Hunting in Many Lands Part 15

When we returned to the house we entertained our friends with an account of what we had seen, and had there not been many eye-witnesses we probably would have been entirely disbelieved.[14] As we were narrating our story a man came into the room and said, "If you want some fun, come outside; we have a bear up a tree." We went outside of the hotel, and not over forty feet from it found a black bear in a pine tree. It seems that the wagon, already mentioned, had been stopped at the pine tree and the horses had been taken out. The owner, returning to his wagon, found the bear in it, and this was the explanation why the bear had so suddenly taken to the tree.

[14] Colonel John Hay, of Washington, was one of the spectators of this curious scene. Captain Albrecht Heese, of the German Emba.s.sy, tells us that in July, 1895, while stopping at the Lake Hotel, he saw a very large bear eating out of a trough in the daytime while a number of tourists were present; and that the bear was finally chased away from the trough by a cow. At the Upper Geyser Basin a bear was domiciled in the hotel; it took food from the hands of the hotel keeper, following him around like a dog.

The animal was considerably smaller than the one we had seen earlier; in fact, it was not more than half as large, but still full grown. Quite a number of packers and teamsters stood about, amusing themselves by making the bear climb higher, till at last one of them asked our driver, Jim McMasters, why he did not climb the tree and shake the bear out. It was quite dark, and McMasters replied that he would not mind doing so if there were enough daylight for him to see. His companions continuing to banter him, he finally said, "I believe I'll go up anyhow," and up he went, climbing, however--instead of the tree the bear had ascended--a companion tree which grew alongside of the other, the trunks of the two not being more than a foot or so apart and the branches interlaced. We soon lost sight of McMasters and of the bear also; for, as Jim climbed the bear would climb too, until at last they both had reached the top of their respective perches, when we heard Jim cry out, "Boys, he's got to come down; I can reach him." With that he proceeded to break off a small branch of his tree, and we could hear him whack the bear with it, and also could hear the bear remonstrating with a very unpleasant voice, at times approaching a roar. But at last the bear seemed to have made up his mind that it was better to come down than stay up and be whacked with a pine branch, so down he came, but not with any great rapidity, stopping at every resting place, until Jim came down too and gave him a little persuading.

We could now see the action, but its dangerous features were lost sight of in its amusing ones. Jim had climbed into the tree down which the bear was descending, and when he was not persuading the bear he was pleading with us somewhat as follows: "Now, boys, don't throw up here, and don't none of you hit him until he gets down. If he should make up his mind to come up again he'd clean me out, sure." After each speech of this sort he would move down to where the bear was and apply his branch, whereupon both the man and the animal would descend a few pegs lower.

At last the bear was almost near the ground. We all formed a circle around the tree, prepared to give both man and beast a reception when they should alight. The beast came first, and every fellow who had anything in the way of wood in his hand gave the bear a blow or two as a warning not to return to the wagon again. Bruin made off into the timber with great precipitancy. Jim, when he got down, did not seem to think that he had done anything more than if the bear had been a "possum,"

which he had shaken out of the tree.

Head-Measurements of the Trophies at the Madison Square Garden Sportsmen's Exhibition

During the week beginning May 14, 1895, there was held in Madison Square Garden, New York, a Sportsmen's Exhibition. There was a fair exhibit of heads, horns and skins, for which the credit largely belongs to Frederick S. Webster, the taxidermist.

At the request of the managers of the Exhibition, three of the members of the Boone and Crockett Club--Messrs. Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell and Archibald Rogers--were appointed a Committee on Measurements. There were heads and skins of every kind of North American big game. Many of them were exhibited by amateur sportsmen, including various members of the Boone and Crockett Club, while many others were exhibited by furriers and taxidermists.

