American Big Game in Its Haunts Part 19

These remarks apply, but with less force, to New Brunswick and to Maine, where the moose, though larger than the Nova Scotia animal, are distinctly inferior to those of the region north of the Great Lakes. This is probably due to killing off the big bulls, thus leaving the breeding to be done by the smaller and weaker bulls; and, also, to inbreeding.

In Maine the moose originally abounded, but by the middle of the last century they were so reduced in numbers as to be almost rare. Thanks to very efficient game laws, backed by an intelligent public opinion, moose have greatly increased during the last few days in Maine and also in New Brunswick. Their habits have been modified, but as far as the number of moose and deer are concerned, the protection of game in Maine has been a brilliant example to the rest of the country. During the same period, however, caribou have almost entirely disappeared.

Moose were found by the first settlers in New Hamps.h.i.+re and Vermont, appearing occasionally, as migrants only, in the Berks.h.i.+re hills of Ma.s.sachusetts. In the State of New York the Catskills appear to have been their extreme southern limit in the east; but they disappeared from this district more than a century ago. In the Adirondacks, or the North Woods, as they were formerly called, moose abounded among the hard wood ridges and lakes. This was the great hunting country of the Six Nations. Here, too, many of the Canadian Indians came for their winter supply of moose meat and hides. The rival tribes fought over these hunting grounds much in the same manner as the northern and southern Indians warred for the control of Kentucky.

Going westward in the United States we find no moose until we reach the northern peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin, where moose were once numerous. They are still abundant in northern Minnesota, where the country is extremely well suited to their habits. Then there is a break, caused by the great plains, until we reach the Rocky Mountains. They are found along the mountains of western Montana and Idaho as far south as the northwest corner of Wyoming in the neighborhood of the Yellowstone Park, the Tetons and the Wind River Mountains being their southern limit in this section.[10] The moose of the west are relatively small animals with simple antlers, and have adapted themselves to mountain living in striking contrast to their kin in the east.

[Footnote 10: William Roland, an old-time mountaineer, states that he once killed a moose about ten miles north of old Ft. Tetterman, in what is now Wyoming.--EDITOR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOOSE KILLED 1892, WITH UNUSUAL DEVELOPMENT OF BROW ANTLERS. UPPER OTTAWA RIVER. CANADA]

North of the Canadian boundary we may start with the curious fact that the great peninsula of Labrador, which seems in every way a suitable locality for moose, has always been devoid of them. There is no record of their ever appearing east of the Saguenay River, and this fact accounts for their absence from Newfoundland, which received its fauna from the north by way of Labrador, and not from the west by way of Cape Breton. Newfoundland is well suited to the moose, and a number of individuals have been turned loose there, without, as yet, any apparent results. Systematic and persistent effort, however, in this direction should be successful.

South of the St. Lawrence River, the peninsula of Gaspe was once a favorite range, but the moose were nearly killed off in the early '60's by hide-hunters. Further west they are found in small numbers on both banks of the St. Lawrence well back from the settlements, until on the north sh.o.r.e we reach Trois Rivieres, west of which they become more numerous.

The region of the upper Ottawa and Lake Kippewa has been in recent years the best moose country in the east. The moose from this district average much heavier and handsomer antlers than those of Maine and the Maritime Provinces. However, the moose are now rapidly leaving this country and pus.h.i.+ng further north. Twenty-five years ago they first appeared, coming from the south, probably from the Muskoka Lake country, into which they may have migrated in turn from the Adirondacks. This northern movement has been going on steadily within the personal knowledge of the writer. Ten years ago the moose were practically all south and east of Lake Kippewa, now they are nearly all north of that lake, and extend nearly, if not quite, to the sh.o.r.es of James Bay. How far to the west of that they have spread we do not know; but it is probable that they are reoccupying the range lying between the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior and James Bay, which was long abandoned. Northwest of Lake Superior, throughout Manitoba and far to the north, is a region heavily wooded and studded with lakes, const.i.tuting a practically untouched moose country.

