THE MOTOR-GAR FLAUNTS A TAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 153, 26 December 1936, Page 19

THE MOTOR-GAR FLAUNTS A TAIL

Animal tails waving from the radiator caps of atuomobiles have come to mean nothing except that the owner belongs to' the volatile fraternity 'of persons susceptible to new fads, says the "New-York Times." Originally the bushy banner. ■ indicated something more definite. It is said.-to have started in Virginia, where.fox hunting is a major sport. Many a rider to hounds, who had been "in at the death,".would fasten the brush to his radiator cap.

Spreading north-west; the custom at first was adopted by hunters who had successfully coped with a coyote. Thenpe it was carried to the Pacific, where, it .was taken up by motorists who. had passed through the stages of displaying "Excuse My Dust" pennons, comics, and puppets in their car windows and posters telling .what places they, had visited.. The animal tail to

them was merely a novelty to attach lo their'machine.

Along motor roads leading from the New York metropolitan district animal tails have taken their place beside windmills, birdhouses. and pottery as another temptation to spending motorists. Such tails come from all over the country, but Los Angeles is one of the .centres.of.distribution. One alert merchant there has' already sold about 50,000 fox and coyote tails to motorists, which (no pun intended) is probably the retail record.

Now the fad is sprouting variations. Travellers have met cars with the fivefoot spread •of horns once belonging to a Texas longhorn perched over the front. Bison horns have appeared. It is but a step- until, perhaps, some Izaak Walton enthusiast will come tearing down the road with a swordfish'acting as an advance guard ahead of his bumper.