ELMO SCOTT WATSON "WwW years ago, a certain down in Texas had ire successful In pers mony of “lay- 1ls"'—a ceremony iwumerahle mothe ihle active, boys—then tors to cer- in vari ous parts of the United States would never have had the thrill of looking upon the only authentic mi ¢ tiger ever brought to this country, the bi t ig cobra ever cap- tured alive, two of the exceedingly rare Indian rhinoceroses and the tinle 3 hant (Just two feet and ten inches at the shoulder) ever brought across the seas, But lest that statement appear to be too para- doxical let it be explain that she was the mother o ra luck, who as a col- lector of live 1 tiles and birds, is without a peer in She had dis. covered her young on ous i rex in the capture of a big, angry, buzzing rat » near the Buck home » putskirts of Dallas, Texas, and the “la f hands" ceremony was ob- gerved wrthwith ' nvince him that there were less dangerous way for a lad of his years to earn money, (He w llecting rattlesnakes because an old doctor in Minneapolis, Minn, who manufact the market 1 Cores ony g fashion, m his earll. is fascinated m was his mastering passion, S ther who tried to shape the wtiny the forems sxponent of the art ingir ‘em back alive” us due to be folle When boy, no longer abl aptus 1 mals ne » had dot n his na gol]. haunted tl incol irk zoo and the pet gtores In } i ity, feastin his eyes on far-off cor- was able to + of these birds a price ten charge when girange new jg mi ners of the earth gave he invested In paying for one ps times as great as years later he be » a collector. When he grew older Frank Buck's hobby took him to South America in search of rare birds, This was followed by a second trip to the south. ern continent and when he sold his collection of live birds he found the deal =o profitable that he resolved to go in for wholesale bird and animal eollecting. And that was the beginning of a unique career, Today Frank Buck ean go into almost any goo in the United States or walk through the menagerie tent of any cirens and, looking through the bars of the cages, greet the Inhabhl. tant thereof as an old friend. For it was he who brought that inhabitant from his native haunts to this place so that the thousands of Americans who have before only heard of the existence of some strange animal ean see the animal In the flesh, Obviously a man with such a record has had more than his share of thrills and narrow es- eapes from death. Obviously, too, an account of them could not be told within the space of this article any more than a full account of them could be told In the book “Bring 'Em Back Alive,” written by Frank Buck with Edward Anthony and published by Simon and Schuster, But there was space in that book to tell of the time Frank Buck found himself sliding Into a pit with a man-eating tiger which he and his helpers were trying to get out of the pit into a cage: of the time one of his leopards escaped aboard ship and how he went into a eabin where the leopard was at bay and roped him; and of the time when a king cobra escaped from its cage and cornered him in a hut In his compound at Singapore, Those are only three of the times when Frank Buck stared death straight In the eyes, There were many others, Perhaps the strang. est of all of them was the time a tapir, ordi narily the meekest of all animals, tried to erush him to death with its six hundred pounds of welght and all but succeeded. Then there was the time when an orang-utan, the giant jungle- man of Malaya, was just ready to draw him into a death embrace with his powerful arms and then tear him to pieces with his teeth, There was just one chance to escape alive and Frank Buck took it. He's not a professional boxer, but when the orang came at him with outspread arms, Buck simply walked in and gave the jungle-man an uppercut on the point of the jaw that was as an effective k, 0, as was ever demonstrated In the prize ring. Frank Puck “Young Gorilla trouble, thing and that other time mn when somet such as he game hunter ha his own. But a man ho 1 as Frank Buck does, has his own life and For the biggest king cobra, a an, an Indian rhinoceros, or a tiger ls utterly valueless to a 200 0 if it is dead. Experience counts, too, In keeping alive after it has heen captured, It ma strange to call Frank Puck a dietitian, But that's exactly what he Is and he ig an expert in matters of diet to the most finicky epicurea in the world. He can’t guess how to accusto a wild animal to the change from the food soem which It eats in Its wild state over to “civilized fare.” He has to know! rare wild animal may represent a great outlay of money and time, plus the ever-present ele ment of danger to the eollector. But if, after the beast is captured, its eaptor doesn't know how to keep it healthy, both physically and mentally, the whole Investment of time and money and the potential value of the animal when It is delivered to the zoo or circns may be an entire loss, . The capture of some Typical