Henry W, Shoemaker, Part IV: Long-tailed bobcats

Shoemaker's pamphlet "Felis Catus in Pennsylvania" describes an incident on January 16, 1922 in which a wildcat was killed in Nockamixon (Bucks County) by 16 year old Tunis Brady. Frightful screams had been heard in the vicinity for three years. A detailed description of the dead animal quoted in the pamphlet describes a cat about 2 1/2 feet in length and a foot in height, with a broad head. It was a smoky gray color, with yellowish patches on its undersides. It had an 11 inch long tail which was bushy and rather like a raccoon's. It had a white spot on its throat and was marked with black stripes. At the time, it was believed that the animal may have been similar to a European wildcat (Felis sylvestris) and the original article describing Brady's kill is quite clear on its not being a bobcat (Lynx rufus) or lynx (Lynx lynx).

Elsewhere in Shoemaker's article it is described how just such an animal was kept in the Philadelphia zoo, and labelled an "Indian Devil". Similar animals were to be found in the Blue Ridge Mountains and also in the Chestnut Ridge area in the western part of the state. In around 1920, Daniel Trouts killed two similar wildcats in the same area as Brady's kill. Robert Lyman's Forbidden Land describes these wildcats as being recorded from Potter County.

Karl Shuker has noted that long-tailed specimens of the normally short-tailed bobcat and lynx have been recorded. In fact, despite the early denials, the size of the animal and coloration meshes perfectly with commonly-accepted traits of the bobcat. The striped markings of the animal may not line up perfectly, but as some lynx subspecies such as the Iberian lynx have coats with a striped appearance, this is not out of the ordinary either.

Furthermore, bobcats can be melanistic (black). I have been wondering whether a melanistic long-tailed bobcat could account for some of the sightings of "black panthers" often recorded. Also, a wildcat with similar markings to the Nockamixon one could account for sightings of "tigers".

The Lenape Stone

The so-called Lenape Stone, likely an ornamental gorget of the type often buried with notable warriors, was discovered by Barnard Hansell in 1872 (a second piece was discovered in 1881) near Wycombe, Pennsylvania. The carvings on the stone depict traditional motifs such as fish, birds, and turtles and also what appears to be a mammoth or mastodon, types of prehistoric elephants. Several members of the Bucks County Historical Society, among them H.C. Mercer, examined the stone carving. Mercer was a proponent of the stone's authenticity, although that was called into question as early as 1884. The following is an excerpt of a letter from D.G. Brinton, an archaeologist and ethnologist from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia:

Certain artistic details, as the lightnings shooting in various directions from a central point (as from the hand of Jove), were also unknown to the art notions of the red race. The treatment of the sun as a face, with rays shooting from it, I also consider foreign to the pictography of the Delaware Indians, nor have I yet seen any specimens proved to be of their manufacture that present it. It is found, indeed, in Chippeway pictography, but there only in late examples.

The execution of such imitations also usually betrays their origin. The lines on the Lenape Stone are obviously cut with a metal instrument, making clean incisions, deepest in the centre and tapering to points-quite different from the scratch of a flint point. Shrewder fabricators than the unknown author of this one make use of flint points. Some of the Western 'tablets' have been so inscribed. They may thus conceal their tools, but there are other resources for the archaeologist. The surface of all stones undergoes a certain chemical change on exposure to the air, which is called by the French term patine. In many varieties, as flints, jasper, and hard shales, this affords a decisive means of discriminating a modern from an ancient inscription or arrow-head. It requires the use of the microscope and some practice, but with these most of such impostures can be detected.

Several other scholars were of a similar feeling, that the Lenape Stone was hoaxed. Some have noted that the stone was broken, and that the mammoth carving does not align properly when the halves are joined.

The Lenape Stone is currently housed in the Mercer Museum in Doylestown.

Yardley Yeti not even a Bigfoot

Don Polec wrote a story detailing the sightings of the rather unfortunately named Yardley Yeti in October, 2006. Ironically, the "Yeti" was a rather scrawny dog-like creature which was a reddish color. This photograph was taken by Jon Maberry near New Hope. Reports had also surfaced from Upper and Lower Makefield.

The beast in the photograph resembles the so-called Hyote of Baltimore County, Maryland, and like that animal was probably a dog or fox with mange.