American Big-Game Hunting 
climate and an uncongenial environment, or 
whether the young calves have been attacked 
by predatory animals, has never been satis- 
factorily determined. Dangers which would 
scarcely befall them in an open country 
might in a timbered region tend to keep 
down their numbers. They occasionally 
wander beyond the Park borders into Idaho 
and Montana with the first fall of snow, re- 
turning to their mountain homes with the ap- 
proach of spring. In 1884 I estimated the 
buffalo in the Park at 200; since that time 
they have gradually increased, and have 
probably doubled in number. In the winter 
of 1891-92 the grazing-ground in Hayden 
Valley was visited by a snowshoe party, who 
counted the scattered bands and took photo- 
graphs of several groups. These groups 
were generally small, and each contained a 
goodly number of calves. They numbered 
by actual count nearly 300, but there is no 
means of knowing what proportion of the 
Park buffalo were then gathered here. 
Bears of all kinds that inhabit the northern 
Rocky Mountains are found in the Park. 
The natural conditions of the country—a 
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