American Big Game in Its Haunts
The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
EDITOR
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
1904
[Illustration: THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Founder of the Boone and Crockett Club]
Contents
Theodore Roosevelt
Wilderness Reserves
Theodore Roosevelt.
The Zoology of North American Big Game
Arthur Erwin Brown.
Big Game Shooting in Alaska:
I. Bear Hunting on Kadiak Island
II. Bear Hunting on the Alaska Peninsula
III. My Big Bear of Shuyak
IV. The White Sheep of Kenai Peninsula.
V. Hunting the Giant Moose
James H. Kidder.
The Kadiak Bear and his Home
W. Lord Smith.
The Mountain Sheep and its Range
George Bird Grinnell.
Preservation of the Wild Animals of North America
Henry Fairfield Osborn.
Distribution of the Moose
Madison Grant.
The Creating of Game Refuges
Alden Sampson.
Temiskaming Moose
Paul J. Dashiell.
Two Trophies from India
John H. Prentice.
Big-Game Refuges
Forest Reserves of North America
Appendix
Forest Reserves as Game Preserves
E.W. Nelson.
Constitution of the Boone and Crockett Club
Rules of the Committee on Admission
Former Officers of the Boone and Crockett Club
Officers of the Boone and Crockett Club
List of Members
List of Illustrations
Theodore Roosevelt
President Roosevelt and Major Pitcher
Tourists and Bears
"Oom John"
Prongbucks
Mountain Sheep
Deer on the Parade Ground
Whiskey Jacks
Wapiti in Deep Snow
Old Ephraim
Mountain Sheep at Close Quarters
Magpies
A Silhouette of Blacktail
Black Bears at Hotel Garbage Heap
Chambermaid and Bear
Cook and Bear
Bull Bison
Trophies from Alaska
Loaded Baidarka--Barabara--Base of Supplies, Alaska Peninsula
The Hunter and his Home
Baidarka
Heads of Dall's Sheep
My Best Head
St. Paul, Kadiak Island
Sunset in English Bay, Kadiak
Sitkalidak Island from Kadiak
A Kadiak Eagle
Bear Paths, Kadiak Island
Bear Paths, Kadiak Island
_Merycodus osborni_ Matthew
Yearling Moose
Maine Moose; about 1890
Moose Killed 1892, with Unusual Development of Brow Antlers
Alaska Moose Head, Showing Unusual Development of Antlers
"Bierstadt" Head, Killed 1880
Probably Largest Known Alaska Moose Head
Temiskaming Moose
Temiskaming Moose
Temiskaming Moose
Temiskaming Moose
A Kahrigur Tiger
Indian Leopard
The New Buffalo Herd in the Yellowstone Park
A Bit of Sheep Country
Mountain Sheep at Rest
Mule Deer at Fort Yellowstone
NOTE.--The four last illustrations are from photographs taken by Major
John Pitcher, Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park,
especially for this volume.
Preface
Although the Boone and Crockett Club has not appeared largely in the
public eye during recent years, its activities have not ceased. The
discovery of gold in Alaska, and the extraordinary rush of population to
that northern territory had the usual effect on the wild life there, and
proved very destructive to the natives and to the large mammals. A few
years ago it became evident that the Kadiak bear and certain newly
discovered forms of wild sheep and caribou were being destroyed by
wholesale, and were actually threatened with extermination, and through
the efforts of the Club, strongly backed by the Biological Survey of the
Department of Agriculture, a bill was passed regulating the taking of
Alaska large game, and especially the exportation of heads, horns, and
hides. The bill promises to afford sufficient protection to some of
these rare boreal forms, though for others it perhaps comes too late.
The enforcement of the law is in charge of the Treasury Department, and
permits for shooting and the export of trophies are issued by the Chief
of the Biological Survey.
Although a local affair, yet of interest to the whole country, is the
remarkable success of the New York Zoological Park, controlled and
managed by the New York Zoological Society, brought into existence
largely through the efforts of Madison Grant, the present secretary of
the Club. The Society has also recently taken over the care of the New
York Aquarium. The Society is in a most flourishing condition, and
through its extensive collections exerts an important educational
influence in a field in which popular interest is constantly growing.
Under the administration of President Roosevelt, the good work of
national forest preservation continues, and the time appears not far
distant when vast areas of the hitherto uncultivated West will prove
added sources of wealth to our country.
