104 



THE XAT10XAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by George Shiras, 3d 



NIGHT PICTURE OP A COW MOOSE TAKEN BY SET CAMERA AND PLASHUGHT 



This basin of clay, impregnated with salt, had been eaten five feet below the surface. 

 Note absence of lower branches (see page 187). A quantitive analysis of the water showed: 

 calcium oxide, 376 parts; magnesium oxide, 22; potassium chloride, 17; sodium, 615; total 

 chlorine, 576 parts. 



Such fictitious tales never come from 

 reliable sportsmen or from experienced 

 trappers, but are circulated by lumber- 

 jacks, land-lookers, homesteaders, inex- 

 perienced hunters, and by sensational 

 writers, unable to tell the difference be- 

 tween the hoot of an owl or the cry of a 

 loon from that of a wolf, and, besides, 

 are ever prone to imagine or enlarge upon 

 the supposed perils of the forest. 



Twice, however, I have had a carcass 

 of a deer eaten by wolves when left out 

 overnight — once where the animal was 

 shot across a small lake and I did not go 

 to it until morning, when I found only 

 a few scattered remnants, and again, 

 when trailing a wounded buck in the 

 snow, the search was suspended at dusk, 

 and on renewing it the next morning I 

 found several wolves ahead, but beyond 

 where I had stopped the night before. 

 In a few minutes there came in view the 

 blood-stained snow, and only the bones 

 stripped of flesh remained. In both in- 

 stances there was, of course, no trace of 



human scent, so the wolves had no hesita- 

 tion in devouring the carcass. 



A WOEP THAT DIED OP PRIGHT 



On one occasion, many years ago, wolf 

 tracks were seen on the sand beach at the 

 end of Whitefish Lake; so a large steel 

 trap was set in the water of the creek 

 where a deer runway crossed it, and the 

 same night I heard a wolf howling in that 

 direction. 



In the morning, on entering the slough, 

 I fired at a pair of black-ducks passing 

 overhead, and on reaching the place 

 where the trap had been set, found it 

 gone, some of the alders in the vicinity 

 being uprooted, caused by the temporary 

 catching of the clog. Upon reaching the 

 opposite bank I found other alders had 

 been torn to shreds, many of them still 

 dripping with blood from the torn mouth 

 of the wolf as it frantically tried to es- 

 cape. 



Believing a rifle might be needed in 

 the more open ground, where the clog 



