July io, 1909 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
graphing animals in zoos, private game pre¬ 
serves or National or State parks, whatever the 
area or however wild the animals. 
Were all wild animal pictures circulated or 
produced under their proper caption, the case 
would be different. One must admit that great 
pleasure is afforded the tourists in the taking of 
such pictures, for they tell a story of the ease with 
which animals, from the wildest deer to the most 
cunning of the predaceous animals, can be brought 
on friendly terms with man. But so frequently 
have these pictures been published in many of 
the leading magazines, or given wide circulation 
by the stereopticon in public lectures under 
wholly misleading titles or descriptions, that it 
is well for any one who values his photographic 
collection of wild animals to avoid taking such pic¬ 
tures in Yellowstone Park or any like preserve. 
Labeled as wild animals, such pictures mislead 
and convey wrong impressions. “A photograph 
of a Wild Grizzly in his Native Habitat in the 
Rocky Mountains of Wyoming,” may be only a 
park mollycoddle bear that required the re¬ 
toucher’s pencil to remove the tin cans from the 
foreground. 
On one occasion I saw seven silver tip griz¬ 
zlies in a circle of twenty feet, while the limbs 
of several adjoining trees were fairly breaking 
under the weight of 
black and brown bears 
and their cubs that had 
sought the treetops with 
alacrity upon the com¬ 
ing to the feast of their 
larger and more conten¬ 
tious brethren. 
In the case of rare 
wild birds, especially of 
those which are migra- 
ory, I see no objection 
:o taking pictures of the 
;ame in places like Yel- 
owstone Park, if all 
he facts are correctly 
dated. 
j 0n July 23 we left the 
iorth end of Yellow- 
tone Lake with Mr. 
^argent, one of Hofer’s 
ight hand men at the 
'heel. When midway 
1 the lake a heavy 
luthwester came up 
I'd thoroughly tested the seaworth> character ui 
e launch. Just before the storm broke I had 
momentary sight of the Tetons in the south- 
r st and recalled that four years before I had 
tamed a view of these pinnacles from the 
posite side at Henrys Lake in Northeastern 
aho. In order to keep out of the trough of 
2 sea we were finally compelled to bear sev- 
U points west of our destination and, after 
aching the lee of the shore, turned and ran 
,° the southeast bay near the delta of the 
■per Yellowstone where, before attempting the 
cent, we expected to camp for a couple of 
hs. 
tered here and there on their nests. The island 
lying nearer to us was almost wholly occupied 
by a colony of Western gulls and terns. We 
hurried by, intent on making camp before dark, 
hoping at a later opportunity to examine these 
birds at closer range. 
An Unfrequented Country. 
As we tossed our stuff ashore I was sur¬ 
prised to hear Sargent say that so far as he 
knew we were the first parties to come by boat 
into this end of the lake for a period of four¬ 
teen years, and that the only time this portion 
of the lake came under the eye of man was 
when an occasional hunting party, bound for 
Jackson’s Hole, or some park scouts, were 
traveling along the trail which skirts the eastern 
shore of the lake and follows the hills bound¬ 
ing the eastern valley of the river to Two Ocean 
Pass. During the next two days I discovered 
that this condition of perfect wildness was ap¬ 
parently true. In our explorations alongshore, 
into the various lagoons, and up the smaller 
streams, we did not find a trace of a single 
camp or any evidences of man except on either 
side of the bay a couple of Government survey 
camps, occupied many years before. 
At this time many varieties of wildfowl were 
of the breeding colonies accompany this article. 
Although these birds have long been familiar 
to those who follow the great driveway along 
the Lower Yellowstone to the north end of the 
lake, I had been unable to find anyone who 
knew where they bred, although it was assumed 
that they occupied an island somewhere in the 
southerly end of Yellowstone Lake. 
Owing to unexpected business engagements I 
had only about a week left to make my canoe 
trip up the Yellowstone into Wyoming, and two 
of these days had been lost, although not un¬ 
profitable in exploring this strange region. 
On the morning of July 26 we loaded our 
canvas canoe for the start, and an hour’s pad¬ 
dling brought us to the mouth of the Yellow¬ 
stone River, which lies well under the eastern 
chain of mountains. 
PELICAN COLONY ON MOLLY ISLANDS. 
f 
Pelican and Gull Colonies. 
\s we entered this bay I noticed two small 
ifs, known as Molly Islands, covered with 
at looked like windrows of snow which the 
5S disclosed to be hundreds of great white 
‘Cans standing erect in solid columns or scat¬ 
beginning to gather along the sandbars, mud¬ 
flats and grassy islands which largely make up 
the shore line of that portion of the bay lying 
between the great ridges forming the barriers 
of Yellowstone River. I saw fully a hundred 
families of wild geese, the young of which were 
then in the condition known as flappers, and it 
would have been no trick at all to have had 
tender goslings on our bill of fare if we had 
been disposed to violate the rules of the park 
and the ethics of sportsmanship. 
Here we saw also many bands of female elk 
and their young, totalling several hundred dur¬ 
ing our stay, but the old bulls were well up in 
the mountain tops where they were free from 
the flies, and taking tender care of their grow¬ 
ing antlers. 
r U R a of n nni eXC w ed m /. gratory U birds from our - uxe uar. ror an instant I was under the im- 
several very lZT ^ preSsio " that * was a " elk, since the tracks of 
gull islands and some nAl ° u ? ^ theSG animals were everywhere to be seen on 
gull islands, some of the photographs taken the beach. A second glance showed it to be 
Canoeing Under Difficulties. 
After entering the river we found the current 
much swifter than expected. Looked at casually 
from a distant trail on the mountain side, the 
river appears a sluggish stream, but during the 
entire trip we found not one foot of slack 
water, though for a trim cedar canoe the stream 
is by no means a swift one. We had in use a 
pair of very light pine oars and two paddles, 
rather frail by reason of 
their being jointed to¬ 
gether by brass ferrules, 
so that none of us could 
apply more than half his 
strength to the work of 
handling oars or. pad¬ 
dles. At 11 o’clock we 
had moved several miles 
up the river, at an esti¬ 
mated speed of about a 
mile and a half an hour, 
and as there was about 
thirty-five miles of going 
to reach Bridger Lake, 
the outlook was rather 
discouraging. By an 
oversight I had failed to 
bring my long tracking 
line, which had so fre¬ 
quently been used in the 
swift waters of Canada, 
Newfoundland and else¬ 
where; and as neither 
of my two guides had 
ever handled a long pole while standing erect, I 
knew it was useless with the poor material avail¬ 
able to attempt to pole the heavily-laden canoe 
up the river. While I had had some experience 
in handling a pole I hardly felt like undertaking 
such a task, as a large and cumbrous canvas 
canoe, laden as this was, makes difficult work 
for even the strongest and most experienced 
guide. 
The First Surp rise. 
In endeavoring to keep out of the swifter 
waters at one point we ran on a long gravelly 
bar that stretched out ahead of us eighty yards 
from the next turn. Here, while resting a few 
minutes, my attention was attracted by a large 
animal jumping out of the bushes at the head 
of the bar. For an instant I was under the im- 
Photo by Geo. Shiras, 3d. 
id 