The Club has for some time given much thoughtful attention to the
subject of game refuges--that is to say, areas where game shall be
absolutely free from interference or molestation, as it is to-day in the
Yellowstone Park--to be situated within the forest reserves; and as is
elsewhere shown, it has investigated a number of the forest reserves in
order to learn something of their suitability for game refuges. It
appears certain that only by means of such refuges can some forms of our
large mammals be preserved from extinction. The first step to be taken
to bring about the establishment of these safe breeding grounds is to
secure legislation transferring the Bureau of Forestry from the Land
Office to the Department of Agriculture. After this shall have been
accomplished, the question of establishing such game refuges may
properly come before the officials of the Government for action.
Among the notable articles in the present volume, one of the most
important is Mr. Roosevelt's account of his visit to the Yellowstone
National Park in April, 1903. The Park is an object lesson, showing very
clearly what complete game protection will do to perpetuate species, and
Mr. Roosevelt's account of what may be seen there is so convincing that
all who read it, and appreciate the importance of preserving our large
mammals, must become advocates of the forest reserve game refuge system.
Quite as interesting, in a different way, is Mr. Brown's contribution
to the definition and the history of our larger North American
mammals. To characterize these creatures in language "understanded of
the people" is not easy, but Mr. Brown has made clear the zoological
affinities of the species, and has pointed out their probable origin.
This is the fourth of the Boone and Crockett Club's books, and the first
to be signed by a single member of the editorial committee, one name
which usually appears on the title page having been omitted for obvious
reasons. The preceding volume--Trail and Camp Fire--was published in
1897.
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL.
NEW YORK, April 2, 1904.
American Big Game in Its Haunts
[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt]
[Illustration: President Roosevelt and Major Pitcher]
FOUNDER OF THE BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB.
It was at a dinner given to a few friends, who were also big-game
hunters, at his New York house, in December, 1887, that Theodore
Roosevelt first suggested the formation of the Boone and Crockett
Club. The association was to be made up of men using the rifle in
big-game hunting, who should meet from time to time to discuss subjects
of interest to hunters. The idea was received with enthusiasm, and the
purposes and plans of the club were outlined at this dinner.
Mr. Roosevelt was then eight years out of college, and had already made
a local name for himself. Soon after graduation he had begun to display
that energy which is now so well known; he had entered the political
field, and been elected member of the New York Legislature, where he
served from 1882 to 1884. His honesty and courage made his term of
service one long battle, in which he fought with equal zeal the unworthy
measures championed by his own and the opposing political party. In 1886
he had been an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of New York, being
defeated by Abram S. Hewitt.
Up to the time of the formation of the Boone and Crockett Club, the
political affairs with which Mr. Roosevelt had concerned himself had
been of local importance, but none the less in the line of training for
more important work; but his activities were soon to have a wider range.
In 1889 the President of the United States appointed him member of the
Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. In 1895 he was
appointed one of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, and
became President of the Board, serving here until 1897. In 1897 he was
appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and served for about a year,
resigning in 1898 to raise the First United States Volunteer
Cavalry. The service done by the regiment--popularly called Roosevelt's
Rough Riders--is sufficiently well known, and Mr. Roosevelt was promoted
to a Colonelcy for conspicuous gallantry at the battle of Las
Guasimas. At the close of the war with Spain, Mr. Roosevelt became
candidate for Governor of New York. He was elected, and served until
December 31, 1900. In that year he was elected Vice-President of the
United States on the ticket with Mr. McKinley, and on the death of
Mr. McKinley, succeeded to the Presidential chair.
Of the Presidents of the United States not a few have been sportsmen,
and sportsmen of the best type. The love of Washington for gun and dog,
his interest in fisheries, and especially his fondness for horse and
hound, in the chase of the red fox, have furnished the theme for many a
writer; and recently Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Harrison have been more or
less celebrated in the newspapers, Mr. Harrison as a gunner, and Mr.
Cleveland for his angling, as well as his duck shooting proclivities.
It is not too much to say, however, that the chair of the chief
magistrate has never been occupied by a sportsman whose range of
interests was so wide, and so actively manifested, as in the case of
Mr. Roosevelt. It is true that Mr. Harrison, Mr. Cleveland, and
Mr. McKinley did much in the way of setting aside forest reservations,
but chiefly from economic motives; because they believed that the
forests should be preserved, both for the timber that they might yield,
if wisely exploited, and for their value as storage reservoirs for the
waters of our rivers.
