84 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Fes. i, igda. 
dent; Benjamin, Treasurer, and Warren J. Slater, Secre- 
tary. 
The Secretary's and Treasurer's reports were read and 
accepted. Mr. Slater, the Secretary, made an uncom- 
monly good showing, and a vote of thanks was extended 
to htm for his work for the Association and the Adiron- 
dacks generally. 
The following resolutions were presented by Mr. Slater 
and adopted: 
Whereas. The Adirondack Guides' Association was 
organized by representative guides in various portions of 
the North Woods for the better protection of the fish, 
game and forests, and 
Whereas, It is plainly evident that the present State 
game protectors are insufficient, both in number and 
qualifications for the exercise of their important duties, 
therefore be it 
Resolved. That it is the sense and opinion of this Asso- 
ciation and meeting that the State should engage the 
services, as game protectors, of more and better men, and 
that a petition be sent to the present Legislature to that 
end; also, 
Whereas, The Governor of this State has recommended 
the passage of a bill amending the State Constitution so as 
to permit the lumbering of the State lands, and 
Whereas, such an amendment at this time, would, in our 
judgment, lay the State Forest Preserve open to spolia- 
tion and private speculation, resulting eventually in the 
destruction by fire and ax of that most precious heritage, 
our public forests, therefore be it 
Resolved, That the Adirondack Guides' Association is 
unalterably opposed to any scheme or amendment of the 
Constitution of our State looking toward the lumbering 
of said lands or their apportionment among private 
parties. 
Whereas, The Governor of the State has recommended 
the amendment of the Constitution permitting the rental 
of camp sites on shores of Adirondack waters, be it 
Resolved, That we, the Adirondack Guides, indorse the 
recommendation. We believe that this last will give 
many guides employment, will open up many of our 
fairest sections for the building of summer homes, and in- 
cidentally bringing in a revenue to the State. 
S. A. M. 
Natural History Notes* 
About six ears ago the dead body of a bull whale was 
left by the tide near the mouth of the Colorado River, in 
lower California. It was measured by Mr H. A. Jenkins, 
owner of a large stock ranch in that vicinity, and slightly 
exceeded 86 feet in length. From point to point of the 
extended flukes it measured nearly 50 feet, and was 16 
feet from the corner of the mouth to the point of the chin. 
The lower jaw was 12 feet wide at its base. With the 
exception of a few of the vertebrae, which have been car- 
ried off for seats, the skeleton of the monster still lies in 
the sand and mud, and can be had by any institution at 
the expense of a few dollars in taking them out. For 
this work Indians can be cheaply employed. One thor- 
oughly dry joint of the vertebrae, brought to Yuma about 
a year since, weighs 42 pounds, and makes a very comfort- 
able seat. It is about 13 inches deep, and measures 14 
inches in diameter. 
A wounded duck fell on a mud flat of the Colorado 
River about a week ago and was almost immediately at- 
tacked by crows, killed and eaten. During the killing 
they kept up a continual noise and then fell to fighting 
over the body. A Western herring gull claimed its share 
of the fleshpot, and was to every appearance treated as 
an equal by the colored brethren. 
A wildcat attempting to escape made a running spring 
at a plastered wall 20 feet high. In the 20 feet the wall 
has a two-foot slope, and the cat struck it about 17 feet 
up, then ran along the side about 10 feet before it fell. 
It was a wonderful jump, and although- the cat struck 
it so near the top, it made no attempt to go higher, but 
held a very even course along the wall by forcing its 
claws into the plaster. 
One day last fall a Yuma county ranchman saw the tail 
end of a rattlesnake protruding from a gopher hole and 
endeavored to prevent it being drawn in by standing on 
it, but although he weighed about 140 pounds the snake 
pulled him along with apparent ease. It measured rather 
more than three inches across where it was cut in two, and 
had eleven rattles. The business end of the snake was not 
seen. 