Some of the measurements are worth recording. For convenience we tabulate, in the case of each animal, the measurements of the specimens exhibited by amateur sportsmen who themselves shot the animals. For purposes of comparison we add the measurements of a few big heads exhibited by taxidermists or furriers; also for purposes of comparison we quote the figures given in two works published with special reference to the question of horn measurements. One is the "Catalogue and Notes of the American Hunting Trophies Exhibition" at London in 1887. The moving spirit in this exhibition was Mr. E. M. Buxton, who was a.s.sisted by all the most noted English sportsmen who had shot in America. The result was a noteworthy collection of trophies, almost all of which belonged to animals shot by the exhibitors themselves. Very few Americans took part in the exhibition, though several did so, one of the two finest moose heads being exhibited by an American sportsman.

The other big game book quoted is Rowland Ward's "Measurements,"

published in London in 1892. This is a very valuable compilation of authentic records of horn measurements gathered from many different sources. In many cases it quotes from Mr. Buxton's catalogue. The largest elk head, for instance, given by Ward is the one mentioned in the Buxton catalogue. But in most instances the top measurements given by Ward stand above the top measurements given in the catalogue, because the latter, as already said, contains only a record of the trophies of amateur sportsmen, whereas many of Ward's best measurements are from museum specimens, or from picked heads obtained from furriers or taxidermists, who chose the best out of those presented by many hundreds of professional hunters.

At the Madison Square exhibition there were numerous bear skins, polar, grizzly and black, submitted by men who had shot them. There were a few wolf and cougar skins and one peccary head; but there was no satisfactory way of making measurements of any of these. The peccary's head, which was submitted by Mr. Roosevelt, of course, had the tusks in the skull, so that it was not possible to measure them; for the same reason it was not possible to measure the skulls which were in the heads of the bear, wolf and cougar skins exhibited by Mr. Roosevelt.

There were few Oregon blacktail deer heads exhibited, and these were not large. The one exhibited by Mr. Roosevelt, for instance, had horns 21 inches in length, 4 inches in girth and 17 inches in spread.

In measuring most horns it is comparatively easy to get some relative idea of the size of the heads by giving simply the girth and length. The spread is often given also; but this is not a good measurement, as a rule, because, in mounting the head, it is very easy to increase the spread; and, moreover, even where the spread is natural, it may be excessive and out of proportion to the length of the horns, in which case it amounts to a deformity. The length is in every case measured from the b.u.t.t to the tip along the outside curve of the horn. The girth is given at the b.u.t.t in the case of buffalo, sheep, goat and antelope; but in the case of deer it is given at the narrowest part of the horn, above the first tine; in elk this narrowest part comes between the bay and tray points; in blacktail and whitetail deer it comes above the "dog-killer" points, and below the main fork in the horn. Even in the case of elk, deer, sheep and buffalo the measurements of length and girth do not always indicate how fine a head is, although they generally give at least an approximate idea. The symmetry of the head cannot be indicated by these measurements. In elk and deer heads, extra points, though sometimes mere deformities, yet when large and symmetrical add greatly to the appearance and value of the head, making it heavier and grander in every way, and being a proof of great strength and vitality of the animal and of the horn itself. In consequence, although the measurements of length and girth generally afford a good test of the relative worth of buffalo, elk, sheep and deer heads, it is not by any means an infallible test.

With moose and caribou heads the test of mere length and girth is of far less value; for many of them have such extraordinary antlers that the measurements of length and girth mean but little, and give hardly any idea of the weight and beauty of the antlers. With moose a better idea of these qualities can be obtained by measuring the extreme breadth of the palmation, and the extreme length from the tip of the brow point backward in each horn. Caribou horns are often of such fantastic shape that the actual measurements, taken in any ordinary way, give but a very imperfect idea of the value of the trophies. Very long horns are sure to be fine specimens, and yet they may not be nearly as fine as those which are much shorter, but more branched, and with the branches longer, broader and heavier, and at the same time more beautiful. Thus, at the Madison Square Garden, C. G. Gunther's Sons, the furriers, exhibited one caribou with antlers 50 inches long, of the barren ground type, with 43 points. These horns were very slender, and would not have weighed more than a third as much as an enormous pair belonging to a woodland caribou, which were some 10 inches shorter in extreme length, and with rather fewer points, but were more ma.s.sive in every way, the beam being far larger, and all of the tines being palmated to a really extraordinary extent.

