Genuine Wild Horses Discovered

1908

Beasts Prove to Be Distinct Species

New York. — There was little prospect 30 years ago of the discovery of a genuine wild horse. There are, to be sure, the so-called wild horses of the Americas, but they are the descendants of horses that the Spaniards brought to the western world some centuries ago. While evidence existed that wild horses were probably as abundant in prehistoric times in the south of Europe as zebras are today in British East Africa, most naturalists believed that true wild horses with an unbroken line of wild ancestry were extinct.

Then, in 1879, the Russian explorer Prjevalsky reported that he had discovered a new and quite distinct horse in the Gobi desert to the west of Mongolia. Two years later Poliakof published a description of the horse to which he gave the name Equus prjevalskii. Then the brothers Grum-Grjimailo saw the horses in the desert and learned many new facts about them.

The Russians were greatly interested, and it was decided to capture a number of the animals and bring them to Europe. These efforts were successful, and five years ago a herd of about 30 of the Prjevalsky horses, after no end of trouble, were landed in Europe. Most of them are still in Russia, but a few were taken to England, where they are kept on the estate of the duke of Bedford.

The English naturalists did not make a scientific study of the animals in that country because the Russians have had a most thorough investigation in progress, with the advantage that nearly all the captive horses and a number of skeletons are in their hands. Very few of the English naturalists believed that they were true wild horses, but looked upon them either as a kiang, hybrid, the kiang being a species of the ass, or as the offspring of escaped Mongol ponies.

The Russians, however, have settled the question. They have proved by the methods of comparative anatomy and in other ways that the Prjevalsky horse has no relationship with Mongol ponies or the kiang but is a valid and distinct species of the genus horse, without relationship to the ass, though it has some features that remind one of the Asiatic ass; but even in these features, as the tail, for example, the resemblance is closer to the horse than to the ass.

The results of the investigation were, prepared for publication by Dr. W. Salensky, director of the Zoological museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. The book has just been translated into English and published in London under the title "Prjevalsky's Horse."

It contains a number of pictures of the captives, one of which is reproduced here. The frontispiece shows a three-year-old stallion and a two-year-old mare which are the property of the czar.

The animals were mere colts when they arrived in Europe and were not prepossessing, for they did not take kindly to the novel conditions, were out of condition and had ragged coats and awkward gaits. They have now reached maturity, have been well cared for and are good looking animals.

Many naturalists have held the opinion that the domestic horse of today was mainly derived from three wild species, which have been named the steppe, forest and plateau varieties. The Prjevalsky horse is a representative of the steppe variety.

The Mongolians have made many attempts to tame the wild horse, but in vain. All efforts to tame the animals that have been brought to Europe have also failed. Thus far the horse will not submit to man, is afraid of him, and cannot be rendered serviceable. Though now accustomed to the sight of human beings, the captives are very badly frightened if a person approaches nearer than within two or three rods of them.

Still some facts are known which indicate that there is hope that those horses may eventually be tamed. The explorer Koslov about 40 years ago saw a colt of six months belonging to a chief in the Gobi that had been so far tamed as to walk peaceably in a bridle. It would permit itself to be led up a stairway to the floor above, and even allowed the seven-year-old son of the chief to sit on its back.

It is practically impossible to capture adult animals on their native plains. The Russians followed the comparatively simple Mongolian method of getting possession of some of the horses.

From time to time they could see from afar that young colts had been added to the herd within a day or two. They thereupon pursued the herd of horses until the colts became so exhausted that they could travel no further and then it was easy to capture them.

Animal Traits

1907

Reminders In the Foal and the Calf of Their Wild Ancestors

It is an interesting study to note in domestic animals the traits of their wild ancestors. There are some characteristics, of course, which are readily recognizable as being similar to those of animals still in a wild state, and for this reason they give a fair idea of the life and surroundings of progenitors. The habits of the dog and cat are too familiar to comment on, but take the foal and compare his traits with those of the calf.

The foal when a few days old can gallop as fast as he ever can in after life. He never leaves the dam and takes nourishment in small quantities, avoiding a full meal, which would impede swift escape. In lying down no attempt is made at concealment, and when he stands his head is held high. These habits show that the animal's ancestors spent their lives in the open and not in the forests and that they were great travelers.

The calf, on the contrary, fills himself with milk and is a poor traveler. When danger approaches his first impulse is to conceal himself. He holds his head low in order to look under the branches of the forest. All his characteristics point to the fact that the ancestral home of cattle was in a moist, wooded country, while the primeval horse roamed the plains. — London Chronicle.

