486 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. 19, 1912 
willows and tag alder. Just as I was putting out 
again, two cow moose walked out of the thicket, 
not over twenty-five feet away, and took to the 
water. They eyed me with evident misgivings, 
but showed no real trepidation; in fact, they 
stopped and inspected me carefully, long enough 
to permit taking a photograph, focussed at just 
twenty-five feet. The average range steer is 
much wilder. 
Moose are much like blacktail deer in that 
if not molested they frequent the same spot for 
weeks at a time. This fact often leads the care¬ 
less observer to false conclusions. Seeing the 
same little collection of moose day after day, 
he begins to think the whole country is full of 
them, when in fact they may be few and far be¬ 
tween. This is particularly the case in and about 
Yellowstone Park. 
I often saw these two cows, and one day 
when they were swimming out in the middle of 
the lake, I rowed out and headed them in order 
to watch their swimming and to take a picture 
or two. Being alone, it was hard to get a good 
focus, for while I could have run right over the 
beasts when I dropped the oars and snatched the 
camera, my boat lost headway, while they kept 
right on. But I could herd them like sheep, and 
while'they did not altogether enjoy the experi¬ 
ence anything like real trepidation, that mad 
headlong flight which wild animals show when 
they are really frightened, was wholly wanting. 
Moose swim naturally with head low, close 
to the surface, and with an indescribable ease 
and grace, awkward and ungainly as they are 
on land. Their leg motion in the water is very 
deliberate, merely a very slow walk. When I 
pushed them harder, taking the nose of the boat 
to within five or six feet of them, they hastened 
the pace a trifle, lifting their necks clean of the 
water and making quite a wake. But even then 
vigorous rowing enabled me to run clear round 
them without much trouble. What impressed me 
most was the fact that they could and did stop 
stock still in the water, to reconnoiter. keeping 
afloat apparently with only an occasional kick or 
two. 
Elk are almost as tame, and much more 
numerous than moose in that region. I occas¬ 
ionally saw both moose and elk at evening at 
the same time. While the elk do not, so far as 
I know, ever take to the water, they dearly love 
to squatter around in it. The yearlings espe¬ 
cially delight to play tag in shallow places, where 
the water is about to their knees, and their antics 
closely resemble those of young boys under the 
same circumstances. While romping and chas¬ 
ing each other, the yearling elk utter a curious 
note that is never given except by them and 
never by them except when they are indulging 
in this sort of horse play. It sounds very much 
like the screech which an awkward, gawky, half- 
grown girl, will emit when some urchin has poked 
her in the ribs or pulled her hair. 
It was in the rutting season for elk, and 
night after night a large herd of them would 
drift down close to my camp and actually make 
iso much noise that I could not sleep. To my 
mind the clear shrill bugling of the younger elk 
bulls is one of the sweetest sounds in nature, 
but when there are a dozen or more engaged in 
it, some of those old fellow's have a croak like 
a fog-horn, and when the cows are many and 
have calves in plenty, the racket is tremendous. 
The cows, calling for their calves, and the calves 
wailing for their lost mothers, are almost as 
noisy as the bulls, for while their individual notes 
are less in volume, they are more numerous and 
persistent. 
During the rutting season I have watched 
the herds by the day and almost by the week, 
and never tire of it. It is a curious phenomenon, 
and about the elk and their habits one could 
write a small book without exhausting the sub¬ 
ject or elucidating all the mysteries. 
Deer are very scarce in that region, owing 
partly to the severe winters, which cover the 
summer range with snow to a depth of six to 
ten feet. But the chief factor in keeping them 
down is undoubtedly the coyote, before whose 
onslaught the white tail disappeared many years 
ago. The coyote is the greatest pest any game 
country can have, for he kills the young of all 
species of both birds and mammals, and in the 
deep snow will even master the largest adults, 
especially if enfeebled by old age or hunger. 
Curiously there were four coyotes in the 
Rockies until the advent of man. In this particu¬ 
lar region there were none. What few blacktail 
have managed to survive are not so tame as the 
moose and elk, which is contrary to the usual 
rule, for where the blacktail is plentiful, and not 
much disturbed, he is such an innocent that it 
is hardly any sport to hunt him. The whitetail 
jumps up running and seldom stops. Often one 
gets no more than ji glimpse of his “flag,” and 
sometimes not even that in comparatively open 
country. The blacktail on hearing a noise will 
rise from his bed and from some nearby thicket 
eye the intruder until very close, when he will 
run a hundred yards and stop broadside as if 
for the very purpose of presenting the best pos¬ 
sible mark to the hunter. And no matter how 
badly scared, the blacktail will not, unless re¬ 
peatedly disturbed, go more than a half mile but 
when things are quiet again, will steal back to 
his old bed, where he may be found the next 
day or for days and even weeks thereafter. 
Naturally a lover of the quaking aspen, and the 
lush meadows, dense with weeds along some 
watercourse, low down in the foothills, he has 
of late years taken to the thick spruce, about as 
high up as he can get. And this simply to avoid 
his enemies. 
The antelope also in some localities have 
taken to the timber for the same reason. And 
we know that the Rocky Mountain goat, now 
given to frequenting the most remote and un¬ 
scalable fastnesses, is really an antelope, whose 
habitat was probably on the plains. Lewis and 
Clarke saw them as well as many bighorn sheep 
along the Missouri, many miles from the moun¬ 
tains. And the goats have been reported by 
other observers far from what are now their 
natural haunts. 
I have frequently seen elk above timber line, 
and that not from stress, but from choice. They 
like in summer and early fall to go as high as 
they can, partly to avoid the flies and also to 
get the green grass which grows luxuriantly in 
seepy places close to snow banks and glaciers. 
Of recent years I have often seen elk and black- 
tail deer at an elevation of 11,000 feet or more. 
No one who has noticed the ready manner 
in which wild animals adapt their habits to 
changed conditions can fail to be convinced that 
such variations in structure (new genera and 
species) as are not the result of nature’s unac¬ 
countable love of producing sports (i. e., freakish 
aberrations from type) must be not so much 
due to natural selection in breeding as they are 
the necessary sequence of compulsory changes in 
environment. 
The wildest thing I saw about my Jackson 
Lake camp was a black bear. I was gently pad¬ 
dling along the shore one day, and engaged as 
he was in some foraging operation about an old 
log a few feet from the shore, he never saw or 
heard my approach. I could have shot an eye 
out of him, he was so close, but what I wanted 
most was my kodak, unfortunately left in camp. 
After watching his industrious grubbing awhile, 
I made my presence known by a slight noise. He 
tarried not at all upon the order of his going; 
his zeal to escape was almost ludicrous. 
Bears are in fact about the shyest animals 
in the woods, even where not hunted. The black 
bear is not much more formidable than a big 
dog. and even the grizzly will very seldom per- 
