Bisbee daily review., 1909-07-06

many points ef difference. chief among
 which arcs its cowardice. its fondness for carrion and its mangy and unclean-
 ly appearance. The bobcat is the
 hanger-on of the cat race. the poor re
 lation that comes in after the feast is
 finished and gnaws the bones and eats
 the crumbs, snar.ing and snapping all
 the time, and more disagreeable when
 it has gorged itself than 1t is when
 almost furnishing, from hunger.
 T see that some of the papers are
 making a great scare about bobcats just now" said Game Warden Walter l. Neal. who examines all the game which passes through Bangor in the open season.
 T have been watching the Bangor trains three months in the year for the past nine years, and l have seen fewer bobcats and loup cerviers go
 west this season than in any previous year. As for loup ceryiers. I do not
 think l haze seen one for three or
 four years. Last fall David Morrill,,
 the oldest fur buyer in Maine, told me
 that he believed the loup cerviers
 were extinct in Maine. as the price of
 the peits had gone up from two dol
 lars to s7.5o in three years. and in
 spite of the advance in price he had
 not bought loup cervier skin for six
 years.
 twenty or more game wardens on duty in eastern Maine, and have seen per
 haps 1000 hunters, every one of whom
 has spent from a week to two months in the Maine forests. and as yet have heard no complaint about the havoc
 wrought by bobcats or loup cerviers.
 When a hunter from the city
 shoots a specimen of either species he
 usually takes it home to have it mounted as sample of his prowess. and if these creatures had been one tenth as plentiful as reported, I should have seen more bodies in transit. believe that there are not more than 500 specimens of both species run ming wild in Maine today"
 If a hunter will come to my hotel and pay regular rates for his board, '' said the proprietor of the hotel, which is the starting point for all hunters | who go up the west branch of the | Penobscot river, T will agree to pay | him five dollars a head for every bob cat or ioup cervier he can shoot I | have been roaming in the woods of Maine from Mattawamkeag to Katah- l din for the past 70 years.
 My ofYer of five dollars head for bobcats and loup cerviers holds open | until the fishing season opens. Fact | is. I want to earn some money during | the dull season. and take this way of | doing it. Yes, know about Dr. Pat ! ten of Amherst getting bounty of two dollars head put on wildcats by | the legislature of 1897. Tn two years | the state paid for less than 1000 ami l malls. and half of these were snug | eIed across from New Brunswick. Six | years later Fred Campbell of Cherry | field had a bounty of g cents a head | placed on hedgehogs and secured an | appropriation of 5000 to foot the
 bills for two years.
 | And what was the result? Why. in two years Maine paid for the claws
 and noses of nearly 16o.ooo hedgehogs l and nearly bankrupted several poor towns before they could get back the
 money they had paid out.
 "AIl this talk you hear about bob cats and loup cerviers is blun. It was | told by guides at night by campfres 1 away up in the Maine woods. It was | told to scare the tenderfoot hunters from tre big cities. know all about
 those tales. have heard them be
 fore. In fact. have told them ny. self"