266 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Rocky Mountain wapiti should be regarded as extending east- 

 ward to the edge of the Great Plains. At all events, the species 

 formerly was found over much of this region. Thus, in 1804-5, 

 Lewis and Clark recorded elk along the Missouri River all the 

 way through North Dakota, and 40 years later Audubon 

 found them abundant along the Missouri and Little Missouri 

 Rivers. Bailey (1926) mentions being told of "thousands" 

 seen along the Lower Yellowstone in 1864 and they remained 

 common in the Dakotas till about 1880, but "as the country 

 filled up with settlers they rapidly disappeared," and were 

 practically gone from the State by the middle eighties. The 

 late J. A. Allen (1870) wrote of their occurrence in Iowa, that 

 though formerly numerous, they were by 1879 "extinct in 

 most of the region." An old resident with whom he talked in 

 1867, at New Jefferson, Greene County, told him that only 

 seven years before "the elk were abundant in some parts of 

 that county. Prior to this date he used to see herds nearly 

 every day, and sometimes several in a day, some of them of 

 very large size. During the early settlement of this part of 

 Iowa they were of great value to the settlers, furnishing them 

 with an abundance of excellent food when there was a scarcity 

 of swine and other meat-yielding domestic animals. But, as 

 has been the case too often in the history of the noblest game 

 animals of this continent, they were frequently most ruthlessly 

 and improvidently destroyed. In the severer weather of winter 

 they were often driven to seek shelter and food in the vicinity 

 of the settlements. At such times the people, not satisfied with 

 killing enough for their present need, mercilessly engaged in an 

 exterminating butchery. Rendered bold by their extremity, 

 the elk were easily dispatched with such implements as axes 

 and corn-knives. For years they were so numerous that the 

 settlers could kill them whenever they desired to, but several 

 severe winters and indiscriminate slaughter soon greatly re- 

 duced their numbers, and now only a few linger where formerly 

 thousands lived, and these are rapidly disappearing. Their 

 home here being chiefly the open country, they much sooner 

 fall a prey to the Vest ward march of civilization', through the 

 most merciless treatment they receive at the hands of the emi- 

 grant, than does the deer." 



On the plains of Kansas the elk was formerly abundant but 

 has long been extinct. In these open regions elk were con- 



