Not. 3, 1892.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



877 



CANADA LYNX IN MAINE. 



Bet ween 1840 and 1850 Canada lynxes were more com- 

 mon in the woods of Maine than foxes are to-day, 

 especially in the northern sections of Oxford, Franklin 

 and Somerset countiep, in this State, In 1840 the Hud- 

 son Bay Company exported to Surope aexen or eight 

 thousand skins from British America. But they have 

 decreased to such an extent that a trapper seldom sees a 

 sign of them nowadays. 



The Canada lynx is about Bft. in the length of the 

 body, standing 21in. high. It has a round head like our 

 domestic cat, but much larger. Its fur is long and soft, 

 and, when prime, of a beautiful stone-gray color along 

 its sides, and mixed on its back, with long hairs tipped 

 with black, and under its body is white, beautifully 

 mottled with black spots. Its ears stand erect and are 

 quite conspicuous, being Lipped with a tuft of black 

 hair, and on either side of its lower jaws is quite a 

 I'UDch of gray hair, mixed with black. Its tail is about 

 4Ln. long, tipped with black. In summer time the lynx 

 iias quite a different appearance, being of a reddish- 

 brown color. 



The eye of the lynx is very large, round and bright, 

 and is capable of staring at you for a long time, and it 

 was believed by the ancients that they could see through 

 opaque bodies, and even through a stone wall: hence an 

 old txpression, lynx eyed, to represent keenness of sight. 

 Another fable was that their water, or urine, contained 

 a valuable stone called Zapis lincurms. 



The early French writers ascribe to the lynx that habit 

 of stretching their length on the limb of a tree and wait- 

 ing for deer to pass under them, when they drop upon 

 them, tear their throat and drink their blood. The late 

 John M, Wilson, Esq., a surveyor of the Rangeleys, told 

 me he once saw a lynx on the limb of a large tree directly 

 over his head, but as he passed quickly and quietly along 

 the creature did not move from its position, but eyed him 

 with a steady gaze until he was out of reach. 



The French give it the name of Ixmp cervier or deer- 

 wolf, which is vulgarized to hicivee: it is also called bob 

 oat on account of the shortness of the tail. 



The lynx is a good swimmer, taking to the water natu- 

 rally in the summer season. They will cross lakes miles 

 in width and swim as fast as a good canoe man can pad- 

 dle. They are infested by fleas in fearful numbers, and 

 woe to the hunter who lugs one home on his back. The 

 lynx is as ferocious a beast as exists in the wilds of Maine. 

 1 have often said I would sooner attack a black bear sin- 

 gle handed than a lynx. It is impossible to tame or do- 

 mesticate them. The natural yellow of their eye will 

 grow light and silvery by eyeing the living animal and 

 waiting awhile for it to grow mad: it will soon appear 

 like livid fire, and it would challenge the nerve of a 

 strong-minded hunter to look them out of countenance. 

 It is my opinion that this animal seldom, if ever, attacks 

 a man when enjoying the freedom of natui-e, but if cor- 

 nered and unabie'to escape no doubt would defend itself 

 to the finish. 



In the year 1851 the late L. F. Durkee, Esq., of Magal- 

 loway, killed one of these animals in the deserted house 

 on Richardson Farm, MoUychunkemunk Lake, with a 

 club; it happened in this wise: Mr. Durkee entered the 

 house through the woodshed, and a large male lynx ran 

 ahead of him into the house. Mr. D. followed, taking a 

 stick of wood in his hand. Getting cornered in the pan- 

 try the lynx faced about for a spring, when a lucky blow 

 with the club of wood settled the skirmish. 



Mr. Robert Torrey, of Cambridge, Mass., with a party 

 of young men on a hunting expedition to the Rangeleys, 

 camped one night at Upper Dam before the lodging con- 

 veniences were built there, and in the night time were 

 awakened by one or more lynxes creeping around very 

 near the sleepers, and it was not until a bright light was 

 made and firearms were resorted to and a big rumpus 

 made, that the lynxes departed. 



In 1842, when I first arrived at the Rangeley Lakes 

 with my traps for trapping operations in the then ex- 

 tremely wild and unexplored wilderness, game of all 

 kinds was abundant, especially fur-bearing animals. 

 Prominent among the latter was the lynx; so plentiful 

 were they that one could not cross a lake or enter the 

 thick woods in winter without seeing their tracks in 

 the snow. They often traveled in squads of from two to 

 five, following the shore of the lake, or on the river bank, 

 or through thick swamps and over high mountains. They 

 were quite a formidable beast of prey, subsisting on 

 young deer, hares, grouse or any other luckless animal 

 they could capture. There was a bounty on their heads, 

 and the pelts brought a good price in the market, so my 

 first attention as a trapper was given to them. 



