Meadow Beaver ColonyWater level in canal 3 feet higher than level in pondCanal 15 inches deep 30 inches wide, 70 feet longAspen grove 120 feet from house.Willowsgrassaspen grove where food is obtainedCanal dug in meadow formed by silt and sediment filling old beaver pondA Beaver Canal
Meadow Beaver ColonyWater level in canal 3 feet higher than level in pondCanal 15 inches deep 30 inches wide, 70 feet longAspen grove 120 feet from house.Willowsgrassaspen grove where food is obtainedCanal dug in meadow formed by silt and sediment filling old beaver pondA Beaver Canal
A buried log in the canal was gnawed in two and removed. The canal curved around aboulder too large to be removed. At a distance of eighty-one feet from the lower end the canal-builders came in contact with granite rock and brought the canal to a stop by enlarging the upper end into a basin about ten feet across.
The entire length of this canal was through the sediment of a former beaver pond. After making a pond beavers must occasionally raise the height of the dam to deepen the water, and also dredge the mud from the bottom. But despite both dredging and dam raising, the pond sooner or later fills with sediment and has to be abandoned. In due time it is overgrown with grass or a forest.
Food shortage—complete exhaustion of the aspen growth—had compelled the abandonment of the Meadow Colony after it had been a beaver settlement for a great many generations. Two large ponds, a dozen smaller ones, and three houses were left to their fate. Most of the smaller ponds were completely lost, being overgrown with willows. Two of the houses had crumbled and were now low wild flower beds.
Since abandonment a number of aspen groves had grown, and although these were some distance from the stream, they could be reached and would furnish necessary food supply.
These settlers had come from about ten miles down stream. During summer vacations beavers make long rambling journeys. It may be that some of these beavers had visited this old colony and knew of its opportunities before coming to settle.
From time to time during evenings I had glimpses of several of the beaver settlers. From their appearance and from their footprints they were mostly young beavers. During the autumn I several times dimly saw them playing in the twilight. They splashed merrily about in the pond, the entire colony taking part.
With mud and willows the beavers repaired the breaks in the but-little-damaged dam of the old pond. Then they cut a ditch thirty or forty feet long through a ridge to a little pond to the north, and filled the old large pond. Its waters extended to within twelve or fifteen feet of the lower end of the canal. But as the canal was nearly two feet higher than the surface of this pond, water for the canal would have to come from a higher source, and I was puzzled as to where this might be. But beavers plan their work two or three moves ahead, and they probably knew what they were about.
Commonly a house is built in the pond or on the edge of it. But on a little space of raised ground, within ten feet of the lower end of thecanal and the edge of the pond, the foundation for a house was being excavated. Two tunnels were made through it to the bottom of the pond.
The house was made of mud dredged from the bottom of the pond, and this was reënforced with an entire clump of willows cut near by. There were also used willow roots, sods, a few stones, and a few peeled aspen sticks off which the beavers had eaten the bark, and which they dragged from their temporary home—the old house.
The finished house was about ten feet across the bottom and five feet high. The walls were about two feet thick. The ventilation top was a mass of criss-crossed sticks without mud.
Beavers do most of their work at night—this probably is for safety from men. It appears that at one time they may have regularly worked during the daytime. But for generations hunters with guns have made day work perilous. In out-of-the-way places where they had not been disturbed I have seen a whole colony at work during the daytime even when the work was not pressing. With exceptions they now work daytime only in emergencies. At this place no one was troubling the beavers and frequently I saw an old one, and at length I realized that it had been the same old one each time.
I was sitting on the side of the beaver houseone afternoon changing a roll of films when the old beaver rose on the pond and swam to a half-submerged log about twenty feet away. I stopped film changing and sat still to watch him. He had not scented me. Splendid reflections he and the surroundings made in the water; the snowy top of Mount Meeker, the blue sky, white clouds, brown willows, green, pointed pines, red birches, and a single young aspen with yellow leaves—a brilliant autochrome of autumn.
The beaver rose from squatting and scratched himself behind a fore leg, combed himself with forepaws, then standing high on his hind feet held forepaws close to his breast and looked around. A fly alighted on his nose. He struck at it. Again it alighted, and he brushed it away with the other forepaw. Again he squatted on the log but facing in the opposite direction. A few minutes later he dived off showing his wide, webbed, gooselike hind feet, and striking the water a heavy, merry whack with his broad black rubbery tail, sending the ripples scurrying over the pond.
The canal still remained empty, but with the completion of the house it would be filled from somewhere and used in bringing in the harvest.
One day late in September I found the canal and the little basin at the south—the upper—end full of water. A spring concealed among the willows forty feet above had been used. From the spring a small ditch had been dug by the beavers and through this the water was pouring rapidly into the now overflowing canal.
Photo. by S. N. LeekMountain Lion
Photo. by S. N. Leek
Mountain Lion
©by C. L. Reed, Jr.Bighorn Mountain Sheep
©by C. L. Reed, Jr.
Bighorn Mountain Sheep
Early one evening, two days later, I peeped through the willows near the south end of the canal and saw an aspen pole with two or three twigs and several leaves fluttering from it. It was moving down the canal toward the house. The old beaver was propelling this. Both forepaws were against the end of the pole and he pushed it speeding toward the house at the lower end of the canal. He left this pole in the water and returned for another, then another.
When he arrived with the third there were two beavers dragging the other poles over the short wet space between the end of the canal and the edge of the pond.
These aspens were being canned in the water—stored in the pond—from which during the winter they would be dragged in short sections up into the house and their bark eaten.
A green aspen commonly water-logs and sinks inside of thirty-six hours. The beavers were simply piling one pole on another, evidently realizing that the sinking would follow.
The following afternoon I saw the old beaverin the aspen grove gnawing away at a seven-inch aspen. This was nearly cut off. In giving the finishing bites he tiptoed, edged around the stump this way, then that. When it began to crack and settle he started toward the canal. He caught a small piece of aspen in his teeth, dragged this down into the canal and left it, and swam on down to the house.
In the water-filled basin at the end of the canal apparently the fresh cuttings were collected and later transferred by water to their place of deposit in the pond. These aspen chunks were from five to eight feet long, were parts of small aspen tree trunks freshly cut off at each end.
Down in the pond, floating above the deposited pile, were numbers of aspen limbs and tops. The bark of these as well as of the larger cuttings was to serve as winter food for the beavers.
