Feb. 2, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
173 
Mr. Bailey discusses very fully the measures 
to be used in protecting stock against the 
wolves. The first of these mentioned is a modi¬ 
fication of the coyote proof fence which Prof. 
D. E. Lantz some years ago showed to be use¬ 
ful in keeping coyotes in or out. Mr. Bailey 
believes that a fiv^-foot fence would keep wolves 
out, but in regions where the snow falls heavily, 
the fence must of course stand actually five 
feet above the surface of the snow. 
Bounties against noxious animals have been 
shown by Dr. T. S. Palmer and others to be 
useless, and are not recommended. Where 
bounties are paid, however, Mr. Bailey suggests 
a method of marking skins, so as not to destroy 
their value, and as a wolf skin is at present 
worth $4 to $6, it is certainly worth while so to 
mark them that they will not lose their market 
value. 
In considering the destruction of wolves it is 
very justly pointed out that hunting with dogs 
is useless and impracticable from the economic 
standpoint. It is very good fun, but costs too 
much in time and money to be employed by the 
stockman. The best way of all to rid a country 
of wolves is to find their dens in early spring 
and to destroy the pups. Puppies are born com¬ 
monly in March and April and for some weeks 
after birth do not venture from their homes. 
Poisoning is the familiar method of getting 
rid of wolves, but of late years it has been 
thought that they were becoming so highly edu¬ 
cated that they would not touch poison. This 
reputation has no doubt come in part from the 
careless or ignorant use of poison, and it is al¬ 
together probable that when proper precautions 
are employed it may still be a most. effective 
means of getting rid of the animals. 
Trapping is still practicable with young 
wolves, but old ones are too cautious to venture 
within a trap.- Under this head Mr. Bailey gives 
directions for setting traps, the use of scents and 
bait, incidentally some notes on the preservation 
of wolf skins. He also adds some notes on 
trapping and poisoning coyotes and on the lo¬ 
cating of coyote dens. 
The present paper is one of great value, not 
alone to stockmen, .but also to people generally 
who reside in the western country. It is illus¬ 
trated with a map showing location of wolves 
• in the United States and location of twenty 
breeding dens in western Wyoming, and by a 
number of photographs and cuts bearing on the 
trapping of wolves. , 
Deafness in Wild Animals. 
Persons who spend much of their time in the 
wilds, and who have been much brought in con¬ 
tact with wild animals, knew very well that these 
animals are subject to diseases and accidents of 
many sorts. In old times it was not very un¬ 
usual to find dead the apparently uninjured 
young of deer, antelope and mountain sheep. 
Animals that have lost a limb are sometimes 
seen and others with deformed horns. 
Attention is called to the subject by a letter 
in a recent number of Science from the pen of 
■Loye Holmes Miller, of the State Normal School 
of California, which deals with a case of deaf¬ 
ness in a coyote. 
“In the great semi-arid regions of the west, 
the struggle for existence is so strenuous that 
the special senses are very highly perfected. Es¬ 
pecially is this true of the sense of hearing as 
evidenced by the enlarged external ear in many 
forms. The coyote (Canis ' ochropus) is espec¬ 
ially marked with this enlarged concha and un¬ 
doubtedly has, under normal conditions, a very 
keen sense of hearing. Popular report endows 
him also with almost supernatural sense of 
smell. The individual of the species must then 
labor under a decided handicap if the hearing 
be destroyed or the sense of smell even slightly 
impaired. The instance which I cite suggests 
that such may be often the case. 
“In cleaning a pair of skulls of this species, 
which I obtained in August last, I found in the 
case of the male that both ears were crowded 
> full of the bearded seeds of the common fox-tail 
grass (Hordeum murinum ) which is such a pes¬ 
tiferous # weed in the southwest. The seeds 
were packed closely into the tympanic chamber 
and the beards were very much darkened by hav¬ 
ing remained in the ear some time subjected to 
the exudations from the inflamed surfaces. In. 
the same individual a fully bearded seed was 
found in the left nostril worked well up among 
the folds of the turbinated bone. 
’’The second specimen, a female, taken at the 
same time, had the grass in both ears, but none 
in the nostrils. » 
“The ear bones showed no signs of necrosis, 
though the seeds were in direct contact with 
them. Hearing was undoubtedly destroyed, and 
in case of the male, the sense of smell must have 
been impaired. 
“The animals were taken' by strychnine poison 
. with a bait of watermelon, a crop the coyote in- 
jures extensively in the sparsely settled regions. 
The specimens came to my hands in the meat; 
they were in good flesh and pelage. There was 
no possibility of the seeds having gotten into 
the ears and nose after death.” 
The case mentioned is very remarkable, nor 
do we understand how the ear§ of the coyote 
should have become packed full of grass seed. 
On the other hand $ve recall a case many years 
ago when a dog, hunting at great speed over a 
snipe marsh, ran a stout weed stalk up one of 
his nostrils and dragged with him for a little 
distance the remainder of the weed. After the 
weed had been removed the nostril bled a little, 
but the animal seemed to suffer no great incon¬ 
venience from the injury. 
In certain parts of the west in summer the 
ears of domestic cattle are covered with wood- 
ticks, and often these get deep down into the 
ear. In the case of mountain goats we have 
seen the ear packed full of ticks down almost or 
quite to the drum, and it has seemed quite im¬ 
possible that animals so afflicted should be able 
to hear. This, however, is merely a temporary 
condition lasting for a month or two, when pre¬ 
sumably the ears would clear themselves. The 
subject is an interesting one and we should be 
glad to hear from any -correspondent who may 
have anything to contribute on it. 
Mockingbird in Lockport. 
