Evening Star Newspaper, June 28, 1925, Page 61

ILLUSTRATED FEATURES Part 5—8 Pages MAGAZINE SECTION WASHINGTON, D. C..SUN AY- MORNING,, FICTION AND HUMOR JUNE 28, :1925. Head of D.C.Zoo Followed Trails of Wild Life in Many Lands BY HAROLD K. PHILIPS. TRANGE are the callings that some men from the beaten to lonesome by-ways in of fame and fortune, w hold more intriguing adventures than fall to the lot of the animal hunters, who comb the jungles of distant for living beasts to fill the z parks and travel 2 here in civiliz o track a maddened tiger or a glant ke—a reptile with sufficient strength in its hideous to crush an hant—to its treacherous lair and_ there dispatch it from a safe dis- tande with a few bullets from a high- powered rifle, is an entirely different 1hing from capturing it alive and then escorting it back over countless miles to some cage in the heart of a far-off metropolis. It is a game of wits—a deadly| countered in Making hunter accepts the against him | ofters his life game in which the odds that ave stacked and, in many instanc it for a misplay. Brute| strensth, hrawn beyond the test of any human endurance, powerful claws and an innate cunning that is nature’s Worst weapon in the forest fastnesses, fiy-to the help of the cornered beast. But the hunier must rely selely upon his wits and traps to win the battle. Although he irmed to de fend himselt by other means in an emergency, the col of - wild animals never for 4 live lion or tiger is worth & hundred dead ones and it now mammals nd snakes of Washington's Zoologi- | cal Park could speak, many of them | could spin hair-raising stovies of thej own captures in some hidden den however impossible it nimals relate the stories of | jection, there is one in at the Zoological Park who | Dr. William Mann, its recently | appointed superintendent. Although & student of training, is the for the their wild life by | Dr. Mann's | not all wrung from American_universities. the denizens of the rdous trails himself nd. trapping them in their lair brought them back to the very museum over which he now presides. * x remotest corners Mann has pursued his | more generally for | v i SER eptiles, but wherever he found an opportunity to bag some | er prize for safekeeping he never d to strive for its capture. | e has traveled with strange bed- | nd even spent months amonz surviving cannibal tribes ot | South Se: and on more than a| occasions has faced death in the | i f untharted nds. before he entered Stanford sity, in Californ Dy. Mann ed that he would never be satis- | fied follow other than a scientific career througzh 1 and duru his | vears of scholastic work he carefully | prepare himself for his chosen 1" i Thiat he prepage well is it ciently proved by the' f that he ihe head of one of the world's .atest museums for the collection of specimens of wild life. | [y in his regearches Dr. Mann | learned something of the dangers he | would be called upbn to face i he in-| tended continujnz in his profession One day he succeeded in capturing @ copperhead snike, one of the most | venomous reptiles of present times. He | was eagerly prying open the reptile’s | mouth to shbw a bewildered classmate | the poison fangs when the creature | suddenly struck. burying its deadly teeth in his middle finger. | in cked h; has tr jungles over TO the of the ven Uni veal tisht there Dr. Mann showed that he was fitted by nature for-his work. He cagefully deposited the snake where it could do no more harm and zot a piece of string. Tying this tightly around the lower Jjoint of the injyred member, he calmly drew out a sharp pocketknife and ripped deep gashes across the achidg bites. Then he permitted the finger to drain out its blood—an experience that would have caused many men to faint. The young student’s nerve saved | him from what might have proved a serious xituation, and it happened that | the snake bites did not even make him | ill. It was three months. before Dr. Mann ever real | ill had the finger. The | drawn string and the drain- ing of the blood had destroyed all| feeling in the megyber and for the| entire three months it remained per- | fectly white. Then the color began slowly to return as the blood found its" way k intn the withered veins. The mmer after Dr. Mann was graduated from Stanford Univershy. | in 1911, he joined an expedition Dr. Friederick Baker was taking to the t coast of Brazil When the ex-| pedition hnd completed its work Dr. | Baker found that he still had suff cient fupds Jeft for a scientific ex pedition up the Amazon River, and lled for a limited number of volun- < £o joln him. Dr. Mann was one | ose accepted and successfully comppleted the journey through one of the most deadly valleys in the world In the course of their journeys the members of the expedition came upon the crews that were then building the famous Maderia- Railroad, a proj- ect that cost $30.000,000 