The view taken by Mr. Roosevelt is quite different. To him the
economics of the case appeal with the same force that they might have
for any hard-headed, common sense business American; but beyond this,
and perhaps, if the secrets of his heart were known, more than this,
Mr. Roosevelt is influenced by a love of nature, which, though
considered sentimental by some, is, in fact, nothing more than a
far-sightedness, which looks toward the health, happiness, and general
well-being of the American race for the future.
As a boy Mr. Roosevelt was fortunate in having a strong love for nature
and for outdoor life, and, as in the case of so many boys, this love
took the form of an interest in birds, which found its outlet in
studying and collecting them. He published, in 1877, a list of the
summer birds of the Adirondacks, in Franklin county, New York, and also
did more or less collecting of birds on Long Island. The result of all
this was the acquiring of some knowledge of the birds of eastern North
America, and, what was far more important, a knowledge of how to
observe, and an appreciation of the fact that observations, to be of any
scientific value, must be definite and precise.
In the many hunting tales that we have had from his pen in recent years,
it is seen that these two pieces of most important instruction acquired
by the boy have always been remembered, and for this reason his books of
hunting and adventure have a real value--a worth not shared by many of
those published on similar subjects. His hunting adventures have not
been mere pleasure excursions. They have been of service to science. On
one of his hunts, perhaps his earliest trip after white goats, he
secured a second specimen of a certain tiny shrew, of which, up to that
time, only the type was known. Much more recently, during a declared
hunting trip in Colorado, he collected the best series of skins of the
American panther, with the measurements taken in the flesh, that has
ever been gathered from one locality by a single individual.
Mr. Roosevelt's hunting experiences have been so wide as to have covered
almost every species of North American big game found within the
temperate zone. Except such Arctic forms as the white and the Alaska
bears, and the muskox, there is, perhaps, no species of North American
game that he has not killed; and his chapter on the mountain sheep, in
his book, "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," is confessedly the best
published account of that species.
During the years that Mr. Roosevelt was actually engaged in the cattle
business in North Dakota, his everyday life led him constantly to the
haunts of big game, and, almost in spite of himself, gave him constant
hunting opportunities. Besides that, during dull seasons of the year,
he made trips to more or less distant localities in search of the
species of big game not found immediately about his ranch. His mode of
hunting and of traveling was quite different from that now in vogue
among big-game hunters. His knowledge of the West was early enough to
touch upon the time when each man was as good as his neighbor, and the
mere fact that a man was paid wages to perform certain acts for you did
not in any degree lower his position in the world, nor elevate yours.
In those days, if one started out with a companion, hired or otherwise,
to go to a certain place, or to do a certain piece of work, each man was
expected to perform his share of the labor.
This fact Mr. Roosevelt recognized as soon as he went West, and, acting
upon it, he made for himself a position as a man, and not as a master,
which he has never lost; and it is precisely this democratic spirit
which to-day makes him perhaps the most popular man in the United States
at large.
Starting off, then, on some trip of several hundred miles, with a
companion who might be guide, helper, cook, packer, or what
not--sometimes efficient, and the best companion that could be desired,
at others, perhaps, hopelessly lazy and worthless, and even with a stock
of liquor cached somewhere in the packs--Mr. Roosevelt helped to pack
the horses, to bring the wood, to carry the water, to cook the food, to
wrangle the stock, and generally to do the work of the camp, or of the
trail, so long as any of it remained undone. His energy was
indefatigable, and usually he infected his companion with his own
enthusiasm and industry, though at times he might have with him a man
whom nothing could move. It is largely to this energy and this
determination that he owes the good fortune that has usually attended
his hunting trips.
As the years have gone on, fortunes have changed; and as duties of one
kind and another have more and more pressed upon him, Mr. Roosevelt has
done less and less hunting; yet his love for outdoor life is as keen as
ever, and as Vice-President of the United States, he made his
well-remembered trip to Colorado after mountain lions, while more
recently he hunted black bears in the Mississippi Valley, and still more
lately killed a wild boar in the Austin Corbin park in New Hampshire.
