ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



Mammals 



W. T. HORNADAY. 



Ler S. Crasdall. 



Drpartmrnls : 



Published bi-monthly at the Office of the Society, 

 HI Broadway, New York City. 



Yearly by Mail, $1.00. 



MAILED FREE TO MEMBERS. 



Copyright, 191S, by the New York Zoological Society. 



Each author is responsible for the scientific accuracy 



and the proof reading of his contribution. 



Elwix R. Saxborn, 



Editor and official Photographer 



Vol. XXI. No. .3. 



MAY. l!)is 



rightful owner was supposed to kill his enemies 

 and the other to make many friends. I chose 

 the latter, and was assured it was one of the 

 most cherished heirlooms of this branch of the 

 Azande dynasty and to which these cannibals 

 ascribed Akenge s great influence. Now it is in- 

 conspicuous among 3.800 other pieces of the 

 Congo ethnographical collection in The Ameri- 

 can Museum. 



Perhaps when times are more settled, gener- 

 ous gifts may enable the New York Zoological 

 Society to send an expedition of its own. and 

 thus The New York Zoological Park may have 

 the honor of being the first to secure alive the 

 rarest and most interesting of large African ru- 

 minants. Of course in these far-off, unhealthy 

 regions it needs the enthusiasm of morally and 

 physically strong men. who, properly equipped 

 and burdened witli no other problems, can offer 

 unceasingly their sympathetic care to captives 

 passing from Africa to America under the try- 

 ing conditions of changes in nutrition and cli- 

 mate. There are no obstacles that patient and 

 intelligent management could not overcome. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

 The beautiful pencil drawings illustrating Mr. Beebe*s 

 "A Silky Eater of Ants" in the January, 1918, Bulletin were 

 made by Miss Isabel Cooper. The credit was omitted through 

 a typographical error. — Editor. 



ANIMAL LIFE AT THE FRONT 

 hi) William Beebe 



No stranger association ever existed than that 

 of animal life at the front, as I was able to 

 observe it on various sectors during the past 

 winter. First of all, there is the rather deli- 

 cate personal viewpoint, familiar to most of the 



poilus themselves, which ranges from lice and 

 fleas through bluebottles to rats. After that 

 comes the important economic phase, with our 

 friends, the dogs and horses, and our acquain- 

 tances, the canaries and homing pigeons, play- 

 ing their admirable parts. Finally there is the 

 abstract, naturalistic consideration of the wild 

 life which has become wonted to the bruit of 

 the terrible struggle, and will find it strange 

 when at last silence settles over those wasted 

 deserts and tortured landscapes. I shall refer 

 chiefly to this last aspect of wild life. 



Under an intensive barrage or bombardment, 

 almost every form of human activity ceases, in 

 the area about the front lines. The sole excep- 

 tions are the aviators who, by their command of 

 the three planes of space, are able to rise above 

 effective fire from Archies, or if contour flying 

 at low heights can, by sheer speed, avoid dan- 

 ger from machine guns and rifles. Considering 

 the war zone as a whole, much the same thing 

 is true of feral animal life, birds and bluebot- 

 tles, and other creatures of flight being most in 

 evidence. In spite of the months and years of 

 constant noise and flames, gases and dangers, 

 wild birds have shown an astounding disregard 

 of these supreme efforts of mankind. They soar 

 and volplane, they seek their food, quarrel with 

 one another, carry on their courtship, mate and 

 rear families in close proximity to the actual 

 righting and exploding shells. In fact, their 

 numbers have increased near ruined villages, 

 where they nest in the shattered houses, and in 

 cathedrals still smoking from devastating bom- 

 bardments. Besides this increased nesting fa- 

 cility, and the immunity from disturbance by 

 man, thanks to his preoccupation with his fel- 

 low beings, there is a less pleasant reason for 

 the great numbers of insect-eating birds, which 

 live and thrive in this region. The terrible con- 

 ditions of sanitation and the numbers of un- 

 buried dead in many of the sectors result in a 

 plague of flies, mostly great bluebottles, and 

 these in turn attract the birds — martins, swal- 

 lows, swifts and others which find an abundance 

 of food in these hosts of insects. 



The intricacies of animal action and reaction 

 can be traced in many ways. In one sector I 

 observed a very great number of scavenger rats 

 — even more than the usual hordes which tear 

 through the dugouts, and shatter the nerves of 

 the pickets by rustling the dried grass in No 

 Man's Land. And correlated with this increase 

 of rodents was an abnormal number of large 

 birds of prey. I saw them perched on the splint- 

 ered stubs of trees, on the raw ruins of farm- 

 houses and villages, and even on an abandoned 

 tank, which had settled in a hole stern-foremost. 



