Feb. 20, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
148 
appeared before the accurate aim of the professional skin 
hunters, who came into that country from the South. 
It is in stormy weaiher that the wolf appears to be in hie 
^l^thfent; the uhekrtbly chorus, ringing all the changes of 
the gamut, startles the hunter in cainp or the traveler by 
night. A wolf delights in getting on some point of rock ih 
a storm and howling in uaiSon with thp blast that sweeps 
through the gulches or canong of thfe foothills. The wild 
dogs that infest Indian camps howl in chorus like thfe 
wolves, and it requires an expert to distinguish between 
the two. 
About twenty-two years ago Flat Willow Creek, which 
runs south of the Judith Basin, Montana, into the Mupsel- 
shell, was a pretty wild-looking country. AVe pitched 
camp there one winter's day in a very respectable and 
commodious-looking Sioux war house, built, tepee fashion, 
of dry poles and chinked fairly tight with broken slabs 
and sticks of cdttonwood. We were after wolves, foxes and 
beaver* 
In the afternoon 1 sallied out by myself totake a look at 
the country. Before me were the dark gnlches of the 
Musselshell, topjjed by cedar-covered.buttes that looked far 
dvvay toward the YelloM'Stone. Crossing some little prairies 
aiid creeks, I came to a flat that-had once been the home Of 
d village df prairie dogs, and ori a rise beyohd it 1 saw a 
buffalo cow standing alone.. 
I maneuvered for some time to get close enough for a 
shot. When I looked again the cow had lain down. The 
point was rather difficuJt of approach, and I was crawling 
along low ground, when I saw two large wolves trot up to 
the cow in feint of attack, the cow gettiiig up and lowering 
her head to repel them. It was then that I saw she was 
lame in one leg. The wolves sat down in the most impu- 
dent way and watched her. I presume these wolves had 
followed the cow some distance. 
After a while they left the cow and trotted around to 
where T was partly concealed, and surveyed me with great 
curiosity from several points, coming Avithin 15yds. or 
nearer. I made no move for fear of disturbing the cow. I 
did not care about the wolves, although they were about 
as large as any I had seen. I have never heard of wolves 
attackmg people in the Northwest. They soon left me and 
returned to the cow, and edging a little closer I pulled up 
my .44 Winchester and shot the cow back of the shoulder. 
She fell a short distance off, and approaching I saw, about 
100yds. away, some standing, some sitting, about twenty or 
more large wolves. 
They formed a very pretty picture on the gray prairie, 
that was almost wind-swept of snow. They were not the 
dirty gray buffalo wolf, but seemed to be more of the tim- 
ber species, with tawny markings, some approaching to 
creamy white. What surprised me was their utter uncon- 
cern as I came into view. They were lined up in a row, as 
if they had been bidden to a feast, and were not particular 
as to the manner in which it was served. I proceeded to 
satisfy them. Laying my gun and belt on the ground, I 
di.semboweled the cow, cut and slashed the meat in the 
usual way, and loaded the carcass with about three-eighths 
of an ounce of strychnia. My audience took an unusual in- 
terest in the work of preparing this bait, but .scarcely moved 
from their first position. 
I surmised that this was not the first time they had 
posed as spectators of a meat-carving diversion, and that 
they had probably foUowed the Indians on a buffalo hunt. 
Though uninvited guests, 1 felt that their appreciation 
should not pass unrewarded. When I had finished cutting 
up the buffalo I gathered my gun and belt and retired from 
the scene as I came. 
A day or two later as we rode that way their beautiful 
carcasses covered the prairie, and we secured twenty-two 
fine pelts, L. S. Kelly. 
Maine.— I am greatly pleased with the recent papers 
treating of the wolf and coyote, and hope for many more 
such. 1 have had but a comi^aratively small experience 
with the vermin, and that in the dim past; but these 
articles call up the scenes so vividly that I cannot resist 
the desire to recount it. 
