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Trapping Animal Gangsters

by JAMES NEVIN MILLER

The gangster is commonly thought of as a product of modern civilization, but in reality he has existed since the world began among all forms of life. In this article you will read of how the predatory animals are preying upon their fellow creatures and encroaching upon the domain claimed by man. How the forces of the United States government work to stamp out the criminals of the animal world constitutes a story as gripping as any detective yarn.

“BRING him in, dead or alive!”

This square-jawed sentence sounds like parting words of advice to a posse of deputy sheriffs. But in this case it does not apply to man trailers but to animal hunters. It is the slogan of the super-sleuths of Uncle Sam, now engaged in a relentless battle against a vast animal underworld with headquarters in the great Western stock country.
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Black Widow Spins Web to Help Build Weapons for U.S. Army

The black-widow spicier above is a defense worker. Its web filaments are used by Northrop as cross hairs in microscopes and telescopes for Army tank sights. Tougher than steel, they are so fine that 5,000 of them laid side by side take up only an inch.

At left, the spider is having a health check in the plastic box where it lives between jobs. At right, it has climbed out on a stick and is about to be shaken loose. As the spider falls on its back to the floor, it will spin a six-foot strand.

According to National Geographic very similar research is still being carried out.

The National Geographic article talks about actually using the rats like smart little robots. The research in this article is supposedly aimed at learning more about electro-shock therapy in insane patients. I’m not really sure how the to are related. Maybe their goal is to make crazy people navigate mazes.

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Radio-Controlled Rats

Rodents with radio sets in their heads get their brains massaged by electric impulses for science.

INSERTING a miniature crystal set beneath the skin of a rat’s head, Dr. Joseph A. Gengerelli, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, has been doing research on the subject of instructing rats by radio. Read the rest of this entry »

I think that trailer was nicer than most people’s homes at the time.

Luxurious Stable on Wheels Speeds Race Horses to Tracks

Transporting race horses in railway cars or in ordinary motor trucks always has been attended with anxiety for the owner and more or less discomfort for the animals. To eliminate these difficulties and to save time as-well, a luxurious automobile has been designed. It is a. completely equipped stable on wheels. Cushioned upon a passenger-carrying chassis with shock absorbers, the car develops an average speed of thirty or thirty-five miles an hour and can swing along with ease and safety at fifty. Two horses and a groom besides the chauffeur can be carried in the roomy, electric-lighted interior. There are two stalls, separated by a partition on a pivot to facilitate loading.
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POACHING MADE BIG BUSINESS by Ruthless Gangs of Killers

HIDDEN among the P’s of the dictionary, you find: “Poacher, One who takes game or fish illegally.” To this time-honored definition, recent events have given a new twist. Outlaws are invading the forests and exploiting the game resources of the country. Organized criminals are’ dealing in illegal furs, fake bounty scalps, out-of-season game birds.
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This Trained Monkey Spends Most of Time in His Master’s Workshop
TINKERING with tools has earned this trained monkey at left the title of “house carpenter” on the estate of Cherry Kearten, famous African explorer and authority on animals. The chimpanzee was brought back from Africa after one of his expeditions and tamed and trained. He was allowed to wander about the estate at will and one day walked into Mr. Kearten’s workshop. His attendants couldn’t find him for a day and a half, and when he was finally discovered, he was busily engaged in nailing small pieces of board around the shop. Now he has a separate corner in the workshop and spends hours with the tools that have been provided for him.

Music for Bossie

Do cows like music well enough to give more milk? Miss Nora Johnston of Thorpe, Surrey, in England, believes they do, and has set out to prove her theory. She travels about a large farm with a portable carillon of her own design, playing a musical accompaniment while the cows are milked. She says figures accumulated over a period of time prove that the milk yield has increased since she started her program of music for Bossie.

Shark Octopus Undersea Battle Filmed
A most remarkable battle between a shark and an octopus has been photographed by a daring cameraman for the film, “Samarang”—(Out of the Deep). With his camera and equipment inside a diving bell, open at the bottom, the internal air pressure being sufficient to keep the water out at shallow depths, he placed a piece of meat in the water to attract the shark, the octopus already being in the vicinity. The battle which ensued between shark and octopus lasted twenty minutes, but it was quite one-sided. Read the rest of this entry »

Sick Python Fed With Special Rubber Hose
WHEN the throat muscles of a 22-1/2 -foot python in the St. Louis, Mo., zoo became paralyzed recently, it became necessary for the zoo officials to use force-feeding methods to keep the reptile alive. The feeding equipment developed for the job consists of a five-foot length of special rubber hose fitted with a removable plunger. Ground rabbit meat is fed into the hose and is forced into the snake’s stomach by means of the plunger.

This is kind of sad. It almost warrants it’s own unicorn chaser.

BULL WITH SINGLE HORN IS MODERN UNICORN
What might be called a modern unicorn has been produced by Dr. W. F. Dove, University of Maine biologist. From a day-old bull calf, Dr. Dove removed the two small knots of tissue which normally develop into horns. These horn buds he transplanted in the center of the bull’s forehead, thereby inducing the growth of a single massive horn. The bull, now nearly three years old, has developed much of the proud bearing ascribed to the mythical unicorn.

Wait. That’s a zoo? I thought it was the Alaskan wilderness!

MURALS MAKE BEAVERS FEEL AT HOME
Beavers in a den at the Belle Isle Zoo, in Detroit, Mich., now cavort amid scenes resembling their natural habitat. To minimize the artificial appearance of the surroundings, an artist reproduced a colorful forest panorama, complete with pine trees, scrub brush, streams, and lakes, upon the concrete walls of the open beaver pit. Visitors are attracted by the novelty of viewing the animals against a woodland background.

Rose Glasses on Chickens Reduce Fighting
There was murder going on in a New Jersey penitentiary yard. The prison chickens were killing each other. One after another, the young White Leghorns would fight among themselves to the death. Nothing was effective in preventing the quarrels until the warden tried putting rose-colored glasses on the birds. That stopped the fighting instantly. The Leghorns, the only fighters in the poultry lot, now are all equipped with aluminum-framed spectacles with center pieces extending in front of the bill.