ELK. 
9 ?. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DTSTP.TBUTION. 
We have every reason to believe, that the Elk once was found on nearly 
every portion of the temperate latitudes of North America. It has never 
advanced as far north as the moose deer, but it ranges much farther 
to the south. The earliest explorers of America nearly all speak of 
the existence of the stag, which they supposed was identical with the 
stag or red deer of Europe. It differs from the Virginian deer, which 
continues to range in the vicinity of settlements and is not driven from 
its favourite haunts by the cry of the hounds or the crack of the rifle. 
On the contrary the Elk, like the buffalo, takes up its line of march, 
crosses broad rivers and flies to the yet unexplored forests, as soon as 
it catches the scent and hears the report of the gun of the white man. 
At present there is only a narrow range on the Alleghany mountains where 
the Elk still exists, in small and decreasing numbers, east of the Missouri, 
and these remnants probably of large herds would undoubtedly migrate 
elsewhere were they not restricted to their present wild mountainous and 
hardly accessible range, by the extensive settlements on the west and 
south. 
Mr. Peale of Philadelphia mentioned to us some fifteen years ago, that 
the only region in the Atlantic States where he could procure specimens 
of the Elk was the highest and most sterile mountains in the northwest 
of Pennsylvania, where he had on several occasions gone to hunt them. 
Dr. Dekay (New-York Fauna, p. 119) mentions, on the authority of 
Beach and V aughan, two hunters in whose statements confidence could 
be placed, that as late as 1826, Elks were seen and killed on the north 
branch of the Saranac. On a visit to Western Virginia in 1847, we 
heard of the existence of a small herd of Elk that had been known for 
many years to range along the high and sterile mountains about forty 
miles to the west of the Red Sulphur Springs. The herd was composed 
of eight males, whose number was ascertained by their tracks in the 
snoMU One of these had been killed by a hunter, and the number was 
reduced to seven. Our informant, a friend in whom the highest confidence 
could be placed, supposed, as all the individuals in the herd had horns, the 
race would soon disappear from the mountains. As, however, the males at 
certain seasons keep in separate groups, we have no doubt there was a 
similar or larger herd of females in the same range ; but the number is 
doubtless annually lessening, and in all probability it will not be many 
years before the Elk will be entirely extirpated, to beyond several hun- 
dred miles west of the Mississippi. 
