human in its expres- 
 sion. On the coast of Af- 
 rica is found the mandrill 
 (Fig. 184), a large, short- 
 tailed monkey with a 
 
 strangely colored face, which appears as though it had 
 
 been painted red and blue. A large ape still frequents 
 
 the rock of Gibraltar, hav- 
 ing lived there for centuries. 
 In South Africa and the 
 
 Malay country the gibbons 
 
 are found, which, while they 
 
 have no tail, have long arms 
 
 by which they literally fling 
 
 themselves from limb to 
 
 limb. 
 
 In many of the old books 
 
 relating to Africa, references 
 
 are made to hairy men of 
 
 gigantic strength, found in 
 
 the forests of that conti- F'<^- 184- — the mandrill. 
 
 nent. It is now believed that these references were to the 
 
 gorilla (Fig. 185). This animal is one of the fiercest and 
 
THE MONKEYS 
 
 191 
 
 most terrible of all the monkeys found in equatorial Africa. 
 It lives in small families led by a male, and forms a nest 
 
 Fig. 185. — The Gorilla. 
 
 in trees which it soon deserts, having no permanent home. 
 It attains a height of six feet and a weight of two hundred 
 
192 
 
 THE MONKEYS 
 
 pounds. Its forearms are long and very strong, so that 
 it can easily crush a man to death. The hair, or fur, 
 is black ; the nose is flat ; the ridges of the forehead 
 
 are prominent ; the 
 teeth are powerful ; 
 and its expression is 
 demoniac and terri- 
 ble. When enraged 
 the animal has a 
 habit of roaring 
 loudly and beating 
 its chest with its 
 clenched fist. 
 
 Ranking next to 
 the gorilla in size 
 is the chimpanzee 
 (Fig. i86). Its skel- 
 eton tells the story 
 of its strength and power, while its general appearance is 
 hideous and forbidding. 
 
 Perhaps the most human of all these forms is the 
 orang-outang (Fig. 187), found in the islands of Borneo 
 and Sumatra. It lives in the deep jungles, swinging 
 from tree to tree, and rarely coming to the ground. In 
 some, the face is surrounded by a singular, fleshy plate 
 or pad, which gives them a strange expression. Many 
 of these apes have been brought to America and 
 trained. When clothed they have an unpleasantly human 
 aspect. One which I observed, sat at a table and ate 
 with better table manners than some people ; it used 
 a napkin, and after dinner smoked a pipe with all the 
 
 Fig. 186. — The Chimpanzee, 
 
THE MONKEYS 
 
 193 
 
 abandon of a human smoker. Many attempts have been 
 made to teach them to speak, but all such efforts have 
 failed. 
 
 None of these animals stand erect. In moving among 
 the branches of trees they support themselves in an up- 
 right position by holding on with their hands ; but when 
 
 Fig. 187. — The Okang-outang. 
 
 on the ground, they "hitch " themselves along by pressing 
 the knuckles upon the earth, or they crawl upon all four 
 feet. 
 
 There is a wide mental gap between the highest form of 
 monkey and the lowest type of man, represented by the 
 Australian bushmen. When the skulls of monkey and 
 man are compared, there is a vast difference seen (Figs. 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 1 3 
 
194 
 
 THE MONKEYS 
 
 1 88, 189). The brain of the orang has a capacity of but 
 twenty-iive cubic inches ; that of the chimpanzee twenty-six 
 cubic inches, and that of the gorilla from twenty-five to 
 
 Fig. 188. — Skull of a Chimpanzee. Fig. 189. — Skull of a Man. 
 
 thirty-nine inches. In man it is twice as great, ranging 
 from seventy-five to ninety-two cubic inches, so that a 
 vast gulf separates man and the monkeys despite the close 
 anatomical resemblance between the two. 
 
XXIV. EARLY MAN 
 
 No reference to the Mammalia is perfect or complete 
 without mention of man, the highest primate, the highest 
 form of the Mammalia ; for to-day science regards man as 
 the most perfect type of animal life — an animal endowed 
 with a high intelligence, mind, and separated from all the 
 rest of animal life by a wide and unbridged intellectual 
 chasm. 
 
 From earliest times the attention of man has been called 
 to his own history and antiquity, and so diverse are opin- 
 ions in different lands that the state of information on the 
 subject may be said to be very unsatisfactory. But man 
 has probably existed for millions of years, at least this is 
 the opinion of the author, and authorities can be found who 
 accord the earliest man a date anywhere from one to six 
 million. It is conceded by the greatest scholars that there 
 has been a progression of life from lower to higher forms 
 in the life history of the globe. This will impress the most 
 indifferent observer who glances at a geological map. 
 The various ages from the first are well known, and in 
 every great museum the animals of the various periods are 
 shown. Thus it is believed in the late Archaean time 
 plants appeared ; protozoans crowded them closely. Then 
 in the Cambrian came the shells and radiates. Then in 
 the lower Silurian came the fishes, in the upper Devonian 
 the amphibians, and higher, in the Carboniferous period, 
 the true reptiles. Higher up, in Cenozoic time, the first 
 
 '95 
 
196 EARLY MAN 
 
 mammals appeared, and finally, at the very top of the series 
 in the so-called Quaternary period, comes man. 
 
 We believe this because geologists for many years have 
 examined the rocks of each period with the greatest care, 
 and in such museums as that at Central Park, New York, 
 all the animals found in each period in the world's history 
 are exhibited and named, and the periods are remarkably 
 well defined. In the Devonian time no bone nor flint chip, 
 suggesting man, has ever been discovered by the countless 
 hunters. 
 
 The same is true of the age of Reptiles : the rocks have 
 been searched with great care, and it is only in the deposits 
 of the upper periods, if we may so call them, that bones of 
 man, weapons, and various objects of his make have been 
 discovered. So we assume that man is the last and most 
 perfect mammal. 
 
 It is interesting to glance at the opinions of students of 
 man as to his age. The age of the earth is given as any- 
 where from ten millions to sixty billions of years. Pro- 
 fessor Fuhlrott gives the Neanderthal skull an age of three 
 hundred thousand years. Mr. Hunt of the British Anthro- 
 pological Society gives the age of man as nine millions. 
 A. R. Wallace suggests five hundred thousand years, while 
 Sir John Lubbock believes that man existed during the 
 Miocene time, which may have been many millions of 
 years ago. It has always been my belief that animals 
 appeared on the globe soon after the conditions which per- 
 mitted such hfe became permanent, and I believe man 
 approximating his present form appeared many million 
 years ago in the early days of the Eocene time, possibly 
 earlier. Such a man may have lived in regions, now some 
 
EARLY MAN 
 
 19; 
 
 "Atlantis," at the bottom of the ocean, and his imple- 
 ments may have been entirely of wood and so have dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Burial would hardly have been known to such a man, 
 and bodies may easily have been destroyed while other 
 animals living in the water were covered by mud and so 
 preserved. Be this as it may, man has existed ages, so long 
 that the mind of 
 his modern rep- 
 resentative can 
 not grasp it. 
 
 The same un- 
 certainty exists as 
 to the land in 
 which man first 
 appeared. Some 
 place it in Asia, 
 others in Africa, 
 and the recent dis- 
 covery of a sup- 
 posed connecting 
 link beween man and the manlike apes has induced many 
 to consider the East India Islands of Borneo, Java, and 
 others to be the original home of man. Eugene Dubois 
 discovered on the island of Java the remains of an animal 
 referred to, which he believes to represent a form inter- 
 mediate between man and the manlike apes. It is called 
 Pithecanthropus erectiis. It was found in the beds of the 
 Upper Pliocene. Some authors believe it to be a huge 
 gibbon ; others that it is really a link between these forms 
 and man. 
 
 Fig. 190. — Fossil Man. 
 
198 
 
 EARLY MAN 
 
 What we know positively regarding the antiquity of man 
 is more interesting, and there is little doubt that our 
 common ancestry was a wild and hunting race in the time 
 of the mammoth and saber-toothed tiger and other huge 
 animals, literal cave dwellers, clothed, if at all, in skins, 
 battling with clubs of wood and stone and enabled to kill 
 the big game with their crude weapons on account of their 
 superior intelligence. The proofs of this are interesting. 
 The mammoth was the largest land animal of the Quater- 
 
 FiG. 191. — Bone bearing Drawing of Mammoth, by Early Man. 
 
 nary time, and near Tomsk, in Siberia, the remains of a 
 burned mammoth were found with evidences that men 
 had dined at the feast. Bones have been found in count- 
 less localities showing that man existed in his present form 
 ages ago, and that untold periods in the past must have 
 elapsed since his first appearance upon the globe. 
 
 The life of the archaeologist is a fascinating one, and it 
 is open to all, as, at least, in America, the entire country 
 from Gay Head to Santa Catalina Island on the Pacific 
 coast has been inhabited doubtless for ages and by many 
 peoples. Many of the oldest discoveries have been in the 
 
EARLY MAN igg 
 
 form of flint implements. Tliese have been found in river 
 beds and banks, in pebble deposits, and in various localities. 
 The young explorer will do well to look in the vicinity 
 of permanent springs in forests, as here natives would 
 camp and live, and here they doubtless would bury certain 
 objects, as stone dishes or mortars, until their return. In 
 this way some interesting implements have been found all 
 over America. The peculiar mounds of the West are sup- 
 posed to represent the burial places of some of the oldest 
 Americans, perhaps the progenitors of the present Indians. 
 Many men have devoted their lives to attempts to trace 
 the origin of the American Indian. Some years ago Pro- 
 fessor A. S. Bickmore showed me a map bearing upon this 
 interesting question. It pictured the North Pacific Ocean, 
 and on it were located the spots where Chinese and Japa- 
 nese vessels have been picked up — crafts that had been 
 blown away from their own shores, and as they stretched 
 completely across the ocean it was evident that the first 
 Americans may have come from Asia in this way, or they 
 may have crossed at Bering Strait, and when a large col- 
 lection of North American Indian pictures is compared 
 to a similar collection of Japanese, Chinese, and Esquimaux, 
 there is found to be a strong resemblance. Not only this, 
 but many of the traditions of the American Indians are 
 similar to those found among the Chinese. 
 
 One illustration may be given. The Indians at San 
 Juan Capistrano, California, at an eclipse of the moon 
 threw stones at it and beat hides, believing that a dragon 
 was devouring it. A very similar tradition holds in China, 
 and may have been brought over by the sailors of some 
 junk washed on to American shores thousands of years ago. 
 
XXV. EARLY AMERICANS 
 
 Considering the vast age of the earth, the limited in- 
 formation regarding man is remarkable, yet there is every 
 reason to believe that he was highly civilized in various 
 parts of the world many thousand years ago ; that civiliza- 
 tion waned, and rose again like the tides of the sea, and 
 that our culture of to-day, which is some steps in advance, 
 is but the most recent crest of this wave of intelligence 
 which is sweeping on and making the history of man. 
 
 This is well shown in the wonderful ruins of the old 
 cities of Yucatan and Mexico, which in many instances 
 represent the remains of a splendid art, if architecture 
 stands for anything; yet the palaces, castles, and pyramids 
 are overgrown with dense forests or buried in the ground ; 
 but very little if anything is known of them, or of the peo- 
 ple who built them. 
 
