The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-01-03
WILD BEASTS NOT YET CAUGHT.
Prizes That Showmen Would Pay Big
Sums For.
New York Sun.

New York Sun.
"Oh, there are a good many animals that
are still to be caught and exhibited in the
menageries," said the old animal man,
reaching into the cage and scratching the
head of a jaguar. 81 can run off quite a list
without stopping to think.
A the ZOOS are eager now for an okapi.
That's the strange prehistoric beast that
Sir Harry Johnston found alive in eastern
Africa.
It's a cross between a giraffe and a
horse, apparently, and a mighty big animal.
There'n be big money for the circus that
gets the first specimen, and there are some
plucky and smart men in Uganda at this
very moment looking for the brute.
Nobody has been lucky enough or smart
enough to catch a Kadiak bear alive and
carry him to civilization. There's some
thing like a beast for you-big as a calf,
so that he'd make a roaring Rocky Noun
tain grizzly. look like a little brown bear
alongside of him.
Down In South America, somewhere be-
hind the northeastern side of the Andes a
little north of the equator. is a beast that
is the biggest rodent In the world. Travel
ers have seen pieces of its hide and it's
bones. and a few have glimpsed it as it sped
through the dark primeVal forests.
1T is a true rodent like the rat. but il is
as big as a Newfoundland dog. That would
be a good catch for a geological garden.
AHolnSI me prize Is uOWn there IN South
America. II Is a new species of jaguar.
quite different from any that has ever been
exhibited In the shows in any part of the
world. It's a big, black fellow. and ire
mendously fierce. Nobody has ever taken
one alive.
Then in the forests of the Amazon are
two birds that would make their captor
a famous man among. biologists. They
are the bell bird. which has a voice exactly
like a clear ringing bell and the lost SOUL
which has a cry that makes the shivers
creep along q mans backbone whom no
hears II in those dark, mysterious, silent,
forbidding woods.
In Burmah somewhere is a rhinoceros
that has a black hide and big tufted ears.
The hide has been seen by white men lots
Of times. but they haven't ever seen a liv-
ing animal.
up in the Himalayas a man has been
looking for years for-wha do you sup
pose? A unicorn. He may be crazy-he
may be right.
He says that he has heard so many tales
existence of a one-hOrned antelOpe-horse
That he Is bound to try and get one. I
don't think there is any such thing. my
self. but then / didn't take much stock in
the discovery Of the primitive wild horse i'm
central Asia, either, and now the geological
gardens of Hamburg and New York have
living specimens of these h~orses-funny,
big-headed little brUtes that are repre-
sentatives of some type OF horses that must
be hundreds OF thousands of years old.
Down In New Zealand, comparatively
small as the land is. there are many ami
NAL and bird mysteries still. They say that
there is a brand new-that is, new to the
world-type of animal on the order of the
duck bill down there yet. Darwin ALWAYS
bird mot a flying lizard. but a true miss
ing link between the birds and the reptiles)
might be found there.
zone explorer followed mysterious foot
prints IN the snow of the high mountains
OF New Zealand. but never came up with
The beast that had made them. But they