An Unforgettable Serpent by G. Laycock

QUITE POSSIBLY there will never again be a day in the life of Peninsula, Ohio, even remotely like Sunday, June 25, 1944. At least, most of the older citizens of that quiet little Ohio village hope such a day does not dawn again.

In the early morning, dairy farmers were getting the milking done. The housewives were in their kitchens fixing hot breakfast. Many of the men had forsaken church on this special day. Instead they dressed in their field clothes and headed to town.

There they joined a growing throng of men, boys, and hound-dogs milling around in front of the barber shop. A look at the group was enough to frighten any peace-loving citizen. The group appeared to be a posse preparing to hunt to earth a public enemy.

Their weapons ranged through handguns, shotguns, rifles, pitchforks, and corn knives. There was much yelling and general confusion. Finally the police chief, Art Huey, began to outline his plan.

All of the men spread out in a line. Then they would start tramping along the banks of the Cuyahoga River, being careful not to overlook ravines and gullies and such hiding places as log piles and old junked automobiles. Hopefully one of them would spot the critter and give the signal. Then everyone up and down the line would converge on the victim, and heaven only knows what might occur. By this time the object of their hunt had gained widespread fame. As they set forth they were trailed by assorted photographers and reporters representing newspapers from many parts of the world.

The story had started when Clarence Mitchell was working in a field beside the river. Mr. Mitchell often was followed to his fields by his dogs, but on this day the dogs seemed mighty nervous. They whined and whimpered. Finally they slipped off through the fields for home, leaving their master all alone.

Shortly after that Mr.Mitchell looked up from his work. There in plain view what he thought must have been the biggest snake in the world.

Mr. Mitchell stood rooted to the spot. The reptile, big around as a watermelon, was headed for the river.It stretched out across an incredible length.

Around that part of Ohio there are no truly big native snakes. The largest one Mr.Mitchell would likely see is the pilot blacksnake. One five or six feet long and big around as a banana would be big for its kind. But this creature crawling in front Mr. Mitchell was unbelievable. The snake was twenty-five feet long and might have weighed more than two hundred pounds.

Mr. Mitchell made no effort to stop the huge snake, or to engage it in combat. Understandably. "I watched," he reported simply. And while he watched, the huge snake slid down the riverbank and into the Cuyahoga. As it did so,Mr. Mitchell dropped his hoe and raced for home.

Subsequently, the snake was observed by a neighbor who was working in a field on the east side of the river. It came out of the stream and headed eastward. Both farmers repeated their stories of what they had seen. Many believed they had been out in the sun too long.

But around Peninsula the giant serpent continued to make its appearance. On one farm after the other it showed up. Those who did not see the reptile itself sometimes reported sighting the tracks.

Soon most people took the story seriously. Farm wives no longer let their children go into the fields to pick daisies. Man continuously glanced to all sides as they plowed their corn. Older boys, driving the cows in at milking time, ran them more than they usually did.

Meanwhile, in town, the great snake was about all anyone talked about. Increasingly, folks knew they would have to protect themselves somehow against this jungle menace that had invaded northern Ohio. Such a beast simply could not be permitted to slither around the woods and fields. The chief of police was worried that some of his neighbors, nervous because of the reports of the monster serpent, might shoot each other by mistake.

What kind of snake might this Peninsula giant have been? There are in the world six true giants among the snakes. All belong to the same family of reptiles, the Boidae. Even herpetologists who spend their lives studying the snakes of the world, have had trouble arriving at a decision about which of these is truly the largest. They agree, however, that it must be either the anaconda or the reticulate python is 33 feet from nose to tip of tail. But there is a believable record of an anaconda that measured 37.5 feet. This leaves anaconda, as Clifford H. Pope, an outstanding authority on the subject, has written "probably the giant among the giants."

The boa constrictor, a little one among the giants,may go to 18.5 feet. The boa constrictor, however, is the best known of the giant serpents. It is often kept in capacity. The home of the boa is Mexico and South America.

The anaconda is also a native of South America. There it stays much of the time in the warm water, moving slowly about the dense jungle streams.

The other four giants are all pythons native to the Old World. One often housed in zoos is the African rock python which can grow to more than thirty feet in length. This snake is sometimes seen in the grasslands, its head lifted above the level of the vegetation as it examines the countryside. It is native to most of southern Africa.

Across southern Asia the Indian python is frequently found in the jungles as well as the grasslands. It may grow to be twenty feet long. Meanwhile the reticulate python crawls through the Philippine Islands, Burma, and other parts of that humid tropical region. The other monstrous snake in the line-up is also a python, the amethystine python. Sometimes this beast, whose length may go to twenty feet, departs its haunts along the stream banks to come into the villages and farms. It is a native to Australia and some of the islands of the South Pacific.

All of these massive reptiles are non-poisonous. They have little need for poison. They can subdue prey by wrapping the haples dreature in masses of snake coils and hugging it to death.

Such snakes often lurk along trails used by wild hogs, antelope, and other animals. They choose what they like from the creatures that parade by. Or they may lie silently and deathly still along the limb of giant tree that branches out ever a jungle stream, ready to drop on their victims.

In ambush the giant snakes test the air for odors. They are also equipped with heat-sensitive organs which aid them in detecting the presence of warm-blooded creatures.

When hungry, the giant snakes grabs its victim first with its jaws, The teeth curve backward. The harder a victim pulls to escape, the more deeply it is impaled and the more securely it is held. Then the snack quickly brings coils of its massive body around the animal. The opportunities to escape at this point are slight.