Beavers do not eat meat or fish, but chiefly bark, with a little of roots, mushrooms, lily bulbs, and berries. Yet several times during the past year I read of beaver catching fish—out of season, too.
This old beaver frequently appeared, first at one place and then at another. Each time, too, in daylight. He did not seem afraid. But the other beavers were not seen except about sundown, or in the twilight. This old beavermay have been the leading colonist, the ruler of the colony, if there be such a position.
Beavers coöperate and carry out a distinct plan; in doing this they work both unitedly and singly. The whole work, however, advances as though to a plan and as though under constant supervision. Through the years I have seen beavers working hundreds of times. Their work is nearly always efficient and apparently under the direction of an expert in beaver work; but never have I seen any sign or signal given by a beaver that I could positively say was an order or command. But I see no way of explaining the magnitude of beaver works and the skill shown therein except through coöperation under an acknowledged leader.
One evening as I was watching, a bobcat chased two beavers into the pond. A few yards farther and they would have been overtaken. But the instant they dived into the pond they were safe.
The wild enemies of beavers are lions, bears, wolves, and wildcats; in fact, any flesh-eating animal large enough to kill one. Rarely is a beaver captured in water; he is a swift swimmer and can long remain under water. But on land he is slow getting into action, is not agile, and in going has only low gear. For safety he aims to cut trees that are closest to the water.
Another evening four, and a part of the time five, beavers were pushing and dragging a log. When they at last pushed it into the canal one beaver with only one forepaw put this forepaw against the end of the log and conducted it down the canal. For safety for travel, and for transportation beavers need deep water.
There is a social side, too, to life in these deep-water homes. Not only do beavers indulge in all kinds of water sports among themselves, but they seem to make friends with some of their diving, swimming neighbours in other animal families.
I had often heard that beavers ever war upon their little brother, the muskrat. The beavers in this colony did not. They continued to use the old repaired house until near the close of their harvesting. On their departure, apparently muskrats at once took possession. But the beavers often went back into the old house.
One day I saw a beaver enter the house. There were a number of muskrats inside. I do not know the nature of his visit but there was no excitement. Another time a beaver turned aside and touched noses with a muskrat. Still another time a beaver playfully dived beneath a muskrat. As the beaver came up the muskrat grabbed beaver fur with forepaws and sat down on the beaver’s back. Away swam thebeaver with back above the water, little brother holding on.
The harvest of aspens for winter food was nearly finished, and I had thus far seen only the old beaver doing any tree cutting. The evening of the 19th of October I had gone through the aspen groves measuring and counting. One hundred and twelve aspens had been cut; these were from two to eleven inches in diameter at the place of cutting, and from five to nineteen inches above the ground. The aspens were from twelve to twenty-one feet high.
Just at sundown, as I sat down on a boulder near the aspens, I saw a beaver swimming in the canal toward me. In the basin at the end he smelled of two logs, then came waddling heavily up the much-used trail over which logs were dragged from the aspen grove. His big tail swung slowly from side to side, in places dragging on the ground. He was an old beaver that I had not before seen. He must have weighed fifty pounds. He glanced right and left at aspens and stopped several feet from one, rose up, looked into its top, turned, and looked into the top of another. He went to the second one. Later I saw that the first one was entangled at the top in the limbs of a near-by pine.
Squatting on hind legs with tail bracing behind,he reared up and put forepaws against a four-inch aspen. He took several bites into the tree; then several inches higher—as high as he could reach—he did more biting; after this he split and bit out the space between these two cuttings. He then repeated cutting above and below and again followed by splitting out the chip between—roughly following the plan of an axeman.
Once he stopped to scratch; he rubbed his back against the stump, and clawed at the itchy spot with left forepaw. He ate a mouthful of bark and resumed work. All the cutting had been done from one side, and for the few final bites he scraped a quantity of trash against the stump and stood upon this so as to reach the last bit to be cut off. He was two or three minutes less than an hour in cutting off this four-inch aspen, but aspen is of soft wood. He galloped behind a pine until the aspen tumbled over. Waddling back to it, he snipped off several little limbs, a single bite for each. He scratched his neck. Then he fell rapidly to gnawing the trunk in two. But before this was accomplished he took fright, perhaps from my scent, and went full gallop like a fat cow to the end of the canal and dived in with tail whack and splash.
During summer beavers eat their meals onthe side of the house, or bank of the pond, or on a log or boulder that is above the surface of the pond. If enemy appear the beaver in a second dives to safety. For the winter meal the beaver goes through the inclined tunnel from the house into the water. At the food pile he cuts off a short section of one of the aspens, takes this up into the house, and sits on the floor, which is above water level, to eat the bark.
Two hundred and eight aspens were cut in the grove, dragged to the canal, floated down this and finally deposited in the pond. This made a large food supply for the winter. A little more than one half these were used, and the number of colonists fed probably was nine.
Each spring beavers come out of winter quarters as early as possible and at once begin to use fresh food. If any of the winter food harvest remains canned in the water this is thrown out next autumn and used in dam and house repairs.
Many old beaver colonies have a den in addition to the house, and others have a tunnel under the pond that comes out on shore some distance beyond the shoreline. This tunnel is sometimes used in winter while the pond is frozen over. But these new settlers were without tunnel or den.
These beaver pioneers had founded a new home before winter came. The house wascompleted, a deep water pond had stored in it the autumn harvest—food for months. This necessary work was completed a month before the pond froze solid and several weeks before the first snow.
This main pond is off the stream, connecting with it by a ditch through the side of another pond, and will thus receive but little sediment. But each year a layer of fine material will sift in and settle on the bottom, making the pond shallower. Although this pond will live longer than most ponds it, too, will meet the common fate—be filled in with rich soil, be buried and forgotten beneath grass, wild flowers, willows, and groves of trees.
Several times through the ice I saw the beavers in the pond. A number of times I watched them by the food pile cutting off sticks of rations. Other times they were swimming about as though just having their daily cold bath.
While the glassy ice covering of the pond was still clear I once saw them at play in the water beneath the ice; all nine. They wrestled in pairs, they mixed in masses, they raced two and three, they followed the leader circling and criss-crossing. Now and then one dropped out, rose against the under surface of the ice where there was an air pocket, and here I suppose had a few breaths and then resumed the play.
