Animals: Ogopogo

Fortnight ago readers of the sedate New York Times were startled to read that one Roderick MacKenzie, Cariboo member of British Columbia’s legislature, had been overturned in his sailboat on Williams Lake by the wiggling of a fabulous monster called the Ogopogo. British Columbia is a long way from Manhattan. Times readers were not worried lest the ogopogo appear in Long Island Sound or the Hudson River. But New Yorkers are used to getting their strange animal stories under the dateline “Winsted, Conn.” This awful thought occurred: Are the fabulous animals of Connecticut spreading over the whole continent? Story-Teller Stone. Winsted, Conn, got on the map as Strange Animal Capital of the World some 25 years ago when a reporter named Louis Timothy Stone wired to the New York World: CHICKEN HAS TWO HEADS HOW MUCH. Next day the World editors received 100 words and a photograph of Winsted’s two-headed chicken. Story-Teller Stone followed up this success with many another story. Now, at 54, he is the affluent, ruddy-cheeked managing editor of the Winsted Citizen, correspondent for several other newspapers and the Associated Press. Best Stone Story: James Daley, hunter, sighted a large buck deer in the woods near Winsted. About its neck he perceived a peculiar red contrivance not common to deer. Puzzled, Hunter Daley took careful aim, fired. The buck dropped. “Daley approached somewhat cautiously and examined the animal. The buck was dead with a broken neck. From the deer’s neck he removed the red stripe—an automobile inner tube. . . . The shot had exploded the inner tube and presumably broken the deer’s neck.” Investigation proved the owner of the inner tube to be a vacationer who, fortnight before, while repairing a flat tire, had been attacked by a deer, had thrown the tube in defense, landing it around the deer’s neck. Other Stone Stories: An unselfish partridge, seeing the chagrin of an unsuccessful hunter upon his return home, broke its own neck, fell dead in front of the hunter’s home. A porcupine named Albino spiked apples with its quills, carried them to the cider mill. A hen after thawing out the water spigot on cold mornings by silting on it, turned it on, drank. A Maltese cat, with a harelip, whistled “Yankee Doodle.” A cold cow gave ice cream. Jim. Pete and Dick, trout, were fed New-Year’s dinner with a silver spoon. Copycat Mortison. Early this year it seemed Winsted’s animals might be spreading when from Waterbury, Conn, were reported some chicks which had hatched out in fur instead of feathers. Investigation proved this to be the work of a copycat, however, not a real migration of fabulous fauna. One Louis Mortison, reporter for the Waterbury Republican, apparently thought he could obtain for Waterbury the same sort of publicity that Stone’s stories had brought Winsted. He named the hero of all his stories Lester Green. His stories have received fair but not great circulation, some of them being rather dull. Last week, for example, Lester Green, to save spraying, grafted on his apple tree an insect-catching plant.

Best Mortison Story: A large snapping turtle having lost its shell in an automobile accident learned to wear becomingly a cement shell made by Mr. Green. Through gratitude, the turtle came to live with Mr. Green, to serve him as a ratter.

Ogopogos. In the case of British Columbia’s ogopogos, there appeared to be neither an ingenious Stone nor a Copycat Mortison. For many years, clear-sighted Indians living on the shores of Williams and Okanagan Lakes have reported the appearance of a large lake-serpent. Not so quick-eyed, white men did not discover it until four years ago. Those who know describe the animal as being a gentle monster 30 ft. long, with harmless vegetarian habits. It has the peaceful face of a sheep, the head of a bulldog. It propels its long brownish-green body through the water by four flippers, occasionally rearing its great head like a gigantic water snake. Most northwestern newsmen decline to believe in its existence but admit that any British Columbian monster which can get itself reported in the New York Times must be stimulating to the resort trade.