NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 259 



Elk Garden, Elk Hill, Elkton, Elkwood; in West Virginia, Elk 

 Garden, Elk Horn; in North Carolina, Elkville; in Tennessee, 

 Elk Horn, Elk Mills, Elk River, Elkton; in Kentucky, Elkfork, 

 Elk Horn, Elkton; in Alabama, Elk and Elk River. Other 

 place names of a similar sort are on the maps of Ohio, Indiana, 

 Michigan, and Iowa. But the native elk has long since gone, 

 although in a few places as in Corbin Park, N. H., western 

 stock has been imported and maintained under fence. 



In the northeastern part of its range the animal was known 

 to the French explorers of the St. Lawrence River, but Dr. 

 R. M. Anderson (1939a) writes that although found in the prov- 

 ince of Quebec south of the St. Lawrence in early days it has 

 been gone from there for at least a century. He quotes W. P. 

 Lett that about a hundred years prior to 1884 elk were present 

 in small numbers in Carleton County, Ontario, and the antlers 

 are frequently turned up by the plow in the vicinity of Ottawa. 

 Presumably elk were present at that time on the Quebec side 

 of the Ottawa River. In New England there is no record of 

 the wapiti in historic times, yet it must occasionally have 

 reached western Vermont, for antlers have been found in bogs 

 in that region. Western New York was a part of the wapiti's 

 range at one time. DeKay, in 1842, after correcting a few 

 erroneous conceptions concerning this species, writes that they 

 were at that time found in "the northwestern counties of 

 Pennsylvania, and the adjoining counties of New- York. In 

 1834, I am informed by Mr. Philip Church, a stag was killed 

 at Bolivar, Allegany county. My informant saw the animal, 

 and his description corresponds exactly with this species." 

 He also quotes a certain "Mr. Beach, an intelligent hunter," 

 that he had shot at one in 1836 on the north branch of the 

 Saranac and another hunter, Vaughan, who had actually 

 killed one at nearly the same place. Merriam (1884), however, 

 is inclined to doubt these last records on the ground that no old 

 hunter with whom he had talked in the Adirondack region had 

 ever seen or heard of one; nevertheless he admits that they 

 must once have been common in the Adirondacks, since a 

 number of antlers have been discovered, the best preserved of 

 which that he had seen was found in a bog on Third Lake of 

 Fulton Chain, in Herkimer County. The largest of several 

 discovered at Steels Corners in St. Lawrence County measured 

 12 1/2 inches in circumference at the burr and 10 inches immedi- 



