Part 24

This term lobo is indiscriminately applied in Spanish America to creatures that bear little resemblance to one another. The guara of Brazil is known under that name, an inoffensive, vegetable-eating animal, in every respect unlike the wolf in character and habits, and, according to Dr. Lund, specifically distinct from it in having the second and third vertebræ of its neck characteristically elongated. Emmanuel Liais, however (“Climats, Géologie, Faune du Brésil”), states the chief contrasts between those creatures in question succintly, as follows: “Au point de vue du régime alimentaire, les deux espèces du genre Canis les plus éloignées sont le loup commun d’Europe, animal féroce et sauguinaire, et la plus carnivore de toutes les espèces du genre, et l’Aguara ou Guara du Brésil--Canis Jubatus de Demarest, appelé à Minas-Geraes trés-improprement Lobo (nom portugais du Loup), et décrit par la plupart des ouvrages de mammologie comme le loup du Brésil. C’est cependent le moins carnivore de tous les chiens connus, et sa nourriture préférée consiste en substances végétales.”

As has been said, the wolf does not reach its highest development in hot countries. Wolves may be dangerous and destructive within low latitudes, as is the case both in America and Asia, but it will be found that when this occurs their range is generally confined to elevated regions in those provinces. Major H. Bevan (“Thirty Years in India”) states that “wolves are amongst the most noxious tenants of the jungles around Nagpore, and they annually destroy many children; but they do not commit such ravages as in northern India.” The same is true of the “giant wolf,” Lupus Gigas, that Townsend and other naturalists described as a distinct species; but this brute which has so evil a reputation in the highlands of Mexico, “the red Texan wolf,” as Audubon calls it, does not extend in the United States to the northern prairies; it only exists as a variety of the common species in the lower Mississippi valley, and farther south.

Audubon remarks that this form of the common species has “the same sneaking, cowardly, yet ferocious disposition” as other wolves; nevertheless those anecdotes with which he intersperses his descriptions are certainly not calculated to foster the belief that his impression agrees with facts.

There are certain traits and habits belonging to wolves at large which may now be brought together. They are not by any means strictly nocturnal animals, but very commonly prowl by night, and in places where large packs assemble; most of what has with truth been said against them occurred under cover of darkness. By all accounts, it is amidst gloom and storm, while the buran rages over the arctic tundra, that troops of these fierce creatures do their worst among Yakut and Tungoo reindeer herds. Caribou are not herded, and have been but little observed by those who could give any information upon such a point as this. Everywhere, a wolf is destructive, fierce, wary and sagacious. Moreover, it will often become aggressive and audacious in the highest degree, when circumstances contribute to foster the development and facilitate the expression of its natural character. It is the typical wild beast of its family, and if it is not in many instances sanguinary and prone to take the offensive, there is a much better explanation for abstention from violence than that of natural cowardice. Wolves have far too much sense not to know what they can gain with least exposure to loss; and no beast of prey, that is sane, and not driven to desperation, ever proceeds upon any other principle than this. Given the existence of mind, those accidents by which mind is modified, and relative differences in degree among its qualities, must also be admitted. Comparative stupidity, evenness of temper, want of enterprise, tameness and timidity, undoubtedly distinguish wolf and wolf, as they do all carnivores. Still this would not account for the conventional wolf, or explain the anomaly of its imaginary character, or show why, or on what grounds, it is maintained that there should exist so great an incongruity in nature as an animal unadjusted mentally and yet adapted physically to a predatory life; that has at the same time the disposition of a tiger and the harmlessness of a lamb, that lives by violence, yet shrinks from every struggle, that maintains itself by the exercise of powers it must be fully conscious of possessing, and is constantly debarred from the results which it might attain through their exercise by causeless apprehension. This is very nearly what must be meant when a beast of prey is called a coward.