Arizona's Stage Robbers — Dan Elkins and Wilbur

1896

Histories of Two Men Who Terrorized the Southwest

One Man "Holds Up" a Stage Load of Eight Passengers — Tracked to Their Hiding Place by Apaches

DAN ELKINS is remembered as the original lone bandit of the Southwest, because, single-handed, he once held up a stage load of eight passengers, besides the driver, all of whom were armed. For weeks the exploit was the talk of the men in and about Tombstone. Judge Bennett, now of San Gabriel, Cal., was one of the passengers, and he tells how the robber worked his desperate game.

"We on the inside of the coach had just been talking," says the Judge, of the robberies that Elkins and his partner, Wilbur, had committed in the Territory, and the shame it was that an organized effort was not made to go and keep after the villains until they were killed, even if it took a year, when we heard a rifle crack, and a man shout to the driver:

" 'Come, now, stop those horses or you'll drop dead.'

"We were traveling through a rocky region along the foothills, and each of us knew instantly that all were in for a hold-up then and there. Every one wondered what his neighbor would do with his pistol.

" 'I'll be hanged,' said a big man from Texas, 'if I'll stand this nonsense,' and he snatched his big shooting iron up from the seat at his side.

"The driver put on the brakes and the stage was stopped at once, when we heard a voice outside saying:

" 'Now you fellers on the inside get out on this side. The first man who gets out on the other side will drop dead as a smelt. Don't be lazy. All of you throw down your shooters as you file out of the coach, for there's a lot of sure rifle shots that's got their eyes on you and are hiding in these here rocks to lay you out cold dead if you don't mind what I'm telling you.'

"When I got out of the stage I noticed that the highwayman wore a wire mask contrivance over his face, and had a big black beard and a whole arsenal of weapons in a belt about his waist. He stood on a commanding boulder, and kept his Winchester repeater moving slowly over us. I took particular pains that he saw I threw down my two pistols on the ground, and I noticed that every one of us, including the Texan, did the same thing.

" 'Throw up your hands, gents, said the masked robber, when we were all on the ground and our pistols lay there in a pile by the side of the coach wheels. 'Now get in line there, quick and face this way. Keep your hands above your heads, don't move; keep your months shut or you'll know how quick a man can go plumb to death."

"We got in line facing our commander in a moment, and none of us could extend his hands quite high enough.

" 'Now, you young fellow with the monkey whiskers,' said the highwayman, 'you just shell out there where you stand. Turn your pockets inside out, so me and my pards can see that you're dealing fair. That's right. Now, while me and my pards keep you in gun range, you search that next man, turn his pockets out. Keep your hands up high, gents, and save trouble. Don't speak.'

"In a few minutes that seemed like ages of an awful silence, each man was searched," and we all stood there in a row with our pockets turned out and flapping in the morning breeze, our hands a full foot above our heads, and a small pile of wallets, watches, little pocket leather and cloth bags of coin lay at the feet of the young man of our party, who had been compelled to search his companions.

" 'Now, you driver, throw that money box off quick, while my pards keep you in range,' said the robber when we had been searched. 'There; that's right. Be lively. It may cost you your carcass. Get that ax under the back seat and chop the box open. Hurry up. Don't speak, and don't get behind that coach, or you'll drop.'

"The ax was got, and the driver chopped open the box near us while we stood there like metal forms in front of clothing stores. When the box had been split apart and the valuables thrown out, the highwayman, all the time keeping his rifle slowly moving up and down our line of silent, hand-uplifted men, said:

" 'Now, driver, get up on your seat. You gents get into your coach. Don't let me hear you peep. Driver, lick your horses up fast and get out of this.

" 'Now, gents,' said he, as the last of us had got back into our seats, weaponless, 'you can brag that you've been held up by a single-handed in the profesh. I don't mind telling you that I'm all alone to-day and that I need your money awful bad. Tell them Tombstone fellers that Dan Elkins has a new trick in his line of business.'

"The horses were whipped up, and the last we saw of Dan Elkins he stood there on that big boulder keeping his head still on us until we turned in the foothill road a mile away. I think the rascal must have got $1000 that day. You see we did not carry much money on our persons in those days when there was danger of highway robbery."

During the winter of 1879 and 1880, the recklessness and bravado of Elkins and his partner, Wilbur, became unbearable, and people began to see that the stage robberies were hurting the name of Arizona, so an unusual effort was made to get the rascals. An extra reward for their capture was offered, and two or three detectives from Los Angeles, Cal., began work. Several half-breed Apache Indian trailers were hired, and after a few weeks the trail to the bandits was found. These Apache trailers are the most wonderful of their kind. They sometimes follow a man's tracks across a desert of sand, even after a windstorm, when the tracks have become obliterated to white men's eyes. They can follow at break-neck speed on a horse the trail of a man who has run in moccasins and taken pains to leave only the faintest traces of his course. They see signs of a trail through cactus and sage brush that no white man would recognize.

