Hunting at High Altitudes 



point of view, perhaps from 10,000 to 25,000 

 years ago, Alaska had a fauna of large mammals 

 not altogether dissimilar to existing animals of 

 North America and northern Asia.* The masto- 

 don and mammoth, of course, no longer exist on 

 this continent, but the latter is a true elephant, well 

 fitted to meet boreal conditions, and the horses in 

 Alaska were probably not unlike the wild 

 Prjevalsky horses of Asia to-day. 



The ancient Alaska deer were probably related 

 to the wapiti, which swarmed over our American 

 plains within the memory of living man, and the 

 fossil remains of caribou and moose do not indicate 

 any great departure from the living forms of those 

 animals. 



Sheep still occur abundantly in Alaska, and the 

 musk-ox, while no longer found in Alaska, inhabits 

 the no less inhospitable regions of the Barren 

 Grounds of North America, and the land masses 

 lying still further north. The extermination of 

 this animal in Alaska is very recent. 



Bison skulls are quite common, and indicate an 

 animal much larger, but probably ancestral to our 



*A mammoth with some skin and hair intact was found 

 by my companion at Eschscholtz Bay in the summer of 1907, 

 and the specimens are now in the American Museum of 

 Natural History, New York. 



384 