_TABULATED SERIES_

With name of owner, and locality and date of capture.

BISON BULL.

Girth. Length.

1. P. Liebinger, Western Montana, '93 12-1/2 19 2. Theodore Roosevelt, Medora, N. D., Sept., '83 12-3/4 14 3. Theodore Roosevelt, S. W. Montana, Sept., '89 12-1/2 17-1/2

No. 2 was an old stub-horn bull, the animal being bigger in body than No. 3, which, like No. 1, was a bull in the prime of life.

F. Sauter, the taxidermist, exhibited a head killed in Montana in 1894, which measured 14 inches in girth and 18 inches in length.

In Ward's book the horns of the biggest bison given measure 15 inches in girth and 20-7/8 inches in length.

BIG-HORN SHEEP.

Girth. Length. Spread.

4. Geo. H. Gould, Lower Cal., Dec., '94 16-1/4 42-1/2 25-3/4 5. G. O. Shields, Ashnola River, B. C. 16-1/4 37-3/4 22-1/2 6. Arch. Rogers, N. W. Wyoming 16 34 17 7. Arch. Rogers, N. W. Wyoming 15-1/2 33-1/2 23 8. T. Roosevelt, Little Mo. River, N. D. 16 29-1/2 18-1/2

No. 4 had the tip of one horn broken; it is on the whole the finest head of which we have any record.

No. 5 was a very heavy head, the horns huge and with blunted tips.

A head was exhibited by C. G. Gunther's Sons which measured 17-3/4 inches in girth, although it was but 33-1/2 inches in length.

In Buxton's catalogue the three biggest rams exhibited by English sportsmen had horns which measured respectively, in girth and length, 15-3/4 and 39 inches, 16-3/8 and 38-1/4 inches, and 16-1/2 and 31 inches.

In Ward's catalogue the biggest specimen given had horns which were 17-1/4 inches in girth and 41 inches in length.

WHITE GOAT.

Girth. Length.

9. Walter James, Swift Current River, Mont., '92 5-3/4 10-1/2 10. T. Roosevelt, Big Hole Basin, Mont., Aug., '89 5-1/16 9-1/16 11. Theodore Roosevelt, Heron, Mont., Sept., '86 5 9-3/4

No. 11 was a female; as the horns of the female white goat always are, these horns were a little longer and slenderer than those of No. 10, which was a big-bodied buck.

In Buxton's catalogue the biggest horns given were 5 inches in girth and 8-1/4 inches in length. The two biggest specimens given in Ward's were 5 inches in girth by 10-1/8 inches, and 5-1/2 by 9-1/2 inches.

MUSK OX.

There was no musk ox head exhibited by an amateur sportsman. One, which was exhibited by W. W. Hart & Co., had horns each of which was 29-3/4 inches by 20-1/2 inches; the height of the boss was 13 inches. One of the members of the Boone and Crockett Club, Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, has this year, 1895, killed a number of musk ox; but he did not return from his winter trip to the Barren Grounds until June.

p.r.o.nGBUCK.

Girth. Length.

12. Theodore Roosevelt, Medora, N. D., Sept., '84 6-1/2 16 13. A. Rogers 6 12-1/2 14. A. Rogers 6-1/4 10-7/8

No. 13 measured from tip to tip 6-1/8 inches. The greatest width inside the horns was 8-5/8 inches; the corresponding figures for No. 14 were 7-3/4 and 10-1/4 inches.

In Buxton's catalogue the largest measurements given were for a specimen which girthed 5-1/8 inches, and was in length 15-3/4 inches.

In Ward's catalogue the two biggest specimens given measured respectively 15-3/4 inches in length by 6-1/4 inches in girth, and 12-7/8 inches in length by 6-1/2 inches in girth.

WAPITI OR ROUND-HORN ELK.

Girth. Length. Spread. Points.