Chapter VI (7)

But one day the blood lust seized the buffalo, and he decided to assassinate his best friend. The next time Dick Rock entered the corral, closing the gate and fastening it securely,--thus shutting himself in,--the big bull attacked him so suddenly and fiercely that there was not a moment for either escape or rescue. We can easily estimate the suddenness of the attack by the fact that alert and active Dick Rock had not time even to climb upon the fence of the corral, whereby his life would have been saved. With a mighty upward thrust, the treacherous bull drove one of his horns deeply into his master's body, and impaled him so completely and so securely that the man hung there and died there! As a crowning horror, the bull was unable to dislodge his victim, and the body of the ranchman was carried about the corral on the horns of his assassin until the horrified wife went a mile and a half and summoned a neighbor, who brought a rifle and executed the murderer on the spot.

Such sudden onslaughts as this make it unsafe to trust implicitly, and without recourse, to the good temper of any animal having dangerous horns.

If bird-lovers knew the prevalence of the murder instinct among the feathered folk, no doubt they would be greatly shocked. Many an innocent-looking bird is really a natural villain without opportunity to indulge in crime. It is in captivity that the wickedness inherent in wild creatures comes to the surface and becomes visible. In the open, the weak ones manage to avoid danger, and to escape when threatened; but, with twenty birds in one large cage, escape is not always possible. A "happy-family" of a dozen or twenty different species often harbors a criminal in its midst; and when the criminal cunningly waits until all possibilities of rescue are eliminated, an assassination is the result.

Here is a partial list of the crimes in our bird collection during one year:

A green jay killed a blue jay. A jay-thrush and several smaller birds were killed by laughing thrushes,--which simply love to do murder! A nightingale was killed by a catbird and two mocking- birds. Two snake-birds killed a third one--all of them thoroughly depraved villains. Three gulls murdered another; a brown pelican was killed by trumpeter-swans; and a Canada goose was killed by a gull. All these victims were birds in good health.

It is deplorable, but nevertheless true, that in large mixed companies of birds, say where forty or fifty live together, it is a common thing for a sick bird to be set upon and killed, unless rescued by the keepers. In crimes of this class birds often murder their own kind, but they are quite as ready to kill members of other species. In 1902 a sick brant goose was killed by its mates; and so were a red-tailed hawk, two saras cranes, two black vultures, a road-runner, and a great horned owl. An aged and sickly wood ibis was killed by a whooping crane; and a night heron killed its mate.

Strange as it may seem, among reptiles there is far less of real first-degree murder than among mammals and birds. Twenty rattlesnakes may be crowded together in one cage, without a family jar. Even among cobras, perhaps the most irritable and pugnacious of all serpents, I think one snake never wantonly murders another, although about once in twenty years one will try to swallow another. The big pythons and anacondas never fight, nor try to commit murder. And yet, a twenty-foot regal python with a bad heart--like Nansen's polar bear--could easily constrict and kill any available snake of smaller size.

At this moment I do not recall one instance of wanton murder among serpents. It is well known that some snakes devour other snakes; but that is not crime. The record of the crocodilians is not so clear. It is a common thing for the large alligators in our Reptile House to battle for supremacy and in these contests several fatalities have occurred. Some of these occurrences are not of the criminal sort; but when a twelve-foot alligator attacks and kills a six-foot individual, entirely out of his class and far too small to fight with him, it is murder. An alligator will seize the leg of a rival and by violently whirling around on his axis, like a revolving shaft, twist the leg completely off.

Among sea creatures, the clearly defined criminal instinct, as exhibited aside from the never-ending struggle for existence and the quest of food, is rarely observed, possibly because opportunities are so few. The sanguinary exploits of the grampus, or whale-killer, among whales small enough to be killed and eaten, are the onslaughts of a marine glutton in quest of food.

