376 



RECREA TION. 



to take a piece of fresh beef and roast it in 

 the stove; fix a string to it, sufficiently long 

 to go over my shoulder, and then drag this 

 after me wherever I went to set traps, 

 which would sometimes be 3 or 4 miles 

 from camp. 



On the plains there are many ledges of 

 earth that have been eroded by storms. I 

 would dig a small hole in front of one of 

 these, pin down my bait and set the traps 

 about 16 inches below and in front the 

 ledge, so as to get the wolf by the foreleg. 

 When caught, he would start to run. The 

 trap chain would draw his foreleg back un- 

 der his body and I have often seen a wolf 

 turn a summersault. This operation would 

 take up more of the momentum of the body 

 than it would if the animal were caught by 

 the hind leg. I found it quite as simple and 

 as easy to capture any of these animals as it 

 would be to catch a domestic dog or cat, 

 notwithstanding all that has been written 

 and said of the wonderful cunning of foxes 

 and wolves. 



Chambers's Encyclopedia says, 



" Wolves have been known to eat off the 

 cord to a set gun, so they could eat the bait 

 without being shot! " Bosh! 



There is one peculiarity about the coyote 

 that is interesting. When caught in a trap 

 and he sees you approaching he will always 

 jump around frantically. If you yell at him 

 loudly to lie down, he will nearly always 

 do it; not of course to obey you but evi- 

 dently to hide himself in the grass. 



The large gray wolf is quite different. 

 The one I caught was very ferocious and 

 snapped his teeth and glared at me savagely. 

 I killed him with a 38 calibre revolver, put- 

 ting a ball through his heart. He made a 

 savage jump for me but fell dead. 



Wolves destroy many sheep in Eastern 

 Colorado, and it is necessary to corral the 

 sheep at night, in a high, tight board fence, 

 and to accompany them with herders and 

 dogs during the day. 



I never knew of a gray wolf killing a 

 human being. 



I consider the coyote a nuisance. He is a 

 sneak thief and will kill lambs, calves, 

 chickens, etc. Horace Beach. 



WHAT UNCLE SAM SAYS OF THE WOLF. 



In the year book, soon to be published, 

 the Department of Agriculture will give 

 some valuable data on the wolf question. 



It cannot be said that in the United 

 States bounties have brought about the ex- 

 termination of a single species of animal in 

 any State. The rarity of wolves East of the 

 Mississippi river is rather due to the settle- 

 ment of the country than to the number 

 killed for rewards. On the great plains 

 wolves have not decreased perceptibly, 

 notwithstanding high premiums paid for 

 scalps. Coyotes have increased in Califor- 

 nia during the last 3 years, since the boun- 



ty on them was withdrawn, so that there 

 are now as many of them in that State as 

 ever. California, Montana, and Texas of- 

 fered $5 apiece for coyote scalps, for some 

 time, the outlay aggregating hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars; but the results were 

 unimportant. Iowa and Minnesota are the 

 only Western States which now pay more 

 than $3 for a wolf scalp, and in Iowa the 

 rate for young wolves is $2. 



Meanwhile in some parts of the country 

 wolves and coyotes are very destructive. 

 In New Mexico they kill from $150,000 to. 

 $300,000 worth of sheep annually, and in 

 Nebraska the damage done to sheep is 

 reckoned at $100,000 a year. One difficulty 

 in the wolf problem lies in the fact that it 

 is impossible to secure the co-operation of 

 all the States. This lack of agreement, on 

 the subject of bounties in general, opens a 

 wide door to fraud. Scalps taken in local- 

 ities where rewards are low are shipped to 

 places where premiums are high, and thus 

 it often happens that a county is compelled 

 to pay for animals killed in another county. 

 The bounty on wolves and coyotes now 

 varies from $1.50 to $5, the latter price be- 

 ing paid in the Black Hills region of South 

 Dakota. In North Dakota it is $2, it is $3 

 in Montana and Wyoming, and in Iowa $5, 

 except for young animals. Thus rewards 

 may be claimed, profitably, in Iowa for co- 

 yotes killed in North Dakota. 



The wolf bounty in Nevada was 50 cents 

 when California was offering $5 for scalps. 

 Consequently, thousands of scalps were 

 shipped from Nevada to California, and 

 large numbers of them were actually im- 

 ported from Mexico; so that California 

 found herself getting poorer at a distress- 

 ing rate, and the bounty law was repealed. 



FROM RIO BLANCO COUNTY. 



Editor Recreation: In July Recrea- 

 tion, page 45, a number of questions are 

 asked about wolves, which I will answer. 



I am located in Rio Blanco county, 

 Colo., a long narrow county, the Eastern 

 part of which is high and snowy. Wolves 

 do little damage here, as there are few of 

 them. The Western portion of the county, 

 however, is not so snowy and is the home 

 of a large number of wolves. They work 

 principally on cattle, especially yearlings 

 and calves, though cows, and even steers 

 sometimes furnish them a good meal. A 

 few years ago there were comparatively 

 few wolves here, but they have been in- 

 creasing until last winter, when quite a 

 number were poisoned, though not enough 

 to materially diminish their numbers. 



I have never seen anything that would 

 lead me to believe they had any way of sig- 

 naling to one another. The coyotes kill a 

 good many calves but do not attack the 

 larger animals. 



The best way, I should judge, to get rid 