Oneday in western Wyoming an elk was killed by hunters. It was left lying on the ground all night. Its only protection was a handkerchief tied to one of the horns. Tracks in the snow showed that wolves were about and that they had circled the carcass, but without going close enough to touch it.
In another instance a deer was left out all night in the wolf country.
“How did you protect it?†someone asked the hunter.
“By simply rubbing my hands over it,†he answered.
A mature wolf will not eat or touch anything that has human scent upon it, or that carries the scent of iron or steel, which he evidently associates with the deadly scent of man.
A cowboy shot his injured pony and left it lying on the plains. The pony was shod. Wolves did not touch the carcass. On another occasion and in the same locality a pony waskilled by lightning. It was not shod and carried no human scent. Upon this pony the wolves were feasting within a few hours.
The wolf in his struggles with man has become an extremely cautious animal. He is hunted and pursued with deadly ingenuity and persistence. Guns, traps, poison, and dogs are used for his destruction. There is no quarter for him—always a price on his head; and the sum is large. Survivors must be exceptionally wide-awake and wary. The numbers that still survive show that this exacting price of existence has been met. They have not been beaten. Altogether, the wolves now alive probably are much more destructive than their ancestors were, and far more capable of saving themselves from extermination by man.
Much of the time wolves hunt in coöperating packs. They run an animal down by following it in relays; sometimes one or more wolves lie in wait at a point of vantage while others drive or force the victim into the ambush. On an island in Alaska a number of wolves in relays chased a deer and at last drove it into the sea. Near the point where it leaped into the water a swimming wolf was in waiting.
Three wolves chased a young antelope through my mountain camp. Though they nearly ran over me, I doubt whether either the antelope orthe wolves saw me. On they went across the plateau. I hoped that the antelope might escape; but just before he reached the top of a ridge I saw a wolf peering over. The antelope and the wolves disappeared on the other side, where I suppose the drifting clouds and steadfast pines again witnessed a common tragedy of the wild.
On another occasion I saw three wolves drive a deer from a cañon and so direct its course that it emerged where the way was covered with a deep snowdrift. As the deer floundered through the soft snow it was pounced upon by a fourth wolf, which was lying in wait at this point.
Wolves occasionally capture the young, the stupid, and the injured among deer, sheep, elk, and moose; but the big-game loss from wolf depredations probably is not heavy. These wolf-chased animals have developed a wariness and endurance that usually enable them, except perhaps during heavy snows, to triumph over this enemy.
Economically, the food habits of wolves are not entirely bad. In many localities they prey freely upon those ever-damaging pests—mice, rats, rabbits, and prairie dogs. They are also scavengers.
The vast herds of buffaloes used to be constantly followed by countless packs of wolves.At that time the gray wolf was commonly known as the buffalo wolf, and he is still often spoken of by that name. The wolves were watchful to pounce upon any stray, weak, or injured animal.
Well-authenticated accounts tell us that often a number of buffaloes would convoy a calf or a wounded buffalo to a place of safety. What a strange thing it must have been, out on the plains, to see a pack of wolves, fierce and fiendish, endeavouring to break through the buffalo line of defense that surrounded a retreating calf! Except while migrating, buffalo bulls appeared to have the habit of standing guard over a sick or injured buffalo until the weak one got well or died.
Wolves prey extensively on cattle and sheep; and to a less extent on horses, pigs, and chickens. Many stockmen think that a single pair of wolves may damage cattle herds to the value of a thousand dollars a year. A single wolf has been charged with killing eighty head of cattle in a year, or even ten head of stock in a month. Occasionally a pair of wolves may kill a number of animals in a day. In Texas the red wolf feeds on cattle, colts, sheep, and goats—the gray mostly on cattle; while the black shows a fondness for pork of a better grade than razorback.
The cattle-raising country has a wolf popuation. Formerly wolves followed the buffalo herds in their long drifts and migrations up and down the plains; they now follow the cattle herds in the West. They winter with the cattle in the lowlands, and in the summer accompany the “beef on hoof†up into the high ranges among the peaks.
When they come upon a herd of cattle they isolate one; then one or more wolves systematically attack the head while another or others attack behind. Their powerful jaws snap quickly and cut or crush deeply. They endeavour to hamstring the victim.
On one occasion, in southern Colorado, I saw a herd of cattle standing in a circle with their heads outward. A number of wolves were attacking them. By leaping unitedly—first at one then at another—they finally frightened one victim out of the circle of safety. He was at once driven away from the herd, and in a short time the wolves had disabled his hind legs and pulled him down.
On another occasion, in North Park, Colorado, I saw two wolves pull down three two-year-olds in a short time. I watched them through a field glass. One wolf attacked in front while the other kept leaping and snapping at the flanks and legs until the animal fell. These three animals were killed in less than half anhour. As they were not eaten, the killing was apparently for the amusement of the wolves.
In wolf-infested cattle territory it is common for one or more cows to guard the calves while the other cows go to water. At a ranch where I made my headquarters for a few days, the plan was being tried of equipping every thoroughbred calf with a bell. This practice proved only temporarily effective in keeping wolves away.
In the cattle country you will find the wolfer—a picturesque character engaged in the peculiar occupation of trying to exterminate wolves. His equipment consists of a rifle, traps, and poison. A few wolfers follow their occupation the year round. Many of them are free trappers—some of them old-timers who have seen better trapping days.
When a wolfer meets another wolfer, or when he is discussing business with stockmen and others who are interested, his talk is likely to run to “Three Toes,†a wolf that killed so many cattle on the S.S. Bar Ranch; or to “Old Two Toes,†which John Jones succeeded in trapping. He is eager to hear how Smith trapped the last wolf. Just as the prospector has faith that he will find the mythical lost mine, many wolfers firmly believe that they will yet compound a scent which will please the nostrils of the most wary wolf and lure him to his doom.
The hunter and the trapper keep bringing forward new and skillful ways of poisoning and trapping wolves. But getting a wolf becomes increasingly difficult. The majority of wolves now trapped are the young or the stupid ones. Many trappers use traps by the gross. These are set in clusters in selected places—in narrow trails, round carcasses, and in the approaches to stream crossings. The traps are concealed; placed in water; they are deodorized, hidden, and false-scented with offal. Whole batteries are placed before or round a stake the top of which is highly scented with something alluring to wolf nostrils.