in money and bhetween 3,000 and 4,080 lives. While in the construction camp Dr. Mann saw fhe laborers dying like flies of the dread black water fever and vellow fever. Six of the white men he knew died in the camp in six weeks. UPON returning o the United States, with the call of the out- of-the-way places still coursing in his blood, Dr. Mann lost no time pre- ext_expeditfon. which 1912 for Ha rd Uni- versity. This trip took him to the interfor of Haiti, where he buried him- self for xix months. When he return- ed, however, he brought with him a valuable collection of snakes, lizards and entirely new species of frogs. One of the species of snukes was named after him as @ compliment for his valuable contribution to science the Manni snake. The next year found him searching the wilds of Yucatan and Hidalgo, in Mexico. for more specimens. While | in Mexico Dr. Mann had a revolution thrust upon him, and experienced one evening an event that was even more finpleasant than usual. The com- mander of a company of government rurales sent word to him at night that a large group of bandit rebels was on their wey past his hacienda and ordered him’ to remain in the cellar. The federal soldiers and the bandits met squarely in front of the hacienda, and after a few hours of brisk fighting the bandits were repulsed. When Dr. Mann finally emerged he found the zateway of his haclenda blocked with the hodies of soldiers and bandits who had been killed during the battle. The next vear was to find Dr. Mann following trails made famous In the | Bible. He was sent out by Harvard to | follow the ancient biblical trail through the Desert of Sinai and compare the animals living in that region then with those described in the Bible. He found the same animals still there, and a number of others not mentioned in the Seriptures. But before he re- ever, he tightly ca te of * ok % Ving his time in th Collections of Reptiles. yelies upon its flectness of foot G {/{we.i{ the outcome of a ungie duel below d.ea:i(«r turned he experienced some of the most harrowing incidents of his life. He set forth entirely alone and be- gan working toward his goal, the an- clent city of Moab. May found him fighting his way through 11-foot snow drifts on the summit of Mount Her- mon laughing hyena and the calling of man-eating beasts to cheer him along the trail of the ancients. He was re- paid well, however, by discovering quantities’ of reptiles, some .of them new, and a new species of bird. “T believe, however,” said Dr. Mann in relating his experiences in the Des- ert of Sinai, “that the worst feeling in the world is for a fellow to lie in his tent alone, in the dead of night, and hear the cries of the hyenas. It is the most blood-curdling that you can im- agine, the shriek of one seeming like the hopeless yelps of a thousand ma- niacs. To me that is the time when a “feller needs a friend’ most,-or at least he is apt to think he daes, anyhow. The year 1916 found Dr. Mann em. ed upon the most thrilling trip of areer. He. was given the i'red- b his Harvard University metropolis of the world, he chose 1o spend it in the Fiji and Solomon isiands, far down in the omantic and uncivilized- South Sea. There Dr. Mann had his first and last experience with real cannibals. PR AFTER spending some _months among the barbarians of Fiji, Dr. Mann heard that a native’cutter was about to sail from Loma-Loma . to Lakemba, in the Solomon Islands, a section peopled largely by cannibals and a place that had only twice be- fore in history, been visited by col- lectors. Dr. Mann determined then and there that he would make that trip if there was any possible way of buying his way aboard the cutter. In that he succeeded, and was given a berth on the little craft that was destined to be his home for three- and-a-half long months. The captain of the cutter was a half-caste negro, the son of a negro waiter, who had deserted from a steamship that had touched the port. The waiter married a native woman and the child of that Bouth Sea romance became host to the traveling sclentist. The cutter set out for the vovage th only the hideous cries of the | I village, the chief jolning him erick Sheldon traveling fellowship by | Came in with ba Instead of spend- | very auspiciously, but before if had passed the limits of the harbor of Loma-Loma, some one on_the shore wigwagged to the crew that a shark had just been caught and the natives were to have a shark bake that night. The trip was promptly postponed, the ship turned about, and for the next week Dr. Mann waited for the native mariner to recover from the -effects of the shark orgy. Scarcely had the cutter gotten under way again before it ran its uncertain nose squarely into a tropical gale. { Lashed by wind and waves for days, the captain finally sighted a native village in a snug harbor and suc- ceeded in reaching it. Fortunately the natives were