From earliest recollection the howling of the big gray wolf 
was occasionally heard on winter's nights in the back set- 
tlements where I was living in Vermont, although at that 
time their number had dwindled, but there were still 
enough to cause considerable loss of small stock, and to 
cause much anxiety to foot travelers by night. I saw my 
first wolf in a trap that I had set for foxes. I was out on a 
look at traps ere it was fairly daylight, and at the first trap 
I saw what I took to be a large dog, as it lay curled up in 
the shade of some brush. I had taken one dog that gave 
me great trouble to release with safety to niyself, not caring 
to dispatch it. On this occasion I crept up, guarding myself 
with a forked sapling. I wondered at hislying so still, never 
moving a muscle or looking up, but on getting near there 
came to the nose a smell so rank that I instantly recalled 
what I had heard said about the wolf I stepped back and 
pried his head up and got one furtive glance from his eye, 
and then knew my quarry and released him in a manner 
I had not intended for a dog. Several years later, in the 
.same section, I shot a wolf that was chasing a hound. It 
was close up and had gashed the sides and rump of the 
hound, which was giving vent to the most agonizing yelps. 
Why the wolf had not killed the hound, as he was quite 
able to do, was curious; he just seemed to be torturing it as 
a cat will a mouse. The hound, seeing me, approached 
seemingly for safety, and seeing me a little later the wolf 
faltered, so that the space between enabled me to clear the 
hound with the charge of coarse shot that laid out his pur- 
suer. 
My next experience with wolves was in Maine forty 
odd years ago. With two companions I moved to the 
vicinity of Moosehead Lake. It was in September, and 
before pitching on a place for the ensuing season's trap- 
ping we decided to have a whirl with the moose, which 
were as "thick as spatter" then. Joe Morris, father of the 
guide, Charles Morris, lately so prominent before the pub- 
lic, entertained us a couple of days at his snug camp at 
the foot of the Northeast Carry on the West Branch of the 
Penobscot, and directed us to Lobster Lake as a good spot. 
I shot a calf moose on Lobster dead water and took along 
the hindquarters, camping the same night at the head of 
the lake. We turned up the birch and spread blankets 
ready to turn in ere it was sunset, for we were dead tired. 
Just then a wolf howl was started in the direction of 
Katahdin, which was immediately answered from a quar- 
ter far away. Soon there was howling apparently from 
scores of the bruteSj and all seemed centering upon us and 
fast approaching. We discuBsed the situation nervously, 
our skins goose-fleshing, I remember. As the brutes came 
together on the low bank, where a deep moose path led 
away to "Little Lobster," not more than ten rods from our 
position, in a huddle and plainly enough to aim at, we sent 
ih a volley from two rifles and a Queen's arm loaded with 
buckshot. We had gotten the canoe into the water for a 
hasty departure in Case oUr shots did not disperse them. 
The ho\ii'Hhg ceased, but the snapping of jaws, the snarling 
and crunching of bones, Was quite as disturbing. It was 
not long, however, until all was again quiet, when we 
made all snug again for the night and turned in. Next 
morning by daylight we visited the spot. The pucker, 
brush and moss was trodden down for several rods, with 
flecks of blood and a quantity of hair, but never a bone or 
bit of remnant. 
The number killed and wounded we could only conjec- 
tui e, and I dare say it amounted to six or eight; enough at 
least to satisfy those living for the time. 
I have had less intimate acquaintance with the coyote. 
Fifty years ago Uncle Sam had a scrap with Santa Anna 
down in Mexico, in which I joined, carrying a Springfield 
flintlock in case it was needed. At Vera Cruz we found 
the coyotes most plentiful. There during the vomito sea- 
son the coyotes held high carnival on the dead soldiers. 
A ttench was opened every morning for the dead, which 
were but slightly covered, and soon as night shut down an 
army of coyotes commenced their gruesome feast. Ere day- 
light all }iad departed to the sandhills and chaparrah A 
visit to the trencll disclosed what would have beeh a sick- 
ening sight to a tenderfoot. Arms and legs were exposed, 
stripped of flesh, and bodies in many instances dragged out, 
some reduced to skeletons; and this was of nightly occurrence. 
On several occasions when on guard I was surrounded 
by large droves of the brutes. Often they approached 
in a solid mass within a few paces, snapping and snarling, 
thirsting for my blood, but too cowardly to strike. There 
was a constant flashing of heat lightning, giving the yel- 
lowish-white brutes a ghostly look. I was not afraid, but 
kept them stirring pretty lively. And how I did want to 
unhitch on the crowd with the load of lead, one bullet and 
three buckshot; but that was not in the play. I did, how- 
ever, on one occasion take a rise out of them when I hurled 
my musket with fixed bayonet as a lance, when it found a 
lodgment in one, and came near getting me into trouble 
by losing the bayonet, it having been wrenched off in the 
brute's struggles and carried away; but the rest of the pack 
saved it by devouring the maimed one then and there, and 
the weapon was found at my daylight return to post. 
