Believe Squirrels Migrate

1919

Hunters Cannot Otherwise Explain Disappearance of Game.

SPRINGFIELD, 'Mo. — The disappearance of squirrels from many communities in the Ozark region of southern Missouri has caused many old hunters to marvel. Early in the fall the frisky little animals were in evidence in every patch of woods, not only making the hickory nuts disappear, but in many instances invading the cornfield.

Now they are reported scarce, and it is not due alone to the hunters. There has been a big migration, some hunters advance the theory. They think the squirrels migrated into Missouri from the Arkansas forests and returned when cold weather set in.

Coon Hunter Kills Big Eagle

1915

Bird Shot Measures Seven Feet From Wing Tip to Tip

ST. LOUIS, Mo., Dec. 16. — An eagle, measuring seven feet from tip to tip of its wings, was shot by Eugene Gertges, when the latter was coon hunting in the vicinity of Friedens' Church, six miles west of St. Charles. The eagle was perched in a tree and the hunter mistook it for a hawk.



Man Operated On 131 Times

Patient at St. Louis Hospital Is Cheerful at All Times

ST. LOUIS, Mo., Dec. 16. — Harry Smyth, 42 years old, is one of the most cheerful patients at the city hospital here, despite the fact that 131 surgical operations have been performed on him. Tuberculosis of the bones have made these operations necessary. Since childhood Smyth has passed most of his time in hospitals.

To occupy his time Smyth took up sewing and crocheting and he is now an expert with the needle. He is always good-natured.

How Indians Find Way Through Woods

1920

Stefansson Disputes Old Belief in Sixth Sense

The apparently marvelous way in which Indians, Eskimos and other primitive people make their way through forests, snow-covered areas or other regions that have little to indicate direction to white newcomers, has led to a widespread belief that they possess a mysterious sixth sense of direction.

Stefansson, the Arctic traveler, who has lived much with Eskimos, is very skeptical about the existence of any superiority of sense of direction among primitive peoples of any kind, and gives strong evidence from personal experience that Eskimos have no such superiority.

The ability of Indians and others to find their way he attributes solely to their familiarity with the country through which they are passing. They note many things that they have seen before and that have no significance to the stranger in their land.

White men can and do acquire the same ability to find their way when they have learned to know the country. When the land is equally strange to the white man and the Indian or the Eskimo, the white man, because of his better developed reasoning power, is more likely to have a correct line of direction than the Eskimo.

Tannaumirk Killed a Deer

Stefansson tells how, at a time when his little party was in great need of food, one of his Eskimos, Tannaumirk, came home late at night and caused great rejoicing by relating his success in killing a deer which he had started to pursue early in the morning. He was the hero of the hour and recounted his adventures in great detail.

When he finished his story Stefansson asked him whether it was a long way to the spot where the meat lay and whether he had cached it safely. The Eskimo's answer was that he had covered the meat with snow and set traps by it, and that the place was a long way off. Stefansson volunteered to go with him the next morning, but Tannaumirk said this would not be necessary; if he were to start early in the morning he would, without assistance, be able to get the meat home by night.

Bright and early the next day he was off with sled and dogs, but it had long been pitch dark when he returned. In answer to questions he said that he had been hurried all the time; that he had hastily loaded the meat on the sled, had set two additional traps by the deer killed, making four altogether, and had come right back home.

Covered 20 Miles Making Trip

The next day about noon Tannaumirk had gone off somewhere to set fox traps. Stefansson and his companion, Dr. Anderson, heard some of their dogs howling and whining behind a ridge about half a mile away from the camp. The sounds indicated that the dogs had been caught in the traps. As the weather was about 40 degrees below zero, there was danger that the dogs' paws, if pinched in the traps, would freeze quickly and render the dogs valueless for service. Stefansson and Anderson hastened therefore to the rescue.

They found four of the dogs, as they expected, with their feet caught in traps. But what greatly surprised them was to find these traps around the deer kill, which Tannaumirk had taken so many hours to reach in his trips hack and forth. The explanation was that Tannaumirk, in starting after the deer, had followed it as it took a circuitous course of more than ten miles.

After shooting the deer he had followed the trail over which he had come and in going after its meat he had once more made the circuitous trip, covering more than twenty miles in a round trip to a spot that was less than half a mile away.

Fox Hunters Bag Deer

1911

Witty With The News

Three New Jersey "sportsmen" who went out for fox hunting are on trial for killing deer. Possibly New Jersey rabbits wear horns.

The Los Angeles man who was sent to jail for 30 days for smiling at a strange woman evidently does not see the point of the joke.

Automobiles to the number of 460,000 are flitting here and there in this country, but all their flitting does not reduce the cost of mules.

The average life of a statesman is said to be 71 years. This doesn't necessarily conflict with the old theory that the good die young.

Those Chicago crooks who stole a 600 pound safe in the dead of night evidently missed their calling. They should have been piano movers.

Reckless automobile driving is to be eliminated.

And now will not the Pullman company reduce the porter's tips.

Don't mind the pessimistic weather prophet's prediction of a long winter.

Eli Clouse Revives Annual Hunting Story

1909

It is reported in the city papers that Eli Clouse of Friend's Cove, 30 miles northeast from Cumberland, in Bedford County, has again killed a big deer that had been roaming over the Martin Mountain for many years. The deer was called "Old Elick." It is peculiar that the same old Eli Clouse kills the same old deer every year but he does. Next year "Old Elick" will be roaming again and old Clouse will kill him and tell the old story again to the old hunters who come to hunt on the State reservation and the story will get in the city papers as is its custom. Another peculiar feature of this story is that Martin Hill, where Clouse kills his old deer, is only a few miles from each reporter's headquarters. Surely the mountain do move as often as the deer has lives. It is the reporter's faith that moves the mountain every time. — Cumberland Alleganian.


The Man in the Moon

Russian folklore tells that the man in the moon was one who was seeking the isle in which there is no death. At last, after traveling far, he found the longed-for heaven and look up his above in the moon. After a hundred years had passed, death called for him one Christmas eve and a fierce struggle ensued with the moon, who was victorious; and so the man stayed where he was.


Daily Thought

Whoever you are, be noble; Whatever you do, do well; Whenever you speak, speak kindly — Give joy wherever you dwell.