Jan. 23, 1890.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



the quagga and other queer gradations between the horse 

 and the ass. The difference between these creatures and 

 horses is that, while they will breed with horses to one 

 generation, the progeny are sterile; whereas all descrip- 

 tions of true horses interbreed to all generations. 



Ponies are not a distinct species of horse at all. but are 

 merely the domestic horse (Equiis cahallus), dwarfed and 

 otherwise modified through inhabiting cold, barren or 

 mountainous countries for centuries. There is no animal 

 that shows more the character of the country it inhabits 

 than the horse, both in size and in other- qualities. A 

 particular strain, nevertheless, lasts for a very long time 

 when transported to another country and intermingled 

 with other strains. A curious illustration of this came 

 within my own knowledge. The horses at the Cape of 

 Good Hope are, or were, very small and weedy; the pro- 

 geny of some poor stock brought there by the Dutch 

 Boers. One of the pioneer ships, carrying emigrants to 

 New Zealand in 1839, put in at the Cape for water, and 

 one of the passengers, the Hon. Henry Petre, a son 

 of Lord Petre, bought twenty little Cape mares and took 

 thera with him to the new colony. They were landed at 

 "Wellington, where the first settlement was formed, and 

 nearly all the early stock there were bred frem these 

 twenty mares. Half a century has slipped away since 

 thpn; but though New Zealand generally produces as fine 

 horses as there are in the world, the Wellington horses 

 are notoriously the poorest in the country, weedy little 

 scrubbers as their South African progenitors were. On 

 the other hand, in all those parts of New Zealand where 

 the Imperial army were quartered for any length of time 

 during the Maori wars, which lasted twenty years, the 

 horses are very fine and of a particular stamp. The 

 reason is that the military train brought hundreds of grand , 

 up-standing mares for commissariat service, which were 

 periodically sold off when aged or worked out, and re- 

 cruited by fresh drafts of picked animals. These local 

 and accidental characteristics will probably not be oblit- 

 erated for centuries. 



On the pumice plains or deserts of the interior of the 

 North Island of New Zealand, there are great herds of 

 horses belonging to nobody in particular, though possi- 

 bly claimed in a general way by the Maori tribes who 

 own the soil by ancient tradition. These pumice plains 

 have been formed by the ashes pouring out of the three 

 great volcanoes, Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngaruahoe, and 

 carried by the prevailing westerly winds as far as the 

 shore of Lake Taupo. They look almost bare of vegeta- 

 tion , and no method has yet been discovered of cultiva- 

 ingthem, but in reality they bear a good deal of stunted 

 herbage in ordinary seasons and are intersected by abund- 

 ant streams from the snow-capped mountains. These 

 appear to be the conditions of an equine paradise, the 

 prehensile muzzle and lips and flat teeth of the horse 

 enabling it to browse herbage, which neither cattle nor 

 sheep could eat, while the dry warm ground and plenti- 

 ful waters more than counterbalance the disadvantage of 

 having to travel far in search of feed. 



TheMaoris,who are thoroughly equestrian in their habits 

 now, though they never saw nor heard of a horse until the 

 European settlement, catch these wanderers of the plain 

 by driving them into swamps, where they flounder about 

 till they are exhausted. The Maoris are very bad riders, 

 their short, thick thighs preventing them from ever get- 

 ting a good seat. Yet they will never walk a yard if they 

 can get any poor brute to carry them. They mount mere 

 foals that are not half grown, and they always ride at 

 full gallop. It can well be imagined that Maori horses 

 are not much good. Yet among them sometimes is 

 found a wonderfully fine animal, and a good judge of 

 horses will often pick up for a trifle in a Maori village 

 a tandem leader or even a racer, that after a little groom- 

 ing and training is worth a large sum of money. Maori 

 horses are generally chestnut in color and very rough- 

 haired, with no sort of paces, but every trick and vice 

 that cruelty and ignorance can inculcate. 



The continent of Australia, which was colonized just 

 100 years ago, was by far the largest tract of land on the 

 surface of the globe without horses, since the Spaniards 

 brought them to America in the sixteenth century. Yet 

 no part of the globe, certainly, was better suited to them; 

 and already, probably, Australia has the greatest hordes 

 of wild horses as well as some of the very finest domestic 

 ones. The extent to which they have multiplied in the 

 trackless and boundless plains of the interior is almost 

 incredible. What they five upon is a mystery, for a great 

 proportion of the tracts they inhabit has apparently noth- 

 ing on it all the summer but spinifex and saltbush and 

 not much of them ; while in the dry season there is abso- 

 lutely no water for many hundreds of miles. It is an 

 extraordinary fact, however, that the horse, an animal 

 with a small stomach, which, when domesticated, requires 

 to be fed and wetered several times a day, can so adapt 

 itself to desert circumstances as to go for two or three 

 days without either food or water, while traveling at a 

 great speed. But for this faculty, the wild horses of 

 Australia would long since have been exterminated by 

 drought, instead of which they continually increase, 

 through being able to get over immense distances and 

 reach water courses and pastures before their strength 

 fails them. A herd of wild horses are considered an un- 

 erring guide to water, and many a time the shepherds 

 save their flocks by driving them along the horses' trail. 

