The American Wilderness 25 



northern Michigan. It is still found in northern 

 Maine and northeastern Minnesota and in portions 

 of northern Idaho and Washington ; while along the 

 Rockies it extends its range southward through 

 western Montana to northwestern Wyoming, 

 south of the Tetons. In 1884 I saw the fresh 

 hide of one that was killed in the Bighorn Moun 

 tains. 



The wapiti, or round-horned elk, like the bison, 

 and unlike the moose, had its centre of abundance 

 in the United States, though extending northward 

 into Canada. Originally its range reached from 

 ocean to ocean and it went in herds of thousands 

 of individuals; but it has suffered more from the 

 persecution of hunters than any other game except 

 the bison. By the beginning of this century it had 

 been exterminated in most localities east of the Mis 

 sissippi; but a few lingered on for many years in 

 the Alleghanies. Colonel Cecil Clay informs me 

 that an Indian whom he knew killed one in Pennsyl 

 vania in 1869. A very few still exist here and there 

 in northern Michigan and Minnesota, and in one or 

 two spots on the western boundary of Nebraska and 

 the Dakotas; but it is now properly a beast of the 

 wooded Western mountains. It is still plentiful 

 in western Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, 

 and in parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. 

 Though not as large as the moose it is the most 

 beautiful and stately of all animals of the deer 



2 VOL. II. 