Mr. Roosevelt's accession to the Presidential chair has been a great
thing for good sportsmanship in this country. Measures pertaining to
game and forest protection, and matters of sport generally, always have
had, and always will have, his cordial approval and co-operation. He is
heartily in favor of the forest reserves, and of the project for
establishing, within these reserves, game refuges, where no hunting
whatever shall be permitted. Aside from his love for nature, and his
wish to have certain limited areas remain in their natural condition,
absolutely untouched by the ax of the lumberman, and unimproved by the
work of the forester, is that broader sentiment in behalf of humanity in
the United States, which has led him to declare that such refuges should
be established for the benefit of the man of moderate means and the poor
man, whose opportunities to hunt and to see game are few and far
between. In a public speech he has said, in substance, that the rich and
the well-to-do could take care of themselves, buying land, fencing it,
and establishing parks and preserves of their own, where they might look
upon and take pleasure in their own game, but that such a course was not
within the power of the poor man, and that therefore the Government
might fitly intervene and establish refuges, such as indicated, for the
benefit and the pleasure of the whole people.
In April, 1903, the President made a trip to the Yellowstone Park, and
there had an opportunity to see wild game in such a forest refuge,
living free and without fear of molestation. Long before this
Mr. Roosevelt had expressed his approval of the plan, but his own eyes
had never before seen precisely the results accomplished by such a
refuge. In 1903 he was able to contrast conditions in the Yellowstone
Park with those of former years when he had passed through it and had
hunted on its borders, and what he saw then more than ever confirmed his
previous conclusions.
Although politics have taken up a large share of Mr. Roosevelt's life,
they represent only one of his many sides. He has won fame as a
historical writer by such books as "The Winning of the West," "Life of
Gouverneur Morris," "Life of Thomas Hart Benton," "The Naval War of
1812," "History of New York," "American Ideals and Other Essays," and
"Life of Cromwell." Besides these, he has written "The Strenuous Life,"
and in somewhat lighter vein, his "Wilderness Hunter," "Hunting Trips of
a Ranchman," "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," and "The Rough Riders"
deal with sport, phases of nature and life in the wild country. For many
years he was on the editorial committee of the Boone and Crockett Club,
and edited its publications, "American Big Game Hunting," "Hunting in
Many Lands," and "Trail and Camp Fire."
Mr. Roosevelt was the first president of the Boone and Crockett Club,
and continues actively interested in its work. He was succeeded in the
presidency of the Club by the late Gen. B.H. Bristow.
[Illustration: Tourists and Bears]
Wilderness Reserves
The practical common sense of the American people has been in no way
made more evident during the last few years than by the creation and use
of a series of large land reserves--situated for the most part on the
great plains and among the mountains of the West--intended to keep the
forests from destruction, and therefore to conserve the water
supply. These reserves are created purely for economic purposes. The
semi-arid regions can only support a reasonable population under
conditions of the strictest economy and wisdom in the use of the water
supply, and in addition to their other economic uses the forests are
indispensably necessary for the preservation of the water supply and for
rendering possible its useful distribution throughout the proper
seasons. In addition, however, to the economic use of the wilderness by
preserving it for such purposes where it is unsuited for agricultural
uses, it is wise here and there to keep selected portions of it--of
course only those portions unfit for settlement--in a state of nature,
not merely for the sake of preserving the forests and the water, but for
the sake of preserving all its beauties and wonders unspoiled by greedy
and shortsighted vandalism. These beauties and wonders include animate
as well as inanimate objects. The wild creatures of the wilderness add
to it by their presence a charm which it can acquire in no other way. On
every ground it is well for our nation to preserve, not only for the
sake of this generation, but above all for the sake of those who come
after us, representatives of the stately and beautiful haunters of the
wilds which were once found throughout our great forests, over the vast
lonely plains, and on the high mountain ranges, but which are now on the
point of vanishing save where they are protected in natural breeding
grounds and nurseries. The work of preservation must be carried on in
such a way as to make it evident that we are working in the interest of
the people as a whole, not in the interest of any particular class; and
that the people benefited beyond all others are those who dwell nearest
to the regions in which the reserves are placed. The movement for the
preservation by the nation of sections of the wilderness as national
playgrounds is essentially a democratic movement in the interest of all
our people.
[Illustration: "OOM JOHN."]