 Sometimes, nevertheless, grievous disappointment fol- 

 lows. The expected river or water hole turns out to be a 

 dried mud hole which failed to supply enough moisture 

 for half the horses that went there, to say nothing of the 

 sheep that came after them; and a tangled mass of bones 

 and hides shows where the poor creatures trampled each 

 other to death in their frantic efforts to quench their thirst. 



At other times the tables are turned and the horses in- 

 vade the domain of the sheep, breaking down fences or 

 leaping over them, regardless of barbed wire, and forcing 

 their way into pastures and water preserves which are the 

 only hope of the sheep farmers for keeping their flocks 

 alive till the rains come. Then ensues a terrible slaughter. 

 Every fire-arm on the station is called into requisition, 

 bullets are hastily moulded, and some of the hands are 

 sent off to the nearest township to buy all the powder and 

 lead that is to be got. A small army of shepherds, 

 boundary riders, "roustabouts," ' "jackaroos" and blackf el- 

 lows then sally forth and kill, kill, kill, till either the 

 horses are all shot or driven away, or the ammunition 

 gives out. It seems a brutal, wasteful thing to do, but, 

 in reality, it is the only thing under the circumstances. 

 The sheep are worth a hundred times more than the 

 horses, and the hides are worth something if there hap- 



pens to be wattle-bark near at hand for tanning them. 

 It is a common maxim, indeed, in Australia, that horse 

 feed i3 worth more than horse flesh. It might be 

 imagined that, after such a slaughter as I have described, 

 the decaying bodies would poison the air and make the 

 sheep, station untenable. But that is not the case. Al- 

 most before the firing has ceased and the skinning been 

 accomplished, the eagle-hawks, enormous birds with an 

 insatiaole appetite, begin to appear out of clear space, as 

 it seems, and these are speedily followed by innumerable 

 kites, crows and lesser birds of prey. The carcasses are 

 soon covered by a shrieking, cawing, fighting, tearing, 

 gobbling swarm of scavengers, and before the next morn- 

 ing all the carrion that can be got off the bones by beak 

 or talon is gone. When the birds have picked the skele- 

 tons clean, the flies and the beetles and the ants come in 

 for their share and make a perfect job of it. Within 

 twenty-hours after the battle the only signs that are left 

 of it are heaps of bones as white as snow. 



The Australian deserts were originally stocked by 

 horses that strayed away from the sheep or cattle stations 

 or were deliberately driven away when feed was short, 

 on the chance of recovering them at some future time; 

 and herds such as T have spoken of, that are shot down 

 in mobs, to save the grass and water for the sheep, 

 consist for the most part of the merest weeds. Here 

 and there among them may be seen one taller and bet- 

 ter-proportioned than its companions, and it is from 

 these exceptions that the station stud is usually recruited. 

 Occasionally a herd are found which are worth driving 

 in and culling; but the best of them, unless in rare in- 

 stances, though good enough for station use, are almost 

 unsalable at the yards. Having never tasted corn or 

 been under shelter in their life, they are wonderfully 

 hard and enduring so long as they are grass-fed and 

 turned out at night. But directly they are stabled and fed 

 like civilized horses, they are apt to get soft and develop 

 all sorts of complaints; just as a cowboy might be ex- 

 pected to do, if brought in from the wilds of Texas and 

 boarded and lodged at Delmonico's. As their hardness 

 is really then only valuable quality, it is seldom worth 

 while to bring them under conditions where there is a 

 great risk of their losing it. Yet there have been desert 

 horses, bought for a few cents, that not only bore stabl- 

 ing and corn-feeding well, but readily adapted themselves 

 to severe training and won the biggest prizes of the Aus- 

 tralian turf by their unapproachable staying power. 



Now and then a very curious sport is found among the 

 desert horses. The oddest of these that I ever saw was a 

 huge, ungainly beast without a hair upon it. It was cut 

 out of a wild herd and roped in by a station hand, who 

 sold it for a drink and a plug of tobacco to some man 

 riding along the road past the homestead. The latter 

 tamed the hairless horse, taught it a few common-place 

 tricks, and showed it all over the colonies. He was said 

 to have taken $100,000, though he spent it as fast as he 

 got it. I saw the animal many times. Tt was rather 

 well-shaped when it filled out. and having no mane, but 

 a high neck and crest, it had something of the appear- 

 ance of horses in antique sculptures or bronzes. Its skin 

 was perfectly smooth and shiny and a dark mottled 

 brown in color, and the poor thing seemed very intelli- 

 gent and docile. Many people thought it was an impos- 

 ture, but every veterinary test showed that it was per- 

 fectly genuine; and. in fact, the history of the hairless 

 horse was amply vouched for. It died of confinement 

 and overfeeding, and is now in a museum in its native 

 country. 



