WILDERNESS RESERVES 301 



few miles of the same place, and from their size and the 

 open nature of their habitat it is almost as easy to count 

 them as if they were cattle. From a spur of Bison Peak 

 one day, Major Pitcher, the guide Elwood Hofer, John 

 Burroughs and I spent about four hours with the glasses 

 counting and estimating the different herds within sight. 

 After most careful work and cautious reduction of esti- 

 mates in each case to the minimum the truth would per- 

 mit, we reckoned three thousand head of elk, all lying 

 or feeding and all in sight at the same time. An estimate 

 of some fifteen thousand for the number of elk in these 

 Northern bands cannot be far wrong. These bands do 

 not go out of the Park at all, but winter just within its 

 northern boundary. At the time when we saw them, the 

 snow had vanished from the bottoms of the valleys and 

 the lower slopes of the mountains, but remained as con- 

 tinuous sheets farther up their sides. The elk were for 

 the most part found up on the snow slopes, occasionally 

 singly or in small gangs more often in bands of from 

 fifty to a couple of hundred. The larger bulls were high- 

 est up the mountains and generally in small troops by 

 themselves, although occasionally one or two would be 

 found associating with a big herd of cows, yearlings, and 

 two-year-olds. Many of the bulls had shed their antlers; 

 many had not. During the winter the elk had evidently 

 done much browsing, but at this time they were grazing 

 almost exclusively, and seemed by preference to seek out 

 the patches of old grass which were last left bare by the 

 retreating snow. The bands moved about very little, and 

 if one were seen one day it was generally possible to find 



