Rancher Bags Bird Maimed in June.
While mowing hay last June, Abe Bruger, a Cathcart, Wash., rancher, surprised a mother pheasant and her brood in the tall grass. One of the flock was overtaken by the mower, which amputated both of its legs. It escaped to an alder thicket.
While hunting recently, Bruger winged a pheasant. When he recovered the bird, both of its legs were missing, a fact which recalled the accident of the early summer. The bird had become full grown, was in perfect condition, plump, and, in fact, larger than the average of this year’s birds taken in the locality.
The wounds had completely healed, and, nature, in the process of healing, had developed a substitute for claws in the form of hard scales at the extremities.