This same ranchman reports that when a resident of 
Esmeralda county, Nevada, in 1892, he saw where a 
"gopher snake" had passed along a dusty road and had 
apparently visited every squirrel hole on either side of 
the road. Further on he found where some one had 
thoughtlessly killed it and that the body contained seven 
adult "gopher squirrels." This ought to be argument 
enough against the destruction of these harmless and use- 
ful reptiles. 
Well, back to rattlesnakes again. During the early 
eighties, when the Quijotoa mining camp was on the 
boom, the Indians supplied the camp with wood. While 
so engaged an Indian cut a rattler in two with an axe as 
it was escaping under a woodpile. This was in the after- 
noon. On the following morning, while engaged in re- 
moving the wood, the man was struck by the snake and 
died the next day about noon time. This story may sound 
a little snaky, but the facts of the case were well known. 
I did not see this thing myself, but it was common talk at 
the rime. The snake had been cut in two about ten 
hours at the time it inflicted the fatal bite. 
plentiful on the adjacent hills. One rattler by climbing 
an almost perpendicular wall of a stone quarry succeeded 
in getting on top of the penitentiary wall, from which it 
was knocked by one of the guards. It then traveled along 
the base of the wall and entered the yard of the superin- 
tendent's residence, where it was attacked by a cat. Just 
what the result would have been had they been left to 
fight it out cannot, of course, be told, but attention was 
attracted to them by the continued rattling of he snake. 
When seen by the light of a lantern, for the night was 
quite dark, the snake was coiled and the cat had its en- 
tire attention. Both cat and snake were very much 
excited. 
A resident of Yuma, who lives on the bank of the 
Colorado, is the owner of a white bull-terrier. This 
dog fully understands the destroying power of water. He 
is a pugnacious brute, and does not hesitate to attack any 
dog that encroaches on his domain. If in conflict with a 
large dog, he can force it in direction of the river he in- 
variably does so, then comes the struggle to hold it under 
water. If with a smaller or weaker dog, he deliberately 
drags it to the water and drowns it. Recently when being 
beaten to compel him to release a victim, he struggled and 
held on till he reached the river and out of reach of 
the troublesome stick with which he was being belabored, 
when he forced the head of the dog under water. Need- 
ing air, he was compelled to let go, but when he did so the 
dog came to the surface and attempted to swim away, only 
to be seized again and dragged to the bank, but at a place 
where he could not be interfered with, where he stood 
and held the dog under the water till it was dead. The 
whole life of the dog has beeen passed by the river, and 
he is apparently as much at home in the water as out of 
it. If a stone be thrown into the water at any depth that 
he can reach, he never fails to bring it out, although he 
may have to make several attempts before he gets it. 
H. B. 
Yuma, Ajiz,, Jan. IT. 
Last spring when the annual overflow of the Colorado 
drove the snakes from the bottom lands, they became quite 
The Gray Wolf, 
Morgantown, W. Va., Jan. 20. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: During the past two years or more, I have been 
reading articles in Colorado and Wyoming papers which 
have caused me many hours of thought, and the more I 
study the matter in question, the more I get lost in its 
mysteries. The following appears in the North Park 
Union, printed at Walden, in North Park, Colorado, 
dated Jan. 3, 1902, and is a fair sample of the articles 
referred to, which appear from time to time in that paper, 
and also in Wyoming papers, and which investigation 
show to be correct: 
"In a recent letter from Mr. John B. Riach, of Hebron, 
he writes that Emmett Lee in hauling hay from Riach's 
field Dec. 30 scared up a drove of eleven gray wolves 
that ran outside the fence and lay down. Lee returned 
home, took a gun and followed them, killing one and 
wounding another. Mr. Riach thinks it would be a good 
idea for stockmen to join in a subscription or some other 
plan and make war on the wolves until they are destroyed. 
Several small droves have recently been seen by others 
in the vicinity of Riach's place, and of course wolves 
must have something to eat. Somebody's herd suffers 
a loss every few nights. At the coming stockmen's 
meeting would be a good time to discuss plans and make 
provisions for war on wolves. The Union hopes some 
successful method will be adopted to rid the park of this 
great pest to stockmen." 
