GAME ANIMALS. 73 



Lower Peuiiisiila yet abounds in much of the larger game. However, 

 to find all the varieties once so abundant in both penisulas, one has 

 now to go to the deep primeval forests of the Upper Peninsula. There 

 can be found an occasional elk, moose, and caribou, nearly all driven 

 from our forests never to return in a state of nature. The fate of the 

 deer, now plentiful, is fast approaching that of the wapiti and other 

 big game. During the hunting season for 1903, twenty thousand deer 

 were killed in Michigan, and of this number sixteen thousand were 

 shipped from the Upper Peninsula. 



To the woodcraftsman the howl of the wolf, the bark of the fox, 

 the scream of the lynx and an occasional panther, the grunt of the 

 bear and the snarl of the bob cat are all familiar sounds. The beaver, 

 mink, marten, fisher, otter and muskrat are yet found in limited num- 

 bers. The porcupine, skunk and the ground hog are everywhere. As 

 the wolf, bob cat and lynx have disappeared, the deer and rabbits have 

 increased. The large bounty placed upon wolves by the State has greatly 

 decreased their number, and it is hoped that the time is not far distant 

 when the last wolf shall have disappeared from the State. The largest 

 pack of these forest robbers remain in the vicinity of the inland lakes 

 south of the pictured rocks of Lake Superior, where the deer yards are 

 large. The cunning knowledge and habits of the wolf surpass that 

 of any other animal of the forest and approach almost human intel- 

 ligence in some things. An old hunter and trapper recently related 

 what he claims to have seen twice during his stay near those great 

 precipices, known as the Pictured Rocks, and to those who are familiar 

 with the knowledge and habits of the wolf, it will not appear improbable. 

 He stated that upon each occasion he took a position high up in the 

 branches of a tree where he could, without diflflculty, witness the move- 

 ments of a pack of the crafty animals. The snow was soft and the 

 deer could easily keep out of their reach, until the wolves formed a 

 picket line with right and left flanks extending to the high ledges of 

 rocks and the center of the line forming a gTcat bow and reaching far 

 south toward the yards. Scouts would chase a deer out of the yards 

 and through the lines and the instant the timid little animal crossed 

 the picket enclosure, the nearest wolf would howl, and the howl would, 

 in turn, be taken up b}^ each succeeding wolf in both directions and car- 

 ried along until the signal reached those on the extreme right and left 

 flanks. With a constant howl from every throat the line was rapidly 

 closed up, and the frightened animal was forced nearer and nearer the 

 precipice, until the only hope left to escape was to jump, and the body 

 of the deer was seen to shoot far out into the air and then drop down and 

 down for hundreds of feet to the ice below. The instant the deer would 

 jump every sound would cease and each wolf would find its wa^' down 

 around the ledge to the body of the deer, where, if the pack had not 

 been preceded by its leader, a circle was formed until the commanding 

 officer arrived and took the first mouthful, when all would fall to and 

 devour the carcass. 



Much difficulty is experienced by the novice in trapping the wolf. 

 The old hunter is more successful and to become so, requires experience, 

 observation and study of the habits and iustints of these sly and suspi- 

 cious inhabitants of the Lake Superior jungle. The formula known as the 

 ''hunters secret" is used with much success to lure, not only the wolf, 

 but the fox,^ the bear and the mink into the trap. 

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