 Nearly every country, even Africa, has ruins and an- 
 tiquities which tell of a former civilization, and the splendid 
 buildings in Italy, in Greece, and on the desert near Cairo, 
 and all along the Nile, show that so far as arts are con- 
 cerned the people of these lands are in their decadence 
 to-day. In America there are no ruins suggesting a civili- 
 zation corresponding to that of Europe or Africa, but all 
 over the country evidences of a remote existence are found 
 in mounds, camp sites, and ruins of various kinds. Among 
 the most interesting are the Cliff Dwellers in the south- 
 
EARLY AMERICANS 
 
 201 
 
 ^jjfe. #'^^.*.<«..*^i-^**''^"*" 
 
 .^^' 
 
 Fig. 192. — Cuff Dwellings jn Arizona. 
 
 west of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Here in deep 
 canyons are found eyries like birds' nests, clefts in the cliffs 
 having been stoned or built up, reached by ladders or nar- 
 row trails. For some reason these homes were deserted. 
 
202 
 
 EARLY AMERICANS 
 
 and they stand to-day among the most interesting ruins 
 of the Southwest. By digging in and about them explor- 
 ers have found countless articles in stone, pottery, and 
 wood, telling the story of these ancient people, the fore- 
 fathers probably of the Indians living in and about the 
 Southwest to-day. All over Arizona and New Mexico 
 ruins of some kind are found ; some, like the Casa Grande, 
 of large size, and many of adobe show that vast communal 
 towns once stood here, but have been battered down by 
 wind and rain until only the outline remains to be read 
 by the man of to-day. What these old cities were, can be 
 understood only by visiting the wonderful ruins. They 
 are built in lofty places and doubtless look as they did 
 
 centuries ago. When the May- 
 flower landed at Plymouth, the 
 continent of North America was 
 well populated by Indians ; a 
 strong and vigorous people in 
 the main, a dominating- race 
 which made a stubborn resist- 
 ance, but they have been swept 
 away like sand before a flood, 
 and the pitiable remnant on the 
 various reservations tells a strik- 
 ing story of the truth of the 
 axiom that the fittest survives. 
 The red men evidently had 
 reached their highest intellec- 
 tual plane. They lived to hunt, 
 fight, and eat, and were no match for the hordes of white 
 men who had in the main higher ideals, and who have 
 
 Fig. 193. — An American 
 
 Indian. 
 
EARLY AMERICANS 
 
 203 
 
 made the forests of the Indians the homes of countless 
 thousands, built great cities everywhere, and crossed the 
 land with numerous steel roads, making possible the 
 spreading out of the ever increasing throng. 
 
 Some very interesting localities in which to observe 
 evidences of ancient races are seen on the Pacific coast, 
 especially on the islands. When Cabrillo, the Spanish 
 explorer, visited the 
 coast in 1542, he 
 found evidences of 
 Indians almost 
 everywhere. The 
 smoke from their 
 campfires and vil- 
 lages rose all along- 
 shore, yet to-day, 
 years after, in this 
 same locahty, it is 
 not only almost im- 
 possible to find a 
 native, but their leg- 
 ends in many cases 
 have become things 
 of the past. 
 
 The early inhab- 
 itants of the Californian islands may be taken as types of 
 early races which had advanced beyond savagery. An 
 example of a true savage, a man of low type, is seen in 
 the native Australian, who has, like the orang, no perma- 
 nent abode, who wanders from place to place, building a 
 shelter to-night to desert it on the following day, addicted 
 
 Fig. 194. — Australian Bushmen. 
 
204 
 
 EARLY AMERICANS 
 
 possibly to cannibalism, using in the main weapons of con- 
 venience, as stone and wood clubs, and having little moral 
 sense. 
 
 The inhabitants of North America, when discovered by 
 Columbus and his predecessors, as doubtless America was 
 discovered many times by navigators in the last one thou- 
 sand years, were not savages in 
 this sense ; they were many 
 grades higher. That they were 
 savage, brutal, cannot be denied ; 
 but it is well to remember that 
 our ancestors had no right to 
 land on American soil and force 
 the natives to give up their homes 
 and lands at the point of the 
 gun. The native Americans re- 
 sented the white invasion and 
 brought to bear all the hor- 
 rors of savage warfare to pre- 
 vent it. 
 
 The more ignorant, the more primitive a nation, the 
 more simple their possessions. So we find primitive man 
 living in caves, using stones or clubs as weapons, shells as 
 drinking cups. It was a long time, doubtless, before they 
 discovered the use of metals ; there is a long gap between 
 the stone club, the flint chip, and the modern machine gun. 
 Recognizing this fact, students of man have called the 
 time of the earliest man they know anything about, the 
 " Stone Age," or the time when man knew nothing about 
 metal. Then another term, the "Age of Bronze," is given 
 to the period when metals came to be used ; and there are 
 
 Fir,. 195. — Native Weapons 
 OF Stone. 
 
EARLY AMERICANS 305 
 
 many other divisions, more or less artificial ; but these are 
 sufficient for our purpose, as on the islands of the Pacific 
 coast and its mainland shores even up to within a few 
 centuries there lived a race which well illustrated a very 
 intelligent stone age. On the island of Santa Catalina, off 
 Southern California, I have found many camp sites of 
 these people. In the center of the island, on a ridge 
 of Mount Orizaba as it reaches down to the ocean par- 
 allel to the Cabrillo Mountains, I found a typical cave 
 of this time. It was beneath a ledge of high rocks, and 
 was large enough to afford shelter to a family of natives. 
 In front of the cave was a huge pile of Haliotis shells 
 brought from the sea nearly a mile distant, and on one 
 side I could see where fires had been made against the 
 rock. The small cave was filled with debris and had been 
 occupied by wild goats for years ; but on digging in the 
 earth several implements of stone were found, a mortar or 
 bowl of steatite, pipes, and various strange objects in stone. 
 The Hahotis, or abalone, was the most important posses- 
 sion. The natives ate the meat, used the plugged shells 
 as cups, and cut it up into a score of beautiful beads and 
 ornaments, even employing it as a mosaic to decorate vari- 
 ous articles. 
 
 Scattered about were grinding stones, metates, flat mor- 
 tars, showing that these people had formed from stone, 
 shell, and wood nearly every household article necessary 
 to their purpose. In an ancient graveyard on the island 
 were found beads, pipes, bowls, hooks and lines (seaweed), 
 clubs, paint pots, gouges, sinkers, "good luck" stones, 
 arrow points and spear points, ceremonial stones and many 
 more, all of wood, stone, or shell. A ditch was made, 
 
206 EARLY AMERICANS 
 
 disclosing four or five layers of ancient graves. These 
 people buried all their household gods with the dead. In 
 the upper graves I found the usual stone implements and 
 bell clappers, Florentine glass beads, quaint mattocks of 
 iron, files, spikes all carefully wrapped in cloth made of 
 seaweed, showing that the graves did not date back 
 earlier than 1542, when Cabrillo, the first white man, ar- 
 rived and gave them objects in metal ; but in the graves 
 lower down no metal was found, suggesting that they 
 dated prior to the whites and represented what we might 
 term the stone age in Southern California, though it must 
 be remembered they were not a low and savage people ; 
 but were skilled artisans in stone, shell, and wood. 
 
 I visited a native manufactory here, a ledge of steatite 
 or soapstone, and found that the natives had made all the 
 interesting and attractive bowls and other articles found in 
 the graves. Their plan was to cut out a ball of steatite 
 with their stone implements until it stood in relief the size 
 required, then to break it off and to hollow it out at leisure. 
 At Empire Landing, Santa Catalina, can be seen the scars 
 of many of these mortars, and in the adjoining canyon I 
 found mortars in various stages as though started and 
 deserted. 
 
 Near here were broken stone implements of various 
 kinds, and in the immediate vicinity many interesting 
 objects were dug up. Not far away I found a ledge of 
 rock where a native arrow maker had worked ; scattered 
 about were broken arrowheads and stone chips, telling the 
 story as well as though it had been written in a book. All 
 over this island I found similar places, shell deposits, camp 
 sites, and burnt patches of sand ; at Avalon stood a great 
 
EARLY AMERICANS 207 
 
 graveyard from which tons of vessels and stone objects 
 have been taken, many of which can be seen in the Na- 
 tional Museum at Washington. I located many camp sites 
 on this island ; also on San Clemente, San Nicolas, and 
 Santa Cruz. 
 
 It is well known that all the islands a few centuries ago 
 had a large and vigorous population, and so far as their 
 works are concerned, they were a superior people to many 
 of the Eastern tribes. But in a few hundred years they 
 have been swept away before the relentless march of 
 civilization. 
 
XXVI. AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 The student of mankind soon notices that there are 
 many kinds of men, just as there are many varieties of 
 dogs, pigeons, or horses. There is a wide gap between 
 the fleet greyhound and the common cur, or between the 
 car horse and the trained trotter ; and so with man, the 
 mental distance between a George Washington and an 
 AustraUan chief is great, though physically they are much 
 the same. 
 
 It is not necessary to travel to learn that there are many 
 races of men. America has become the refuge of the 
 people of the world. In nearly every town or city we see 
 men strikingly different. Black men from Africa, yellow 
 men from China, red men from America, and whites from 
 the great European centers. These constitute certain 
 types of men, and again we could divide them into many 
 races or groups based on physical peculiarities. Thus 
 Huxley gives five types and fourteen secondary ones ; 
 Haeckel gives four types and twelve secondary subdivi- 
 sions, and there are many more representing a vast number 
 of grades and degrees, and the point of extreme interest is 
 to know how these different kinds of men were produced : 
 whether the first men were black, white, yellow, or red ; 
 whether they all came from the same land, or whether they 
 sprang from different places. 
 
 These are questions not solved, but about which volumes 
 have been written ; but this we do know, that climate has 
 
 208 
 
AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 20$ 
 
 much to do with man, his appearance and development. 
 The equatorial regions appear to be better adapted for 
 negro types, and high civilization is not, as a rule, found 
 among the denizens of such regions ; the heat is too great, 
 possibly, to permit or stimulate mental or physical energy, 
 though in Northern Africa there was once a higher civiHza- 
 tion than at present. The finest products of the human 
 race appear to have developed in about latitude 32° in 
 Italy, Greece, Germany, Spain, Austria, Hungary ; and 
 to thrive permanently in the latitude of England, where 
 the climate is not extreme. In other words, the student of 
 man would be impressed by an examination that climate 
 had much to do with his development. Whether this is so 
 it is not necessary to prove, but the most casual observer 
 will notice that the first great results in human intelligence 
 were produced in countries like Greece and Rome (arts, 
 science, and invention), and it is difficult not to conclude 
 that climate is a very important factor in man's develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Among the lowest tribes are Australian bushmen, who 
 are slowly dying out. In many of their ancient habits they 
 closely resembled the lower animals. Thus some have no 
 settled abode. They build a rough shelter wherever they 
 happen to be, roam about, have little or no idea of moral- 
 ity, and believe in killing the old and helpless so that they 
 may not become a burden on the community. These peo- 
 ple are being driven out by the incoming whites. Another 
 century and they will doubtless be but a memory. 
 
 The American races are of particular interest. When 
 the Pilgrims arrived at Cape Cod, they found the entire 
 country peopled by what we call Indians. They were sav- 
 
 HOI.DF.R, MAMMALS I4 
 
210 
 
 AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 ages from the Caucasian standpoint, but were intelligent 
 and far above the low Australians. In traveling over the 
 country where the Indians now live, the careful observer 
 easily recognizes different types whose ancestors doubtless 
 occupied North America for thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands of years ; so long that high civiHzations may have 
 risen, dwindled, and have been utterly wiped out of exist- 
 ence by relentless time. 
 