They would screech fearfully when in a trap and could 

 be heard for miles, and were frightfully savage, especially 

 when fti'st captured, and being as large as a large hound 

 dog, we felt compelled to approach them with caution. 

 When startled they appeared as large asadeer, with head 

 erect and fur puffed out, they looked grand and savage. 

 They are able to leap fifteen feet on a level , but of ten 

 when walking, stepped very short, only a few inches. 



My second winter trapping in the Rangeleys I caught 

 and shot forty-nine of these lynx — having all sorts of ex- 

 periences with them, I would sometimes find them in 

 the tops of the highest trees with the trap and a log, at 

 which time it would tax my greatest skill to secure them. 

 £ had ti'aps set on both sides of MoUychunkemunk Lake, 

 so I could go up one way and down the other to tend to 

 them. One day I tracked five coming through a swamp 

 near Aziscohos Mountain. I followed them and they 

 took to the lake, going down on the south side, and on 

 my way home I got three of them. 



I have sometimes caught them swimming the lake, 

 when I could easily shoot them. 



Lynxes exhibit as much inquisitiveness as a woman. 

 They would come around my camping places nights, 

 often screeching loud enough to raise the hat on one's 

 head, and after I left camp they would scratch open the 

 hot ashes and burn the hair from their feet, as well as 

 steal whatever they wanted from the camp. In Maine 

 this lynx feeds chiefly on the white hare {Lepus amen- 

 canus), and in the capture of this animal they are very 

 sly, creeping on a fresh track with the greatest caution , 

 untU within five, ten or fifteen feet of them. Then with 

 a screech which paralyzes the game they make the fatal 

 leap, almost certain to seize the rabbit, 



They do not hide the remains of the animal as a dog 

 would, but leave it partly eaten, for the next hungry 

 creature that comes along. They prefer a warm dinner, 

 but can be toled into a trap by a fish or the carcass of a 

 bird or rabbit. They have no home, but are constantly 

 traveling. 



When they bring forth their young they usually make 

 their nest in a hollow log or fallen tree and drop three or 

 four kits at a litter, about the size of a wharf rat, of a 

 brown color, spotted like a fawn. 



About the year 1860 Professor Agassiz, of the Museum 

 of Comparative Z jology, at Cambridge, sent for me to 

 come to him, which I did. He said he wished to arrange 

 with me to procure for him specimens of all the wild 

 animals in the State of Maine. He wanted them to ex- 

 change with the Paris Zoological Gardens and Museum, 

 for articles and objects which could not be purchased 

 with money. I asked him if he wanted a live skunk, he 

 said a very "leetle" one! I procured that year, by my 

 own hunting, about one thousand dollars worth of 

 animals — from bears to mink — among which were many 

 specimens of live lynx, I caught them in steel traps, 

 and tended the traps daily. They usually got caught by 

 the end of the toes, and the thick hair on the foot was 

 such a protection that the trap did not injure them. 



I had much trouble in learning the best way to carry 

 them on my back, as they were very ferocious and 

 would bite and tear fearfully with their claws, and I 

 often had to carry them eight or ten miles througli the 

 wood. 



One day I was traveling along the dense swamp below 

 a ])ond with quite pack on my back and a small hatchet 

 in my hand. It was the 6th day of May, but there was 

 considerable snow on the ground, when without any 

 warning a lynx leaped across my path within a few feet 

 of ray head and ran a few rods, then faced about, crouch- 

 ing in a position for a spring. I threw off my pack and 

 then threw my hatchet at her, which went over her head 

 and beyond her, upon which she ran away in the direc- 

 tion of the hatchet. I ran after her and picked up my 

 hatchet, and followed her tracks on the run. I had not 

 gone far before I came suddenly face to face with her, 

 perhaps thirty feet away, and she was again in position 

 to spring. This time I threw my hatchet with more pre- 

 cision, and hit her in the side, knocking her over. I ran 

 to her and saw she was trembling fearfully. 1 felt for a 

 string, but had none in my pocket. They were in my 

 knapsack. I got out my pocket handkerchief and twisted 

 it, and grabbed the cat to tie her legs, but she was reviv- 

 ing, and before I could tie her legs she became the liveli- 

 est corpse of the season and tore my clothes and fl-sh 

 fearfully; but I had no thought of losing that $25, and by 

 main force I tied one of her legs to a little tree. I then 

 left her and went back to my knapsack and got a string I 

 carried for the purpose, and'cut a crotched stick, put the 

 prongs over her neck, bringing her to the ground, and 

 choked her until I could tie her legs together firmly. I 

 then put her in a loose sack I carried for the i^urpose, and 

 with a small cord tied to the lower and upper corners of 

 the sack made a pack, putting it on my back, with the 

 rope over my head and across my breast. I then found 

 she would stick her claws and teeth through the bag and 

 my coat and into my back. Then I broke evergreen 

 boughs and placed them between the sack and my back. 

