American Big Game in Its Haunts - Various
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Major Pitcher issued the order as requested.
[Illustration: CHAMBERMAID AND BEAR.]
At times the bears get so bold that they take to making inroads on the
kitchen. One completely terrorized a Chinese cook. It would drive him
off and then feast upon whatever was left behind. When a bear begins to
act in this way or to show surliness it is sometimes necessary to shoot
it. Other bears are tamed until they will feed out of the hand, and
will come at once if called. Not only have some of the soldiers and
scouts tamed bears in this fashion, but occasionally a chambermaid or
waiter girl at one of the hotels has thus developed a bear as a pet.
The accompanying photographs not only show bears very close up, with men
standing by within a few yards of them, but they also show one bear
being fed from the piazza by a cook, and another standing beside a
particular friend, a chambermaid in one of the hotels. In these
photographs it will be seen that some are grizzlies and some black
bears.
This whole episode of bear life in the Yellowstone is so extraordinary
that it will be well worth while for any man who has the right powers
and enough time, to make a complete study of the life and history of the
Yellowstone bears. Indeed, nothing better could be done by some one of
our outdoor fauna naturalists than to spend at least a year in the
Yellowstone, and to study the life habits of all the wild creatures
therein. A man able to do this, and to write down accurately and
interestingly what he had seen, would make a contribution of permanent
value to our nature literature.
In May, after leaving the Yellowstone, I visited the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, and spent three days camping in the Yosemite Park with John
Muir. It is hard to make comparisons among different kinds of scenery,
all of them very grand and very beautiful; yet personally to me the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado, strange and desolate, terrible and awful in
its sublimity, stands alone and unequaled. I very earnestly wish that
Congress would make it a national park, and I am sure that such course
would meet the approbation of the people of Arizona. As to the Yosemite
Valley, if the people of California desire it, as many of them certainly
do, it also should be taken by the National Government to be kept as a
national park, just as the surrounding country, including some of the
groves of giant trees, is now kept.
[Illustration: COOK AND BEAR.]
John Muir and I, with two packers and three pack mules, spent a
delightful three days in the Yosemite. The first night was clear, and we
lay in the open on beds of soft fir boughs among the giant sequoias. It
was like lying in a great and solemn cathedral, far vaster and more
beautiful than any built by hand of man. Just at nightfall I heard,
among other birds, thrushes which I think were Rocky Mountain
hermits--the appropriate choir for such a place of worship. Next day we
went by trail through the woods, seeing some deer--which were not
wild--as well as mountain quail and blue grouse. In the afternoon we
struck snow, and had considerable difficulty in breaking our own
trails. A snow storm came on toward evening, but we kept warm and
comfortable in a grove of the splendid silver firs--rightly named
magnificent, near the brink of the wonderful Yosemite Valley. Next day
we clambered down into it and at nightfall camped in its bottom, facing
the giant cliffs over which the waterfalls thundered.
Surely our people do not understand even yet the rich heritage that is
theirs. There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the
Yosemite, its groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the
Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the three Tetons; and the
representatives of the people should see to it that they are preserved
for the people forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.
_Theodore Roosevelt_.
The Zoology of North American Big Game
Among the many questions asked of the naturalist by an inquiring public,
few come up more persistently than "What is the difference between a
bison and a buffalo; and which is the American animal?"
The interest which so many people find in questions such as this must
serve as a justification for the present paper, which proposes no more
than to put into concise form what is known of the zoological relations
of the animals which come within the special interest of the Boone and
Crockett Club. In doing this, conclusions must, as a rule, be stated
with few of the facts upon which they rest, for to give more than the
plainest of these would be to far outrun the possible limits of space,
and would furthermore lead into technical details which to most readers
are obscure and wearisome.
[Illustration: BULL BISON.]