 Fig. ig6. — An Eskimo Family. 
 
 In the north we find the peculiar Eskimo, or Innuit, 
 habituated to the frozen north, preferring this dismal region 
 with all its discomforts. The Eskimos occupy about five 
 thousand miles along the Arctic Ocean from Northeast 
 Greenland to West Alaska, and they can be traced into 
 Asia. They are rarely found more than fifty miles from 
 
AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 211 
 
 the coast. Their language is about the same in differ- 
 ent tribes ; their cheek bones are high, the lips thick, 
 stature short, complexion yellow. They have no particular 
 government, no head chiefs, and war to them is unknown. 
 As a whole they are an interesting race that has become 
 innured to a most disagreeable and extraordinary mode of 
 life which many races would consider a living death. 
 
 Fig. 197. — The American Indian. 
 
 The people known as Indians rank much higher and were 
 formerly scattered over the entire continent ; the various 
 tribes differ much in language and habit. These tribes 
 fought against the white horde that overran them. With 
 the coming of the whites it was a struggle for home and 
 country. They were the true Americans, the original 
 owners of the soil who went down before the stronger and 
 more intellectual whites who have swept the land and 
 
212 AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 dominate it — a fate suggested by Cooper in the " Last of 
 the Mohicans " and other tales. 
 
 There are to-day but a pitiful remnant of these splendid 
 savages to tell the story. Where the large lake cities now 
 stand the Iroquois flourished — noble examples of so-called 
 savage man, and but a few years ago their canoes dotted 
 many parts of the St. Lawrence, where now the yachts of 
 American millionaires cut the waters. 
 
 These people are now represented by several thousand 
 living in the upper Tennessee Valley. What memories the 
 names Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, and Mo- 
 hawks bring up ! the famous five nations forming one of 
 the most notable democratic confederacies known in primi- 
 tive America. Then there were the Tuscaroras, also a part 
 of this clan from farther south. The Iroquois were famous 
 as warriors, intrepid, bold, daring, relentless, only succumb- 
 ing before countless numbers. In our histories we read of 
 the savage and murderous foe, the Indian that crept upon 
 villages and slaughtered men, women, and children ; but 
 the just American will remember that the American Indian 
 had the same right to fight for his home that the Ameri- 
 cans would to-day if they were threatened by an over- 
 whelming and persistent force. 
 
 In the Southern States the Seminoles lived, now repre- 
 sented by a few individuals living on the borders of the 
 great swamp, and in the Southeast lived the tribes of 
 Apalachi, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek. These, or 
 some of them, were the natives that De Soto met in 1540. 
 To call them savages would be to do them a grievous wrong. 
 Their weapons and vessels display high intelligence. They 
 had hieroglyphic writing, and gold ; their various utensils 
 
AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 213 
 
 exhibited artistic taste, and there was a wide gap between 
 them and pure savages ; less than twenty-five thousand 
 are left. The Yamasis are entirely gone, while it is doubt- 
 ful if there is a pure-blooded Apalachi alive. With the 
 Creeks and Cherokees are still found a few Natchez, and 
 along the shores of Calcasien Pass and the immediate 
 vicinity are a few Atakapas. All are passing into history 
 and would be forgotten had they not monuments in the 
 scores of American cit- 
 ies which bear their 
 names. 
 
 Several years ago I 
 made some excavations 
 in an old oyster bed on 
 the St. John's River, 
 Florida, now above high- 
 water mark ; it was filled 
 with the broken pottery 
 and implements of some 
 of these people, and evi- 
 dences of their occupa- 
 tion are found in every country the length and breadth of 
 the land. One of the notable tribes of early days of the 
 last century was the Dakotas. They owned a vast estate 
 by right of ancient occupation, and they held it by right of 
 prowess and force of arms. The Blackfeet were a fine 
 people, far from being savages, and the reader would do 
 well to read "In the Lodges of the Blackfeet," a volume 
 which throws a new light on these so-called barbarians. 
 
 This Indian State of Dakota stood between the Arkan- 
 sas on the south, the Saskatchewan on the north, and 
 
 -Native American Bowl. 
 
214 AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 west to the Rocky Mountains — a splendid domain. They 
 were among the original and early immigrants ; they went 
 west ages ago, and some of their people, as the Tutelos 
 of Virginia, the Biloxis of Louisiana, and the Winnebagos, 
 are still represented on the Atlantic coast, these once 
 famous tribes being the ancestors of the warlike Dakotas, 
 who once held sway in the immediate vicinity of the Alle- 
 ghany Mountains. It is believed that there are forty-two 
 thousand Dakotas living to-day, represented by the follow- 
 ing tribes : Assiniboins, living in the Saskatchewan, the 
 Minetaris of the Yellowstone country, the Omahas of 
 Nebraska, the Ponkas, the Arkansas Osages, the Dakota 
 Hidatsas, and the Crows of Montana. 
 
 On the great plains of the West are found the finest types 
 of the American Indian. In the same general country of 
 the Dakotas we find the Pawnees ; with them the Wichitas 
 are fine Indians who have become truly modernized. The 
 Kiowans, Comanches, and Shoshones are splendid physical 
 types. 
 
 The Indians of the Pacific slope present a most interest- 
 ing field, due to the remarkable division of language and 
 to the fact that some of them stand at the head of all the 
 American native races in the domestic arts. Alongshore 
 from Lower California to Alaska no less than thirty-nine 
 different linguistic families have, according to Powell, been 
 found, and two hundred years ago almost every prominent 
 village along what is now known as the King's Highway 
 had some more or less pronounced difference in language. 
 Ethnologists recognize three fairly distinct types on the 
 Pacific coast, — the Indians of the Northwest, those of 
 Oregon-California, and lastly the Pueblos. The natives 
 
AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 215 
 
 of the first group comprise some very interesting peoples, 
 as the Tlinkits, of which there are about 6000, the Haidas 
 (2500), the Tsimshians, Wakashes, Chenooks, or Flatheads 
 (12,000), Nez-perc^s (275). 
 
 All these Indians are interesting; some famous for 
 their industry, for their totem poles, their work in silver, 
 bone, and wood, their large and beauti- 
 ful canoes, and particularly for their re- 
 markable basketry and the evidence of 
 a keen art sense displayed in the orna- 
 mentation and shape. The Chenooks 
 are interesting for their peculiar habit 
 of compressing the foreheads of infants 
 with a board so that in the adults the 
 brain is pushed back and the forehead 
 perfectly flat — a remarkable custom, 
 but not more so than the binding of 
 the feet among the Chinese and the 
 tight compression of the waist among 
 some civilized and Christian tribes of 
 the Caucasians. 
 
 In the Oregon and California group 
 at least twenty-six linguistic families 
 are found. These are the Copehs, the 
 Pooyoonas, and the Kulanapans, living 
 along the valley of the Sacramento, the Salinas, Maripos 
 or Yokuts (130), the Chumashans, near Santa Barbara, the 
 Hupas, and the few descendants of the tribe which once 
 held forth on the Channel Islands. Farther south we find 
 the Yumas, the Mojaves, the Maricopas, the Seris, and in 
 Arizona and New Mexico the Moquis (2000). There are 
 
 Fig. 199. — Totem 
 Pole. 
 
2l6 
 
 AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 Fig. 200. — Home of the Moquis. 
 
 three distinct languages of the so-called Pueblo cliff dweller 
 stock that are distinct from all others, according to Den- 
 niker. They are the Keres (3500), Tanos (3200), and the 
 Zunis (1600). 
 
 All these Indians are remarkable for their tribal cere- 
 monies (which are fully described in the United States 
 government reports) and their basketry. In the latter, 
 the California Indians perhaps excel, at least in the esti- 
 mation of the author, who has a collection of some of the 
 best productions. The baskets from the so-called Tulare 
 Indians are the finest and most beautiful ; but the work of 
 the others are almost equally attractive, and thousands 
 have been sold, collected, and spread over the world dur- 
 ing the past decade, some baskets bringing several hun- 
 dred dollars each. 
 
AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 217 
 
 While the fine weaving of the baskets commends itself, 
 the interesting features are the decorations and shapes, 
 which prove that these natives have a remarkable art sense, 
 which finds expression in this way. I have bought baskets 
 from a squaw which might have been molded and de- 
 signed by an artist, a man of culture ; yet the woman was 
 surrounded by all the evidences of barbarism and squalor. 
 
 The Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, especially the 
 Navajos and Zunis, are fine types — intelligent, self-sup- 
 porting, and deserving 
 of respect; but nearly 
 all these native owners 
 of the soil have re- 
 ceived treatment from 
 the American people 
 that can only be desig- 
 nated as outrageous. 
 The question has be- 
 come a national one, 
 — a stain on the flag. 
 This is particularly true 
 of the so-called Mission Indians. When Cabrillo visited 
 California the entire coast was found inhabited by a hardy 
 people who were fishermen and trappers, hunters and 
 traders. They had beautifully shaped canoes, utensils, 
 weapons of stone ; in fact, so far as their articles are 
 concerned, they represented the stone age, so called, im- 
 pinging on the nineteenth century. 
 
 In a few hundred years this great series of tribes has 
 been almost wiped out ; their graves have been looted and 
 sacked, and all that remains of a once powerful people are 
 
 Fig. 201. — Indian Basket (Arizona). 
 
2l8 AMERICAN NATIVE RACES OF MEN 
 
 a few individuals living in the canyons of the Sierras, or 
 on desert lands that would be spurned by the lowest white. 
 Every year the people of California are importuned by 
 friends of some of these Indians to aid in saving them 
 from starvation. It should be the duty of every student 
 to post himself upon the condition of these unhappy wards 
 of the nation, and see to it through Congress that they 
 have justice. The government is endeavoring to educate 
 the Indians. Schools and institutions of various kinds 
 have been provided, all intended to render the original 
 owners of the land self-supporting after the American 
 fashion. 
 
XXVII. ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS TO 
 VARIED CONDITIONS 
 
 In glancing at the mammals, or milk givers, from the 
 ant-eaters to the apes, one is impressed by the remarkable 
 variety in shape and habit. Nature has adapted these 
 animals for nearly every possible condition — land, water, 
 or air. In the whales there are the rudiments of hind legs, 
 suggesting that these mighty animals, one hundred feet in 
 length, in certain instances weighing hundreds of tons, may 
 once in some early form have been semi-land animals and, 
 instead of going to sea, lived in shallow water, like the huge 
 rhytina, described by Steller — an animal with the tail of a 
 whale, the body of a sea lion or seal, found living in the 
 shallows of the Arctic Ocean, the last of its race. 
 
 But the whale to-day is a sea-going milk giver, suckling 
 its one or two young, having a broad, fishlike tail placed 
 horizontally instead of vertically ; provided with enormous 
 layers of fat to resist the cold of deep water, enabled to hold 
 its breath for an hour if necessary ; in a word, adapted to a 
 fishlike life, and even having a top or dorsal fin in some 
 instances, as in the orca, this fishlike fin being six feet tall. 
 
