OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 201 
is so difficult for them to hide and so very easy for man to 
creep up within the killing range of modern, high-power, 
long-range rifles. Is it not pitiful to think of animals like 
the caribou, moose, white sheep and bear trying to survive 
on the naked ridges and bald mountains of Yukon Territory 
and Alaska! With a modern rifle the greatest duffer on earth 
can creep up within killing distance of any of the big game of 
the North. 
The gray wolf is practically the only large animal that is 
able to hide. successfully and survive in the treeless regions 
of the North; but his room is always preferable to his com- 
pany, because he, too, is a destroyer of big game. 
I am tempted to try to map out roughly what are to-day 
the unopened and undestroyed wild haunts of big game in 
North America. In doing this, however, I warn the reader 
not to be deceived into thinking that because game still 
exists in those regions, those areas therefore constitute a per- 
manent preserve and safe breeding-ground for large mam- 
mals. That is very, very far from being the case. The 
further “ opening up” of the wilderness areas, as I shall call 
them for convenience, can and surely will quickly wipe out 
their big game; for throughout nine-tenths of those areas it 
holds to life by very slender threads. 
UNOPENED WILDERNESS AREAS 
To-day the unopened and undestroyed wilderness areas of 
North America, wherein large mammals still live in a normal 
wild state, are in general as follows: 
The Arctic Barren Grounds, or Arctic Prairies, north of 
