Oct. 27, 1887,] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



265 



layers of baleen at the sides. All eatable substances are 

 strained out by the fringes of the baleen and are swal- 

 lowed." Much 'more could be said about these whalebone 

 •whales, but I find my space already nearly exhausted, 

 and I still have a few concluding remarks to make of no 

 little importance. 



My studies of the Cetaceans and my reading about 

 them have both convinced me that the Order has by no 

 means received the attention at the hands of descriptive 

 i zoologists and anatomists that it so justly deserves. This 

 'neglect can be atoned for in many ways, and more 

 especially by such persons as reside the year round either 

 upon the Atlantic or Pacific seaboards, or by capable ob- 

 servers who lead a seafaring life. Lighthouse keepers 

 and whalemen both have excellent opportunities to thus. 

 powerfully aid science in such work. Whalemen should 

 be encouraged by some means to systematically capture 

 specimens of the smaller Cetaceans when the opportunity 

 is afforded them, and from these to take accurate meas- 

 urements of the specimens at the time of capture. Skele- 

 tons could also be made, and viscera placed in crude 

 spirits, both being brought home and turned over to the 

 proper authorities for description. And, when it so hap- 

 pens that somebody chances to be on board who can 

 make a serviceable sketch of the animal, this essential 

 aid should never be overlooked; the habits of whales in 

 their normal habitat should also be constantly recorded, 

 and particularly as soon after the observation as possi- 

 ble. Lighthouse keepers and other seashore observers can 

 effect all this, and much more besides, for where any of 

 the whale tribe are driven ashore in their vicinity, they 

 can, in addition to what is suggested above, often be en- 

 abled to take a good series of photographs of the speci- 

 men, as well as a very complete set of measurements. 

 When within a reasonable distance of Washington, they 

 can, too, immediately send a telegram to Mr. F. W. True, 

 Curator of the Department of Mammals, TJ. S. National 

 Museum, that such and such suspicious looking specimens 

 have gone ashore at such and such a point, thus giving 

 the proper authorities the opportunity to dispatch a 

 responsible person to the spot should they desire to do Bp. 

 There are undoubtedly a number of the smaller species of 

 ' Cetaceans in our waters as yet undescribed. 



Those of my readers desiring to further inform them- 

 selves upon the subject which of necessity I have been 

 compelled to deal with so briefly in this contribution, can 

 do no better than consult some of the following works: 



Bibliography of Cetacea: D. F. Eschricht, "Uutersuckungen 

 liber die Noruischen WallthiereJ' 1849. "•Osteoefgapbie des Oeta- 

 e&," by P. J. Van Beneden and P. Gervais, 18R8-79. O. M. Scam- 

 mon, "Marine Mammals of the N. W. Coast of North America," 

 1874. For the structure of whalebone, see Hunter, "Observations 

 on the Structure and Economy of Whales," Phil. Trans., 1787; 

 Eschricht and Reinhardt, "On the Greenland Right Whale," 

 English translation bv the Rav Society", 1866, pp. 07-78; and Sir W. 

 Turner, is Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1870, Thomas Beale; "Natural 

 History of the Sperm Whale," London, 1836, Andrew Murray; 

 "The Geographical Distribution of Mammals," London, 1800, p. 

 312. T. N. Gill; "Sperm- Whales, Giant and Pigmy," Amer. Nat. 

 iv, p. 738, fig. 167. Capt. David Gray; Land and IVatcr, Dec. 1, '77, 

 p. 4.68, and many other special monographs. 



wnt §zg mtd <§mf. 



HUNTING THE ELK. 



T> Y the older writers the elk was called the wapiti or 

 _L> wapiti deer, this being the Iroquois ntme for the 

 animal. The term is employed now only in books and 

 by Europeans. The elk of Europe is almost identical with 

 our moose, which name is derived from a Cree Indian 

 Word, moosoa. It is unfortunate that two such magnifi- 

 cent animals, inhabiting different continents, should bear 

 the same English name, but the appellation elk is now so 

 firmly settled in America as belonging to Cerviis cana- 

 densis, that it can never be changed. 



The young elk are born in May or June and, like young 

 deer of most species, are at first spotted. The coat is 

 bright bay, like that of the Virginia deer, but the spots 

 are neither so numerous, so regular, nor so well defined. 

 At the first shedding of the pelage, which takes place in 

 September, the spots are lost and the animals assume the 

 yellowish gray which is their winter coloring. The 

 calves are usually born in pairs, male and female, and 

 during the summer the mother and her young keep by 

 themselves. In the early part of August they begin to 

 collect in scattered companies, and early in September 

 the rutting season begins. 



Meanwhile, the bulls have been keeping apart. Late 

 in the winter, their superb horns dropped off, and in the 

 early spring the new antlers began to appear, through 

 the summer they have been increasing in size and by the 

 middle of August have reached then full development. 