A time came when the feasibility of rearing market- 

 able horses in the Australian desert was realized with 

 important results. It was hastened by a legislative en- 

 actment, which had quite a different object. The Gov- 

 ernment of South Australia, a colony, which despite its 

 name, extends to the ocean at the extreme north of the 

 continent — had adopted the pJan of leasing the grazing 

 rights of vast blocks of unexplored land at a nominal 

 rental. Upon this, a popular cry arose that capitalists 

 were monopolizing all the lands of the colony for specu- 

 lative purposes. To meet that cry, a law was passed 

 requiring the pastoral tenants of the Crown to stock their 

 blocks with so many head of sheep, cattle or horses per 

 square mile within a given time on pain of forfeiting the 

 lease. Some of the most promising of these great tracts, 

 judging from their situation and from the little that was 

 known of them, were in the hands of Sir Thomas Elder, 

 a wealthy and enterprising settler. It was out of the 

 question at that stage to put either sheep or cattle on 

 them. But in order to save his lease, and at the same 

 time to try a bold experiment, Sir Thomas resolved to 

 stock his territory up to the legal requirement with 

 horses, with a view to supplying the Indian market, 

 where large horses of good stamina are always in demand 

 as remounts for the British army of 60,000 men. He 

 imported a number of thorougbred colts of the best 

 racing blood in England, and he bought big-boned 

 healthy mares wherever he could get them. 



I happened to be at Adelaide when these operations 

 were in progress, and Sir Thomas Elder drove me down 

 to his wonderful establishment near that beautiful city, 

 whence all the stock for his northern country were drawn . 

 I saw an immense mob of huge mares, with an extremely 

 select assortment of imported horses, start for their jour- 

 ney to the desert in charge of a trusted Scottish drover 

 and a number of blackfellows, all splendidly mounted. 

 They were expected to take some months on the road, 

 and I afterward learned that the drovers returned with- 

 out having lost a single animal. Those horses, and num- 

 bers of similar drafts, going out year after year', run loose 

 in the desert, and are never seen for years together. A 

 grand muster, however, is made at some suitable season 

 and place, and then a careful selection is made of the 

 young stock. The inferior ones are removed or destroyed, 

 and those which are fit for market are driven to Adelaide 

 and shipped to India, 



This masterly experiment has been very successful. It 

 has had two results, both of considerable magnitude. It 

 has enabled vast tracts of the unknown interior Australia 

 to be tinned to profitable account, pending its occupation 

 for wool-growing, and it has brought into existence by 

 far the finest and probably the largest herds of wild 

 horses in the world. Edward Wakefield. 



Forest and Stream has Illustrated circulars of Mr. G. O 

 Shields' new hook, "Cruisings in the Cascades," wliich will he 

 sent to any address on application. The hook is highly com- 

 mended by T. S. Van Dyke, "P.," W. B. Lefflngwell and other 

 prominent sportsmen, as one of the best that has ever been writ- 

 ten on big game hunting.— Adv. 



THE HIBERNATION OF BEARS. 



1THE usual Maine winter is severely cold. In a recent 

 . year for ten days in the first part of January the 

 thermometer registered 20° below in the morning on an 

 average, and on the morning of the eighth 35° below. 

 Place a man, with his clothes on, in any cave in the 

 mountains, or under the turned- up roots of any tree, even 

 covered with snow; lay him down horizontally, and let 

 him remain without motion, and he will freeze solid be- 

 fore morning in any one of these ten mornings. Yet hun- 

 dreds of the black bears were then as now quietly hiber- 

 nating among the mountains of the White Mountain 

 range, in the northwestern part of Maine and New Hamp- 

 shire, stretched out at full length, or coiled up in a snug 

 heap, as the chance permits, in some cave in the ledge 

 on the mountain side; it may be in a capacious subter- 

 ranean room, or a mere crevice covered by snow, or a 

 shelving rock, or even under some foreign substance 

 which holds up the body of snow, making a small room 

 into which the animal has managed to squeeze himself; 

 and even there the droppings of melting snow and ice in 

 a thaw in the winter oozes down upon his unprotected 

 body. Can we imagine the desolate situation of such a 

 living creature ? 



"O solitude, where are the charms, 

 That sages have seen in thy face !" 