On April 8, 1903, John Burroughs and I reached the Yellowstone Park and
were met by Major John Pitcher of the Regular Army, the Superintendent
of the Park. The Major and I forthwith took horses; he telling me that
he could show me a good deal of game while riding up to his house at the
Mammoth Hot Springs. Hardly had we left the little town of Gardiner and
gotten within the limits of the Park before we saw prong-buck. There
was a band of at least a hundred feeding some distance from the road. We
rode leisurely toward them. They were tame compared to their kindred in
unprotected places; that is, it was easy to ride within fair rifle range
of them; but they were not familiar in the sense that we afterwords
found the bighorn and the deer to be familiar. During the two hours
following my entry into the Park we rode around the plains and lower
slopes of the foothills in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Gardiner
and we saw several hundred--probably a thousand all told--of these
antelope. Major Pitcher informed me that all the prong-horns in the
Park wintered in this neighborhood. Toward the end of April or the
first of May they migrate back to their summering homes in the open
valleys along the Yellowstone and in the plains south of the Golden
Gate. While migrating they go over the mountains and through forests if
occasion demands. Although there are plenty of coyotes in the Park there
are no big wolves, and save for very infrequent poachers the only enemy
of the antelope, as indeed the only enemy of all the game, is the
cougar.
Cougars, known in the Park as elsewhere through the West as "mountain
lions," are plentiful, having increased in numbers of recent years.
Except in the neighborhood of the Gardiner River, that is within a few
miles of Mammoth Hot Springs, I found them feeding on elk, which in the
Park far outnumber all other game put together, being so numerous that
the ravages of the cougars are of no real damage to the herds. But in
the neighborhood of the Mammoth Hot Springs the cougars are noxious
because of the antelope, mountain sheep and deer which they kill; and
the Superintendent has imported some hounds with which to hunt
them. These hounds are managed by Buffalo Jones, a famous old plainsman,
who is now in the Park taking care of the buffalo. On this first day of
my visit to the Park I came across the carcasses of a deer and of an
antelope which the cougars had killed. On the great plains cougars
rarely get antelope, but here the country is broken so that the big cats
can make their stalks under favorable circumstances. To deer and
mountain sheep the cougar is a most dangerous enemy--much more so than
the wolf.
[Illustration: Prongbucks]
The antelope we saw were usually in bands of from twenty to one hundred
and fifty, and they traveled strung out almost in single file, though
those in the rear would sometimes bunch up. I did not try to stalk them,
but got as near them as I could on horseback. The closest approach I was
able to make was to within about eighty yards on two which were by
themselves--I think a doe and a last year's fawn. As I was riding up to
them, although they looked suspiciously at me, one actually lay
down. When I was passing them at about eighty yards distance the big one
became nervous, gave a sudden jump, and away the two went at full speed.
Why the prone bucks were so comparatively shy I do not know, for right
on the ground with them we came upon deer, and, in the immediate
neighborhood, mountain sheep, which were absurdly tame. The mountain
sheep were nineteen in number, for the most part does and yearlings with
a couple of three-year-old rams, but not a single big fellow--for the
big fellows at this season are off by themselves, singly or in little
bunches, high up in the mountains. The band I saw was tame to a degree
matched by but few domestic animals.
They were feeding on the brink of a steep washout at the upper edge of
one of the benches on the mountain side just below where the abrupt
slope began. They were alongside a little gully with sheer walls. I rode
my horse to within forty yards of them, one of them occasionally looking
up and at once continuing to feed. Then they moved slowly off and
leisurely crossed the gully to the other side. I dismounted, walked
around the head of the gully, and moving cautiously, but in plain sight,
came closer and closer until I was within twenty yards, where I sat down
on a stone and spent certainly twenty minutes looking at them. They
paid hardly any attention whatever to my presence--certainly no more
than well-treated domestic creatures would pay. One of the rams rose on
his hind legs, leaning his fore-hoofs against a little pine tree, and
browsed the ends of the budding branches. The others grazed on the short
grass and herbage or lay down and rested--two of the yearlings several
times playfully butting at one another. Now and then one would glance in
my direction without the slightest sign of fear--barely even of
curiosity. I have no question whatever but that with a little patience
this particular band could be made to feed out of a man's hand. Major
Pitcher intends during the coming winter to feed them alfalfa--for game
animals of several kinds have become so plentiful in the neighborhood of
the Hot Springs, and the Major has grown so interested in them, that he
wishes to do something toward feeding them during the severe winter.
