Watched by Wild Animals Part 14

The antelope makes long leaps but not high jumps. I watched an antelope that had been separated from the flock hurrying to rejoin it.

In its way was a line of willows along the dry, shallow water channel.

This willow stretch was not wide nor high. A deer would have leaped it without the slightest hesitation. The antelope went far round and jumped wide gullies, but made no attempt to leap this one low line of willows. Being a plains animal, knowing but little of cliffs and timber, it has not learned high jumping.

For ages the antelope was thickly scattered over the Great Plains and the small parks of the West, Northwest, and Southwest. Fifty years ago they were numbered by millions. The present antelope population numbers not more than 15,000. Howard Eaton tells me that years ago he sometimes saw several thousand in a single day. Once when a boy I saw at least a thousand in a North Park, Colorado, flock.

A few are now protected in the national parks and in private antelope reserves. But they are verging well toward extermination. Rarely does the antelope thrive in captivity. Apparently the food ordinarily fed it in captivity does not agree with it.

Mature antelope are marked with what may be called revealing colours, which advertise their presence and make them easily visible at long distances: rich tan to grayish brown on the back and sides, with clean white b.u.t.tocks and sides of face and belly; the throat faintly striped with white and brown; and a touch of near-black on the head. The antelope's colour is so distinctive and stands out so well against most backgrounds that it may be cla.s.sed as an animal with revealing coloration.

Two white rump patches flare up during excitement; the crowded and bristling hairs may be seen at surprisingly long distances.

Possibly these hairs are also under conscious control. At any rate, let one or a number on a ridge see an approaching enemy and these white patches stand out, and the next adjacent flock, even though two or three miles away, will see the sign--or signal--and also take alarm. Though the antelope does not do any wireless wigwagging, the sudden flare of white b.u.t.tocks is revealing.

Depending chiefly on speed in escaping his enemies, the antelope has also the added advantage of being able to detect an enemy while he is still afar. The plains where he lives enable him to see objects miles away, and his eyes being of telescopic nature ofttimes enable him to determine whether a distant moving object is friend or foe.

It thus is important that an antelope be so marked that another antelope will recognize him at long range. Each flock of antelope watches the distant surrounding flocks, and each flock thus mutually aids the others by acting as an outlying sentinel for it. If a flock sees an object approaching that may be an enemy it strikes att.i.tudes which proclaim alarm, and, definitely marked, their actions at once give eye messages of alarm to all flocks in view and close enough to make out what they are doing. It would thus seem that the revealing colours of the antelope have been of help in protecting--that is, perpetuating, the species.

The antelope is nervous and is easily thrown into a panic. Though it is often canny and courageous, it lacks the coolness, the alertness, and the resourcefulness--that is to say, the quick wit and adaptability--of the mountain sheep. In the Yellowstone and the Wind Cave National Parks are numbers of antelope. Many of these have readjusted themselves to the friendly conditions and have lost most of their nervousness and fear of man.

They have a b.u.mp of curiosity. I paused one afternoon to talk to a homesteader on the prairie. He was fencing, and presently commenced stretching a line of barbed wire. The penetrating squeaks of the wire reached the ears of several unseen antelope and appealed to their curiosity. They came close, about the distance from third to home plate.

Well might they have shown concern at barbed wire! It has wrought terrific destruction to the species.

A generation or so ago it appears to have been easy for the hunter by displaying a red flag or some partly concealed moving object to rouse antelope curiosity and to lure numbers. I have repeatedly seen this trick tried and a few times I have patiently endeavoured with this appeal to bring a flock within range of my double-barrelled field gla.s.s, but I didn't succeed. They promptly went over the horizon. They are curious still, but have become wiser.

I suppose it will never do to reach final conclusions concerning what an animal will do under new conditions. After a few years of intimate acquaintance with the plains antelope I visited the Yellowstone region, thinking that I was well grounded in all antelope habits. One day I came upon a flock in a deep gra.s.sy forest bay in the edge of a dense woods. Thinking to get close I walked in behind them. To my amazement they darted into the woods, dodging trees right and left like lightning, and hurdling fallen trees as readily as any deer or mountain sheep that I have seen. They well ill.u.s.trated a phase of animal behaviour called ecology, or response to environment.