 Theoretically the whale does not need water ; it is an air- 
 breathing animal, has lungs like any mammal, but its nos- 
 trils instead of being near the mouth or in front, as in the 
 cow, ape, or horse, are on top of the head — a wonderful 
 adaptation to its water habit. It is as necessary for the 
 whale to breathe air as it is for man, but while man 
 
 219 
 
220 ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS 
 
 breathes almost every second the whale breathes at longer 
 intervals, ten minutes, more or less ; the nostrils open on 
 top of the head, so it is only necessary for the whale to 
 rise to the surface, when the hot air from the lungs, the 
 same as the breath of man, is sent out so violently that it 
 throws what water there may be standing over it flying 
 into the air. The hot breath coming in contact with the 
 cold air turns to mist and becomes visible for a long dis- 
 tance, as the " spouting " of the whale. The whales, dol- 
 phins, blackfish, orcas, white whale, narwhal, and others, 
 are all examples of mammals adapted for life entirely in 
 the water, but theoretically submersion is not absolutely 
 necessary, as is shown by the fact that white whales have 
 been brought from Newfoundland to New York in cars, 
 wrapped in wet seaweed, and kept out of water several 
 days. They were continually moistened, but with fresh 
 water. 
 
 The seal, sea lion, and walrus are mammals adapted to 
 the water in a less degree. The sea lion is perfectly at 
 home here. Its fore arms are whalelike fins ; its hind legs 
 are finlike, especially in the seals, and it is a clumsy creature 
 on land, though it spends the greater part of the time 
 there, lying on the rocks. 
 
 Another group of mammals, the rare manatees, appear 
 to stand between the two, so far as their love of water is 
 concerned. They prefer to lie in it, to basking on rocks, 
 as do the sea lions. Other milk givers adapted to the 
 water are the sea otters, perfectly at home in the wild seas 
 of the North Pacific, where they beat in on the kelp beds. 
 Here the otter spends part of the time with its young, 
 swimming rapidly by its birdlike webbed feet. 
 
ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS 221 
 
 What a contrast these animals present to the mammals 
 adapted by nature to Hfe in the air as the bats ! Physically, 
 they are alike, that is, in structure. They provide their 
 young with milk, are mammals, yet nature has intended 
 them to feed on insects, to capture which the fore arms are 
 wonderfully developed into long, attenuated fingers which 
 serve to brace and spread a weblike wing very similar to 
 that of a bird, their flight being quite as perfect and rapid ; 
 indeed, few birds are so skillful, as a bat can avoid the most 
 delicate obstacles in a dark room. 
 
 Then we have other mammals, as the flying squirrels, 
 which are adapted for limited flight. They have devel- 
 oped parachutes, a loose skin, which, when they spread 
 their limbs, fill out to a remarkable extent, presenting a sur- 
 face so broad that it bears up the animal and enables it 
 to make extraordinary leaps, in no sense flying, but yet 
 enabling them to dart from tree to tree and cover long dis- 
 tances in the seeming aerial flight. 
 
 The antelope is an excellent illustration of a mammal 
 adapted for life in the open. Nature provides its defense 
 in flight, has given it limbs by which it can outrun all but 
 few other animals. How sharp the contrast between this 
 graceful creature and the hippopotamus, a veritable whale 
 out of water in its clumsiness. Yet nature has not over- 
 looked this uncanny beast and has adapted it for life in 
 pools and rivers in the tropics, where it is singularly active 
 and perfectly at home. It is very difficult to drive a hare, 
 the jack rabbit, into a hole in the ground ; it depends 
 upon its long, machinelike legs and its marvelous speed 
 to escape its enemies, even building its nest on the 
 surface and scorning any retreat; but with a short- 
 
222 ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS 
 
 legged rabbit it is an entirely different question : it can 
 run only a short distance and then dashes into its hole 
 — a long burrow. 
 
 The rabbit, California ground squirrel, prairie dog, jer- 
 boa, weasel, the armadillo, and many others live a part 
 of the time under ground. Then we have another class, 
 as the California gopher, the mole, and some others, 
 which may be said to be entirely subterranean in their 
 habit. The California gopher never leaves its home if 
 it can avoid it, and when dire necessity drives it out, it 
 leaves the hole but a few inches, then dashes back, tail 
 first, at the slightest alarm. It feeds on roots which it 
 hunts for under ground, or comes to the surface in tall 
 alfalfa or weeds. Its eyes have become small and its 
 sight is poor, but it is a very wide-awake fellow com- 
 pared to the mole, which rarely if ever comes out into 
 the broad sunlight of its own volition. 
 
 Here we have an almost perfect adaptation to a sub- 
 terranean life. The fore paws are developed to an 
 enormous extent, and the mole is a digger capable of 
 progressing through the soil at a very rapid pace. Its 
 eyes, from long disuse, are mere beads, and doubtless of 
 no use, the animal's scent as well as hearing being marvel- 
 ously developed, enabhng it to reach worms or grubs in 
 its travels beneath the surface. 
 
 The mole is really a beautiful animal. Its fur is as fine 
 as the finest silk. Mark the difference between it and the 
 skin of those other diggers and subterranean dwellers, the 
 armadillos of South America. Here is an animal that 
 might well be called an underground turtle, as it has an 
 extraordinary armor that covers it. Its feet are provided 
 
ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS 223 
 
 with long, hooklike claws, and its powers of digging are 
 remarkable. Some are so skillful that they disappear 
 under the ground almost before they can be approached. 
 It would be difficult to imagine an animal more helpless 
 in a tree than the armadillo ; it would fall to the ground 
 at once ; it is not adapted to such a life as are certain 
 mammals. See how the monkey dashes up from limb to 
 limb. It is so thoroughly adapted to it that it has a fifth 
 hand, the prehensile tail, the latter holding it during a 
 swing across and over space. 
 
 Such an animal is at home in the trees, but not more so 
 than the sloth, the queer, mosslike animal that clings to 
 limbs, its body downward, and never or rarely leaves them. 
 Such an animal appears to be a degenerate form which has 
 lost its ability to live a free and" wandering life as its 
 gigantic ancestors did ages ago. This animal is a type 
 of inactivity, contrasting sharply with other mammals, like 
 horses, deer, antelopes, greyhounds, and others, which na- 
 ture has adapted for rapid movements. 
 
 Then there are those which can not run, but can make 
 prodigious leaps, as the kangaroo, certain ones having 
 been known to leap over a horse and rider. Singularly, 
 all the kangaroos are found in Australia, a subject in itself 
 of deep interest to the student of nature, suggesting an 
 interesting study as to the origin and geographical distribu- 
 tion of animals. The leaping marsupials have representa- 
 tives, though not pouched, in America in the little jerboa or 
 jumping rat, and there are several jumping mice with long 
 legs which go bounding along in a marvelous fashion. 
 
 In their care of young there is the greatest variety 
 among mammals, a study of intense interest. I had at one 
 
224 ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS 
 
 time a family of young armadillos under my observation : 
 queer little creatures almost exactly like the mother. But 
 what impressed me most was the absolute indifference of 
 the parent to the young. If I took a little one away and 
 placed it in the middle of the room, the mother after a 
 while, in her nervous wandering, would run over it, but 
 apparently not recognize it. How striking is the contrast 
 to a cat and her kittens, or a cow and her calf, where the 
 mother is solicitous and watchful, often guarding her 
 young with her life ! 
 
 In certain low mammals, as the duck mole, the young is 
 hatched from an egg and the minute creature reared in a 
 nest in a tunnel. The young of the kangaroo is hardly an 
 inch in length at birth, and nature provides a pouch in the 
 mother in which the minute animal is placed and kept until 
 it is large enough to care for itself. The mother bat, even 
 the flying fox, carries her young about with her in the air. 
 The opossum is provided with a prehensile tail, and the 
 mother is seen walking about, her back covered with young, 
 their little tails twined about that of the parent. The young 
 whale is born and suckled in quiet bays at first, as the Gulf 
 of California, where the California gray whale makes a sav- 
 age onslaught on boats that approach the young, and many 
 men have been killed here — victims to the rage of the 
 mother. The hippopotamus holds its big young on its 
 back when in the water. Many mammals build nests in 
 trees, as the wood rat, which also builds on the ground or 
 in it. Nature endows many animals with the faculty of 
 bridging over the foodless season in long periods of sleep. 
 Thus in the North the bears enter a winter sleep. At 
 that time they are very fat, but the snow buries the roots. 
 
ADAPTATION OF MAMMALS 225 
 
 and the berries are gone, so the bear sleeps away the 
 winter in a state of hibernation, a sleep common to many 
 animals. The lions, tigers, and big cats have no homes, 
 though some may frequent dens. The deer and antelope 
 and others have no fixed places of abode, roaming about 
 according to the food supply. 
 
 The defenses given to animals well illustrate the re- 
 sources of nature. Note the stupid porcupine covered 
 with menacing bristles that render it almost safe from all 
 animals, the hedgehog, the bands and scales of the arma- 
 dillo. The skunk has a secretion that renders it safe from 
 nearly all animals, the odor being overpowering; and a 
 number of animals have odors offensive to other animals, 
 rendering them perfectly safe. In the narwhal there is a 
 long, ivory sword or spear that doubtless is a menace. The 
 deer family have splendid horns and antlers with which 
 they attack enemies or rivals. The horse and mule whirl 
 about and attack with the hind legs, while the kangaroo 
 strikes a terrible cutting and downward blow with its knife- 
 like claw sufficient to disembowel a horse or man. 
 
 The cat tribe tear with their claws, lacerate with their 
 sharp teeth, leap upon their prey, and bear them down ; 
 the hippopotamus opens its cavernous mouth and Hterally 
 bites boats in two, crushing the occupants with its bark-cut- 
 ting teeth; and adaptation in infinite variety is found in 
 the varied conditions of animal life. 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 1 5 
 
XXVIII. THE GAMES OF MAMMALS 
 
 Nearly all observers of animal life have recognized the 
 fact that the lower mammals appear to have many 
 points of resemblance to the higher, aside from those 
 which are purely physical. One of the most interesting 
 
 Fig. 202. — Otter sliding downhill. 
 
 is that of sport, many animals displaying a love for various 
 pastimes that is only to be compared with the same exhi- 
 bition in man. 
 
 I have seen the sea otter playing a game of tag in the 
 great kelp beds of the Pacific, and careful observers have 
 watched them and seen them toss their young into the air 
 and perform many other tricks which are more or less 
 familiar. Otters particularly delight in sliding downhill. 
 Several will select a hill not very long, but usually steep, 
 
 226 
 
THE GAMES OF MAMMALS 227 
 
 which leads into the water. Stationing themselves at the 
 top, one after the other will go shooting down the slide, 
 evidently in the greatest enjoyment and delight, plunging 
 into the water, to scramble out, repeating the feat time 
 and again. In fact, one so fortunate as to witness the 
 acts would be reminded of a troop of boys engaged in a 
 similar pastime. 
 
 The acts of monkeys of all kinds are painfully like 
 those of human beings, and the looker-on is forced against 
 his will to confess that the little animals must think along 
 the same lines as himself, although they may not think so 
 deeply or in the same way. Monkeys are essentially mis- 
 chievous. They are continually playing jokes upon one 
 another : pulling the tails of their fellows, pushing them 
 from the bar, leaping over them — in fact, nearly all the 
 tricks and pranks attempted by a boy are to be seen in a 
 cage of average monkeys. 
 
