292 



THE OLD'IVORLD ELK 



increase in numbers, due, however, to greatly 

 increased restrictions in hunting privileges — re- 

 strictions made necessary by the diminishing 

 numbers of elk thirty or forty years ago. To 

 Livonia, his home province, Martenson credits 

 1600 to 1800 elk. To Esthonia, on the north, he 

 credits 500 or 600; to Courland, on the south, 800 

 or 1000. But the elk of the Baltic provinces are 

 smaller than those of Scandinavia, and much 

 smaller than those of eastern Russia and Siberia. 



With a view to estimating the number of elk in 

 European and Asiatic Russia, Martenson studied 

 the reports from the principal fur and hide markets 

 of the empire. ''According to returns gathered 

 by N. Turkin and others," he writes, "the number 

 of skins of wild animals taken yearly in Russia 

 amounts to about 50,000,000, of which from 

 250,000 to 300,000 are elk." If we accept these 

 figures, we will not wonder when Mr. Martenson 

 adds the estimate that the number of elk in the 

 entire Russian Empire is at least 2,000,000.^ 



The city of the czars, newly christened Petro- 

 grad, was no doubt once the home of the elk. 

 One of the islands on which the city is built, 

 Wassilij-Ostrow, was formerly known by the 

 Finnish name Hirwi-Saari, or elk island. And 



' Ubi supra, pp. 166-167. 



