 Chapter 14 of The Mentor II. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Siobhan McKelpen. The Mentor II by Various. Chapter 14. Game Animals of America by W. T. Hornaday. Department of Natural History. Game Preservation. The most striking and melancholy feature in connection with American big game is the rapidity in which it has vanished. When, just before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the rifle-bearing hunters of the backwoods first penetrated the great forests west of the Alleghenies. Deer, elk, black bear, and even buffalo swarmed in what are now the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. And the country north of the Ohio is a great and almost virgin hunting ground. From that day to this, the shrinkage has gone on, only partially checked here and there. There is yet ample opportunity for the big game hunter in the United States, Canada, and Alaska. It is necessary to remember that these opportunities are, nevertheless, vanishing. And if we are sensible people, we will make it our business to see that the process of extinction is arrested. At the present moment, the great herds of caribou are being butchered, as in the past the great herds of bison and wapiti have been butchered. Every believer in manliness, and therefore in manly sport, and every lover of nature, every man who appreciates the majesty and beauty of the wilderness and of wildlife, should strike hands with the far-sighted men who wish to preserve our material resources in the effort to keep our forests and our game beasts, game birds, and game fish. Indeed, all of the living creatures of the prairie and woodland and seashore from wanton destruction. From outdoor pastimes of an American hunter by Theodore Roosevelt, copyright Charles Schreiber's sons. Game animals of America Does anyone doubt that in North America, the hunting of big game, once marvelously abundant, is fast becoming an extinct pastime? As a game animal, the American bison is gone. In the United States, antelope hunting is gone forever. The Arizona elk is totally extinct. In the United States, mountain sheep hunting is extinct in all states, save too, and it should be so in those also. Mountain goat hunting is possible in two states only. It is now next to impossible to find and kill a wild grizzly in the United States. There are many persons, of whom I am one, who believe that in a brief span of years, there will be no big game hunting in the mountain states west of the Great Plains, save around the borders of big game sanctuaries such as Yellowstone Park. With the exception of the bison and the Arizona elk, we may even yet see in our mountain states good specimens of some of the big game species that abundantly stalked them in pioneer days. We are glad that we live contemporaneously with colossal moose and the unique antelope. We rejoice that we are on terms of intimacy with the lordly elk and that we have a bowing acquaintance with the goat and the sheep. We cherish the thought that we have seen real grizzly bears on their native rocks and also that we have done our bit, as the English say, and saving the great American bison from oblivion. It is not good for red-blooded men to live in a land that contains no big game. It sounds effeminate. To correct such a condition as that, the New Zealanders took thought and colonized in their country the European red deer, and that species has wax numerous and produced tens of thousands of deer for food and for sport. North America has produced a good quota of big game species, but in that line of native industry we are far surpassed by Asia and by Africa we are left completely out of sight. Really, Africa seems to have been created as an ideal home for big game. Her array of apes, antelopes, carnivores and thick-skinned beasts compels unbounded admiration. While our game endures, let us make much of it and appreciate it to the utmost. And it is not all of game enjoyment to kill it and cut off its head and let the bulk of the meat go into the discard. The highest type of big game hunting is the finding of fine animals in their haunts, photographing them moveably and unmovable, and then bidding them go in peace. To be really and truly ignorant of such distinguished American citizens as the moosekin moscocks, caribou, sheep and goat, antelope, deer and Alaskan brown bear is reprehensible and should be punishable by a fine. Many wild animals are more interesting per capita than some men. To learn and know our best wild animals is like annexing new territory. It increases our mental and moral resources and provides a new channel for the disposition of surplus wealth. Like Cupid's story, they never seem to grow old and as long as one hoof or horn remains as a growing concern, just that long our interest continues in the wearer thereof. The most interesting side of every wild animal is its mind, what it thinks and why. First of all, however, we must know the personality of our animal and be able to speak its name promptly as the politician names his voting acquaintances. To call an antelope a deer is to lose a vote. The saving of big game. The characteristic features of America's big game animals are to be treated as natural history. The wasteful slaughter of them is an unnatural history. Ever since the days of Daniel Boone, the American pioneers and exploiters of nature's resources have most diligently been exterminating our bison, elk, deer, moose, antelope, sheep and goats. For 20 years we have been toiling to save the American bison from total extinction. Thanks to the efforts of the United States and Canadian governments, the New York Zoological Society and the American Bison Society, the buffalo now is secure against extinction. Our government now owns and maintains six herds, having a total of about 570 head, and the Canadian government owns about 1,600 head. Our chief hope is based on the herd in the Montana National Bison Reserve, now containing 134 head, living in a rich pasture of 29 square miles, capable of supporting 1,000 bison without the purchase of a pound of hay. That herd has risen from 37 head, presented in 1909 by the American Bison Society. The Wichita and Wind Cave National Herds were founded by herds drawn from the New York Zoological Park and presented by the Zoological Society. Accepting for the whitetail deer and the elk, it is today a grave question whether there will be any big game hunting in the United States 20 years hence. The pronghorned antelope. It is now painfully certain that never more will there be any hunting of the pronghorned antelope in our country. There has been none for several years, but for all that, the remaining bands are everywhere, save in two localities, reported as steadily diminishing. Even in Yellowstone Park, the antelope herds are now but little better than stationary. Accepting the goat and musk ox, the pronghorn is North America's most exclusively American species of big game. It is so very odd that it occupies a family all alone. It is the only living hollow horned ruminant that sheds its horns every year. But this nimble-footed rover is not fitted to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, AD 1916. It has no more staying power than a French poodle, and it wilts and dies literally at the first breath of adversity. It will not breed in captivity, nor does it live long in any kind of confinement. It is subject to an incurable mouth disease called lumpy jaw, and will secretly and joyously carry the unseen germs of it for six months for the purpose of passing quarantine and inoculating an innocent herd in some unsuspecting zoological park. Half a dozen western states have little isolated bands of antelope that they are trying to preserve, but all saved too are steadily diminishing. In the Montana and Wichita bison ranges, 29 and 14 square miles, efforts are being made to establish herds. Canada is making two large prairie preserves under fence, especially for the purpose of saving the antelope from extinction. Taking all these efforts together, there is a fighting chance that the species eventually will be saved from oblivion, but at present the odds are very much against it. As a sport with the rifle, however, legitimate, prong-horned antelope hunting is already as extinct as mammoth spearing on glacial ice. Mountain sheep. Over the rocky mountain sheep, there is a halo of glamour that is to every big game hunter a veritable cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Standing out conspicuously apart from all other American hoofed game, the big horned thrills and challenges the gentlemen sportsmen as no other big game does at this time. There are fashions even in the hunting of big game. A sportsman will go farther, spend more, and endure more to get a big ram as a trophy of his manhood in the chase than for any other species. Why is it? It is because the old big horned rams are found where the scenery is grandest and most inspiring. They are the keenest of eye, nose, and ear of all our big game, and hunting them successfully means real mountaineering. In Africa, a lady can kill a big elephant, but in the rocky mountains, ladies do not kill big horn rams with the rings of eight or ten years on their horns. There are times when hunting the mountain goat becomes sport for men, but many a goat has been killed by an easy fluke. The old big horn ram, with horns that are worthwhile, requires real hunting, and many a man has taken the long trail for one and gone back empty handed. I should be mighty sorry to see sheep hunting become an extinct pastime. For ye gods, it is the acme of sport with big game. Elephant hunting, in India at least, is tame by comparison. Colorado has proved through 26 years of watchful waiting that to any mountain sheep state, sheep can be brought back by protection. 