After I had looked at the sheep to my heart's content, I walked back to
my horse, my departure arousing as little interest as my advent.
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN SHEEP.]
Soon after leaving them we began to come across black-tail deer, singly,
in twos and threes, and in small bunches of a dozen or so. They were
almost as tame as the mountain sheep, but not quite. That is, they
always looked alertly at me, and though if I stayed still they would
graze, they kept a watch over my movements and usually moved slowly off
when I got within less than forty yards of them. Up to that distance,
whether on foot or on horseback, they paid but little heed to me, and on
several occasions they allowed me to come much closer. Like the bighorn,
the black-tails at this time were grazing, not browsing; but I
occasionally saw them nibble some willow buds. During the winter they
had been browsing. As we got close to the Hot Springs we came across
several white-tail in an open, marshy meadow.
They were not quite as tame as the black-tail, although without any
difficulty I walked up to within fifty yards of them. Handsome though
the black-tail is, the white-tail is the most beautiful of all deer when
in motion, because of the springy, bounding grace of its trot and
canter, and the way it carries its head and white flag aloft.
Before reaching the Mammoth Hot Springs we also saw a number of ducks in
the little pools and on the Gardiner. Some of them were rather shy.
Others--probably those which, as Major Pitcher informed me, had spent
the winter there--were as tame as barnyard fowls.
[Illustration: DEER ON THE PARADE GROUND.]
Just before reaching the post the Major took me into the big field where
Buffalo Jones had some Texas and Flat Head Lake buffalo--bulls and
cows--which he was tending with solicitous care. The original stock of
buffalo in the Park have now been reduced to fifteen or twenty
individuals, and the intention is to try to mix them with the score of
buffalo which have been purchased out of the Flat Head Lake and Texas
Panhandle herds. The buffalo were put within a wire fence, which, when
it was built, was found to have included both black-tail and white-tail
deer. A bull elk was also put in with them at one time--he having met
with some accident which made the Major and Buffalo Jones bring him in
to doctor him. When he recovered his health he became very cross. Not
only would he attack men, but also buffalo, even the old and surly
master bull, thumping them savagely with his antlers if they did
anything to which he objected. When I reached the post and dismounted
at the Major's house, I supposed my experiences with wild beasts for the
day were ended; but this was an error. The quarters of the officers and
men and the various hotel buildings, stables, residences of the civilian
officials, etc., almost completely surround the big parade ground at the
post, near the middle of which stands the flag-pole, while the gun used
for morning and evening salutes is well off to one side. There are large
gaps between some of the buildings, and Major Pitcher informed me that
throughout the winter he had been leaving alfalfa on the parade grounds,
and that numbers of black-tail deer had been in the habit of visiting it
every day, sometimes as many as seventy being on the parade ground at
once. As springtime came on the numbers diminished. However, in
mid-afternoon, while I was writing in my room in Major Pitcher's house,
on looking out of the window I saw five deer on the parade ground. They
were as tame as so many Alderney cows, and when I walked out I got up to
within twenty yards of them without any difficulty. It was most amusing
to see them as the time approached for the sunset gun to be fired. The
notes of the trumpeter attracted their attention at once. They all
looked at him eagerly. One then resumed feeding, and paid no attention
whatever either to the bugle, the gun or the flag. The other four,
however, watched the preparations for firing the gun with an intent
gaze, and at the sound of the report gave two or three jumps; then
instantly wheeling, looked up at the flag as it came down. This they
seemed to regard as something rather more suspicious than the gun, and
they remained very much on the alert until the ceremony was over. Once
it was finished, they resumed feeding as if nothing had happened. Before
it was dark they trotted away from the parade ground back to the
mountains.
The next day we rode off to the Yellowstone River, camping some miles
below Cottonwood Creek. It was a very pleasant camp. Major Pitcher, an
old friend, had a first-class pack train, so that we were as comfortable
as possible, and on such a trip there could be no pleasanter or more
interesting companion than John Burroughs--"Oom John," as we soon grew
to call him. Where our tents were pitched the bottom of the valley was
narrow, the mountains rising steep and cliff-broken on either
side. There were quite a number of black-tail in the valley, which were
tame and unsuspicious, although not nearly as much so as those in the
immediate neighborhood of the Mammoth Hot Springs. One mid-afternoon
three of them swam across the river a hundred yards above our camp. But
the characteristic animals of the region were the elk--the wapiti. They
were certainly more numerous than when I was last through the Park
twelve years before.