Some believe these huge constrictors break a multitude of bones in their victims' bodies as they hold them. This is not the case. These big snakes do not squeeze their prey with great force. With their bulky coils wrapped about the struggling creature they just hold on. Each time the prey exhales, the snake takes up the slack, making it impossible for the victim to expand and draw in fresh supplies of oxygen. It soon suffocates.

Strangely, these reptiles are capable of eating animals even larger around than their own bodies. The jaws are flexible and loosely connected. They can adjust to the situation and spread around the large prey.

The swallowing process may be a slow one. Bit by bit, the reptile inches forward, stretching its own body over that of its victim. It pulls itself onto the prey somewhat as a person might force an elastic stocking onto his leg. The snake may enter an enclosure, capture, and consume a pig or calf, then find that it is too bulky to escape through the opening by which it entered.

How big an animal can a big snake swallow? There is one report from South Africa of a python 16 feet long swallowing and impala weighing 130 pounds. In South America an anaconda once consumed a five-foot cayman, an alligator-like reptile.

Meanwhile, one Indian python is credited with making a main course of an adult leopard. The snake is said to have suffered some scratches in the process. Serves him right.

On record also are authentic cases of reticulate pythons consuming people. Four Burmese hunters once went into the jungle in pursuit of game. Along the trail they became separated from each other. When they reassembled there were not four but three. This alarmed the remaining three. They straightway set forth searching for their missing friend.

First they found his sandals beside the trail. The sandals looked as if their owner had been lifted out of them. Soon the three men found a trail of broken vegetation. Then, resting in the shadows beside the trail, they found a python at least twenty feet long. Near its middle was slain upon the hunter had been found. Somewhat late.

It would, however, be unfair to the giant snakes to imply that they often seek humans for their prey. They have distinct preferences for other warm-blooded species. In fairness, it should be noted that people also eat pythons.

All of this, however, is lost on people who find they have a giant reptile in their neighborhood. Around Long Beach, California, some years ago, there was instant pandemonium when word spread that twenty-eight-feet-long python had escaped from a traveling carnival. The reptile was soon captured near the beach. That put an early end to the possibility of a scene such as the natives of Peninsula, Ohio, enacted at the time of their great snake hunt.

Every few days the snake would be seen again around the northern Ohio community. It would then slide into the brush and out of sight. By the time a posse could be organized and reach the site, the nervous hunters would find only mashed down grass, and more big tracks. This led to the big Sunday hunt in late June.

Nobody recalls for certain how many men and boys gathered to search for the serpent. The telephone operator was alerted to pass the word of anyone should call in a report of the monster. The local fire station was expected to sound three blasts of the siren on top the town hall.

The siren sounded about noon. Just about everyone who had not already gone out on the hunt now began to join in the case. They didn't know it then, but the caller had spread a false alarm.

They searched every ravine and kicked every brush pile. They locked into the branches of trees over the river. They poked into holes. But all day there was no sign of the Peninsula python. Everyone went home tired that night. No one had been shot. Police chief Art Huey let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps so did the Peninsula python.

Where did the monster reptile come from? How did it get free halfway around the world from its native land?? Folks in northern Ohio thought about that quite a bit. They recalled the day a carnival truck went out of control down by the cemetery. Everything that was inside it had spread over an acre or more. One of the things in it was believed to have been a giant python.

By autumn the python had vanished. Naturalists from Cleveland and from other cities speculated that it might have holed up for winter along the banks of the Cuyahoga and failed to survive the frigid northern Ohio weather.

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Dragons of Komodo by G. Laycock

IN THE FAILING YELLOW LIGHT of early evening the little fishing boat rocked gently in the bay off the quiet and mysterious island. The two-man crew stared up at at the forbidding mountains. Were the tales they had heard of this place true? They were torn between two emotions, a deep curiosity and desire to go ashore to explore, and an equally deep fear of what they might find there.

This island in Indonesia, northwest of Australia,is one of the green dots of land in the blue Flores Sea. Elsewhere such island might be famous for grass=skirted girls and guitar music. But no one then lived on this island in the chain, the island of Komodo, and it was known as the home of a remarkable dragon.

Up those slopes, toward the ancient volcanic peak towering two thousand feet above the sea, stretched green carpets of vegetation. Tall lontar palms stood on the hillsides like umbrellas on their long, clean trunks. Steep-walled canyons were choked with jungle-thick brush. It must be in these tangles that the giant reptiles with their long forked tongues and glaring eyes raced about on short scaly legs, devouring other creatures.

Perhaps the pearl fisherman drifting offshore were hungry for wild foods to supplement their constant diet of fish. Maybe they thought this island might provide a good base for their fishing operations. But they must have wondered, too, if the old folk had given them the straight story or simply fed them a preposterous tall tale. There was only one way to be sure.

They dropped anchor, sloshed ashore, and began climbing. Soon they paused to rest. While they stood there, one of them reached out and silently touched the arm of his companion. He nodded toward the trail ahead. Together they stood speechless, staring at the frightening beast that had waddled from the underbrush and now blocked their path while its beady eyes were trained upon them.

There is no record of how long it took the exploring fisherman to return to their boat. But later fisherman did establish a small outpost on Komodo, the island of the dragons.

This island of Komodo is a strange and lonely place where few outsiders come. It is one of a little cluster of islands formed long ago by volcanic action, pushing steam and molten rock from the sea. The islands are known as the Lesser Sundas, and they lie like gems in the blue sea east of Java. Strong currents and rip down through the passages these islands, and these rough seas have discouraged visitors.

