Animals: Bull Dive

A young, high-bred Holstein bull, en route from Pennsylvania to Porto Rico (object: paternity), arrived last week on the Staten Island shore of New York Harbor in a big strong crate on a motor truck. The truck went aboard the ferryboat Nassau. The motion of the ferry excited the bull. It hooked at the crate’s slats, then hurled its 1,200 lbs. against the end boards, burst through, charged the truck driver and the ferry’s brass-buttoned mate. All passengers and the mate fled to the top deck, leaving the bull snorting and plunging below. Came a crash of glass and a mighty splash—the animal diving through a window into the choppy harbor.

The Nassau blew her siren. Police boats and a tug swarmed around. Ropes and advice were thrown to the swimming bull, who submerged when capture seemed near, to come up snorting, blowing and swimming further away. After one such disappearance the pursuers gave the animal up, thought it had drowned. Hours later, a fisherman inbound off Sea Gate, some seven miles from the bull’s dive, beheld a horned creature swimming out to sea with the tide. The fisherman approached, threw an anchor rope, caught and towed the beast, still belligerent, to shallow water at Coney Island. To get the animal into an S. P. C. A. ambulance required two ropes, 18 policemen.