One day I watched a trapper spend several hours in placing more than a hundred traps round the carcass of a cow. He avoided touching the carcass. This concealed trap arrangement was as complicated as a barbed-wire entanglement. At one place he set the traps three abreast and five deep. On another probable line of approach he set ten traps, singly, but on a zigzag line. Two fallen logs made a V-shaped chute, which ended close to the carcass. In the narrow end of this chute another cluster of traps was set. Thus the carcass was completely surrounded by numerous concealed traps. It seemed impossible for any animal to walk to the carcass without thrusting a foot intoone of the steel jaws of this network of concealed traps. Yet a wolf got through that night and feasted on the carcass!
Clever ways have been devised to keep human scent off the poisoned meat. Poison is inserted into pieces of meat without touching them with the hand. Then these choice dainties are taken on horseback in a rawhide bucket and scattered with wooden pinchers, the dispenser wearing rubber gloves. Yet most wolves will starve before touching these morsels, evidently scenting the poison!
Forced by poison and traps to avoid most dead stuff that man has touched, the wolf is compelled to do more killing. Then, too, his special development and increased experience, together with his exceptional equipment and opportunity, afford him a living and leave him spare energy and time; so for the fun of it he kills and kills, like a game-hog.
In Montana I once saw a pair of wolves attack a broncho. The horse, which was exceptionally keen-witted and agile, fought the wolves off successfully for several minutes, and finally smashed a hind leg of one with a kick. He then became aggressive, and endeavoured to stamp the injured wolf to death. Under the brave protection of the other wolf, which fiercely fought the enemy, the disabled onetried to escape; but the horse landed a kick on this fighter, crippled it, and finally killed both.
The new environment of wolf life that accompanied the approach of man demanded a change of habit. Many things that wolves had always done—which had been good enough for their ancestors—must be done no more; things that never had been done must be done at once. It was the old, inexorable law—the survival of the fittest; the passing of those which could not change and cope with newly imposed conditions.
Any one who has had experience with wolves is pretty certain to conclude that they are intelligent—that they reason. A trapper who thinks that a wolf is guided by instinct, who fails to realize lupine vigilance, and forgets that wolves are always learning—ever adapting themselves to changing environment—will be laughed at by a multiplying wolf population.
With astounding quickness the new dangers man introduced into the wolf world were comprehended and avoided. In the decade following 1885 wolves appear to have gained knowledge of human ways more rapidly than man developed in his knowledge of wolf ways. This rapid mental development on their part cannot be called instinct. Plainly it was a caseof intelligence and the wisdom of experience. Surviving wolves have learned absolutely to avoid those insidious means of death that high bounties have led man to invent for their extermination.
Apparently, too, old wolves promptly educate their children; so that the youngsters avoid these new complex dangers. Whether this education is consciously given on the part of the old wolves matters not. The fact that wolves multiplied in the midst of the concerted and relentless war waged against them by man indicates that the youngsters learned how to take care of themselves from the experience and not from the instincts of their parents. The safety-first slogan in the wolf world appears to be: “Avoid being seen by a man; and never, never touch anything that carries the scent of man or of iron or steel.â€
A generation or two ago a wolf took no pains to keep out of sight; now he uses his wits to avoid being seen. Then it was easy to trap him; now he has become exceedingly difficult to trap. Long-range rifles, poison, and steel traps brought about these changes. It was about 1880 when wolves began to develop this cunning for self-preservation. Heavy bounties brought numerous trappers and hunters into the wolf domain; but such was their developmentthat, despite this incessant warring, for fifteen years the wolves actually multiplied.
Both old wolves play with the puppies, and on rare occasions both at the same time. More often one of the old ones allows the puppies to play with it. The old one will lie full length while the puppies tug and chew at its ears, bite and tug at tail, and snap at nose. Upon the old one they climb, trampling and scuffling about. To all this the old one submits without a move, unless it is to encourage or prolong the interest of the puppies.
A mated wolf is happy in the company of the mate. When well fed and with leisure time—no puppies to watch over—they lie in the sun near the den usually with one resting its head upon the body of the other. Or, puppylike, they may wrestle and play together for an hour without ceasing.
Numbers often play together. In the “Adventures of a Nature Guide†I have told of a number playing with a tumbleweed on a windy prairie.
Sometimes they go away exploring. A trip of this kind often carries them far beyond the bounds of their home territory. Sometimes they appear to have a place in mind when they start; again they wander here and there, following each inclination or new interest.
Exploring often brings them in touch with strange wolves. With these there may be battles but more likely organized play, like the relay running of a deer or some other victim. When a number are together they are likely to make life miserable for a mountain lion in case they come upon the trail of one. They will even annoy a bear.
The wolf has extraordinary endurance, great strength, senses amazingly developed, and exceptionally powerful jaws. He is a good swimmer. I have seen wolves swimming vigorously in rivers, wide lakes, and among breakers. They appear to be equally at home in the mountains, in the forest, in thickets, or on the prairie. They probably live from eight to fifteen years.
The coyote, or prairie wolf, is a distinct species, much smaller and with more fox traits than his big brother, the gray wolf.
The wolf is closely related to the dog family; in fact, a Husky, or Eskimo dog, is a domesticated wolf. The track of a wolf is almost identical with that of a dog.
The average weight of a mature gray wolf is close to one hundred pounds. In exceptional cases they have been known to weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. They are, therefore, about twice the weight of the coyote, or prairie wolf, and considerably larger and heavier thanthe average collie. For the most part, those near the Arctic regions are larger than those in the southern United States.
Seen in profile at a distance, the back line is comparatively straight. The ears rise just a trifle above this line; in front of the hips the back sags a trifle, while the tail is extended almost straight, with the point held slightly above the level of the back. With the coyote the ears are more prominent, the back more swayed, and the tail droops at a very sharp angle, with the point turned a little upward.
Among Indians wolf pets are common. At an Alaskan Indian encampment I was once greeted by a number of romping Indian children who had several black-faced wolf puppies with faces painted vermilion and yellow.
The puppies are born early in March. The number varies from six to twelve. For the first few weeks they are almost black, especially about the head. For a period after the young cease nursing the mother stays with them much of the time, while the father hunts and brings food to the entrance of the den or into it. At the age of a year the young wolf is still puppylike, and apparently he does not reach maturity until more than two years of age.
Young wolves are sometimes seized by eaglesor foxes; and all wolves are subject to attacks from parasites and disease.
