Wild Animals At Home

Part 1

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WILD ANIMALS AT HOME

+---------------------------------------+ | | | BY THE SAME AUTHOR | | | | | | THE BOOK OF WOODCRAFT AND INDIAN LORE | | | | WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN | | | | TWO LITTLE SAVAGES | | | | BIOGRAPHY OF A GRIZZLY | | | | LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTHERN ANIMALS | | | | ROLF IN THE WOODS | | | | THE FORESTERS' MANUAL | | | +---------------------------------------+

Wild Animals At Home

ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

Author of "Wild Animals I Have Known," "Two Little Savages," "Biography of a Grizzly," "Life Histories of Northern Animals," "Rolf in the Woods," "The Book of Woodcraft."

Head Chief of the Woodcraft Indians

With over 150 Sketches and Photographs by the Author

Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1923

Copyright, 1913, by ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

Foreword

My travels in search of light on the "Animals at Home" have taken me up and down the Rocky Mountains for nearly thirty years. In the canyons from British Columbia to Mexico, I have lighted my campfire, far beyond the bounds of law and order, at times, and yet I have found no place more rewarding than the Yellowstone Park, the great mountain haven of wild life.

Whenever travellers penetrate into remote regions where human hunters are unknown, they find the wild things half tame, little afraid of man, and inclined to stare curiously from a distance of a few paces. But very soon they learn that man is their most dangerous enemy, and fly from him as soon as he is seen. It takes a long time and much restraint to win back their confidence.

In the early days of the West, when game abounded and when fifty yards was the extreme deadly range of the hunter's weapons, wild creatures were comparatively tame. The advent of the rifle and of the lawless skin hunter soon turned all big game into fugitives of excessive shyness and wariness. One glimpse of a man half a mile off, or a whiff of him on the breeze, was enough to make a Mountain Ram or a Wolf run for miles, though formerly these creatures would have gazed serenely from a point but a hundred yards removed.

The establishment of the Yellowstone Park in 1872 was the beginning of a new era of protection for wild life; and, by slow degrees, a different attitude in these animals toward us. In this Reservation, and nowhere else at present in the northwest, the wild things are not only abundant, but they have resumed their traditional Garden-of-Eden attitude toward man.

They come out in the daylight, they are harmless, and they are not afraid at one's approach. Truly this is ideal, a paradise for the naturalist and the camera hunter.

The region first won fame for its Canyon, its Cataracts and its Geysers, but I think its animal life has attracted more travellers than even the landscape beauties. I know it was solely the joy of being among the animals that led me to spend all one summer and part of another season in the Wonderland of the West.

My adventures in making these studies among the fourfoots have been very small adventures indeed; the thrillers are few and far between. Any one can go and have the same or better experiences to-day. But I give them as they happened, and if they furnish no ground for hair-lifting emotions, they will at least show what I was after and how I went.

I have aimed to show something of the little aspects of the creatures' lives, which are those that the ordinary traveller will see; I go with him indeed, pointing out my friends as they chance to pass, adding a few comments that should make for a better acquaintance on all sides. And I have offered glimpses, wherever possible, of the wild thing in its home, embodying in these chapters the substance of many lectures given under the same title as this book.

The cover design is by my wife, Grace Gallatin Seton. She was with me in most of the experiences narrated and had a larger share in every part of the work than might be inferred from the mere text.

ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.

