RANGE OF ELK IN EUROPE AND ASIA 293 



today hunters living in Petrograd can reach good 

 elk preserves within two or three hours' journey 

 from the capital by rail. In the government of 

 Moscow, too, elk are found in fair numbers, 

 although sixty years ago they were practically 

 unknown in that region. 



The number of elk in East Prussia has increased 

 rapidly since the last decade of the last century. 

 By the construction of dikes the frequent floods 

 in the delta of the Memel have been prevented, 

 and the elk have profited by the improved forest 

 conditions which have resulted. In 1906 there 

 were about 720 elk in the province, practically all 

 occupying the small triangle bounded on the 

 northeast and northwest by the Russian frontier 

 and the Baltic Sea respectively, and bounded on the 

 south by the Pregel River. It was found necessary 

 to kill an increasing number yearly in the interest 

 of forest conservation.^ Five years later there 

 were said to be about 1000 elk in the province.' 

 According to Dr. Fritz Skrowronnek twenty-five 

 or thirty elk are killed yearly in the East Prussian 

 preserves by the Kaiser and other privileged 

 hunters. Dr. Skrowronnek tells of elk drives on 



8 Der Mensch und die Erde (Berlin, 1906), vol. i., p. 314. 



'Meyers, Grosses Konversations-Lexikon, supplement for 1910-11. 