Komodo was not a great distance, however, from the museum in the town known today as Bogor,on Java. There the museum director, Major P.A. Ouwens, first heard the strange accounts as pearl fisherman told what they had seen on Komodo. Major Ouwens must have questioned the stories. Such tales are not easily believable. The year was 1912, and surely if there were monstrous dragons on Komodo, or anywhere else on earth for that matter, men of science would know of them by now.

On occasion, the governor of that group of islands made his rounds on inspection tour. Never had there been reason for him to stop long on Komodo. Then, Major Ouwens made his strange request.

Would the governor mind, the next time he stopped around Komodo on his inspection, going inland a bit and seeing about this dragon thing?

When the governor arrived, he found two pearl fisherman on the island. The governor even saw the remains of one of these lizards. He carried the story back to Ouwens, and the museum director was now on the trail of a new scientific discovery.

Major Ouwens decided to send an expedition to Komodo.As he made preparations for his staff to depart, he hesitated to tell anyone the objective of the trip. One could not blame him. Who would want the neighbors saying with raised eyebrows, "Did you hear about the major? He's sending an expedition they say, to search for dragon. Strange man, the major."

But what the major found from this visit to Komodo was soon to be repeated around the world, especially among scientists. Crawling on those green slopes were the creatures the world came to know as the Komodo dragons. They were cousins of the dinosaurs. Somehow they had survived through the ages into the present. They were, by far, the largest lizard anywhere on earth. One skin brought to the major measured thirteen feet.

Later others went to search for the Komodo dragons, and found them living also on the nearby island of Rintj, and a portion of Flores. Together these bits of land are but a speck on the map of the world. This is hostile country for the careless or unfortunate. Living here are deadly green vipers, cobras, wild boar, and water buffalo, while sharks and poisonous sea serpents cruise the edge of the sea.

No doubt Major Ouwens, like most of us, had been exposed to his share of dragon pictures and stories. In fairy tales any self-respecting dragon must have piercing eyes, long scaly tail, long, low body, and be should be a bit of a flame thrower, breathing fire out of his nostrils or perhaps his ears.

The Komodo dragon fell short of this on one point. It did not breathe fire. Otherwise the first one viewed by Major Ouwens possessed all the features a dragon could ask. The lizard was fully ten feet long. Later some were recorded at lengths of twelve and thirteen feet.

The head of the Komodo lizard is broad and flat and covered with scales which overlap a rugged armor. His whole body is armor plated in this way. The eyes are set well back on the sides of the head. This gives him a wide field of vision, making it difficult to sneak up on him.

Out of his mouth flicks a long forked tongue that vibrates and tests the breezes for odors of food. His mouth is blood red on the inside. It opens like a cavern as the beast tears into his food. The mouth is so wide that most of the head is jaws, and rows of sharp edged teeth line the jaws and curve backward, hooking into and holding the food securely.

Each food is equipped with five long sharp claws. These are useful in digging in the earth and also in tearing meat into bits. The tail is long and heavy and the giant lizard can flick it quickly and use it as a crushing weapon. The body is like a great wrinkled leather bag, dark bluish black with flecks of yellowish undercast around the neck and underside.

Young Komodo dragons hatch from eggs about the size of goose eggs. From this small container emerges about twenty-one inches of long, slender reptile. The young are more yellowish than their elders and at once are very active. Young Komodo lizards dash all about and can even climb trees. Half grown ones five and six feet long have been known to climb into trees and lie along the branches over hanging the jungle trail.

Most of the Komodo dragon's days and nights, however, are spent either feeding or resting. At rest he many lie quietly beside a game trail. Or he may hide in the darkness of one of the burrows he digs in the hillsides.

Because reptiles are cold blooded, these creature seek the warmth of the sun. Lying there in the open,they turn with the sun, basking and adjusting from time to time to keep themselves comfortable.

Their appetite is fearsome to consider. Their most common food is carrion. They search out the dead deer, goats, wild boars, and water buffalo, and tear them into chunks for immediate consumption. Fresh meat seems to hold less appeal for them than it does once it has begun to rot. Men who have traveled to Komodo to trap or photograph the dragon, usually begin by putting out a dead goat for bait. After the meat has been a few days in the hot sun, the lizards' flicking, forked tongues begin to pick up the strong odors.

Then they come out of the dense cover to the food. As they hold the carrion down with their broad strong feet, their mighty jaws rip the flesh apart. There is nothing dainty about the eating habits of the lizard. Into those gaping red mouths go flesh, bones,hair and anything else in the way. A large Komodo dragon can swallow the entire hind quarter of a deer or goat in a single bite, As long as the food lasts, they continue to store it away in their expanding cavernous bodies.

To watch largest of all living lizards eat carries an observer back million of years into the dim age when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Will these monsters attack live animals? "Yes," say those who have studied them. "They will attack a beast as large as a pony." Dashing out of hiding from the shadows of the trees, giant lizards grab and hang onto their victim. But large animals sometimes break away and later carry scars as evidence of their brush with death.

There are no records of a Komodo dragon having attacked a man unprovoked. The human who sees one coming can outrun it. He might even set a new track record. When a Komodo dragon is captured, it struggles and fights fiercely. It snaps and grabs at anything or anyone within reach. But a dragon can be forgiven for this.

Today there are still populations of these giant lizards crawling about on their native islands, primarily on Komodo. But their numbers have dwindled, and their future is threatened. There may be no more than a few hundred of them remaining. They are listed now on the official roster of the world's rare and endangered wildlife. With them on the same list are nearly one thousand rare birds, mammals, snakes, fish, and others. But no other dragons. That seems a shame in a world that was once rich in dragons.

