ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1487 



JUST BEFORE SUNSET THE GREAT ELK AND HIS HERD APPEARED ON THE MOUNTAIN SIDE 



The early snows again drove the elk down 

 from the high mountains, and now White Patch 

 had to look out for himself. Early in the win 

 ter he had shed the two middle incisor teeth 

 from his lower jaw in the front, and with no 

 front teeth on the upper jaw, he was in a poor 

 way for rustling. 



When the snow got so deep that it covered 

 all the grass, and he had to depend solely on 

 willow browse, he grew very thin, and spring 

 found him emaciated and weak. Among the 

 cliffs on the hillside, he hunted out and cropped 

 the earliest green grass, and this gave him 

 strength. Then the horns of which he had been 

 so proud, dropped off. He soon fell in with a 

 few more about his age, and together they went 

 back toward the summer range. They visited 

 all the salt licks as they came to them, and this, 

 with spring grass, gave them health and vigor. 



The new horns of White Patch grew rapidly 

 and in place of one plain spike, each horn de- 

 veloped four points. In the fall, when the vel- 

 vet began to loosen and hang in long strips, he 

 worked diligently, rubbing the horns in the - 

 brush to get the velvet loose and to polish them. 

 He felt very proud of his new horns, and felt 



anxious to show them to the other elk. Boldly 

 he walked toward the herd, until he saw a great 

 pair of towering antlers coming toward him. 

 He faltered, then turned to flee, he was almost 

 too late, for those great horns nearly reached 

 his flank. At another herd he got the same kind 

 of a reception from the leader, and he felt him- 

 self an outcast ; doomed to wander alone. 



With his late companions who had been no 

 more successful than himself in joining the 

 herds, he wandered about the summer range 

 until the snow began to fall. Thej^ were then 

 strong and rugged, and went farther back in 

 the mountains. With his strong hoofs White 

 Patch pawed away twelve inches of snow in 

 the mountain parks, down to the rich grass 

 beneath. 



Occasionally he heard rumblings on the steep 

 mountain sides as the great weight of the upper 

 layers of snow crashed in avalanches through 

 to the bottom. He paid no attention to this 

 till one day, as the snow settled, he heard a 

 great roar on the mountain side above him. His 

 wild instinct told him of great danger, and he 

 sprang forward and ran with all his might. 

 A erreat mass of snow, filled with shattered trees 