Allegash. 
THE WILD ANIMAL INSTINCT 
DIRECTION. 
OF 
How do our migratory birds know north from east, and 
south from "nor'-nor'west, two points west," in a strange 
country on a cloudy day or in a dark night? 
Evidently they do — at least as a general rule. Occasion- 
ally one may get lost. I have heard of such, but I have 
never yet seen a wildfowl of any of the migratory species 
which' did not appeal- to know the direction in which to go 
in order to reach its next place of habitation quite as well aa 
I knew the road to mine. 
I have for many years watched such birds when on their 
regular flights. 1 have seen them arrive and depart in angu- 
lai-shaped battalions, sometimes stopping, sometimes not. 
When they stopped, their action in stopping showed no ca- 
price. They stopped just as if that was a regular stopping 
place on a predetermined line of travel ; and when they left, 
after feeding and resting for a day or a week, more or less,' 
I could see no more signs of hesitancy as to which way they 
would go than I have felt myself when, at the end of a day's 
shootii g, the bait-bottle got empty, the shadows grew long, 
and nightfall was at hand. 
Is there anything in human experience which tends to 
throw light on this question? Lft us see. 
Occabionally while traveling, like Job's satan, "to and fro 
in the earth," 1 have ended a day's journey after dark at a 
place 1 never visited before. Invariably in the morning, 
fcven thougti it be cloudy or before sunrise, I instinctivelv 
and often unconsciously lix 'n my own mind the points of 
compass. This is north, and yonder is east, the place or 
direction of sunrise, provided the sun retains the good habits 
which characterized his movements the last time I saw him 
And generally 1 get it right, though if I were called on to 
explfiin the reason I could not for the life of me tell how or 
why. But sometimes 1 get it wrong, and when it is wrong 
the impression or conclusion thus instinctively formed is as 
lasting and as ineradicable as if it were right. I never in 
such a case can get tlie points of compass straight without 
stopping to think. 
To illustrate: About ten years ago I became a member of 
a shoiiiiog club away up in central Wisconsin. On my first 
trip there I arnved at the club house by wagon about 10 
P. M. on a starless and moonless night. In the morning I 
was out on the club house porch before sunrise, and while 
lookiog out across a small lake which was covered with 
quacking, swearing ducks, it took me only about ten seconds 
by the watch to decide in my own mind that I was looking 
due west. The lact was that it was due south; and though 
I have shot on those waters two and three times a year from 
that day to tiis, when I am there south to me is west, and 
the sun invariably rises not near the western terminus of 
the Atlantic cable, as it ought, but somewhere a little east 
of the center of the arch of the aurora borealis. And when 
my vigUant and watchful guide whispers "Mark west " to 
warn me of a bird coming from that direction. I invariably 
look somewhere which isn't west, and the bird don't stop 
Sad, isn't it? 
Now, all this leads me to suggest that probably our bar- 
barous ancestors of some thousands of years ago— say along 
back toward the glacial period, or possibly earlier— had this 
instinct of direction well cultivated and developed- if not as 
much so as the migratory animals, as least sufficiently to 
enable them to follow with certainty any predetermined point 
of compass wititout any necessary reference to landmarks or 
sky marks; that they could fix their points of compass any- 
where and at any time— on the tundra of Siberia the 
steppes of Russia, the prahies of America, or in the forests 
of darkest Africa. But in the rise and growth of civiliza- 
tion, with compasses, charts, maps and weather vanps with 
roads, streets and fences laid out and located in defined di- 
rections, with rivers and trout streams whose every curve is 
plotted and labeled, with known landmarks always in siffht 
man has little use for and seldom has occasion to use the 
instinct of difection. He has ceased tb aaltime it and is 
gradually losing it. What is left is simply the residual re- 
mains of an oM instinct for which he now has but little nse, 
and which, being seldom used, has lost its infallibility. 
Now that this faculty of unconsciously trying to fix pmnts 
of compass is an instinct, and not a matter of reason or judg- 
ment, will appear from a single consideration. 
An error of judgment, once corrected, is dropped, and 
ceases to be an element of control in respect of one's actions. 
