280 BULLETIN NO. VII. 



males being darker. The male has the lower parts of the body 

 and neck as well as legs very dark brown, nearly black, while 

 in the female these corresponding parts are chestnut brown. 

 Above, the color is yellowish-brown. The rump is marked by 

 a patch of white, bordered above by black. The young elk is 

 spotted or dappled with dull white, but far less regularly than 

 the fawn of the Virginia deer. 



Like the red deer of Europe the elk is gregarious and polyg- 

 amous, though the number associated is rarely great. The 

 herd consists of several divisions during the breeding season. 

 The oldest or most vigorous buck drives the younger bucks 

 from the herd of does while the young malcontents become 

 companions in discontent. Sometimes some of the females 

 desert the harem and join the buckaneers. No one in America 

 has had so fine opportunities for the study of the elk as Judge 

 Caton, and from his "Antelope and Deer of North America" 

 one may glean ample illustrations of its habits. 



In appetite, the elk is not epicurean but eats greedily almost 

 all vegetable food. Grass and succulent herbage as well as 

 the shoots of many trees form the staple diet. In a state of 

 nature the elk breeds at two or three years, producing one, 

 two or three at a birth. The fawns are very active but the 

 mother does not at once join the herd. 



The domestication of the elk is so easy that it is a pity it has 

 not been more generally attempted. The writer has seen 

 domesticated specimens at work like oxen and experiment in 

 this line would be at least interesting. The geographical dis- 

 tribution was once enormons extending far north and south 

 of the limits of the United States. The prairies were rather 

 avoided but all other portions of our national domain were 

 suited to this noble deer. It is now practically extinct in the 

 eastern part of the United States. In the writings of early ex- 

 plorers of Minnesota references to great herds of elk abound. 

 To-day the Indians in the region north of Lake Superior now 

 and then succeed in securing one, but the American hunter is 

 fortunate if he sees a wild elk east of the Yellowstone. Mr. 

 W. W. Cooke of Moorehead informed me that both moose and 

 elk are always found near lakes Itaska and Caribou while in 1885 

 they were common about Red lake. The cause of the wide 

 range may be found in the fact that the appetite is not delicat e 

 and no single plant is the chief reliance of the animal. The 

 chase of the elk can not be regarded as very noble sport aside 

 from the size of the game, as sheer patience and endurance are 