Among the fishes there is one murderer whose evil reputation is well deserved. The common swordfish of the Atlantic, forty miles or so off Block Island or Montauk Point, is not only one of the most fearless of all fishes, but it also is the most dangerous. His fierce attacks upon the boats of men who have harpooned him and seek to kill him are well known, and his unparalleled courage fairly challenges our wonder and admiration. But, unfortunately, the record of the swordfish is stained with crime. When the spirit of murder prompts him to commit a crime in sheer wantonness, he will attack a whale, stab the unfortunate monster again and again, and pursue it until it is dead. This is prompted solely by brutality and murder lust, for the swordfish feeds upon fish, and never attempts to eat any portion of a whale. It can easily be proved that wild animals in a normal state of nature are by no means as much given to murder, either of their own kind or other kinds, as are many races of men. The infrequency of animal murders cannot be due wholly to the many possibilities for the intended victim to escape, nor to difficulty in killing. In every wild species murders are abundantly possible; but it is wholly against the laws of nature for free wild beasts to kill one another in wantonness. It is left to the savage races of men to commit murders without cause, and to destroy one another by fire. The family crimes and cruelties of people both civilized and savage completely eclipse in blackness and in number the doings of even the worst wild beasts. In wild animals and in men, crime is an index to character. The finest species of animals and the noblest races of men are alike distinguished by their abhorrence of the abuse of the helpless and the shedding of innocent blood. The lion, the elephant, the wild horse, the grizzly bear, the orang-utan, the eagle and the whooping crane are singularly free from the criminal instinct. On the other hand, even today Africa contains tribes whose members are actually fond of practicing cruelty and murder. In the Dark Continent there has lived many a "king" beside whom a hungry lion or a grizzly bear is a noble citizen.

XXV

FIGHTING WITH WILD ANIMALS

The study of the intelligence and temperaments of wild animals is by no means a pursuit of academic interest only. Men now are mixing up with dangerous wild beasts far more extensively than ever before, and many times a life or death issue hangs upon the man's understanding of the animal mind. I could cite a long and gruesome list of trainers, keepers and park owners who have been killed by the animals they did not correctly understand.

Not long ago, it was a park owner who was killed by a dangerous deer. Next it was a bull elk who killed the keeper who undertook to show that the animal was afraid of him. In Idaho we saw a death-penalty mistake with a bull buffalo. Recently, in Spain, an American ape trainer was killed by his big male chimpanzee. Recently in Switzerland a snake-charmer was strangled and killed on the stage by her python.

Men who keep or who handle dangerous animals owe it to themselves, their heirs and their assigns to _know the animal mind and temperament, and to keep on the safe side._

In view of the tragedies and near-tragedies that animal trainers and keepers have been through during the past twenty years, I am desirous of so vividly exhibiting the wild animal mind and temper that at least a few of the mistakes of the past may be avoided in the future. Fortunately I am able to state that thus far no one ever has been killed by an animal in the Zoological Park; but several of our men have been severely hurt. The writer hereof carries two useless fingers on his best hand as a reminder of a fracas with a savage bear. How Dangerous Animals Attack Men. The following may be listed as the wild animals most dangerous to man:

1. In the open: Alaskan brown bears, the grizzly bears, lion, tiger, elephant, leopard, wolf, African buffalo, Indian gaur and buffalo, and gorilla.

All these species are dangerous to the man who meddles with them, either to kill or to capture them. If they are not molested by man, there is very little to fear from any of them save the man- eating lions, and tigers, the northern wolf packs, Alaskan brown bears and rogue elephants.

2. In captivity, or in process of capture: Under this head a special list may be thus composed:

Male elk and deer in the rutting season; male elephants over fifteen years of age; all bears over one year of age, and especially "pet" bears; all gorillas, chimpanzees and orangs over seven years of age (puberty); all adult male baboons, gibbons, rhesus monkeys, callithrix or green monkeys, Japanese red-faced monkeys and large macaques; many adult bison bulls and cows of individually bad temper; also gaur, Old World buffalo, anoa bulls, many individually bad African antelopes, gnus and hartebeests; all lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards, wolves, hyenas, and all male zebras and wild asses over four years of age.

How they attack. The _lion, tiger and bear_ launches at a man's head or face a lightning-quick and powerful fore-paw blow that in one stroke tears the skin and flesh in long gashes, and knocks down the victim with stunning force. Before recovery is possible the assailant rushes to the prostrate man and begins to bite or to tear him. Instinctively the fallen man covers his face with his arms, and with the lion, tiger and leopard the arms come in for fearful punishment. It is the way of carnivorous beasts to attack each other head to head and mouth to mouth, and this same instinct leads these animals to focus their initial attacks upon the heads and faces of their human quarry.

After a man-eating lion or tiger has reduced the human victim to a state of non-resistance, the great beast seizes the man by a bite embracing the chest, and with the feet dragging upon the ground rushes off to a place of safety to devour him at leisure. Dr. David Livingston was seized alive by a lion, and carried I forget how many yards without a stop. His left humerus was broken in the onset, but the lion abandoned him without doing him any further serious harm.