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Old Mose by G. Laycock

EARLY IN THIS CENTURY the high mountain country of south-central Colorado was home to a monster with a reputation that sent chills up the spines of strong men. If word went out that "Old Mose" had been sighted, ranch wives kept their small children indoors, and men were seen to inspect their rifles with special care. All of them knew they were dealing with the biggest grizzly bear ever known in those mountains. They also knew this bear had tasted human flesh.

Under the best conditions men and grizzly bears have never been very good neighbors. This feud between man and these giant North American bears began when explorers first invaded the bear's habitat. Lewis and Clark, exploring up the Missouri Valley,met the grizzly and were amazed. Then the famous mountain men, Jim Bridger, and all the rest, had the grizzly bears for neighbors. Neighborhood relationships never did warm up between the two species. Men despised the grizzlies for killing calves, sheep, and colts, and for threatening people. But they hated the grizzly most for another reason:; the giant bears were hard to kill. Sometimes a man would have to shoot a grizzly half a dozen times. Any bear that didn't know when to lie down and die was not to be trusted.

These biggest of the bears,known for their humped backs and dish-shaped faces, once roamed over most of the western half of the United States. Rifles, traps, and poison took care of that. In the United States today, the grizzly bears are in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, and even there they stay far back in the wilderness minding their own business most of the time. But,even though they are gone from ranch country almost everywhere, stories of them are still repeated.

Right in the heart of Old Mose's former range lay the Stirrup Ranch. This spread was then owned by Wharton H. Pigg who raised cattle and horses. Mr. Pigg was first aware that the giant bear's territory overlapped with his own one day in 1982 when he came upon the bear's trail. He reined his horse to a halt to gaze at the tracks in amazement.Along this trail had walked a bear with feet bigger than dish pans and on one of them a toe was missing.

Then other ranchers and hunters began to sight the monstrous grizzly elsewhere along the mountain range. All agreed that this must be a bear larger than they had ever seen, a frightening monster. This bear obviously deserved a name, and someone called him "Old Mose".

Indications are that Old Mose might have been young in those days. He lived on for enough years to cause more trouble than anyone really needed. He became a champion at robbing corrals. By the size of his foot and that missing toe ranchers were always able to tell when the giant grizzly had paid a visit.

As long as Old Mose lived, Mr. Pigg pursued him. He learned to understand the bear's habit. It seems likely that Old Mose also learned to understand the schemes dreamed up by Mr. Pigg. At any rate, over the years, they periodically tracked each other. Each, perhaps, was aware that a close confrontation would bring both into mortal danger.

As the years rolled by, the bear's transgression increased. He had a fondness for fresh meat. Nobody knows how many head a stock he killed during his lifetime. The records reveal that he killed at least three full-grown bulls.

Killing a steer, or even a horse, was no big thing for Old Mose. A single swat with one of those powerful front feet would send the creature into the hereafter.A slashing bite in the neck would guarantee the job.

These crimes were truly bad in ranching country. But old Mose soon earned an even more notorious reputation. The bear had been leading the good life in the vicinity of Black Mountain through the summer and into the fall of 1883. He was a loner, traveling wherever the urge took him. Sometimes he would turn up the sod, seeking tender roots of plants. Other times he would pause to harvest wild berries or snack on grubs. But a body that big needs considerable food, and whenever hunger grew strong enough,Old Mose turned his thoughts to food that came in large servings. Ranchers found the remains of several cows during those months.

Meanwhile the fame of Old Mose was spreading. There is a rule that guides the destinies of bounty hunters who pursue lawbreakers.The more famous the outlaw, the braver seems the man who shoots him. More and more men now dreamed of bringing Old Mose down. So three men set forth one autumn day to seek Old Mose in the high country. One of them was Jake Ratcliff. Jack fancied himself to be one big bear hunter.

For several days they hunted for sign of the giant grizzly. They watched for restless cattle. They studied the remains of carcasses. They watched for giant foot-prints.

Then, late one afternoon, they found exactly what they were seeking. Old Mose had taken his meal from the carcass of a steer, still warm where it had fallen.And around the kill were the unmistakable prints of the mammoth bear. Various trails led from the spot and the three men split up to see if one of them could rout the grizzly. One of them did.

The trail followed by Jake Ratcliff led to a bear-sized hole in the side of the hill. Outside the hole was a mound of fresh earth to tell Jake that a bear had been here shortly before.

Jake noticed that he was shaking slightly. A strange chill chased up his spine, and he made a conscious effort to control his nerves. Jake had heard no noise and as far as he knew the breeze had not carried scent of his presence to the bear's sensitive nose. Or perhaps the grizzly had slipped off through the woods unnoticed.This would have been a lucky break for Jack Ratcliff.

Instead, Jake, moving quietly, soon spotted the massive bear. Quickly, he raised his rifle to his shoulder, aimed and fired, and the bullet struck the huge body.But nothing happened. All the bullets Ratcliff fired failed to bring the monster to the earth.

From deep in the massive throat of the grizzly there came a horrible roar and then Old Mose turned upon the man. He charged down upon Ratcliff at full speed. Heavy brush will scarcely slow an enraged bear. Where he wanted to go, the underbrush parted. It was as if a tank were rumbling through. Before Ratcliff could get his feet in motion the bear was breathing in his face.

Old Mose reached for Ratrcliff and threw him into the air like a mouse tossed by a cat. Experienced outdoorsmen know that the best defense when attacked by a bear is to lie perfectly still, and hope the bear leaves. Ratcliff, still conscious, now lay motionless and silent. Old Mose began to move off.

Finally the mutilated hunter, thinking the bear had gone, lifted his head ti inspect the scene. This was all the clue Old Mose needed. Filled with pain from the bullets he carried, he had stood off to one side watching and waiting, and now leaped in once more on the man who hurt him.

