12 The Wilderness Hunter 



American wilderness resembles both in game and 

 physical character the forests, the mountains, and 

 the steppes of the Old World as it was at the begin- 

 ning of our era. Great woods of pine and fir, birch 

 and beech, oak and chestnut ; streams where the chief 

 game fish are spotted trout and silvery salmon; 

 grouse of various kinds as the most common game 

 birds; all these the hunter finds as characteristic of 

 the New World as of the Old. So it is with most 

 of the beasts of the chase, and so also with the fur- 

 bearing animals that furnish to the trapper alike his 

 life work and his means of livelihood. The bear, 

 wolf, bison, moose, caribou, wapiti, deer, and big- 

 horn, the lynx, fox, wolverine, sable, mink, ermine, 

 beaver, badger, and otter of both worlds are either 

 identical or more or less closely kin to one another. 

 Sometimes of the two forms, that found in the Old 

 World is the larger. Perhaps more often the re- 

 verse is true, the American beast being superior in 

 size. This is markedly the case with the wapiti, 

 which is merely a giant brother of the European 

 stag, exactly as the fisher is merely a very large 

 cousin of the European sable or marten. The ex- 

 traordinary prong-buck, the only hollow-horned ru- 

 minant which sheds its horns annually, is a distant 

 representative of the Old- World antelopes of the 

 steppes; the queer white antelope-goat has for its 

 nearest kinsfolk certain Himalayan species. Of the 

 animals commonly known to our hunters and trap- 



