Still-Hunting Elk. 



than is an ordinary buck. Once, in coming up to a 

 wounded one, I had it strike at me with its forefeet, 

 bristling up the hair on the neck, and making a harsh, 

 grating noise with its teeth ; as its back was broken it 

 could not get at me, but the savage glare in its eyes left 

 me no doubt as to its intentions. Only in a single in- 

 stance have I ever known of a hunter being regularly 

 charged by one of these great deer. He had struck a 

 band of elk and wounded an old bull, which, after going 

 a couple of miles, received another ball and then sepa- 

 rated from the rest of the herd and took refuge in a dense 

 patch of small timber. The hunter went in on its trail 

 and came upon it lying down ; it jumped to its feet and, 

 with hair all bristling, made a regular charge upon its 

 pursuer, who leaped out of the way behind a tree just in 

 time to avoid it. It crashed past through the under- 

 growth without turning, and he killed it with a third and 

 last shot. But this was a very exceptional case, and in 

 most instances the elk submits to death with hardly an 

 effort at resistance ; it is by no means as dangerous an 

 antagonist as is a bull moose. 



The elk is unfortunately one of those animals seem- 

 ingly doomed to total destruction at no distant date. Al- 

 ready its range has shrunk to far less than one half its 

 former size. Originally it was found as far as the Atlan- 

 tic sea-board ; I have myself known of several sets of 

 antlers preserved in the house of a Long Island gentle- 

 man, whose ancestors had killed the bearers shortly after 

 the first settlement of New York. Even so late as the 

 first years of this century elk were found in many moun- 



