252 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



gardens. I think this is because hitherto the experiment 

 has been tried east of the Mississippi in an alien habitat. 

 The wapiti and whitetail are species that are at home 

 over most of the United States, East and West, in rank, 

 wet prairies, dense woodland, and dry mountain regions 

 alike; but the mule-deer has a far more sharply localized 

 distribution. In the Bronx Zoological Gardens, in New 

 York, Mr. Hornaday informs me that he has compara- 

 tively little difficulty in keeping up the stock alike of 

 wapiti and whitetail by breeding as indeed any visitor 

 can see for himself. The same is true in the game pre- 

 serves in the wilder regions of New York and New Eng- 

 land ; but hitherto the mule-deer has offered an even more 

 difficult problem in captivity than the pronghorn ante- 

 lope. Doubtless the difficulty would be minimized if 

 the effort at domestication were made in the neighbor- 

 hood of the Rocky Mountains. 



The true way to preserve the mule-deer, however, 

 as well as our other game, is to establish on the nation's 

 property great nurseries and wintering grounds, such as 

 the Yellowstone Park, and then to secure fair play for 

 the deer outside these grounds by a wisely planned and 

 faithfully executed series of game laws. This is the 

 really democratic method of solving the problem. Oc- 

 casionally even yet some one will assert that the game 

 " belongs to the people, and should be given over to 

 them " meaning, thereby, that there should be no game 

 laws, and that every man should be at liberty indiscrimi- 

 nately to kill every kind of wild animal, harmless, useless, 

 or noxious, until the day when our woods become wholly 