 They are still covered with the "velvet," however, and 

 although they have ceased growing and are quite hard, 

 the tender skin, beneath which the warm blood still 

 courses, clings to them for a little while longer. At this 

 time the elk are found in bands, more or less numerous, 

 according as the country which they inhabit is much 

 hunted or not. The time for freeing the horns from the 

 velvet varies somewhat. 



Most of the bulls begin to "shake," as the mountain 

 men term it, about the first of September. The older 

 ones are usually the first to set about this, and some of 

 the yearlings carry the velvet until the late fall. Soon 

 after the horns are fully grown and hard, the flow of 

 blood through the arteries which supply the horns and the 

 velvet, is checked, and the skin begins to itch. The bull 

 now rubs his horns furiously against bushes and trees, 

 and the velvet is torn off and hangs from the horns and 

 about his ears in bleeding strips. Usually he seeks some 

 low stiff -branched shrub, like the willows in a stream 

 bottom, or a young pine on the mountainside, and thrust- 

 ing his head among the branches, moves it vigorously 

 up and down and from side to side. This, of course, 

 causes the bush to wave to and fro, and it is from this 

 movement that the term "shaking" is derived. 



It is just at and immediately before this time that the 

 bull elk are in their very best condition. They are now 

 enormously fat. and the flesh is delicious, though elk 

 meat, like that of most other animals, should always be 

 kept a few days before eaten. Immediately after being 

 killed it is a little coarse, and in the bulls sometimes 

 tough, but, after hanging four or five days, it becomes 

 tender and very palatable. It has a flavor of its own, 

 which is not found in any other wild meat with which I 

 am acquainted, except in a less degree in that of the mule 

 deer, and is moreover extremely rich and nutritious. 



During the time that the bulls are "shaking" they are 

 very easily approached, for with their heads hidden in 

 the brush they can neither see nor hear, and the hunter, 

 provided he has the wind in his favor, finds little diffi- 

 culty in creeping within rifle range. This is more true on 

 the plains and in an open country than in the mountains. 

 There the elk is as likeiy to do his shaking in the midst of 

 a dense forest as anywhere else, and in such situations he 

 is not easily discovered until one is quite close to him. 



As soon as his horns are free from the velvet, and are 

 hard and polished, the bull elk begins to gather about 

 him all the cows he can. He searches for them in the 

 thickets, along the streams, in the ravines and among the 

 timber, and this search is conducted in a very systematic 

 manner. A year ago last fall, while hunting* in Wyo- 

 ming Territory, I witnessed very satisfactorily the method 

 in which they operate. I was out on foot four or five 

 miles from the camp, and was sitting on a higli mesa 

 scanning the surrounding country with my field glass, 

 when I saw a fine bull elk emerge from a ravine, which 

 ran up into the plateau on which I was, walk along over 

 the plain below to the next ravine, enter that and 

 presently come out at its head on to the mesa, and then 

 walk to the head of the next ravine and proceed down 

 that. When lie reached the plain he again kept along the 

 foot of the hills until he reached the mouth of another 

 ravine, and then he came up that. In this way he pro- 

 ceeded, systematically searching through these hiding 

 places for any cows that miglit be lurking there. As the 

 cows have now come together, a bull that finds one is 

 likely to get a dozen or perhaps fifty at the same time. 

 The particular bull mentioned was, when first seen, per- 

 haps a mile from me, but he traveled so briskly that I 

 tried in vain to get within shooting distance. Although 

 he covered more than twice the distance I had to go, he 

 kept far ahead of me, and finally, having followed the 

 edge of the mesa down to where it sloped off into the 

 plain, and the ravines ended, he turned briskly to the 

 right, crossed a broad valley where some cattle were 

 feeding, and disappeared in a narrow mountain valley 

 which ran into the hills two or three miles from the 

 camp. 



The next day, however, I had the pleasure of seeing 

 him, in fact, of making his intimate acquaintance. There 

 were three of us in the camp, and all the fresh meat that 

 there was under the wagon was one antelope ham. We 

 had been hard at work for several days sinking a pros- 

 pect hole in the hillside, high above the canrp, and we all 

 of us felt like taking a day for rest. So we started out 

 after breakfast, and went back into the hills to try and 

 get some blacktail. We only saw four, one of them a 

 doe, which walked out on to the hillside within seventy- 

 five steps of us, and which we could easily have killed. 

 But there were three bucks following her, and as the 

 bucks are so much fatter in September than the does, we 

 let her go, hoping that the bucks would come out of the 

 green timber, so that we could see them distinctly enough 

 to shoot. Instead of doing that they kept under cover 

 until they had passed us, and then one of them must 

 have caught our wind, for on a sudden they all stampeded, 

 and we saw no more of them. The rest of our hunt was 

 fruitless, and about three o'clock we started down the 

 valley, which was the same one the bull elk had entered 

 the clay before, and followed it down, intending, when 

 we came to a point opposite the camp, to cross the low 

 spur of the hills just below where the mine was. I was 

 riding ahead, Bill next, and Ike bringing up the rear. 

