BIG GAME SHOOTING 7 



Included in the order Bovidce are the bison (usually 

 miscalled buffalo), the musk-ox, the big-horn or moun- 

 tain-sheep, the white goat and the prongbuck or ante- 

 lope. Three of these animals (all save the bison and ante- 

 lope, are fairly abundant, in certain localities, and the 

 flesh of two of them, the mountain-sheep and the ante- 

 lope, is highly prized by epicures. In the UrsidcE or 

 bear family we have only four bears (although at least 

 twice that many bears are much written and talked 

 about) — the grizzly bear, the polar bear, the black 

 bear and the big brown bear. "Silver-tips," "cinna- 

 mons" and all the rest are referred by the naturalists 

 to one or the other of the four varieties above men- 

 tioned.* 



Here ends the list of the edible big-game animals, 

 those which may be termed true game. The fourth 

 order, FelidcB, in North America includes only two cats 

 — the cougar and the lynx ; the jaguar being too 

 rare to be listed.f There has been much controversy 

 about the natural history of many of the big-game ani- 

 mals. Much has been written that is confusing and 

 unreliable. The leading zoologists and the best sports- 

 men have differed as to the number of species. The 

 former have fought over the proper classification and 

 nomenclature, as the latter have over the methods of 

 capture and the size of the bag. In a recent book a dis- 

 tinguished moose-hunter who was asked to write the 

 monograph on the moose finds much that he wrote 

 flatly contradicted, in copious notes at the bottom of 



• The glacier bear is a new species known only by a single specimen. 

 This is classified as a species of black l)ear. 



t For the smaller cats see Appendix. 



