80 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
fled before the approach of civilization and sought safety in seclu- 
sion, as much as possible, though they remained in mountainous 
regions and in deep forests, long after the bison had been driven 
away by the occasional presence of the white man. Indeed, they 
followed the bison reluctantly, and braved the danger from their 
new enemies with a certain degree of resolution. They were 
found in diminished numbers on our prairies, long after the bison 
had crossed the Mississippi River for safety. Indeed, not until 
the white settlers began to locate on the borders of the groves, 
did they finally depart. The last account I get of their presence 
in northern Illinois was in the year 1820, or thereabouts. In 
1818 they were not observed east of the Illinois River, and but 
few were then found on the western bank of that stream. An old 
settler of high respectability assures me that he saw their tracks 
in the forest north of Peoria in 1829, but did not see the animals. 
In the Canadas, as also in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and 
in the northeastern parts of the United States, where their range . 
lapped over on that of the moose, the fear of the white man’s 
weapons has long since driven them all away, although their 
larger relatives still linger there in diminished numbers, no doubt 
because they can evade pursuit more readily in the deep snows 
which there prevail than the Wapiti were able to do. Mr. J. M. 
La Moine of Quebec, informs me that he can find no account of 
Wapiti having been met with in Lower Canada in the last one 
hundred and fifty years, though their fossil antlers are occasion- 
ally found there. Mr. H. Y. Hind, in his account of “ Explora- 
tions of Labrador,” says that they remained in the seclusion of 
that peninsula till a much later period. 
Till comparatively recent times they were found in northern 
Towa ; and in 1877 I saw several accounts of them having been 
killed in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, 
also in Minnesota. So, too, in the southwest, in Arkansas and 
Texas, they still linger where they can find protection in the 
dense thickets. In California, where they were once exceedingly 
abundant, they are now rarely seen, although they maintained 
their ground for some years after the miners had invaded that 
territory. In Oregon and Washington territories, they have 
been driven back by the white settlements, it is true, but still 
they are there though in diminished numbers; and the same 
may be said of British Columbia. 
From necessity they no longer abandon a country on the first 
appearance of the white settlers, for now scarcely any place is left 