Old storybooks are full of tales of wolf ferocity. Wolves pursue the lone horseman, or even attack the occupants of a sleigh. A fiddler returning at night is forced to take refuge on top of a deserted building or in a treetop; or a mail carrier narrowly escapes with his life after losing his sack. All too frequently we still hear stories of wolves attacking a solitary traveller, but careful investigation of these stories shows them to be sheer fabrications.
The howl of the wolf is deep, while that of the coyote is shrill and high-pitched. It appears that wolves have a language and a system of signalling. These consist of howls, snarls, and barks of varying length, with varying spaces or accents. Wolves prowl and howl mostly at night; but it is not uncommon for them to hunt or to wander in the daytime.
The gray wolf is known also as the timber wolf. He may be gray, grayish yellow, or grayish black, occasionally reddish; and now and then he verges on cream colour. The colour varies greatly, even among the members of a single and perhaps related pack.
Formerly the gray wolf was distributed practically over all North America. Though classified into various sub-species, it really was thesame wolf in Florida and Alaska, in Labrador and Arizona. In different localities he varied in size, colour, and minor characteristics; he necessarily adapted himself to the food supply of his locality and followed the necessary means of getting his food. But everywhere he was really the same gray wolf.
The present wolf population of the United States is not numerous; but it is active, aggressive, and destructive. The animal probably has been exterminated in most of the Eastern States and in California. The coyote probably is economically more beneficial to man than the gray wolf, and does less damage to man’s cattle.
In common with most animals, wolves live on a fixed or home range. They spend their life in one locality. This has a diameter of fifteen or twenty miles. To a certain extent its area and form are dependent on the food supply and the topography. One wolf that I knew of had a home range that measured forty by ten miles.
Much of the time wolves run in pairs; and, from both my own observation and that of others, I believe they commonly mate for life. Their home is a den. This most frequently is upon a southern slope. It may be of their own digging or a badger or a prairie-dog hole whichthe wolves have enlarged; or it may be a natural cave. In the woods it may be in a huge hollow tree. Almost invariably a pair has a den to themselves. I have heard of a few instances where two litters of wolf puppies were found in the same den; but probably the second litter, in an emergency, had been moved into the den for safety.
Wolves within the bounds of the United States are not ferocious; they do not attack human beings. That they were once ferocious is probable; but years ago they learned the folly of exposing themselves to human beings.
Notwithstanding all this, the wolf is not a coward. He is brave enough when anything is to be gained by being brave. The spectacular, reckless, grand-stand bravery that is pretty certain to be accompanied by death does not appeal to the wolf. Instances are on record, however, where numbers of wolves have risked their lives in order to save or to try to save a wounded companion, either from men or from animals.
A man captured and brought home a number of wolf puppies and placed them in a box inside a high picket fence. He thought the mother might come to their rescue and prepared to entrap her. He took off a picket ofthe fence, and placed steel traps inside and outside the fence and in the gap. On the first night the mother did bravely come to the rescue; but she avoided all dangers and carried off her puppies.
On theway home one winter afternoon I came upon a beaver colony a little below timberline. In the edge of the woods I stood for a time looking out on the white smooth pond. Lines of tracks crossed it from every point of the compass. Two camp birds alighted on a tree within a few feet and looked me over. I heard a flock of chickadees going through the woods.
A lynx came out of the willow clumps on the opposite shore. He walked out on the snowy pond and headed straight for the house. He was in no hurry and stepped slowly along and climbed on top of the house. Here he sniffed a time or two, then raked the house with right forepaw. He sniffed again. Nothing in reach for him.
Climbing down off the beaver house the lynx walked around it and started for the woods near me. Catching my scent he stopped, took a look, then went full speed into the Engelmann spruce forest. Other lynx had visitedthe top of the beaver house and also prowled along the bottom of the dam. A number of mountain sheep had crossed the pond a day or two before.
The pond was in a deep gulch and a goodly stream of water out of sight beneath the ice and snow was running into it. The concentrated outflow burst out over the top of the south end of the dam through an eighteen-inch opening. This pond was frozen over for five months. For these five months the beaver each day had a swim or two in the water under the ice. When hungry he took a section of an aspen from the pile on the bottom of the pond. This was dragged under the ice up into the house, where it afforded a meal of canned green bark.
Most summer birds fly away from winter. Other birds and a few animals travel a short distance—go to a place where food is more abundant although the winter there may not be any milder than in the locality in which they summered. Birds that remain to winter in the locality in which they summered, and most of the animals, too, go about their affairs as usual. They do not store food for the winter or even for the following day. The getting of food in the land of snows does not appear to trouble them.
But a number of animals—squirrels, chipmunks, conies, and beavers—store food for the winter. Generally these supplies are placed where they are at all times readily reached by the owners; on the earth, in it, in the water; the place depending on the taste and the habits of the fellow.
Upon the mountain tops the cony, or Little Chief Hare, stacks hay each autumn. This tiny stack is placed in the shelter of a big boulder or by a big rock, close to the entrance of his den. While the beaver is eating green canned bark the cony is contentedly chewing dry, cured hay.
The beaver is one of the animals which solves the winter food and cold problem by storing a harvest of green aspen, birch, and willow. This is made during the autumn and is stored on the bottom of the pond below the ice-line. Being canned in cold water the bark remains fresh for months.
Squirrels store nuts and cones for winter food. Most squirrels have a regular storing place. This covers only a few square yards or less and usually is within fifty or sixty feet of the base of the tree in which the squirrel has a hole and a winter home.
Commonly, when dining, the squirrel goes to his granary or storage place and uses this fora dining room. A squirrel in a grove near my cabin sat on the same limb during each meal. He would take a cone, climb up to this limb, about six feet above the snow, back up against the tree and begin eating. One day an owl flew into the woods. The squirrel dropped his cone and scampered up into the treetop without a chirp.
Another day a coyote came walking through the grove without a sound. He had not seen me and I did not see him until the squirrel suddenly exploded with a sputtering rush of squirrel words. He denounced the coyote, called him a number of names. The coyote did not like it, but what could he do? He took one look at the squirrel and walked on. The squirrel, hanging to the cone in his right hand, waved it about and cussed the coyote as far as he could see him.
A number of species of chipmunks store quantities of food, mostly weed seed. But no one appears to know much of the winter life of chipmunks.