Wolves stalk their prey, ambush it, either alone or in collusion with others that drive the game, and they also run it down. The jaw is very powerful and formidably armed, and in proportion to its bulk this creature is exceedingly strong. A wolf, though structurally carnivorous, will eat anything--fish, flesh, or fowl, fresh or putrid, animal or vegetal. When he has gorged to the limit of his capacity, if anything remains it is commonly dragged to some place of concealment and buried. Then the brute lies down until the apathy induced by surfeit passes away. Wolves hunt both by sight and scent, by day and night. They will certainly interbreed with dogs, producing fertile offspring; and they may be domesticated. But as they grow older the characteristics germane to their savage natures assert themselves. It is said by Godman that “when kept in close confinement, and fed on vegetable matter, the common wolf becomes tame and harmless, ... shy, restless, timid.” If he had said it became ill, the statement would have been more conformable with fact. No such interruption of the normal course of life is possible without an impairment of health, both bodily and mental. Carnivorous animals are not to be turned into vegetarians at will, nor any creature’s energies thwarted and cramped without distortion and atrophy.

Wolves no doubt can swim, but it is certain that a wolf seldom voluntarily takes to water in which he cannot wade. Audubon saw one swimming, and others have witnessed the like. Still all accounts represent these beasts as stopping short in pursuit on the bank of a stream. Naturalists say that the length of life in this species is twenty years, and it has been recorded also that they do not become gray with age. It looks like a purility to repeat what has been gravely reported more than once; namely, that when wolves have plenty to eat they get fat, become lazy, and are not so aggressive as under contrary conditions. On the other hand, nothing is more common than to find writers explaining every act of audacity as due to hunger. Most probably it is; they would hardly go hunting while in a state of repletion. But the question is, how these authorities find out the exact state of their dietaries, and can be certain that they must be starving before they will attack the wild Asiatic ox or American moose; also how much less food is required, to urge them on to assail a party of men.

In seasons of scarcity wolves of the northern plains prey upon prairie-dogs, ground-squirrels, hares, foxes, badgers, etc.; small creatures that offer no resistance, and which it is only difficult to catch. At the same time they hunt the large game of North America, and although, much to the disgust of a certain class of writers, the common wolf, which weighs about a hundred pounds, does not select a buffalo bull in the best fighting trim as an object for attack when a less formidable animal of this species can be found, or meet the moose, that often stands six feet at the withers, or indeed any creature that can kill him, in such a way as to give it the best opportunity for doing so, he often has to fight and frequently comes to grief. But they “give every human being a wide berth,” says Roosevelt, and it would be strange indeed if they did not, since none are apt to be encountered who, according to the wolf’s experience, are unprepared for offensive action, or who do not make it their business in those parts to destroy him. This fact has been completely realized by wolves of the plains, and it is for this reason that in these latitudes they have now become, what Colonel Dodge asserts that they are, “of all carnivorous animals of equal size and strength, the most harmless to beasts, and the least dangerous to man.”

A wolf’s structure is not by any means so well adapted to destructive purposes as that of the larger Felidæ. No species of the genus Canis has either the teeth, claws or muscles which belong to cats. A predatory animal may, and often does, make an error in judgment, but there is one thing that it never does, and that is, to attack deliberately knowing beforehand that it must fight fairly for victory, and that the issue is quite as likely to be fatal to itself as to its destined prey. A single wolf is not a match for those large animals it destroys; and when, in virtue of what Professor Romanes calls the “collective instinct,” odds have been taken against them, they succumb before a combined assault.

Where parties of “wolfers,” as they are called, pass the winter in placing poisoned meat in their way, and in localities in which they abound, destroy them for their skins by hundreds, wolves would need to be much less sagacious than they are, if what was noticed by Lord Milton and his companion was not true as a matter of course. “These animals,” the account says, “are so wary and suspicious that they will not touch a bait lying exposed, or one that has been recently visited.” John Mortimer Murphy (“Sporting Adventures in the Far West”) had seven years’ experience of the way in which wolves were shot, trapped, poisoned and coursed. The conclusion he came to from those observations which he relates so well, was that the wolf in such localities, “large, gaunt, and fierce as it looks, is one of the greatest cowards known.” He omitted to mention--but Godman has rectified the oversight--that wolves carry their natural cowardice to such an extent, and are so exceedingly dubious concerning what man may do, that a few pinches of powder scattered about dead game, or an article of clothing left near it,--in short, any evidence of the presence of a human being will prevent them from approaching it.

There are several ways of writing natural history, and this is one of them. It would seem, nevertheless, that if a plan could be adopted for looking upon the general organization of wild beasts as in a great measure determining their characters, and for considering, if possible, anomalous traits as most probably intimately connected with peculiarities in their situation, we might no longer feel confounded at finding that sentient creatures are not the same under dissimilar circumstances. If brutes could be considered to have some knowledge of themselves, to act like brutes and to feel like them, without reference to any human opinions whatever, forthcoming literature of this kind would be benefited.

