THE CASE OF THE LAUGHING GULL. About that same time, a pair of laughing gulls had the temerity to build a nest on the ground in the very storm centre of the great Flying Cage. Daily and hourly they were surrounded by a truculent mob of pelicans, herons, ibises, storks, egrets and ducks, the most of whom delighted in wrecking households. The keepers sided with the gulls by throwing around their nest a wire entanglement, with a sally-port at one side for the use of the beleaguered pair.
The voice of an angry or frightened laughing gull is it [sic] owner's chief defense. The female sat on her nest and shrieked out her shrill and defiant war cry of "Kah! kah, kah, kah!" The male took post just outside the sally-port, where he postured and screamed and threatened until we wondered why he did not burst with superheated emotion. I am sure that never before did two small gulls ever raise so much racket in so short a time and their cage-mates must have found it rather trying.
The gulls hatched their eggs, they reared their young successfully, and at last peace was restored.
A Mother Antelope Fights Off an Eagle. Mr. Howard Eaton, of Wolf, Wyoming, once saw a female prong-horned antelope put up a strong and successful fight in defense of her newly-born fawn. A golden eagle, whose spring specialty is for fawns, kids and lambs, was seen to swoop swiftly down toward a solitary antelope that had been noticed on a treeless range beside the Little Missouri. It quickly became evident that the eagle was after an antelope fawn. As the bird swooped down toward the mother, and endeavored to seize her fawn in its talons, the doe rose high on her hind legs, and with her forelegs flying like flails struck with her sharp- pointed hoofs again and again. Her blows went home, and feathers were seen to fly from the body of the marauder.
The doe made good her defense. The eagle was glad to escape, and as quickly as possible pulled himself together and flew away.
The Defensive Circle of the Musk-Ox. Several arctic explorers have described the wonderful living-ring defense, previously mentioned, of musk-ox herds against wolves. Mr. Paul Rainey's moving pictures have shown it to us in thrilling detail, with Eskimo dogs instead of wolves. When a musk-ox herd is attacked by the big and deadly arctic white wolves, the bulls and adult cows herd the calves and young stock into a compact group, then take their places shoulder to shoulder around them in a perfect circle, and with lowered heads await the onset. The sharp down-and-up curved horn of the musk-ox is a deadly weapon against all the dangerous animals of the North, except man.
When a wolf approaches near and endeavors to make a breach in the circle, the musk-ox nearest him tries to get him, and will even rush out of the line for a short and brief pursuit. But the bull does not pursue more than twenty yards or so, for fear of being surrounded alone and cut off. At the end of his usually futile run, back he goes and carefully backs into his place in the first line of defense. A charging bull does not rush out far enough that the wolves can cut him off and kill him. He is much too wise for that.
Mr. Stefansson says that the impregnability of the musk-ox defense is so well recognized by the wolves of the North that often a pack will march past a herd in close proximity without offering to attack it, and without even troubling the herd to form the hollow circle.
A Savage Wild Boar. I once had a "fight" with a captive Japanese wild boar, under conditions both absurd and tragic, and from it I learned the courage and fury of such animals. The animal was large, powerful, fearfully savage toward every living thing, and insanely courageous. It was confined in a yard enclosed by a strong wire fence, and while we were all very sure that the fence would hold it, I became uneasy. In mid-afternoon I went alone to the spot, passing hundreds of school children on the way, to study the situation. When I reached the front of the corral and stood still to look at the fence, the boar immediately rushed for me. He came straight on, angry and terrible, and charged the wire like a living battering-ram. He repeated these charges until I became fearful of an outbreak, and decided to try to make him afraid to repeat them. Procuring from the bear dens, a pike pole with a stout spike in the end, I received the next charge with a return thrust meant to puncture both the boar's hide and his understanding. He backed off and charged more furiously than ever, with white foam flying from his jaws.
He cared nothing for his punishment. He charged until his snout bled freely, and the fence bulged at the strain.