No moose, of course, are found in the plains country of a.s.siniboia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta; but east in Keewatin, and to the north in Athabaska, northern British Columbia, and northwest into Alaska we have an unbroken range, in which moose are scattered everywhere. They are increasing wherever their ancient foe, the Indian, is dying off, and where white hunters do not pursue too persistently. In this entire region, from the Ottawa in the east to the Kenai Peninsula in the far west, moose are retiring toward the north before the advance of civilization, and are everywhere occupying new country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALASKA MOOSE HEAD SHOWING UNUSUAL DEVELOPMENT OF ANTLERS--KENAI PENINSULA. Kindness American Museum of Natural History, New York.]

Wary and keen, and with great muscular strength and hardihood, the moose is pitting his acute senses against the encroaching rifleman in the struggle for survival, and it is fair to believe that this superb member of the deer family will continue to be an inhabitant of the forest long after most other members of the group have disappeared.

The moose of Maine and the Maritime Provinces occupy a relatively small area, surrounded on all sides by settlements, which prevent the animals from leaving the country when civilization encroaches. In this district their habits have been greatly modified. They do not show the same fear of the sound of rifle, of the smell of fire, or even of the scent of human footsteps, as in the wilder portions of the country. In consequence of this change of habit, it is difficult for a hunter, whose experience is limited to Maine or the Maritime Provinces, to appreciate how very shy and wary a moose can be.

In the upper Ottawa country, when they first began to be hunted by sportsmen, the writer remembers landing from his canoe on the bank of a small stream, and walking around a marsh a few acres in extent to look at the moose tracks. Fresh signs, made that morning, were everywhere in evidence, and it had apparently been a favorite resort all summer. Snow fell that night and remained continuously on the ground for two weeks, when the writer again pa.s.sed by this swamp and found that during the interval it had not been visited by a single moose. The moccasin tracks had been scented, and the moose had left the neighborhood. A moose with a nose as sensitive as this would find existence unendurable in New Brunswick or Maine.

I have already referred to the relative size of the antlers of the moose from different localities, and called attention to the inferiority of the heads from the extreme east. Large heads have, however, come from this section, and even now one hears of several heads being taken annually in New Brunswick running to five feet and a little over in spread. The test of the value of a moose head is the width of its antlers between the extreme points. The antlers of a young individual show but few points, but these are long and the webbing on the main blade is narrow. The brow antlers usually show two points. As the moose grows larger the palmation becomes wider, and the points more numerous but shorter, until in a very old specimen the upper part of the antler is merely scalloped along the edge, and the web is of great breadth. In the older and finer specimens the brow antlers are more complex, and show three points instead of two.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BIERSTADT" HEAD. KILLED 1880, BOUNDARY OF NEW BRUNSWICK AND MAINE EXTREME SPREAD, 64! INCHES]

A similar change takes place in the bell. This pendulous gland is long and narrow in the young hull, but as he ages it shortens and widens, becoming eventually a sort of dewlap under the throat.

One of the best heads from Maine that I can recall, was in the possession of the late Albert Bierstadt, a member of the Boone and Crockett Club. The extreme spread of these antlers was 64-1/4 inches. This bull was killed in New Brunswick, near the Maine line, some twenty years ago; another famous Maine head was presented to President Cleveland during his first term. Photographs of both of these heads appear herewith. Many very handsome heads have been taken in the Ottawa district, sometimes running well over five feet. It is safe to a.s.sume that a little short of six feet is the extreme width of an eastern head.

The moose of the Rocky Mountains are relatively smaller than the eastern moose, and their antlers are seldom of imposing proportions.

As we go north into British Columbia, through the headwaters of the Peace and Liard rivers, the animal becomes very large in size, perhaps larger than anywhere else in the world as far as his body is concerned, and it is highly probable that somewhere in this neighborhood the range of the giant Alaska moose begins. The species, however, does not show great antler development in this locality, but for some reason the antlers achieve their maximum development in the Kenai Peninsula.

