28 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



ern Wyoming, south of the Tetons. In 1884 

 I saw the fresh hide of one that was killed in 

 the Bighorn Mountains. 



The wapiti, or round-horned elk, like the 

 bison, and unlike the moose, had its centre of 

 abundance in the United States, though ex- 

 tending northward into Canada. Originally 

 its range reached from ocean to ocean and it 

 went in herds of thousands of individuals ; 

 but it has suffered more from the persecution 

 of hunters than any other game except the 

 bison. By the beginning of this century it 

 had been exterminated in most localities east 

 of the Mississippi ; but a few lingered on for 

 many years in the Alleghanies. Col. Cecil 

 Clay informs me that an Indian whom he 

 knew killed one in Pennsylvania in 1869. A 

 very few still exist here and there in northern 

 Michigan and Minnesota, and in one or two 

 spots on the western boundary of Nebraska 

 and the Dakotas ; but it is now properly a 

 beast of the wooded western mountains. It 

 is still plentiful in western Colorado, Wyoming, 

 and Montana, and in parts of Idaho, Wash- 

 ington, and Oregon. Though not as large 

 as the moose it is the most beautiful and 

 stately of all animals of the deer kind, and 

 its antlers are marvels of symmetrical grand- 

 eur. 



The woodland caribou is inferior to the 

 wapiti both in size and symmetry. The tips 

 of the many branches of its long irregular 

 antlers are slightly palmated. Its range is 

 the same as that of the moose, save that it 

 does not go so far southward. Its hoofs are 

 long and round ; even larger than the long, 