The p.r.o.nghorn or antelope is distinctly American. Fossilized antelope bones have been found in western Nebraska that are estimated to be two million years old. This antelope family is not related to the African or Asiatic antelope, nor to any American mammal species; it is alone in the world.

Many prehistoric species of animals that lived in the same scenes with the ancient ancestors of the antelope have been extinct for thousands of years. The rhinoceros, toothed birds, American horses, ponderous reptiles, and numerous other species failed to do what the antelope did--readjust to each radical change and survive. Climatic changes, new food, strange enemies, uplifts, subsidences, wild volcanic outpourings, the great Ice Age--over all these the antelope has triumphed.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MOUNTAIN LION

Raising my eyes for an instant from the antics of a woodchuck, they caught a movement of the tall gra.s.s caused by a crawling animal. This presently showed itself to be a mountain lion. He was slipping up on a mare and colt on the opposite edge of the meadow. The easy air that was blowing across my face--from horse to lion--had not carried a warning of my presence to either of them.

I was in Big Elk Park, seated on a rock pile, and was nearly concealed by drooping tree limbs. Behind me rose the forested Twin Peaks, and before me a ragged-edged mountain meadow lay in the forest; and across this meadow the lion crawled.

The colt kicked up its heels as it ran merry circles round its mother.

This beautiful bay mare, like her colt, was born in unfenced scenes and had never felt the hand of man. She had marked capability and the keenness exacted by wilderness environment.

I watched the bending gra.s.s as the lion crept closer and closer.

Occasionally I caught a glimpse of the low-held body and the alert raised head. The back-pointing, sensitive three-foot tail, as restless as an elephant's trunk, kept swinging, twitching, and feeling.

Planning before the lion was within leaping distance to warn the mare with a yell, I sat still and watched.

The well-developed and ever-alert senses of the mare--I know not whether it was scent or sight--brought a message of danger. Suddenly she struck an att.i.tude of concentration and defiance, and the frightened colt crowded to her side. How capable and courageous she stood, with arched neck, blazing eyes, vigilant ears, and haughty tail! She pawed impatiently as the lion, now near, watchful and waiting, froze.

Suddenly he leaped forward, evidently hoping to stampede both animals and probably to seize the separated colt. Instantly the mother wheeled, and her outkicking heels narrowly missed the lion's head.

Next the lion made a quick side-leap to avoid being stamped beneath the mare's swift front feet.

For half a minute the mare and lion were dodging and fighting with all their skill. A splendid picture the mare made with erect tail and arched neck as she struck and wheeled and kicked!

Again and again the lion tried to leap upon the colt; but each time the mother was between them. Then, watching his chance, he boldly leaped at the mare, endeavouring to throw a forepaw round her neck and, at the same instant, to seize and tear the throat with his savage teeth. He nearly succeeded.

With the lion clinging and tearing at her head, the audacious mare reared almost straight on her hind legs and threw herself backward.

This either threw the lion off or he let go. She had her nose badly clawed and got a bite in the neck; but she was first to recover, and a kick landed upon the lion's hip. Crippled, he struggled and hurried tumbling away into the woods, while the bleeding mare paused to breathe beside the untouched colt.

The mountain lion is called a puma, catamount, panther, painter, or cougar, and was originally found all over North America. Of course he shows variations due to local climate and food.

The lion is stealthy, exceedingly cunning, and curious in the extreme; but I am not ready, as many are, to call him cowardly. He does not have that spectacular rash bravery which dashes into the face of almost certain death; but he is courageous enough when necessity requires him to procure food or to defend himself and his kind. He simply adapts himself to conditions; and these exact extreme caution.

The mountain lion may be called sagacious rather than audacious.

Settlers in his territory are aware of his presence through his hogging the wild game and his occasional or frequent killing of colts, horses, cattle, sheep, and chickens. But so seldom is he seen, or even heard, that, were it not for his tracks and the deadly evidence of his presence, his existence could not be believed.

Though I have camped in his territory for weeks at a time, and ofttimes made special efforts to see him, the number of lions I have seen--except, of course, those treed by dogs--is small.

