384 



APPENDIX 



College of Forestry. Neither topic seems to have received 

 adequate attention at the hands of zoologists. 



O. 



EUROPEAN ELK IN WAR-TIME 

 (See pages 284, 291.) 



It would be interesting to know to v^^hat extent the elk of 

 Europe contributed to relieve the food shortage incident to 

 the recent war, and how far the elk have suffered from the 

 removal of legal restraint in Bolshevik Russia, and in East 

 Prussia. Little information relating to these subjects has, how- 

 ever, been received in this country. 



The kill of elk in Sweden in 191 3, the last year preceding 

 the war, was 2043. In 191 4 the number fell to 1769, but, 

 as Prof. Einar Lonnberg of Stockholm writes me, the number 

 increased in the four following years, according to official 

 reports, to 2765, 2691, 251 1, and 2369, respectively. Prof. 

 Lonnberg expresses the belief that the number killed in 1919 

 will be found to be much smaller, owing to depredations by 

 poachers. Large numbers of elk were illegally killed during 

 the years when Swedish imports were reduced by reason of 

 the maritime blockade, and their loss is likely to affect the 

 kill for some years to come. (Dr. Lonnberg is the author of 

 a valuable paper on "The Variation of the Elk," which was 

 published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of 

 London, 1902, vol. ii., pp. 352-360.) 



In Norway the average number of elk killed yearly in the 

 four years prior to 191 5 was 1297. 5 the three 



following years the numbers were 939, 1 1 70, 1246, and 1040, 

 respectively. Peter Norbye, a sportsman of Selbu, in the 

 Province of Trondhjem, who kindly furnished me these facts, 

 writes that elk hunting in Norway will probably be subjected 

 to increased restrictions for a number of years, on account of 

 depletion of the stock. Throughout Scandinavia poachers were 



