H Tlie Wilderness Htmter. 



mountains, in the Alleghanies no less than in the Rockies; 

 but its true home was on the prairies, and the high plains. 

 Across these it roamed, hither and thither, in herds of 

 enormous, of incredible magnitude ; herds so large that 

 they covered the waving grass land for hundreds of square 

 leagues, and when on the march occupied days and days 

 in passing a given point. But the seething myriads of 

 shaggy-maned wild cattle vanished with remarkable and 

 melancholy rapidity before the inroads of the white hun- 

 ters, and the steady march of the oncoming settlers. 

 Now they are on the point of extinction. Two or three 

 hundred are left in that great national game preserve, the 

 Yellowstone Park ; and it is said that others still remain 

 in the wintry desolation of Athabasca. Elsewhere only 

 a few individuals exist — probably considerably less than 

 half a hundred all told — scattered in small parties in the 

 wildest and most remote and inaccessible portions of the 

 Rocky Mountains. A bison bull is the largest American 

 animal. His hug-e bulk, his short, curved black horns, 

 the shaggy mane clothing his great neck and shoulders, 

 give him a look of ferocity which his conduct belies. Yet 

 he is truly a grand and noble beast, and his loss from our 

 prairies and forest is as keenly regretted by the lover of 

 nature and of wild life as by the hunter. 



Next to the bison in size, and much superior in height 

 to it and to all other American o-ame — for it is taller than 

 the tallest horse — comes the moose, or broad-horned elk. 

 It is a strange, uncouth-looking beast, with very long legs, 

 short thick neck, a big, ungainly head, a swollen nose, and 

 huge shovel horns. Its home is in the cold, wet pine and 