When the other hunters arrived they found Ratcliff still breathing.But Oldose had finished his job. Jake Ratcliff died beforemorning.

Now Old Mose had really done it! He was guilty of the unforgivable. Word flashed across Colorado. The state had a killer grizzly on its hands. Every time the story was repeated the bear grew bigger,his exploits more daring.

But the giant grizzly had many active years ahead of him. Men tried every trick they could think of to succeed where Jake Ratcliff had failed.

If they set a trap, Old Mose would study it.If the trap had somehow been sprung, he would consume the bait before wandering on. But if the trap were still set, he would walk around it, leaving it untouched.

Mr. Pigg had another idea. He had observed that Old Mose sometimes went to the lake where he splashed and played in the cold water.Mr. Pigg waited until about time for the old bear to make his rounds of the mountain again.

When Old Mose arrived at the shore of the lake, there hidden in the shallow water, was a giant steel trap.The water masked out the man odor. Old Mose was not thinking of a trap as he splashed into the lake.He had no experience to tell him there was danger in the water.

Then he felt the trap spring. The monstrous bear leaped back, and with his lightning-fast reflexes almost escaped the trap completely. But the giant still jaws had clamped shut on two toes of his right foot.

At that moment the son of local rancher slipped down to the lake's edge and peered through the aspen.What he saw sent him flying back to find Mr.Pigg. "Old Mose is down there all right," he yelled as he came up to Mr. Pigg," right down there in the water caught in that trap sure as anything."

All men within hearing reached for their guns. The rumble of horses' hoofs sounded like a charger of cavalry. At last they had Old Mose, the killer grizzly, had him right where they wanted him. That's what they thought. By the time they reached the lake the massive bear had pulled free of the trap, leaving behind a part of this foot.

Old Mose went right,on killing livestock. Bears have to eat. If he found a fence between himself and a calf, he might tear down the fence. If he found a colt in a corral, his method was to knock the corral down.

Year after year, Mr. Pigg and other hunters went into the mountains to test their skill. Some say that after finishing off Jake Ratcliff Old Mose killed other men, maybe three or four them. If a human body was found anywhere within the old bear's range, Old Mose got the credit.

One of the newspapers of the day quoted and old-time rancher. "The stockmen of his country were in fear of their lives on account of this big bear. There were two or three men that had gone to the hills to look for him.They never returned and their bodies were never recovered."

Finally J. W. Anthony set out to find Old Mose. Mr. Anthony, who had killed many bears in his lifetime, had a pack of hounds that did his trailing. One April day in 1904, he and Mr.Pigg set off together to seek Old Mose. Anthony came upon the bear first. His dogs had surrounded the monster in an aspen grove.

Mr. Anthony's mind flashed back to other bears he had hunted. All were small when compared with the giant that now stood snarling and roaring before him.

Then the first bullet struck the bear. Old Mose wheeled about and rushed down upon the hapless Jake Ratcliff. When Old Mose was only three feet away, Mr. Anthony fired again. The shot hit the giant between the eyes. Old Mose suddenly fell and died.

All that Old Mose ever wanted was to go where he chose, eat what he liked, and not be hassled. But he belonged to a species for which three was no longer space in the West. And besides, he had a special problem; he was a monster.

Men arrived to drag the huge body back to Stirrup Ranch. They figured the bear weighed half a ton. The hide was mine feet four inches long and nine and a half feet wide.

One scientists,who later studied the brain of Old Mose, concluded that the size of his brain was not very big considering the bulk of his body. But for more than twenty years the giant bear had been a match for every man who pursued him.

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Unbelievable Fish by G. Laycock

ON DECEMBER DAY in 1938 the captain and crew of a fishing trawler were had at work off the southern coast of Africa. Day after day, this business was the same. Set out the nets. Pull in the nets. Sort the fist.Haul them back to town on the mainland, shell them, then get ready to go out again.

During his years of commercial fishing the captain had brought up into the African sunlight every species of fish he could think of. There had been little fish, big fish, dull-colored creatures, and others to rival the rainbow. The captain believed,in fact, that he had seen about everything there was to see from down there in the deepening shadows.

But on this December day there was strange fish, out of the past, crawling, sluggishly on the bottom some 250 feet beneath the surface.It watched the sleek forms of other fish that swam by, and its large muscular too close.

If the antique creature, half crawling and half swimming about on the ocean floor, had been a little faster be might have evaded the net. The net, stretching out through the water, moved closer and closer until there was no longer any way to escape it, and the next thing the creature realized it was being rolled and tumbled along by a force too strong to fight. Smaller fish were now all around him, but he had forgotten his hunger.

When the net full of fish was dumped out, the crew looked over the catch. Hundreds of fish were wiggling and squirming there in one pile. Then a crewman spotted the strange large fish the net had scooped off the ocean floor.

The captain saw it, scratched his grizzled chin, and shook his head in bewilderment. Nobody in the crew could recall seeing anything to match this one. Steel blue in color, the monster fish had large scales, weighed 125 pounds, and was 5 feet long. The crew members soon found that the fish was still alive. If they put a hand too close to its gaping jaws, it grabbed for them with those snapping sharp teeth.It lived four more hours.

By then the captain had decided that the he would take this strange creature to the museum when he reached port. Perhaps the curator,Miss Courtenay-Latimer, could tell him what manner of creature be had dredged from the bounty of the sea.

By the time the trawler docked the fish was three days dead.The smell was something a person simply had to adjust to. The fish was so far gone that the museum curator could save only its skin and skull.

