NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 263 



that their early extermination was foreseen by Miles. In 1856 

 they were not uncommonly seen at Saginaw Bay. Elk were 

 formerly abundant in Minnesota, and according to Herrick 

 (1892) they were occasionally killed by the Indians to the north 

 of Lake Superior as late as 1885, and he was informed of their 

 presence in that year at Red Lake. Although Cory (1912) 

 stated that a few individuals were said still to remain in the 

 extreme northern part of Minnesota, no evidence of this is 

 given. Cahn (1937) says that in Quetico Park, adjoining the 

 Superior National Forest in that region, elk have long been 

 extinct, but that in 1914 or 1915 they were introduced into the 

 latter reserve, and on at least one occasion "some members of 

 this herd were seen in the Quetico Park" on the Canadian side 

 of the common boundary. At the present time, according to 

 a Department of Agriculture press statement dated January 29, 

 1939, there are in Minnesota some 45 elk, and in Michigan 5, 

 but what part of these, if any, represents the native stock is 

 uncertain. From the same source it appears that estimates of 

 elk populations show the following figures : In New Hampshire, 

 250; in New York, 100; in Virginia, 140. Presumably these are 

 all from stock introduced fronrthe West. 



How far to the westward the typical eastern elk ranged may 

 perhaps never be demonstrated. From analogy with climatic 

 conditions and from what is known concerning other animals 

 of wide distribution, it may be presumed that somewhere 

 along the eastern edge of the Great Plains the characters 

 showed intergradation with those of the Rocky Mountain elk, 

 so that available notes from the States of the eastern Plains 

 may be grouped under that race. In North Dakota, where 

 this transition may have been found, Bailey (1926) writes of 

 the former abundance of elk all over the State, where they were 

 equally at home in the timber and on the open prairie. Ex- 

 plorers and others tell of the numbers found at the beginning 

 of the last century, but they rapidly disappeared before on- 

 coming settlement. A few remained into the early eighties, 

 one of the last reports being that of six killed in 1883 near 

 Elkton in Cavalier County. In former times the valleys seemed 

 to be their wintering grounds, where they found a dense cover 

 of timber and abundant food. The antlers were shed by the 

 males mainly during March and April, and quantities of these 

 might be picked up. "Next to the buffalo," says Bailey, "the 