 Some time previous to the earthquake of San Francisco 
 I stood in Sutro Park, in that city, watching a splendid 
 specimen of spider monkey whose long and remarkable 
 tail was really a fifth arm. Near the monkey, which was 
 clinging to a limb of the tree, was a litter of puppies lying 
 with their devoted and happy mother at the foot of the 
 same tree. As I watched them I saw the monkey crawl 
 down very slowly until it reached a branch just over the 
 puppies. The mother was asleep, hence did not see the 
 long, slender, hairy object which came down like a snake. 
 I watched the animal carefully, fascinated by the cunning 
 displayed. Down it came until the prehensile tail touched 
 the little dogs. It immediately coiled itself about one 
 and up it rose, inch by inch, the puppy perfectly quiet, yet 
 
228 
 
 THE GAMES OF MAMMALS 
 
 Fig. 203. — Spider 
 Monkey play- 
 ing WITH PUPPY 
 AND KITTEN. 
 
 rising into the 
 
 air in what 
 
 must have been 
 
 to it a marvelous 
 
 manner. In a few 
 
 seconds the tail 
 
 had lifted the 
 
 little dog within 
 
 reach of the long 
 
 arms of the spider monkey, which 
 
 seized it, and presently the puppy was 
 
 high in the tree, nor was it dropped, 
 
 but in a few moments it was carried down 
 
 and deposited among the others safe 
 
 and sound. 
 
 Dogs are notably playful. They play tag, they race, 
 they pretend to fight, and they really fight, doubtless as a 
 pastime. Dogs will wrestle, roll each other over just as do 
 boys, and by numerous pranks show that they enjoy fun 
 and what we call jokes. The little dogs called whiffets 
 undoubtedly enjoy racing exactly as do human racers. 
 They start at the word and go over a regular course at 
 full speed and display all the eagerness and desire to 
 win that other racers do. This is often seen among 
 horses in a large inclosure. They play like boys, race 
 among themselves, and show abundant evidence of a love 
 of sport and games. This is true of elephants, which 
 have often been seen engaged in cumbersome play. 
 
 In all probability the most extraordinary play among 
 large animals has been observed among whales. The 
 largest have been seen to carry on a game which might be 
 
THE GAMES OF MAMMALS 229 
 
 compared to leap frog or something of the kind. I have 
 seen a whale rise slowly out of the water until it appeared 
 to stand fairly on its tail. Other whales will beat the 
 water with their fins, and strike their comrades pats and 
 blows which can be heard several miles at sea with the 
 wind. In Southern waters the crew of a British ship saw 
 a whale hovering directly above them, the huge animal 
 having made a leap, clearing them by ten feet. 
 
 Nearly all the young of mammals appear to play games 
 of various kinds. This is particularly noticeable among 
 guinea pigs, all of which recall children in their romps 
 and antics. The adult armadillo is a very sedate and 
 stupid animal, but the very young observed by me were 
 very active and continually engaged in games of chase, 
 hide, or racing. At least their actions recalled these 
 games among children. 
 
XXIX. THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 Probably no question relating to mammals has received 
 more attention than that regarding their intelligence. It 
 is very natural to ascribe to the lower animals the intelli- 
 gence of human beings, particularly when they apparently 
 perform certain acts which are "almost human"; but to 
 the writer, at least, there is a wide gap between the mental 
 point of view of the elephant and the man, even when 
 both are doing the same thing. It is manifestly impossible 
 to ascertain exactly what the elephant is thinking about, 
 and this applies to all mammals, and the remarkable stories 
 about the marvelous and human intelligence displayed by 
 many animals should be taken with a grain of salt, or not 
 accepted without close investigation by a sane, unemotional, 
 trained observer. 
 
 That many animals are very intelligent from our own 
 standpoint is evident, but their point of view is doubtless 
 different, and that any of the lower animals can think out 
 a proposition or carry out any difficult Hue of thought 
 leading up to a logical conclusion is very doubtful. Thus 
 we hear of mammals committing suicide to escape an 
 enemy ; of marvelous examples of skill and cleverness, and 
 if these stories are thoroughly investigated, it will be found 
 that the observer was an "emotional" investigator: he 
 thought he saw certain acts or purposes carried out, but 
 was mistaken. Animals are intelligent, but they have not 
 the perfect intelligence of man. 
 
 230 
 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 23 1 
 
 Among the apes and the monkeys many are extremely 
 human in their ways, and they can be trained to eat and 
 drink, to play upon musical instruments in a crude way, to 
 wear clothes, and to eat with a fork ; the impression is cre- 
 ated that the animal thinks exactly as do human beings, but 
 this conclusion would doubtless be far from true. Instinct 
 is frequently confused with intelligence ; nearly all the 
 important and striking acts of mammals are instinctive. 
 Thus a terrible sound is heard : the deer or fawn instinc- 
 tively dashes away in fear ; but the man thinks it out and 
 concludes that it is thunder, that the danger is miles dis- 
 tant, hence he remains where he is. Nearly all the acts of 
 the lower animals are instinctive. They reason to a very 
 limited degree. 
 
 How potent instinct is, is well shown in young dogs and 
 chickens. I have presented a moth to a puppy that took 
 it at once ; but when a bee was shown him he instinctively 
 recognized that there was danger in the buzzing sound, 
 though he had never seen a bee before. I found this was true 
 of young chickens. Some of the most remarkable illustra- 
 tions given as animal intelligence are animal instinct ; yet 
 many animals can be taught and trained to perform various 
 acts which are very remarkable. No more interesting 
 illustration can be found than the Asiatic elephant, which 
 for centuries has been utilized as a co-worker by man. In 
 the great lumber yards of India elephants are trained to 
 do all the work of a human laborer. They are mounted 
 by a single man, armed with a hook, and they have been 
 trained to obey his every order. They lift huge logs, move 
 them with perfect precision, and appear to understand 
 every wish of their masters ; yet we can hardly accord the 
 
232 
 
 THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 elephant the intelligence of a human being as, had they 
 even ordinary human intelligence, so huge and powerful 
 an animal would resist such abject slavery and refuse to be 
 driven by so insignificant a master as man. 
 
 M'''^:^'f^ 
 
 Fig. 204. — An Elephant Laborer at Work in an Indian Teak Yard. 
 
 The intelligence of the horse is often described, but the 
 horse is really one of the most stupid of animals. It can 
 be trained, but is almost incapable of any judgment. The 
 best of horses when excited will run away, rush into dan- 
 ger, trample its best friend, and play havoc with friend or 
 foe. 
 
 The doubtful intelligence of elephants can be under- 
 stood when they are driven into absurd corrals, which by 
 a concerted effort they could batter down. If we could 
 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 233 
 
 see or understand what was passing in the brain of an ele- 
 phant, we should doubtless appreciate that its range of 
 thought is very limited. The beaver imitates man appar- 
 ently in cutting down trees, and this, in all probability, is 
 one of the most remarkable examples of intelligence among 
 mammals, as in cutting down a tree the beaver seems to have 
 an object in view beyond the mere act, and to have thought 
 
 Fig. 205. — An Intelligent Horse. 
 
 out the act and its results ; that is, it cuts down a tree so 
 that the latter may fall and aid in raising the water in the 
 stream, to cover its house or nest, and afford it protection 
 from various enemies. How much instinct there is in this, 
 how much intelligence, it would be difficult to say ; but 
 beavers have been seen to work on a tree entirely from 
 the land side, not having intelHgence to see at once that by 
 felling the tree in that way it would be of no service to them. 
 
234 THE INTELLIGENCE OF xMAMMALS 
 
 It seems a marvelous act for a buffalo cow to recognize 
 its young in a large herd ; for a seal to pick out its young 
 among thousands ; or for a gull to find its young among 
 ten thousand, but this is instinct, the sense of smell aiding 
 the animals. The sea elephant that will select its young 
 from thousands of others will watch sailors knocking its 
 companions on the head and skinning them, with the great- 
 est indifference, not having the intelligence even to move, 
 or to realize that it is in danger. 
 
 In chasing the tree-girdling jack rabbits on horseback in 
 California I have noticed that in nine cases out of ten the 
 hare when hard pressed would turn up grade and easily 
 wear out my heavy horse. This possibly was reason to a 
 limited extent. A friend related the following, illustrat- 
 ing the intelligence of foxes in the Yellowstone Park. A 
 badger lived under my friend's house and on moonlight 
 nights he would come out and go to the garbage pile and 
 eat. Sometimes half a dozen foxes would also come, but 
 when the badger appeared they fell back. Then one of the 
 foxes would rush at the badger and annoy it in every pos- 
 sible way until the badger gave chase, whereupon the other 
 foxes would dash in and tear away some of the food, to be 
 driven off later by the badger. Another fox would now at- 
 tack the badger, and this clever game was kept up by the 
 foxes until all had dined. In this case the stupid badger 
 was seemingly a victim to the more intelligent foxes. 
 
 A similar instance was observed at the turkey ranch 
 on Santa Catalina Island. A brood of young turkeys was 
 followed by several ravens. One raven walked boldly up 
 and commenced to hop up and down, attracting the atten- 
 tion of the mother, and as she rushed at the raven another 
 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 235 
 
 raven dashed at the young birds from the opposite side 
 and carried one off. This trick was repeatedly played 
 until several of the young turkeys were taken. 
 
 These acts appear to be remarkable evidences of animal 
 intelligence, and seem to indicate that foxes and ravens 
 think along human lines. The results were accomplished 
 as described ; but whether it was designed and worked out 
 in the mind of fox and raven, is a question that can not be 
 answered. It may have been entirely accidental on the 
 part of the various animals. 
 
 Once in following a hare at runaway speed my horse 
 and hounds slowly gained. The country was a desert ; 
 there was hardly a thing in sight, but suddenly a small 
 bunch of weed appeared. The hare turned about it like a 
 flash of light and ran directly back beneath my horse's 
 feet. This, apparently, was a trick to throw off the dogs 
 and obtain a fresh start. On another occasion a hare, that 
 had led me a long chase, stopped and ran around a large 
 tree, the foliage of which touched the ground. The dogs 
 soon became dizzy, and I called them off, not allowing 
 them to follow an animal capable of playing what seemed 
 to be a clever and intelligent trick upon them. But did 
 the hare really try to make the dogs dizzy .' I think not. 
 
 Dr. Jordan describes the intelligence of a hare, and I 
 have heard of a similar instance. A hawk, or eagle, was 
 chasing a hare when the little animal ran at a barb wire 
 fence and crawled under from side to side as the bird 
 made dashes at it, so escaping. This suggests inteUigence 
 of a high order ; yet the jack rabbit, and the entire tribe, 
 are very stupid in many other ways. 
 
 Dogs are often credited with human intelligence. 
 
236 THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 My father, a physician, often rode to his patients on horse- 
 back, accompanied by a little dog. One day he dropped 
 his handkerchief on the road, and when he missed it he 
 turned to the dog and said, " JoUie, I have lost my hand- 
 kerchief, go and find it." The dog' ran back half a mile 
 and brought it. I had a little dog that was very sensitive, 
 and I am confident that he understood what I said to a 
 remarkable degree. To demonstrate this, I would say to 
 the dog, " Moultke is one of the best dogs I ever had ; a 
 true friend, a faithful companion." At this he would wag 
 his tail and display every evidence of delight. Then, with- 
 out changing my tone, I would say, " but he is getting old, 
 or lazy, and I think we must kill him," whereupon the tail 
 would drop and the little dog would steal away very much 
 dejected until recalled by my laughter. 
 