Chipmunks around my home remain under ground more than half of the year. Two near my cabin were out of their holes only four months one year. They were busy these four months gathering seeds and peanuts which they stored underground in their tunnels. Twice bydigging I found the chipmunks in a sleep so heavy that I could not awaken them, and I believe they spend much of the eight months underground sleeping. Digging also revealed that they had eaten but little of their stored supplies.
When food becomes scarce and the weather cold and snowy, a number of animals hole up—go into a den. By hibernating, sleeping away the weeks the earth is barren and white, they triumph over the ways of winter. Bears and ground-hogs are famous hibernators. Many chipmunks and some species of squirrels hibernate for indefinite periods.
The Bat and the Bear, they never careWhat winter winds may blow;The Jumping-mouse in his cozy houseIs safe from ice and snow.The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck,The Skunk, who’s slow but sure,The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon,Have found for cold the cure.—Samuel Scoville, Jr., inEveryday Adventures.
The Bat and the Bear, they never careWhat winter winds may blow;The Jumping-mouse in his cozy houseIs safe from ice and snow.
The Bat and the Bear, they never care
What winter winds may blow;
The Jumping-mouse in his cozy house
Is safe from ice and snow.
The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck,The Skunk, who’s slow but sure,The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon,Have found for cold the cure.—Samuel Scoville, Jr., inEveryday Adventures.
The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck,
The Skunk, who’s slow but sure,
The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon,
Have found for cold the cure.
—Samuel Scoville, Jr., inEveryday Adventures.
Animals which hibernate, fast and sleep through much or all of the winter, are not harmed and possibly are benefitted by the fasting and sleeping. Bears and ground-hogs arefat when they go to bed in the autumn and fat and strong when they come out in the spring.
A snowy winter gives a bear den a cold-excluding outer covering—closes the entrance and the airholes. Most bears and ground-hogs appear to remain in the den all winter. I have known an occasional ground-hog to thrust out his head for a few minutes now and then during the winter, and bears may come forth and wander about for a time, especially if not quite comfortable. I have known a number of bears to come out toward spring for brief airings and sunnings.
Mid-winter a bear wanted more bedding. In fact, he did not have any, which was unusual. But the winter was cold, no snow had fallen, and the frigid wind was whistling through his poorly built den house. The usual snow would have closed the airholes and shut out the cold. He was carrying cedar bark and mouthfuls of dried grass into the den.
This same winter I came upon another bear. Cold or something else had driven him from his den. When I saw him he was trying to reopen an old den which was back in a bank under the roots of a spruce. He may have tried to dig a den elsewhere, but the ground was frozen almost as hard as stone. While he was workinga bob-cat came snarling out. The bear struck at it. It backed off sputtering then ran away. In tearing out a root the bear slipped and rolled down the bank. He went off through the woods.
Late one February I came upon a well-worn bear trail between the sunny side of a cliff and an open den. In this trail there were tracks fresh and tracks two or more weeks old. Elsewhere I have seen many evidences that bears toward spring come out briefly to sun themselves and to have an airing. But never a sign of their eating or drinking anything.
Near my cabin I marked four ground-hog holes after the fat fellows went in. On September tenth I stuffed a bundle of grass in the entrance of each den. Sometime during the winter one of them had disturbed the grass and thrust out his head. Whether this was on Ground-hog Day or not, I cannot say. The other ground-hogs remained below until between April seventh and twelfth, about seven months. And these seven months were months of fast, and possibly without water.
The raccoon, who ever seems a bright, original fellow, appears to have a hibernating system of his own. Many a raccoon takes a series of short hibernating sleeps each winter, and between these sleeps he is about hunting food, eating and living as usual. But I believe theseperiods of hibernating often correspond to stormy or snowy periods.
While trying to see a flock of wild turkeys in Missouri one winter day I had a surprise. The snow showed that they had come out of the woods and eaten corn from a corn shock. I hoped to see them by using a near-by shock for a blind and walked around the shock. The snow over and around it showed only an outgoing mouse track. No snow had fallen for two days.
I had gotten into the centre of the shock when I stepped on something that felt like a big dog. But a few seconds later, when it lunged against me, trying blindly to get out, it felt as big as a bear. I overturned the shock in escaping. A blinking raccoon looked at me for a few seconds, then took to the woods.
Deep snow rarely troubles wild life who lay up food for winter. And snow sometimes is even helpful to food storers and also to the bears and ground-hogs who hibernate, and even to a number of small folk who neither hibernate nor lay up supplies.
One winter afternoon I followed down the brook which flows past my cabin. The last wind had blown from an unusual quarter, the northeast. It made hay-stack drifts in a number of small aspen groves. One of these driftswas perhaps twenty feet across and about as high. The treetops were sticking out of it.
On the top of the snowdrift a cotton-tail was feeding happily off the bark of the small limbs. This raised platform had given him a good opportunity to get at a convenient food supply. He was making the most of this. At the bottom he had bored a hole in the snow pile and apparently planned to live there.
While peeping into this hole two mice scampered along it. This snow would protect them against coyotes. Safe under the snow they could make their little tunnels, eat grass and gnaw bark, without the fear of a coyote jumping upon them.
Tracks and records in the snow showed that for two days a coyote did not capture a thing to eat. During this time he had travelled miles. He had closely covered a territory about three miles in diameter. There was game in it, but his luck was against him. He was close to a rabbit, grabbed a mouthful of feathers—but the grouse escaped, and even looked at a number of deer. At last, after more than two days, and possibly longer, he caught a mouse or two.
Antelope in the plains appear to live in the same territory the year round. Many times in winter I have been out on the plains and found a flock feeding where I had seen it insummer. But one snowy time they were gone. I found them about fifteen miles to the west, where either less snow had fallen or the wind had partly swept it away. The antelope were in good condition. While I watched them a number started a race.
The wolves had also moved. A number of these big gray fellows were near the antelope. Just what the other antelope and the other wolves who used this locality did about these new folks, I cannot guess.
Mountain deer and elk who usually range high during the summer go to the lowlands or several miles down the mountains for the winter. They may thus be said to migrate vertically. One thousand feet of descent equals, approximately, the climatic changes of a thousand-mile southward journey. They may thus winter from five to twenty-five miles from where they summered, from one thousand to several thousand feet lower. The elk that winter in the Jackson Hole region have a summer range on the mountains forty or fifty miles away. But elk and deer that have a home territory in the lowlands are likely to be found summer after summer in the same small, unfenced pasture.