When a mountain lion is frightened, or when pursued by dogs, he is pretty certain to take refuge in a tree. This may be a small tree or a large one. He may be out on a large limb or up in the top of the tree.

The lion is a fair runner and a good swimmer. Often he has been known to swim across lakes, or even arms of the sea, more than a mile wide.

And he is an excellent tree climber, and often uses a living tree or a dead leaning one as a thoroughfare--as a part of his trail system on a steep mountain side. Twice I have seen him on a near-by limb at night watching me or my fire. Once I woke in the night and saw a lion upon two out-reaching tree limbs not more than eight feet above me. His hind feet were upon one limb, his forefeet upon a lower limb, and he was looking down, watching me curiously. He remained in this position for several minutes, then turned quietly, descended the tree on the opposite side, and walked away into the woods.

It is probable that lions mate for life. Sometimes they live year after year in the same den and prowl over the same local territory.

This territory, I think, is rarely more than a few miles across; though where food is scarce or a good den not desirably located, they may cover a larger territory.

Lions commonly live in a den of their own making. This is sometimes dug in loose sand or soil where its entrance is concealed among bushes. Sometimes it is beneath a fallen log or a tree root, and in other places a semi-den, beneath rocks, is enlarged. In this den the young are born, and the old ones may use it a part of each year, and for year after year.

Though occasionally a mother lion may raise as many as five kittens, rarely does she succeed in raising more than two; and I think only two are commonly brought forth at a birth. These kittens probably remain with the mother for nearly a year, and in exceptional cases even longer. As I have seen either kittens or their tracks at every season of the year, I a.s.sume the young may be born at any time.

The mountain lion is a big-whiskered cat and has many of the traits possessed by the average cat. He weighs about one hundred and fifty pounds and is from seven to eight feet long, including a three-foot tail. He is thin and flat-sided and tawny in colour. He varies from brownish red to grayish brown. He has sharp, strong claws.

Mr. Roosevelt once offered one thousand dollars for a mountain lion skin that would measure ten feet from tip to tip. The money was never claimed. Apparently, however, in the state of Was.h.i.+ngton a hunter did succeed in capturing an old lion that weighed nearly two hundred pounds and measured ten and a half feet from tip to tip. But most lions approximate only one hundred pounds and measure possibly eight feet from tip to tip.

The lion eats almost anything. I have seen him catching mice and gra.s.shoppers. On one occasion I was lying behind a clump of willows upon a beaver dam. Across the pond was an open gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce. Out into this presently walked a mountain lion. For at least half an hour he amused or satisfied himself by chasing, capturing, and eating gra.s.shoppers. He then laid down for a few minutes in the suns.h.i.+ne; but presently he scented something alarming and vanished into the thick pine woods.

One evening I sat watching a number of deer feeding on a terrace of a steep mountain side. Suddenly a lion leaped out, landing on the neck of one. Evidently the deer was off balance and on a steep slope. The impact of the lion knocked him over, but like a flash he was upon his feet again. Top-heavy with the lion, he slid several yards down a steep place and fell over a precipice. The lion was carried with him.

I found both dead on the rocks below.

The lion is a master of woodcraft. He understands the varying sounds and silences of the forest. He either hides and lies in wait or slips unsuspected upon his victim. He slips upon game even more stealthily than man; and in choosing the spot to wait for a victim he usually chooses wisely and, alert waits, if necessary, for a prolonged time.

He leaps upon the shoulders and neck of horse, deer, or sheep, and then grabs the victim's throat in his teeth. Generally the victim quickly succ.u.mbs. If a lion or lioness misses in leaping, it commonly turns away to seek another victim. Rarely does it pursue or put up a fight.

A friend wished a small blue mule on me. It had been the man's vacation pack animal. The mule loitered round, feeding on the abundant gra.s.s near my cabin. The first snow came. Twenty-four hours later the mule was pa.s.sing a boulder near my cabin when a lion leaped upon him and throttled him. Tracks and scattered hair showed that the struggle had been intense though brief.

Not a track led to the boulder upon which the lion had lain in wait, and, as the snow had fallen twenty-four or more hours before the tragedy, he must have been there at least twenty-four hours, and he may have waited twice as long.