304 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



swoop, turned a complete somersault, and when it re- 

 covered its feet stood still. The great bird followed the 

 rest of the band across a little ridge, beyond which they 

 disappeared. Then it returned, soaring high in the heav- 

 ens, and after two or three wide circles, swooped down 

 at the solitary yearling, its legs hanging down. We 

 halted at two hundred yards to see the end. But the eagle 

 could not quite make up its mind to attack. Twice it 

 hovered within a foot or two of the yearling's head, 

 again flew off and again returned. Finally the yearling 

 trotted off after the rest of the band, and the eagle re- 

 turned to the upper air. Later we found the carcass of 

 a yearling, with two eagles, not to mention ravens and 

 magpies, feeding on it; but I could not tell whether they 

 had themselves killed the yearling or not. 



Here and there in the region where the elk were abun- 

 dant we came upon horses, which for some reason had 

 been left out through the winter. They were much 

 wilder than the elk. Evidently the Yellowstone Park is 

 a natural nursery and breeding-ground of the elk, which 

 here, as said above, far outnumber all the other game put 

 together. In the winter, if they cannot get to open water, 

 they eat snow; but in several places where there had been 

 springs which kept open all winter, we could see by the 

 tracks that they had been regularly used by bands of elk. 

 The men working at the new road along the face of the 

 cliffs beside the Yellowstone River near Tower Falls 

 informed me that in October enormous droves of elk 

 coming from the interior of the Park and travelling 

 northward to the lower lands had crossed the Yellow- 