In those parts of the world where the wolf comes in contact with people not well prepared to receive him, his attitude towards mankind is aggressive. In Eastern Europe, for example, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and through the Danubian states generally, wolves occupy quite a distinguished position for dangerousness, and the inhabitants regard them with any other feeling than that of contempt. Captain Spencer (“Turkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia”), while passing through that vast forest which separates the more settled tracts of Moldavia from the Buckowina, was besieged in a half-ruined chalet with his companions, and the pack continued their attack all night, and lost heavily.

The coyote,--Canis latrans,--that thieving creature which is often found intermingled with the gray and other coated wolves on the great plains of North America, has been by some writers--Colonel Dodge, for example--discriminated from the prairie wolf as a separate species. Those differences which exist between them, however, have little classificatory value. Contrasts in size, dissimilarities in color, marking, and the growth of hair, are all seen in the common wolf, of which this is “a distinct but allied species,” with northern and southern varieties.

“There is,” says Schoolcraft, “something doleful as well as terrific in the howling of wolves.” When people speak of the jackal’s howl, they commonly call it “unearthly,” but a coyote’s voice is much more singularly diabolical, and his intonations are so hideously suggestive of all that is weird and devilish, that it stands by itself among natural sounds, and cannot be compared with the outcry of any other creature. Murphy describes it as follows: “The voice seems to be a combination of the long howl of the wolf and the yelp of the fox; but so distinctly marked is it from either, that, once heard, it is never forgotten. The coyote has the strange peculiarity of making the utterance of one sound like that of many; and should two or three try their larynxes at the same time, persons would fancy that a large pack was giving tongue in chorus. The cry appears to be divided into two parts. It first begins with a deep, long howl, then runs rapidly up into a series of barks, and terminates in a high scream, issued in prolonged jerks.” According to conventional opinions, elephants among wild animals, and dogs among those that have been domesticated, occupy the highest places in order of intelligence. The author does not believe this to be the case with respect to the first named species, and so far as pure intellect goes “Die reinen Vernunft,” no dog can probably surpass Canis latrans. Professor Huxley also reports that he can find no essential difference between their skulls. While these animals may be equal, however, in absolute capacity, the coyote, considered according to civilized standards of manners, is the kind of creature that if any dog were to take after, he would be incontinently shot or hanged.

His idea of good conduct is to get what he can honestly procure when driven to straightforward courses, but by preference to steal it, as being less troublesome. He is astute beyond comparison in nefarious practices, and has sense enough to howl with derision (as he sometimes seems to do) if it could be explained to him that mankind were capable of judging his behavior according to any other rule of life than his own. Homo sapiens, in a highly evolved state, is imbued with the truly noble idea that he is the centre of creation, and that all living things are admirable in proportion as they approach himself. He calls the coyote a “miserable cur,” “a barking thief,” and says sarcastically that the brute has kleptomania. Savage man, on the contrary, esteems him greatly. The two are much alike in many respects. We have already seen that this little wolf has been adopted as the tutelar of gentes among Pueblo Indians, and southern tribes of the Tinneh stock, and its prominence is scarcely less with those of the northwest coast of America. They honor the coyote; their myths and folk-lore record its good qualities and wisdom. To them it is the incarnation of a deity or a demon (these are nearly the same), and it is never killed, for fear that ill luck might be sent by the spirit of which this animal is the representative.

Under these happy auspices coyotes hang around native encampments and villages, interbreed with Indian dogs, grow fat on salmon cast upon river banks in the spawning season, hunt all that smaller game which their more powerful relations resort to for supplies only when hard pressed, and omit to take advantage of no opportunity to gain possession of provisions which are not theirs. The opinion they have of the human race is that it exists for their advantage, and mankind, further than it contributes to their support, is an object of indifference to them.

