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.
There is only one continuous statistical record of the abundance of animals, that is the returns of the fur trade. These have been kept for over 200 years, and if we begin after the whole continent was covered by fur-traders, they are an accurate gauge of the abundance of each species. Obviously, this must be so, for the whole country is trapped over every year, all the furs are marketed, most of them through the Hudson's Bay Company, and whatever falls into other hands is about the same percentage each year, therefore the H. B. Co. returns are an accurate gauge of the relative rise and fall of the population.