AN1REl^fi)FE HUNTING THIRTY YEARS 

 ' ^ ' r ^ ^ AGO AND TO-DAY 



By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL 



DRAWINGS BV CARL RINGIUS 



IT IS difficult for the man of to-day to 

 realize the abundance of game in 

 the West thirty or forty years ago. 

 Up to the time of the building of the Union 

 Pacific Railroad, and indeed for a few- 

 years after that, the great game of the 

 plains was almost as numerous as it had 

 ever been. Hitherto the larger herbiver- 

 ous animals had been exposed to attack 

 only by people who sought them for food, 

 and the number 

 destroyed for this 

 purpose did not 

 equal the annual 

 increase. The In- 

 dians and the few 

 white travelers 

 through the coun- 

 try made practi- 

 cally no impression 

 on the herds. In 

 1873 I hunted in 

 eastern Nebraska, 

 on the Cedar, a 

 tributary of the 

 Loup River, not 

 more than i 30 

 miles west of the 

 city of Omaha, and 

 saw a number of 

 bands of elk. A 

 little further to the 

 west and south, 

 buffalo were plen- 

 ty, and antelope 

 were everywhere 

 abundant. In 

 those days the 

 three noticeable 

 animals of the 

 prairie in central 

 Nebraska and fur- 

 ther to the west- 

 ward were the buf- 

 falo, the elk and 

 the antelope. To 

 the north and to 



The antelope's curiosity has become proverbial. 



the south of the Platte River these ani- 

 mals still abounded. 



In those old times the antelope never 

 seemed so numerous as the buffalo, the 

 difference in size and color of the two 

 beasts accounting in part for this. Nev- 

 ertheless their numbers were very great; 

 and on their winter range, where the\- 

 gathered together in herds of hundreds, 

 or even thousands, one received an im- 

 pression of their 

 numbers which in 

 the present da>- we 

 can never get. 



In the old times 

 the traveler o\er 

 the plains was sel- 

 dom out of sight 

 of the antelope. 

 As he passed over 

 each swell of the 

 prairie he was 

 likely to see before 

 him a little bunch 

 which, as he ap- 

 proached, became 

 alarmed and ran 

 off to one side, to 

 wait and watch un- 

 til the travelers had 

 passed along, and 

 then to resume 

 their feeding. 



The antelope's 

 curiosity has be- 

 come proverbial 

 and was a great 

 danger to it. 

 Though the most 

 keen sighted of an- 

 imals, it never 

 seemed quite satis- 

 fied with what it 

 saw, and often in- 

 sisted on taking a 

 closer look, until 

 finally it a - 