Now, these conditions exist to-day in the cattle country 
of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming, which lo- 
cality was familiar to me some years ago. From 1888 
to 1894 I lived in and traveled much through these wild 
and sparsely settled regions, both in the open cattle 
country and in the mountain districts, and never in all 
that time did I see or track a gray wolf, and never 
even heard a report of their being seen in this section 
of country. It is only, then, in the last few years they 
have appeared in that locality; and reports show them to 
be rapidly increasing from year to year. This in the 
face of the fact that strenuous efforts have been made 
and are made for their extermination. In some places in 
Wyoming the stockmen have paid as high as twenty dol- 
lars bounty on their scalps, aside from the regular bounty 
paid by the State. 
Four methods are adopted for their capture, in that 
open country, all more or less successful, and still they 
persist in increasing in numbers, and enlarging their 
territory. 
They are caught with greyhounds, trapped, poisoned, 
and quite frequently shot with the rifle, as they are prin- 
cipally in the open, where they can readily be seen. 
In the days when the early pioneers pushed, their way 
into the forests of the Eastern States, gray wolves were 
found in great numbers in most of the States. They 
are, of all the larger North American wild animals, 
among the swiftest runners, the hardest to trap, the 
hardest to get sight of in the forest country, excepting, 
perhaps, the panther, and withal one of the most, if not 
the most, difficult animal to capture: and yet, notwith- 
standing all this, their larger neighbors of the forest, 
such as deer, bear and moose, which are more sought 
after and more easily captured, are still holding their 
own, and are found more or less in all the States; while 
the wolf has long vanished from the forests of our 
Eastern States. 
This question of the disappearance of wolves from the 
Eastern States has long perplexed me, when considering 
with how much greater security a wolf should be able 
to live his retired and secluded life in our forests, than 
the monstrous moose, or even the deer or bear; and yet 
how early and complete was his annihilation. There is 
no doubt that poison was the chief means of their destruc- 
tion, but why should it have made their destruction so 
complete at so early a date, with all the vast forests still 
left where they might be far from man? 
Following their history for the past ten years, in the 
locality referred to, deepens the mystery. Owing t the 
openness and natural advantages for hunters in that 
region, all big game animals are disappearing faster than 
they ever did in any of our eastern forests, but what of 
the wolf? With but one, or at most two, practicable 
methods of capturing him in the East, he vanished at 
an early date, when big game was yet abundant. With 
four practicable ways open for his undoing in the West, 
he not only grows more abundant, but adds new terri- 
tory to his possessions, and refuses to be "ousted," while 
all other of the larger wild animals of the West are rapidly 
disappearing. 
We can only gain information by three methods — see- 
ing and observing for ourselves that which others see 
and observe and record for our benefit, and the theories 
of others as well as of our own. The last could hardly 
be called information, but rather conclusions arrived at 
after a certain process of theorizing, and accepted as 
facts, in the absence of any means whereby their truth 
can be demonstrated. Thus to arrive at any conclusion 
in this matter of wolf history might require more or less 
theory; and if anyone has a clear conception of the cause 
of the conditions, past and present, of this interesting 
animal, he would interest at least one reader of Forest 
and Stream, and I dare say many, by "letting his light 
shine." Emerson Carney. 
New York Zoological Society* 
The annual meeting of the Board of Managers of the 
New York Zoological Society was held in New York 
on Tuesday, Jan. 21. Among those present were: Levi 
P. Morton, Henry Fairfield Osborn, ~H. D. Auchincloss, 
H. A. C. Taylor, John S. Barnes, Edward J. Berwind, 
Joseph Stickney, Madison Grant, C. L. Blair, Chas. F. 
Dietrich, Chas. T. Barney, W. W. Niles, C. Vanderbilt, 
Samuel Thorne, George C. Clark, Cleveland H. Dodge, 
George B. Grinnell, Jacob H. Schiff, Lispenard Stewart, 
Charles E. Whitehead, H. J. Chisholm, William C. 
Church, Philip Schuyler, Percy R. Pyne and Frank M. 
Chapman. 