In the Kenai Peninsula and the country around Cook Inlet, Alaska, with an unknown distribution to south and east, we find the distinct species recently described as _Alces gigas_. The animal itself has great bulk, but perhaps not more so than the animals of the Ca.s.siar Mountains, to which it is closely related. The antlers of these Alaska moose are simply huge, running, on the average, very much larger and more complex than even picked heads from the east. These antlers, in addition to their size, have a certain peculiarity in the position of the brow antlers, the plane of which is more often turned nearly at right angles to the plane of the palmation of the main beam than in the eastern moose. In a high percentage of the larger heads there is on one or both antlers an additional and secondary palmation. In the arrangement and development of the brow antlers, and in the complexity produced by this doubling of the beam, a startling resemblance is shown to the extinct _Cervalces_, a moose-like deer of the American Pleistocene, possibly ancestral to the genus _Alces_. If this resemblance indicates any close relations.h.i.+p, we have in the Alaska moose a survivor of the archaic type from which the true moose and Scandinavian elk have somewhat degenerated. The photographs of the Alaska moose shown herewith have this double palmation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROBABLY LARGEST KNOWN ALASKA MOOSE HEAD--KENAI PENINSULA, 1899 EXTREME SPREAD, 78-1/2 INCHES--WEIGHT OF SKULL AND ANTLERS, 93 LBS]

Several heads from the Kenai Peninsula ranging over six feet are authentic; a photograph of the largest moose head in the world is published herewith. This head is in the possession of the Field Columbian Museum at Chicago, and measures 78-1/2 inches spread. The animal that bore it stood about seven feet at shoulders, but this height is not infrequently equaled by eastern moose. The weight of the dried skull and antlers was ninety-three pounds, the palmation being in places 2-1/8 inches thick.

There are several large heads in the possession of American taxidermists, which, if properly authenticated, would prove of interest. No head, however, is of much value as a record unless its history is well known, and unless it has been in the hands of responsible persons. The measurements of antler spread can be considered authentic only when the skull is intact. If the skull is split an almost imperceptible paring of the skull bones at the joint would suffice to drop the antlers either laterally out of their proper plane, or else pitch the main beam backward. By either of these devices a couple of inches can be gained on each side, making a difference of several inches in the aggregate. But the possession of an unbroken skull is by no means a guarantee of the exact size of the head when killed.

Since large antlers, and especially so-called "record heads," of any species of deer command a price among those who desire to pose as sportsmen, and have not the strength or skill to hunt themselves, it has become a regular business for dealers to buy up unusual heads. The temptation to tamper with such a head and increase its size is very great, and heads pa.s.sing through the hands of such dealers must be discarded as of little scientific value. A favorite device is to take a green head, force the antlers apart with a board and a wedge every few days during the winter. By spring the skull and antlers are dry and the plank can be removed. The spread of antlers has meantime gained several inches since the death of the animal that bore them. Such a device is almost beyond detection.

It is an exceedingly difficult matter to formulate a code of hunting ethics, still harder to give them legal force; but public opinion should condemn the kind of sportsmans.h.i.+p which puts a price on antlers. As trophies of the chase, hard won through the endurance and skill of the hunter, they are legitimate records of achievement. The higher the trophy ranks in size and symmetry, the greater should be its value as an evidence of patient and persistent chase. To slay a full grown bull moose or wapiti in fair hunt is in these days an achievement, for there is no royal road to success with the rifle, nor do the Happy Hunting Grounds longer exist on this continent; but to kill them by proxy, or buy the mounted heads for decorative purposes in a dining room, in feeble imitation of the trophies of the baronial banquet hall, is not only vulgar taste, but is helping along the extermination of these ancient types. An animal like the moose or the wapiti represents a line of unbroken descent of vast antiquity, and the destruction of the finest members of the race to decorate a hallway cannot be too strongly condemned.

The writer desires to express his thanks for photographs and information used in this article to Dr. J.A. Allen, of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City; Dr. Daniel Giraud Elliot, of the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago; and to Mr. Andrew J. Stone, the explorer.

_Madison Grant_.

The Creating of Game Refuges

It was my pleasant task, during the past summer, to visit a portion of the Forest Reserves of the United States for the purpose of studying tracts which might be set aside as Game Refuges. To this end I was commissioned by the Division of Biological Survey of the United States Department of Agriculture as "Game Preserve Expert," a new t.i.tle and a new function.

The general idea of the proposed plan for the creation of Game Refuges is that the President shall be empowered to designate certain tracts, wherein there may be no hunting at all, to be set aside as refuges and breeding grounds, and the Biological Survey is acc.u.mulating information to be of service in selecting such areas, when the time for creating them shall arrive. The Forest Reserves of the United States are under the care of the Department of the Interior, and not under the Agricultural Department, where one would naturally expect them to be. Their transfer to the Department of Agriculture has been agitated more than once, and is still a result much to be desired. Although acting in this mission as a representative of the Biological Survey under the latter Department, I bore a circular letter from the Secretary of the Interior, requesting the aid of the superintendents and supervisors of the Forest Reserves. Through them I could always rely upon the services of a competent ranger, who acted as guide.

