i6o HUNTING TRIPS 



meat butchers wage the most relentless and 

 unceasing war upon it for the sake of its 

 hide and flesh, and their unremitting per- 

 secution 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. Excepting 

 the moose, it is the largest and, without ex- 

 ception, 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 already 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 



