164 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Sinai Ibex For America 
By John C. Phillips, Wenham, Mass. 
I T is a wise rule for Americans to stick closely 
to their own fauna and not attempt to intro¬ 
duce foreign species, save under very excep¬ 
tional circumstances. I believe in this rule as 
much as anyone, but I am tempted to say a few 
words in favor of an animal which I believe com¬ 
bines some exceptional qualities from the stand¬ 
point of the sportsman. 
On the little triangular bit of land that juts 
out into the northwest corner of the Red Sea, 
the Sinai Peninsula, there dwells a mountain 
goat that since the time of Moses and the 
Israelites has succeeded in maintaining itself on 
the desert mountains of that interesting region. 
In plain sight from the Peninsular and Oriental 
steamers as they take you to far away India, 
rise the rugged outlines of Um Shomer, the 
Gebel Katerina group, and a little north, the 
famous Mt. Serbal, identified by many students 
as the mountain of the Law Giving. About 
these peaks, from 6,000 to 8,500 feet in height, 
dwells the Sinai ibex, a small representative of 
the ibex of Central Asia and Northern India. 
Let us consider him for a moment. On this 
little tract of country of only a few thousand 
square miles, this wonderful goat is pursued by 
the following enemies. First, by a population of 
5,000 or 6,000 Beduins, say at least five hundred 
hunters, who are armed mostly with very fair 
single-shot Remington rifles of the “75” model. 
Every man has a gun and carries it with him 
always. No matter where he is, either traveling 
from one village to another, or tending his flock 
of goats high up on the mountain side, his 
Remington goes with him, and to people who 
rarely get enough meat to eat, an ibex of any 
size or sex is mighty welcome at any time of the 
year. Moreover, in the spring the natives run 
down all the young kids that they can, either 
with their own legs or with their dogs, for they 
think the new born ibex has a special medicinal 
value. Several were offered to us alive when 
we were there in April, 1914. 
Second, the leopard is a constant hunter and 
killer of ibex, and from the signs I saw I should 
say that these prowlers were by no means rare. 
I found a good many tracks and other travellers 
have often reported finding leopard kills, con¬ 
sisting of the remains of an ibex. 
Third, there are a good many birds of prey, 
mostly eagles of the Golden type, or species 
closely related to our Golden eagle. How much 
harm these do, I was not able to learn. 
Fourth, in dry seasons almost all the available 
food is cropped off by domestic goats that reach 
the most inaccessible crags in their attempt to 
support life. What is left for the ibex it is hard 
to say. Last winter was the end of a long 
drought period and all domestic animals were 
half starved. 
Add to these enemies the fact that water is 
absent over most of the country and that what 
little there is cannot possibly be available for 
ibex, and you have an animal that I believe must 
be wholly independent of water like the addax 
of the Sahara Desert. 
How then do these ibex manage to maintain 
themselves? That is a question I often asked 
myself, but I never could formulate a satisfactory 
answer. Nevertheless, I did find out a few 
things. In the first place, they were very shy 
indeed, so shy that I only obtained a glimpse of 
four animals in three days’ hunting (all the 
time I had). Also, the country was very noisy 
to travel over, and much of it was strewn with 
loose, flat, clinker-like bits of rock that made a 
noise if you so much as touched them. Then 
again, I believe these ibex were the hardest ani¬ 
mals to see of any beasts I ever hunted. Our 
mountain sheep is an easy mark for the eye be¬ 
side these spectral goats. Of that I am sure, and 
besides, I think these ibex probably fed mostly 
at night, and used caves and ledges to hide away 
in during the day. I saw many shady caves with 
ibex beds in them. 
But we need hardfy inquire further. In his own 
home, at least, the Sinai ibex manages to exist 
under conditions where our own mountain sheep 
would vanish in a few years. The ibex also is 
without a doubt being slowly reduced, but he still 
exists along the cliffs of the Dead Sea basin 
even up to and within sight of the Mount of 
Olives. His distribution in Arabia is of course 
not well known, but I was assured last spring 
that there were plenty near Mecca. 
Would it not be worth the effort if some 
sportsman’s association, or possibly some state 
commission could bring over a number of these 
animals and try them out on some of the isolat¬ 
ed mountain ranges of our Southwest? The ani¬ 
mals could, I believe, be obtained very cheaply 
in Sinai during the spring season and then there 
are a good many in the Government Zoological 
Gardens in Cairo, where I believe they breed 
well. It seems at least, as if the venture could 
do no harm, and it might result in great things. 
SQUIRREL PESTS CURED WITH FLY 
PAPER. 
By Kango. 
In one of our near by cities an incident oc¬ 
curred which is worthy of print. In the fall and 
winter of 1913, a small army of gray squirrels 
made havoc that threatened to be quite an ex¬ 
pensive and annoying tirade. Under the eaves 
of one of the palatial residences.of the city, they 
had gnawed quite a large hole and entered the 
attic room in which was stored all sorts of 
boxes, bedding and general household effects 
that had been plac.ed there subject to removal to 
a summer cottage. In among these mattresses, 
pillows, etc., the squirrels had nested and raised 
their young and the house seemed to be literally 
over-run with them. The city and state ordi¬ 
nance forbade their destruction and the occu¬ 
pants were at their wits’ end to know how to get 
rid of them. To the chief of police they re¬ 
lated their story and asked for permission to 
destroy the pests, but he could find nothing in 
the laws whereby he could give them permission 
for their destruction, saying that gray squirrels 
were under the jurisdiction of the Fish and 
Game Commission, to whom .they then appealed 
for protection. Quite a thorough investigation 
was made by the officers in charge who found 
that the damage would run into hundreds of dol¬ 
lars. Wire traps were resorted to but with little 
result, capturing only seven of the miscreants. 
They tried to avert their attention by placing all 
kinds of feed and nuts at a distance from the 
house, but it only seemed to multiply their num¬ 
bers, and the commissioners were about on the 
point of allowing them to shoot or poison the 
invaders, but a happy thought occurred to them 
which they at once put into effect that was laugh¬ 
able in the extreme. They detailed a deputy to 
cut into small pieces of about one j half an inch 
square, numerous bits of ordinary fly paper hav¬ 
ing the sticky side up. Every hair that came in 
contact stuck, and their antics were laughable to 
behold. 
Up one tree, down another and chased by the 
fortunate ones who didn’t happen to come in 
contact with the scare, made a picture that a 
moving picture company would be very glad to 
obtain. In less than forty-eight hours their win¬ 
ter quarters were deserted and not a squirrel 
could be found in the section and if any house 
thus infected will try the experiment, I think it 
will meet with the same results. 
THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF WILD BIRDS. 
During the past summer in many parts of 
Oregon there has been an unusual pest of grass¬ 
hoppers. The farmers in some parts of east¬ 
ern Oregon have complained especially on ac¬ 
count of the damage done to crops. According 
to Mr. Lewis Scholl, Jr., Justice of the Peace at 
Echo, Umatilla county, the much-despised crows 
gathered in the alfalfa fields by the hundreds and 
devoured large numbers of grasshoppers. 
It is a most interesting fact that in Klamath, 
Lake and Harney counties' where the California 
and ring-billed gulls nest in large colonies, about 
Klamath, Goose, Warner and Malheur lakes, 
these birds spread out in the fields along the 
sage-brush plains miles away from the water 
and live almost entirely on grasshoppers. It is 
rather a strange sight to see these web-footed 
birds hunting a living so far away from the 
water. The Brewer blackbird, which is com- 