Anyone who consults Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary will be illuminated
by the definition of camelopard: "An Abyssinian animal taller than an
elephant, but not so thick," and even but a few years back all that was
considered necessary to answer the question, "what is a bison?" was to
state that it is a wild ox with a shaggy mane and a hump on its
shoulders, and the thing was done; but in our own time a satisfactory
answer must take account of its relationship to other beasts, for we
have come to believe that the differences between animals are simply the
blank spaces upon the chart of universal life, against which are traced
the resemblances, which, as we follow them back into remote periods of
geologic time, reveal to us definite lines of succession with structural
change, and these, correctly interpreted, are nothing less than actual
lines of blood relationship. To know what an animal is, therefore, we
must know something of its family tree.
It is perhaps well to emphasize the need of correct interpretation, for
there are no bridges on the paths of palaeontology, and as we go back,
more than one great gap occurs between series of strata, marking periods
of intervening time which there is no means of measuring, but during
which we know that the progress of change in the animals then living
never ceased. When such a break is reached, the course of phylogeny is
like picking up an interrupted trail, with the additional complication
that the one we find is never quite like the one we left, and it is in
such conditions that the systematist must apply his knowledge of the
general progressive tendencies through the ages of change, to the
determination of the particular changes he should expect to find in the
special case before him, and so be enabled to recognize the footprints
he is in search of. The genius to do this has been given to few, but in
their hands the results have often been brilliant.
Back in the very earliest Tertiary deposits, and in all certainty even
earlier, a group of comparatively small mammals was extensively spread
through America, and apparently less widely in Europe, characterized by
a primitive form of foot structure, each of which had five complete
digits, the whole sole being placed upon the ground, as in the animals
we call plantigrade. The grinding surfaces of their molar teeth were
also primitive, bearing none of the complicated, curved crests and
ridges possessed by present ruminants, but instead they had conical
cusps, usually not more than three to a tooth; this tritubercular style
of molar crown being about the earliest known in true mammals.
In the opinion of many palaeontologists, the ancestors of the present
hoofed beasts, or ungulates, were contained among these
_Condylarthra_, as they were named by Prof. Cope.
Of course, these early mammals are known to us only by their fossil and
mostly fragmentary skeletons, but it may be said that at least in the
ungulate line, the successive geological periods show steady structural
progression in certain directions. Of great importance are a decrease in
the number of functional digits; a gradual elevation of the heel, so
that their modern descendants walk on the tips of their toes, instead of
on the whole sole; a constant tendency to the development of deeply
grooved and interlocked joints in place of shallow bearing surfaces; and
to a complex pattern of the molar crowns instead of the simple type
mentioned. To this may be added as the most important factor of all in
survival, that these changes have progressed together with an increase
in the size of the brain and in the convolutions of its outer layer.
The _Condylarthra_ seem to have gone out of existence before the
time of the middle Eocene, but before this they had become separated
into the two great divisions of odd-toed and even-toed ungulates, into
which all truly hoofed beasts now living fall.
The first group (_Perissodactyla_) has always one or three toes
functionally developed, either the third, or third, second and fourth,
the two others having entirely disappeared, except for a remnant of the
fifth in the forefoot of tapirs. They have retained some at least of the
upper incisor teeth, and, except in some rhinoceroses, the canines are
also left; the molars and premolars are practically alike in all recent
species, and in all of which we know the soft parts, the stomach has but
one compartment, and there is an enormous caecum. It is probable that
they took rise earlier than their split-footed relations, and their
Tertiary remains are far more numerous, but their tendency is toward
disappearance, and among existing mammals they are represented only by
horses, asses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs.
Contrasted with these, _Artiodactyla_ have always an even number of
functional digits, the third and fourth reaching the ground
symmetrically, bearing the weight and forming the "split hoof;" the
second and fifth remain, in most cases, as mere vestiges, showing
externally as the accessory hoofs or dewclaws; in the hippopotamus alone
they are fully developed and the animal has a four-toed foot. In deer
and bovine animals the incisors and frequently the canines have
disappeared from the upper jaw, and the molars are unlike the premolars
in having two lobes instead of one. The stomach is always more or less
complex; at its extreme reaching the ruminant type with four
compartments, in association with which is a caecum reduced in size and
simple in form. Nearly all have horns or antlers, at least in one sex.