Contents

PAGE

=I. The Cute Coyote= 1

An Exemplary Little Beast, My Friend the Coyote 3

The Prairie-dog Outwitted 5

Part 2

The Coyote's Sense of Humour 8

His Distinguishing Gift 11

The Coyote's Song 13

=II. The Prairie-dog and His Kin= 17

Merry Yek-Yek and His Life of Troubles 19

The Whistler in the Rocks 22

The Pack-rat and His Museum 23

A Free Trader 25

The Upheaver--The Mole-Gopher 27

=III. Famous Fur-bearers--Fox, Marten, Beaver and Otter= 29

The Most Wonderful Fur in the World 32

The Poacher and the Silver Fox 35

The Villain in Velvet--The Marten 47

The Industrious Beaver 48

The Dam 51

The Otter and His Slide 52

=IV. Horns and Hoofs and Legs of Speed= 55

The Bounding Blacktail 57

The Mother Blacktail's Race for Life 59

The Blacktail's Safety Is in the Hills 62

The Elk or Wapiti--The Noblest of all Deer 63

Stalking a Band of Elk 64

The Bugling Elk 66

Snapping a Charging Bull 69

The Hoodoo Cow 72

The Moose--The Biggest of all Deer 75

My Partner's Moose-hunt 76

The Siren Call 77

Part 3

The Biggest of Our Game--The Buffalo 80

The Shrunken Range 81

The Doomed Antelope and His Heliograph 83

The Rescued Bighorn 85

=V. Bats in the Devil's Kitchen= 89

=VI. The Well-meaning Skunk= 95

His Smell-gun 98

The Cruelty of Steel Traps 99

Friendliness of the Skunk 100

Photographing Skunks at Short Range 101

We Share the Shanty with the Skunks 103

The Skunk and the Unwise Bobcat 104

My Pet Skunks 106

=VII. Old Silver-grizzle--The Badger= 111

The Valiant Harmless Badger 112

His Sociable Bent 115

The Story of the Kindly Badger 116

The Evil One 118

The Badger that Rescued the Boy 119

Finding the Lost One 123

Home Again 125

The Human Brute 129

=VIII. The Squirrel and His Jerky-tail Brothers= 133

The Cheeky Pine Squirrel 134

Chipmunks and Ground-squirrels 137

The Ground-squirrel that Plays Picket-pin 137

Chink and the Picket-pins 139

Chipmunks 141

Part 4

The Ground-squirrel that Pretends It's a Chipmunk 142

A Four-legged Bird--The Northern Chipmunk 143

A Striped Pigmy--The Least Chipmunk 147

=IX. The Rabbits and Their Habits= 151

Molly Cottontail--The Clever Freezer 152

The Rabbit that Wears Snowshoes 154

The Terror of the Mountain Trails 156

Bunny's Ride 158

The Rabbit Dance 160

The Ghost Rabbit 163

A Narrow-gauge Mule--The Prairie Hare 164

The Bump of Moss that Squeaks 165

The Weatherwise Coney 169

His Safety Is in the Rocks 171

=X. Ghosts of the Campfire= 175

The Jumping Mouse 177

The Calling Mouse 179

=XI. Sneak-cats, Big and Small= 185

The Bobcat or Mountain Wildcat 186

Misunderstood--The Canada Lynx 187

The Shyest Thing in the Woods 189

The Time I Met a Lion 191

In Peril of My Life 194

The Dangerous Night Visitor 196

=XII. Bears of High and Low Degree= 201

The Different Kinds of Bears 202

Bear-trees 203

A Peep Into Bear Family Life 204

Part 5

The Day at the Garbage Pile 208

Lonesome Johnny 210

Further Annals of the Sanctuary 210

The Grizzly and the Can 216

=Appendix: Mammals of Yellowstone Park= 221

List of Half-tone Plates

A Prairie-dog town Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Chink's adventures with the Coyote and the Picket-pin 8

(a) The Whistler watching me from the rocks (b) A young Whistler 9

Red Fox 32

Foxes quarrelling 33

Beaver 48

Mule-deer 49

Blacktail Family 60

Blacktail mother with her twins 61

A young investigator among the Deer at Fort Yellowstone 64

Elk in Wyoming 65

Elk on the Yellowstone in Winter 68

The first shots at the Hoodoo Cow 69

The last shots at the Hoodoo Cow 76

Elk on the Yellowstone 77

Moose--The Widow 80

Buffalo groups 81

Near Yellowstone Gate 84

Mountain Sheep on Mt. Evarts 85

Track record of Bobcat's adventure with a Skunk 98

The six chapters of the Bobcat's adventure 102

Part 6

My tame Skunks 103

Red-squirrel storing mushrooms for winter use 134

Chink stalking the Picket-pin 135

The Snowshoe Hare is a cross between a Rabbit and a Snowdrift 150

The Cottontail freezing 151

The Baby Cottontail that rode twenty miles in my hat 162

Snowshoe Rabbits dancing in the light of the lantern 163

Snowshoe Rabbits fascinated by the lantern 170

The Ghost Rabbit 171

The Coney or Calling Hare 178

The Coney barns full of hay stored for winter use 179

(a) Tracks of Deer escaping and (b) Tracks of Mountain Lion in pursuit 186

The Mountain Lion sneaking around us as we sleep 187

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