friend- ly, and Dr. Mann was escorted to the grass hut of the chief with due cere. mony. The chief promptly kicked some of his wives.out of one hut and assigned it to Dr. Mann. Then, ac: cording to native custom, he was presented with all of the food in the din- the dignitaries had fin: meal the other natives ets and were given their share of what was left. 1owever questionable the menu in the native village may haxe been, it was u welcome relief to the fare of nothing but boiled sweet potatoes Dr, Mann and the crew of the cutter had subsisted on for the preceding eight days. The only addition to this menu Dr, Mann enjoyed was some excellent soda biscuits, prepared by the skipper according to a receipt taught him by his colored father. “1 fervently thanked fate,” Dr. Mann said with a laugh, “that that man's father had once been a good old-fashioned South- ern waiter. Those biscuits were really excellent.” B * Kk * * INALLY the cutter set out again for its destination in the Solomon Islands, reaching it three amd a half months from the time it had passed the entrance to Loma-Loma harbor. Although Dr. Mann had become ac. customed to the barbarians of the Fiji Islands, he was not altogether pre- pared for the conditions that met him In his new home. There he was face to_face with ¢annibalis; still prac- ticed in fts most hideous forms. ‘Years before, however, the cannibals had learned that it was vastly un: ner. - When ished their Dr. William Mann, Recently Appointed Superintendent, Has Been Engaged in E*p]on’ng Unciviliicd Regions Since His Student Days at Stanford Univcrsity—Exper;encc With Cannibals Among the Most Thrilling of These Incidents of His Career as a Scientist—How the Game of Wits Is Played Between the Hunter and His Intended Victim—Impressions Created During Nights Spent Among the Howling Hyenas—Difficulties En- | eagerly | The greatest loss among the ani- mals oceurs on hoard ship. Not only are they subject to sea-sickness, but many times they breod so gloomily over their new environment that they refuse to eat.-declare hunger strikes and starve themselves to death. Besides this, many die from sheer ex- haustion from the long trip and it is seldom the collector has much time to enjoy the vovage himself. His time is constantly occupled playing nurse, doctor and companion to the animals, It is very seldom, however, that | the animals” worry about their plight reach their caged homes. rangely enough they always remem- their human shipmates and ofjen greet them when they call from time to time to ses how they are | faring in thelr new erZronment. Dr. Mann can walk through the Zoologl- cal Park here and find dozens of his pets running to the fronts of their cages reet I That the avel e animal is far hap- pier in a well managed zoo is proved by the unusual records for long life established by their feathered and four-le ed in tes. Th ws of the |forest and jung are merciless—it is the old law of the survival of the fittest. Once the jungle beast passes lits prime it instantly hecomes the prey of the vounger and stronger Few live to tural deaths, but fall early in life before the law of | the fang and cl: | [ the Zool an enjoy * al Park here, however, are attended like bables. Their food is of the best and there is even anextensive farm main tained within it houndaries to assure the herbivorous animals a_ready sup- ply of fresh vegetables perienced bakers bake their bread according to | special recipes; their meats are served fresh and clean. And the same fron {bars that protect the people from | them, protect the animals from the law of the fittest an ex- , our presen DRUIN seeks the s fe,t?‘ ofa tree. A disgruntled FAGLE ‘7@ TIGHTING LEOPARD ‘&n guard ” residents of the islands, and Dr. Mann himself was safe.. He was.not spared. seeing the results _of one feast, (however, at which a mative | woman was thé victim. | One gay he and the ‘white officialy {with whom he was gnariéred found {the bodles of four native-women ly- | ing in the brush of the interfor of the | island. i The officlal, plainly worrfed, hur< | t1ed back to gamp, and tbat night,) Hrue to prediction, the coast was | illuminated with great fires, From their home Dr. Mann and his host could see the natives dancing about | the fires in fiendish glee. Upon go- ing to the scene the next morning they found the remnants of the feast. The nattves had, in reality, slain five native women. One'had been dragged down to the beach for 'the night's orgy and the ‘others had either been left for another ghastly fote or had simply heen ‘speared by the cannibals out of sheer” fiendish: ness. Only ene white man was slain by the cannibals. He was a sailor from a vessel and had landed with a party. to get water. The sailor happened: to be near a spot where, seven yeays {before. a native had been drowned through the carelessness white man. All those vears the nao- tives remembered the :incident and quietly awaited their opportunity for’ {revenge. They found. it when they | suddenly came upon the sailor. of some | safety of the jungles, leaving the body- on the beach in their haste to. escape the punishment they knew was sure to follow their capture. Dr. Mann was away on his trip to. the eas for nearly Lwo yedrs, During 'that time ‘he collected - vast quantities of small animals, insects and reptilés. lie was unable, how- ever, to'bring back any but his spe- clnjens -of rare bugs_and reptiles. Shorthy after’ his: réturh, in 1917, he entered the Government service and wraveled.for the Depgrtment of Agri- culture . from that yeer.