104 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 9, igoi. 
Dangerous Wild Animals and 
Other Matters, 
I HAVE just been reading the article by S. E. Filkins 
in Forest and Streaai of Dec. 28, and cannot see that he 
has made out a very good case. I did not understand 
the editorial Mr. Filkins refers to as saying that wild 
animals always fled from man, but as meaning that a 
human being was at all times safe from unprovoked 
attack. I honestly believe that there has never been the 
time in North America when a man might not have 
walked from ocean to ocean with no other weapon than 
a stick and have been as safe from attack by wild ani- 
mals as he would be in the center of New York city, pro- 
vided, of course, that he did not go out of his way looking 
for trouble. 
,The fear of wild animals which most people possess 
comes from stories told to them as children, re-enforced 
as they grow older by newspaper yarns. 
When a youngster, in company with several other boys 
1 once came suddenly on a big timber wolf in thick brush. 
For many years I firmly believed that nothing but a 
determined front kept that wolf from devouring the 
whole crowd of us at once, but now I know that the wolf 
was much the worse scared, and was only putting up a 
bluff until it got a chance to bolt. 
I have seen several grizzlies that would not get out of 
the trail for me, just because I did not have a gun; and 
I know of one case where a she cinnamon bear with 
cubs charged an observer who got too close. But per- 
sonally I never saw a she bear — black, cinnamon or 
grizzly — that wouldn't bolt and leave her cubs at the first 
sign of danger. I have caught several cubs under such 
circumstances, and had them squeal like little pigs, but 
never had the old bear come close enough to get a shot, 
though I have had them come back and roar and growl, 
but they took mighty good care to keep out of sight in 
the brush. 
However, I once knew a man who got mauled by a 
she grizzly after catching the cub, but it was in open 
ground, and when he saw the old bear coming back he 
foolishly started to run, with the natural result that the 
big brute ran after him, slapped him a couple of times 
and took the cub away. 
Again, bears will often come into a camp, but it is 
only after something to eat, and if let alone they will not 
bother any one. 
As for the cougars, they are more backward about 
attacking a person than is a bear, I knew a fellow who 
had a cougar land on his back one night as he was com- 
ing along a deer trail, the cougar evident^ mistaking 
him for a deer. But when he yelled — as almost any one 
would under .such circumstances — the animal let go and 
departed in a hurry, quite as much scared as the man, and 
it is needless to say that he was scared plenty. 
When I first got together a pack of dogs for cougar 
hunting the oldtime hunters and trappers were full of the 
most awful stories about the ferocity of the cougar, arid 
especially about a big red variety that lived high up in 
the mountains and could kill dogs just as fast as they 
could get hold of them. Just as soon as I got the dogs 
trained I went after the big red ones, and, behold! they 
were just like any other cougar, and did not kill dogs 
any faster than the average. 
The truth of the matter is, any four fighting dogs will 
kill any cougar in twenty minutes, hardly getting 
scratched themselves. I never had a dog killed by a 
cougar, though two of my old dogs (Hector and Brig) 
have been in over a hundred rough-and-tumble fights 
with them. 
Several years ago a couple of us. were photographing 
cougars, using dogs to tree or bring the game to bay. I 
had two half-bred staghound and collies- and two full- 
blooded foxhounds. The trees were all scrubby juniper 
and pifion, not over 15 feet high, and before we could 
get any photographs I had to leave the two staghounds 
at home, as when the dogs got a cougar treed one of the 
foxhounds would crawl up among the branches, jump 
the cougar out, and Hector would nail him, and when 
we got up we would have a dead cougar. The fox- 
hounds alone would not close in on a cougar. Hector's 
way of catching a cougar was to make a quartering dash 
from behind, grab the cougar by the tail and turn him 
'end over end. Before the brute would get its breath the 
other dogs would have it stretched, and that was the end. 
