^^8 
FOREST AND STHEAM. 
tMARCH 19, 1964. 
Mr. A. A. Anderson, who is in charge of the Forest 
Reserve at Yellowstone Park, told of the wonderful 
improvements which have been made in that locality. 
Mountain lions are so numerous and destructive there 
that it will be necessary to employ hounds to get rid 
of them, yet they are so stealthy, that the principal 
guide said he had not seen one of them in twenty years, 
though he was constantly coming across dead carcasses 
of animals which they had killed and partly eaten. Quite 
recently six colts and three young steers were thus 
made away with. The panthers usually leap upon their 
victim, and seize and hold it by the throat in their 
powerful jaws, and suck its blood until it dies. Re- 
ferring to the forest reserve, he said that no spectacle 
is finer than to see the thousands of elk which roam 
at large with other game of all kinds. Some of them 
are wonderfully tame and remain close to habitations 
all the year round. 
— -® — 
Eagle and Sturgeon. 
We had been camped for a few days at a point on 
the upper reaches of the Pic River, waiting for a few 
of the party who were running a side line. A source 
of amusement, was watching the descent of a large 
bald-headed eagle in the eddy back of the point. 
He would strike the water with great force, commg 
down from an immense height. At times he would 
dive under the surface to reappear a moment or two 
later, generally with a fish clutched in his claws; when 
he would fly (freighted with his fish) to a very high 
mountain, on the overhanging crest of which the nest 
with his mate and young were quite visible to us with our 
field glass. 
I had noticed his success and journeys to the nest 
for two mornings. On the third morning, a shadow 
coming across the sun's rays caused me to look up, and 
there was the great bird at his usual hunt to supply the 
young eagles with breakfast. With his keen eye 
piercing the river depths he poised over a particular 
spot for a few moments, and then shot down with the 
velocity of a cannon ball. 
The waters parted and the eagle was lost to view. I 
watched and waited to see him emerge with his prey, 
but moments lengthened into minutes, and minutes 
into a quarter of an hour, but the surface of the water 
remained undisturbed. 
What could it mean? Even if he had struck himself 
against some hidden rock and been killed, the body 
would have floated to the surface. It passed my reason- 
ing powers to solve the result of that plunge. Then 
far down, fully a quarter of a mile off, I saw the great 
bird struggling, either to carry off a heavy burden or 
to free himself from one. The waters were lashed 
into foam, and the bird again disappeared, and all was 
still. 
This lashing of the water and disappearmg was re- 
peated again and again, each time further down stream. 
A bend in the river prevented my seeing the final re- 
sult. Calling one of our men from the tent, we em- 
barked in a canoe and started down river to view the 
strange proceeding closer. When we had doubled the 
point below, I saw lodged against the beach in a small 
bay something that did not look natural to the place. 
We paddled down and found it was my eagle fast fixed 
to a sturgeon, fully six feet long. Both were motion- 
less. The king of fish and the king of birds had met 
death. Martin Hunter. 
The Wonderful Chimpanzee. 
From the London Field. 
The death of the wonderful chimpanzee Consul, which 
occurred in Berlin, on 'the 20th inst., must be regarded as 
a misfortune from a. purely scientific T)oint of yiew._ His 
intelligence, already^ i^r above that of most individuals 
of his species, was. in. full process of development, and, 
considering his age— onljr five — promised greater things 
had he been spared the" fatal attack of bronchitis to 
which he succumbed after only three days' illness. 
Those who have only seen Consul during his short per- 
formances at the iTippodrome cannot form an adequate 
idea of his intelligence. I took much interest in the ape 
on his arrival in London, and saw a great deal of him, 
on and off the stage, during the six weeks he spent here, 
He was extremely sensitive to kindness, and responsive 
to the sympathy of his friends. I shall not soon forget 
the screams of joy with which he greeted me when I 
visited him in the, evening in his dressing room at the 
Hippodrome. Like , all tlie higher apes, he was capricious 
and of somewhat unreliable temper, and if slightly un- 
well, or irritated ' at the presence of some person for 
whom he felt a dislike, he might show himself very 
savage, and even so "much forget himself as to refuse to 
obey his master. But,'as a general rule, he was extremely 
well behaved, obedient, and thoroughly enjoyed company. 