Once I could not believe that a lion or a tiger could pick up a man in his mouth and rapidly carry him off, as a fox gets away with a chicken; but when I shot a male tiger weighing 495 pounds, standing 37 inches high and measuring 35 inches around his jaws, I was forever convinced. In the Malay Peninsula Captain Syers told me that a tiger leaped a stockade seven feet high, seized a Chinese woodcutter, leaped out with him, and carried him away.

In a scrimmage with a lion or tiger in the open, the fight is not prolonged. It is a case of kill or be killed quickly. The time of times for steady nerves and perfectly accurate shooting is when a lion, tiger or bear charges the hunter at full speed, beginning sufficiently far away to give the hunter a sporting chance. _The hunter can not afford to be "scared!"_ It is liable to cost too much!

The Alaskan brown bear has a peculiar habit. Occasionally he kills the hunter he has struck down, but very often he contents himself with biting his victim on his fleshy parts, _literally from head to foot._ More than one unfortunate amateur hunter has been fearfully bitten without having a bone broken, and without having an important artery or vein severed. Such unfortunates lie upon their faces, with their arms protecting their heads as best they can, and take the awful punishment until the bear tires of it and goes away. Then they _crawl,_ on hands and knees, to come within reach of discovery and help. In the annals of Alaska's frontier life there are some heart-rending records of cases such as I have described, coupled with some marvellous recoveries. Strange to say, bear bites or scratches _almost never produce blood poisoning!_ This seems very strange, for the bites of lions, tigers and leopards very frequently end in blood poisoning, incurable fever and death. This probably is due to the clean mouth of the omnivorous bear and the infected mouth of the large cats, from putrid meat between their teeth.

_The wolf_ is particularly dangerous to his antagonists, man or beast, from the cutting power of his fearful snap. His molar teeth shear through flesh and small bones like the gash of a butcher's cleaver; and his wide gape and lightning-quick movements render him a very dangerous antagonist. The bite of a wolf is the most dangerous to man of any animal bite to which keepers are liable, and it is the law of zoological gardens and parks that every wolf bite means a quick application of anti- rabies treatment at a Pasteur institute. Personally, I would be no more scared by a wolf-bite than by a feline bite, but the verdict of the jury is,--"it is best to be on the safe side."

_Buck elk and deer_ very, very rarely attack men in the wilds, unless they have been wounded and brought to bay; and then very naturally they fight furiously. It is the attacks of captive or park-bred animals that are most to be feared.

All the deer that I know attack in the same way,--first by a _slow_ push forward, in order to come to close quarters _without getting hurt,_ and then follows the relentless push, push, push to get up steam for the final raging and death-dealing drive. Even in fighting each other, buck elk and deer do not come together with a long run and a grand crash. Each potential fighter _fears for his own eyes,_ and conserves them by a cautious and deliberate engaging process. This is referred to in another chapter.

Fortunately for poor humanity, the same slow and cautious tactics are adopted when a buck deer or wapiti decides to attack a man. This gives the man in the case a chance to put up his defense.

The attacking deer lowers his head, throws his antlers far to the front, and pushes for the body of the man. The instant a tine touches the soft breast or abdomen, he lunges forward to drive it in. But thanks to that life-saving slow start, the man is mercifully afforded a few seconds of time in which to save himself, or at least delay the punishment.

No man ever should enter the enclosure of a "bad" deer, or any buck deer in the rut, without a stout and tough club or pitchfork for defense. Of the two weapons, the former is the best.

In the first place, keep away from all bad deer, especially between October and January first. If you are beset, follow these instructions, as you value your life:

If unarmed, seize the deer by the antlers before he touches your vitals, hold on for all you are worth, and _shout for help. Keep your feet,_ just as long as you possibly can. Never mind being threshed about, so long as you keep your feet and keep the tines out of your vitals. Your three hopes are (1) that help will come, (2) or that you can come within reach of a club or some shelter, or (3) that the animal will in some manner decide to desist,--a most forlorn hope.

With a good club, or even a stout walking-stick, you have a fighting chance. As the animal lowers his head and comes close up to impale you on his spears of bone, hit him a smashing blow _across the side of his head, or his nose._ In a desperate situation, _aim at the eye,_ and lay on the blows. If your life is in danger from a buck elk or a large deer, do not hesitate about putting out an eye for him. What are a thousand deer eyes compared with a twelve inch horn thrust through your stomach? My standing instructions to our keepers of dangerous animals are: "Save your own life, at all hazards. Don't let a dangerous animal kill you. Kill any animal rather than let it kill you!"