Arriving in California in March, I was somewhat more than six months engaged in the work; in that time visiting seven reserves in California and one in the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, involving a cruise of 1,220 miles in the saddle and on foot, within the boundaries of the forest, besides 500 miles by wagon and stage. Since the addition of an extra member to the party is ever an added risk of impaired harmony, and since the practice of any art involving skill is always a pleasure, I employed no packer during the entire time of my absence, but did this work myself, a.s.sisted on the off-side by Mr. Thurston, who accompanied me, and who helped in every way within his power. May I take this opportunity to thank him for aid of many sorts, and on all occasions, and for unflagging interest in the problem which we had before us. California has long since ceased to be a country where the use of the pack train is a customary means of travel. It is now an old and long settled region where the frontier lies neither to the east nor to the west, but has escaped to the vicinity of timber line, nearly two miles straight up in the air. Comparatively few people outside of the Sierra Club, that admirable open-air organization of "the Coast," have occasion to visit it, and such trips as they make are of brief duration.

Since it is not desirable to visit the high Sierras before the first of July, three full months were at my disposal for the study of the reserves of southern California, a section of great interest, and of the utmost importance to the State. In southern California one hears frequent mention of the Pa.s.s of Tehachapi; it is the line of demarcation between the great valley of central California, drained by the San Joaquin River on the north, and of southern California proper, which lies to the south. These two regions are of very different nature. In the San Joaquin Valley lie the great wheat fields of California. South of the Pa.s.s of Tehachapi, people are dependent upon irrigation. Here, too, lie wheat fields and also rich vineyards, and the precious orchards of oranges and lemons; further south the equally valuable walnut and almond groves.

The seven Forest Reserves of southern California may be regarded as one almost continuous tract embracing about 4,000,000 acres, lying on either side of the crest of the Coast Range; they are economically of enormous importance to California, but not on account of their timber. In many cases they are forest reserves without trees; for example, the little Trabuco Canyon Reserve, which has but a handful of Coulter pines, and on the northern slope a few scattered spruce. The western slope of the foothills of the San Jacinto, San Bernardino, San Gabriel, Zaca Lake and Pine Mountain, and Santa Ynez reserves, are clad only in chaparral, yet the preservation of these hillsides from fire is of vital importance to the people, since the mantle of vegetation protects, to a certain degree, the sources of the streams from which the supply of water is derived. In this country they believe that water is life; thus harking back to the teaching of the Father of Philosophy, to Thales of Miletus, who lived six hundred years before Christ: "The principle of all things is water, all comes from water, and to water all returns." Such trees as there are here possess unusual interest; approaching the crest of the mountains one finds a scattered growth of pines--the Coulter, ponderosa, Jeffrey's, the glorious sugar pine, the _Pinus contorta_, and _Pinus flexilis_, the single leaf or nut pine, and, in scattered tracts, the queer little k.n.o.b-cone pine. Red and white firs are found, the incense cedar, the Douglas spruce, the big cone spruce, and a number of deciduous trees, mainly oaks of several varieties, with sycamore along the lower creeks, and the alder tree, strikingly like the alder bush of our eastern streams and pastures, but of Gargantuan proportions, grown out of all recognition. Scattered representatives of other species are found--the maple, cherry, dogwood, two varieties of sumac, the yerba del pasmo (or b.a.s.t.a.r.d cedar), madronos, walnut, mesquite, mountain mahogany, cottonwood, willow, ash, many varieties of bushes, also the yucca, mescal, cactus, etc. I have given but a bald enumeration of these; the forming of an acquaintance with so many new trees, shrubs, and flowering herbs is of great interest, and increasingly so from day to day, as one comes to live with them in the different reserves. The pleasure to be derived is c.u.mulative--each acquisition of knowledge adding to the satisfaction of that which comes after--it is of a sort, however, to be experienced in the presence of the thing itself; any description at a distance must necessarily be shadowy and unreal, only the dry bones of something which one sees there, a thing of beauty and instinct with life.