Both in Paris and in London he received frequent invi- 
tations to luncheoii^ or dinner, when he would sit for 
over an hour at table without moving from his chair, 
eating almost of everything, with fork or spoon, and 
drinking wine or beer out of a glass without hardly ever 
upsetting a thing or soiling the table cloth. Dessert was, 
of course, most enjoyed, and he always greeted the ap- 
pearance of fruit on the table by a sort of grunt several 
times repated in rapid succession. Like other chimpan- 
zees, he was very fond of bread, of which he ate several 
pieces in the course of dinner, always leaving the crust. 
He was very partial to strong drinks, and had a special 
liking for whiskey arid soda, but smoking he clearly did 
not enjoy. He would take a few puffs just to please his 
friends, and would then throw away his cigar ot 
cigarette, or pull it to pieces. On one occasion, as he was 
sitting on my knee, tearing up the leaves of a cigar, he 
arranged the fragments on the back of my hand with a 
symmetry that was not accidental. I several times tried 
to make him draw some simple design, as he was fond of 
using a pencil, but with no success; yet I cannot help 
thmkmg that, given his power of imitation and his dex- 
terity, _ something in this line might have been obtained 
with, time and patience. Consul understood many words, 
even- when spoken by total strangers, and he would 
recognize his friends among the crowded audience round 
the arena of the Hippodrome, interrupting his "turn" to 
rush across to them. 
As has already been noticed in other anthropoids, he 
had a sense of the ridiculous, and would do certain things 
with the evident object of provoking laughter. One day 
that I had him to luncheon it occurred to me he might 
like to use a bell, as he was in the habit of doing at 
table during his performance, and I accordingly placed 
one, quite similar in shape to that which he used twice 
daily, by his side. But Consul realized that there was no 
necessity for calling a waiter when servants were stand- 
ing in the room, so instead of ringing the bell he put it 
on his head, at the same time looking round to judge of 
the mirth which his jocular action produced on the other 
guests. jHe clapped hands when very pleased, and always 
after having done something which he thought deserv- 
ing of applause. He was extremely fond of playing with 
people, romps up and down the stairs being a great treat 
to him, and when tired he would come in your arms to be 
nursed like a little child. 
One of the most remarkable things about Consul's 
training was the system by which he had become so 
hardened as to go about— more or less warmly clad, of 
course — in all weathers, driving in a motor car or a 
hansom, without feeling any the worse for the changes 
of temperature. He washed with cold water, and I must 
not omit to mention, without entering into details, that 
his toilette on rising differed in no way from that to 
which we accustom our children. Unlike many human 
_ beings, he was fond of soap and water. 
Of his public performances the most noteworthy part 
was his riding a bicycle, the steering of which around 
tables, chairs, etc., implies a degree of mental adjust- 
ment with which mute animals are not usually credited. 
Much in the details of his "turn" had been devised by 
himself, as, for instance, standing on his head, an addi- 
tion to the programme which, I am told, he made recently 
in Paris entirely on his own initiative, and probably in 
imitation of some human performer at the Folies Ber- 
geres. It speaks for his intelligence, as distinguished 
from educability, that, unlike other trained animals, he 
hardly ever performed twice in exactly the same way. 
Sometimes he would refuse to go to bed after undressing, 
as was part of the regular performance, or he would get 
in at the wrong end, and he occasionally disgraced him- 
self by making his appearance on the stage on all fours. 
His trainer never felt quite sure of what was going to 
happen. The way he could stand and walk perfectly 
erect for a long time was very remarkable, especially in 
view of the fact that not many years ago the possibility 
of chimpanzees doing so was denied, notwithstanding 
the statement of Buffon. The account given by the illus- 
trious naturalist of the behavior of a trained chimpanzee. 
Jocko, exhibited in Paris in 1740, has been regarded by 
some authors as exaggerated ; but as I have seen Consul 
do everything with which Buffon's chimpanzee is credited, 
I believe the account to be absolutely trustworthy, and 
it seems to me, from all I have read, that Jocko and Con- 
sul, following at an interval of 160 years, are to be re- 
garded as the two most highly trained anthropoid apes 
that have ever been brought to notice. How many years 
will it be ere Consul finds a successor? 
