Introductory 17 



existed in countless thousands. As early as 1880 

 very good sporting authorities spoke not only of 

 the buffalo but of the elk, deer, and antelope as no 

 longer to be found in plenty ; and within a year 

 one of the greatest of living hunters has stated 

 that it is no longer possible to find any American 

 wapiti bearing heads comparable with the red deer 

 of Hungary. As a matter of fact, in the early 

 eighties there were still great regions where every 

 species of game that had ever been known within 

 historic times on our continent were still to be 

 found as plentifully as ever. In the early nineties 

 there were still large regions in which this was 

 true of all game except the buffalo ; for instance, 

 it was true of the elk in portions of northwestern 

 Wyoming, of the blacktail in northwestern Colo- 

 rado, of the whitetail here and there in the Indian 

 Territory, and of the antelope in parts of New Mex- 

 ico. Even at the present day there are smaller, 

 but still considerable regions where these four 

 animals are yet found in great abundance, and I 

 have seen antlers of wapiti shot in 1900 far sur- 

 passing any of which there is record from Hun- 

 gary. In New England and New York, as well 

 as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the whitetail 

 deer is more plentiful than it was thirty years 

 ago, and in Maine (and to an even greater extent 

 in New Brunswick) the moose and caribou have, 

 on the whole, increased during the same period. 



