The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-21
TRADE IN WILD ANIMALS
NEW YORK ITS HEADQUARTERS IN
 THIS COUNTRY.

A Dealers EvoIution-H -His Odd Place In
 South street-A Baby Rhinoceros-De-
 mand and Supply in the Bird, Beast and
 Snake Business.
 While London, Liverpool and Ham, burg are the chief points in Europe for that peculiar business, the trade in wild animals, New York is now, as it always has been, the headquarters of that industry in the United States. For many years the principal concern in that line in this city, and, there fore in the country, was the firm of Charles Reiche & Brother, whose name and place of business in Chath- am street, now Park Row, will be re- membered by many readers. Charles Reiche was never resident partner here, but lived abroad, attending to the European end of the business. Both he and his brother Henry, who man. aged the New York establishment, died some ten years ago, and, as none of their heirs or employees undertook to keep their business going, that has been defunct for the same period. The deanship of the American trade in wild beasts tropical birds and import ed reptiles is now held by Donald Burns, whose store is In South street, near the line of the East river bridge.
 There is nothing in the exterior of the building to indicate the character of the business conducted inside, eX- cept some piles of bird-cages at the en- trance and 8 small sign bearing the name of the owner. The casual pass er-by would suppose the place to be merely retail bird and animal store" of the kind scattered along some of the uptown avenues, in which no animal is to be found more fierce or more formidable than @ small monkey. If he opens the door, however, he finds himself in a small space which Is sep arated from the rest of a large room by partition of iron bars, giving the place the aspect of the entrance to a prison. Precautions have to be taken against the possibility that some of the goods in stock" may escape from their cages. A grated door in the par tition stands wide open, though, in business hours, and on the other side the visitor sees large part of the wall | lined with the cages of parrots and oth- CT birds, while along the other walls are the cages and pens of variety of wild animals, whose occasional growls | or snarls are added to the chatter and screams of their feathered neighbors. | The ruler of this stationary Noah's | ark, who occupies a desk near the oth- | CT inmates on the first floor, Is we'll preserved man of about sixty years. As, the vocation of trading in wild l beasts is sufficiently out of the com mon to arouse curiosity in regard to the causes which led any individual to | engage in 1t, he was asked the other day hw hoe came to get into the busi- ness. The explanation showed a case of natural evolution, the trapper and hunter of animals eventually becomes dealer in them. As a boy in his na- | tive Canada MT Burns lived In re- zion still wild enough to supply fur bearing animals that rewarded the 1 skill of the trapper, and he became a | trapper at an early age. As he grew older, he made solitary winter excur- sions into Michigan and Minnesota, capturing martens, beavers and musk rats, whose skins commanded 8 ready sale at good price. In one winter, he said he carried out of Michigan fifteen hundred dollars worth of furs, and that was good money in those days" That winter, he believed, was in 1859.
 There was plenty of furs to be got in that country then" said MT Burns, "and fine, too. There was also plenty of game besides the animals caught by | trapping. Of course, I carried provi- sions with me, such as salt meats, flour, etc, but I always had abund- ance of fresh meat. It was no trouble to shoot a fat buck and have venison steak for breakfast; and grouse and other game birds were plentiful. Fish, too, were to be had for casting line. The wild animals had been so little hunted that they were not familiar with map-had not learned to dread fim--and so were easily approachable. I never killed any more deer or ami mals like that than needed for food
 In some places I was not the only hunter, for the Indians sometimes used to rob my traps. did not see them, but I saw their sign One time I went one hundred and sixty miles up the Muskegon river in a canoe to Hough- ton lake, beautiful sheet of water where for the first time found fresh
 water herring. Where I camped was then in the wilderness, and now there is a good-sized town, named Houghton right on it's site.
 q really began trading in animals
 when I was 8 boy, selling wildcats
 coons, etc, that had trapped, to trav- cling shows in Canada, and even bar
 tering coon for admission to the tent
 performance. Then I captured pail of moose calves, reared them, and
 broke them so that they could be driv-
 en to harness. My father drove them
 to Montreal when they were full grown
 and sold them there, getting two hun
 dred dollars, which was big money fol
 boy"
 Mir Burns came to New York just
 after the war, and soon turned his
 general knowledge of natural history
 to account. He used to pick up rare
 birds and animals from sea captains ol
 sailors along the river fronts, reselline
 them at profit to Henry Reiche or tc
 the brothers Archibald and Johr
 Reeves, Scotchmen whose place oI