Show AM maw n MW FH ehly 11 YI LOO t 1 1 F FROM P 0 M LIFE L I 1 A R L 0 wa THE MOM LIFE wis drawings by ray walters THE TOTE ROAD 11 ic theres a lot of things you never learn at school theres there a lot of things never taught by rule theres there an awful lot of knowledge that you near get at college theres a lot of things you never learn at school old sonk son author unknown by ELMO SCOTT WATSON N THE grade schools the children are taking flauie balu re study stud in lilah school they learn zoology and botany in college they broaden their knowl knowledge edke of all living things by studying biology kut But there Is one branch of science which the textbook writers and the ten teachers cheri have neglected it Is the somewhat less than inexact in exact science of unnatural history the best exempt exemplification afi of the sentiment expressed in the old song quoted above F for or unnatural history Is one of the things you never learn at school to become acquainted with its fascinating facts you must go not to books but to the source of all true knowledge to people and there Is one class of men who are better fitted than tiny any other to give these facts they are the simple men who lived close to the soil and whose brief snatches of leisure between long hours of liard hard work were usually given over to spinning yarns for the amusement of themselves and their fellows in telling their tall tales they the invented mythical characters of heroic proportions who performed prodigious feats and whose every activity was carried out on a vast scale such were the old time lumberjack and the old time cowboy who have haie given to us paul bunyan the super lumberjack and pecos bill the super cowboy whom the students of folklore characterize as the best find and almost only example native american myth heroes more than that in telling of the deeds of these legendary heroes these saga singers peopled their world with strange creatures bizarre in appearance and fan in hahle not only did they invent their yarns tor for their own pleasure but they often repeated and embroidered broi brol dered them for the express purpose of stuffing the tenderfoot or linking hazing tile the pilgrim so if you would learn the most interesting facts in unnatural history go to a lumberjack or a cowboy and by your unsophisticated tri anner an and d naive nal questions give him a chance to tell you about some of the strange creatures which he has baa seen in the course of ills his career if its a lumberjack youre talking to the chances arp are that one of the first animals lie he will tell you about Is the bodag although tile the bodag Is now extinct tile the one specimen having been captured near acar rhinelander als years ago alf air lum berj ber jacks achs know about the bodag and how it fame came into being once upon a time there vas as in fin ox which had led nil an unusually hard life nt at the hands of his bla various drivers up in the north woods wooda of wisconsin among lumberjacks lumber jacks it Is believed that the little of an ox Is invulnerable to everything but the profanity of its drivers when tile the animal iles dies its customary burial ceremony Is cremation and it requires seven years of continuous fire file to reduce to ashes alt all the profanity which has accumulated in its hotly body during its life tamp 4 so when tills this particular ox died a brush fire WIs hullt built around its body and kept going for seven years scars to obliterate till nil the curses which had find been heaped upon it in inglish french irish scandinavian and geriann while it had tolled in the lumber camps at the end of the seventh year the iro fire was allowed to die down but instead of there being left no trace of the hie ox out nut of the heap of ashes there rose phoenix like a fearsome creature crp iture such us its la Is pictured above which exhaled an obnoxious odor and tle the swish of whose tall ninde made the earth tremble for time tills monster preyed upon the th lumber camps its favorite food being beef on the hoof then according to lake shore kearney of wausau wis tin nn old time lumberjack who litis written a book on the bodag B E 8 shepard THE COLORADO INK ir Trappe 4 s in his a of rhinelander wis another old timer in the north woods succeeded in capturing it by digging a hidden pit in a tra trail 11 which the bodag waa known to frequent and luring the bodag to it by having a young man of marathon fame and a noted ski jumper lead an ox along this trail with the bodag in hot pursuit after its capture the bodag was put to death skinned and mounted for years it was exhibited in an old barn near rhinelander and thousands of people journeyed there to view it until the barn burned down and all traces of tills creature vanished from the earth but if you go to rhinelander today they will sell you picture post cards of the bodag as proof of the fact that it did once exist but even though the hodac is extinct thiery are other equally interesting creatures still jn in the north woods your lumberjack friend will tell you some of whom make it exceedingly dangerous for a ten tenderfoot kerfoot to stray far from the lumber bi er camp by himself of course you may not see them but that prove that they are not there if you fahd fl nd in the woods a set of tracks that puzzle you they were probably left there by the tote rood galaw maw its hind legs have the hoofs of it moose and its forelegs fore legs the paws of n bear when it Is fired of traveling on one set of legs it continues on an its way on the other which accounts for the peculiar trail which Is so baffling to hunters the tote rood road Is shy and harmless but look out for the agro and the gum gumbe berool roo 1 the agro hn has a long inns body and arms like a spider monley monkey it lias has a perpetual grudge against mankind and it hides in hollow trees out of which it springs behrs off a huge branch of a tree and cracks the skull shall of the luckless tenderfoot as he passes by the gumbe roo lives in burned over forests and Is therefore easily avoided ded it Is larger than a bear and has a round leathery body which nothing can pierce if a hunter fires at it the bullet rebounds from it its tough hide strikes the marksman and usually kills him the only thing that can kill it Is ore fire und often during forest fires the lumberjacks