The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-10

| that the coyotes love song is a howl l The old fellows will howl every night l for a week at time when the matina season is on, and I've seen half dozen
 Mime. Coyotes sitting ih a circle about
 a male coyote while he howled in every
 imaginable key. They seemed to be en- toying the music, for it Is really their
 serenade, Folks, you know, don't look at music the same way. I know sensi- | ble city folks who say they hate opera | music. l myself can't bear flute, and
 I've seen Chinamen in Los Angeles who
 put their hands in their ears when our
 bands play Now what we call horrible howls are sweet love songs of the coyote family.
 Did you ever know that coyote is
 knight among the brutes? He sings
 Tor his lady loves until his frequent ser
 enades win the love of some particular
 one, and then he fights like Sam Hill for
 his lady love. The mating season oc-
 CUTS along in February. Then the coy-
 otes serenade every night. When one
 has won female he has to combat
 With several other of her admirers, and
 some of the most lively scraps we ever
 see in the mountains and foothills are
 among coyotes. The husband is a
 model in his home. He Is always a
 good provider, and that means a vast
 deal in coyote household, for all the
 animals are famous eaters. The father
 coyote pets his mate, caresses her as
 deer do one another, frolics with her
 and the pups for hours at time, and
 forages far and near every night for
 food. For four months in the year the
 mother coyote never seeks food. Then
 along in June and July, when the pups
 get able to run about, she and her hus-
 band go out on foraging tours and
 teach their children how to outwit hu-
 man beings and get a livelihood. It is
 when the parent coyotes are teaching
 their pups to rustic for themselves that
 they are most interesting. The little coyotes are taught how to howl in every
 imaginable key, how to sneak the in-
 stant a bit of food is snatched. how to sink into the very landscape when a man with gun is abroad, how to tell ripe from unripe melons and fruit, how to approach hen roost, how to circum- vent shepherd with flock of juicy sheep besides other bits of artiflce
 Tt Is really too bad that people de- nounce coyote is a sneak. because of his hang-dog look. But you must re- member that nature did not build the coyote on the plan of fighter-as a panther, bear or wildcat. He has no weapon of defence but his few sharp teeth, and he is thin and wiry So he has to use strategy and craft to get his living. What most folks call sneak mess is only slyness or shyness, be- cause he is so everlasting persecuted. He has more wit than any animal in North America except the fox, and when occasion demands he will fight like a tiger for his family, knowing the odds against him. I once saw a female coyote and her pups attacked by my bulldog. The old father coyote was ev- idently near at hand when the on- slaught was made, for he came leaplng out of the chapparal at the first yelp from the female. He never hesitated moment, but sailed right into the fight to help his mate. He leaped upon the bulldogs back anF gave him several deep bites, while the female fought from beneath the dog I hastened to the scene because I didn't want my dog hurt but the two coyotes had made the dog desist before got there, and the coyotes had disappeared In the brush, l followed them by the drops of blood on the earth from their wounds I trailed the beasts a quarter of a mile and then l came upon the coyote home among some manzanita in the side of an arroyo. It was the most pathetic scene l have ever seen in nature. There was the female coyote stretched dead in her blood on the ground, with her vitals torn. The made coyote sat by the side of his dead 'nfate and was lick Ing her face fervidly as If he hoped he could restore her to life The old brute paid no attention to my approach, so taken up was he in helping his head mate, but the pups began to scramble put of sight without a seconds delay. I stood and looked at that scene for a long time, and I confess I felt synlpa- thy for the poor fellow in his distress, From that day to this I've been watch ng coyotes more carefully. The coyote s the most patriotic animal we have in California in that he refuses to be do mesticated-refuses to leave the life of | freedom to which he is accustomed; he s the best family man. so to speak, in he world. The coyotes have been made outlaws through ignorance, as he state is now learning. One need lot be called a religious fanatic for saying that nothing has been made in i if we knew all about the natures of the animals of the world we would pay bounties for preserving ather than for exterminating them That is to say, we would labor to pre- erve the balance of life established bv lature. There are some things quite as yell worth prosecuting for as California the rest a knowledge California fauna. New York Sun, fOOD LIVING DURING THE WAR
 But the frightful mortality of the amp does not strike the imagination s forcibly as does the carnage of the attlefield, and no layman cares to ana- yZe hospital reports and compare the ledical with the surgical history of the var Famine, the twin evil of pesti- snce, is not so easily forgotten; and he dominant note of Aristophanes. unger was the dominant note of life l the Confectionery, civil as we'll as mil- ,ary. The Confederate soldier was of en on short rations, but the civilian as not much better off. I do not mean hose whose larders were swept bv the esom of the invaders. "Not a dust of { our, not an ounce of meat, left in inc ouse" was not an uncommon cry 1Onc tha line Of march. hut if ,,-o..