 This worked well, I then had to carry the beast nine 

 miles on my back through the woods home. 



On my arrival at home in the dusk of evening, my 

 family were in the front yard enjoying the beautiful 

 balmy evening air. I asked one of my boys to bring a 

 lantern, and I continued on to the barn a few rods away, 

 and soon the lantern came and a friend who was plaster- 

 ing my house by the name of Charles Powers. We 

 entered the barn and I closed the door behind me, which 

 made the man suspicious, and he asked me what I had in 

 my pack. I threw it off and untied it without answer- 

 ing, and out came the old lynx with two of her feet clear 

 of the strings, and she jumped up with a loud spit, and 

 up went Powers on to the scaffold 6ft, from the floor, 

 without a thing to cling to. Nothing but fright could 

 ever have helped a man to such a feat, 



I put her in a box with slats over the top, and the next 

 morning she had three little kits with her, one of which 

 I have now in spirits. One I gave the Natural History 

 Society of Portland, Maine, and one to the Cambridge 

 Museum. The kits lived three days on cow's milk, but 

 their mother would take no notice of them. They were 

 armed with sharp claws and nice little teeth at their 

 birth. 



At one time I brought home a live lynx and put him in 

 the box over night. Early in the morning I went to the 

 barn to see how he was, and just as I opened the big door 

 where the box was, one of my neighbors came along the 

 road, and seeing me there he called in. He was a moder- 

 ate sort of a man and had been an itinerent Methodist 

 preacher, but was growing out of that. He was a great 

 chewer of tobacco. He came up to me and shook hands 

 and turned around and sat down on the cat-box. At that 

 instant and quick as lightning the lynx struck his claws 

 into the seat of his ti'ousers and into his flesh, and at the 

 same time giving one of his loudest spits and snarls. 

 The man jumped nearly 2ft., holding on to the hinder parts 

 of his trousers— the whole thing was so suddenly and 

 neatly done that whenever it occurs to me even now, after 

 forty years, I find myself laughing. 



When the lynx strikes with its claws he does not hold 

 his grip, but renews his strike. Of course when he strikes, 

 you jerk back, and his claws being circular, they hold 

 the flesh and it tears. 



In tying a lynx's legs, it is impossible to touch them 

 without his striking your hand with his claws, the only 

 way to do is to make a slip noose or clove-hitch, hold it 

 down close to his foot and drop it over, then draw it up, 

 one foot at a time, while you have him on his back. I 

 have captured one at night, and being too far from home 

 had to camp out and take him the next day. In that 

 case I take the lynx from the sack and hitch him in the 

 ODPoeite corner of the camp, and I have been startled 

 almost out of my wits by suddenly waking and, before I 

 could think where I was, seeing those two balls of fire 

 staring at me, and sometimes the creature would give 

 one of its most approved yells while I was quietly dream- 

 ing, and bring me out of my balsam bed all standing. 



They are of the untameable, wild kind of creation. 

 Never could an adult lynx be tamed, in my opinion, but 

 a kitten might be, I think. I have sent many of them to 

 Europe, but many die on shipboard— they become seasick 

 sod die in fits, This animal i» now nearly extinpt in the 



Rangeley lake country, but in the forties the woods were 

 full of them, 



I have trapped and killed several hundred of these lynx 

 in the twenty five years spent in the early days of the 

 history of the Rangeleys, when the wolf had driven the 

 red deer from the State and moose occupied almost every 

 mountain for their winter yards. 



In those days it was a common occurrence to see almost 

 every animal of the woods swimming the lakes, or meet 

 them face to face in the forest. 



Bethei,, Maine. ,J, G. RiCH, 



BOLDNESS OF THE CANADA LYNX. 



The following account of the boldness of the Canada 

 lynx in winter was published in Forest and Steeam 

 March 1, 1888, as a part of one of the series of Rock 

 Climbers' letters. The time was the beginning of the 

 previous winter, the place St. Mary's Lakes in north- 

 western Montana, and the people a little hunting party 

 of four men who had been climting the rough mountains 

 in search of sheep, scenery, white goats, health, huckle- 

 berries and other things. The account is from the pen 

 of our old correspondent, "Yo.'" He said: "The men 

 hugged the fire pretty closely during these bitter cold 

 days. A walk of two or three miles up or down or across 

 the lake was all they ventured on. and no signs of game 

 were seen. Now and then the track of a fox or a bay 

 lynx would be seen, where these prowlers had passed 

 along Jiear the lake shore, lioping to surprise a wounded 

 duck upon the beach, but of true game animals there 

 were none about. There was no especial reason why the 

 men should climb the mountains in such weather. They 

 had plenty of wood and the greater part of three fat 

 goats hung upon a tree within ^!ft. of the door. 



