Simona Kossak with pet wild boar Żabka.

Simona Kossak, daughter of Polish painter Jerzy Kossak, lived more than 30 years in a wooden hut in the Białowieża Forest, without electricity or access to running water. A lynx slept in her bed, and a tamed boar lived under the same roof with her. She was a scientist, ecologist and the author of award-winning films, as well as radio broadcasts.

A new biography, titled “Simona. Opowieść o niezwyczajnym życiu” [Simona. The story of an unusual life] has been published in Poland.

Culture.PL has a feature article based on the new bio. Amusingly, the article translates the Polish for “bison” as “aurochs.”

No one thought it would happen, but Barack Obama actually did a few days ago sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which included an amendment introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL3) authorizing the Civilian Marksmanship Program to sell to Americans some 100,000 Model 1911 Colt pistols which have been sitting in warehouses since the US Military replaced the beloved .45 1911 with the 9mm Beretta M9 in 1985.

Gun collectors have pushed prices for existing 1911s up to serious levels. Meanwhile, the gospel of the late Jeff Cooper has made the old 1911 into a tremendously popular choice for both target matches and personal defense. These days, everybody, Ruger, Remington, even Smith & Wesson is manufacturing his own knock-off of John Browning’s century-old masterpiece.

Nonetheless, guns which saw military service possess a special cachet and will always be particularly appealing to collectors. Frankly, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these myself.

Mike Weiser, astonishingly appearing at what El Rushbo likes to call the Puffington Host, finds the glass half empty.

There’s only one little problem. Right now if I want to sell one of my 1911 service pistols with the original markings on the slide and frame, the gun will fetch me somewhere just south of two thousand bucks. Know what’s going to happen to that price when thousands of surplus army pistols hit the street? The value of my 1911 stash just disappeared. Thanks for nothing, NRA. Thanks for nothing President Obama. And Merry Christmas to both of you too.

I think his fears may be exaggerated. In the old days, the CMP’s mission was encouraging civilian marksmanship by getting surplus military weapons into the hands of shooters. Before WWII, the CMP sold through the NRA and my uncles used to get Springfields and Enfields for $25 and Krag carbines for $5. These days, the CMP only sells to individuals who jump through lots of hoops, including proving that you participate in matches at a CMP-recognized shooting club, and they sell carefully-graded Garands at pretty steep prices. My guess is that the CMP is going to let go of those 1911s in a slow trickle at very retail-ish prices. They will probably also sell a lot of them at auction. And the supply will be kept low and slow, precisely in order to keep prices up.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Philip Mason (1906-1999) attended Sedbergh School and Balliol College, Oxford before going to India to serve in the Indian Civil Service in 1928. He found himself stationed at Saharanpur in Northern India working as a magistrate with third-class powers, meaning he could send someone to prison for three months or fine someone 50 rupees (the equivalent of £4 or $16 at the time).

He recalls in his memoir, A Shaft of Sunlight, 1978, that as junior magistrate, he was in charge of the smelly jobs.

There was a reward of five rupees for a dead wolf. A party of very low caste, nomadic gypsy folk called Kanjars (pronounced as in conjuror) [Wikipedia: “listed under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, as being a tribe ‘addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offences.’] came in with thirteen dead wolves, which they had collected in the course of a trip into the jungles of the Siwalik foothills, away to the north. There was a strong stink, and so of course it was I who was sent to certify that they were genuine wolves, not jackals. They were covered with dried mud and blood and not very easy to see but they seemed too big for jackals so I certified that they were wolves and ordered the Nazir [the Quartermaster] to pay the rewards. The Kanjars were told to cut off their ears and tails and burn them; I waited till I had seen these grisly relics thrown on the fire. It was a strange task for a student of philosophy.

The Kanjars were back again next month with more wolves. It was on their third visit that I discovered that they had kept the sun-dried carcasses of the original wolves, inserted a fresh-killed jackal inside the rib-cage — as the chef of a Victorian duke might stuff a quail inside an ortolan — and sewn on new ears and taild manufactured from hessian and smeared with fresh blood. My formal education being over, my true education had begun.