26 years ago, the sheep of that state were reduced to a dangerously small remnant of only a few hundred head. Then the lid was put on, sheep hunting was forbidden, and, strange to say, even the residents of the sheep mountains elected to observe the law and also to help enforce it. The result is a great triumph in protection, to which the commonwealth of Colorado points with pride. Today that state contains a grand total of 7,482 sheep, and today the wild herds come down into the streets of Array to be admired and fed on hay and photographed. And last September, when an urgent official request came to the state game warden for permission to kill six of Colorado's mountain sheep for scientific purposes, the proposal was declared impossible without precipitating a riot of the populace. The true bighorn ranges all the way from Pinacate Peak in northwest Sonora, old Mexico, northward to about latitude 56 in British Columbia and western Alberta. On the hot, black lava slopes of Pinacate, fearfully lacking in vegetation, the sheep grow small. The species culminates in southwestern Alberta from the Waterton Lakes to Wilcox Pass. The biggest head ever shot by a gentleman sportsman, so far as I know, had horns with a circumference of 17 and three-quarters inches, and the lucky hunter was Mr. A.P. Proctor, the wild animal sculptor. In the United States, there are 11 states that still contain wild examples of mountain sheep, but in some cases the total number to a state is painfully small. New Mexico contains only 23 head. Sheep hunting is totally prohibited and all our states save two, Wyoming and Washington. No, good reader, mountain sheep do not jump off precipices in a light safely on their horns. They never did and they never will. Their necks are just as breakable as ours are. Mountain goat. In oddity and picturesqueness, the white mountain goat and the moose are rivals, and it is hard to say which species is entitled to the championship. Fortunately for him, the goat is not much sought by white men as food. Its head is not inordinately prized as a trophy, and therefore he will survive on his wild and awesome summits long after the last sheep head has gone to graze some hunter's den, and its flesh has been devoured by the golden eagles. The mountain goat looks a bit like a snowy white pygmy buffalo with small black horns and long shaggy hair. It carries its head low and its stick-like legs give it a stilted and awkward gait. Its shoulders, neck, and hindquarters are covered with long, coarse hair, and when the animal is seen on a mountain top, the first thought is how very white it is. I have compared a clean goat's skin with a snowbank, and the latter had only one small point the advantage. The goat's hair shows just a very faint tinge of pale yellow. Rocky Mountain Goat The real home of the Rocky Mountain Goat is British Columbia, Alberta, and Southern Alaska, but detachments are even yet found sparingly in Northwestern Montana, Idaho, and Washington. The species should be introduced in the Montana National Bison Range, the Yellowstone Park, and a dozen other places, particularly in Washington and Oregon. It has plenty of stamina, it breeds successfully in captivity, and I believe it can survive and thrive in any mountain region that is sufficiently cold and dry. It cannot endure rain in winter. Everywhere in the United States where this remarkable species still survives, it should at once be given complete protection. In Glacier Park, it is now almost a common occurrence for visitors to see wild mountain goats. I saw two myself near the Sperry Glacier in 1909, and the flocks are undoubtedly more numerous today. Mentally and temperamentally in the Mountain Goat is a remarkable animal. It seems to have no nerves. Under no circumstances does a goat lose its head until it has been shot. Only a few months ago, December 25, 1915, two badly rattled whitetail deer jumped off the Croton Lake Railroad Bridge on the Putton Railroad near New York, a distance down of about 40 feet, and both were killed by the leap. Two mountain goats would not have done that. They would have stood pat to the last second and waited to see what the locomotive really meant to do. Deer and sheep are hysterical animals, and when cornered will leap off ledges to certain death, but the goat never. He stands at bay and calmly waits to see what will happen. That's why Mr. John M. Phillips, State Game Commissioner of Pennsylvania, was able in 1905 at the risk of his life to obtain at a distance of eight feet the surpassingly fine photograph shown herewith. Considering it in every way, I think it is the finest wild animal photograph I have ever seen, and surely one of the best that has ever been made. I believe that the mountain goat will be the last of the big game species of the open mountains of North America to be exterminated by man. The sheep, moose, caribou, and muskox will go long in advance of the ubiquitous goat. In protected areas like Glacier Park and the Elk River Game Preserve of southeast British Columbia, the species should endure for a century or perhaps for two centuries. Why not? In such protected sanctuaries, they should finally increase to such an extent that the natural overflow will make legitimate goat hunting in the surrounding mountains. I should be sorry to see goat hunting become a lost art, for it is mighty fascinating, provided you stop with two goats and can return with a clear conscience. The caribou. Europe and Asia have the reindeer, but North America has a truly grand array of caribou species. In size and geography, they range all the way from the absurd little peary caribou of Elzmir land, which looks like a goat with deer enters upon it, to the giant of the Cassiair Mountains, known as Osborne's caribou. Roughly speaking, our North American species are divided by their antlers into two groups, the woodland and the barren ground. The important species of the latter are the Greenland caribou, the peary, the barren ground, the Grant and the Kenai. Of the woodland group, the leading species are the Newfoundland, Canadian, black-faced and Osborne's. The gravure shown herewith is a very fine presentation of the Canadian woodland species from an oil painting by Carl Runjes, now owned by the Dukin Club, Pittsburgh. Elk. The barren ground caribou exists in the greatest numbers of any mammalian species, great or small, now inhabiting the earth. The immense throngs that have been seen by Warburton Pike, C.J. Jones and others, while on their annual southward migration, literally stagger the imagination. Undoubtedly, there are millions of individuals and they offer a sharp commentary on the ability of nature to multiply her livestock and keep it up to the highest standard without any help from man. It is not a pleasing thought that even in this age of universal slaughter, there is one big game species that still exists in millions, on our own continent. Today, the barren ground caribou is protected by distance and the Frost King. But this condition is too bright to last. Air long, perhaps tomorrow, the Canadians will build a railroad from Fort Churchill and Hudson Bay, straight through to the heart of the barren ground caribou range in the Arctic coast, and then the ranks of the caribou will be depleted. The caribou are members of the deer family, but one in all they exhibit many unique features. Their antlers are flat, the females have horns, their muzzles are large and square-ended, their feet are very broad and spreading, like snowshoe hooves, and their heads are carried low. The caribou gait is a swift, far-striding trot. In the United States, caribou are found at two points only, in Maine and Northern Idaho, but we can no longer guarantee the latter. South of the barren grounds of Northern Canada, the best localities for caribou are Newfoundland, the Cassiaire Mountains, the East Scoot Country of British Columbia, the White River Country of Western Yukon Territory, and the Alaska Peninsula. The Osborne caribou is a grand animal, every way considered. The White Peary caribou of Ellesmere land is very small. It's had no more deer-like than that of any other caribou, and it looks like a misfit white deer with imitation caribou antlers upon its head. Unlike all other members of the deer family, the female caribou has horns, but they are small and weak. The moose. The moose is an animal as odd and picturesque as if it had come to us straight from Wonderland, walk between those colossal legs and under that high-holden body, gaze on those so shovel antlers, consider the amazing overhang of that nose, and then say where an equally amazing combination can be found on this continent. This animal is the colossus of the deer family. If his wits were equal to his bulk, no man with a gun would ever see a live moose save