Big-Game Refuges 



reservations. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and 

 practically all the States to the west of these, possess 

 such areas of unoccupied land, which might wisely be 

 acquired by the State and devoted to such excel- 

 lent purposes. In Montana there is a long stretch of 

 the Missouri River, with a narrow, shifting bottom, 

 bordered on either side by miles of bad-lands, which 

 would serve as such a State park. Settlers on this 

 stretch of river are few in number, for the bottoms 

 are not wide enough to harbor many homes, and, 

 being constantly cut out by the changes of the river's 

 course, are so unstable as to be of little value as farm- 

 ing lands. On the other hand, the new bottoms con- 

 stantly formed are soon thickly covered by willow 

 brush, while the extensive bad-lands on either side 

 the stream furnish an admirable refuge for deer, 

 antelope, mountain sheep and bear, with which the 

 country is already stocked, and were in old times a 

 great haunt for elk, which might easily be reintro- 

 duced there. 



There is a tendency in this country to avoid 

 trouble, and to do those things which can be done 

 most easily. From this it results that efforts are 

 constantly being made to introduce into regions from 

 which game has been exterminated various species of 

 foreign game, which can be had, more or less 

 domesticated, from the preserves of Europe. Thus 

 red deer have been introduced in the Adirondack 

 region, and it has been suggested that chamois might 

 be brought from Europe and turned loose in certain 

 localities in the United States, and there increase 



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