Most split-hoofed animals are ruminants, but there is a small remnant,
probably of early types, which are not. The present ungulates may be
summed up in this way:
Odd-toed: _(Perissodactyla)_--
Horse,
Ass,
Rhinoceros,
Tapir.
Even-toed: _(Artiodactyla)_--
Non-ruminants--
Hippopotamus,
Swine,
Peccaries.
Ruminants--
Camels, Llamas,
Chevrotains,
Giraffe,
Antelopes,
Sheep, Goats,
Musk-ox,
Oxen,
Deer.
The non-ruminant artiodactyls need not detain us long. Hippopotamuses
are little more than large pigs with four toes; they were never
American, though many species, some very small, are found in the
European Tertiary. The two existing species are African.
In the western hemisphere swine are represented by the peccaries,
differing from them chiefly in having six less teeth, one less accessory
toe on the hind foot, and in a stomach of more complex character.
Peccaries also have the metapodial bones supporting the two functional
digits fused together at their upper ends, forming an imperfect "cannon
bone," which is a characteristic of practically all the ruminants, but
of no other hoofed beasts. One species only enters the United States
along the Mexican border.
All non-ruminant ungulates have from four to six incisors in the upper
jaw; the canines are present, and sometimes, as in the wart hogs, reach
an extraordinary size.
Coming now to the ruminants, all digits except the third and fourth have
disappeared from camels and llamas, and the nails on these are limited
to their upper surface without forming a hoof, the under side being a
broad pad, upon which they tread. No camel-like beasts have inhabited
North America since the Pliocene age. Chevrotains, or muis deer
(_Tragulidae_), are not deer in any true sense, as they have but
three compartments to the stomach; antlers are absent and in their place
large and protruding canine teeth are developed in the upper jaw, and
the lateral metacarpal bones are complete throughout their length,
instead of being represented by a mere remnant. They are the smallest of
ungulates, and inhabit only portions of the Indo-Malayan region. Camels
also have upper canines, and the outer, upper incisors as well.
The giraffe is separated from all living ungulates by the primitive
character of its so-called "horns," which are not horns in the usual
sense, but simply bony prominences of the skull covered with hair. Some
of the earliest deer-like animals seem to have had simple or slightly
branched antlers which were not shed, and which there is reason to
believe were also hairy, and in these, as well as in other characters,
giraffes and the early deer may not have been far apart. The "okapi,"
Sir Harry Johnston's late discovery in the Uganda forests, seems to have
come from the same ancestral stock, but the giraffe has no other
existing relatives.
The true deer, to which we shall return, are readily enough
distinguished from the ox tribe and its allies by their solid and more
or less branched antlers, usually confined to males, and periodically
shed.
So, through this rapid survey, we have dropped out of the hoofed beasts
all but the bovines and their near allies, and are thus far advanced
toward our definition of a bison, but from this point we shall not find
it easy to draw sharp distinctions, for while the _Bovidae_, as a
whole, are well enough distinguished from all other animals, their
characteristics are so much mixed among themselves that it is hardly
possible to find any one or more striking features peculiar to one
group, and for most of them recourse must be had to associations of a
number of lesser characters.
Oxen, antelopes, sheep and goats agree in having hollow horns of
material similar to that of which hair and nails are formed, permanently
fixed upon the skull in all but one species; none of them have more than
the two middle digits functionally developed, one on each side of the
axis of the leg; none have the lower ends remaining of the meta-podial
bones belonging to the two accessory digits; and none have either
incisor or canine teeth in the upper jaw.
From animals so constructed we may first take out goats and sheep, in
which the female horns are much smaller than those of males, and in some
species are even absent. In nearly all of them the horns are noticeably
compressed in section, either triangular or sub-triangular near the
base, and are directed sometimes outwardly from the head with a circular
sweep; at others with a backward curve, often spirally. The muzzle is
always hairy; there is no small accessory column on the inner side of
the upper molars, found always in oxen and in some antelopes; the tail
is short, and scent glands are present between the digits of some or all
the feet.