More to the south, and in the vicinity of white settlers, the coyote is oppressed and persecuted; subjected to like usage with that which the common wolf receives. This state of things is of course accompanied by changes in character that are not less marked than in the wolf’s case. It becomes nocturnal in habit, flies from the face of man, and is one of the most wary, timid, and suspicious of animals. At the same time its cunning grows greater as the necessity for self-preservation becomes more pressing, and in the same measure in which it is pursued does its capacity for evasion enlarge. Speed, endurance, wind, and invention, all develop themselves. Unlike wolves, whose homes and breeding-places are commonly in caves or clefts of rock, beneath trees or within any natural recess, coyotes dig burrows in the open, and are seldom or never inmates of forests.

As the species approaches its southern limit, the average size decreases and its color changes. In Mexico, where they are seldom molested, these brutes prowl a good deal during the day; they pack likewise more commonly than further north, and if smaller, are also bolder and less upon their guard.

In Algeria or Oran an Arab knew when the lion was coming by the jackal’s cry; Brazilian Indians tell one that they can trace a jaguar’s way at night through the barking of foxes, and it is said by shikáris in India that a prowling tiger’s path may be known by a peculiar howl which his frequent attendant--the kind of jackal called Kole baloo--utters on such occasions. The coyote also gives warning of the approach of foes that are oftentimes more dangerous than either lions or tigers. But it is by its silence that danger is announced. In a position where hostile Indians were to be expected at any time, when the coyote ceased its cries, it was an ominous thing, and frontiersmen looked out for the appearance of a war party. Everybody who has been much on the border is probably acquainted with this very general belief, and it may perhaps be founded in fact; but this much is certain, that these creatures do not always become quiet when Indians are about, for the author has more then once heard them howl--coyotes, not savages who were imitating them--when it was known for certain that Indians were near, and when the fact of their presence was soon proved.

Coursing coyotes is a favorite sport with many persons in the West, and while the weather is cool and dry they often make good runs; otherwise, the game soon succumbs to heat, or to a serious impediment in the way of escape--its own tail. This is carried low, and despite his long hind legs and powerful quarters, the brush gathers so much mud in deep ground as seriously to embarrass flight.

In those localities where this race exhibits indications of much timidity, it will be found that every destructive device of man’s ingenuity is practised against it; even to taking advantage of a harmless weakness for assafœtida in the matter of preparing poisoned baits. All this makes certain associations of ideas inevitable, and special impressions upon his mind things of course. At the same time, no mortal knows precisely what these are.

Where no such experiences of human malice and duplicity color the coyote’s character, its conduct is quite different. Under those circumstances it does not fly from imaginary perils. Even when fired at it shows no unseemly haste to leave; but if the shot be repeated, then the hint is always taken, and it vanishes. Most persons who have become personally acquainted with them must have had occasion to observe that where they have been subjected to the worst that man can do, their dexterity in the way of robbery is not more striking than the audacity by which it is accompanied. It seems difficult to reconcile the idea of any instinctive fear of man with the conduct of an animal that will steal through a line of sentinels into a military encampment, and carry off food from beside watch-fires. They do this; they do everything that requires enterprise, judgment, and skill, and this to an extent that, in the mind of an unprejudiced savage, has gained them a place among his gods.

Once the writer saw as much of the temper of coyotes in their natural state towards man as it is possible for anybody to see at one time. It befell that he was badly hurt in front of General Treveño’s cavalry brigade, then holding the line of the Rio Caña Dulce. When consciousness returned, horse and arms were gone, and the bushes around swarmed with these wolves. There may not, however, have been so many as there appeared to be, for the animals moved in and out of cover constantly, and the same one was probably seen several times. The thirst that always follows hemorrhage, and the heat of the sun, were distressing, neither was it pleasant to be an object of so much attention to a troop like this, while almost completely disabled. An overhanging bank lay near, and was reached with great difficulty. Here one could lean up against the side and contemplate them from a shady place. They behaved very curiously, and if the attendant circumstances had been at all conducive to mirth, their spiteful antics, the pretences of attack they made, and the absurd way in which some of them assumed an air of boldness, and apparently sought to inspire their companions with resolution, would no doubt have been amusing. It was abundantly shown that these creatures looked upon the inert and blood-soaked individual before them as a prey, and were consequently in a high state of excitement. Their eyes sparkled and the long hair around their necks bristled; they made short runs at and around the position, they pushed each other, and howled in every cadence of their infernal voices; also some individuals showed the rest how the thing ought to be done. A rush would have been at once fatal, but it was not made. Nevertheless, they grew bolder, and when relief arrived, had for the most part gathered around in the open. What would have happened when night came, or whether anything, the writer does not pretend to say.