A cougar can move like lightening for a hundred yards 
or so, but after that loses its wind, and anij' fast dog can 
catch one. , , , , , 
I think that Mr. Filkins has overestimated the length 
of his cougar a little. I have measured a great many, and 
never saw but three that ran over 7 feet 6 inches from end 
of nose to tip of tail, the tail always being within an 
inch of one-third the total length of the animal. One of 
these three was 7 feet Q inches, one 7 feet 8 inches, and 
one 8 feet 4 inches. This last was by far the largest 
cougar I ever saw or heard of. One often hears of 
cougars 9, ro or 11 feet long, but when the story is run 
down it is always the hide that has been measured after 
having been taken off. The hide will always be from two to 
three feet longer than the animal. The average size of 
a 'full-grown male cougar is 75^ feet from tip to tip. one- 
third being tail, 30 inches high at the shoulder, and such 
a beast will weigh from 135 to 160 pounds, as I have 
weighed several. The one that measured 8 feet 4 inches 
must have weighed nearly 200 pounds, but I was unable 
to weigh it. When one remembers that 10 feet 6 inches 
is a pretty good size for a tiger, it is easy to see that a 
ID-foot cougar would be quite a good-sized animal. 
Really the most dangerous game we have m the West 
is a mule deer buck, and when wounded and cornered it 
will fight like a fiend. The only dog I ever had killed by 
a wild animal was horned through the heart by a spike 
buck and I have made more than one quick jump to get 
away' with a mad buck close behind, not to mention sev- 
eral rough-and-tumbles wherein I lost most of my raiment 
—these last luckily being with the deer with their horns 
still in the velvet, or I might not now be spinning this 
yarn. • ^M. Wells. 
[Mr. Wells' letter is extremely interesting, and touches 
on a number of points that are not generally understood 
It is the more valuable as coming from a man of wide 
experience, much of whose inature life has been devoted 
largely to hunting. 
i^or many years we have been looking for an authentic 
case of an attack on a httman being by the wolf in 
America, but we confess that only one .such case has 
ever become known to us. This attack*was made without 
any reason on a girl eighteen years old by a wolf puppy 
which was barely full grown, and its oddness places it 
outside of the category of ordinary stories of attacks by 
wolves on human beings, in which hunger is the motive 
which prompts the supposed onslaught. 
The girl who was injured was the' daughter of the 
widely known Jim Baker, one of the few oldtime trappers 
who )ived up to recent times, and the occtirrence took 
place near his ranch on Snake River, in the northwest 
corner of Colorado. The girl, then (in 18S1) eighteen 
years old, was on her way to drive in some milk cows at 
dusk one evening. As she approached them she saw 
sitting on the hillside just above the trail a gray wolf, at 
which she shouted, and when it did not move she picked 
up a stone and threw it at it. The animal snarled, and 
when she threw the stone, promptly came jumping down 
the hill, threw her down and tore her arms and legs 
badly. Her screams brought her brother, who was near 
at hand and had his gun, and he killed the wolf. News- 
paper stories of attacks on persons by wolves are ex- 
tremeh' common, but in almost all cases, if an effort is 
made to trace them to their source, thej'- prove to be 
without the slightest foundation in fact, A long, chapter 
on "Wolves and Wolf Nature" is published in the Boone 
and Crockett Club's third volume, •■Trail and Camp- 
fire." 
We will recall «in incident which happened many years 
ago on the plains, when two Indians chased an old 
grizzly bear and her two well-grown cubs lor a long 
distance. The mother apparently felt no interest what- 
ever in the cubs, but ran away as fast as she could, and 
kept on running. One after another of the cubs was 
overtaken and killed, and then, their horses having given 
out, one of the Indians continued the pursuit of the old 
bear on foot, and at last drove her into a water hole, 
where he killed her. , 
Some years ago not very far from the eastern border's 
of the National Park a case occurred where a cougar 
sprang on a man. The man was hunting mule deer near 
Clark's Fork, following a game trail which passed along 
a steep hillside where there were cliffs and broken rocks 
and occasional patches of quaking aspen. It was winter 
and cold weather, and the hunter wore stout hunting 
clothing. As the man turned the point of a little grove 
of aspens the cougar sprang on him from a tock above 
the trail, landing on his back and catching him with its 
jaws by the shoulder. As the man fell the gun flew out 
of his hands to some distance. The animal lay on him on 
the ground, and, as a curious example of how people 
notice trifling things even in times of great stress, the 
hunter said that as he fell he could feel the cougar's 
whiskers tickling his face, and as t'le animal lay on him 
could hear it purr. The man was quick-witted, .and as 
he lay on the ground, reached round and got hold of his 
skinning knife, with which lie stabbed the cougar three 
times as it lay on him, and it died there without strug- 
gling. Somewhat dazed, the man rose to his feet, picked 
up his gun, and returning to camp got some other men, 
who went back with him a:nd skinned the lion, Of 
course no one saw the occurrence, but the condition of 
the man's clothing and shoulder and of the dead cougar 
made it clear that things had happened just as he said. 