of some of the dietetic problems which Frank Buck has had to solve was the cage of Baby Boo, the two-foot-ten-inch elephant which he brought back on one of his trips. So far ns is known there has never been written any book on “The Care and Feeding of Infant Elephants,” So when Frank Buck bought one from a party of Batiks In Sumatra and It was delivered to him In a half-starved, weak and wobbling condition there were no precedents for him to go by In determining what to do to keep from having a dead baby elephant on his hands, Here is what happend, as he tells it: “My problem had Just begun, I had to get rome food into that elephant’s belly—and with- out much loss of time, I sent Ali (his native assistant) out to scout around for a milk-goat, He brought one back and hurriedly milked it. I tried to pour some milk down the stubborn pachyderm’s throat but I couldn't get her jaws open. Once or twice IT managed to get them partly open but before I could pour the milk down she closed them again, “1 considered five or six different plans for feeding that animal, dismissing them as Im practical as fast as they popped into my head. Then I got an idea that I thought was worth trying. The first step was to send All to a nearby clump to cut me a length of bamboo, As 1s commonly known, a stick of bamboo is made up of a series of Joints, the wood being in her condition ness having qd gappenred, her breakfast, repeating the performance with the tube, This time it was unneces her up “A little later In the mornis a bullock eart and took her back where she was transported, alon er specimens to Singapore, We feeding her en route, the bamboo working perfectly.” One other {tem which a needs to have in his psy for following hls profession is diplomacy, That Frank Buck has that is shown by the fact that some of his rarest specimens have been ob tained because of his friendship with oriental potentates and his skill In handling the native peoples of the jungles where he has had to go to find hig animale, Among these people Frank luck 1s a great “tuan” (chief) and he Is that to coolies In the Malay peninsula and to Indian ralahe. If he hadn't been he would never have been permitted to penetrate the forbidden jun gles of Nepal, which ls closed and bring back with him those y rhinos which now have their homes in the York and Philadelphia zoos If he hadn't been, it Is doubtful if he wonld have been able to make the remarkable moving pletures which resulted from his last trip to the Orient. For It was a faithful coolie who came speeding to tell his “toan™ that a python was lying near a trail used by a tiger and that resulted In an epochal film record of a python tiger fight, the like of which few white men have ever seen and none has ever before photo. graphed, For to cap his career of “bringing ‘em back alive” Frank Buck has lately brought back a movie record of life In the jungle, which is ns unique as the record of his career as a col lector of wild animals, He also has brought back the memory of one of his narrowest es. capes from death—the memory of being stalked looking up and seeing the striped belly of the animal passing over him, “Yes, it was a rather close call” sald Frank Buck in telling me of don’t you? (© by Western Newspaper Union.) IFTY-FIVE years old, and still poison so long as it is permitted to going strong! remain in the system. want the secret of such The new energy men and women vou eat, © feel befo oftle of Dr. Caldwell's $ he syrup psn s been used up is : i hair nt of h the susie n ne can do—something you car proof © ich the system needs today and { this help. week! All vou do is give you a Get the right stimulant syrup and wo ry thos ag! } Get rid of waste matter that is slow FEW FISH ESCAPE PURSUIT OF GTTER . | DARKEN wo |GRAY HAIR wn INATURALLY heins . dig this quick way Science has discovered to darken gray Had to Know Acr Quickiy? Picking at nostrils. Gritting the teeth. Loss of appetite. These ere symptoms of worms. Rid your child's body of these ruinous per- asites that sep health and strength, Give Comstock’s Dead Shot Worm Pellets. Prepared like confections, Children take them without sus- pecting treatment. COMSTOCK'S —— $189 oc Box WH Comstock. lad an has a grievance and ot Druggists Morristown, NX The Job Hunter Aa he'll tell you all about it upon the least provoecation, True happiness consists not in the - multitude of friends, but in the Doing one’s full duty is rare. worth and choice. Jonson, 3 EEEFEN ET AKERS FEPEIEAFEENERL CHERFFEEFEREYRE EEE RE REELS io THE HOTEL MONTCLAIR LEXINGTON AVE, 49th to 50th STS, NEW YORK Directly Opposite the Waldorf-Astoria 800 ROOMS EVERY ROOM WITH BATH From $3.00 per day A RADIO IN EVERY ROOM Short walking distance from Grand Central Terminal and B. & O. Motor Coach Station Ten minutes by taxi from Pennsylvania Sta, American Home Cooking Served in a Notable Restaurant OSCAR W. RICHARDS, Manager HR I.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers