Distribution 55 



Alee properly belongs to the giant extinct fallow deer, and I have great 

 hesitation in admitting that Alces is sufficiently distinct from Alee to be 

 allowed to stand as a separate generic name. I have already suggested that 

 Cervalces should be adopted for the genus, and alces for the species, but as 

 it is probable many zoologists would refuse to admit that the type of the 

 former is generically identical with the living elk, this sweeping change 

 has not been made. 



Distribution. — The forest and marshy districts of Norway and Sweden, 

 Eastern Prussia, Livonia, Northern Russia, and thence eastwards through 

 Siberia north of about latitude 50 to Amurland. In America the elk is 

 found in Alaska, Montana, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Baird gives 



Fig. 12. — Antlers of Elk viewed obliquely. (Rowland Ward, Records of Big Game.) 



the distribution in his time as " west coasts of America from the shores of 

 the Arctic Ocean nearly to the Columbia River. Farther east the northern 

 limit is about 65 , and thence through Canada to Maine, New Hampshire, 

 Vermont, and the northern parts of New York." From the Adirondack 

 region of New York it was exterminated about 1861. It has been 

 commonly stated that the elk occurs in the Caucasus, but this, according 

 to Dr. K. Satunin, 1 is an error, although it may not improbably range to 

 the forests on the northern flank. In Europe the range of the elk has 

 been steadily contracting for centuries, while everywhere its numbers are 

 rapidly diminishing. In Saxony the last example was slain in 1746, and 

 in Silesia in 1776. In Julius Cassar's time it was abundant in the Black 

 Forest, and even in the third century seems to have been spread over all 



1 Zool. Jahrbuck Syst. vol. ix. p. 309 (1896). 