The characteristic feature of these southern forests is their open nature; so far as the roughness of the mountains will permit, one may go anywhere in the saddle without being hindered by underbrush. Outside of their limits, however, and on many hillsides within the reserves, the chaparral offers an impenetrable barrier; in some of them this growth has captured the greater portion of their surface. The forests themselves are often very beautiful; growing, as they do, openly, there is constant sunlight during many months of the year, so that all the ground is warm and vibrant with energy. As a natural consequence, great individuality is shown in the tree forms, as different as possible from the gloom and severe uniformity of the Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton forests.

The former are dry, light, and cheerful; the latter, moist, dark, silent, and somewhat forbidding. The northern forests of the Coast have their attractive features, to be sure; they are fecund, solemn, and majestic, but the prevailing note is not cheerfulness, as here in the south.

In a paper of the present proportions it is impossible to give, except in outline, a report of the summer's work. I began at San Juan Capistrano, one of the old mission towns with a beautiful ruin, lying near the sea on the west of the Trabuco Canyon Reserve. My first cruise was through a chaparral country on the slope overlooking the Pacific. I learned here of few deer and of relentless warfare against such as remain. After that, from Elsinore, strange echo of that sea-girt castle in Shakespeare's Denmark, I cruised so as to have as well an understanding of the eastern slope of this, the smallest of the Coast reserves. From Trabuco Peak we could study the physical geography of the northern half of its area. I saw here what I did not again come across in California--a small flock of the band-tailed pigeon, a bird as large as the mountain quail, very handsome, indeed, and one that now should be protected by law. These, as well as the mountain quail, swallow whole the acorns, which this season lay beneath the live oak trees in lavish abundance; long thin acorns, quite different from ours. In the San Jacinto Reserve I made a cruise through the southern half; much of this section is clothed in scrub oak, with scattered deer throughout. In the northern and more mountainous portions, on the contrary, one finds himself in the open forest, the summer range of the deer. At the time of our visit these were at a lower alt.i.tude, in the chaparral and among the scrub oaks of the foothills.

Going thence by rail north to Santa Barbara, I inspected the narrow strip of the Santa Ynez Reserve, and the eastern and western sections of the Zaca Lake and Pine Mountain Reserve. These are under the control of different forest supervisors; they are both largely composed of chaparral country, with scattered "pineries" on the mountains. The hunting here is regulated, to a certain degree, by the problem of feed and water for the stock used by the hunters in gaining access to the ground. Many enter these tracts from the south, as well as from the region adjacent to Santa Barbara, and the deer have a somewhat hara.s.sed and chivied existence, although, owing to the impenetrable nature of the chaparral outside of the pineries, there is a natural limit to the power of the sportsman to accomplish their entire extermination. The present control of hunters by the forest rangers is only tentative; naturally we hope to have in an ever-increasing degree more scientific management both of the deer and of those who illegally kill them. The sentiment of the community is enlightened, and would strengthen the hands of the Government in enforcing the law. At present a ranger can do little more than maintain, so far as he can, his authority by threats--threats which he has not the power to enforce.

In the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Reserves one finds himself at last in a forest country, with mountains which command respect, a section full of superb feed for the deer, feed of many sorts, for the deer have an attractive and varied bill of fare. Whole hillsides are found of scrub oak, their chief stand-by, and of wild lilac or "deer brush," the latter familiar to all readers of Muir as the Cleanothus, in those long periods of Miltonic sweep and dignity in which he summons the clans of the California herbs and shrubs; an enumeration as stately as the Homeric catalogue of the s.h.i.+ps, and, to such as lack technical knowledge of botany, imposing respect rather by sonorous appeal to the ear than by visual suggestion to the memory. That herbs should be marshalled in so impressive an array fills one with admiration and with somewhat of awe for these representatives of the vegetable kingdom. As Muir p.r.o.nounces their full-sounding t.i.tles, one feels that each is a n.o.ble in this distinguished company. No one unprotected by a botany should have the temerity to enter, amid these lists, alone.