 How much this dog understood is a question, but that 
 he had a limited understanding of English words I have 
 no doubt. Another dog, " Mac," acquired the habit of 
 going to church with the family, crawling into the pew and 
 snoring audibly. When one Sunday came around I told a 
 negro servant to lock Mac up, so that he would not dis- 
 grace us. On the following Sunday Mac stationed him- 
 self in the road in front of the house, and for the first 
 time would not come when called. He apparently re- 
 membered his last Sunday and determined to avoid 
 the disagreeable experience. This dog was a cat fighter. 
 I saw him defeated one day, watched him trot out of the 
 front door, traced him some distance to a friend's, and 
 presently saw him returning with the friend's bull terrier. 
 Mac led the way to the yard, and the combined forces 
 attacked the savage cat with success. Seemingly, this 
 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 237 
 
 entailed a long line of thought, almost as much as that of 
 an officer who, defeated, sends, or goes, for reenforcements. 
 But what really passed through the dog's mind no one 
 can say. It may have been an accidental act, which leads 
 
 Fig. 206. —An Intelligent Dog. 
 
 me to say that very little is known, or can be known, re- 
 garding the question of animal intelligence, as it is mani- 
 festly impossible for man to place himself in a position to 
 see what is passing in the mind of an animal, and what we 
 see is easily misunderstood. Enticing volumes are written 
 on the subject, and the student should not readily accept 
 
238 THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 tales merely because they appear in print. Many honest 
 men and women lack good judgment, are emotional, see 
 things which do not really exist or occur, and are sadly 
 deficient in the power of explaining the acts of animals, 
 imparting to them many traits that would astonish the bear, 
 fox, and others could they read the EngUsh language. 
 
 I beheve that nearly all animals have intelligence which 
 develops in very much the same way and along the sarne 
 lines as it does in man, where it is supreme. I believe the 
 lower animals which have the same desires, the same ap- 
 petites and passions as man, possess the same quality of 
 intelligence, — an intelligence produced, evolved just as in 
 man, and differing from human intelligence only in degree. 
 The intelligence of man is more complete, more far reach- 
 ing, not so circumscribed. 
 
 To illustrate, a dog perceived its young master drowning. 
 It rushed into the water and dragged the boy upon the 
 beach and stood over him and watched him complacently 
 as he lay dying. A man who had observed the incident 
 ran to the spot and took up the intelligent act of the dog 
 where it ended, rolled the body, induced artificial respira- 
 tion, and saved the victim's life. Dog and man were both 
 intelligent and actuated by the same desire to save the boy ; 
 but the intelligence of the dog was limited to the one act 
 of dragging the boy ashore, while that of the man compre- 
 hended the entire situation and enabled him to save the 
 boy's Hfe. 
 
 I believe this simple explanation of animal intelligence 
 and its limitations will explain the entire question. Some 
 individual dogs, horses, birds, cows, monkeys, seals, appear 
 to be especially endowed with intelligence. They are the 
 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
 
 239 
 
 ^t^^fe^^^-^^E^'^ 
 
 Fig, 207. — A Dog saves a Little Boy. 
 
 "infant phenomena," the "musical prodigies," the "boy 
 orators," " Hghtning calculators," of the lower animals. 
 They are "sports," phenomenal individuals which have by 
 some means been endowed with a greater share of intelli- 
 gence than their brothers, sisters, or fellows. The human 
 hghtning calculators, the infant Greek or Latin scholars, 
 the " child musicians," are not normal ; they are abnormal, 
 freaks of nature, the remarkable gifts being often at the 
 expense of something else. 
 
XXX. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF 
 
 MAMMALS 
 
 How the Mammalia became distributed over the world, 
 and what were the causes of the migrations, constitute an 
 interesting phase in the study of this group. Many works 
 have been prepared in an effort to describe the original 
 "Eden," where mammals first appeared; but the student 
 may spare himself much waste of time in not following up 
 these theories, as nothing is known to-day, or doubtless ever 
 will be, as to the exact region in which the milk givers first 
 made a stand, as it may have been simultaneous in a sense 
 in many different localities. 
 
 An instance may be given suggesting the methods 
 by which the migrations of early man are traced. The 
 American Indians, or some of them, bear a strong re- 
 semblance, superficially or otherwise, to the North China 
 people, Mongolians. The Eskimos often show a star- 
 tling resemblance to Japanese, hence it may be inferred 
 that the Indians of our country are the descendants of 
 Asiatic tribes which have wandered east in the remote past. 
 How can this be proved .' As I have already mentioned, 
 at the mission of San Juan Capistrano, Southern California, 
 the Indians one hundred years ago entertained a singular 
 superstition that an eclipse was the attempt of a big dragon 
 to devour the moon, so, to frighten it off, they beat dried 
 hides with sticks, threw stones at it, and created noises of 
 various kinds. Now if a belief of this kind should be 
 
 240 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 241 
 
 found among the Chinese or Japanese, we might assume 
 that it had been handed down for ages. The Chinese have 
 an almost identical belief, and our late minister to China, 
 Mr. Edwin Conger, related to me the details of the attempt 
 to frighten the dragon at the approach of an eclipse. The 
 Chinese, who can calculate eclipses as well as can other 
 nations, went to their temples and performed many singular 
 rites which Mr. Conger personally observed, all of which, to- 
 gether with the creation of noises, was to drive the dragon 
 from the moon. When we also remember that the location 
 of Chinese junks which have been blown from the coast of 
 China during the past fifty or more years has been mapped, 
 and they have been found in nearly every degree of longi- 
 tude between China and the Pacific coast of North America, 
 we can readily see how one branch of the highest mammal, 
 man, reached America thousands of years ago from China, 
 and became the forefathers of some of the present Indians. 
 This cannot be given as an exact fact, but the student will 
 perceive that on the evidence it is a plausible theory and 
 very possible. 
 
 It is the prevailing impression among many scientific 
 men that man originated in Asia and migrated thence, but 
 absolutely nothing is positively known on the subject. 
 He may have appeared in many localities for ages and 
 from several different stocks, gradually migrating over the 
 globe, changing in appearance and language in long eras 
 of time. Since the birth of the first mammals the land 
 has doubtless changed very much. Some has risen from 
 the ocean ; vast regions have sunk beneath the sea, and 
 groups have been cut off, isolated, and destroyed, so that 
 to-day we contemplate some singular facts. 
 
 HOLDER, MAMMALS — 1 6 
 
242 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 
 
 As an illustration, America ages ago was the home of 
 the horse and its progenitors, the famous " toed " horses, 
 which have been so valuable in expounding and proving 
 the theory of evolution as understood to-day. In time they 
 became extinct and horses disappeared from America, 
 the first in modern times being brought by the Spaniards 
 
 Fig. 208. — a Shetland Pony. 
 
 when they made their discovery of America in the years 
 following 1492 and the landing of Columbus. From these 
 North and South America have been populated with horses. 
 Many have escaped, and wild horses are found on both con- 
 tinents and all over the world. In Africa and Asia wild 
 horses of various kinds have always been known, and from 
 this stock our present trotters, racers, Shetlands, shire 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 243 
 
 horses, and others have come, all being the result of care- 
 ful and intelligent selection and breeding. America, iso- 
 lated from Asia and Africa, has a fauna peculiarly its own. 
 Here the first white man found the American bison, a 
 splendid animal that constituted the food, shelter, and 
 raiment of many native tribes. Only a few years ago it 
 ranged from the Rocky Mountains to Washington and 
 doubtless to the Atlantic, and from the far North to Texas 
 and the Rio Grande ; but in a few years it has been wiped 
 out by the whites, a few specimens only being left to tell 
 the story. Here are found the mountain goat and the 
 mountain sheep, peculiar to this continent, doomed to 
 extinction; also the pronghorn, which once thronged the 
 Western plains in vast bands, with the elk, blacktail, 
 whitetail, and mule deer. These animals lived together 
 in early days and thousands could be seen covering the 
 land as far as the eye could see. 
 
 Certain bears, as the grizzly, black, brown, and several 
 species, are peculiar to North America, and many small 
 animals too numerous to enumerate. One of the most 
 interesting forms from its wide geographical distribution 
 is the mountain lion of California, that ranges from Cape 
 Horn to Canada and from California to Florida, appearing 
 under a variety of names in the several localities. 
 
 Australia is an interesting region, due to its extraordi- 
 nary mammals. Here is apparently the home of the lowest 
 forms of the Mammalia, the interesting echidna, and the 
 duck mole, which really lays eggs and has so many seem- 
 ing afifinities with reptiles. Australia appears to have 
 been long isolated from the rest of the world. Here are 
 found all the marsupials or pouched animals with one 
 
244 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 
 
 exception, the opossum, common in southeastern North 
 America. Here are kangaroos, ranging from giants five or 
 six feet in height down to very small animals, like the 
 wombat and others which are very clumsy on the ground 
 and present a strange contrast to the smaller kangaroos, 
 which can leap over a horse and cover extraordinary dis- 
 tances. 
 
 The existence of these strange animals here might well 
 suggest that they originated here and that the familiar 
 opossum with prehensile tail and pouch is merely a wan- 
 derer. In South America are found the peculiar sloths, 
 animals that appear to be degenerate forms, living in trees, 
 incapable of rapid motion, clinging to the under side of 
 trees or limbs, and subsisting upon leaves and buds. They 
 are confined to this region and Central America, and in the 
 rocks of the continent are found the remains of gigantic 
 slothlike animals which were the most ponderous and 
 gigantic of all the true land mammals of any time, and 
 at one period they lived in North America. To-day the 
 elephant is confined to Asia and Africa, two distinct 
 species being recognized: the Asiatic form with small ears, 
 so esteemed as an ally to man ; and the African form, with 
 large ears, valued principally for its ivory tusks. 
 
 These animals to-day have a restricted area, being con- 
 fined in a general way to equatorial Africa and to certain 
 parts of Asia, as India ; but not many thousand years ago 
 elephants had a very wide range and were found almost 
 everywhere, ranging from the hairy mammoths, equipped 
 for life along the Arctic, to the three- or four-tusked masto- 
 don of more temperate regions. There is reason to be- 
 lieve that great herds of these monsters roamed America 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 24S 
 
 and Europe in the early days. This is true of the rhinoce- 
 ros, now confined to Africa and similar regions. A hairy 
 rhinoceros once lived in Siberia and roamed the shores of 
 the Arctic Ocean, and many died on the New Siberian 
 Islands, which appear to have been a graveyard for mam- 
 moths. These animals had a wide distribution, but their 
 living representatives are found only in the restricted 
 regions of tropical India and Africa. 
 
 No more interesting phase of the study of the geo- 
 graphical distribution of animals can be seen than that 
 expressed by the comparison of mammals of South Amer- 
 ica and Africa. They are totally different in nearly, if not 
 quite, all respects. Africa appears to be the home of the 
 negro, the black variety of the human race. Here he has 
 lived and died for centuries and eons, and where he is 
 found in South America or the United States he has been 
 carried as a slave. 
 
 South America, about the equator, has very similar cli- 
 matic conditions, yet there are no negroes ; the races found 
 there are allied to the Indians of the so-called red race ; 
 and previous to the discovery of the continent by the 
 Spaniard, negroes were not known there. 
 
 Africa is the home of the antelope, many kinds being 
 found, from the splendid eland down, the dark continent 
 seemingly being a paradise for big game. Here are the 
 giraffe, the black and white rhinoceros, the water buffalo, 
 the hippopotamus, and other large mammals, the African 
 lion, and many smaller cats ; in fact, Africa, of all regions 
 of the habitable world, appears to have been a most 
 favored locality for large wild animals of many kinds, 
 most of them pecuUar to the country. South America 
 
246 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 
 
 presents a remarkable contrast to Africa in this respect. 
 It is comparatively barren, and has no large animals. The 
 jaguar represents the lion ; the guanaco and llama take the 
 place of the antelopes, while the only large mammal affect- 
 ing the waters of streams, after the fashion of the ox, is 
 the tapir, an animal preyed upon by the jaguar and moun- 
 tain lion, or puma. Indeed, compared to Africa, South 
 America is a vast, gameless region, and to preserve the 
 great game of Africa from extinction, a movement should 
 be undertaken to collect examples of all the African 
 mammals and transplant them to South America, that 
 they may be preserved for future generations. 
 