Moose, caribou, deer, and elk during heavy snows often resort to yarding. Moose andcaribou are experts in taking care of themselves during long winters of deep snows. They select a yard which offers the maximum food supply and other winter opportunities.
One snowy winter I visited a number of elk that were yarding. High peaks rose snowy and treeless above the home in the forest. The ragged-edged yard was about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. About one half the yard was a swamp covered with birch and willow and a scattering of fir. The remainder was a combination of open spaces, aspen groves, and a thick growth of spruce.
Constant trampling compressed the snow and enabled the elk readily to move about. Outside the yard they would have bogged in deep snow. In the swamp the elk reached the moss, weeds, and other growths. But toward spring the grass and weeds had either been eaten or were buried beneath icy snow. The elk then ate aspen twigs and the tops and limbs and bark of birch and willow.
Ease of movement in this area enabled the elk to keep enemies at bay. Several times I saw from tracks that lion had entered this selfmade wild life reservation, and on two occasions a number of wolves invaded it. But each time the elk had bunched in a pocket of a trampled space and effectively fought off the wolves.
One day late in February I visited the yard. The elk plainly had lost weight but were not in bad condition. While I lingered near the entire herd joined merrily in chase and tag, often racing then wheeling to rear high and fence with heads. If I counted correctly this herd went through the entire winter without the loss of an elk.
But the caribou appears to be the only animal which migrates between summer and winter ranges, that is, which makes a long journey of hundreds of miles; as much change of place as made by many species of migrating birds. The main cause for this migration is the food supply, but myriads of mosquitoes in the woods may be one cause of the moose moving each summer far into the north where there are grassy prairies and large openings in the woods. But for winter they seek food and shelter in a yard in the forest.
While snowshoeing in the forested mountains to the southeast of Long’s Peak I came upon a mountain lion track startlingly fresh. I followed it to a den beneath a rock pile at the bottom of a cliff. Evidently the lion was in. Seeing older tracks which he had made on leaving the den, I trailed these. After zigzagging through the woods he had set off in a bee-line for the top of a cliff. From this point he evidentlysaw a number of deer. He had crawled forward, then back-tracked and turned to the right, then made round to the left. The snow was somewhat packed and his big feet held him on the surface. The deer broke through.
The lion climbed upon a fallen tree and crept forward. He was screened by its large upturned root. At last he rushed out and seized a near-by deer and killed it, evidently after a short struggle. He had then pursued and killed a young deer that had fled off to the left where it was struggling in the heavy snows. Without returning to the first kill the lion fed off the second and returned to the den.
I followed the other deer. In a swamp they had fed for a time on the tops of tall weeds among the snow and willows. I came close to them in a thick growth of spruce. Here the snow was less deep. A goodly portion of the snow still clung to the trees.
These deer circled out of the spruce swamp and came into their trail made in entering it. Back along this trail they followed to where the lion had made the first kill. Leaping over this dead deer they climbed up on the rocky ridge off which so much snow had blown that they could travel speedily most of the time over the rocks with only now and then a stretch of deep snow.
Often during my winter trips I came upona porcupine. Both winter and summer he seemed blindly content. There were ten thousand trees around, and winter or summer there were meals to last a life-time. Always he had a dull, sleepy look and I doubt if he ever gets enthusiastic enough to play.
Birds that remain all winter in snowy lands enjoy themselves. Like the winter animals, usually they are well fed. But most species of birds with their airplane wings fly up and down the earth, go northward in the spring and southward in the autumn, and thus linger where summer lingers and move with it when it moves.
Around me the skunks hibernated about two months each year; some winters possibly not at all. Generally the entire skunk family, from two to eight, hole up together. One den which I looked into in mid-winter had a stack of eight sleepy skunks in it. A bank had caved off exposing them. I left them to sleep on, for had I wakened them they might not have liked it. And who wants to mix up with a skunk?
Another time a snowslide tore a big stump out by the roots and disclosed four skunks beneath. When I arrived, about half an hour after the tear-up, the skunks were blinking and squirming as though apparently too drowsy to decide whether to get up or to have another good sleep.
Many tales have been told about the terrible hunger and ferocity of wolves during the winter. This may sometimes be so. Wolves seem ever to have good, though not enormous, appetites. Sometimes, too, they go hungry for days without a full meal. But generally, if the winter is snowy, this snow makes it easier for them to make a big kill.
Deer, elk, and mountain sheep occasionally are caught in deep snow, or are struck by a snowslide. A number sometimes are snowbound or killed at one time. Usually the prowling wolves or coyotes discover the kill and remain near as long as the feast holds out.
Once I knew of a number of wolves and two lions lingering for more than two weeks at the wreckage brought down by a snowslide. I was camping down below in the woods and each evening heard a hullabaloo, and when awake in the night I heard it. Occasionally I heard it in the daytime. Finally a grizzly made a discovery of this feeding ground. He may have scented it or he may have heard the uproars a mile or two away. For the wolves and the lions feasted, fought, and played by the hour. The row became so uproarious one night that I started up to see what it was all about. But the night was dark and I turned back to wait until morning. Things had then calmed down,and only the grizzly remained. After he ran off I found that from fifteen to twenty deer had been swept down by the slide and mixed with the tree wreckage.
The right kind of winter clothing is an important factor for winter life for both people and animals. The clothing problem perhaps is more important than the food question.
Winter in the Temperate Zone causes most birds and animals to change clothing—to put on a different suit. This usually is of winter weight and in many cases of a different colour than that of the summer suit. Bears, beavers, wolves, and sheep put on a new, bright, heavy suit in autumn and by spring this is worn and faded. The weasel wears yellow-brown clothes during summer, but during winter is in pure-white fur—the tip of the tail only being jet black. The snowshoe rabbit has a new suit at the beginning of each winter. This is furry, warm, and pure white. His summer clothes are a trifle darker in colour than those of other rabbits. If there is no snow he eats with his feet on the earth or on a fallen log or rock pile, but if there is a deep snow he has snowshoes fastened on and is ever ready to go lightly over the softest surface.
In these ways—hibernating, eating stored food, or living as in summer time from hand to mouth—the animals of the Temperate Zonego contentedly through the winter with a change of habit and all with a change of clothing. The winter commonly is without hardship and there is time for pranks and play. Winter, so the animal Eskimos say, and so the life of the Temperate Zone shows, will bear acquaintance.
