The American Wilderness. 15 



spruce forests, which stretch from the sub-arctic region of 

 Canada southward in certain places across our frontier. 

 Two centuries ago it was found as far south as Massachu- 

 setts. It has now been exterminated from its former 

 haunts in northern New York and Vermont, and is on 

 the point of vanishing from 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 Mountains. 



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 suf- 

 fered 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. Col. Cecil Clay informs me that an Indian 

 whom he knew killed one in Pennsylvania 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 Mon- 

 tana, and in parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. 

 Though not as large as the moose it is the most beautiful 