Miss Courtenay-Latimer was puzzled. But one who would surely know was Professor J.L.B. Smith. Professor Smith was located at the Albany Museum twenty-five miles west in Grahamstown. Miss Courtenay-Latimer sent off a wire to Professor Smith.A few days later Miss Courtenay-Latimer led him to the refrigerator in which she had stored the puzzling remains.

The story of fish, a Professor Smith and others of his profession know,goes back through the geologic ages to the very beginning of vertebrate life. Some of the story has been read in the record of the rocks were science has found clues in the fossils. Ancient and extinct creatures, washed into muddy deltas and buried in swamps, have had their forms preserved. By studying the rocks, layer by layer, scientists have unraveled the mysteries. From present back into the past, deeper and deeper, the trails lead. Not long ago there were the mastodons and the saber-toothed tigers, giant sloths, and giant beaver. These were early representatives of the mammals.

Back beyond the mammals there were the ages during which bird evolved, and further still the times when reptiles,including the giant dinosaurs, ruled the earth.

Millions of years before that, however, no vertebrate animals at all yet lived on land. All life was in the sea, and fishes were evolving from lower creatures. One step in this rise of animals has long drawn the attention of scientists. This is the mystery of how creatures of the seas finally came out onto land to live. which of the fish fathered the land dwellers? What manner of creature ventured from those ancient seas millions of years ago to wander among the giant ferns and primitive plants?

One of the scientist who had studied this giant step in the animal kingdom was Professor Smith. He knew what the fossils had told science. Especially he knew about a group of ancient fish that scientists called "Coelacanths".

Hundreds of fossils of Coelacanths had already been dug up, stored in museums, studied, and written about in the annals science. Many scientists were agreed, as they still are, that is was the group that gave rise to the land creatures. From some pioneering branch of the Coelacanth's family had emerged individuals able to adapt to life on land. Maybe in those changing ages, ponds dried and individuals struggling to locate new waters managed short, then longer trips over land. This is speculation.

So complete were fossils of the Coelacanth that scientists in their laboratories managed to unravel much of the story of this fish of long ago. It had, even in those days, scales the overlapped like shingles, a perfectly good design still found on today's fish. It possessed, most interestingly of all perhaps, strange stumps connecting its fin to its body. The short stumps reminded scientists of beginning legs, and it was easy to see that the fins of these primitive fish must have been used for crawling around the floor of the sea.

When scientists discussed Coelacanths they spoke of them in the past tense. All evidence pointed toward a story that ended millions of years ago. Saber-toothed tigers were gone. Mammoths were gone. Dinosaurs were gone. Thousands of species had evolved, flourished, then passed on, extinct and largely forgotten. The Coelacanth, according to the record of the rocks, had lived two hundred million years before the dinosaurs. They had lived in many parts of the world from South America,Africa, Europe, and Greenland. But they had started on their downward trail at least one hundred million years ago. The youngest fossil remains of them were judge to be seventy million years old. No wonder scientists spoke of the Coelacanth as history. Any creature that has been gone for seventy million years is extinct indeed. The marvel of it was that scientists million of years knew almost exactly what the Coelacanth looked like when it was still crawling about the seas.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, Miss Courtenay-Latimer opened the refrigerator, removed the remains, and looked questioningly at the learned Professor Smith. Slowly there spread across his countenance a strange expression. He left as if he had stepped into a time capsule and been whisked back through the history of the earth ten million years, twenty million, seventy million. Before him was the remains of a true Coelacanth. Only days before it had been alive, crawling about on the bottom of the sea.

Understandably, when word of this identification flashed out from South Africa to scientists around the world, many were stunned. Some frankly did not believe it. The Coelacanth was extinct. It had been extinct all those million of the years. And that was that. But the story was soon confirmed.

This set in motion one of the most heartbreaking searches in all the world of natural history. In the following weeks Professor Smith wanted, more than anything else in the world, to have another Coelacanth. He wanted one that was whole so specialists could study its organs and structure part by part. What facts such a specimen might reveal!

First, Professor Smith asked him self where in the world men might stand the best opportunity of finding more of these strange creatures. A scientist experienced in the study of fish can, by looking at the outside of a fish, tell something of the kind of world it inhabits. The Coelacanth was no exception. Those strong scales would be protection against rough rocky ledges. The creature was obviously a slow mover, not a speeding, streamlined fish. Therefore the Coelacanth probably did not capture its prey by out maneuvering the fish it ate. Instead, Professor Smith surmised, it must lurk like a demon in the shadows of rocky crevices, waiting for prey to swim by.

On the other hand there was every reason to believe the Coelacanth would take a fisherman's baited hook. Why then, in a part of the world where fisherman worked the waters every day in their perpetual search for food, had people not caught these creature? The Coelacanth must live in deep waters. Deep waters, rough rocky ledges, places where the trawler had taken the strange fish.

This set Professor Smith to thinking abouyt the whole east coast of Africa. Where, along that stretch of land, were the reefs and deep waters that might harbor more Coelacanths? He had the advantage of knowing this section of the world thoroughly from his own studies. Northward toward the Equator, along the shore of Madagaskar, around such island groups as the Comores, those were the places to concentrate in the search.

Next the professor wrote a circular showing a drawing of the Coelacanth and offering a reward of one hundred pounds (about eight hundred dollars) to anyone whocould bring him one. "Look carefully at this fish," the circular told thousands of fisherman along the coast and through the islands,"it may bring you good fortune. If you have the good fortune to catch or find one, do not cut or clean it any way but get it whole at once to a cold storage."

