Hunting in the Cattle Country 



rockinc^- chair on the ranch house veranda, 

 looking across the river at the strangely 

 shaped buttes and the groves of shimmer- 

 ing cottonwoods until the sun went down 

 and the frosty air bade me go in. 



I wish that members of the Boone and 

 Crockett Club, and big game hunters gener- 

 ally, would make a point of putting down all 

 their experiences with game, and with any 

 other markworthy beasts or birds, in the re- 

 gions where they hunt, which would be of 

 interest to students of natural history; not- 

 ing any changes of habits in the animals and 

 any causes that tend to make them decrease in 

 numbers, giving an idea of the times at which 

 the different larger beasts became extinct, and 

 the like. Around my ranch on the Little Mis- 

 souri there have been several curious changes 

 in the fauna. Thus, magpies have greatly de- 

 creased in number, owing, I believe, mainly to 

 the wolf-hunters. Magpies often come around 

 carcasses and eat poisoned baits. I have seen 

 as many as seven lying dead around a bait. 

 They are much less plentiful than they for- 

 merly were. In this last year, 1894, I saw one 

 large party; otherwise only two or three strag- 



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