THE GRIZZLY BEAR

Bears are included by zoölogists in that order whose typical forms are, besides themselves, the dog, cat, and seal, and they belong to the higher of those sub-orders into which this group of carnivora has been divided. Ursidæ hold a middle place among bear-like beasts, and although their generic history is not so complete as that of others, Dr. Lund’s discoveries in Brazilian bone-caves brought to light a fossil form that Wallace regards as representative of an existing American species. Their palæontological record carries them far back among the fauna of earlier geological periods, and connects the sub-ordinal section which contains existing arctoids with insect-eating and pouched vertebrates on one side, and on the other, with the precursors of monkeys, apes, and men.

In their most general structural traits bears possess the characteristic features of all carnivores--their abbreviated digestive tract, developed muscular systems and sense organs, and highly specialized teeth. At the same time this genus is considerably modified, and on that account bears were placed among Fissipedia, which are practically omnivorous. Finally, Ursidæ are plantigrades with muscles fused in plates, and so exhibit the ungainliness, the awkward and comparatively slow and restricted movements peculiar to the genus.

Geographically they are nearly cosmopolitan. Their species, although not numerous, inhabit arctic and tropical regions, and live in the lowlands of Europe, Asia, and America, as well as among the mountains of both continents.

The grizzly bear is confined to the New World, and there is distributed from about 68° north to the southern border of the United States, chiefly in the main chain of the Rocky Mountains and on their eastern and western slopes, but also among the ranges between these and the Pacific. It has been called by many names. Lewis and Clark, who may be said to have discovered this animal, speak of it indifferently as the white and brown bear. Cuvier said he was not satisfied that any specific distinction existed between the latter and our grizzly, which has also been identified with Sir John Richardson’s “barren-ground” species of the Atlantic area. Audubon supposes Ursus horribilis to have formerly inhabited this province, but the only basis for such an opinion is found in his interpretation of some Algonkin traditions. The present title--horrible, frightful, or terrible bear--is a translation into Latin of George Ord’s name grisly, given in 1815. As it is commonly written, however, its significance is lost, the reference being to color instead of character. Dr. Elliott Coues and others have remarked upon this discrepancy, but it is now too late to make a change. The naturalist Say (“Long’s Expedition to the Rocky Mountains”) first described this species, although its physical features are well given by Captains Lewis and Clark, and it was mentioned before their time. Since then the animal’s dimensions have been often and also differently determined. Lockwood (“Riverside Natural History”) very properly gives no ultimate decision. Lord Dunraven (“The Great Divide”) speaks of having shot “a middling-sized beast weighing about eight hundred pounds.” Richard Harlan (“Fauna Americana”) says that the animal’s “total length is 8 feet 7 inches and 6 lines; its greatest circumference 5 feet 10 inches; the circumference of its neck 3 feet 11 inches, and the length of its claws 4 inches 5 lines.” Captain Lewis measured tracks “eleven inches long and seven and a half wide, exclusive of the claws,” which are reported by different observers to be of all lengths between four and seven inches; and the truth is that no one has been in a position to pronounce definitely on a single point respecting this animal’s weight and size. It is the largest and most powerful beast of prey in the world. So much may be said confidently, but beyond that data for positive statements are not extant.

With regard to the grizzly bear’s habits, they are variable, like the color of his coat, which may at one time and place justify the name he bears, and at another be almost black. Ursus horribilis preys upon all the large game of North America; he is, as H. W. Elliott (“Our Arctic Province”) observes, “a most expert fisherman,” and appears to be equally partial to wild fruits and carrion. These brutes consume large quantities of mast, they dig up the pomme blanche and other tubers and roots, and it is said that their relatives of the black species are sometimes devoured. Nothing edible comes amiss to a grizzly, from the larvæ of insects to spoiled salmon, or from buffalo-berries to the animal itself. But it must be admitted that accurate information is wanting upon many particulars connected with his way of life. Hibernation, for example, which is a trait varying greatly in its completeness among species of different genera, appears to be absent in this case. These animals go about both by day and night, in cold weather as much as in warm. There are perfectly reliable accounts of their having been encountered at all seasons, and in situations which were peculiarly favorable for going into winter quarters if the animal had desired to do so.