The bears are surely here, stowed away very closely 

 and asleep or dead. Are they frozen? Can they stand 

 the test of atmosphere at 34° below? Or are they sleep- 

 ing their last long sleep? What causes their death? Are 

 they subject to the same diseases as man? I have given 

 this subject much thought, but of course can arrive at no 

 certain conclusion, but will give those who feel an in- 

 terest in the subject some data to base then judgment 

 upon. We have found wild animals' bones in caves of 

 the earth — some of them bears — did they freeze to death, 

 or did they die of sickness, or did they meet in deadly 

 conflict with their kind or some other kind? 



Bears sometimes die of old age. A well-known woods- 

 man in Oxford county found the skeleton of a large bear 

 on a mountainside in Riley plantation. The tearer teeth 

 were worn down even with the maxiike, and the claws 

 were worn off, indicating extreme age. 



Bears that den up lean, would be more likely to freeze 

 during the winter. A fat bear comes out fat in the 

 spring. There is a very small exhaustion of the system 

 during their five months' sleep, but if a bear from any 

 cause goes into winter quarters in poor eonclition, his 

 chances to wake up when spring sings melodies over his 

 head are exceedingly doubtful. 



When a bear is fairly asleep in his winter quarters he 

 scarcely breathes; no motion of the body nor perceptible 

 respiration exists. The blood, if moving at all, must 

 move very sluggishly, thus facilitating the chances of 

 freezing up. 



A neighbor of mine, near the Rangeley Lakes, caught a 

 bear in the fall and made a den of a large hollow log, and 

 when winter came on he put his bear into it, leaving a 

 hole for ventilation, and covered the log with straw and 

 snow to keep him warm; but in March he opened the log 

 to find the bear frozen solid. No doubt the condition of 

 the stomach has much to do with the wintering chances. 



In his free, wild state, the bear gradually prepares 

 himself for his long sleep, taking less and less food dur- 

 ing the late fall, until the necessity for food ceases alto- 

 gether, when he will search out a suitable place to spend 

 the winter. 



Sometimes they get disturbed or belated, and heavy 

 snows coming on early f oroe them to choose some tem- 

 porary retreat as best they can. In such case they often 

 improvise any upturned tree, where they can cover in 

 with brush or loose logs, a protection from the weather. 



It is an old belief that bears get pitch from the trees 

 they tear the bark from to stop themselves up with, so as 

 to avoid the necessity of eating, before going to den. 

 Others think they are governed by the early or late snows 

 about going into winter quarters. This is all wrong, for . 

 often when the snows come early we find the tracks of 

 the bear in every direction, and you can follow them to 

 your heart's content and they will keep going — not pre- 

 suming to den while a man is "behind them. I think the 

 scantiness or abundance of their natural food — more es- 

 pecially berries— influence the time of their denning. 

 When berries of all kinds are abundant they roam late in 

 the fall — until early winter — snow or no snow, and vice 

 versa. Their stomach being in proper condition, their 

 instinct teaches the rest. Fat bears hibernate earlier than 

 poor ones, and sex and age doubtless have an influence. 

 Sometimes two or more bears room together for winter 

 quarters, but more commonly only one — never, I think, 

 two old males — oftener a barren female and one or two 

 of her former cubs, and perhaps a male stranger, some- 

 times two young males. 



Bears are good swimmers and are frequently caught 

 crossing rivers, ponds and lakes. They take to the water 

 as naturally as to calf or mutton. J, G. R. 



Bethel, Maine. 



A Fish-eating Snake. — In a recent number of Hum- 

 ooldt Herr Fischer-Sigwart describes the habits of a 

 snake, Tropidonotus tesselatus, which he kept in his ter- 

 rarium in Zurich. This snake was fond of basking in 

 the sun on the top of a laurel, from which it chmbed 

 easily to its night quarters in a high cherry tree placed 

 against a wall. Sometimes after lying still for hours it 

 would hasten down into a small pond of goldfish and 

 conceal itself a long time behind a stone or in some 

 plants, its tongue meanwhile constantly playing. When 

 a fish came near the snake would make a dart at its 

 belly and, if successful, carry off its prey to some quiet 

 corner and feast upon it at leisure. The skin of the vic- 

 tim was not injured and, if released, the fish would 

 swim away. After being seized, however, it became 

 still and stiff as if dead and actually appeared to be hyp- 

 notized.— Nature, London, Dec. 19, 1889. [We have in 

 the United States a number of species of water snakes 

 belonging to the genus Tropidonotus, and all of them 

 have the reptitation of being very destructive to fish. At 

 the carp ponds in Washington, D. C, 221 snakes were 

 killed in one week in August, 1883. Some of the larger 

 individuals were found to contain over 25 young carp. 

 These snakes hid themselves in old walls, from which 

 their heads protruded while watching the unsuspicious 

 fishes. M. Hessel considers snakes more destructive than 

 any of the birds.] 