The original error disappears, except as a recollection, and 
the mind is thereafter guided in its vohtions by the correct 
facts. But when a man gets wrong on his points of com- 
pass, no amount of correction will ever eradicate from his 
mind the erroneous impressions formed. He may learn, as 
a matter of fact, that he is wrong, but the instinctively 
formed error will never depart from him. And this is just 
where an error of instinct seems to dilfer from an error of 
judgment. Some different principle of mental operation 
seems to be involved. 
Now my next suggestion is this : 
That the migratory anima's have always retained and still 
possess this instinct of direction which civilized man has 
almost wholly lost. If so, then which way to go when on a 
migration is not with them a matter of judgment or observa- 
tion, but of instinct. They probably h-ave no more hesitancy 
about the direction of their migration than a honey bee has 
as to the shape of its cell. And, by the way, the honey bee 
shows a like instinct of direction, when, after flying here and 
there, zigzag, back and forth, every which way, over several 
miles of territory in gathering plunder from "the flowers, it 
will, when loaded, strike a "bee line" for its hive. So the 
seals -Will go through the unmarked', traickless watefs of the 
Pacific for a thousand mile*? or more, and pu\l up at the 
Pribylov Islands with as mach accuracy as an ocean liner., 
So also with the carrier pigeons. And aay one who has tried 
to lose a worthless dog or an obnoxious cat by sending it off 
miles from home, shut up, sightless, in a hag or basket, has 
satisfied himself on fl.nding it back home the next day that 
its instinct of direction was too much for him. 
From all which and sundry other considerations, I am 
strongly inclined to the view that all animals have an instinct 
of direction and locality by which they are unconsciously 
guided in their ordinary movements — that the migratory 
birds, when the time comes for a migration, do not have to 
stop and think which way they will go . They just get up 
and go, and unless misled by influences they are not familiar 
with, as the glare of a lighthouse lamp, they never mnke a 
mistake or get lost They may be frightened and become 
confused, as by being frequently sbot at, but once "beyond 
the danger line," their instincts regain control and they will 
resume their journey in a direct line for their ultimate 
destination, and that too without stopping to think which is 
the right way. 
The actions of some animals, particularly ducks and bees, 
would suggest the possibility that this instinct of direction 
operates most readily when the animal is disassociated so far 
as may be from Ucal surroundings^ in other words, that 
landmarks are a hindrance rather than an aid in getting the 
right direction. The honey bee, when ready to return to its 
hive, rises some distance from the ground, and after swinging 
around two or three times, usually in rapid and apparently 
angry fliglit, it strikes its course and is off like a bullet. The 
earner pigeon is said often to act in the same way. So far 
as we can judge, both the bee and the carrier pigeon take 
their course without guidance from local surroundings, for 
they act just the same way in localities they never saw be- 
fore as where they are perfectly at home. 
The same habit prevails among many of the wild ducks, 
when, after feeding and resting, they resume their migratory 
flight, they commonly rise high and for a few minutes or 
seconds soar around, gradually gathering in flocks of some 
size, strike their course and go. From these facts I infer 
that their guiding instincts work best and more freely when 
local landmarks are left partially "out of sight." 
But possibly all this is bosh, but I do not think so. Who 
knows? ShaganOss. 
PlTTSBUBG, Pa. 
A Horned Cow Elk. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Apropos of the discussion coricerning hornless bucks, I 
send you a sketch that I made from life in Paris last De- 
cember. It represents a double, semi-antlered, female 
elk, The history of the specimen I do not know, but I 
DOUBLE SEMI-ANTIjBRED COW ELK. 
In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. Drawn from life byJE. S.Thompson 
saw her many times in the Jardin des Plantes. On the 
right side of her head there is no trace of an antler; on 
her left are two small but perfectly distinct antlers. She 
is a large, well-formed animal, and in all respects other 
than the possession of antlers is all that a model doe elk 
ought to be. Ernest Seton Thompson. 
Sloat Hall, Tappan, N. Y. 
Pelican in Nioj^ara River, 
LocKPORT, N. Y., Feb. 8.— On Nov. 5, 1894, an Ameriean 
white peliean (Pelicanus erythrorhnchm) was taken in, 
Niagara River near Buffalo and mounted by taxidermist 
Grieb. Mr. James Savage, of Buffalo, reported the above 
to me in February following, and also sent me the wishbone 
taken from the specimen. J. L. Da^sOK. 
