216 BULLETIN 56, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



San Francisco Kiver in western Socorro County, New Mexico. Dur- 

 ing January I made a horseback trip about 10 miles to the eastward 

 into the border of the Mogollon Mountains and saw a doe- elk and 

 two young bucks hanging by a hunter's cabin. At this time elk were 

 reported to be not uncommon on the higher parts of the range, but 

 the total number, from all accounts, must have been very small com- 

 pared with those then found in Colorado and farther north. 



'= From 1885 to 1887, while living on my ranch at the eastern base 

 of the White Mountains, near Springerville, Arizona, I heard fre- 

 quently of elk living in the higher and more remote parts of these 

 mountains, mainly along the border of the White Mountain Indian 

 Reservation, near the head of Black River (a tributary of the Gila). 

 The local hunters reported them as not uncommon in this area where, 

 during brief hunting trips between 1885 and 1888, I saw signs of 

 their presence in various places. Their main range covered an area 

 about 30 by 50 miles in extent, at an elevation from 8,000 to 10,000 

 feet above sea level. This country forms the divide between the head- 

 waters of the Little Colorado River and Black River and the high 

 Prieto Plateau between the upper Black River and Blue River. At 

 the time of which I' write elk were far from numerous, but I never 

 visited their territory without seeing signs, usually more or less 

 recent tracks, and in fall the broken branches and barkless trunks of 

 saplings, where the bulls had been rubbing their horns. The most 

 abundant signs were found about some beautiful damp meadows in 

 the midst of the dense fir forest on the rolling summit of the Prieto 

 Plateau, between the Blue and the Black rivers. Owing to the pres- 

 ence of hostile Apaches at that time, it was dangerous to linger in the 

 country where we saw most of the elk signs, so we always pressed 

 on to a safer district before doing much hunting. Outside the Indian 

 country they were not common enough for one to hunt them with any 

 degree of certainty. From 1884 to 1889 the white hunters did not kill 

 a dozen elk in all this district. 



" Mr. W. W. Price, who made a collecting trip for mammals through 

 the White Mountains during July and August, 1894, states : ' So 

 far as we could learn this animal is now confined to a small area 

 in the higher White Mountains. Several were seen and a fine male 

 was shot at about 9,000 feet elevation on August 10. They feed in 

 the dense fir woods and glades which clothe the upper slopes of the 

 mountains.' (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. VII, 1895, pp. 257, 

 258.) A recent letter from my brother, Mr. F. W. Nelson, informs 

 me that a local hunter found the trail of a bull elk near the head of 

 Black River the present autumn (1901), and followed it for two days 

 without obtaining a shot at the animal. This shows that the Arizona 

 elk still survives, and that it is pursued by local hunters regardless of 

 the legal prohibition." {E. W. Nelson.) 



