THE ELK HERDS OF WYOMING OF FORTY YEARS AGO 



(PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR; CLARK'S GROUP IN THE U. S. 

 NATIONAL MUSEUM USED AS A MODEL) 



THERE was a time in the history of our kind in what he was doing in such fields, and steps were taken, 

 so far as it referred to the higher races of man in a few instances, to stay the extinction of certain large 

 when no effort whatever was made to preserve mammals. Within comparatively recent time, the aurochs 

 and protect any of the other liv- 

 ing forms on the earth. From 

 cave men and before, down to 

 an age that might easily fall 

 within the period of latter-day 

 history, in all regions inhabited 

 by mankind, a ceaseless war- 

 fare upon the world's big ani- 

 mals has been carried on by 

 man. They have been the ob- 

 ject of his chase, whether for 

 food, for sport, or from sheer 

 wantonness, and there were 

 probably no exceptions to this 

 rule. Mammoths, moas, cave 

 bears, buffalo, elk and the rest, 

 were indiscriminately slain with 

 the crude weapons of those pris- 

 tine hunters. Form after form 

 disappeared through this and 

 other agencies, while man per- 

 sisted, vastly multiplied and 

 spread, from a number of cen- 

 ters, far and wide over the 

 earth. this is one of the memorable features of the national zoological park 



. ,. i( . , AT WASHINGTON 



After the passing of many 



,. Fig. 5 Few would guess what this attractive little cabin was built for; but an old racoon or two coming 



Centuries, man began tO realize out from beneath it soon tells the story. 



or bison of Europe furnish a 

 well-known example of this 

 pious step. "This is the most 

 interesting survival of the primi- 

 tive fauna of the Old World," 

 says a writer at hand. "It is 

 still found wild, though pro- 

 tected, in a large forest in 

 Lithuania, the property of the 

 Czar of Russia, called the Forest 

 of Bielowitza. A few are also 

 left of the purely wild stock in 

 the Caucasus. Those in Lithu- 

 ania have been protected for 

 several centuries, and the herd 

 is numbered from time to time. 

 In 1857 there were 1,898 of these 

 bison left; in 1882 there were 

 only 600; the bison in the Cau- 

 casus had been almost forgotten 

 till Mr. Littledale and Prince 

 Demidoff gave accounts of hunt- 

 ing it there quite recently." 

 I am not informed as to how 



Fig. 6 At one time a splendid specimen of the Black Llama was kept here, with several other species these European bison have fared 



in the adjoining paddock. * 



751 



THE LLAMA HOUSE AT THE NATIONAL "ZOO" IS ONE OF THE MOST ARTISTIC STRUCTURES 

 TO BE SEEN IN THAT FAMOUS PRESERVE 



