THE WAPITI. 19 



the belief that the failure is largely due to lack of vigorous daily 

 exercise, which he thinks vitally necessary for the proper digestion 

 and assimilation of their food. Others have suggested that most of 

 the experiments have been made outside of the natural range of 

 moose, and that the climate was too warm for them. On the other 

 hand, individual moose reared away from the parent cow have done 

 well as long as they had the freedom of the forest ; and in large pre- 

 serves, such as the Blue Mountain Park in New Hampshire, the 

 animals are said to thrive and increase. The difficulties in the way 

 of raising them within their natural range are by no means insur- 

 mountable, and the practicability of breeding them when confined to 

 forested areas within the Canadian life zone has been proved. 



THE WAPITI. 



The round-horned elk of North America are best represented by 

 the Rocky Mountain wapiti (Oervus canadensis) (Plates I and II) ; 

 but, besides the typical form, two species and a geographic race 

 occur. 



Next to the moose, the wapiti or elk is the largest American deer. 

 Though not a true elk, the name has become too firmly fixed in our 

 vernacular for change. This magnificent game animal was once 

 abundant over a large part of the United States, and extended its 

 range northward in northwest Canada to about latitude 60° in the 

 Peace River region. Southward it ranged to the southern Alleghe- 

 nies, northern Texas, southern New Mexico, Arizona, and California. 

 The limits of its range eastward were the Adirondacks, western New 

 Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. Westward it occurred to the 

 Pacific Ocean. 



At present the range of the elk has so far diminished that, out- 

 side of the larger herds left in the Yellowstone National Park and 

 the mountainous country surrounding it, the animals occur only in 

 a few scattered localities. The herds in the national park and its 

 vicinity are said to number about 30,000 head. Smaller numbers of 

 the elk still occur in Colorado, Idaho, western Montana, western 

 Oregon, northwestern California, and the Olympic Mountains in 

 Washington. A remnant of the dwarf species of southern California 

 is left in the upper San Joaquin Valley. Outside the United States, 

 a few elk remain in southern Manitoba, Alberta, and on Vancouver 

 Island. 



In addition to the wild herds, a considerable number of elk are 

 left in private game preserves and parks, as well as in nearly all 

 public zoological gardens and parks of the United States. These 

 form the nucleus from which, with good management, we may expect 



a Homaday, Wm. T., The American Natural History, p. 141, 1904. 