"One night thismeat caused a little excitementin camp. 

 It was perhaps two o'clock on a bright moonlight night, 

 when Yo, who from some cause or other was half awake, 

 heard a noise as of something falling, followed immedi- 

 ately by the sound of galloping quite near the tent. The 

 first idea that flashed through his brain was that one of 

 the horses had come up to the tent, knocked something 

 over, and being frightened had galloped away. The 

 dogs, however, at once set up a tremendous barking, and 

 the sound of the retreating footsteps stopped so quickly 

 that it was evident that no horse had made it. Thor- 

 oughly awakened, he raised himself on his elbow, just in 

 time to see Jack getting up, and in a moment more the 

 latter had stepped out of the tent and called out, 'Some- 

 thing has carried off a ham of meat,' then an instant 

 later, 'Why, I see the darn thing there in the brush I' 

 Yo rose and went to the door, and from the blanketed 

 forms in the tent came the question, 'What is ii?' and 

 the recommendation, 'Shoot the darned cuss!' Jack 

 reached into the tent for his gun, and both men cheered 

 on the dogs who could be plainly seen against the white 

 snow in the bushes dancing around a dark object sitting 

 there. That the dark object was not at all disturbed 

 either by their dancing or their furious barking was 

 made sufficiently plain by its quiescent attitude, and the 

 further fact that it was crunching the bones of the cap- 

 tured meat and was evidently making a hearty meal of 

 it. At length, encouraged by cries of 'Sick him, Keno,' 

 'Go for him. Babbette,' the dogs mustered up pluck 

 enough to rush in upon the creature, but they did not 

 stay there long. The animal suddenly assumed enormous 

 proportions, flew up in the air as if propelled by a mighty 

 spring, and came down again on the back of the largest 

 dog. The latter gave one wail of anguish, and stood not 

 upon the order of his going, but fled at once out on the 

 prairie 50yds. behind the tent, where he positively rent 

 the air with his howls and yelps, while Babbette, who 

 accompanied him, continued to bark in a half-hearted 

 way, as if saying 'Come out here into the open, if you 

 dare.' Meantime the creature had once more turned" his 

 attention to the meat. 



" 'Well,' said Jack, 'I guess he calculates he'll drive ua 

 out of camp, but we'll see first if we can't get that meat 

 back.' Ho then fired four shots at the animal, which 

 calmly went on with its meal until the fourth shot had 

 been fired, when it again sprang into the ah- and bounded 

 off into the deeper shadows of the brush. Jack stepped 

 out to where the animal had been, picked up the ham, 

 brought it back and hung it up in the tree, and then they 

 went into the tent and crept into their blankets again, 

 A good deal of speculation was indulged in as to what 

 the animal was. That it was a cat of some kind was 

 evident, and it had scarcely seemed large enough for a 

 mountain lion. It was probably a wildcat or a Canada 

 lynx, but all hands agreed that it had courage enough for 

 a lion of the largest size. 



"The next morning before breakfast .Jack went out to 

 where the meat had heen brought from and returned 

 with a little tuft of hair, gray, mixed with rufous, which 

 had been knocked off by the ball and evidently belonged 

 to a lynx or a wildcat. The depression in the snow where 

 j the animal had sat showed by its small size that it had 

 not been made by a mountain lion. After breakfast Jack 

 and Yo took their rifles and started out on the animal's 

 track to see where it led to. It was readily followed, as 

 it wound about through the thick willows, and about 

 thirty steps from where it had left the meat was a bed 

 where it had lain for some time, and in this bed was a 

 drop or two of blood. Evidently it had not been much 

 frightened by the row, and it was quite possible that they 

 might come upon it anywhere. They followed the tracks 

 very carefully, proceeding as noiselessly as possible, and 

 stopping every few steps to look. When they had gone 

 nearly lOOyds,, the tracks swerved suddenly to the right, 

 and just as they had turned to follow them, Jack, who 

 was ahead, made a motion with his hand and stopped, 

 and Yo, stooping and looking under his arm, saw the 

 animal not 20yds. away. It was lying in the sun at the 

 foot of, and beyond, a great spruce tree, and only its hips 

 were visible from behind the tree. Jack motioned to his 

 companion to shoot, but before he could do so he was 

 obliged to creep several yards to the right under the low 

 spreading branches of a willow. This exposed nearly 

 half the animal's side and the shot was fired as close to 

 the tree as possible. At the report the animal gave a 

 spiring and sti-etched itself out on the snow in the death 

 agony. It proved to be a Canada lynx of the largest size, 

 and as it lay there, its thick legs terminating in huge 

 paws armed with long claws, gave it a much more fer- 

 ocious appearance than it was really entitled to. An ex- 

 amination showed that Jack's shot of the night before 

 had grazed one of the forelegs, not penetrating the flesh, 



