I 



On the Little Missouri 



ing over many generations of animal life causes 

 a species so to adapt itself to its new surround- 

 ings that it ceases to diminish in numbers. 

 When white men take up a new country, the 

 game, and especially the big game, being en- 

 tirely unused to contend with the new foe, 

 succumbs easily, and is almost completely 

 killed out. If any individuals survive at all, 

 however, the succeeding generations are far 

 more difficult to exterminate than were their 

 ancestors, and they cling much more tena- 

 ciously to their old homes. The game to be 

 found in old and long-settled countries is much 

 more wary and able to take care of itself than 

 the game of an untrodden wilderness. It is a 

 very difficult matter to kill a Swiss chamois ; 

 but it is a very easy matter to kill a white goat 

 after a hunter has once penetrated among the 

 almost unknown peaks of the mountains of 

 British Columbia. When the ranchmen first 

 drove their cattle to the Little Missouri they 

 found the deer tame and easy to kill, but the 

 deer of Maine and the Adirondacks test to the 

 full the highest skill of the hunter. 



In consequence, after a time, game may even 

 increase in certain districts where settlements 



are thin. This has been true of the wolves 



213 



