12 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



" Rustlings in the Rockies," lias thus far missed the most 

 intense happiness that could possibly be crowded into a 

 few hours by his own fireside. 



. All these and many other well-known names appear as 

 contributors to the present volume — that of the last-named 

 writer as the editor thereof. Each writes of a species of 

 game that he has studied for years, not alone in dust-cov- 

 ered books, but in that grander school, the realm of Nature. 

 These men have spent days, weeks — aye, in some cases, 

 many years — in the wilderness, sleeping on the trails of the 

 animals they now write of — watching their movements by 

 day, listening to their calls by night, and, after the fatal 

 ■bullet has done its work, dissecting and studying the 

 structure of the bodies of their victims on their native heath. 



But this book is not designed to interest the sportsman 

 alone. While it does not assume to be a strictly scientific 

 work, yet the professional naturalist will find much in it, 

 not only to interest, but to instruct, him. The natural his- 

 tory of an animal does not consist alone of his bones. As 

 showing a record of the past, these contain the only 

 reliable data to tell us of the animals that lived long ago, 

 and to identify genera and classes of existing fauna; but, 

 at present, other parts of the animal deserve our attention 

 as well. He consists of flesh and blood, as well as of bones, 

 and can not be thoroughly understood without a careful 

 study of all these constituent parts. 



From a scientific point of view, the osteology of an 

 animal is undoubtedly of prime importance; but in a prac- 

 tical, utilitarian consideration, the broader field of general 

 morphology, and especially of myology, is of equal and even 

 greater importance, while the psychology which is developed 

 in various animals, in some respects, interests us most of 

 all. Nature has endowed all animals with a certain meas- 

 ure of mental capacities, and these constitute a part of 

 their beings. So they alike come within the domain of 

 natural history. 



None of these are beneath the study of the scientists. 

 While the component parts of the dead animal may be 