-uatil 1921, visiting ‘Cuba, the Bahamas and Hon- duiras, i ROM 1921 22 Mulford .#pedition through -the. Amazon ‘Basin, a’ frip. that’ required nearly ‘?mdu On this_ trip he d 135 ‘speeimens, inchiding a lay uantity.-of ‘boa -constrictors d ) ¥s; @& number of the latter e % in “the \Zoological Park e, following year found him again’ in ‘ Mexi¢o, and again in the midst of 2 revolution. , That revalus tion, however, developed an amusing situation, .t . Dr. Mann safd “that he .and . his colleagues had experienced only the arost kindly .treatment from both the federal and rebel commanders. They ‘were particularly anxious, however, to get the animals they had collected back to the United States, and ap- He was plerced by..a dozen spears before he knew what was to take pliéd to the rebel commander near where they weré staving for passage profitable to devour the few iwhite place, aqd the cannibals fled to the through the linex. There was a fed- eral gunboat in the harbor at the time, and the rebel leader sent an officer out to -inquire whether the Americans wo#ld be accepted on board. . Shoitly afterward, rebel officers took the Americans and all of their baggage -out to the gunboat under a white §ag and turned them over to the federal commader. The latter had learned that a liner, bound for New | York, would pass nearby within a short time and set out to meet it. He overtook the liner within a few hours and very' courteously placed the Americans on board. 2 It happened, however, that the cap- tain of the federal gunboat had wire- lessed his plans to the captain of the liner; and when Dr. Mann and his [colleagues got on board - they dis- covered that the story of their plight, Itke most other stories, had been mag- nified as it paased from one passenger to the others. As a result, the pas- ‘senhgers greeted them with offers of t‘l,o-tnhu. ‘money and almost anything it they might have aaked for, be- ddath, had robbed and generally battered up. “As a matter of fact, both the rebel and .the federal officers took long chances with their own lives just to make us more comfortable,” Dr. Mann laughed. “They even brought our snakes and monkeys on board. per- sonally, for us. 1 shall never forget how hard it was for me t6 keep from laughing. outright. when one kindly old fady came up to me, patied me oiy uwst before its ture EBD. “Thank God, ] C&p the back and said are safe,.my_hoy. Last year Dr. Mann visited Colum- bia, Costa Rica; Guatemala and Hon- duras for the Department of Agricul- ture. On this trip he obtained the Baird's tapir that is now one of the rarest and most ‘valuable animals in captivity. He found it in a native village, already in captivity, and for the latter fact the animal collector was more than happy, for, despite its calm appearance, the tapir is a ferocious animal to meet alone in the Jungles. “Don Pedro, the man who gave me the tapir,” said Dr. Mann, “has had several experiences with these ani- mals. They are hunted at night. So one night Don Pedro, who is quite a character in his cummunity, started out to get a tapir. He explained to me that it took him 20 minutes to reach a spot where he finally found one. When the tapir charged, how- ever, he dropped his gun and swore that it took him only 2 minutes to get back. “Not Jong after that he went forth {to find that same tapir. Upon reach- ing what he considered the proper place, he tied his mule to a tree and began deconnoitering. Soon he espied two green eyes peering at him from among the trees. Raising his gun he fired three times, the eves disap- | peared, and there was a crash as a body hit the ground. Running to the I 5pot, the bewildered Don Pedro dis- covered that he had shot his mule.” * %k % X HEN ‘the hunter has completed his “bag” his worst troubles ‘have just begun, according to ‘Dr. Mann. Put yourself in the position of one collector Dr. Mann knows. He had a menagerie consisting of several dozen' animals—from big cats to bda constrictors—in the heart of an Afri- can jungle, with the nearest port hun- dreds of miles away, when his native guldes and burden bearers suddenly quit. - Just what caused the jungle “strike’’ the hunter never fully under- from one of the many superstitious imagine glmost any