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WaJwarth Snlton 



Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909. at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 



Vol 



ume 



X 



MARCH, 1918 



Number 10 



Rare Animals in This Vicinity. 



BY PROFESSOR JOHN J. SCHOONHOVEN, 

 BROOKLYN, NEW YORK. 



In nearby Westchester County with 

 its valley lands and rugged picturesque 

 hills claimed for agriculture and graz- 

 ing purposes there still remains a large 

 part of the country covered by forests 

 and undergrowth affording a most ex- 

 cellent sanctuary for wild life. It is 

 not surprising therefore that the list of 

 mammals is large including bats, foxes, 

 skunks, weasels, minks, raccoons, rab- 

 bits, woodchucks, squirrels, muskrats, 

 many other species of rodents, and oc- 

 casionally a deer. These forms seem 

 perfectly normal and natural in this 

 environment. 



Occasionally, however, some form of 

 wild animal life appears for which it is 

 hard to account. During the last week, 

 for instance, a coyote shot by a West- 

 chester farmer was brought to the 

 New York Zoological Park for identi- 

 fication, and the hunter was genuinely 

 astonished at his own prowess when 

 Dr. Raymond Ditmars assured him 

 that it was a real coyote. 



In Pound Ridge, just over the Con- 

 necticut boundary line, a year or two 

 ago a basket maker went down to the 

 pond in which he had some logs soak- 

 ing and saw what he supposed to be 

 an inoffensive muskrat. He was sur- 

 prised at the stiff fight the "muskrat" 



put up when he somewhat casually 

 undertook his capture and his surprise 

 was further increased when his "musk- 

 rat" turned out to be a fine specimen of 

 otter. As a result his wife is now the 

 proud possessor of a beautiful otter 

 muff quite the envy of her neighbors. 



Last summer at Sarles Corners near 

 the farm of Leland Waterbury a cur- 

 ious small mammal was picked up dead 

 beside the road killed evidently by a 

 passing motor car. Nothing like it had 

 been seen in those parts by the oldest 

 inhabitant and it was examined with 

 curiosity by the neighborhood. After 

 some difficulty I exhumed the body 

 where it had been buried by its captors. 

 Upon examining it I was convinced 

 at once that it was a badger though 

 this animal has, to my knowledge, 

 never been reported from this part of 

 Westchester. 



I brought the skull to our museum 

 where the identification was confirmed 

 When this country was new badgers 

 were met with everywhere in open 

 lands from the Alleghenies to the Paci- 

 fic and as far north as Peace River. 

 Now they have disappeared from the 

 prairie states and are rare except in 

 the high, dry plains where gophers and 

 prairie dogs form an abundant food 

 supply. The eastern limit of the bad- 

 ger is placed by Seton as Wisconsin. 

 An animal with so indomitable a spirit, 



Copyright 1918 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