Hopefully, thousands of these circulars were distributed along the coast. The months dragged into years. Professor Smith never gave up. Somewhere there had to be more Coelacanths.His search continued.

Fourteen years passed. Ahmed Hussein had been fishing, as he often did,with hook and line about two hundred yards of the shore. He struggled to bring a tremendous fish into his boat. Next day he took it to town to the market place and offered it for sale,hoping someone wanted a fish so large and fat.

But one of his friends in the market showed him a wrinkled scrap of paper, a copy of Professor Smith's circular. Together they studied the picture. Hussein became more and more excited.

Some days later, in a special airplane supplied by the government, Professor Smith arrived. There on the deck of a friend's ship was a box with the contents packed in soft materials.

The professor was too nervous to unwrap the fish, and the crew laid back the covering.By then the professor was on his knees beside the box. He took one quick look at the magnificent antique fish. The long search was ended. "I'm not ashamed," the professor later wrote, "to say that I wept. It was a Coelacanth."

During the next few years others were found, and scientists in their laboratories studied these links with lost age.

What they learned only strengthened their earlier conclusions. This was not, as some said, the exact creature that had adapted to walk on land and led to reptiles, birds, and all other land vertebrates, including man, but it was of the same family.

There had been many kinds of Coelacanths. They had been much alike wherever they lived throughout the world. Even these that had changed from those ancient fossil forms. A member of this family had bridged the gap between the animals of land and sea.

In the world of science, the Coelacanths has been hailed as the greatest biological discovery of of the century.

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The Mystery of Loch Ness by G. Laycock

THERE LIVES, a gigantic monster, in a beautiful lake in the Highlands of Scotland. It has come to the surface just often enough to puzzle and frighten people of the region and keep them speculating about this identity of their monster. By now more than one thousand people claim to have seen the mysterious serpent believed to dwell in the depths of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness is a beautiful place for a monster to live. The lake,long, narrow, and deep, is flanked by high green hills where dew and fog and frequent rains keep the blankets of lush vegetation dripping with moisture. Clouds pile up in the valleys. From the high vantage points travelers sometimes look down, not only on the loch, but on the clouds as well. The centuries have not robbed this magic scene of its sense of loneliness and quiet. Beside the lake stand ancient abandoned castles. Nearby is an age-old monastery, and people living around the lake occupy the lands their ancestors held.

For twenty-three miles Loch Ness stretches along its valley. It connect with the sea through the River Ness. Within the river a system of navigation locks permits passage of boats from salt water into fresh, and some say provides opportunity as well for a traveling sea serpent to slip in and out as the mood strikes. It would, of course, not be the only creature to live part of its life in salt water into freshwater streams for spawning are classified as anadromous. The lake is scarcely more than a mile wide through most of its length but goes down to a depth of 754 feet.

These waters are stained dark brown from draining through beds of peat en route to the lake. One can not peer more than a few feet into the dim hidden world beneath the surface. Therefore observes must depend on this serpent to come to the surface, or out on land, if they ever to see it.

Many do not believe.The Loch Ness monster, they sometimes hint, is not in there at all. This, in fact,is what William Brodie, captain of a steam tug operating on the lake, used to think. "Humbug," said Captain Brodie, "Loch Ness monster indeed!"

Then one summer afternoon in 1938, when his tug was pushing along steadily across the fog-shrouded lake, there appeared out of the depths a creature unknown to all on board. For a short distance it swam along beside the tugboat. It was long and slender, and humps on its back stuck out of the water as the humps of a sea serpent are supposed to do.

Next the creature turned on the power, spurted ahead of the boat, and finally dived. A short time later it appeared again for out in front, still increasing its lead on the sluggish boat where Captain Brodie stood wide-eyed on the bridge.

The captain has joined the believers. "There can," he is quoted as saying,"be no doubt of the monster's existence."

Others who have been startled by sight of the creature hasten to agree. For example, there was a motorcyclist named Grant who, some years ago, swas speeding along the north shore road beside Loch Ness in the darkness of night. Suddenly, in the beam of his headlight there emerged from the woods a creature such as he had never before witnessed. Nobody wants to go crashing willy-nilly into a monster, and Mr.Grant maneuvered skillfully to avoid the collision.

Just why a sea serpent should cross the road is one of the big mysteries. To explain it away simply by saying that it "......wants to get on the other side," seems hardly adequate. But the Loch Ness monster has been reported on other occasions too, as coming out of the water to make its way overland for short distances. Mr. Grant reported that as he caught the form of the creature in the light of his cycle, it made two bounds and cleared the road, then quickly sloshed back into Loch Ness, there to vanish beneath the foaming surface. It was, had a small head, beady eyes, long slender neck, and appeared to be dark and slimy.

Another report of the Loch Ness monster being out of its water came from John McKay. Mr McKay operated a hotel nearby and one one spring evening in 1933 was out driving with his wife over the newly completed road along the north shore of the lake. There in plain sight was "Nessie" as folks around Loch Ness have come to know their sea serpent.The creature at once dived into the lake.

Later Mr.McKay reported to a local newspaper what he and his wife had seen.The story spread rapidly. The Loch Ness monster became world famous in the years that followed. Books have since been written about it. Countless newspaper account have told of its appearances. Expeditions have been mounted to unravel the mystery. Meanwhile around Loch Ness, and throughout Scotland, people have divided into three camps.There are those who believe, those who doubt, and those who keep an open mind.

Nessie has been around a longtime. For hundreds of years there have been stories around Loch Ness of the monster that roams the depths of the lake.It was written centuries ago that a "certain water monster" was driven away by prayer. But the effects of the prayer apparently were temporary.