 Suddenly I heard Bill call to me in a low voice, and 

 knowing from his tone that he saw game, I had slipped 

 off my horse and thrown a cartridge into my rifle, before 

 I looked at him. Then following the direction of his rifle 

 barrel, I saw in the bed of the stream among the willows 

 about 200yds. away, the heads and bodies of a dozen cow 

 elk walking up out of the creek. 



The shots flew pretty fast for a few seconds. The band, 

 which numbered about forty in all, did not wait to inves- 

 tigate the noise, but dashed out of the stream bed. It was 

 a bad place for them, however. Before they could cross 

 the ridge they had at least 600yds. of steep open ground 

 to cover and all this time they were exposed to our rifles. 

 The last elk to emerge from the willows was the bull, 

 w T ho had stayed behind to hurry up the laggard cows and 

 who now brought up the rear of the fleeing band. Before 

 they had got in motion a calf had fallen, and ere they 

 had gone 50yds. two cows dropped. We had more than 

 meat enough and I shouted at my companions, "Fire at 

 the bull." He was now between 300 and 400yds. distant, 

 but on the smooth slope over which he was passing it was 

 easy to gauge the elevation. My first ball struck a little 

 under him, the next just beyond, and at the third carefully 

 aimed shot I saw him flinch, bend down, and then sud- 

 denly turn at right angles to the course he had been pur- 

 suing. I gave a little cheer of triumph, for as he was 

 running I felt sure that the ball, if it had hit his body at 

 all, had made a fatal wound. And so it was. After 

 going 100yds. further he slackened his trot and began to 

 walk with his head down, and presently he laid down 

 beneath a solitary pine tree that stood near the top of the 

 slope. We mounted our horses and rode down the hill, 

 across the stream and up to where the elk lay. Near the 

 cows we left the ponies standing and walked up the steep 

 ascent to where the bull was. As we approached him 

 we could see the great antlers tossing in the death agony, 

 but when we reached him the struggle was over and the 

 monarch of the forest was dead. 



I had longed to possess that great head when I had first 

 seen it, and had felt a savage satisfaction as I saw the 

 lead strike the bull, for I remembered the exhausting 

 labor that I had undergone on the previous day in my 

 efforts to come up with him. But now, as I stood over 

 him on the mountainside, and beheld his beauty and his 

 strength and his symmetry, I wished that we had not 

 killed him. It seemed a cruel wrong to take so grand a 

 life, except in case of absolute necessity. I suppose that 

 every man who has killed much large game often has 

 these remorseful moments, but usually the feeling that 

 he experiences is nothing more than remorse, and does 

 not reach the height of penitence. So the next time he 

 goes hunting he tries with all his might to do exactly the 

 thing which he had previously regretted doing. Some of 

 us there are — old hunters — who have reached a point 

 where we try to kill only enough for our requirements. 

 One deer or antelope or elk a week is enough for a party 

 of two or three when traveling through the wilds, but it 

 is difficult — almost impossible — if you have young and 

 ardent hunters with you, to keep them down to anything 

 like this limit, I have traveled for weeks through the 



mountains where, without hunting, a dozen shots might 

 be had each day at antelope, elk and deer, and have only 

 fired two or three shots a week, killing meat only when 

 it was absolutely required for the camp, but I can re- 

 member well enough that years ago, when I was new to 

 the mountains, I used to shoot at pretty nearly every- 

 thing that I could see. 



When a bull elk has got together a band of cows he 

 guards them jealously. The younger bulls, which have 

 not been able to accumulate any wives, often loiter about 

 the harem of their more successful brothers, and try to 

 steal away some of the cows. The old bull is kept pretty 

 busy during the season of the rut, chasing away intruders 

 and keeping his cows together. He treats the latter with 

 scant courtesy, and does not hesitate to prod them 

 viciously with his horns if they are slow in moving in the 

 direction in which he desires them to go. If an alarm 

 takes place he rushes about, starting each one of the band 

 in flight, and not until all are in motion does he himself 

 take to his heels. Even then he always brings up the 

 rear, threatening the last animals with" Iris great antlers 

 and urging them to greater speed. 



Just before the rut begins, the bull, as has been said, is 

 enormously fat and at his best. But now lie begins to 

 get out of condition. His neck swells, his fat turns 

 yellow, and he has a strong and disagreeable odor. More- 

 over his arduous labors soon cause him to lose flesh, and, 

 by the time the season is at an end, he is gaunt and poor. 

