80 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



fled before the approach of civihzation and sought safety in seclu- 

 sion, as much as possible, though they remained in mountainous 

 regions and in deep forests, long after the bison had been driven 

 away by the occasional presence of the white man. Indeed, they 

 followed the bison reluctantly, and braved the danger from their 

 new enemies with a certain degree of resolution. They were 

 found in diminished numbers on our prairies, long after the bison 

 had crossed the Mississippi River for safety. Indeed, not until 

 the white settlers began to locate on the borders of the groves, 

 did they finally depart. The last account I get of their presence 

 in northern Illinois was in the year 1820, or thereabouts. In 

 1818 they were not observed east of the Illinois River, and but 

 few were then found on the western bank of that stream. An old 

 settler of high respectability assures me that he saw their tracks 

 in the forest north of Peoria in 1829, but did not see the animals. 

 In the Canadas, as also in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and 

 in the northeastern parts of the United States, where their range 

 lapped over on that of the moose, the fear of the white man's 

 weapons has long since driven them all away, although their 

 larger relatives still linger there in diminished numbers, no doubt 

 because they can evade pursuit more readily in the deep snows 

 which there prevail than the Wapiti were able to do. Mr. J. M. 

 La Moine of Quebec, informs me that he can find no account of 

 Wapiti having been met with in Lower Canada in the last one 

 hundred and fifty years, though their fossil antlers are occasion- 

 ally found there. Mr. H. Y. Hind, in his account of " Explora- 

 tions of Labrador," says that they remained in the seclusion of 

 that peninsula till a much later period. 



Till comparatively recent times they were found in northern 

 Iowa ; and in 1877 I saw several accounts of them having been 

 killed in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, 

 also in Minnesota. So, too, in the southwest, in Arkansas and 

 Texas, they still linger where they can find protection in the 

 dense thickets. In California, where they were once exceedingly 

 abundant, they are now rarely seen, although they maintained 

 their ground for some years after the miners had invaded that 

 territory. In Oregon and Washington territories, they have 

 been driven back by the white settlements, it is true, but still 

 they are there though in diminished numbers ; and the same 

 may be said of British Columbia. 



From necessity they no longer abandon a countr}'^ on the first 

 appearance of the white settlers, for now scarcely any place is left 



