The Wapiti or Round -honied Elk 149 



It is impossible to preserve the larger wild 

 animals in regions thoroughly fit for agricul- 

 ture; and it is perhaps too much to hope that 

 the larger carnivors can be preserved for merely 

 aesthetic reasons. But throughout our country 

 there are great regions entirely unsuited for agri- 

 culture where, if the people only have foresight, 

 they can, through the power of the state, keep 

 the game in perpetuity. There is no hope of 

 preserving the bison permanently, save in great 

 private parks; but all other game, including not 

 merely deer, but the pronghorn, the splendid big- 

 horn, and the stately and beautiful wapiti, can be 

 kept on the public lands, if only the proper laws 

 are passed, and if only these laws are properly 

 enforced. I suppose that no lover of nature who 

 travels through Switzerland does not regret that 

 the ibex has vanished from among the Swiss 

 mountains ; and every good American ought to 

 endeavor to see to it that for ages to come such 

 a fate does not befall the bighorn and the wapiti 

 in the Rockies. 



A peculiar charm in the chase of the wapiti 

 comes from the wild beauty of the country in 

 which it dwells. The moose lives in marshy for- 

 ests ; if one would seek the white goat or caribou 

 of the northern Rockies, he must travel on foot, 

 pack on back ; while the successful chase of the 

 bighorn, perhaps on the whole the manliest of 