lumber jacks hear loud expirations expiations 4 which are gumbe roos blowing up in the fl flames aines all of thy the foregoing are known to lum hun ber jacks of the north woods fron from maine blaine to aln m mal naoia al ta when the lumber industry Ind Indu stiv esp expanded west tile the lumbermen discovered many other interesting intaro atins creatures are known both to them ant and to the cowboys the scene of whose activities bordered on theirs their for instance there Is the th rope rite which Is ns is large ns as a email pony aud and has a long ropelike rope like beak with a filp noose ne on in the end with tilts this natural lariat alie catches eyen een I 1 lie he swiftest jack jackrabbit rabbit aind sometimes ropes kopea a tenderfoot then alien there la Is the trip odero with two teles telescopic copie legs its ben benk Is like the muzzle of nf a gun with a sight on the end going through gli the brush it raises and lowers itself to look for griere anice and upon seeing some tilts itself to the right angle sights along its benk bank and then lets fly with ith a pellet of day clay a quantity of these auids bellg belig beli g rall always carried in the left cheek the tripo dero Ms ens never been known to ml miss n shot and as a result the mortality among in some part of the west Is said bald to IMS be appalling although lumberjacks lumber lumbe jacks racks and cowboys have been tho the principal contributors to the origins of unnatural history too much credit cannot be given to editors and especially editors of country papers for their part in preserving it for future generations of americans who are unlikely to learn it at school it Is to a number of them that the author of tills this article Is indebted tor for information about two creatures without a description crip tion of which no unnatural history notebook would be complete one Is the gilly loo or philly too loo bird and from descriptions furnished by IL II F fuller of the rhame N D review larry flint of the sharon pa herald uncle jimmy of the mont times ben E manning of the riddle ore south umpqua news W 11 huff of the claflin kan clarion and r L 0 johnson of livingston mont a fairly accor accurate ite idea of the appearance and habits aalt of the philly too loo can be written as follows the philly lon la Is a comic supplement of the ancient tarus Is related to the wild cold shuts and fuzzy bil billed led st dewinters sidewinders side de winders and in some respects resembles the it hns fins a beak like a stork one arm to guide itself and a long lizard tall which it usually carries in the shape of a Q and which leaves a track like a modern nonskid tire it Is covered with horse feathers and from it Is obtained not only horse feathers but colt slaw its most moat distinguishing characteristic la is that it files filea upside down and if it were not for this fact more would be known about it it for when the hunter bunter shoots the prilly loo it falls up instead of down and therefore but few specimens have been collected the reason for its flying upside down Is that it can thus absorb more violet rays from the blue sky and stave off rheumatism the other interesting animal Is the editha 1 L watson of tife the colorado graphic denver tile the daughter of an old time country newspaper man has written the following description of this creature the la Is about the size ot of a white tall deer has ears like a rabbit and teeth like a mountain lion ilon its coat Is brindle and its ita eyes are red it has a long lone and prehensile tall which it brals around rocks when it turns around tor for a little extra leverage it has telescopic legs which arrangement airan gement enables it to graze around the sides oi of mountains the two right or left legs lees as the case may be telescoping to about halt half tho the length ot of the othar two for this reason it ran an eat either to the right or the left hut but has some difficulty in turning around as it appears that tho the two hind legs or the two front ones will not telescope at the same timp time only one side at a time having this power hence the long lone tall which it wraps around the rocks often pulling them out of the ground with the labor of its exertions in turning around the eats the tan and green lichens which adhere closely to rocks on an hills and in the hie trails its around the mountainsides proc process wears little tra which many people have noticed when disturbed this animal digs a hole in the ground very rapidly disappearing almost 1 immediately edl so that hat sight bight of one Is very rare the holes hole holes but th tho are often mistaken for prospect seeker tor for ore would be amazed to find a farther digging upon the Is seen only after a snakebite snake bite and the subsequent treatment by the oW observer erver this causes one to wonder I 1 it f this animal and tho the snake are not in some way affiliated this Is a subject which will bear investigation while rare are not extinct but have been run into the ground so eo often that they are almost unknown editors not only have done a good work in the Infer interests ests of unnatural history by preserving tile accumulated data on many of those these interesting I 1 animals but they have also contributed to the science of their observations on some of the fauna which are arc found only around print shops go do to any print shop and it you will ask tile the editor will be glad to show you some type lice then there Is the type lout which Is an apprentice type louse whose whore e job it Is around the print shop to eat nil all punctuation marks which tire are incorrectly placed and to correct typographical errors A lout being tin an awkward fellow the type lout sometimes inkes mistakes mista hes himself and that la is why you sometimes find your name misspelled misapplied in the newspaper another interesting animal Is tile the inheres it was wa just by bv chonce that one of these ripp appeared eared while artist walters was muk ing ng the sketches for tills artee unit ani lie was to draw the picture of tills interesting little fel f tow ow the first time to in history that teat its portrait haa fins ever been made tile the Is the reason why the ink bottles rind ink wells on tile desks of cartoonist s and editors are always dry the studio eats cats nothing and drinks only ink |