through binoculars, and we never would acquire any antlers save those discarded by the animal. The homeliest members of the deer family are its female moose in calving time, the side which warthogs and hippopotami are sirens and sylphs. A full-grown bull moose in October or November is, as we have already insinuated, a wonder. No mammoth nor mastodon, nor saber-toothed tiger ever was any more so. I am glad that I have lived in the day of that astounding beast. I never yet really wish to kill a moose, even though I have often been told that I should shoot one for the sake of my reputation as a sportsman. But I never did. I would like to see a hundred moose in a week as I once came near doing, but I do not like the thought of destroying a big bull moose. The moose of the greatest horns and the longest skulls are found in Alaska. The Kenai Peninsula is for them the greatest of all places, and there the grandest antlers have been produced. The bull stands seven feet high at the shoulders, and no man ever yet has weighed a whole adult animal so far as is known to this writer. The finest moose picture ever made by lens or by brush is the great painting owned by the New York Zoological Society, which was executed by Carl Rungers in 1915. The model that posed for this bull's antlers hangs in the Reed McMillian collection of the national heads and horns, and the next room to mine, and the road for the doubting Thomas's is short and easy. No, the moose does not prefer to live in thick timber. Although in Maine and northern Minnesota, the timber of the moose is quite thick enough for all practical purposes. The ideal home of the moose is burned over tracts of timber, wherein the brush grows rankly, the obstructing trees are absent, and in running or traveling the moose has only to stride over fallen trunks lying four feet high and always about. The moose is the only land animal now living on this continent that is physically qualified, with a standing of 100% to travel fast over down timber and get away with it. We must admit that in eastern captivity the moose cannot thrive anywhere south of Canada. The climate of New York City is like poison to moose, caribou and antelope. The salt-laden rains of winter at 32 degrees Fahrenheit are to blame. In New Brunswick, though wise laws rigidly enforce, as a rule, the moose are increasing even though hunted every year. In Maine, moose hunting has been stopped. The Great State Game Preserve in northern Minnesota contains many hundred moose quite well protected. Strangest of all, there are now hundreds of moose in northwestern Wyoming, where the species long has been absolutely protected, and there are about 700 in Yellowstone Park. The Muscox During our own times, the barren ground muscox has been completely exterminated through the region west of the Mackenzie River and also eastward from the Mackenzie for about 500 miles. Only 70 years ago, or thereabouts, herds of live muscox were found about 50 miles southeast of Point Barrow. But since that time, the species has been exterminated throughout an area as long as from New York to Chicago. Muscox in the New York Zoological Park To me, every living muscox is a source of continual wonder. I am staggered by the fact that a warm-blooded animal, quite cheap like in its general nature and mode of life and which lives well in New York City, can survive and thrive and breed and be happy on the most northerly land in the world. The fact that whole herds of muscox can find food throughout the awful arctic night survives storms of unbelievable violence and duration and cold that the human mind's scares can comprehend and voluntarily live under such conditions seems almost beyond belief. And yet here in New York, wet and winter and hot in summer, we keep muscox comfortable in captivity for five years and they do not suffer from the heat as much as they do the man who take care of them. A part of our success is due to the fact that we keep our muscox dry and never allow cold rains to come upon them. They have not yet bred and we are at a loss to understand why. A naturalist historian gave to light speaking might be tempted to say that the two muscox species were developed and placed in the frozen north for the support of explorers and the promotion of geographic knowledge. For example, without the muscox herds as a base, Peary might have never attained the North Pole. It was he who killed and ate muscox in the most northerly point of land in the world, the northeast corner of Greenland. Whole herds of muscox have been killed and eaten by hungry explorers and the Eskimos and their dogs. The flesh of this animal should taste more like mutton than beef, but the man does not live who could distinguish it from beef of the same age. Evidently, there are conditions under which a muscox bull has a perceptively musky odor, but I have never been able to detect the slightest trace of it with any of the animals in my personal acquaintance. There are two species. The white fronted muscox has a broad brand of soiled white hair across its face just below the horns and it inhabits Greenland and all the islands and lands westward thereof, down to the mainland of North America. The barren ground muscox is the one of the barren grounds of northern Canada and its lowest latitude is 64 degrees, which is at the northwestern corner of Hudson Bay. Like nearly all the large land animals, the muscox is of gregarious habit and maintains itself in herds of small size, usually not exceeding 30 or 40 head. Its sharp, down-dropping horns seem to have been especially designed by nature to puncture the hides of the big white arctic wolf, which seeks big game at its farthest north. Whenever a muscox herd is attacked by wolves or by dogs, the adult bulls and cows immediately form themselves into a hollow circle with the calves inside. And thus they stand literally shoulder to shoulder, facing outward with horns at the ready, quite able to repel all attacks saved for those with firearms. If a dog or wolf comes near enough to a muscox so that there appears to be a chance to impale it, out rushes the muscox in a swift charge. Usually the nimble-footed canine escapes unharm, and as soon as it is beyond reach, the muscox quickly returns to his place in the circle. The definitiveness and precision which the charge is made and the return accomplished shows a high degree of strategic intelligence, and thus is the fittest enabled to survive. The muscox has two coats of hair, a sweater and a raincoat. The sweater is of fine and dense fur, practically impervious to cold. The raincoat is a suit of rather long and rather coarse straight hair, which hangs over the body and covers the inner coat for the purpose of shedding snow and rain. The body color of the animal is a rich chocolate brown, and the legs are dull gray. Naturally, one would expect to see a muscox provided with a broad, spreading hoof like the snowshoe hoof of the caribou, but this is not the case. The muscox hoof is rather small and compact. Structurally, this remarkable animal is half ox and half sheep, just as its generic name, offabose, implies. It has no visible tail, and its drooping horns strongly resemble those of the Cape Buffalo of Africa. For four years, the New York Zoological Park has maintained the only herd of muscox ever kept in captivity. It started in 1910 with six animals, three of which still survive. Game animals of America. Mountain sheep, monographic number one in the mentor reading course. The mountain sheep, genus Olvis, is a gallant mountaineer. It is a fine, sturdy animal, keen-eyed, bold, active and strong, and is always found amid scenery that is grand and inspiring. Its favored pastures in summer are the treeless slopes above the Timberline, and even in winter when the raging storms drive the elk and deer down into the valleys, the mountain sheep descends for only a short distance. The mountain sheep is a bold climber. Its legs are robust and strong, and when pursued, it can dash down steep declivities in safety. It is very easy to recognize any adult mountain sheep by the massive round curving horns. No wild animal other than wild sheep have circling horns. The largest specimens of wild sheep are found in Asia. There are six species in America. They are scattered from the northern states of Mexico through the Rocky Mountains and almost to the shore of the Arctic Zone. The young of the mountain sheep are born in May or June above the Timberline, if possible, among the most dangerous and inaccessible crags and precipices that the mother can find. The lamb's most dangerous enemy is the eagle, and often the mother cannot protect her young from this foe. Probably the most familiar of the mountain sheep is the bighorn, or rocky mountain sheep, ovis cenedensis. Formally this was quite abundant, but so persistently it has been hunted that the species now exists only in small numbers and in widely separated localities. The general color of the bighorn is grey-brown. They are well-fed all the year round. The female has not the long curving horns of the male. Her horns are small, short, erect, and much flattened in length from five to eight inches. Other species of mountain sheep are the California or Nelson's Mountain Sheep, ovis nalsoni, a smaller animal than the bighorn and of