280 BULLETIN NO. VII. 
males being darker. The male has the lower parts of the body 
and neck as well as legs very dark brown, nearly black, while 
in the female these corresponding parts are chestnut brown. 
Above, the color is yellowish-brown. The rump is marked by 
a patch of white, bordered above by black. The young elk is 
spotted or dappled with dull white, but far less regularly than 
the fawn of the Virginia deer. 
Like the red deer of Europe the elk is gregarious and polyg- 
amous, though the number associated is rarely great. The 
herd consists of several divisions during the breeding season. 
The oldest or most vigorous buck drives the younger bucks 
from the herd of does while the young malcontents become 
companions in discontent. Sometimes some of the females 
desert the harem and join the buckaneers. No one in America 
has had so fine opportunities for the study of the elk as Judge 
Caton, and from his ‘‘ Antelope and Deer of North America” 
one may glean ample illustrations of its habits. 
In appetite, the elk is not epicurean but eats greedily almost 
all vegetable food. Grass and succulent herbage as well as 
the shoots of many trees form the staple diet. In a state of 
nature the elk breeds at two or three years, producing one, 
two or three at a birth. The fawns are very active but the 
mother does not at once join the herd. 
The domestication of the elk is so easy that it is a pity it has 
not been more generally attempted. The writer has seen 
domesticated specimens at work like oxen and experiment in 
this line would be at least interesting. The geographical dis- 
tribution was once enormons—extending far north and south 
of the limits of the United States. The prairies were rather 
avoided but all other portions of our national domain were 
suited to this noble deer. It is now practically extinct in the 
eastern part of the United States. In the writings of early ex- 
plorers of Minnesota references to great herds of elk abound. 
To-day the Indians in the region north of Lake Superior now 
and then succeed in securing one, but the American hunter is 
fortunate if he sees a wild elk east of the Yellowstone. Mr. 
W. W. Cooke of Moorehead informed me that both moose and 
elk are always found near lakes Itaska and Caribou while in 1885 
they were common about Red lake. The cause of the wide 
range may be found in the fact that the appetite is not delicate 
and no single plant is the chief reliance of the animal. The 
chase of the elk can not be regarded as very noble sport aside 
from the size of the game, as sheer patience and endurance are 
