COLORADO, THE HAVEN OF THE HUNTER, THE ELYSIUM 
Oho tii wiODAK FIEND: 
Wa iia Ne, MORBAT I (COLO: 
Colorado was intended by nature to be 
the home of all kinds of game which have 
their habitat in the temperate zone. When 
the white men first came into these moun- 
tains they found them swarming with elk, 
deer, antelope, bear, turkeys, grouse, sage 
hens, and rabbits. The elk have been al- 
most exterminated. Only a few remain, 
and they are in the Northwestern corner 
of the stete. In a few years, unless strin- 
gent measures for their protection are 
enforced, the last one of them will have 
passed into that region which the murder- 
er, man, can never enter. 
Deer have been driven into limited 
ranges in almost inaccessibie mountain 
parks. Antelope are only a memory. 
Turkeys have passed “across the divide’; 
grouse are but flitting ghosts, and I do 
not suppose there is even the track of a 
sage hen within 100 miles of where lI 
sit. The jack rabbit alone survives the 
fiery crusade, and he because nothing 
short of a starving coyote could masticate 
his leathery carcass. 
I can not give you the results of per- 
sonal observation, for, unfortunately for 
me, I have been shut in ever since my ar- 
rival. My rifle stands unused in the 
corner, its spiral heart fairly pulsating 
with disgust at its “innocuous desuetude,” 
What I say, then, is what I have learned 
from diligent inquiry of those who chance 
to come my way. 
Ducks, geese, brants, and an occasional 
sand-hill crane are still found. Men were 
hunting ducks after I came—with what 
success [I could not learn—and indeed. 
they seem to shoot them at any time, 
whenever they can find them. 
The streams and such of the lakes as 
have been stocked—and protected—abound 
in mountain trout. A clipping will tell 
this better than I can. It is taken from 
a tolder ussued by, the -D.,-&: RR. G:: 
As to fishing, there are in Colorado 6,000 miles of 
trout streams and 500 lakes that lie high up in the 
mountain ranges, mesas and parks. These streams 
abound with several species of native trout. such as the 
black spotted trout (salmo sfzlurus), which has a pure 
white flesh with fine fibre ; the salzo purpuratus, some- 
‘times called salmo virginalus, which has red flesh. 
There is also the yellow-finned trout (salmwo mykis), 
found in Twin Lakes, Lake County, and there are 
several other native varieties found inthe Bear river, 
the White river, the Grand river and other streams. 
For 10 years past, Colorado has had a State fish 
hatchery near Denver, and more recently branch 
hatcheries at Twin Lakes and Gunnison. The United 
States Government has also established a large hatchery 
at Evergreen lake, near Leadville. From these estab- 
lishments nearly a million young fish are turned into 
the streams of the State every year, and among the 
varieties which have been so introduced are Eastern 
brook trout, now regarded by some as a char (salmo or 
salvelinus fontinalis),ared and yellow speckled trout: 
the European brook trout (salmo fario), the common 
trout of Great Britain, which have been caught in 
Colorado, 7 pounds each; the Rainbow or Calitornia 
trout (salmo trridea) ; the yellow salmon trout (salmo 
sebago), introduced trom Maine; the Mackinaw trout 
(salmo conjfinis) ; the Loch Leven trout from Scotland ; 
and the famous Lake Tahoe trout from Nevada. 
The streams of Colorado equal those of Maine for 
sport, while the superiority of scenery, climate and 
comparative freedom from mosquitoes give Colorado a 
decided advantage for a fishing holiday. 
A Mr. Stone, of Creede, tells me a 
trout has been taken from Lost lake, near 
timber-line, 25 miles from Creede, weigh- 
ing 9 pounds. It was put back. Some 
years ago the state stocked the lake with 
trout, using large fish instead of fry. 
They have multiplied incredibly, and now 
swarm in the lake. 
The catch alluded to was one of the 
fathers. He was caught ina net. Let your 
kodak fiends, your artist readers, and all 
who love Mother Nature in all her vary- 
ing moods, tender, solemn,-:sublime, come 
to Colorado. Here is all that can make 
glad the heart of the artist, and shroud 
his soul with that worship which seals the 
lips in silence while the man _ behind 
their closed doors worships. 
In°a future letter. I shall try to point 
to some of the most striking features in 
Colorado’s mighty panorama. For the 
present I shall only dare to say to the 
artist: You cannot approach the moun- 
tains of Colorado in a tame spot. Wher- 
ever you may plant your easel, pitch 
your tent, and erect your shade, you are 
in the bosom of Nature—and in the pres- 
ence of God. 
One word to him who suffers from asth- 
ma, whose lungs have become tainted with 
incipient consumptien, or whose joints are 
tortured with rheumatism, whose stom- 
ach agonizes with dyspepsia, or whose 
kidneys are rotting from Bright’s disease: 
If there be earthly help for you it is here. 
‘Pouring down these pine-clad mour- 
tains come rivers of air whose currents 
carry no taint, whose breath is fragrant 
with the odor of balsam, and whose bil- 
lows have been purged of bacilli as they 
rclled over the waterless plains of Utah 
and Nevada, or sifted through the icy 
filters on the summits of a hundred snow- 
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