Over the years legends about the sea serpent were passed down from generation to generation.It is said in one such legend to have killed a man. Folks around the loch have long felt that the creature might reappear at any moment.

But not until again by Mr. McKay in 1933 did Nessie rise to true prominence. As the story, more people began watching for the monster. People who want to see a monster stand a far better chance than those who do not care one way or the other. This is more in the nature of people than monsters.

Perhaps no monster has ever done more for people anywhere than has the Loch Ness monster. Living or dead, real or not, it has to be the valuable creature ever possessed by the Scottish people. Those who have come seeking it have brought a new source of wealth to the country.

As the stories of Nessie spread around the world the people of Scotland began to notice a strange and wonderful result. Curious tourist now planned their travels to include the Highlands of Scotland and Loch Ness, home of the world's best-known sea serpent. From all parts of the world they come now to the town of Inverness.

Many of them board the Scott II and travel out onto the lake, sharing for a few hours the mystery-shrouded environment of the serpent's ancient home. The Scott II makes three trips daily. From Inverness it goes to about the middle of the lake,turns, and comes back to its dock. Lining its rails are the curious ones.

Many insist that they do not believe the tales of the sea serpent, that they come only because they have for so long wanted to see the Highlands and hear the strains of the bagpipes moaning with the winds.

But instead of looking up to the hills, their eyes more often are turned down upon the dark waters of Loch Ness. Cameras hang from their necks. Binoculars are ready in their hands. These are the ones who do not know quite what to believe. What did John McKay really see? What was this strange unnatural creature sighted by Captain Brodie and so many others? How could it have been seen so many times and not be there? Surely there is the possibility that all the people living around the lake, the ones who insist, "There has to be something out there," may be right. And so the visitors hopefully study the rippling waters of Loch Ness.

Some outsiders have devised elaborate plans for capturing or killing the beast and transporting it to a museum, zoo,or circus. A giant giant electronic net has been suggested, and so has the possibility of shooting it from a submarine. In efforts to prevent monster poaching, officials have passed regulations, perhaps the only rules in the world against the harming of a sea serpent.

Most who come to study the mystery of Scotland's sea serpent, however, have no plans to harm it. They seek only truth, the opportunity to solve for good the centuries-old mystery.

Some come in groups with camping equipment. Above the loch they set up their tents and post serpent watchers. Some have made pictures of strange forms appearing on the lake. One of the most famous pictures shows a long slender neck, small head, part of the tail, all attached to a large balloon-like body.

Perhaps no one has studied the Loch Ness monster more than Tim Dinsdale has. For long days and weeks he wandered the shores of Loch Ness. He carried cameras and binoculars and possessed a grim determination to prove that the monster does exist. His hunt for the creature is outlined in his two books on the subject. He has little patience with the non-believers, especially the men of science who steadfastly refuse to join the search for the serpent of Loch Ness. Dinsdale says the simply ignore the facts.

The case for a sea serpent in Loch Ness is strengthened, according to fans of Nessie, by the appearance of similar creatures in other parts of the world. For example, there is the monster of Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, in western Canada. This lake, in some ways resembles Loch Ness, long,narrow, and almost as deep, with cold water and good population of fish. There have also been frequent reports of a monstrous serpent living in a lake in Manitoba in central Canada.

Perhaps if science would apply its efforts to the search for the Loch Ness monster the mystery might be solved. So far most of the work has been done, not by scientists, but by amateur monster hunters. Most of the serious work has been co-ordinated by the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau Ltd.

More than once there has been the suggestion that sonar is the tool for finding Nessie. Sonar is a method of using electronics to study what lies beneath the surface of water. It was developed during World War II for tracking submarines. Electric impulse are sent into the water. Converted to sound waves, they travel trough the water spreading out into a broad cone as they leave the source.

When one of these waves strikes any obstacle under water, the impulse bounces back like an echo to be measured by the instrument that sent it. The length of time taken for it to return tells the depth of the object. The bottom of the lake will reflect the sound but so will obstacles appearing between the surface and the lake bottom. In addition, the sonar reveals the depth, size, and movement of whatever is down there.

In 1968 a scientific party moved in on Nessie with electronic locators. In due time the results were published in the New Scientist, a respect British scientific journal.

Engineers in a research team from the University of Birmingham set up their equipment on the store of Loch Ness. Then, as the impulses traveled through the cold depths of Loch Ness, engineer Dr. Gordon Tucker carefully studied the screen of the sonar outfit.

Flickering signals began to echo to the machine. Together they told Tucker a fascinating story and opened a new possibility. There was, as the folks around Loch Ness had long insisted, something down there, and plainly it was not a wee monster. For 13 minutes two large objects had their images reflected as the signals were photographed on movie film. One was about 164 feet long,the other, somewhat smaller.

Did the image of these monsters move on the screen? Definitely! Their speed was about17 miles an hour,and they dived at a rate of 450 feet per minute.

After these observations the research team quickly consulted with biologists who know the common fish of Loch Ness. Could a school of fish have caused this kind of signal? The answer was "not likely", and this to many observers was new evidence that Nessie might after all be real.

But if the Loch Ness monster does live, what in the world could it be? Investigators over the years have advanced two favored explanations. Some say it is the larvae of a giant eel.

Others insist that Nessie must be one of an ancient group of reptiles known as Plesiosaurs are believed to have become extinct seventy million years ago. Perhaps it is just as well that we do not yet know for certain whether or not Loch Ness has a real monster.

Those who claim Nessie belongs to the Plesiosaurs might point out that scientists have been surprised before when they found "extinct" creatures still surviving. The best known example is the Coelacanth.

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