William T. Hornaday the Maker of Zoos
(Copyright, 1903, by William Thorp.)
ilLLIAM T. HORNADAY knows
more about wild animal than
anybody else In America, and
w
'ffM ProDal,,y wore than anybody else
ftV. J i the world."
The speaker pointed to a powerfully set.
clear-eyed, bearded man who wai superln
tending1 the removal of some wolves from
one den to another at the New York
Zoological park.
"Yes," continued the speaker, "he Is the
greatest wild animal man In this country.
He knows the mind and the temper of
tigers and wolves better ttian you or X
know the mind and temper of our children.
He has spent his life studying wild beasts
In their native jungles, shooting them to
get their skeletons for museums, collecting
them alive, training them and writing
.bout them. He has built up more zoos
and zoological museums, I suppose, than
any other living American."
William T. Hornaday Is an example of
the success which comes from lifelong de
votion to a steady purpose. In boyhood
lie determined to know more about wild
animals than other people; now he stands
at the top of his profession. He Is the di
rector of the New York Zoological park,
and he Is known to zoologists all over the
world.
He was born forty-nine years ago la
what were then the backwoods of Indi
ana. "I belong to that raro and disap
pearing species known as the native Ameri
can," he says, "and I was farm bred and
farm reared. My father and brothers were
keen sportsmen, good shots and ardent
lovers of nature and I Inherited the
same tastes. I can't remember the
time when I didn't love to be among wild
animals. Fortunately, my boyhood was
spent In places where animal . life was
abundant In the forests of central Indiana
and the prairies of Iowa. Those forests
and prairies have since' been eaten up by
the march of civilization and one has to go
farther afield to find wild life nowadays."
Mr. Hornaday was educated In Iowa
eol'.eges and there read Audubon and
learned that It was possible to make, a
livelihood out of those practical natural
history studies which he loved. On leaving
college he went to an establishment which
supplies museums and zoological gardens
with their specimens and will even turn
out an entire museum or soologlcal garden
to order as calmly as a grocer, sells a
pound of butter. At this establishment Mr.
Hornaday received a thorough practical
training as a collecting naturalist and taxi
dermist preparatory to being sent "on the
road," for the great animal dealers send
out travelers all over the world to find all
kinds of soologlcal specimens, from ele
phants to bats, just as manufacturing firms
send out their drummers to hunt up trade.
Mr. Hornaday was sent to Florida to
collect zoo!ogtcal specimens. He won his
spurs there while still a beardless youth
by discovering and sending up north the
first specimen of the Florida crocodile
which ever came out of the country. That
crocodile Is now one of the treasured pos
sessions of the National Mueseum at-Washington.
Mr. Hornaday, with a companion, tracked
the crocodile to a creek running out of the
Everglades. They hid In the early morning
near the beast's home and, after waiting
for hours, managed to get a shot at him.
Mr. Hornaday sent a bullet through its eye,
which, contrary to the general belief of
hunters, did not kill It. but simply made it
crazy. It had Its strength left but could
not see and did not know what to do.
Wallowing in the blood-tinged water of the
creek, champing Its Jaws and threshing Its
tall In frantic Impotency, the crocodile was
a ghastly sight, but It clung to life so ten
aciously that seven bullets had to be fired
Into Its thick hide before It finally gave up
the shost.
Having begun to make his reputation by
this Florida trip Mr. Hornaday as sent off
to Cuba, where he hobnobbed with both the
Spaniards and the Cubans during the Insur
rection of 1875, and then to South America.
In 1876 he was sent to the East Indies on
his greatest trip, to spend two years roam
ing at will through the Jungles of India,
Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo.
It was on this trip that Mr. Hornaday
made for himself a reputation among big
game hunters. Few men have shot so
many ferocious beasts as he did during
those two years. Elephants, Indian blron,
tigers, leopards, crocodiles, orang-outangs,
chimpanzees, gibbons and bears fell to his
gun by the score, to say nothing of hun
dreds of antelopes, oxis deer, gazelles,
monkeys and such like small fry. His bag
of orang-outangs alone numbered forty
three. - During these two years he had adven
tures enough to provide material for half a
dozen boys' books had he cared to write
them. Many a time he narrowly escaped
death from the wild beasts which he hunted.
He lived on terms of Intimacy with the
headbunters of Borneo, and formed such a
high opinion of their manners and morals
that he now holds them up as the superiors
f civilised man.
When he is asked which of his many ex-
citing adventures during those two years
he regards as being his "closest shave,"
Mr. Hornaday usually tells how he was
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Aii'ritirWu-nti,.
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY IN THE UNIFORM OF THE NEW YORK ZOO.
charged by a huge old female elephant in
an Indian forest belonging to the rajah of
Kulunyud.
While tramping through the Jungle he
came upon a herd of elephants which In
cluded this female and her smooth, shiny
calf, about three feet high. "I never saw a
more demure and cute animal than that ab
surd little elephant," said Hornaday, "and
I fairly ached to steal up and grab hold of
his trunk and have a tussel with him."
But he had to keep quiet because the
rajah, who owned the forest, had only
permitted him to shoot male elephants.
Lying hidden in the dense undergrowth,
he watched the herd for over half an
hour. Presently the baby elephant wan
dered oft and Mr. Hornaday tried to creep
noiselessly through the jungle after It.'