 It does not take him long to pick up again, however, and 

 often by the middle of the winter the bulls are again in 

 fair order, though by no means as fat as the cows. 



Down on the plains in years gone by I have had many 

 a good run after elk, on horseback. This is a delightful 

 method of pursuing them, but a fast, quick horse is 

 needed for success. Speed is required to overtake the 

 game, and quickness to avoid the obstacles met with in 

 the very rough ground where the chase must often be 

 made. The natural gait of the elk is a trot, and it takes a 

 very good horse to overtake him while in this gait. He 

 can keep this trot for hours if not for a whole day, and 

 the amount of ground that he can cover at this pace, 

 without tiring, is astonishing. He also runs, but his run, 

 while faster than the trot, is also more exhausting, and, 

 therefore, the man who is running elk always tries to 

 push them as hard as possible at first, so as to make them 

 break their trot, in which case he will be likely, if his 

 horse is a good one, to overtake the fattest of the band. 

 In a country where the going is good it is by no means 

 difficult to run elk in this way, when the sport becomes 

 very much like buffalo running, but in a rough or moun- 

 tainous region, there is little opportunity for a chase of 

 this kind. When alarmed they always make for the 

 roughest ground, choosing rocky hillsides, ground covered 

 with fallen timber, or the densest forests. I have seen 

 a band slide, roll and tumble down an almost vertical 

 precipice, where it would be utterly impossible for a rider 

 to follow at all, or trot smoothly and easily along a steep 

 mountainside, rough with huge blocks of stone, among 

 which a horse would have broken his neck or legs at 

 almost every stride, 



It is very exciting sport to get a band of elk on just the 

 right ground, and with a horse in which you have con* 



ence, dash out from behind some hill,' and, almost 

 before they have taken the alarm, find yourself close to 

 the outskirts of the band. They get together hastily and 

 start off, at first in a close bunch, then gradually string- 

 ing out in a long line, the cows and calves ahead, the 

 bulls bringing up the rear. If you are chasing them just 

 for the ride, and without the desire to kill, perhaps you 

 will pass the last of the herd, and as you do so, they will 

 turn off, and running a few hundred yards to one side or 

 the other, will stop and stare at you for a few moments, 

 and then throwing back their horns over their hips will 

 trot off over the hills, and out of sight. I have a hunting 

 mare, a swift, beautiful animal, which is very fond of 

 this sport, and has more than once carried me into the 

 very midst of a band of elk. GL 



ADIRONDACK DEER. 



KEENE VALLEY, N. Y., Oct. 16.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream; Perhaps you would like a report of the 

 deer shooting in this section this season. Fewer deer 

 have been killed here than in any year in my remem- 

 brance; and the advocates of hounding, who insisted last 

 year that the deer were more plenty than ever, this sea- 

 son admitted that there was little use in hunting here. 

 The Au Sable Lakes are closed to them , from the fact 

 that they are included in the tract recently bought by a 

 number of gentlemen, who forbid all hunting and fishing 

 on it for a time: and the fact that their orders are obeyed 

 by the men who have hunted there all their lives, shows, 

 to my mind, how easy it would be for the State to enforce 

 its laws for the protection of game if this was seriously 

 attempted. 



Some half dozen deer have been killed up John's Brook, 

 a stream that rises on the northern slopes of Mt. Marcy 

 and empties into the Au Sable River at this place. They 

 were driven by dogs and shot on runways. The same 

 men have brought in deer from other localities, and with- 

 out doubt have exceeded the limit of three to one hunter. 

 Quite a party went from here to Catlin Lake, in the town 

 of Newcomb, and returned with two bucks and three 

 does. They were enthusiastic in their praise of that sec- 

 tion for hunting, saying that they had to keep the dogs 

 tied till they got a mile or so from the lake, as they could 

 "jump them up" at any j>oint near the shores. " There 

 had been no hounding clone there to amount to anything; 

 the deer were so plenty and so tame that they could be 

 killed at any time by still-hunting in summer. Yet that 

 is the home of a family of noted still-hunters, beginning 

 with old John Cheeny, ending with his descendants of 

 the third generation. His nephews, Caleb and John 

 Chase, are quite as skillful as Cheeny was in his best days. 

 If it is the still-hunters that exterminate the deer, and the 

 hounds that save them from the panthers and all other 

 dangers, how is it that they are yet so plenty there, in a 

 still-hunting district, while in this place, where ten or fif- 

 teen years ago the deer were more plenty and where 

 hounding is the rule, they are now too few to pay to 

 hunt? I think there is here a conundrum for Dr, Ward 

 to "put in his pipe and smoke." The one good thing 

 about this hunt was, that the party left five hounds there. 

 They said there was no use in wintering them here. If 

 the stiU-hunters of that section will think the same, and 

 put them out of existence, the hunt will prove to have 

 been a very successful one. Au Sable, 