The cougar was undoubtedly lying in wait above the 
trail for a deer — or, for the matter of that, for a rabbit — 
and when the man suddenly appeard sprang cn him, be- 
lieving that the moving object was a deer. 
A friend in Montana, who formerly used two little 30- 
pound dogs in hunting cougars, has told us that he has 
frequently seen one of these overtake a cougar, seize the 
tip of its tail in its teeth and then putting out all four 
feet in the snow brace back and try to hold the cougar. 
He added that when the cat turned about to strike at the 
dog it did so slowly and clumsily, so that the dog had 
abundant time to get out of the way. 
The size of cougars is constantly overestimated, and 
we fancy they are quite as often under 7 as over 7 feet 
in length when measured in the flesh. We think that it 
was Mr. John Fannin, Curator of the Provincial Museum 
of British Columbia, who for many years had a standing 
reward out for a cougar that would measure 8 feet in the 
flesh — and they have big cougars, in British Columbia, 
too. We believe that the reward was never claimed; at all 
events it had not been claimed two or three years ago. 
Of course, in comparison with the lion or the tiger, the 
cougar is a small animal, and the tiger is much larger 
than the lion. „ . 
We are disposed to agree with Mr. Wells that the 
most dangerous game in the West is the deer, but, as it 
happens, we have not known the mule deer in this re- 
spect. The whitetail deer, however, is always a danger- 
ous animal when wounded, and at least' one case has 
come to our knowledge where a wounded buck, sur- 
prised, attacked and killed an old man. This was in 
Nebraska, many years ago, but the occurrence was eii-^ 
tirely authentic and is undoubted. 
Cases where hunters have incautiously advanced to cut 
the throat of a wounded deer, and have been then at- 
tacked and badly cut up by the swiftly flying feet or hurt 
by the horns, have been too frequent to require especial 
mention. • 
Any one who has ever been forced to be at grapples 
with a crazy dog knows how hard such an animal is to hold, 
provided it is not^desired to kill it, and we know of a man 
who, getting hold of a wounded antelope in the effort to 
cut its throat, would have been delighted to let go and 
call it quits if he had dared to do so.] 
English Woodcock. 
I NOTICE in your issues of Dec. 22, igoo, and Jan. 5, 
1901, the notes by Jay Beebe and Didsnnus on the pos- 
sible occurrence of the European species Scolopax 
riisticola_ in Michigan and New Jersey. The Michigan 
specimen is described as being similar to our bird in all 
respects except size. As the coloration of plumage 
is very different in the American and European species, 
this would at once dissipate any chance of its being other 
than an extra large Philohela minor. It is unfortunate, 
however, that the specimen was not preserved. As to the 
New, Jersey bird seen, but not captured, twenty, years 
ago, it would be dangerous to speculate as to its being 
so rare a bird as the European species is in America. 
Didymus speaks of the bird in question appearing to be 
"Twice as large as a legitimate member had any right to 
be," but how often, under certain conditions of light and 
atmosphere, does a woodcock, snipe or even a duck ap- 
pear to be half again as large as it really is, particularly 
when it "gets up"! 
The English woodcock, while only a very rare strag- 
gler to this country, is included in the list of our birds. 
Ir I tuistake not, only three instances of its capture 
have been" recorded. The late George N. Lawrence in- 
cluded it in his "Catalogue of Birds Observed on New 
York, Long and Staten Islands, and the Adjacent Parts 
of New Jersey," published in the "Annals of the Lyceum 
of Natural History of New York," Vol. VIII., April, 
1866, and writes; "I have had an example of this species 
for some years, which was sent me by Mr. Wm. Gal- 
braith, accompanied with the following note, dated Dec. 