a pale grey salmon color. The Mexican Mountain Sheep, ovis mexicanis, found in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. The white mountain sheep or dal sheep, ovis dali, of Alaska, whose hair is pure white when it has not been stained by mud or dirt. The black mountain sheep, ovis stony, of northern British Columbia, which is distinguishable by the wide spread of its horns, the dark brown color of its sides, and the white abdomen. And Fannin's Mountain Sheep, ovis fenini, a newly discovered species which was found first on the Klondike River, Alaska in 1900. Rocky Mountain Goat, monograph number two in the mentor reading course. The Rocky Mountain Goat, or the white goat, oriamnos montanus, is the only American representation of the many species of wild goat-like animals so numerous throughout the old world. Its habitat extends from northwestern Montana to the head of Cook Inlet, but it is not found in the interior nor in the Yukon Valley. It is one of the most picturesque and interesting wild animals on the continent of North America. It ranges on the grassy belt of the high mountains just above the Timberline. It seems to like particularly the dangerous ice-covered slopes over which only the boldest hunters dare to follow it. On the coast of British Columbia, however, the white goat sometimes descends very near to tide water. The white goat is odd in appearance. At first glance, it seems to be a slow, clumsy creature. In fact, it is the most expert and daring rock climber of all American-hoofed animals. The hooves are small, angular, and very compact, and consist of a combination of rubber pad inside and knife edge outside to hold the goat equally well on snow, ice, or bare rock. It is said that goats will cross walls of rock which neither man, dog, nor mountain sheep would dare attempt to pass. Sometimes they walk along the face of a precipice of apparently smooth rock, yet in doing so they frequently look back and turn around whenever they feel so inclined. The white goat is built something on the order of a small American bison. Its head is carried low and the horns are small and short. Its hair is yellowish-white. Next to the skin is a thick coat of fine wool through which grows a long outside thatch of coarse hair. It is an animal of phlegmatic temperament. A story has been told of one goat whose partner had been shot which deliberately sat down a short distance away and watched the hunter skin and cook a portion of its said mate. Its flesh is musky and dry and not palatable to white men except when they are exceedingly hungry. Its skin has no commercial value. For these reasons and also because it is hard to reach, the rocky mountain goat is not likely to be exterminated very soon. Elk, monograph number three in the mentor reading course. The American elk or wapiti, surface canadensis, is as large as a horse, handsomely formed, luxuriantly mained, carries its head proudly and is crowned by a pair of very imposing antlers. The male elk is at its handsomest in October or November when its skin is bright and immaculately clean and its fine antlers have just been renewed. The elk has small and shapely legs. It avoids swamps and low ground and likes to frequent mountain parks. It is also a forest animal. Formerly it ranged far out into the western edge of the Great Plains and it was accustomed in summer to ascend the rocky mountains to the very crest of the continental divide. Today, however, it is abundant in one locality only, the Yellowstone National Park and the country immediately surrounding it. Elk are also found in small numbers in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Montana, Idaho and on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. However, elk are easily bred in confinement and many good herds have been established and great private game preserves. In addition to these, there are many small herds in private parks. The elk sheds its antlers each year. The antlers of one of the largest males in the New York Zoological Park dropped on March 21st nine hours apart. On April 8th, each budding antler looked like a big brown tomato. Ten days later, the new antlers were about five inches long, thick and stumpy. By May 10th, the elk was shedding its hair freely. On June 18th, the antlers were at full length. By August 1st, the short red summer coat of hair was established and the antlers were still in velvet. The elk then began to rub the velvet of its antlers against the trees. By September 15th, the summer coat of the elk herd had been completely shed. On October 1st, the entire herd was at its best. All antlers were clean and perfect. The hair of the skin was long, full and rich in color. This is the mating season of the elk when the bulls are aggressive and dangerous. Elk are often very unsuspicious and at times so stupid that hunting them is not so exhilarating as a sport as it may seem. Caribou, monograph number four in the mentor reading course. With the exception of the muskox, the caribou is the most northerly of all hooved animals. This animal not only roams on the vast arctic waste above the great slave lake, known as the barren grounds, but it also ranges over the west coast of Greenland, along the edge of the great ice cap and perhaps over the entire coast of Greenland. Wherever the naked ridges and valleys yielded food, the caribou may be found. The caribou is a rather odd-looking creature. It is interesting to note that nature has provided it with a body especially made to enable it to brave the terrors of frigid climate. Its legs are thick and strong and its hooves are expanded and flattened until they form very good snowshoes. Where a moose sinks in, a caribou is able to walk over snow fields and quaking marshes. The skin of the caribou is covered with a thick, closely matted coat of fine hair. Through this grows the coarse hair of the raincoat. This makes a very warm covering. In fact, the warmest of any hooved animal except the musk ox. It is a thick, felt matt. The caribou is the American reindeer. It has antlers, long and branching. As a species, they may be grouped under two heads. The woodland caribou, Rangifer terandus caribou and the barren ground caribou, Rangifer terandus articus. Each of these two groups may be subdivided several times. However, it is difficult to distinguish these subspecies. The chief characteristics are minor differences in the antlers, but even here great difficulties are encountered. The antlers are subject to thousands of variations and as a result, no two pairs ever are found exactly alike. It has been said that if ten pairs of adult antlers of each of the so-called nine species were mixed into one heap, it would be almost impossible for even an expert to separate them all correctly into their proper groups. Of the two great groups, the woodland caribou roams through the pine and the spruce forests and also the prairies of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Northern Maine, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. It is a large animal with strength enough to vanquish the strongest man in about one minute. Its shoulders are sharp and high and its head is held low and thrust straight forward. The woodland caribou of Maine is a bright color of bluish brown and gray. In October, however, its new coat is of the color known as seal brown. Its antlers are short and have more than 30 points. As a whole, the antlers have the appearance of a treetop. The barren ground caribou is extremely like the average reindeer of Siberia and Lapland. It is a rather small animal with immense antlers. The center of their abundance today is midway between the eastern end of the slave lake and the southeastern extremity of Great Bear Lake. The natural food of the caribou is moss and lichen and captivity very few survive many months without a regular diet of moss. Full-grown woodland caribou consume about seven pounds of it daily. It is only necessary to watch a caribou walking to see in this animal the true-born traveler. This is one of the most peculiar characteristics of the species. During periods in the spring and autumn, they assemble in immense herds and migrate with the compactness and definitiveness of purpose of an army of cavalry on the march. This is most notable in the Canadian barren grounds. The herd moves northward in spring and in very early winter moves southward. Several of these monster migrations have been witnessed. Bull Moose Monograph number five in the mentor reading course. Imagine an animal standing between six and seven feet high at the shoulders, its legs four feet long, its neck and body covered with a heavy thatch, of course, purplish gray hair, and its huge head crowned with massive antlers spreading from five to six feet in width. That is the moose, Elsie's Americanus. It is the largest animal of the deer family. The only way to appreciate a moose is to see an adult animal alive and full of strength striding through the forests of Canada or Alaska. The word moose is a North American Indian name which is said to mean cropper or trimmer from the animals' habits of feeding on the branches of trees. The moose can be recognized by its broad, square-ended, overhanging nose, its high hump on the shoulders, its long, coarse, smoky gray hair, and the antlers of the male