Locicport, N. Y., Jan. 21. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: A month ago I met a lady living on 
Gooding street, this city, who said there was 
a strange bird about her house, and she would 
like to have me come and see it. She said it 
was gray with a whitish breast, and about 
the size of a robin. I suggested that it might 
be a shrike, but she replied that she knew a 
shrike and this was not one. Although they 
had seen it nearly every day since, I had not 
been able to find it in about a dozen visits to the 
locality. Jan. 16, the lady’s husband came to 
tell me they had the bird in a cage, and wanted 
me to see it. 
I showed him my collection of between three 
and four hundred mounted birds, but he saw 
nothing like the bird captured. When I called 
his attention to the brown thrasher, he said 
it was that shape, but not that color. I then 
told him that I thought they must have an 
escaped mockingbird, and an hour later I saw 
that it was this species, but of a different color 
from any mockingbird that I had ever seen. 
The color was a sooty black. I have seen only 
caged birds of this species, which, I presume, are 
male birds, as they were singers, and the 
captured bird is perhaps a female, which may ac r 
count for the dark color. From the appearance 
of the claws, this bird has never been in a cage. 
The members of the household had been feed¬ 
ing apples to this bird for a month or more, 
and they noticed that it was getting so tame 
that they could get within five or six feet of it. 
Wednesday morning was somewhat colder than 
it had been for some days, and when the bird 
came about the kitchen door, the lady left the 
door open, and the bird came in and flew up 
• on a wire running across the room, where it 
soon put its head under its wing and remained 
there an hour. As the door had been left open, 
the bird went out. 
In the afternoon it returned to the wire. In 
the meantime a cage had been procured and the 
sleeping bird was caught and put in it. 
The bird is in fine condition, and but for its 
tameness, I could not believe it had ever been 
in a cage. J. L. Davison. 
The Baby Rhinoceros. 
About a month ago the New York Zoological 
Park received a baby rhinoceros, purchased for 
it by Mr. R. Tjader at Mombasa, East Africa, 
and brought to this country by Mr. Lang, who 
was Mr. Tjader’s companion in Africa. A few 
days ago Mr. W. T. Hornaday, the director of 
the society’s park, gave an Evening Post re¬ 
porter an account of the little beast’s capture: 
“Both of the young rhinoceroses now in the 
Park,” said Mr. Hornaday, “were captured in 
about the same locality in German East Africa, 
near Lake Victoria Nyanza and the border of 
British East Africa. Our new baby was the 
prize of an Austrian named Fleischer, who was 
hunting southeast of the lake about the middle 
of last July, having only a small party of natives 
and being rather poorly equipped. He caught 
sight of a female rhinoceros with a young calf 
by her side, and he wanted the calf, which he 
knew would be worth good money if he could 
get it to the coast. 
“Now, the African natives are very much 
afraid of the rhinoceros. As soon, therefore, 
as Fleischer began to stalk the female, his fol¬ 
lowers fled, leaving him all alone. He succeeded 
in shooting her, and as she fell he dropped his 
gun, rushed forward and seized the baby rhin¬ 
oceros. Although only a few weeks, old, it was 
then large enough and strong enough to make it 
well-nigh impossible to hold it. He grasped 
the calf round the neck, however, and held on 
while it dragged him over the rough ground 
and through thorny bushes for nearly half an 
hour. His clothes were torn to shreds, and he 
was cut and scratched by the ‘wait-a-bit’ thorns, 
familiar to African explorers. 
“Despite all this, Fleischer held on until the 
calf became so exhausted that he could con¬ 
trol it. Finally, his native followers came back 
to hi's assistance, and the prisoner was then se¬ 
curely tied. It was found, however, that the 
creature was so obstinate and combative that the 
captors could neither lead nor drive it. As it 
absolutely refused to go on the hoof, they tied 
its legs together, thrust a long pole between 
them, and, with the animal swinging under the 
pole, back downward, carried it on a six days’ 
journey, covering ninety miles. 
“In the early part of this journey, the head of 
the calf was left hanging, and this caused the 
animal to struggle continuously, so that there 
was danger of its killing itself through exhaus¬ 
tion. To remedy this, a large piece of coarse 
cloth was slung under the pole like a hammock, 
and, being supported by this means, the infant 
rhinoceros ceased to struggle. During all this 
period it was fed on unsweetened condensed 
milk, and very soon afterward it began to eat 
grass. A mother rhinoceros gives but a small 
quantity of milk, and the young begins to graze 
when only a few weeks old. 
“The captive, which is a male, was taken to 
Gkoma. a military station in British East Africa, 
where he was kept for a month and a half. At 
this station a pool was made for him, in which 
he disported every day, and plastered himself all . 
over with mud. Having been bought as a specu¬ 
lation, he was taken by caravan to Sharati, 
and then to Uganda, whence he was conveyed on 
the Uganda Railway to Mombasa, on the coast.” 
On Jan. 1 the baby rhinoceros weighed 235 
pounds, and his height at the shoulder was 26}^ 
inches. He was very docile and affectionate with 
Mr. Lang, but in the Park he at first refused 
to let himself be fed and otherwise cared for by 
a strange keeper. Now, however, he is good 
and quiet. He consumes eleven cans of un¬ 
sweetened condensed milk daily, and all the 
boiled rice and clover hay that he can get. 
We have on hand several second-hand standard books 
which we will sell at the following prices: 
Goode’s “Fishing Industries of the United States,” 
quarto, two volumes, one of text and one of plates. 
Price $3.50 for the two. 
“Sport in Natural History of Moray,” a luxurious 
volume, beautifully illustrated, published at £2 10s. 
Price, $10.25. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
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