296 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



in 1834; in Pennsylvania not till nearly thirty years 

 later; while a very few are still to be found in 

 northern Michigan. Elsewhere they must now be 

 sought far to the west of the Mississippi ; and even 

 there they are almost gone from the great plains, 

 and are only numerous in the deep mountain for- 

 ests. Wherever it exists the skin hunters and meat 

 butchers wage the most relentless and unceasing 

 war upon it for the sake of its hide and flesh, and 

 their unremitting persecution is thinning out the 

 herds with terrible rapidity. 



The gradual extermination of this, the most 

 stately and beautiful animal of the chase to be found 

 in America, can be looked upon only with unmixed 

 regret by every sportsman and lover of nature. Ex- 

 cepting the moose, it is the largest and, without 

 exception, it is the noblest of the deer tribe. No 

 other species of true deer, in either the Old or the 

 New World, come up to it in size and in the shape, 

 length, and weight of its mighty antlers; while the 

 grand, proud carriage and lordly bearing of an old 

 bull make it perhaps the most majestic looking of 

 all the animal creation. The open plains have al- 

 ready lost one of their great attractions, now that 

 we no more see the long lines of elk trotting across 

 them; and it will be a sad day when the lordly, 

 antlered beasts are no longer found in the wild 

 rocky glens and among the lonely woods of tower- 

 ing pines that cover the great Western mountain 

 chains. 



The elk has other foes besides man. The grisly 