It is useless to strike a charging deer on the top of its head, or on its antlers. Give a sweeping _side_ blow for the unprotected cheek and jaw, or the tender nose. There is nothing that a club can do that is so disconcerting as the eye and nose attack, for a badly injured eye always shuts both eyes, automatically. Once when alone in the corral of the axis deer herd, I was treacherously and wantonly attacked by a full-grown buck. I had violated my own rules about going in armed with a stick, and it was lucky for me that the axis deer was not as large as the barasingha or the mule deer. As the buck lowered his head, threw his long, sharp beams straight forward, and pushed for my vitals, I seized him by both antlers, to make my defense. At that he drove forward and nearly upset me. Quickly I let go the right antler and shifted myself to the animal's left side, where by means of the left antler I pulled the struggling buck's head around to my side. Then he began to plunge. Throwing the weight of my chest upon his shoulders I reached over him and with my free hand finally grasped his right foreleg below the knee, and pulled it up clear of the ground. With that I had him.

He tried to struggle free, but I was strong in those days, and angry besides, and he was helpless. Up beside the deer barn, most providentially for the finish, I saw a very beautiful barrel stave. It was the very thing! I worked him over to it, caught it up, and then still holding him by his left antler I laid that stave along his side until he was well punished, and glad when released to rush from that neighborhood.

Female "pet" deer, and female elk, can and do put up dangerous fights with their front hoofs, standing high up on their hind legs and striking fast and furiously. A gentleman of my acquaintance was thus attacked, most unexpectedly, by his pet white-tailed deer doe. She struck about a dozen times for his breast, and his vest and coat were slit open in several places. I once saw two cow elk engage with their front feet in a hot fight, but they did no real damage.

Of course an angry _bison, buffalo or gaur_ lowers its head in attacking a man, and seeks to gore and toss him at the same moment. The American bison will start at a distance of ten or twenty yards, and with half lowered head jump forward, grunting "Uh! Uh! Uh!" as he comes. When close up he pauses for a second and poises his head for the toss. That is the man's one chance. At that instant he must strike the animal on the side of his head, and strike hard; and the region of the eye is the spot at which to aim.

Once we were greatly frightened by the determined charge of a savage cow bison upon Keeper McEnroe, who was armed with a short- handled 4-tine pitchfork. As she grunted and came for him we could not refrain from shouting a terrorized warning, "Look out, McEnroe! Look out!"

He looked out. He stood perfectly still, and calmly awaited the onset. The cow rushed close up, and dropped her chin low down for the goring toss. The keeper was ready for her. Swinging his pitchfork he delivered a smashing blow upon the left side of the cow's head, which disconcerted and checked her. Before she could recover herself he smashed her again, and again. Then she turned tail and ran, followed by the shouts of the multitude.

_Adult male elephants_ are among the most dangerous of all wild animals to keep in captivity. They _will_ grow bad- tempered with adult age, keepers _will_ become careless of danger that is present every day, and a bad elephant often is a cunning and deceitful devil. The strength of an elephant is so great, the toughness of its hide is so pronounced, and the danger of a sudden attack is so permanent that life in a park with a "bad" elephant is one continuous nightmare.

Naturally we have been ambitious to prevent all manner of fatal wild beast attacks upon our keepers. We try our best to provide for their safety, and having done that to the limit we say: "Now it is up to you to preserve your own life. If you can not save yourself from your bad animals, no other person can do it for you!"

Either positively, comparatively or superlatively, a bad elephant is a cunning, treacherous and dangerous animal. We have seen several elephants in various stages of cussedness. Alice, the adult Indian female, is mentally a freak, but she is not vicious save under one peculiar combination of circumstances. Take her outside her yard, and instantly she becomes a storm centre. Gunda was bad to begin with, worse in continuation and murderously worst at his finish. At present Kartoum is dangerous only to inanimate fences and doors.

A wild elephant attacks a hunter by charging furiously and persistently, sometimes making a real man-chase, seizing the man or knocking him down, and then impaling him upon his tusks as he lies. More than one hunter has been knocked down, and escaped the impalement thrust only through the mercy of heaven that caused the tusks to miss him and expend their murderous fury in the ample earth.

On rare occasions an enraged wild elephant deliberately tramples a man to death; and there is one instance on record wherein the elephant held his dead native victim firmly to the ground while he tore him asunder "and actually jerked his arms and legs to some distance."