We visited this country in the season of flowers. Whole hillsides of chamisal ("chamz" or greasewood) bore their delicate, spirea-like, cream-colored blossoms--when seen at a distance, like a hovering breath, as unsubstantial as dew, or as the well-named bloom on a plum or black Hamburg grape. The superb yucca flaunted its glorious white standards, borne proudly aloft like those of the Roman legions, each twelve or fifteen feet in height, supporting myriads of white bells. The Mexicans call this the "Quixote"--a n.o.ble and fitting tribute to the knight of La Mancha. The tender center of the plant, loved as food equally by man and beast, is protected by many bristling bayonets, an ever-vigilant guard.

At an alt.i.tude of seven thousand or eight thousand feet, one pa.s.sed through acres of buckthorn, honey-fragrant, this also a favorite of the deer, now visited by every bee and b.u.t.terfly of the mountain side. It is to be noted that as one ascends the mountains the b.u.t.terflies increase in numbers as well as the flowers which they so closely resemble, save only the latter's stationary estate.

One sees in its perfection of color the "Indian paint brush," with its red of purest dye, and adjoining it solid fields of blue lupine--the colors of Harvard and Yale, side by side, challenging birds and all creatures of the air to a decision as to which of them bears itself the more bravely. Here is a chestnut tree; but look not overhead for its sheltering branches. This is a country of surprises, and if the alder tree towers on high, the dwarf chestnut or c.h.i.n.kapin here delegates to the mountains the pains of struggling toward the heavens, and, contented with its lowly estate, freely offers to the various "small deer" of the forest its horde of sweet, three-cornered nuts.

Under the pines one catches a distant gleam of the snow plant, an exquisite sharp note of color, of true Roman shade, such as Rossetti loved to introduce into his pictures, shrill like the vibrant wood of the flute. When a ray of the sun happens to strike this it gleams like a flaming fiery sword, symbol of that which marked the entrance to Paradise. One can circ.u.mvent this guard here, and when he is in these hills he is not far removed from a country well worth protecting by all possible ingenuity, a paradise open to all such as love pure air and wholesome strong exercise.

Much of the San Gabriel Reserve is rugged and well protected by nature to be the home of the deer. San Bernardino, on the contrary, is the most accessible of the southern reserves, with abundant feed for the horses of those who visit it, well watered, and full of n.o.ble trees. So open is the forest that in the hunting season much of it must be abandoned by the deer, who are perfectly cognizant of their danger, and, with somewhat of aid from man, are quite capable of taking care of themselves.

After visiting these southern reserves, I outfitted at Redstone Park, above Visalia, in the San Joaquin Valley, and cruised through the Sequoia National Park, among the big trees, at that time patrolled by colored soldiers under the able command of Captain Young, an officer who possesses the distinction of being the only negro graduate of West Point, I believe, now holding a commission in the United States Army. The impression produced by the giant Sequoias is one of increasing effect as the time among them is extended. In their province the world has nothing to offer more majestic and more satisfying than these trees; one must live among them to come fully beneath their charm.

Since the National Parks and military reservations are already game refuges, it was of importance that I should see the Mt. Whitney Military Reservation, and for this purpose I crossed the Sierra Reserve, through broad tracts suitable for Game Refuges, thus acquiring familiarity with a large and most interesting section of forest country. From the top of Mt. Whitney, the highest bit of land in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, one looks down two miles in alt.i.tude to Owen's Lake almost directly beneath. I picked up, on the plateau of the summit, a bit of obsidian Indian chipping, refutation in itself of the frequently repeated statement that Indians do not climb high peaks. A month was spent with great profit in and about the Sierra Reserve, and one might go there many summers, ever learning something new.