Now, as to the perplexing animals popularly known as antelopes. No
definition could be framed which would include them all in one group,
for every subordinate character seems to be present in some and absent
in others, so that the most that can be done with this vast assemblage
is to arrange its contents in series of genera, which may or may not be
called sub-families, but which probably correspond in some degree to
their real affinities. We can only say of any one of them that it is an
antelope because it is not a sheep, nor a goat, nor an ox. They concern
us here only to be eliminated, for they are not American, our prong-buck
having a sub-family all to itself, as we shall see later, and the
so-called "white goat" being usually regarded as neither goat nor truly
antelope.
Within the limits of the real bovine animals, four quite distinct types
may be made out, chiefly by the position of the horns upon the skull and
by the shape of the horns themselves. There are also differences in the
relations of the nasal and premaxillary bones, the development of the
neural spines of the vertebrae, and the hairy covering of the body.
In the genus _Bos_ the horns are placed high up on the vertex of
the skull, which forms a marked transverse ridge from which the hinder
portion falls sharply away. The horns are nearly circular in section and
almost smooth; usually they curve outward, then upward and often inward
at the tip; the premaxillaries are long and generally reach to the
nasals, and the anterior dorsal vertebrae are without sharply elongated
spines, so that the line of the back is nearly straight. These, the true
oxen, as they are sometimes termed, now exist only in domesticated
breeds of cattle.
In the gaur oxen (_Bibos_) the horns are situated as in _Bos_,
high up on the vertex, but are more elliptical in section; the
premaxillaries are short; the dorsal vertebrae, from the third to the
eleventh, bear elongated spines which produce a hump reaching nearly to
the middle of the back; the tail is shorter, and the hair is short all
over the body. The three species--gaur, gayal and banteng--inhabit
Indo-Malayan countries, and all of them are dark brown with white
stockings.
The buffaloes (_Bubalus_) are large and clumsy animals with horns
more or less compressed or flattened at their bases, set low down on the
vertex, which does not show the high transverse ridge of true oxen and
gaurs. In old bulls of the African species the horns meet at their base
and completely cover the forehead. In the arni of India they are
enormously long. The dorsal spines are not much elongated, and there is
no distinct hump; the premaxillae are long enough to reach the
nasals. Hair is scanty all over the body, and old animals are almost
wholly bare. The small and interesting anoa of Celebes, and the tamarao
of Mindoro, are nearly related in all important respects to the Indian
buffalo, and the carabao, used for draught and burden in the
Philippines, belongs to a long domesticated race of the same animal.
Finally, in the genus _Bison_ the horns are below the vertex as in
buffaloes, but are set far apart at the base, which is cylindrical; they
are short and their curve is forward, upward and inward; the anterior
dorsal and the last cervical vertebrae have long spines which bear a
distinct hump on the shoulders; the premaxillae are short and never
reach the nasals; there are fourteen, or occasionally fifteen, pairs of
ribs, all other oxen having but thirteen, and there is a heavy mane
about the neck and shoulders. The yak of central Asia is very bison-like
in some respects, but in others departs in the direction of oxen.
So at last, group by group, we have gone through the ungulates, and the
bisons alone are left, and as the American animal has short, incurved
horns, set low down on the skull and far apart at the base;
premaxillaries falling short of the nasals; the last cervical and the
anterior dorsal vertebrae with spines; fourteen pairs of ribs, and a
mane covering the shoulders, we conclude that it is a bison, and as the
same characteristics with minor variations are shown by the European
species, often, but wrongly, called "aurochs," we say that these two
alone of existing _Bovidae_ are bisons, with the yak as a somewhat
questionable relative.
In all essential respects the two bisons are very similar, but minute
comparison shows that the European species, _Bison bonasus_, has a
wider and flatter forehead, bearing longer and more slender horns, and
all the other distinctive features are less pronounced. In the American
species, _Bison bison_, the pelvis is less elevated, producing the
characteristic slope of the hindquarters. It is a coincidence that the
two regions originally inhabited by the bisons are those in which the
white races of men have to the greatest extent thrown their restless
energies into the struggle for existence, with the result that
extinction to nearly the same degree has overtaken these two near
cousins among oxen. A few wild members of the European species still
exist in the Caucasus, as a few of the American are left in British
America, but elsewhere both exist only under protection.