In captivity a mean elephant kills a keeper, or other person, by suddenly knocking him down, and then either trampling upon him or impaling him.

Gunda, our big male Indian tusker, was the worst elephant with which I ever came in close touch, and we hope never to see his like again. When about ten years old he came to us direct from Assam, and when I saw his big and bulging eyes, and the slits torn in his ears, I recognized him as a bad-tempered animal. I kept my opinions to myself. Two weeks later when we started Gunda's Hindu keeper back toward his native land, I sent for Keepers Gleason and Forester to give them a choice lot of instruction in elephant management. They heard me through attentively, and then Forester said very solemnly:

"Director, I think that is a bad elephant; and I'm afraid of him!"

Keeper Gleason willingly took him over, on condition that he should have sole charge of him, and as long as Gleason remained in our service he managed the elephant successfully. Elsewhere I have spoken at length of Gunda's mind and manners. He went steadily from bad to worse; but we never once really punished him. The time was when there was only one man in the world whom he feared, and would obey, and that was his keeper, Walter Thuman. I have seen that great dangerous beast cower and quake with fear, and back off into a corner, when Thuman's powerful voice yelled at him, and admonished him to behave himself. But all that ended on the day that he "got" Thuman.

On that fateful afternoon, with no visitors present, Thuman opened the outside door, took Gunda by the left ear, and with his steel- shod elephant hook in his left hand started to lead the huge animal out into his yard. Just inside the doorway Gunda thought he saw his chance, and he took it.

With a fierce sidewise thrust of his head he struck his keeper squarely on the shoulder and sent him plunging to the floor in the stall corner nearest him. Then, instantly he wheeled about and started to follow up his attack. In the fall Thuman's hook flew from his hand.

At first Gunda tried to step on him, but he lay so close into the corner that the elephant could not plant his feet so that they would do execution. Then he tried to kneel upon the keeper, with the same result.

Thuman struggled more closely into the corner, and tried hard to pull himself into the refuse box, through its low door; but with his trunk Gunda caught him by a leg and dragged him back. Then he made a fierce downward thrust with his tusks, which were nearly four feet long, to transfix his intended victim.

His left tusk struck the steel-clad wall and shattered into fragments, half way up. The resounding crash of that breaking tusk was what saved Thuman's life.

Gunda thrust again and again with his sound tusk, with the terrified and despairing keeper trying to cling to the broken tusk and save himself. At last the point of the sound tusk drove full and fair through the flat of Thuman's left thigh, as he lay, and stopped against the concrete floor.

Experienced animal men always are listening for sounds of trouble.

In the cage of Alice, three cages and a vestibule distant, Keeper Dick Richards was busily working, when he heard the peculiar crash of that shattered tusk. "What's all that!" said he; and "That's some trouble," was his own answer.

Grabbing his pitchfork he shot out of that cage, ran down the keeper's passage and in about ten seconds' arrived in front of Gunda's cage. And there was Gunda, killing Walter Thuman.

Richards darted in between the widely-separated front bars, gave a wild yell, and with a fierce thrust drove all the tines of his pitchfork into Gunda's unprotected hind-quarters, where the skin was thin and vulnerable.

With a shrill trumpet scream of pain and rage, Gunda whirled away from Thuman, bolted through the door, and rushed madly into his yard.

Keeper Thuman survived, and his recovery was presently accomplished. When I first called to see him he begged me not to kill Gunda for what he had done, or tried to do. In due course Thuman got well, and again took charge of Gunda; but after that the elephant was not afraid of him. We adopted a policy which prevented further accidents, but finally Gunda became a hopeless case of sexual insanity and lust for murder.

When Gunda became most dangerous, we protected our keepers by chaining his feet, and keeping the men out of the reach of his trunk. Because of this, his fury was boundless; and as soon as it was apparent that he was suffering from his confinement and never would be any better, we quickly decided to end it all. He was painlessly put to death, by Mr. Carl E. Akeley, with a single .26 calibre bullet very skilfully sent through the elephant's brain.

_Chimpanzees and Orang-Utans_ attack and fight men just as they attack each other,--by biting the face and neck, and the hands, shoulders and arms. The fighting ape always reaches out, seizes the arm or wrist of the person to be harmed, drags it up to his mouth and bites savagely. As a home illustration of this method of attack, a chimpanzee named Chico in the Central Park Menagerie once bit a finger from the hand of his keeper. In April, 1921, Mr. Ellis Joseph, the animal dealer, was very severely bitten on his face and neck by his own chimpanzee, so much so in fact that eighteen stitches were required to sew up his lacerations.