 The adaptation of animals to their surroundings is an 
 interesting study. The mammoth, the musk ox, became 
 gradually habituated to their environment. The reindeer 
 probably slowly became enabled to resist the intense cold 
 of regions most inhospitable. It is difficult to imagine a 
 human being living from choice on shores of the Arctic 
 Ocean, yet there are many Eskimos who live there who 
 prefer it, and do not mind the intense cold. Examples of 
 isolation are not uncommon among animals. The group 
 of huge manateelike creatures known as rhytinas is an 
 interesting example. They were found in Bering Sea a 
 century or more ago, few in number, the only animals of 
 their kind and soon exterminated, represented to-day by 
 their distant allies, the manatees and dugongs, also doomed 
 to extinction. The great sea elephants are found only on 
 Heard Island and other islands in the far South, a few 
 being known on the Pacific North American coast during 
 the past century, now in all probability extinct. 
 
 The distribution of the whales has been very extensive. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 247 
 
 They are found in almost all seas, wandering about over 
 vast areas ; but, as a rule, preferring cool or cold waters. 
 The North Pacific, due probably to its great food supply, 
 is a famous place for them. 
 
 How animals become distributed over the globe from 
 their unknown places of origin we know in a general way. 
 Large numbers, as the elk, elephant, buffalo, bison, an- 
 telope, porpoise, prairie dog, and others, live in herds, or 
 schools, and range over vast areas in search of food or to 
 avoid enemies. Others, as squirrels and rats, seem to be 
 seized at times with an irresistible and instinctive desire 
 to migrate, and they move on in vast herds, thousands 
 dying on the way, others being left behind to populate new 
 localities ; and in this way they have become distributed 
 over the continents and islands of the habitable world. 
 
XXXI. MAMMALS UNDERGROUND 
 
 The diversity of animal life, its adaptability to varied 
 conditions, is nowhere more interestingly shown than in 
 the milk givers that live underground. In America the 
 common mole is an example of what might be termed ab- 
 solute subterranean life. In all probability no reader of 
 these lines ever saw a mole leave its burrow and take to 
 the open air unless forced. So habituated to its life is the 
 mole that its eyesight has almost disappeared, being, doubt- 
 less, of no use. During its underground Ufe it has de- 
 veloped a remarkable sense of smell and touch, enabling it 
 to find worms and insects which are not exactly in its line 
 of progress. By continuous digging it has developed 
 enormous claws or pads by which it moves rapidly along 
 under the surface, tossing up the soil in great ridges and 
 only caught by quick work on the part of the gardener, 
 who often believes that the little insect eater is an enemy 
 to his plants. The mole has a wide distribution, and its 
 habits, its tunnels, its nests, are well known. 
 
 In Western America, particularly in California, between 
 the Sierras and the sea, the earth is often completely 
 mined with the tunnels of three mammals, — the gopher, 
 the ground squirrel, and the badger. When, in 1885, I first 
 visited the San Gabriel Valley, nine miles from the city of 
 Los Angeles, riding across the country was sometimes a 
 risk, due to the burrows of a large owl, and horsemen 
 sometimes came to grief. 
 
 248 
 
MAMMALS UNDERGROUND 
 
 249 
 
 The gopher is omnipresent here. It is very social, and 
 I have seen a plot of land in Los Angeles, next to a house, 
 perforated with the holes of these animals that rarely if 
 ever came out during the daytime, and even then ventured 
 but a few feet from the hole. They are about the size of 
 rats and there are several species from Florida to Califor- 
 nia. The California species has large pouches which it 
 will fill with food when it comes out of its hole and thinks 
 it is unobserved ; but it rarely ventures far from the nest and 
 invariably runs back tail first, or backward, when not far 
 from the den. It can be recognized in any region by the 
 mounds it throws up, and for a long period it seems to lie 
 more or less dormant or inactive. Its holes run in every 
 direction and are used by a family, the animal displaying 
 remarkable skill in coming up beneath the roots of plants. 
 I have seen my favorite carnations waving wildly, as though 
 an earthquake was shaking them, then the stalk and flower 
 would disappear, being hauled down into the burrow and 
 eaten. In this way a few gophers will in a short time 
 devastate a garden or destroy the symmetry of a lawn, or 
 eat the roots of a large palm or other tree. 
 
 Few animals are more clever than the gopher. A lot 
 adjoining my home has been vacant many years and is 
 filled with their dens. When the weeds die down here in 
 spring the gophers cast longing eyes at my garden and 
 promptly burrow under the fence, coming forty or fifty 
 feet, some digging from across a street to prey upon the 
 flowers. If the gopher threw up a mound here I could 
 quickly recognize its presence and destroy it ; but in eight 
 years' experience I have seldom known a gopher to throw 
 up a mound in my garden, though there may be scores, Hke 
 
250 MAMMALS UNDERGROUND 
 
 the craters on the moon, in the vacant lot over the fence. 
 The gopher must have some air, so it comes to the surface, 
 gnawing away the earth until it is very thin, then breaks 
 it in so that there is a hole, perhaps not larger than a ten- 
 cent piece ; through this it breathes and watches me. 
 
 Rarely in cities, but in the close proximity to towns, is 
 another earth dweller, the ground squirrel. It makes 
 deep burrows and throws up conspicuous piles and heaps 
 of earth, and spends a large part of its time underground, 
 feeding in the grain fields, and very rarely climbing trees, 
 and then only small ones. This squirrel is large, and on 
 a place I once rented at a California seaside resort it was 
 necessary to sit out in front of the house to drive them 
 from the lawn, or they would devour it. I have seen a 
 score on the grass at a time, the band scurrying off as I 
 came out. These animals are prolific, have few enemies 
 except owls, hawks, and coyotes, and none near towns, as 
 there is a prejudice, wholly unfounded, against them as food. 
 
 Even more interesting is the tree rat of California, one 
 of many found over the United States. It builds compli- 
 cated nests in trees or against them, and from this tunnels 
 lead away into the ground, where the wood rat passes part 
 of the time, a much greater part than is generally sup- 
 posed. 
 
 The various armadillos are remarkable diggers, often 
 burrowing so rapidly with their powerful claws that it is 
 almost impossible to hold them. The weasels burrow and 
 live in deep holes in California. The little California 
 jerboa is a digger ; and a long list of animals could be 
 given that affect or love the darkness and spend more or 
 less time beneath the ground. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aard-vark, 53, 54- 
 Ambergris, 32. 
 Ant-eater, 48, 50. 
 Antelope, 112, 116, 147. 
 Apalachi, 212. 
 Apes, 187, 190. 
 Armadillo, 46, 51, 52. 
 Ass, 10. 
 Atakapas, 213. 
 Avalon, 181. 
 Aye-aye, 185. 
 Ayrshire, 153. 
 
 Babirusa, 13, 109. 
 Badger, 123. 
 Bad Lands, 21. 
 Bandicoot, 95, 
 Bat, 76, 78, 79. 
 Bears, 20, 166. 
 Beaver, 89. 
 
 dam, 89, 
 
 energy of, 89. 
 
 habits of, 89. 
 
 home of, 89. 
 Belgian hare, 84. 
 Bighorn, 144. 
 Bison, 34, III, 112, 154. 
 Blackfeef, 213. 
 Black men, 208. 
 Black squirrel, 87. 
 Bones, 34. 
 Brontops, 21. 
 
 Cabrillo, 203. 
 Cachelot, 66. 
 California islands, 203. 
 
 inhabitants of, 203. 
 Camel, 158, 159. 
 Caracal, 165. 
 Cat, 164. 
 Cats, 34. 
 Cattle, 9. 
 
 Cave dwellers, 205. 
 Cayugas, 212. 
 Cetaceans, 71. 
 Chalicotherium, 26. 
 Chenooks, 215. 
 Chickasaw, 212. 
 Chimpanzee, 192. 
 
 tame, 193. 
 Chinchilla, 92. 
 Chyme, 14. 
 Comanches, 214. 
 Copehs, 215, 
 Corpuscles, 15. 
 Creeks, 212. 
 
 Dakotas, 203, 
 Deer, 133. 
 
 horns, 133. 
 Deer mouse, 96. 
 De Soto, 212. 
 Dinocerata, 18. 
 Dinotherium, 25. 
 Diprotodon, 45. 
 Du Chaillu, 118. 
 Duck, nest of, 28- 
 Duckmole, 28, 120. 
 Dugong, S9. 
 Durham, 153, 
 
 Echidna, 27. 
 Edentates, 46. 
 Eggs of mammals, 27. 
 Elephant, 13. 
 
 ancestry of, 121, 122. 
 
 dwarf, 132. 
 
 giants, 123. 
 
 hairy, 124. 
 
 herds, 131. 
 
 ivory of, 128, 130. 
 
 on islands, 123. 
 
 proboscis of, 127. 
 
 pygmy, 123. 
 
 251 
 
 Elephant, range of, i^. 
 
 teeth of, 123. 
 
 trunk of, 127. 
 
 tusks of, 122. 
 
 value of, 131. 
 
 white, 132. 
 Elk, 112. 
 Eskimo, 210. 
 
 Extinction of animals, 113, 
 114. "7- 
 
 Fisher, 174. 
 Flatheads, 215. 
 Flying squirrel, 43. 
 Fox, 33, 85. 
 Fur, 177. 
 
 Ganges, 71. 
 
 whales in, 71. 
 Gastric juice, 14. 
 Gaur, 136. 
 Gazelle, 150. 
 Gemsbok, 149. 
 Giraffe, 151, 152. 
 Gnawers, 81. 
 
 teeth of, 81. 
 Gnu, 151. 
 Goat, 142. 
 Gopher, 93. 
 Gorilla, 118, 119, 191. 
 
 extinction of, 118. 
 Grizzly bear, 113, 168. 
 Guanaco, 159. 
 Guinea pig, 88. 
 
 Hamran Arabs, 117. 
 Harbor seal, 177. 
 Hare, 81. 
 Harp seal, 176. 
 Heart, 15. 
 Hedgehog, 75. 
 Hellodotherium, 26. 
 
252 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hibernation, i68. 
 Hipparion, 25. 
 Hippopotamus, 106. 
 Hog. 13. 
 
 Hoofed animals, loi. 
 Hoofs, 100. 
 Horse, g, 36. 
 Horses, loi, 104, 105. 
 Hupas, 215. 
 Hyena, 170. 
 
 Ibex, 144. 
 
 Indians, 209, 211, 217. 
 
 rights of, 217, 
 Inia, 71. 
 
 Insect eaters, 72, 
 Insectivora, 72. 
 Irish elk, 24. 
 Iroquois, 212. 
 Ivory, value of, 37. 
 
 Jackal, 170, 
 Jack rabbit, 83. 
 habits of, 83. 
 Jaguar, 164. 
 
 Kalong, 79, 
 Kanchil, 140. 
 Kangaroo, 39, 120. 
 Keres, 216. 
 Kiowas, 214. 
 Koala, 43. 
 Kudu, 149. 
 Kulanapans, 215. 
 
