American Big Game in its Haunts 



traversed with care, and seen with as much thor- 

 oughness as possible. More of the reserves might 

 easily have been visited in other States, had I been 

 content to do this in a sketchy and cursory man- 

 ner, but my idea was to derive the greatest pos- 

 sible amount of instruction for a definite specific 

 purpose, and it seemed to me for the accomplish- 

 ment of this end to be essential that one should 

 spend a sufficiently long time in each forest to re- 

 ceive a strong impression of its own peculiar and 

 distinctive nature, to get an idea into one's head, 

 which would stick, of its individuality, and, if I 

 may say so, of its personal features and idiosyn- 

 crasies. Not until more than three months had 

 been spent in the faithful execution of this plan 

 was the problem studied from any other view than 

 that refuges were to be created of considerable 

 size, and that their lines of demarcation would 

 naturally be formed by something easily grasped 

 by the eye^ either rivers or the crests of mountain 

 ranges. 



After the lapse of that time, looking at 

 this from every point of view, it became my 

 opinion that the ideal solution was the creation of 

 many small refuges rather than the establishment 

 of a few large ones. To be effective, the size of 

 these ranges should not be less than ten miles 



428 