6, 1859: 'A poultry dealer in Washington Market in- 
formed me that he had seen in the market a strange bird, 
which in his opinion was an overgrown woodcock, I 
went to see it, and found it to be a true European 
woodcock; it is badly shot, part of the bill and skull 
being carried away; it is fresh and otherwise in good 
order; the person I got it from said that he bought it with 
a lot of quail on board the Shrewsbury boat. I thought 
v. an occurrence in our line worthy of notice.' It was 
doubtless killed near Shrewsbury, N. J., and apparently 
with coarse shot. It was, however, in good condition, and 
after taking off its skin I had the body cooked, and was 
able to partake of a dish not usual in America. It prob- 
ably came by the way of Iceland and Greenland, a route 
by which other European species occasionally reach us." 
In Lewis' "American Sportsman," Philadelphia, 1871, 
page 169, he has in a footnote as follows: "G, D. Weth- 
erell, Esq., informs us, a few days since, that a gentleman 
sent him, a year or two ago, a woodcock that weighed 
14 ounces, which was shot in New Jersey, and it was 
his intention to have it mounted, but, owing to the neg- 
ligence of the partj' who brought the bird it was too far 
gone before he received it." 
There is, of course, an open question as to the proper 
identity of this specimen. In a valuable paper. '''The 
Distribution and Migrations of North American Birds," 
by the late Prof. Spencer F. Baird, published in the 
American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. XLL, May, 
1866. he gives a list of twenty-seven species belonging to 
the European fauna which had been found up to that 
date in Iceland. Greenland and North America. The one 
species accredited to Newfoundland was the English 
woodcock. Should any sportsman kill a woodcock of 
sufficiently large size to cause any suspicion as to its not 
being our American bird, he will, I trust, have it pre- 
served at once and forwarded to some institution for 
identification. However, the probabilities are that the 
next European bird Avhich is taken in our country will 
be found in one of the .A.tlantic States, and not in the 
interior. Ruthven Deane. 
Chicago, Jan. 
Abinism in the Red-Tailed Hawk. 
(Buteo borealis.) 
In Forest and Stream of Dec. 29, igoo, I note the 
record of an albino specimen at the taxidermi.st store of 
F. Sauter, New York. This bird is described as pure 
white,' ex-cept for four reddish-brown tail fea-hers. Tliis 
reminds me of a specimen of this same species which I 
saw in April, 1879. It was the property of Mr. C. J. 
Maynard, Newtonville, Mass. The bird, though much 
soiled, had been pure white with the exception of a few 
central tail feathers, which retained the normal cinnamon 
color. A pure white specimen was in the collection of 
the late Dr. P. R. Hoy, of Rac'ne, Wis., in 1881. An- 
other was in possession of Mr. Emory C. Greenwood, of 
Ipswich, Mass., in March, iSSo; and still another pure 
white one was killed on the Hoboken marshes, N. J., 
over twenty years ago. Mr. Geo. A. Boardman, of 
Calais, Maine, has among his fine collection of albinos 
a pure white buteo, probablv of the red-tailed species. It 
would be very interesting if all sportsmen would record 
the cupture of any specimen? which they may take show- 
ing any albisistic traces. This freak of nature is liable 
to occur in any bird, but is much more frequent in some 
families than in others-. It is nq^ at all unusual among 
the ducks and game birds. ,1 Ruthven Deane. 
Chicago, Jan. T. 
"Wintef Birds on Staten Island. 
Princes Bay, Staten Island, N. Y.,'jan. 29.— Bluebirds 
have been with us all winter. A flock of wild geese was 
seen last week going north over Staten Island. Robins 
are thick around here in the cedars; but what their fate 
will be in the next four weeks is hard to say. February 
j§ hard on our feathered friends. *** 
The Linnaean Society of New York* 
Regular meetings of the Society will be held in the 
American Museum of Natural History, Seventy-seventh 
Street and Eighth avenue, on Tuesday evenings, Feb. 12 
and 26, at 8 o'clock, and ptiblic lectures will be given at 
the same place on Thursday evenings, Feb. 21 and 28, at 
8 o'clock. „ . „ . 
Peb. 12— R. L, D^tmars. "Collecting Snakes m South 
Carolina." Illustrated with spectimens. . 
Feb. 21— Public lecture. C. L. Bristol. "The_ Sea Gar- 
dens of Bermuda." Illustrated with lantern slides. 
Peb. 28— Public lecture. C. Hart Merriam. "A Nat- 
uralist on the Coast of Alaska." Illustrated with a series 
of lantern slides. 
Walter W. Granger, 
Secretary American Museum of Natural History. 
The Forest amd Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach tis at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicaljle. 