I awakenedone morning out on the Great Plains to find that in the dark I had camped near the nursery of a mother antelope and her two kids. It was breakfast time. Commonly both antelope children nurse at once, but this morning it was one at a time. Kneeling down, the suckling youngster went after the warm meal with a morale that never even considered Fletcherizing. Occasionally he gave a vigorous butt to hasten milk delivery.
Breakfast over, the mother had these youngsters lie low in the short grass of a little basin. She left them and began feeding away to the south. The largest objects within a quarter of a mile were a few stunted bunches of sagebrush. I moved my sleeping bag a short distance into an old buffalo wallow and watched her. She fed steadily up a moderate slope but was always in position where she could see the youngsters and the approach of anything in the unobstructed opening round them. This mother was not eating the abundant buffalo grass celebratedfor its nutrition, nor any of the blooming plants. She was eating, and plainly with relish, simply the gray-green bitter leaves of the shrubby scattered sage. On reaching the low summit of the prairie swell she paused for a little while on the skyline, then started on a run for a water-hole about two miles distant.
A few seconds later a fox-like head peeped over a little ridge a few hundred feet from the kids. Then a distant bunch of sagebrush transformed itself into another moving form, and two coyotes trotted into the scene. Evidently these coyotes knew that somewhere near two youngsters were hidden. They followed the mother’s trail by scent and kept their eyes open, looking for the youngsters.
Old antelope have perhaps more numerous scent glands than other big wild animals, but evidently a young antelope gives off little or no scent. Its youthful colour blends so well with its surroundings when it lies down that it is difficult to see it. Once the young flatten out and freeze upon the grassy earth they offer but little that is revealing even to the keenest eyes and noses.
Both coyotes paused within a few feet of one of the kids without either seeing or scenting it. It was flattened out between two clumps of sagebrush. Finally, unable to find the youngsters, the coyotes trotted off along the mother’s trail.
I went over to have a look at the children. Though I knew just about where they were I looked and circled for some time before my eyes detected them. They were grayish brown with the outlines of future colour scheme faintly showing. Within two feet of each I stood and watched them. A fly crawled over the eye and ear of one kid and an ant over the nose of the other, and yet neither made a move.
For about two weeks, while the legs of the young are developing liveliness, the mother keeps aloof from her kind. She often has a trying time with enemies.
As soon as the coyotes were out of sight I hastened to the highest near-by point hoping with glasses to see the mother antelope. She was just leaving the water-hole. Her movements evidently were a part of a strategic plan to deceive the watchful eyes and the cunning noses of enemies, chiefly coyotes. She fed a quarter of a mile south, then ran on for more than a mile still farther. She then galloped more than two miles northeast and later, with many doublings which involved her trail, worked back to the youngsters.
In following and watching the movements of the mother I stumbled over a lone antelope kid about half a mile from the other two. I returned later and found that it was entangledbetween the twisted low-lying limbs of a sagebrush. Not until I laid hold of the kid to drag it out did it make a move. Then it struggled and gave a low bleat.
Realizing that this might bring the mother like lightning I let go and rose up. There she was, coming like the wind, and only four or five hundred feet away, indifferent to the fact that man is the most dangerous of enemies. Just how close she might have come, just what might have happened had I not straightened up at that moment, is sheer guesswork. But the freed youngster butted me violently behind and then ran off to meet his mother.
During most of the year the great silent plains are at rest in tawny and gray brown. The dreamy, sunny distances show only moving cloud shadows. A brief barrage of dust storm sometimes sweeps across or a wild drive of tumbleweeds with a front from horizon to horizon goes bounding and rolling toward the rim, where they go over and vanish. But these endless distances are palpitating with flowers and song when the young antelope are born.
One May morning a flock of blackbirds alighted upon a leafy cottonwood tree—a lone tuft in an empire of treeless distances. They sang all at once—a whirlwind of song. Two antelope herds were on separate skylines.The silvery, melodious peal of the yellow-breasted meadow lark rang out all over the wide wild prairie. Prairie dogs scampered, barked, and played; butterflies circled and floated above the scattered and stunted sage; thousands of small birds were busy with nest and song, and countless ragged spaces of brilliant wild flowers illuminated the grass-green surface to every horizon.
The antelope is known as the pronghorn, because of a single small prong on each horn. This prong is more like a guard and serves as a hilt. In fighting an antelope often catches its opponent’s thrust on this prong. The horn commonly is less than ten inches long. Many females do not have horns, and rarely are these fully developed on any female.
Deer and elk have deciduous horns—that is, horns that are shed annually. Goat and bighorn never shed their horns. But each year antelope sheds the outer part—the point and sheath—of the horn, retaining the stubs or stumps which grow new horns.
The antelope has a number of marked characteristics and some of these are unique. It is without dew claws; the hair is hollow and filled with pitch; teeth are of peculiar pattern; it eats mostly bitter or pungent food; has large, long-range eyes of almost telescopic power;has numerous and scattered scent glands; is without colour camouflage—in fact, its colour is in part revealing, for the bristling of its white buttocks serves to give signal flashes. The antelope is the plains’ graceful racing model of long and successful development. It is either the least—the smallest—or near the smallest of our hoofed wild animals.
The antelope is specialized in speed. If there were to be a free-for-all race on the plains, with deer, antelope, elk, sheep, bear, lion, coyote, fox, dog, horse, and even the rabbit as starters, the antelope generally would be the winner, whether the race was for one mile or ten. Perhaps the blooded race horse and the greyhound would outstrip him, but among wild animals the antelope is the speedy one.
Wolves and coyotes pursue the pronghorn in relays or capture it strategically through various kinds of mutual aid. Now and then an antelope will turn upon its pursuers and fight them fiercely, occasionally triumphantly.
On the Great Plains in western Nebraska I saw two speeding objects stirring dust on the horizon. It was an antelope cut off from the flock and pursued by a wolf. They plunged for a moment or two in a dip of the plains, then reappeared. With glasses on them I saw the pursuing wolf drop out and another wolf leap from concealment to relieve him. Following them through glasses as they raced on skyline against a cloud, dropped below eyeline, dashed behind a butte, swiftly the great circle followed brought them within half a mile. In plain view another wolf leaped into the race. The antelope was nearly exhausted. The wolves were leaping at her throat as she disappeared over a ridge. Little puffs of dust showed the advance of pursuer and pursued. These grew dim and I watched for the runners to come up on the skyline. But they never appeared.