which are enormously flattened and expanded. Moose are found in northern Maine and some other parts of the northern states, Canada and Alaska. It is hard to kill a moose. Most of those killed are shot from ambush. In the autumn months, the moose hunter may sometimes make a horn of birch bark and concealing himself behind a pond at nightfall may by imitating the call of a cow moose attract a bull within shooting distance. The moose calf is born in May and is at first a grotesque looking creature with long, loose, jointed legs and an abnormally short body. By the time the calf is a year old it is taken on the colors of adult life. Unlike most members of the deer family, the moose does not graze. It eats the bark, twigs, and leaves of certain trees and also moss and lichen. It is strictly a forest animal and is never found on open, treeless plains. Being very fond of still water it frequents small lakes and ponds. One of the largest bull moose on record was seven feet high at the shoulders and had a girth of eight feet. The largest pair of antlers recorded had a spread at the whitest point of 78 inches. The weight of the antlers and the dry skull together was 93 pounds. The bull moose has under the throat a long strip of skin called a bell. In the adult male animal this bell is sometimes a foot in length. The female moose has no antlers and out of every thousand females only one has a bell. In captivity the moose is docile and affectionate. They have even been trained to drive in harness. But owing to the peculiar nature of their digestive organs they cannot live long upon ordinary grass or hay. Green grass is fatal to them. During the deep snows of winter moose herd together in sheltered spots in the forest. They move about in a small area and by treading down the snow form what is called a moose yard. The Alaskan moose has been described as a new species, elses gigas. It is said to be giant in size. Ideas of this animal are greatly exaggerated although it is true that its antlers are really immense. American bison, monograph number six in the mentor reading course. The American bison or buffalo, bison Americanis because of its great size and imposing appearance is the most celebrated of all American-hoved animals. It has been practically exterminated but now that it has given adequate protection the buffalo which breeds rapidly in captivity has been saved from total disappearance. The buffalo was first seen by white men in Anauoc, the Aztec capital of Mexico in 1521 when Cortez and his men paid their first visit to the Madnajiri of King Montezuma. It was first seen in its wild state by a shipwrecked Spanish sailor in southern Texas in 1530. Once the buffalo roamed over fully one-third of the entire continent of North America. Not only did it inhabit the plains of the west but also the hilly forests of the Appalachian region, the northern plains of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, and even the bleak and barren plains of western Canada. The center of abundance however was the great plains lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi Valley. In May 1871, Colonel R.I. Dodge drove for 25 miles along the Arkansas River through an unbroken herd of buffalo. According to Dr. Hornaday's calculation he actually saw nearly a half million head. This was the great southern herd on its annual spring migration northward. Altogether it must have contained about three and a half million animals. In those days, mighty hosts of buffalo frequently stopped or even derailed railway trains and obstructed the progress of boats on the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. When the Union Pacific Railway was completed in 1869, the buffalo were divided into a northern herd and a southern herd. By 1875, the southern herd had been practically annihilated. Five years later, the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway led to a grand attack upon the northern herd. Three years later, this was almost entirely wiped out. The future of the buffalo depends on the national herds and ranges of which the United States has six game preserves. In zoological parks, this animal becomes sluggish and rapidly deteriorates from the vigorous standard of the wild stock. The largest buffalo ever measured by a naturalist is the old bull which was shot by Dr. Hornaday in December 6th, 1886 in Montana and which now stands as the most prominent figure in the mounted group in the United States National Museum. This is the animal whose picture adorns the $10 bill of the United States currency. The height of this buffalo at the shoulders was five feet eight inches and its length of head and body to the root of the tail was 10 feet two inches. Its estimated weight was 2,100 pounds. The buffalo begins to shed its faded and weather-beaten winter coat of hair in March. For the next three months, he is a forlorn-looking creature. By October, however, the new coat is well along and in November and December, the animal is at its best. Buffalo calves are born in May and June. At first, they are a brick-red color, but this coat is usually shed in October. The flesh of the buffalo very closely resembles domestic beef. In fact, it is impossible to distinguish the difference. End of Section 14. Chapter 15 of the Mentor II This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mentor II by Various. Chapter 15. The Mentor Volume 1, Number 40. Angels in Art by John C. Van Dyke, Professor of the History of Art, Rutgers College. Paint an Angel! exclaimed Corbé, the realist, to a pupil who one day asked him how it should be done. When did you ever see an angel? The abashed pupil had to admit that he had never had the good fortune to see one. Very well then. You had better paint the portrait of your grandfather whom you see every day. The advice to keep his head out of the clouds while his feet were on the earth may have been needed by the pupil, but nevertheless angels have been painted time out of mind and even such pronounced realists as Corbé and Manet have painted them. And they saw them, too. That is, they saw the pretty-faced models they turned into angels by adding enlarged pigeon wings to their shoulder blades. But they were not very spiritual angels. Realism rather scorns things spiritual. And besides, religious feeling and sentiment in art passed out several centuries before the coming of the modern realists. The early men, the Fra Angelicos, the Benotzos, the Filipinos of the 15th century believed in the biblical scenes they painted and sometimes stated their belief in letters of gold at the bottom of their pictures. They saw things with the eye of faith, saw Madanes, saints and angels in visions and painted them as the evangelists wrote by the aid of inspiration. Perhaps it was their belief, their intense feeling that gave the fine religious sentiment to work of these early men. Yet they did not invent or discover the angel in art. It had a more material and commonplace origin than in medieval belief and religious fervour. Winged figures in ancient art. There were winged figures in Egyptian, Chaldean and Assyrian art, deities of the air, goddesses of the cloud and the heavens. The Hittite and the Persian produced the winged Sphinx and the Greek the winged victory that flew above the advancing host and pointed the way to glory. This winged victory of the Greeks probably suggested the Christian Angel though the immediate forerunner of the Angel was found in the Cupid and Psyche of Roman art. The Christians following the Romans took over in their art much of the material of the old Roman world. They had to do this for Christianity was without form in art and the early Christians decried it as idolatrous but later on there came a demand for telling the Bible stories in form and color that people might see what they could not read. Then Christianity answering the demand took up Roman forms and gave them Christian significance. The cupids of Roman art and turned them into cherubs and out of the winged victories and psyches they made ministering angels. The pagan form was soon forgotten in the Christian spirit and the angels of the Gothic and early Renaissance periods developed a new meaning, a new soul. What beautiful sentiment, what profound feeling the early painters put into the angel of the Annunciation. What a world of pathos and sadness they gave the angel seated by the tomb of Christ. What gladness and joy to the angels of the nativity standing near the Madonna or singing the Gloria in excelsis in the upper sky. According to tradition the angels know neither gladness nor sadness, neither wrath nor pity. They are heavenly messengers obeying the mandates of the most high without emotion or feeling of any kind. But the old masters of Italy did not so regard them. They gave them human characteristics, made them emotional and sympathetic painted them in robes of blue, of red, of gold, of white and gave them faces and forms that were human. It is true. But as near divine as earthly thought could render them, cherubim and seraphim. The red-robed angels, they were painted red of face as well as of robe were the seraphim, the angels of love and nearest to God. Often with the early painters only their heads were shown, with wings crossed in front of them, sometimes with four, six or eight