The carefully kept statistics of the Bielowitza herd in Grodno, western
Russia, which includes nearly all but the few wild ones, shows that
between 1833 and 1857 they increased in number from 768 to 1,898, but
from this maximum the decrease has been constant, with trifling halts,
until in 1892 less than five hundred were left; so that even if the
Peace River bison are counted with the remnant of the American species,
it is probable that the survivors of each race are about equal in
number.
It is true that the number of our own species has lately been placed as
high as a thousand, but even if these figures are correct, the seeds of
decay from internal causes, such as inbreeding and the degeneration of
restraint, are already sown, and the inevitable end of the race is not
far off.
The Peace River, or woodland, bison has lately been separated as a
sub-species _(B. bison athabascae)_, distinguished from the
southern and better known form by superior size, a wider forehead,
longer, more slender and incurved horns, and by a thicker and softer
coat, which is also darker in color. Now, it is an interesting fact that
a fossil bison skull from the lower Pliocene of India resembles the
present European species, and in later geological times very similar
bisons closely allied to each other, if not identical, inhabited all
northern regions, including America. These were large animals with wide
skulls, and there is little doubt that from this circumpolar form came
both of the bisons now inhabiting Europe and America. Out of some half
dozen fossil bison which have been described from America, none earlier
than the latest Tertiary, _Bison latifrons_ from the Pleistocene
seems likely to have been the immediate ancestor of recent American
species, and as the one skull of the woodland bison which has been
examined resembles both _latifrons_ and the European species more
than the plains species does, it seems probable that these two more
nearly represent the primitive bison, of which the former inhabitant of
the prairies is a more modified descendant.
The process of elimination has at last led to this outline definition of
a bison, but among the ungulates we have passed over, there are certain
others which concern us because they are American.
Sheep and goats agree together and differ from oxen in being usually of
smaller size; the tail is shorter, the horns of females are much smaller
than those of males, they lack the accessory column on the inner side of
the upper molars, and the cannon bone is longer and more slender; but
when it comes to a comparison of the one with the other, it is by no
means always easy to tell the difference. It is true that the early
Greeks seem to have had a rough and ready rule under which mistakes were
not easy, for Aristotle tells us "Alcmaeon is mistaken when he says that
goats breathe through their ears," but the severely practical methods of
our own day leave us little but some very minute points of
difference. One of the best of these lies in the shape of the
basi-occipital bone, but naturally this can be observed only in the
prepared skull. The terms often employed to denote difference in the
horns can have only a general application, for they break down in
certain species in which the two groups approach each other. The
following table expresses some fairly definite points of separation:
SHEEP (_Ovis_). GOAT (_Capra_).
1. Muzzle hairy except between 1. Muzzle entirely hairy.
and just above the
nostrils.
2. Interdigital glands on all 2. Interdigital glands, when
the feet. present, only on fore feet.
3. Suborbital gland and pit 3. Suborbital gland and pit
usually present. never present.
4. No beard nor caprine 4. Male with a beard and
smell in male. caprine smell.
5. Horns with coarse transverse 5. Horns with fine transverse
wrinkles; yellowish striations, or bold knobs
or brown; sub-triangular in front; blackish; in male
in male, spreading outward more compressed or angular,
and forward with a sweeping backward
circular sweep, points with a scythe-like curve or
turned outward and forward spirally, points turned upward
and backward.
These features are distinctive as between most sheep and most goats, but
the Barbary wild sheep (_Ovis tragelaphus_) has no suborbital gland
or pit, a goat-like peculiarity which it shares with the Himalayan
bharal (_Ovis nahura_), in which the horns resemble closely
those of a goat from the eastern Caucasus called tur (_Capra
cylindricornis_), which for its part has the horns somewhat
sheep-like and a very small beard. This same bharal has the goat-like
habit of raising itself upon its hind legs before butting.