Part 9 (2/2)

To embellish these severe and skeletal notes, I add some incidents supplied by various hunters of the north.

Let us remember that the Lynx is a huge cat weighing 25 to 35 or even 40 lbs., that it is an ordinary cat multiplied by some 4 or 5 diameters, and we shall have a good foundation for comprehension.

Murdo McKay has often seen 2 or 3 Lynxes together in March, the mating season. They fight, and caterwaul like a lot of tomcats.

The uncatlike readiness of the Lynx to take to water is well known; that it is not wholly at home there is shown by the fact that if one awaits a Lynx at the landing he is making for, he will not turn aside in the least, but come right on to land, fight, and usually perish.

The ancient feud between cat and dog is not forgotten in the north, for the Lynx is the deadly foe of the Fox and habitually kills it when there is soft snow and scarcity of easier prey. Its broad feet are snowshoes enabling it to trot over the surface on Reynard's trail. The latter easily runs away at first, but sinking deeply at each bound, his great speed is done in 15 or 6 miles; the Lynx keeps on the same steady trot and finally claims its victim.

John Bellecourt related that in the January of 1907, at a place 40 miles south of Smith Landing, he saw in the snow where a Lynx bad run down and devoured a Fox.

A contribution by T. Anderson runs thus:

In late March, 1907, an Indian named Amil killed a Caribou near Fort Rae. During his absence a Lynx came along and gorged itself with the meat, then lay down alongside to sleep. A Silver Fox came next; but the Lynx sprang on him and killed him. When Amil came back he found the Fox and got a large sum for the skin; one shoulder was torn. He did not see the Lynx but saw the tracks.

The same old-timer is authority for a case in which the tables were turned.

A Desert Indian on the headwaters of the Gatineau went out in the early spring looking for Beaver. At a well-known pond he saw a Lynx crouching on a log, watching the Beaver hole in the ice. The Indian waited. At length a Beaver came up cautiously and crawled out to a near bunch of willows; the Lynx sprang, but the Beaver was well under way and dived into the hole with the Lynx hanging to him. After a time the Indian took a crotched pole and fished about under the ice; at last he found something soft and got it out; it was the Lynx drowned.

Belalise ascribes another notable achievement to this animal.

One winter when hunting Caribou near Fond du Lac with an Indian named Tenahoo (human tooth), they saw a Lynx sneaking along after some Caribou; they saw it coming but had not sense enough to run away. It sprang on the neck of a young buck; the buck bounded away with the Lynx riding, but soon fell dead. The hunters came up; the Lynx ran off. There was little blood and no large wound on the buck; probably its neck was broken. The Indian said the Lynx always kills with its paw, and commonly kills Deer. David MacPherson corroborates this and maintains that on occasion it will even kill Moose.

In southern settlements, where the Lynx is little known, it is painted as a fearsome beast of limitless ferocity, strength, and activity. In the north, where it abounds and furnishes staple furs and meat, it is held in no such awe. It is never known to attack man. It often follows his trail out of curiosity, and often the trapper who is so followed gets the Lynx by waiting in ambush; then it is easily killed with a charge of duck-shot. When caught in a snare a very small club is used to ”add it to the list.” It seems tremendously active among logs and brush piles, but on the level ground its speed is poor, and a good runner can overtake one in a few hundred yards.

David MacPherson says that last summer he ran down a Lynx on a prairie of Willow River (Mackenzie), near Providence. It had some 90 yards start; he ran it down in about a mile, then it turned to fight and he shot it.

Other instances have been recorded, and finally, as noted later, I was eye-witness of one of these exploits. Since the creature can be run down on hard ground, it is not surprising to learn that men on snow-shoes commonly pursue it successfully. As long as it trots it is safe, but when it gets alarmed and bounds it sinks and becomes exhausted. It runs in a circle of about a mile, and at last takes to a tree where it is easily killed. At least one-third are taken in this way; it requires half an hour to an hour, there must be soft snow, and the Lynx must be scared so he leaps; then he sinks; if not scared he glides along on his hairy snow-shoes, refuses to tree, and escapes in thick woods, where the men cannot follow quickly.

CHAPTER XV

EBB AND FLOW OF ANIMAL LIFE

Throughout this voyage we were struck by the rarity of some sorts of animals and the continual remarks that three, five, or six years ago these same sorts were extremely abundant; and in some few cases the conditions were reversed.

For example, during a week spent at Fort Smith, Preble had out a line of 50 mouse-traps every night and caught only one Shrew and one Meadowmouse in the week. Four years before he had trapped on exactly the same ground, catching 30 or 40 Meadowmice every night.

Again, in 1904 it was possible to see 100 Muskrats any fine evening.

In 1907, though continually on the lookout, I saw less than a score in six months. Redsquirrels varied in the same way.

Of course, the Rabbits themselves were the extreme case, millions in 1904, none at all in 1907. The present, then, was a year of low ebb. The first task was to determine whether this related to all mammalian life. Apparently not, because Deermice, Lynxes, Beaver, and Caribou were abundant. Yet these are not their maximum years; the accounts show them to have been so much more numerous last year.

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