Chimpanzees, of which I have seen a great many, vary 
much in appearance, quite irrespective of diiferences due 
to age. Consul was an exceptionally handsome specimen, 
with hardly any freckles on his flesh-colored face, and a 
pleasant expression, especially when his eyes were bright 
with satisfaction. He was somewhat disfigured tem- 
porarily by having lost most of his milk teeth ; the second 
dentition was just cutting through. His coat was per- 
fectly black and lustrous, and I never noticed his hair 
to stick up when he was excited, as is the case with 
many individuals, particularly the young male Jimmy now 
in our Zoological Gardens. 
I stated at the head of this notice that the loss of 
Consul is regrettable from a strictly scientific point of 
view. As the late Professor Romanes well said in writ- 
ing on the mental faculties of the chimpanzee Sally, the 
confinement of these animals in menageries is not favor- 
able for anything like systematic instruction, while the 
treatment to which Consul was subjected under the able 
care of Dr. Scott promised to bring out the full mental 
development of which the highest of brutes is capable, 
and of the limits of which we must confess to be still 
ignorant. The chasm between the mind of dumb ani- 
mals and that of the lowest of men is certainly very 
deep, but how much so it would be premature to say in 
view of the rare opportunities afforded tO' the scientific 
observer. Such an opportunity the death of Consul 
surely removes for a long time to come. 
G. A. BOULENGER. 
Beats as Game Desttoyefs. 
BreweRj Me. — Editor Forest and Stream: If it will be 
of any help to those opposing protection of bears, I will 
say that in the fall of 1859 Mr. Wm. H. Staples (whom 
your correspondent Mr. Burnham mentioned several times 
when he wrote from Jock Darling's camp) found where 
quite a small bear had crept to a large bull moose with 
nine points on each horn, and had jumped on his neck and 
held him down till he killed him. There was a light sun 
and everything could be plainly seen; and Mr. Staples 
found him in less than twenty-four hours from the time 
he was killed. It was no wounded moose, as no one was 
hunting in the vicinity. I was hunting some twenty-five 
miles to the north, and Mr. Staples told me all the par- 
ticulars when we next met. 
Jock Darling once told me that in coming up a stream 
on Aroostook waters he found a she bear and two cubs 
feeding on a cow moose, which she had just killed by 
jumping from the bank upon her when feeding on lily- 
roots. 
Among hundreds of moose hides I have had dressed by 
the Indians, I have seen several where hips showed great 
scars, where they had been torn by bears. These were not 
scratches made by being torn on knots, as one often sees, 
but showed plainly the marks of all the nails on both 
hips. But if more conclusive proof is desired, in Scrib- 
ners Magazine for September, 1901^ is an article by 
Prederic Irland, entitled, "The Beguiling of the Bears," 
m which he tells of going with Harry Braithwaite on 
his spring bear hunt. On page 318 he says: "During the 
first few days of its life, the baby moose is a clumsy, 
helpless creature, that wabbles feebly on its long legs, and 
can scarcely get out of the way of a man, to say nothing 
of a bear. All the bears go moose hunting at this sea- 
son, and any bear killed in May is almost certain to have 
moose hair m its stomach. Gene Hay and a few other 
trappers have decimated the bears and lynxes, and the 
moose have increased enormously." What is true of the 
moose is also true of caribou and deer. Bears- can kill the 
young in_ May and June just as they likej-^ahd later can 
and do kill some old ones. 
Our Legislature in their wisdom removed the bounty 
on bears as being a needless expense, and put one on the 
nearly harmless porcupines. I do not think the bear 
bounty ever was over $2,000 in a year. Already we have 
vouchers which call for over $12,000 for porcupines, and 
more damage is done by fires set to smoke them out than 
all the bounties ever paid on bears would amount to. 
. M. Hardy. 
Robins and the Gatden. 
