24 OUR BIG GAME 



be gameless to-day; "shot out," is the expressive 

 phrase applied to them by hide and horn hunters. 

 The necessity for game preservation is nowhere more 

 apparent than in the Big Horns. In the nearby Na- 

 tional Park there are moose, elk, deer, antelope, buffalo, 

 mountain-sheep, grizzly and black bears.* 



We have now five National parks and thirty-eight 

 reservations. The Yellowstone is the largest of the 

 parks and contained 3,444 square miles, an area equal 

 to Rhode Island and Delaware. This was increased 

 by the creation of the Yellowstone National Park 

 timber reservation, and again by the Teton forest re- 

 serve, so that we now have a great park nearl}^ twice 

 as big as that originally created. The big game has 

 profited much by the additions. As we shall observe 

 later many game animals go up the mountains in the 

 summer and return to the lower valleys and plains for 

 the winter. So long as the winter quarters of the 

 animals remained outside the park, the tame creatures 

 which had spent the summer peacefully in the park 

 walked out to meet an army of rifles, and it is not 

 strange that they did not show a gratifying increase. 



This National Park now has many valleys as well as 

 mountain ranges which are watered by lakes and 

 streams. It has the dark, dense swamps where the 

 moose love to dwell, and the alternating park-like 

 woods and natural lawns which the elk and mule-deer 

 like the best. It has many thickets, ravines and 

 forests, the unchanged homes of countless deer, and 



* Far different is the picture in the vicinity of the park hotels from that 

 near most of our seaside resorts. In the park grizzly bears are easily taken 

 with a kodak ; the last sanderling has been shot near many of the Eastern 

 hotels. 



