The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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FINDING THE SKULLS OF A WOLF AND DEER HUNG TOGETHER
By S. C. Turnbo
Among stories of peculiar finds in the wild woods we submit the following which was told me by Mr. Rila Mullen in this way.
In Howell County, Mo., are spots of land known as Wet Prairie. In the early
settlement of that country there wet lands were usually surrounded by a
growth of scrub blackjack timber. The ground where these wet places exist
is soft slushy with tall wild grass growing on it. One day my father told
me that during the early days of southern Missouri while he and Wesly Hatfield
were hunting together on one of these spots of wet land which was some 8
or 9 miles southwest of West Plains they came to an open place where the
grass had been wallowed down and in the center of this was found the skeleton
of a wolf and deer. It appeared that the wolf had either chased the deer
and caught it here or had sprang on it while lying in wait in the tall grass
and after a hard struggle both animals had died here. The finding of the
skeleton would not have been so strange if it had not been for the peculiar
condition of the two heads which were found to be fastened together in the
following way. The skull bones of the animals were connected together by
one tusk of the wolf which had penetrated the skull bone of the deer between
the eye and ear and become so tight that the wolf was unable to extricate
it and they had hung together until they died. My father said that they
picked up the skulls and pulled them apart. The evidence indicated that
the wolf in its efforts to kill the struggling deer had bit the deer on
the head and the tooth had penetrated the skull bone and probably the deer
had died soon afterward and the wolf had lingered for days before it finally
died from exhaustion and starvation. I suppose Mr. Wolf thought it a very
serious matter to have to die so near a feast of venison without being able
to reach and devour the least bit of it.
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