Prof. Henry F. Osborn, Chairman of the Executive 
Committee, presented his report, which showed that the 
Society was free from debt. He spoke of the progress 
of the new buildings now under way, and of the needs 
of the Society for new animals, new accommodations for 
them, an administrative building, and a zoological library. 
He alluded also to the fact that the portion of the park 
lying on the east side of Bronx River is suffering from 
depredations by timber thieves, and must be fenced in. 
The election of officers for the ensuing year resulted 
in the choice of the following: President, Levi P. Mor- 
ton; First Vice-President, Henry F. Osborn; Second 
Vice-President, Charles E. Whitehead; Secretary, Madi- 
son Grant; Treasurer, Charles T. Barney; Director, Wil- 
liam T. Hornaday. Executive Committee: Henry F. 
Osborn, Chairman; Samuel Thorne, Charles T. Barney, 
John S. Barnes, Philip Schuyler, Madison Grant and 
William White Niles. 
The Director of the Park submitted his annual report 
to the Board of Managers. It was a long document, of 
which only the gist was given. It will be printed in full 
in the Society's Annual Report. The most important 
improvement of the year was the completion and the 
opening of the primates house for the apes, monkeys and 
lemurs. This is 162 feet long by 74 feet in greatest width, 
including the outside cages. The total cost of the build- 
ing was $64,160. It was opened Dec. 22 with a collec- 
tion of us specimens. 
The lion house is well advanced toward completion, 
and it is hoped that the month of June will see it finished. 
It is to cost about $150,000. Until this building is com- 
pleted it is impracticable to collect any of the tropical 
cats, as there is no place to keep them. 
The erection of the mountain sheep's hill gives quarters 
for a new collection of wild sheep and goats. This is 
now divided into four large inclosures, three of which 
are occupied by old world species. 
An interesting experiment has recently been tried in 
the park, by which it has been shown that in this climate 
pumas and lynx can be perfectly well kept out of doors 
the year around; which, after all, seems natural enough. 
Large quarters for the raccoons, with a tree for them to 
climb in and a good shelter for the buffalo are among the 
other new buildings. 
Attention is called to the excellence of the collection 
of bears, consisting of thirty individuals, representing 
ten species. The two Kadiak bears, believed to be the 
only ones in captivity, are developing well. 
The Zoological Society, after having had many misfor- 
tunes wdth the antelope that it has had in captivity, has 
at last succeeded in keeping seven specimens for a year 
and a half, and these seven are in fine condition. There 
have been three deaths from the original herd of ten, all 
of them by accident. 
On the whole, the health of all the animals in the park 
has been good, except in the case of the orangs, among 
which death is said to have been due to a micro- 
organism introduced into the park by the giant tortoises 
from the Galapagos Island. An interesting paragraph in 
the report shows the kinds and quantities of animal food 
furnished during the year to the reptiles. This list in- 
cludes 389 mice, 1,410 rats, 1,273 English sparrows, 366 
rabbits, 531 pigeons, 232 chickens, 812 toads, 408 frogs, 
26,900 live fish, 55 pounds of earth worms, 122 large 
pumpkins, and 2,266 pounds of green vegetables. It is 
mentioned that all the animals were killed before being 
offered as food. 
The director speaks of the great need of money for the 
society in the following language: 
"It is now vitally necessary that an additional ground- 
improvement fund of $500,000 be secured at an early date 
for the erection of other buildings for animals and many 
other improvements. To-day, with but few trifling ex- 
ceptions, all the animal installations of the park are filled 
with animals, and many are .crowded. Four new bear 
dens must be created with the utmost dispatch to provide 
adequately for the thirty bears now on hand. The need 
for the antelope house, the ostrich house, eagles' aviapy, 
and large bird house is painfully apparent. It is humiliat- 
ing to be compelled daily to admit that there are thous- 
ands of birds and mammals which we cannot accept, be- 
cause of the lack of suitable quarters for them. The 
plans for the antelope house and ostrich house are com- 
plete, and if funds were available contracts for their erec-. 
tion could be let within ten days." 
