The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1897-09-15

itdl III itdllAlc iit,Lc, anu lDOhlu- ADE
the cause, spied garter snake gIid-
ing through the grass in swift pursuit
Of the Inflated batrachian, whose
IN ,vements now were ia striking con-
trast of u few minutes previous.
quickly rescued the pduting fugitive,
for the insect-devOuring toad i the
gardeners friend.
In these days Of geographical re-
search, when the old ''unexplored re-
giOns" are almost banished from our
maps, it Is no easy matter % find ter
ritory into which neither the savage
hunter nor the civilized sportsman
has ever penetrated. 1t has never been
my good fortune to set foot in such a
region, but trustworthy observers in
form Us that in isolated sections, such
as the Galapagos Islands, where hu-
man beings had seldom been seen, the
wild denizans of the earth and air were
perfectly ''tame," or, in other words,
Indifferent To the presence of man.
We read of hermits who, hiding away
i'm remote wilds, "the world forgetting.
by the world forgot" or on broad e.
tates from which human intruders
were vigorously excluded, sit surround
ed by birds, squirrels and even rabbits,
in fearless and c,ntented intimacy.
But these conditions are only rare
exceptions. The uncivilized hunter
with his rude appliances, bow, arrow
and spear, or the mDiern sportsman,
with rifle and shotgun, has penetrated
everywhere, and has KEEP. up the re-
lentless war on the brute creation in
which mau has delighted since the
days of NimFoi. Everywhere the
great eats, the wolves, the foxes and
other carniyorOus quadrupeds, the Ca
giles, the hawks and birds of prey, gen
orally, have an instructive dread of
man, Of his riff. aud his dog. IL i
seen as well in the young Of these
creatures, although they have never
seen man, as in the older and more
experienced of tEeir kind, which have
before been chased or shot at, or have
seen their companions killed. The
impulse that drives them to avoid
man, to shun his death-dealing gun,
and, most of all, to dread his dog,
seems a matter Of heredity.
This instructive dread Of man on the
part Of many animals powerful enough
to attack him rs their prey, may have
partly originated with the advent Of
gunPOwder, though not entirely. We
can hardly believe that the arrow or
the spear can have impressed these
great beasts with mans physical su-
periority. 1t is said that a pointed ar
row, At close range, will pass through
the body of a buffslo, yet il is not at
all likely that the force of such
a weapon against the thick skull
/ of panther OF bear would
have the least effect in checking its an
CRY charge. But the imprisoning traps
must have had an awe-inspiring infiu-
enee, and a still more potent cause
must have been the hand-to-hand en-
counter. 1t has been proved by fire.
I quent instances that 1.-the and active
man is more than i match, even with
out weapons, for avid eat, an oeelot
or wolf; and, with heavy club or
an AK, for a panther or black bear.
Consider then the probable outcome
of battle between men and the larger
beasts of prey, when the former were
armed with great stone axes or ham,
mers employed by the primitive races.
The crushing descent Of such a weight,
added To the force of stalwart arm,
would, if rightly aimed, lay low the
largest of man eaters. Consider, too,
the advantage of position, the man
standing erect and thus swinging his
weapon from a superior height.
Some of the stone implements WELD
ed by the prehistoric tribes, and by
later races of uneivilized men, were
models of their kind. Great rounded,
or elongated, and often edged masses
of stone, with tough handles thong
ed to the wrist 80 as to be always AT
hand, enabled the natives of the Amer
lean forests to defy the panther or the
ia guar, and only the grizzly bear
would venture To attack him singly.
But in Asiatic and African jungles
while the leopard and the cheetah sell
dom attack n grown man, the tiger
and the lion, those mOnarchs of the
! feline race, against which primitive
weapons could seldom avail, have for u
man without firearms but little fear.
In the dawn of our settlements, the
earliest pioneers found that the formid-
able grizzly bear. always more than n
match for the Indian with his rude
weapons, took far less notice of the
white hunter than il afterwards did
when il had learned the far-reaching
power of the rifle. Indeed, Rocky
Mountain hunters tell Us that the
grizzly, perhaps without exception the
most fearless and independent of the
brute tribe, if it has never before en-
countered man, passes him with lOrdly
indifference, a. regardless of his pres
ence As if the stranger were wolf or
| cat.