But he was heard and before he could
realize his peril, the branches which
screened the herd parted suddenly and the
huge old female was upon him.
It was a terrible moment and Mr. Horna
day always waxes eloquent in describing
it
"She had sufficient distance to get under
full headway," he savs, "and although
my breath stopped and my - heart stood
still with sheer fright, I yet realized she
was the grandest living object I ever saw
and the most terrible. Her head was
held high and her trunk curled up under
her mouth, to be uncoiled when within
reach of me, I suppose. Her ears seemed
to stand out straight from her head with
the tips curled forward and the strides
of her massive legs . were enormous.
"Luckily she came on In dead sllenoe,
or I should have been frightened out of
my wits. As it was, I felt as if I was
going to be run over by . a locomotive.
I knew it was ' useless folly to run, for
in a few strides she would have been upon
me.
"When I saw her coming I stood up
quickly and faced her, threw my gun up
to my shoulder and fired both barrels at
the - base of her coiled-up trunk, in the
direction of the brain. She was within
fifteen paces of me when I fired, but the
thundering report, the smoke and two
zinc balls crashing into her skull close
to her brain stopped her charge.- She
sheered off suddenly and rushed into the
forest, trumpeting shrilly once or twice.
Directly, there was a grand crash and a
rush in the . thicket as the herd broke
away and started off, and that was the
last we saw or cared to see of It. , .
"Then I had time to reflect on what
might have been had my caps failed to ex
plode or my powder been damp.
"Once, when walking on a railway track
in a snowstorm, I was very nearly run over
by a locomotive coming down a grade In
muffled silence, and my sensations then
were precisely the same as when that old
female elephant came charging down that
grassy slope. The approach of the powerful
machine and the living monster seemed
exactly alike." ' v
A few days after this exciting experience
the hunter fell in suddenly wlvn three black
bears. . He shot one, a female, left her for
dead and charged the others. After a hot
pursuit, a second bear was shot and appar
ently killed. Bear No. 3 was then pursued,
but got away.
Mr. Hornaday returned to the spot where
he had left bear No. 2, but to his surprise
found no bear there. "I suppose he con
cluded," said the hunter, "that he wasn't
dead enough to skin, so he picked himself
up and went about his business."
After trying In vain to find him Mr.
Hornaday and his native beaters went back
to tho place where they had killed the first
of the three bears. By a remarkablo coin
cidence that bear was gone also. She hadn't
been dead either, and had gone off, drag
ging her wounded hind-quarters after her.
Jfe. Hornaday and one ot his beaters fol
lowed her bloody trail, and came suddenly
within twenty feet of her before they knew
It.
"She sow us first," Mr. Hornaday said.
"Sho wheeled around and rnme charging at
us, dragging her hindquarters after her.
Her Jaws were wide net and her eyes glis
tened fiercely, while her nngry growls tll
us that she was denperate and meant mis
chief. My boater shouted a warning and
then vanished, but I stood still until she
got within ten feet of me, and then fired at
the center of a yellow crescent on her
breast. That shot finished her."
When on the sea const of Selangore,
East Indies, Mr. Hornaday did a new
"stunt" as a fisherman, which gained for
him some local reputation. With a hook
and line he caught a crocodile twelve feet
long ' and weighing 415 pounds. Needless
to say, It was not an ordinary hook and
line. The hook was a piece of tough green
wood, ten inches long and sharpened at
both ends, so affixed to the line that It
would be swallowed point foremost, but
at the slightest tug would fix Itself cross
wise In the crocodlla's Interior. The line
was made of tough green bark, which
could defy even a crocodile's sharp teeth,
and the bait was the body of a sting ray.
Naturally there was trouble when the
crocodile found himself hooked. He
rushed to and fro Jn the narrow, muddy
creek In which he had been caught,
plunged violently, threshing the water Into
huge waves, and nearly upset the small
canoe from which Mr. Hornaday was fish
ing. The creek was alive with other croco
diles, and the fisherman would have had
but a small chance of life had he been
overturned Into it. Luckily, he was not.
Presently the crocodile gave up the fight
and suffered himself to be dragged
towards shore by a number of willing na
tives. He tried In vain to escape by div
ing, until at last a well-aimed bullet cut
his spinal marrow and ended his sufferings.
Few fishermen have ever made a bigger
catch.
But It Is not as a hunter of big game
that Mr. Hornaday la chiefly known. As
a trainer of wild animals, and a writer on
animal subjects, he is a recognized ex
pert. "No, we don't have much serious trouble
with the animals," he replied, the other
day, to an inquiry put to him at the Bronx
zoo of New York. "They rarely, or never,
escape. There has only been one bad ac
cident from an escaped animal at this In
stitution. "Do you see these two fingers?" Indi
cating the third finger and little finger ot
his left hand. "They are as useless to me
as if they were amputated. ' An escaped
bear bit through them. That la one of the
unpleasant little things liable to happen to
a man in my line of work."
Mr. Hornaday thinks nothing of going
Into a tiger's cage to Inquire about the
poor beast's toothache, or in the den of a
lioness to see if she is treating her cubs
properly. He is a man of iron nerve and
Indomitable wilL There Is not an animal
among the thousands under his charge
which does not on occasion recognize his
mastery..
.
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GXORQB a .WALLACE, PRESIDENT O F OMAHA REAL EST ATS KXCHANQ