26 STALKS ABROAD 



fords graze about the plains, though the whitening 

 skulls and sun-cracked horns of the former remind 

 one that it is a change which has been effected 

 within a short thirty years. 



This Jackson's Hole district is, I should say, at 

 the present time the largest game-producing area 

 within the United States, though whether it will be 

 possible to make the same remark in another twenty, 

 or even ten years, is extremely doubtful. 



The Wyoming game laws are good ; but the range 

 of the wapiti and antelope, restricted naturally by 

 the lie of the country and climatic conditions, arti- 

 ficially by the encroaching ranchmen, is insufficient 

 for the number of animals which are compelled to find 

 a living on it. A very large number of wapiti spend 

 the summer months in the great national preserve 

 of the Yellowstone Park. The ground there is un- 

 suitable for wintering, and as summer wanes they 

 find their way down south through the game reserva- 

 tion which has been recently made, to Jackson's Hole. 



It is estimated that at least fifteen thousand head 

 of wapiti have wintered there annually of late years, 

 and the feed is quite insufficient to support so large 

 a number of beasts. Indeed, although it is a some- 

 what bold statement to make, I believe that a couple 

 of really bad winters would relegate them to the 

 unenviable position of the bison. 



There is one factor, however, in the disappearance 

 of the wapiti, hardly realised by European sportsmen, 

 for which the legislature is very much to blame. I 