wings. The blue-robed angels were the cherubim, the angels of knowledge and they too were shown in their heads only with many crossed wings. They appeared in groups and halos surrounding the presence of the father, the son or the virgin. The cherubs or putti of later Italian art, so frequently seen with the Madonna and child are the artistic descendants of the seraphim and cherubim. They are seen in the large oriolis of light that surround the Madonna, for instance in Raphael's Sistine Madonna and Titian's Assumption of the Virgin. They recede into the background or come forward in clouds as the countless hosts of heaven. Frequently the cherubs are given enlarged child-like or feminine forms with individual features, elongated wings, variegated colors. They are then shown hovering or standing or seated near the Madonna and are usually playing on musical instruments, making music for the glory of the Madonna and the child. They are seen in the pictures of Bellini and Carpaccio near the foot of the throne. With Malozzo d'Aforli they soar in the air, with Duccio and Cimabuia they stand about the throne dressed in rich robes singing, playing or worshiping. Music and color were associated in the minds of the early Italians as though both were manifestations of sentiment in art. Especially was this true at Venice, the one great color spot in Italian art. Ministering and Guardian Angels The angels that sang the Gloria in excelsis, or knelt near at hand at the birth of Christ, were usually larger than the Puti, girlish in form and very beautiful in face. They were dressed sometimes in colors as with Corrigio, sometimes in gold brocades of gorgeous pattern, as with the Viverini, sometimes in white and blue as with Piero della Francesca. Again they frequently had jeweled crowns or embossed halos or peacock-eyed wings. It was the idea of the old masters to make them decoratively beautiful as well as representative of purity and truth. And they carried out this idea still further in the faces which were always of the most lovely types they could find or imagine. To us today these angel faces are perhaps the most attractive feature of this early church art of Italy. The same kind of angels, but clothed usually in white, appeared to the shepherds, attended the holy family in their flight into Egypt, stood by the river bank at the baptism of Christ, were with him in the wilderness, in the garden, at the crucifixion, watched by the tomb, and rolled away the stone from the door. Others of the angelic host appeared at times to warn Abraham to present a message to St. Joachim to guide St. Peter out of his prison. They were all ministering spirits, but without specific names. The Seven Ark Angels On the other hand, certain deeds to be done were given to certain angels who had definite names. These were the Seven Ark Angels. It was Michael, captain of the hosts of heaven, that overcame the demon and drove him into the bottomless pit. It was Jofeel, with the flaming sword that drove Adam and Eve out of paradise. It was Zadkiel, that stayed the hand of Abraham, and Hamul, that wrestled with Jacob. These were all Ark Angels who appeared with their various symbols in Christian art. Uriel, guardian of the sun, is seen less frequently than the others, but Raphael, the chief guardian angel, is often seen in company with Tobit, and occasionally in the pictures of the last judgment with Michael, blubbing the dread blast of the great resurrection. But the angel Gabriel appears in art oftener than all the other angels put together. This is because he was the angel of the Annunciation, and foretold the coming of Christ. He is seen a thousand times in Italian art, lilies in hand, kneeling and repeating the message to the Madonna. The theme was the most popular of all, and a thousand different types of beauty were created to impersonate Gabriel. Many of them are still existing, and some of them are the most lovely creations of the Old Masters. Angel ideals of the Old Masters Of course the ideal of angelic beauty varied with each painter. Each chose for a model the fairest type he could find, and each differed from his fellow. Perhaps the most popular types of angels in the early Renaissance were painted by Malozzo D'Forile. A notable group of them was painted in a cupola of the Church of the Apostles in Rome. They were the angels of ascension, and surrounded the rising figure of Christ. The fresco afterward became so damaged that it was taken down, and some of the angels were transferred to the sacristy of St. Peter's, where they are now to be seen. Our reproduction shows a detail of one of them, one with a fair face, abundant hair, a halo about the head made up of golden cubes of mosaic and large expanded wings. The figure is seen slightly foreshortened, and this with the spread wings that seem really large enough to support an angel gives the impression of flight, or at least a hovering movement. The wings are up raised and seem to frame the beautiful head and its halo. This upward swing of the wings is counterbalanced by the downward sweep of the drapery from the waistline. Between the upward and the downward curves is a swirling crossline made up by the shoulder, the arm, and the violin bow. All this is shrewdly worked out and gives force and movement to the figure. The whole composition has nobility and loftiness about it, and is not a mere sweet-faced affair of the Carlo Dolci kind. Types of Bonozzo and Leonardo da Vinci The angels of Bonozzo-Guzoli are of similar characters. They have not a particle of sweetness about them and would never be called pretty, but what fine sentiment and decided individuality they have. They are part of a famous fresco in the Riccardi Palace at Florence, one of the finest and best-preserved frescoes in all Italy. The little chapel where they are had its walls entirely covered by Bonozzo with a fresco representing the adoration of the kings. The gorgeous procession of the kings and their attendance, made up of portraits of the Medici and their friends, with Lorenzo the magnificent writing as one of the kings, covers three walls of the chapel. The splendid cavalcade winds along and finally comes up the fourth wall where once was shown the Madonna and Child with Joseph. This group of the Holy Family had disappeared, but the band of worshiping angels is on the sidewall, still intact. The angels are kneeling and standing amid flowers which one does not see at first, because of the bright colors and the golden halos. What beautiful faces, naive forms and praying hands are here. There is sincerity in art and true enough sentiment into the bargain. One will travel far before seeing it's better. A historic and even a sentimental interest attaches to Leonardo da Vinci's little angel in the baptism of Christ by Andrea Verrocchio. Vasari recites the story of how Verrocchio, when ill perhaps, cold his pupil the young Leonardo to finish this picture by painting in the second angel. And that Leonardo did it so well that it was superior to the other parts of the picture. Perceiving this, Andrea resolved never again to take pencil in hand since Leonardo, though still young, had acquitted himself better than he had done. This is a pretty story which has been pooh-poohed and denied by recent criticism but without reason. The angel with the profile was certainly done by a different hand than the angel with the full face. It is different from any other part of the picture and there is every reason to believe it done by Leonardo as Vasari states, the charm of the angel, the type, the graceful contours, the light and shade all foreshadow the later work of Leonardo. What a lovely creation, not only in face and feature, but in serenity and fine feeling. The charming angels of Perigino Perigino is in that same studio of Verrocchio, a fellow pupil with Leonardo but his angels so much weaker conceptions than Leonardo's. They are contemplative full of wistful tenderness lost in reverie but they lack somewhat mental grip. They make up for this however by a charming sentiment. The Saint Michael reproduced herewith shows it. He is hardly the ideal captain general of the heavenly host able to wield the sword in the front ranks but on the contrary is a slight boyish figure full of fancy and lost in daydreams. Perigino's Saint Michael In this picture he stands aloof from the figures about him and with his head inclined to one side seems to be listening to the song of the angels in the upper air. The brown eyes are full of earnestness but the round face and slight mouth have no set purpose other than to suggest sentiment and symmetry. A very pretty type no doubt but not a strong one. A man of power like Michelangelo could have very little sympathy with it. Indeed he sneered at the pretty face and called Perigino a dull and block head in art. That was more than Perigino could bear and in a rage he brought Michelangelo before the council of eight on a charge of slander but only resulted in a laugh at Perigino's expense. His action was perhaps foolish but his pictures are not to be laughed at. They are excellent in color and the pretty face that Michelangelo scorned became the early model for Perigino's great pupil Raphael. The Angels of Fra Angelico In sweetness of type and depth of feeling the Angels of Fra Angelico are more