1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



2 59 



Coyotes are plentiful, but the elk evi- 

 dently have no dread of them. One 

 day I crawled up to within fifty yards 

 of a band of elk lying down. A coyote 

 was walking about among them, and' 

 beyond an occasional look they paid no 

 heed to him. He did not venture to go 

 within fifteen or twenty paces of any- 

 one of them. In fact, except the cou- 

 gar, I saw but one living thing attempt to 

 molest the elk. This was a golden eagle. 

 We saw several of these great birds. 

 On one occasion we had ridden out to 

 the foot of a great sloping mountain 

 side, dotted over with bands and strings 

 of elk amounting in the aggregate proba- 

 bly to a thousand head. Most of the 

 bands were above the snow line some 

 appearing away back toward the ridge 

 crests, and looking as small as mice. 

 There was one band well below the 

 snow line, and toward this we rode. 

 While the elk were not shy or wary, in 

 the sense that a hunter would use the 

 words, they were by no means as famil- 

 iar as the deer ; and this particular band 

 of elk, some twenty or thirty in all, 

 watched us with interest as we ap- 

 proached. When we were still half a 

 mile off they suddenly started to run 

 toward us, evidently frightened by 

 something. They ran quartering, and 

 when about four hundred yards away 

 we saw that an eagle was after them. 

 Soon it swooped, and a yearling in the 

 rear, weakly, and probably frightened 

 by the swoop, turned a complete somer- 

 sault, and when it recovered its feet, 

 stood still. The great bird followed 

 the rest of the band across a little ridge, 

 beyond which they disappeared. Then 

 it returned, soaring high in the heavens, 

 and after two or three wide circles, 

 swooped down at the solitary yearling, 

 its legs hanging down. We halted at 



two hundred yards to see the end. 

 But the eagle could not quite make up 

 its mind to attack. Twice it hovered 

 within a foot or two of the yearling's 

 head again flew off and again returned. 

 Finally the yearling trotted off after the 

 rest of the band, and the eagle returned 

 to the upper air. Later we found the 

 carcass of a yearling, with two eagles, 

 not to mention ravens and magpies, 

 feeding on it ; but I could not tell 

 whether they had themselves killed the 

 yearling or not. 



Here and there in the region where 

 the elk were abundant we came upon 

 horses which for some reason had been 

 left out through the winter. They 

 were much wilder than the elk. Evi- 

 dently the Yellowstone Park is a natu- 

 ral nursery and breeding ground of the 

 elk, which here, as said above, far out- 

 number all the other game put together. 

 In the winter, if the}' can not get to 

 open water, they eat snow ; but in 

 several places where there had been 

 springs which kept open all winter, we 

 could see by the tracks they had been 

 regularly used by bands of elk. The 

 men working at the new road along the 

 face of the cliffs beside the Yellowstone 

 River near Tower Falls informed me 

 that in October enormous droves of elk 

 coming from the interior of the park 

 and traveling northward to the lower 

 lands had crossed the Yellowstone just 

 above Tower Falls. Judging from their 

 description, the elk had crossed by thou- 

 sands in an uninterrupted stream, the 

 passage taking many hours. In fact 

 nowadays these Yellowstone elk are, 

 with the exception of the Arctic cari- 

 bou, the only American game which at 

 times travel in immense droves like the 

 buffalo of the old days. 



To be concluded in July number. 



