The Creating of Game Refuges 



at which they drink are long distances apart. In 

 some instances the alleged sportsmen camp by 

 these and watch them without intermission for 

 three days and nights, at the end of which period, 

 when the sheep are exhausted by thirst, the hunter 

 has them at his mercy. This has nearly as much 

 to commend it to the self-respecting sportsman as 

 the practice of imitating the cry of the female 

 moose to lure the bull to mad recklessness and his 

 undoing, a challenge hard for a courageous animal 

 to resist, a treacherous snare set before his feet. 

 It would seem as if a right-minded man would 

 hesitate to take so base an advantage as by either 

 of these two methods of hunting. 



Antelope are nearly exterminated in southern 

 California, and there is but a single little bunch of 

 elk those in the San Joaquin Valley, sole sur- 

 vivors of the vast herds which ranged throughout 

 those lowlands when Fremont came to the coun- 

 try in 1845. These elk are smaller than those of 

 the mountains, and bear a striking resemblance to 

 the Scotch red deer, so familiar to us in Landseer's 

 pictures. For years they have been protected by the 

 generosity and wisdom of one man, now no longer 

 young, an altogether public-spirited and generous 

 act. I was taken by the manager of this ranch to 

 see these elk as they came at night to feed in the 



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