profound than Perigino's besides they seem to have more sincerity about them. The monk painter in his cell saw visions of heavenly things and as he saw so he recorded it in art. All his faces seem filled with divine tenderness. He painted only one face, one type. His pictures show men with beards and monks in cows and Angels in flowing robes and bright wings but there is always the same face the same sentiment his trumpet blowing Angels of which there are countless copies in existence are epitomies of this conception and sentiment they have great purity and beauty. Fra Angelico was a man of pure thought to start with and everything he touched reflected his purity. Types of Filipino and Baticelli Filipino and Baticelli came later than Fra Angelico and the Florence of their day had begun to draw away from mediaeval traditions in art in favor of more learned technical accomplishment yet one can hardly see any warning of sentiment in the work of these men. In fact the sentiment of Filipino is often perilously near to sentimentality so intense and earnest is the feeling of the man. His Madonna is always on the brink of tears and his Angels are in perfect sympathy with the Madonna. Baticelli is more of an intellectual force but he too is saturated with sentiment to a point of morbidity. His Madonna's have sad eyes mouths that droop at the corners, hollow cheeks and long flowing hair they bend before the Angel of the Annunciation like broken flowers or agonize at the crucifixion like lost souls. Their sentiment is intense nor does it very much when Baticelli dealt with classic subjects his Venus in her seashell his palas, his spring all have some of the same morbidity mingled with mystery melancholy, tenderness that we see in his Angels surrounding the Madonna. This personal quality of the painter is very attractive and has perhaps done more to make Baticelli popular than his fine qualities as a draftman and a painter. Pre-Raphaelite Angels When the pre-Raphaelite movement started in England over half a century ago with Rosetti, Holman Hunt and Millet as painters and Ruskin for a profit you could think of no one better as a model to follow than Baticelli. The Baticelli look is quite apparent in the sad rather unhealthy faces of Rosetti. This Rosetti influence was handed on to his pupil, Bern Jones. None of the pre-Raphaelite ardor was abated or its sentiment lessened with Bern Jones. Indeed, he improved upon his master both technically and sentimentally. He was a much better draftman and colorist than Rosetti and presented the pre-Raphaelite idea with greater force and effect. The Angels of Bern Jones The Bern Jones type had rounder more inquiring eyes, thinner cheeks, a sadder mouth, a more willowy figure that appears often in long flowing hair swirling drapery and dramatic action. At other times one sees it as a romantic type consumed by a fever of passionate sentiment. The Annunciation shown herewith is not a very good illustration of this. The Madonna has a dull stare in her eyes as though she was something of an invalid and even the Angel has a semi malaria look. But the melancholy, the sadness, the acidity so apparent in Botticelli are also apparent here. The picture is a fine example of the painter's decorative sense. It has been put together with much skill. Notice the architecture, the passageway at back, the base reliefs, the repeated lines of the draperies in both the Madonna and the Angel. One could almost wish it in stained glass. So beautifully would it fill the bright window. Every painter of Botticelli's rank in Italy had a score or less of followers and among them all there was never any Darth of sentimental Madonna's and pathetic Angels. Florence held no monopoly of the subject. Angels of Bellini and Carpaccio. Adventists in the early days were Bellini and Carpaccio who produced famous Madonna's and most lovable Angels. They are different Angels from those of Botticelli. In fact, they are little more than handsome children naively making music for the Madonna and child. Their unconscious qualities captivating. How very childlike in their pure faces, their golden hair, their round legs and fat little hands. The models were perhaps the painter's own children. Why not? Was not Madonna nine times out of ten the painter's own wife? And how better could he depict the winged messengers of the sky than by painting them with the forms of those he loved here below. It is only a step across the world from heaven to earth and is not love the band that unites them. 1. Malozzo De Forli Today we think of Italy as one united country. For that reason it is difficult for many of us to realize the Italy of Malozzo De Forli's time. Then there is no union, practically no Italy. The country was rent by the strivings of many tiny principalities, each jealous of the other, each trying to outdo the other, each quick to seize an opportunity to work its neighbor harm. Every one of the petty princes was seeking to rely his capital city to have his court outshine those of his rivals. If he desired to be known as a patron of art and letters, poets, architects, and philosophers were invited to associate themselves with him. Artists, like the scholars, had to rely on the favor of such princes for their living. In later years the introduction of oil painting made easy the sending of a panel or a canvas as the gift of one lord to another. But before that time instead of sending the painter's work it would have been necessary to send the painter, for most of the work was done in another way. In fresco painting the artist was obliged to work directly on the wall on which the picture was to be seen when finished. Often he himself applied plaster, and after smoothing it laid on the color. He had to work rapidly for when the plaster had dried every addition or correction showed. But before becoming sufficiently generous to give away their artist's work most of the nobles first employed their artists to decorate their own chapels or palaces for them. It was under the patronage of one of the cardinals, a nephew of Pope Pius IV that Malozzo d'Aferli painted his angels. Pius IV did not wish to be behind his neighbors in the encouragement of the fine arts. He wanted Rome to be the finest city in the world and set about making it so. Those who wished to please him were not slow to follow his leading. The angels reproduced in the mentor are but a portion of the entire fresco which showed the ascension of Christ, and formally decorated the dome of the church of the Apostles at Rome. These fragments escaped destruction when the church was reconstructed in 1711. They are now in the sacristy of St. Peter's. Almost nothing is known of the life of Malozzo. We should not have known when he was born if his epitaph had not recorded his age. His name indicates that he came from Forle, a small town not far from Ravina. His fame rests almost entirely on these fragments but so well were they done that they gave this man high rank among the artists of Italy. 2. Benozzo Gasoli Like many another painter Benozzo Gasoli owed much to his master. Fra Angelico painted beautiful angels and his pupil seems to have learned some of his skill. For the group of adoring angels in the Riccardi Palace is one of the loveliest to be seen in all Italy. Early in his life Benozzo was apprenticed to Ghiberti, the sculptor of the doors of the Bapistria Florence. So splendid are they that by the Italians they are called the Doors of Paradise. He began under a good man but he could not have remained in that studio long for at the age of 27 we find Fra Angelico taking him with him to Rome as assistant in his work for the Pope. Two years later Benozzo started out for himself. He worked in several of the smaller Tuscan towns until in 1459 the death of several of the older artists of Florence opened up the way for his return to his native city. He was not obliged to wait long for the Medici soon called upon him for what proved to be his masterpiece. The Palace of the Medici had in it a small private chapel to Benozzo they gave the task of decorating its walls. The subject chosen was the adoration of the magi. We have three letters written by Benozzo to Piero di Medici. When he was engaged upon this work they show that he was using every effort to do his best. I have no other thought in my heart he writes, but how best to perfect my work and satisfy your wishes. The work was well done. Perhaps it is why everyone who today visits Florence feels that he must see this tiny chapel before he leaves. One steps from the busy Florentine street through massive portals into a courtyard. From the present we step back past. Climbing a stair we reach the dim chapel which is but little changed from the way it was left by Benozzo. It is as much a monument of his skill as it is of the munificence of the Medici. Benozzo's success with this work ensured his prosperity. He married and settled in Florence. Ten years later he moved to Pisa where he spent ten years painting a series of frescoes in the Campo Santo and in that lovely, quiet place he lies buried today near the frescoes upon which he labored so faithfully. Three Sir Edward Byrne Jones The mother of Sir Edward Byrne Jones died when he was born. The lot of a lad without a mother is bound to be a hard one especially if he