_ Saginaw, Mich.—Editor Forest and Stream:ThQ Sag- 
maw Courier-Herald some time ago offered a prize for 
the one reporting the arrival of the first robin. The result 
13 that Thos. Londry, of Merrill, Mich., a town near 
here, reports having seen one on his farm on the morning 
of March 5. Mr. Sheperd reports seeing three a day 
later, and reports of several others follow on or about 
the same date. There is strong prejudice against the 
robin on account of their fruit-stealing propensities. My 
yard, is filled with them, and I cheerfully surrender the 
product of three cherry trees to them each year. My 
strawberry beds I keep covered with mosquito netting 
from the time the berries first begin to turn. The bunches 
of my grapes I tie in paper bags. It makes some work, 
but the grapes are nicer and the robins cannot get at 
them, so that all through the summer my lawn is cov- 
ered with these birds, and I think they are of more value 
than the few dollars' worth of fruit destroyed. Cherries 
can be had on the market, anyhow, for a song, and so 
can strawberries, and the robins are always willing to fur- 
nish an equally pleasant song. 
I am afraid our quail have been exterminated by the 
severe winter. I have heard reports of several people 
driving along the road and finding dead quail lying on 
the roadside. The protection of birds and wild animals 
in a practical way is being delayed like the growing of 
forest trees, until the last one will be exterminated. 
W. B. Mershon. 
"When a Duck is Not a D«cfc. 
I READ a few days ago in an exchange a description of 
a dinner partaken of by a number of Roman Catholic 
dignitaries— it was on a fast day in Lent— where teal 
duck was served at dinner. 
The presence of meat upon the table excited comments 
from one not thoroughly posted, and the explanation 
given vi^as as follows: That, like a turtle and a hen's 
egg, teal duck was neither fish nor meat. 
Mallards were a grain-eating duck and their flesh was 
built up from the same foundation as a stall-fed beast. 
But a teal duck, living on minnows and lower forms of 
water life, was certainly betwixt and between, and neither 
one thing nor the other, and for this reason its presence 
upon the table during Lent was permissible. But whether 
it be fish, flesh, fowl, or the devil, a properly cooked teal 
duck is a morsel not to be sniffed at. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
An Oregfon Rabbit Drive. 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Cornwall (N. Y.) Local writes 
from Skullspring, Oregon: "1 wish to tell the readers 
of the Local about a rabbit drive in which I participated 
on New Year's Day, at the mouth of Butter Creek, near 
Echo, Oregon. It is said to be the biggest drive ever 
made anywhere. A large corral was built with a wing 
three miles long, and about three hundred people to drive 
them in. It is estimated that about ten thousand rabbits 
were killed. Two coyotes were also caught in the drive. 
One thousand of the bunnies were used at the Echo Can- 
nery, that being all that could be taken care of before 
spoiling. One man hauled away fifteen hundred for his 
hogs, and the remainder were left on the ground. The 
village hunters may think of this when they are tramping 
through the woods all day for one, or perhaps no little 
cotton-tail— L. G. B." 
Desttwction of Ptaifie Dog's. 
Monroe, Neb., Jan. 17.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
I see in Eorest and Stream that Cabia Blanco in speak- 
ing of the prairie dog seems to think that it would be al- 
most impossible to exterminate them. We have found 
it rather easy. There was a dog-town north and west of 
Columbus a few years ago, that was almost one mile wide 
by perhaps three miles long. There is not a dog left 
there now. 
_We used sulphide of carbon. We used to saturate a 
piece of corn cob in the fluid and drop it down the hole 
and cover the hole up tight and that was all. The 
carbonic acid gas would do the rest. 
As to shooting them, I have killed as many as twenty 
in succession with a rifle, and not had one of them fall 
down the hole out of reach. L. H. N. 
Some centuries before our era there was a man who 
carved for his feudal prince a piece of jade into the form 
of a mulberry leaf. He spent three years over the job, 
and when it was finished the leaf was so perfect in detail 
—stalk, veins, and even hairy spikelets — that when mixed 
up with other mulberry leaves, no one could say which 
was the imitation. The artisan was richly rewarded ; but 
the philosopher of the day is said to have remarked : "If 
God Almighty spent three years over every leaf, there 
would be scant foliage on the trees. Therefore," he 
added, "the wise man puts his trust in the processes of 
nature, and not in c-unning or ingenuity." — Professor 
Giles. 
