THE AMERTCAiV WILDERNESS, 27 



preserve, the Yellowstone Park ; and it is said 

 that otliers still remain in the wintry desolation 

 of Athabasca. Elsewhere only a few in- 

 dividuals exist — probably considerably less 

 than half a hundred all told — scattered in 

 small parties in the wildest and most remote 

 and inaccessible portions of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. A bison bull is the largest American 

 animal. His huge bulk, his short, curved 

 black horns, the shaggy mane clothing his 

 great neck and shoulders, give him a look of 

 ferocity wliich his conduct belies. Yet he is 

 truly a grand and noble beast, and his loss 

 from our prairies and forest is as keenly re- 

 gretted by the lover of nature and of wild life 

 as by the hunter. 



Next to the bison in size, and much superior 

 in height to it and to all other American game 

 — for it is taller than the tallest horse — comes 

 the moose, or broad-horned elk. It is a 

 strange, uncouth-looking beast, with very long 

 legs, short thick neck, a big, ungainly head, 

 a swollen nose, and huge shovel horns. Its 

 home is in the cold, wet pine and spruce 

 forests, which stretch from the sub-arctic 

 region of C'anada southward in certain places 

 across our frontier. Two centuries ago it was 

 found as far south as Massachusetts. It has 

 now been exterminated from itsformer haunts 

 in northern New York and Vermont, and is 

 on the point of vanishing from northern 

 IMichigan, It is still found in northern Maine 

 and northeastern Minnesota and in portions 

 of northern Idaho and Washington ; while 

 along the Rockies it extends its range south- 

 ward throu"h western Montana to northwest- 