After a short period of more trailing and questioning of the few white settlers in the region Elkins and Wilbur were located. Their hiding place was thirty miles south from Benson, among the granite foothills, where no white man but they had probably ever been. Indians were hired to go to the spot, and to act as if they were out hunting and had unwittingly stumbled upon the bandits. Then when the Indians had engaged Elkins and Wilbur in conversation they were to give a signal. A posse of twenty men was to ride at once to the scene. Each man in the band was to take his chances of getting shot by the robbers.

The plan worked well. The bandits were asleep when the Indians came to them one warm afternoon. The Apaches asked for food, and while Wilbur went to get a knife to cut a slice from a deer hanging in the mesquite brush near at hand one of the Indians, pretending to be interested in one of the white stranger's pistols, discharged it. A few minutes later the posse rode up pell mell from behind a low foothill that impeded the view half a mile away.

"We're trapped! we're trapped!" shrieked Elkins as he jumped from his couch of leaves and saw the horsemen encircling about his hiding place.

In a second he and Wilbur were behind two great oaks, and were prepared to fight for their lives. They forgot the Indians at their rear, and no sooner had they turned their faces toward the advancing posse than they were shot dead in the back by the Apache trailers.

There is good reason to believe that if the men had been captured alive they might have been induced to tell where they had hidden the greater part of their stolen money and gold, for no one thinks that, living as they did, they spent more than a small part of their ill-gotten gains. Both the robbers were buried where they were killed, and to this day there are people who go out from the now well-populated town of Benson every little while to the scene of the old camp of Elkins and Wilbur in the hope of finding the secret storehouse of stolen riches among the boulders and foothills that surround the spot. — New York Sun.

Trap 200 Cats in A Market

1910

Vicious Animals Fight Captors, But Are Put Into Baskets for Annihilation

New York — Yowling, spitting, scratching and biting, 200 cats were cornered, one by one, the other night in the old Washington market and dumped into baskets, to be disposed of by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Agents of the society, policemen, watchmen, butchers, fishmongers, green grocers and all the little world of the market joined in a midnight hunt that, for activity and noise, outdid anything ever chronicled from Africa.

For years the cats, at first encouraged to keep down the rats, had run wild and increased in garrets and sub-cellars until they became an intolerable pest. The market is now in process of renovation.


Another Tradition Exploded

Two Englishmen were resting at the "Red Horse Inn" at Stratford-on-Avon. One of them discovered a print picturing a low tumbling building underneath which was printed: "The House in Which Shakespeare Was Born." Turning to his friend in mild surprise he pointed to the print. His friend exhibited equal surprise, and called a waiter who assured them of the accuracy of the inscription. "'Pon my word," said the observing Englishman, shaking his head dubiously, "I thought he was born in a manger!" — Success Magazine.

Broncho Busting Near Its End

1921

Said There Will Be No More Wild Horses in Rocky Mountain States

CIVILIZATION SPELLS FINISH

Ranches Are Being Fenced and No More Do Wild Horses Range the Plains of Wyoming and Adjacent States

Denver, Colo. — Broncho busters of the northern Rocky Mountain states are about to go out of business, according to reports from officials of wild West and frontier shows. The reason is there aren't any wild horses to bust. At least not around Wyoming and this part of the country.

But down in Arizona they have wild horses to eat. There are 10,000 of them. They belong to the San Carlos Indians, who have a reservation not far from Globe. But there isn't much chance of getting the Arizona ponies for the broncho busters of Wyoming, for the Indians won't give them up.

Growing Shorter

The day of the wild herd of horses roaming the plains of Wyoming and adjacent states has been growing rapidly shorter with the encouragement of civilization. More and more ranches are being fenced in, herds of cattle are reduced or confined, and to make the matter worse for the existence of the wild steeds, oil drilling camps have been extended over wide areas of Wyoming, northwestern Colorado and Utah.

But down on the San Carlos Indian reservation there are 10,000 wild steeds, roaming at will over the fields, destroying mile after mile of grazing land which might be put into good use for cattle, and turning green grass of the prairie into a scrawny covering for their bones which hardly makes even a decent meal for an Indian.

The cattlemen have tried to buy them, but the Indians wouldn't listen. The government, through A. H. Symonds, Indian agent, ordered to purchase them at about $6 a head, invest the money in cattle and save the meat from the horses, giving it back to the Indians for winter food.

Horses Are Worthless

But the Indians would have none of it. The horses are worthless, even for hides. They cannot be domesticated and the meat isn't much of a delicacy, but the Indians insist on their age-old prerogative to have their herds out on the open prairie even as their fathers did. The Indians also have about 2,000 wild burros which they say they will keep.

"And when an Indian makes up his mind," Symonds says, "you've got to have patience to get him to change it. They are proud of the horses and burros for some reason, and although some of their leaders have tried to persuade them to accept the offers made, so far they have refused to sell."