time. Undaunted, however, the hunter pushed ahead with the handful of faithful native boys that had stuck, picking up vol- unteers as he went, and finally reached the steamship that was to carry him back to civilization with his prizes without the loss of a single tve. s = vou | stood, but it seemed to have resulted | whims barbarian natives are likely to | The big chimpanzee here ample of how captivity may increase the span of an animal's life. Was |ington’s big ape has already passed the limit of longevity for the jungles and if it survivi a year or two longer it will even have eclipsed all known records for zoos. According to the park officials the chimpanzee shows | no signs of dying, but on the other | hand is enjoying the best of health. Of .course, many of the animals of -day menageries were born in capitivity. Others were taken from the jungles as infants. But in many instances they are living testimony to a titanic battle of human w primordial strength and be: Those persons who like to stand in front of the cage of a lion or tiger and wonder whether or not it would *'if it got loose had bet- ! beyond the guard rail, rom Dr. Mann As for pity, don’t waste it on the animals in Washington's zoo, at least. for someone who needs it. Dr. nn always finds it amusing to hear rs sympathizing with the polar + hot day. He has studied vears and has reached the hat of zll the animals in park, they seem to suffer least om the heat. And if the animals had a referendum on the proposition of returning to the jungles, its a cinch not one would move. Not a Bug. Bug That Is VERY one } seen the curious h little flat gray creatures that scurry out of sight when one lifts a decayved log or a moss-covered stone in the woods or near the water. They |are the Armadillidia or isopods or the genus Oniscoidea, commonly called the armadillo, sow-bug and pill-bug. Now thess creatures are not really bugs at all, but crustaceans or dis- tant relatives of the crab, with gills provided with air tubes not unlike the air tubes through which insects breathe all over their body. A favor- ite food of frogs, toads and sala- manders, the pill.bug (so called) sub- sists largely on decaying vegetable matter, and some authorities believe it to be a useful scavenger. In the view of most scientists the name armadillo was given it because of its habit when disturbed of rolling itself up into a ball, as the mammal of South America does; but the crus- tacean is shrewder than the mammal, for whereas the armadillo never u coils when it is caught or frightened— and, therefore, its shell often serves as its own roasting pan in the ovens of equatorial countries—the pill-bug, after rolling itself up once or twice and discovering that it is still in the presence of danger, will give up the useless strategem and.try to make off unnoticed > 1= Willow Shoot Industry. "THERE are planters in our East and South who are conducting patient- Iy tests of various species of willaw and have already succeeded in grow- ing shoots of such excellence that they compare favorably with the product obtained by the highly spe- cialized cultivation of Europe. In order that it may be of the best basket material a willow shoot slender. tough, pliable and y 1. In this country, it is said, no ‘two soils will produce the same quality of willow. ery planter is, therefore, of necessity compelled to experiment 'and to select the species best adapted to his particular soil and climate. Importations of the best white wil- low shoots of Europe placed in Ameri- can soil will frequently show great deterioration, becoming, indeed, quite worthless, - britic _switches. In the East there is the willow rust to combat. While the willow-shoot industry in the United States is an important one, it may, in a sanse, be said to be still in its infancy. Should it be eveloped to the proper extent, the result would be an enormous saving to American manufacturers of basket goods, since they would, of course, derive most of their raw material from domestic growers. Sizé of the Waves. 'VEN mariners are apt to have very exaggerated ideas of the size of towering waves that break oyer ves- sels during seastorms. Frequéntly they report waves as having reached an’ almost impossible height. As a matter of fact, it is extraor- dinary for a wave to-attain a height of 70 feet, while the average size of waves is considerably less. The moun- tainous seas often encountered by vessels in the North Atlantic usualiy measure about 40 feet, although tha upward-shooting, quick-falling wave attains great altitude. The big waves of the North Pacific rarely measure more than 30 feet, while the highest wave ever met by an Aus- tralian-bound liner in the South Pa- cific attained 50 feet. The big waves of midocean are much larger than those encountered else- where and it s very rare that a height of even 20 feet is reached by a wave in the Mediterranean.