One excellent thing about the manners of chimpanzees and orang- utans in captivity and on the stage is that they do not turn deadly dangerous all in a moment, as do bears and elephants, and occasionally deer. The ape who is falling from grace goes gradually, and gives warning signs that wise men recognize. They first become strong and boisterous, then they playfully resist and defy the keeper's restraining hand. Next in order they openly become angry at their keepers over trifles, and bristle up, stamp on the floor and savagely yell. It is then that the whip and the stick become not only useless but dangerous to the user, and must be discarded. It is then that new defensive tactics must be inaugurated, and the keeper must see to it that the big and dangerous ape gets no advantage. This means the exercise of good strategy, and very careful management in cage-cleaning. It calls for two cages for each dangerous ape.

There is only one thing in this world of which our three big chimps are thoroughly afraid, and that is an absurd little _toy gun_ that cost about fifty cents, and looks it. No matter how bad Boma may be acting, if Keeper Palmer says in a sharp tone, "_Where's that gun!_" Boma hearkens and stops short, and if the "gun" is shown in front of his cage he flies in terror to the top of his second balcony, and cowers in a corner.

Why are those powerful and dangerous apes afraid of that absurd toy? I do not know. Perhaps the answer is--instinct; but if so, how was it acquired? The natives of the chimp country do not have many firearms, and the white man's guns have been seen and heard by not more than one out of every thousand of that chimp population.

Baboons Throw Stones. So far as we are aware, baboons are the only members of the Order Primates who ever deliberately throw missiles as means of offense. In 1922 there was in the New York Zoological Park a savage and aggressive Rhodesian baboon (_Choiropithecus rhodesiae,_ Haagner) which throws stones at people whenever he can get hold of such missiles. We have seen him set up against Keeper Palmer and Curator Ditmars a really vigorous bombardment with stones and coal that had been supplied him. His throw was by means of a vigorous underhand pitch, and but for the intervening bars he would have done very good execution.

Keeper Rawlinson, of the Primate House, who was in the Boer War, states that on one occasion when his company was deploying along the steep side of a rock-covered kopje a troop of baboons above them rolled and threw so many stones down at the men that finally two machine guns were let loose on the savage beasts to disperse them.

THE CURTAIN

On one side of the heights above the River of Life stand the men of this little world,--the fully developed, the underdone, and the unbaked, in one struggling, seething mass. On the other side, and on a level but one step lower down, stands the vanguard of the long procession of "Lower" Animals, led by the chimpanzee, the orang and the gorilla. The natural bridge that _almost_ spans the chasm lacks only the keystone of the arch.

Give the apes just one thing,--_speech,_--and the bridge is closed!

Take away from a child its sight, speech and hearing, and the whole world is a mystery, which only the hardest toil of science and education ever can reveal. Give back hearing and sight, without speech, and even then the world is only half available. Give a chimpanzee articulate expression and language, and no one could fix a limit to his progress.

Take away from a man the use of one lobe of his brain, and he is rendered speechless.

The great Apes have travelled up the River of Life on the opposite side from Man, but they are only one lap behind him. Let us not deceive ourselves about that. Remember that truth is inexorable in its demands to be heard.

We need not rack our poor, finite minds over the final problem of evolution, or the final destiny of Man and Ape. We cannot prove anything beyond what we see. We do not know, and we never can know, whether the chimpanzee has a "soul" or not; and we cannot _prove_ that the soul of man is immortal. If man possesses a soul of lofty stature, why not a soul of lowly stature for the chimpanzee?

We do not know just _where_ "heaven" is; and we cannot know until we find it. But what does it all matter on earth, if we keep to the straight path, and rest our faith upon the Great Unseen Power that we call God?

Said the great Poet of Nature in his ode "To a Waterfowl:"

"He who from zone to zone
Guides through the boundless
Sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread
alone Will lead my steps aright."

CURTAIN.

BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY

THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS

CAMP FIRES ON DESERT AND LAVA

CAMP FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES

TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING

TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. Illustrated. 8 vo.

THE AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY A Foundation of Useful Knowledge of the Higher Animals of North America. Four Crown Octavo Volumes, Illustrated in colors and half-tones.

THE SAME Royal 8 vo. Complete in one volume.

OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE Its Extermination and Preservation.