The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1882-03-30
AN UNCOMMON MEAN BEAST.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COYOTE, WITH
AN ANECDoTE IN POINT.

1 coyote Is aDOu6 tWO-IulTuS Tic slLe OI
| yellow dog, and looks like second hand
wolf in straitened circumstances. He
| bears about the same relation to the
genuine wolf that the buzzard does to
| the eagle, or that chicken thief does to
a modern bank cashier. He has the
perpetual air of being ashamed of him
self or of something he has done. AS
you catch glimpse of him, trotting away
from one mott of timber to another,
looking back over his ears, and with his
tail furled around his left leg, he looks
as if he was aware that the police had a
clue of his whereabouts, and were work.
ing up his case. No one ever saw fat
coyote. You may catch young one,
civilize him as much as you can, feed
him ON canned groceries, and put a brass
color on him, but his ribs will be the
most prominent feature, and at the first
favorable opportunity he will voluntarily
and ungratefully leave your hospitable
roof and, from choice, become rowing
vagabond on the prairie, living on car
rion and sharing his meal with the buzz
zard. These predatory shadows are not
at all dangerous. There is no fight in
them. They are fatal to sheep when the
coyote majority is forty to a minority
one sick sheep, but otherwise they are
quite harmless. What they lack in cour-
age they make up in craftlness. They
will twist themselves into all manner of
grotesque postures, and tumble around
in the long grass, that the rabbit or
young fawns may, by curiosity, be in
duced 20 come within reach of their
sharp fangs. The last playful character
istic of the coyote was described to us
by friend, who was a New York news :
paper reporter, and acquainted with a
coyote in Central Park. His statement
may, therefore, be relied on, even to the
length of the grass. The coyote has a
small head and fox-like ears, but the
biggest end of him is his voice. The
mellifiuous, silver toned euphony of one
of his nocturnal overtures would scare a
monkey off hand organ, and make the
Italian opera singer hang himself with
envy, and one of his own chord. When
he sinks up, and seating himself in the
twilight of camp fire on the open prai-
rie, opens out with a canticle and runs
up the scale-starting with diminuen-
and ending With crescendo howl-the
sonorific outbust terrifies the Genus cf
Acoustics and makes the welkin ring,
until it cracks itself and has to be carried
off and repaired.
A hardy frontiersman, travelling over
the boundless prairies of western Texas,
when the shades of night were beginning
to fall, prepares to camp for the night.
He stakes out his tired steed to Craze on
the flower bespangled grass while he pre-
pares the frugal meal. Having placed
his weapons within easy reach he spreads
his blankets, and, stretching his weary
limbs, resigns himself to the care of the
drowsy god. Suddenly the air is alive
with direful yel.s, shrieks and howls, as
if all the Indians on the American con-
tinent had been turned loose. Does the
hardy frontiersman spring to his feet,
sieze his trusty rife, and prepare to sell
his life as dearly as possible? He does
not He merely turns over and mutters
drowsily "D-n coyote anyhow" for
he knows of all the wild beasts that roam
the Jungle the coyote is the most harm-
less.
One coyote at night can make enough
noise to induce the inexperienced travel
er to believe that they are at least fifty
of them in the immediate neighborhood.
II coyote was assayed, we venture to
predict that he would be found to consist
of one part wolf and nine parts vocal
ability. The only time when the voice
of the coyote, as one of the resources of
Texas, has any value, is when it is used
to take the conceit out of some smart
stranger from the eastern states. The
acclimated Texan induces the stranger to
go with him in pursuit of game, and to
camp out on prairie or in the woods,
and he enjoys the strangers fears when
he hears the coyotes for the first time,
as they howl around the camp fire in
''the dead waste and middle of the night.
1t is difficult to convince the stranger
that the coyote would not make a meal
of him and eat his horse and baggage for
desert. In fact it is not the policy of
Texan to convince the stranger.
That this popular fallacy of the feroc-
ity of the coyote exists, was illustrated
by the remarks of northern preacher
in sermon he preached shortly after
his arrival in the state. He was illus
trating how the needless sinner refused
to benefit by the most earnest warning,
in the very presence of the wrath to
come. He said: ssDear friends, me
beautiful prairies. They enjoy the per-
fume of the flowers and the songs of the
innocent little birds, and the calm, quiet
beauty of our G lorious Indian summer
evenings. Communing together they
walk along, Needless of danger. The sun
sinks to rest beyond the distant horizon;
the curtain of night gradually descends
and closes ont the light of day; still the
two men walk leisurely along, feeling
safe and secure. But bark! What sound
was that in the distance What blood.
curling howl makes them arrest their
steps? 1t is, it is dear friends the CRY
of wolves on their track-the fierce and
blood thirsty coyote is on their track,
! ah! And what do you think these two