Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-06-18
XV7ELL (said the Captain), if
w you want to know what |
tb;pt Of the STRENGTH and

jaguar, | shall relate little personal
experience which may offset the
frequently heard statement that this
animal is a coward. The jaguar is a
wary individual, and doubtless will
disappear noiselessly into the tropi
cal tangle far oftener than he will
attack; but his strength is superb,
and when aroused or cornered he
will put up a fight that would do
credit to his Bengal cousin.
1t was when | was doing some
prospecting down in Central Mexico.
was working in partnership with a
Texan, Thorndyke Scott, and we had
been enticed into fitting out the ex-
petition through the representations
of friend of SCOTS, whose glowing
accounts had set us afire with desire
to find gold. We never did clean up
more than hundred or SO apiece in
the yellow stuff during our seasons
soiourn in Mexico; but we had
some good hunting.
Scott was bit of naturalist and
was forever observing strange things;
moreover, he made his observations
pay. He would go poking about in
the woods and spy a bug hanging on
a tree which looked for all the world
like a green leaf or a dead twig; or
he would hold a vicious acting wasp
in his hand and explain that it could
not sting, but was constructed in inn
itation of a species well known by
members of the animal kingdom to
be an aggressive and dangerous sort
"a mimetic species, he called the i'm
itator, which traded upon its resem-
blance to its more dangerous cousin
and thus secured immunity from
larger marauders.
Then he always wore a hunting
coat composed principally of pockets,
and during the day he would shoot,
with some specially loaded shells,
small birds, which he would slip into
paper cornucopias in order to pre-
serve their plumage unruff1ed, and
stow these away in the recesses of
his coat. When night came and we
had eaten our simple meal and was
ready to turn in and sleep the sleep
of the weary, he would sit up for a
couple of hours and skin his birds
by lanternlight, busting the skins
with arsenic, and lay them away in
air tight galvanized cases which con-
stituted part of our outfit Then,
number of bird skins, bugs, ETC., had a
were boxed and shipped off to Ems
scientists who were deeply intereste
species paid him well for this work.
On the whole, | learned consider
such important facts as that, while
the mandibles of the Megdrhynehu.
somewhat broader than those of the
and this distinguishing feature, it S
cred of unreasonable importance by
fists who compared and wrote des,
allied species, -also that the modest
colaptine birds that frequented the d
far more interest to science, for some
the much prettier parrots, toucans, t.
beautifully colored birds that invaris
attention. Those of the feathered trit
my shotgun did not as rule arouse {
as collector though he ate his full
turkeys and other game birds that va
of our rice -tortilla diet.
AFTER we had been out some week
locate any pay streaks. and our S
being exhausted, we concluded to tax
the tropical forest and see if we could /
wild hogs. The Indians were const
camp, and it was not difficult to engag
to accompany us on peccary hunt.
work was to transport and cure the /
bagged it, for which we agreed to giN
all the big game we killed. The dried
the Mexican wild hog is very nutriti
definitely. The method of curing, a.
tives, consists in simply cutting the M
and rubbing with salt, drying in Il
smoking slowly over a smudge fire.
We plunged Immediately into the d
our camp and followed the banks c