 Laplander, 138. 
 Leapers, 40. 
 Lemming, 98. 
 Leopard, 163. 
 Lion, 26, 34, 160, 161, 
 Llama, 159. 
 Lungs, 17. 
 Lynx, 165. 
 
 Malayan hog, 13. 
 Mammals, 220, 221. 
 
 blind, 222. 
 
 fishlike, 224. 
 
 flying, 221. 
 
 games of, 226, 229. 
 
 geographical distribu- 
 tion of, 240, 247. 
 
 Mammals, intelligence of, 
 230, 237. 
 
 leaping, 220. 
 
 subterranean, 248, 250. 
 
 tree, 223. 
 
 underground, 222. 
 
 water, 220. 
 Mammary glands, 9. 
 Mammoths, 123. 
 
 tusks of, 124. 
 Manatee, 58. 
 Man, early, 195, 196. 
 
 civilization of, 202 
 
 cliff houses of, 201. 
 
 drawings of, 198. 
 
 flints of, 199. 
 
 fossil, 197. 
 
 legends of, 199. 
 Mandrill, 190. 
 Maned sheep, 142. 
 Margay, 165. 
 Mariposas, 215. 
 Marmoset, 187. 
 Marsh, Prof., 20. 
 Marsupial, 39. 
 Marten, 175. 
 Mastodon, 25, 
 Megalonyx, 47. 
 Megatherium, 22, 23. 
 Mink, 33, 174. 
 Miocene, 21, 
 Mission Indians, 217. 
 Mojaves, 215. 
 Mole, 24, 72, 74. 
 
 value of, 74. 
 Monkeys, 185. 
 Moose, 139. 
 Moquis, 215. 
 Mountain goat, 143. 
 Mountain lion, 165. 
 Musk, 145. 
 Musk ox, 144. 
 Muskrat, 95. 
 Mylodon, 23. 
 Myoptamus, 88. 
 
 Narwhal, 68. 
 Navajos, 213. 
 Nez-perc6s, 215. 
 
 Ocelot, 165. 
 Okapi, 151. 
 
 Omahas, 214. 
 Oneidas, 212. 
 Onondagas, 212. 
 Opossum, 44. 
 Orca, 69. 
 Orizaba, Mt., 205. 
 Osages, 214. 
 Ox, II, 12. 
 
 Pancreatic, 14, 
 Pangolin, 52. 
 Panther, 26. 
 Pawnees, 214. 
 Peba, 52. 
 Peccary, no, 
 Phalanger, 43. 
 Pichiclago, 52, 
 Pig, 109. 
 Polar bear, 166. 
 Poncas, 214. 
 Pooyoonas, 215. 
 Porcupine, 91. 
 
 fictions of, 91. 
 Porpoise, 71. 
 Pouch, 30, 39, 
 Prairie dog, 93. 
 Pronghorn, 147, 148. 
 Pueblos, 214. 
 Puma, 51, 164. 
 Pygmy, 25. 
 Pygmy deer, 140. 
 
 Rabbit, 81. 
 Rabbit craze, 84. 
 Raccoon, 169. 
 Rats, 94. 
 Red fox, 170. 
 Reindeer, 138. 
 Rhinoceros, 24, loi. 
 Rhytina, 55, 114. 
 Roping, 35. 
 
 Sable, 33. 
 Salinas, 215. 
 Santa Catalina, 205. 
 
 camp sites of, 205. 
 
 caves of, 205. 
 
 foxes of, 169. 
 
 goats of, 142. 
 
 sea elephants at, 179. 
 
 sea lions at, 176, 179. 
 
INDEX 
 
 253 
 
 Santa Catalina, whales at, 
 
 fig- 
 Santa Rosa, 123, 
 Sea elephant, 114. 
 Seal, 32. 
 Sea lion, 32. 
 Sea otter, 172. 
 Setiecas, 212. 
 Seris, 215. 
 Set, 151. 
 Sheep, 9, 142. 
 Shoshones, 214. 
 Sierra Madre, 85. 
 Sivatheriura , 24. 
 Skeleton, 186. 
 Skull, 194. 
 Skunk, 34, 173. 
 value of, 34. 
 Sloth, 22, 23, 47, 48. 
 Specter, 187. 
 Spermaceti, 66. 
 Squirrels, 85, 86. 
 Stellar, 55. 
 Stone age, 204. 
 
 Susa, 71. 
 
 Syrian hyrax, loi. 
 
 Tails, II. 
 Tapir, 103. 
 Tascaroras, 212. 
 Tasmanian, 28. 
 Tertiary time, 18. 
 Tiger, 117, 162. 
 Tinoceros, i8, 
 Tlinkits, 215. 
 Tusks, 33. 
 Tyn-schu, 124. 
 
 Vischana, 92. 
 
 Wakashes, 215. 
 Walrus, 33, 178. 
 Wapiti, 134. 
 Whalebone, 62. 
 Whales, 31, 60, 219. 
 
 breathing of, 61. 
 
 ear of, 66. 
 
 eye of, 66. 
 
 food of, 62. 
 
 Whales, in fresh water, 71. 
 
 killed by sharks, 63. 
 
 limbs of, 61. 
 
 milk of, 60. 
 
 out of water, 67. 
 
 pygmy, 68. 
 
 size of, 66. 
 
 spouting of, 61. 
 
 teeth of, 65. 
 
 value of, 31, 65. 
 
 white, 67. 
 
 young, 67. 
 Wichitas, 214. 
 Wild ass, 106. 
 Wild hog, 109. 
 Wolf, 170. 
 Wolverine, 174. 
 
 Yak, 155. 
 Yamasis, 213. 
 Yapoch, 45. 
 Yokuts, 215. 
 
 Zebu, 156. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY READING 
 
 ^ This grading, which is simply suggestive, represents the 
 earliest years in which these books can be read to advantage. 
 
 GEOGRAPHY 
 
 YEAR 
 
 5 Carpenter's Geographical Reader — North America $0.60 
 
 5 Geographical Reader — South America . . .60 
 
 6 Geographical Reader — Europe . . .70 
 
 6 Geographical Reader — Asia 60 
 
 6 Geographical Reader — Australia, Our Colonies, and 
 
 Other Islands of the Sea , .60 
 
 6 Geographical Reader — Africa 60 
 
 1 Dutton's Fishing and Hunting (World at Work Series) . .30 
 
 2 In Field and Pasture (World at Work Series) . .35 
 
 5 Guyot Geographical Reader (Pratt) .60 
 
 4 K.rout*s Alice's Visit to the Hawaiian Islands . . .4^ 
 
 4 Two Girls in China . .45 
 
 3 Long's Home Geography ... .25 
 
 4 MacCIintock's The Philippines ... 40 
 
 3 Payne's Geographical Nature Studies . . ... .25 
 
 2 Schwartz's Five Little Strangers 40 
 
 2 Shaw's Big People and Little People of Other Lands .30 
 
 NATURE STUDY 
 
 3 Abbott's A Boy on a Farm (Johnson) .45 
 
 3 Bartlett's Animals at Home 45 
 
 I Beebe and Kingsley's First Year Nature Reader 35 
 
 3 Bradish's Stories of Country Life .40 
 
 4 Dana's Plants and Their Children . . . ,65 
 
 5 Holder's Half Hours with the Lower Animals . . .60 
 
 5 Half Hours with Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds 60 
 
 4 Stories of Animal Life . , .60 
 
 3 Kelly's Short Stories of Our Shy Neighbors .50 
 
 3 Monteith's Some Useful Animals .50 
 
 3 Familiar Animals and Their Wild Kindred . . ,50 
 
 4 Living Creatures of Water, Land, and Air . .50 
 
 6 Popular Science Reader .75 
 
 5 Needham*s Outdoor Studies . .40 
 
 3 Pyle's Stories of Humble Friends 50 
 
 3 Stokes's Ten Common Trees ... .40 
 
 5 Walker's Our Birds and Their Nestlings ,60 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 (21) 
 
N ATU RE STUDY 
 
 NATURE STUDY WITH COMMON 
 
 THINGS , II0.60 
 
 By M. H. CARTER, Department of Elementary Science, 
 New York Training School for Teachers 
 
 THIS laboratory guide for pupils in the fourth, fifth, or 
 sixth years, takes up the blackberry, plum, pear, grape, 
 radish, potato, apple, apple blossom, lemon, orange, 
 onion, beet, carrot, pea, cranberry, strawberry, and cherry. 
 Full directions and suggestive questions are given in connection 
 with the work. The specimens were chosen largely with 
 economy in view, and the entire book calls for the simplest 
 apparatus, the cheapest material. It asks only for school desks, 
 paper to cover them, knives and pins, pencils and paper. 
 
 WILD FLOWERS WHICH BLOSSOM IN 
 APRIL AND MAY 
 
 Prepared by ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK, B.S., 
 Lecturer on Nature Study in Cornell University. Per 
 copy, 2 5 cents. Per package of five pupils* books, includ- 
 ing one teacher's book, $1.25 
 
 THIS book includes the study of the Hepatica, Spring 
 Beauty, Adder's Tongue, Dutchman's Breeches, Squir- 
 rel Corn, Jack-in-the- Pulpit, and the Trilliums, and is 
 prepared on a somewhat novel plan, combining note-taking, 
 composition work, and drawing, for the third, fourth, and 
 fifth grades. For each flower there is a story which is in- 
 tended as a reading lesson, followed by two pages of questions 
 covering the complete physical description of the plant and 
 its habits; after each question there is a blank space for the 
 child's written answer. Two blank pages are left for a 
 summary in writing, and two for drawing. 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
N ATUR E STUDY 
 
 I0.40 
 
 By FRANK OVERTON, A.M.. M.D., assisted by 
 MARY E. HILL, Instructor in Science and Nature 
 Study in tlie Goodyear Burlingame School, Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 THIS book is designed to furnish a year's worlc in nature 
 study for pupils from eight to eleven years of age. The 
 subjects taken up are connected with everyday life, and 
 include the house fly, mosquito, butterfly, moths, mush- 
 rooms, dandelion, spider webs, golden-rod, golden-rod gall, 
 burdock, nest of a paper wasp, nest of a mud wasp, bird's 
 nest, tree trunk, cocoons, ice, snowflake, frost, pine tree, 
 pine leaves, pine cone, apple branch, apple fruit spur, earth- 
 worm, onion, maple seed, sprouting bean, maple bud, tad- 
 pole, water strider, duckweed, apple blossom, oak apple, and 
 clothes moth. These are arranged in the order of the 
 seasons, beginning with fall, but suggestions are given for 
 studying many of the specimens throughout their entire life 
 histories. 
 
 ^ The lessons throw light on unfamiliar sides of familiar 
 things, and afford a basis for future scientific studies, especially 
 along biological lines. They are correlated with drawing 
 and language in such a way that sketching and composition 
 writing may lead to closer observation of the specimens, and 
 that nature study may afford interesting and inspiring subjects 
 for expression with pencil and pen. 
 
 ^ The use of the laboratory method throughout the book 
 arouses the enthusiasm of the pupil, because it gives him 
 something to do in which he is naturally interested. His 
 power and love of observation are developed, and the out- 
 door world takes on an added charm. The work is so 
 clearly outlined that the greatest success can be attained even 
 by teachers who have had no previous knowledge of the sub- 
 ject, provided only that they are learners with their pupils. 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 (149) 
 
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