has no brothers or sisters. His father would permit him to read only two or three books but one of them was Aesop's fables and this was the boy's favorite because it had prints in it. The child used to spend much time before the shop windows looking at the volumes he may not read. He was never very strong physically. This course seems to have driven the boy to living in the realms of the imagination. A training for the painter of nymphs and fairies he was to become later. Not until he was 23 it is said, did Byrne Jones see a good picture. When he went up to Oxford he formed a friendship with William Morris, the youth almost as shy as himself. They read Ruskin's modern painters together and told each other their dreams. At London during one of the vacations he came into touch with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and on advice of this artist he gave up his studies at Oxford to devote himself exclusively to the study of art. However frail Byrne Jones may have been physically there could have been no lack of mental courage in a man who could take such a bold step as this. His struggle was a long and a hard one but he was able to develop an encouragement of warm friends, Ruskin among them. He traveled to Italy on his second trip he went with Ruskin but with the possible exception of Botticelli the Italian masters had little direct influence upon his work. He seems to have caught their spirit of doing things of doing them as well as he was able with deep sincerity of feeling. He was one of the leading spirits of the pre-Raphaelites a band of young men who hoped to regenerate art but putting into their work the simplicity and sincerity that had actuated the artists before Raphael's time. He married in 1860 and settled on the outskirts of London a gradually increasing host of friends began to make their way to his modest home. Byrne Jones felt that wherever else he might be at fault his spirit he was right. So he did not reach for the fame that makes less wise men seek shortcuts but worked steadily and carefully. His reputation increased. Honors came to him and before he died he knew that his work was being appreciated. In 1894 four years before his death a baronetcy was conferred upon him by Queen Victoria and those who knew the man and his work this was felt to be not higher than was deserved. 4. Giovanni Bellini The Bellini family was a very artistic one. Not only Giovanni but his brother Gentila as well became a famous artist and their father was a painter of note. Not to be outdone by the other members of the family their only sister Andrea Montaigne, the great Padawan master. Under such circumstances it is unlikely that the boy Giovanni had to overcome any parental opposition to his becoming an artist. Art must have been a part of the daily life of the entire family. At first he doubtless studied under his father's direction but his early work shows that he was much influenced by his brother-in-law as well. Although the two brothers Giovanni and Gentila worked independently they both won distinction and were highly esteemed by the Venetians. They were commissioned to paint a series of large canvases for the Ducal Palace but these works have since been destroyed by two fires which greatly damaged that wonderful building. The first in 1479 and the second in 1577. Although no longer a young man when the invention of oil painting was first brought to Venice instead of adhering to the old traditions he set about mastering the new medium and he succeeded too. Pupils came to him to be taught the new practice. Among them Titian and Giorgiani. His studio was the very dwelling place of the genius of painting and from his workshop went out many of the men to whom Venetian painting owes its fame. Painters from far and near came to visit him. Among them was Albrecht Dürer the German master whom Bellini received very cordially. He is very old wrote Dürer but still the best in painting. There was a waiting list of nobles who wanted him to paint their portraits. Fine in color and accurate in drawing to the last he seems not to have degenerated he must have been a man of great force and talent. He lived to be 90 years old. He was laid to rest beside his brother in San Giovanni Ipaolo the Westminster Abbey of Venice. 5. Vittorio Carpaccio Venice the Magnificent is never very far removed from the pictures of Vittorio Carpaccio. It doesn't matter whether he is painting the story of Saint Ursula the Coln or a scene from Holy Ritt Coln is given a very Venetian look and the Madonna or the Saints are in Venetian costumes and brocades. This oriental love for splendor and dress has led some writers to believe that Carpaccio must have accompanied his master Gentile Bellini to Constantinople. When the Sultan desired that Venice send one of their foremost artists to paint his portrait the commission was given to Gentile Bellini. He may have taken Carpaccio with him. The portrait Bellini painted exists today in the Liard collection recently bequeathed to the National Gallery London. Although Carpaccio painted many religious pictures he succeeded best when there was some story to be told. He gave to his pictures the charming simplicity that is the first essential of a good storyteller. Nor was he without a sense of humor in one of his pictures telling the story of the life of Saint Jerome he shows the lion walking up to Jerome and holding out his paw in order that the troublesome thorn be removed while the terrified brothers of the saint are seen flying in all directions. One of the Venetian nobles gave Carpaccio a commission to paint the portrait of a poet connected with his household. At least one of these rhymesters was to be found in the train of most of the nobles in those times. The poet was so elated that he burst forth into verse giving Carpaccio directions to paint him with a wreath of laurel. Carpaccio painted the portrait but possibly at a hint from the nobleman he substituted for the crown of laurel one of great beliefs. The poet retaliated by reviling Carpaccio in a lampoom full of abuse. We do not know exactly when Carpaccio was born though it is generally believed to have been in 1450 in Istria, nor just when he died. Only at Venice can an adequate conception of his work be formed. He seems never to have journeyed far from that island city. Carpaccio's love for splendor found plenty of employment among the beauty-loving Venetians. Venice was beyond the reach of papal dictation and religion came to be considered by them more as an opportunity for display than as a rule of conduct. Its tragic phases were not at all popular. The crucifixion was not often painted but the presentation in the temple and the feast in the house of Simon with their display of fine costumes were painted again and again. When Ruskin first went to Venice, Carpaccio's work was not at all appreciated but thanks to his lead in admiring its charming qualities today Carpaccio was loved by many. 6. Perigino Perigino was born in 1446 in a little town not far from Perugia. His parents were respectable people. When he was nine years old they sent him to Perugia to be educated under one of the artists of that city. His family name was Venucci but like many other Italian artists he was called after the city from which he came. He grew up in Perugia but by the time he had reached Manhood he found him in Florence studying the frescoes. According to Vasari he became a pupil of Veruccio and in Veruccio's studio worked side by side with Leonardo da Vinci. It was about this time that the change from tempera to oil painting took place in Italy. Perugino and Leonardo were among the first of the artists who thoroughly mastered the new medium. Perugino's work did much to increase his fame. Before he had reached the age of 40 he was invited by the pope to come to Rome. He painted several subjects for the Sistine Chapel and his work was given a prominent place in that place. But when a later pope wished to make room for Michelangelo's last judgment, Perugino's frescoes were ruthlessly destroyed and the space they had occupied was filled with Michelangelo's huge composition, judging from his quiet, pensive Madonna's and his melancholy saints. It might be thought that Perugino was of a saintly character too but the records of Florence show that after his return from Rome he and a companion got into difficulties with the authorities. They were captured when lying in wait for someone against whom they had a grudge. Perugino escaped with a fine of ten florins after pleading that he had intended that the fellow should have no more than a good drubbing. But his companion, who harbored graver designs, was exiled. Perugino's work arose steadily in public esteem. Commissions came rapidly and he was able to choose among them. A number of the younger men came to him to be taught his method. Among them was the young Raphael who worked with him for several years. Raphael's early work much resembles Perugino's. Perugino married a beautiful girl many years his junior. He never tired of dressing her in rich costumes. But as he grew older he also grew miserly. When he died he left a comfortable estate for her and her three sons. He was carried off by the plague when working in one of the towns not far from Florence at the age of seventy-eight years. And