Having seen these southern reserves, and desiring to bring home with me an impression of the northern woods, sharpened by immediate contrast, I next visited that one which is the most to the northwest of them all, the Olympic Reserve in Was.h.i.+ngton. Here, at the head of the Elwha Valley, near Mt. Olympus, we lived among the glaciers. The forest between the headwaters and the sea affords a superb contrast to California; here are found fog and moisture, and super-abounding heavy vegetation. In the thick shade grow giant ferns of tropic luxuriance. The rhododendron thrives, its black glossy leaves a symbol of richly nourished power. The devil's club flaunts aloft its bright berries, and poisonously wounds whomsoever has the misfortune even to touch its great p.r.i.c.kly leaves, nearly as big as an elephant's ear; if there be a malignant old rogue of the vegetable kingdom, this is he, sharing with the wait-a-bit thorn of Africa an evil eminence. Many new plants meet the eye, a wealth of berries--the Oregon grape, the salmon berry, red or yellow, as big as the yolk of an egg, the salal berry, any quant.i.ty of blueberries, huckleberries, both red and blue, sarvis berries, bear berries, mountain ash berries (also loved of bears), thimble berries, high bush cranberries, gooseberries--large and insipid--currants, wild cherries, choke cherries; many of these friends of old, others seen here for the first time, dainty picking in the autumn for deer, bears, foxes, squirrels and many birds. What particularly appealed to me was a wild apple, no larger than the eye of a hawk, but quite able to survive in a fierce contest for life, and with a pleasant, clean, sharp taste, very tonic to the palate, and with diminutive rosy cheeks as tempting as a stout Baldwin--a fine, courageous little product of the wild life, symbol of the energetic quality of the Olympic air. I, for one, am a firm believer in the axiom that a climate which will give the right "tang" to an apple will also produce determined and energetic men; this whole region, spite of its fogs, has a glorious future before it. Superb firs towered hundreds of feet above our heads, and archaic-looking cedars, a thousand years old, thrust their st.u.r.dy shoulders firmly against the storms and the winds. But the valleys, the trees and the glaciers, were only the _mise-en-scene_ of that which const.i.tuted primarily the reason of my visiting this peninsula. Here is the only wild herd of elk of any considerable size outside of the Yellowstone National Park, a most beautiful elk now separated from the Rocky Mountain species. Besides this herd there are only a few survivors of the once innumerable herds of the Pacific Coast, one little bunch in California, and a few scattered individuals in the mountains of Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton. It is excessively hard to form any correct estimate of how many remain; probably there are at least a thousand, possibly several times that number. At all events, there is a scattered herd large enough to insure the existence of the species if they might now be protected. Unfortunately the sentiment of the community in the vicinity of the Olympics is just about what it was in Colorado in the seventies and in the early eighties--almost complete apathy, so far as taking effective precaution is concerned, to prevent the killing of these animals in violation of the law. I saw one superb herd south of the headwaters of the Elwha, and was informed that in the winter a large number come lower down into the valley of that river; here and elsewhere the finest specimens are slaughtered by head-hunters for the market, and by anyone, in fact, who may covet their hides or meat or their "tusks," now unfortunately very valuable.

Presumably, in so killing them, picked specimens are selected. Of course the finest bulls may not thus be systematically eliminated without causing the general deterioration of the herd. Nature's method of progress is by the survival of the fittest. Man reverses this so soon as cupidity makes him the foe of wild animals. The country here is an excessively hard one to get about in with stock, owing to its very rugged nature and to the scarcity of feed, so that there is slight danger of the extermination of these elk by sportsmen during the open season. In the winter, however, the hunters have them at their mercy. I was a.s.sured by one very level-headed man that, in the winter of 1902-3, two men killed seventeen elk from the Elwha herd. Since the individuals who killed the elk are well known and are practically unmolested, the immunity which they enjoy tempts others to similar violation of the law. More recently still, during this last winter, the game warden of Was.h.i.+ngton reports the finding of the carca.s.ses of nineteen elk, killed for their tusks.

This country, with its splendid glaciers and mountains covered with snow, presents quite the most beautiful scenery to be found within the limits of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, and, before many years, is destined to become a place of general resort for travelers. For this to be accomplished, all that is needed is greater facility of travel. It would be a thousand pities if we should tolerate the extermination of the elk, which would afford delight to every one who visited the Olympics, if only the herd might be preserved. One can hardly blame the hunters for taking advantage of the laxity of public sentiment. The State has it within its power easily to protect these animals by the employment of two or three game detectives of the right sort--keen, energetic men. These would soon break up the illicit traffic and bring the offenders to justice. The people of the whole Pacific seaboard, who are justly proud of their region, and of every trait peculiarly its own, would bitterly lament the final disappearance of elk from this whole countryside, yet the fact remains that hardly a voice there, outside of the organization of the "Elks," is raised to protest against these flagrant acts of vandalism which are taking place beneath their very eyes.

This visit to the northern forest was full of varied and commanding interest, but the chief occupation of my summer, when all is said, was with California.