The Coolidge examiner., 1936-05-22

DuIIalO, antelope anu coyote were
agricultural impossibilities. The
first two were eXterminated: the
remnants of the coyote tribe re-
treated to the green triangle, al
tered their habits to suit woods
environment, and became brush
wolves"
The deer, whose natural home
was the diagonal woods barrier,
also retreated into the green tri-
angle. The lumberjack, by hewing
down the greater part of the pine
there, did the deer a favor, for the
birch and aspen that supplanted it
made a home to their liking: in
fact, in it they thrive and multiply.
Though one would not slight the
luscious vast potato fields, and other
agriculture of the green triangle,
it has in general been rebellious in
the farmers hands and so remains
essentially a forest and game ref
uge to this day.
True, the trapper and sportsman
have drastically diminished the
number of its natural citizens, such
as the timber wolf, otter, fisher, and
lynx.
But the beaver still builds his
dams there; the black bear may be
spied fishing with his paws when
the fish run into the streams; the
porcupine in large numbers yet
gnaws the jack pine bark, and trav-
els a path which, winding through
the snowy groves, looks as neat
and regular as if some one had
rolled heavy truck tire there. And
the snOwshoe rabbit, whose favor
ite diet is the pine seedlings set out
by government foresters, travels the
winter drifts on his padded legs.
The American elk, or wapiti, is
extinct in Minnesota. The caribou
is almost so; herd is sometimes
seen in the remote Businesses of
the great swamp of Beltrami coun-
ty, north of Red lake. But the
moose, in the Arrowhead country,
survives in fair numbers.
Canoe travellers often see the no.
BILE monster at lunch in some lake,
his body submerged for protection
against flies, his lips curling around
the water lily shoots that make a
dainty hot-weather salad for this
giant among American mammals.
Lots of Good Fishing.
Fish and fowl likewise have had
to adjust themselves to their new
neighbor, the white man.
A game-fish paradise has a way
of retreating when the sportsman
finds it. Thus the greedy now must
60 to the border lakes to catch Il
boatlOad of pike in an afternoon
But this does not mean that there
is not famous fishing elsewhere.
The muskellunge of such lakes as
Mantrap, or the fighting small
mouth bass of White Earth, and the
many other fish Of thousand wa
ters, make tall fish stories annually,
which, in spite of the low repute
of fish stories, are essentially true.
Certainly they reflect justly the fun
that ancient sport provides.
And the Minnesota citizen almost
anywhere may go out after supper
and hook a black bass or a mess
Of crappies, or, in not more than
a days drive, reach lakes in whose
20O-foot depths the noble lake trout
can be caught on lines Of spun
Monel wire.
OF the original game-bird inhab-
itants of the state only the grouse
can now be called abundant, and
its abundance waneS and wakes in
cycles. This ruffed grouse is the
characteristic bird of the green
triangle. Tame, richly speckled and
ruffed, it provides a voice for the
wilderness in the accelerated thud
of it's wings drumming on some hol-
low log, a mysterious music that
the forest muffles as if to hold Sc
cret.
Thanks to ill-considered drainage
and the advance of the farmer, the
wild ducks breeding grounds in
Minnesota are largely lost to it; the
black VS. of its spring flight go for
the most part beyond the border
into Canada. Nor has the prairie
chicken been very clever in adapt
ing itself to life on the farm and
as a target.
But the introduction of a partly
parasitic bird, the ring-necked
pheasant. which does not scruple to
help itself to the farmers corn to
pay for serving as his autumn tar
get, has proved a huge success. That
Enthusiastically cOlOred bird, looking
filter to stand among the exotic
blossoms painted on some Chinese
screen than among the prairie sun
flowers, nevertheless has made it
self completely at home in the vel
low triangle.
AS for small birds, such as the
woodsman's friend, the chickadee,
or that wine-red winter visitor whiS-
pering its clear song, the pine gros-
beak from the North, or the horned
Iorl- that brings the earliest muCic