[Illustration: WHISKEY JACKS.]
In the summer the elk spread all over the interior of the Park. As
winter approaches they divide, some going north and others south. The
southern bands, which, at a guess, may possibly include ten thousand
individuals, winter out of the Park, for the most part in Jackson's
Hole--though of course here and there within the limits of the Park a
few elk may spend both winter and summer in an unusually favorable
location. It was the members of the northern band that I met. During
the winter time they are very stationary, each band staying within a
very few miles of the same place, and from their size and the open
nature of their habitat it is almost as easy to count them as if they
were cattle. From a spur of Bison Peak one day, Major Pitcher, the guide
Elwood Hofer, John Burroughs and I spent about four hours with the
glasses counting and estimating the different herds within sight. After
most careful work and cautious reduction of estimates in each case to
the minimum the truth would permit, we reckoned three thousand head of
elk, all lying or feeding and all in sight at the same time. An estimate
of some fifteen thousand for the number of elk in these northern bands
cannot be far wrong. These bands do not go out of the Park at all, but
winter just within its northern boundary. At the time when we saw them,
the snow had vanished from the bottom of the valleys and the lower
slopes of the mountains, but grew into continuous sheets further up
their sides. The elk were for the most part found up on the snow slopes,
occasionally singly or in small gangs--more often in bands of from fifty
to a couple of hundred. The larger bulls were highest up the mountains
and generally in small troops by themselves, although occasionally one
or two would be found associating with a big herd of cows, yearlings,
and two-year-olds. Many of the bulls had shed their antlers; many had
not. During the winter the elk had evidently done much browsing, but at
this time they were grazing almost exclusively, and seemed by preference
to seek out the patches of old grass which were last left bare by the
retreating snow. The bands moved about very little, and if one were
seen one day it was generally possible to find it within a few hundred
yards of the same spot the next day, and certainly not more than a mile
or two off. There were severe frosts at night, and occasionally light
flurries of snow; but the hardy beasts evidently cared nothing for any
but heavy storms, and seemed to prefer to lie in the snow rather than
upon the open ground. They fed at irregular hours throughout the day,
just like cattle; one band might be lying down while another was
feeding. While traveling they usually went almost in single
file. Evidently the winter had weakened them, and they were not in
condition for running; for on the one or two occasions when I wanted to
see them close up I ran right into them on horseback, both on level
plains and going up hill along the sides of rather steep mountains. One
band in particular I practically rounded up for John Burroughs--finally
getting them to stand in a huddle while he and I sat on our horses less
than fifty yards off. After they had run a little distance they opened
their mouths wide and showed evident signs of distress.
[Illustration: WAPITI IN DEEP SNOW.]
We came across a good many carcasses. Two, a bull and a cow, had died
from scab. Over half the remainder had evidently perished from cold or
starvation. The others, including a bull, three cows and a score of
yearlings, had been killed by cougars. In the Park the cougar is at
present their only animal foe. The cougars were preying on nothing but
elk in the Yellowstone Valley, and kept hanging about the neighborhood
of the big bands. Evidently they usually selected some outlying
yearling, stalked it as it lay or as it fed, and seized it by the head
and throat. The bull which they killed was in a little open valley by
himself, many miles from any other elk. The cougar which killed it,
judging from its tracks, was a very large male. As the elk were
evidently rather too numerous for the feed, I do not think the cougars
were doing any damage.
[Illustration: OLD EPHRAIM.]
Coyotes are plentiful, but the elk evidently have no dread of them. One
day I crawled up to within fifty yards of a band of elk lying down. A
coyote was walking about among them, and beyond an occasional look they
paid no heed to him. He did not venture to go within fifteen or twenty
paces of any one of them. In fact, except the cougar, I saw but one
living thing attempt to molest the elk. This was a golden eagle. We saw
several of these great birds. On one occasion we had ridden out to the
foot of a great sloping mountain side, dotted over with bands and
strings of elk amounting in the aggregate probably to a thousand
head. Most of the bands were above the snow line--some appearing away
back toward the ridge crests, and looking as small as mice. There was
one band well below the snow line, and toward this we rode. While the
elk were not shy or wary, in the sense that a hunter would use the
words, they were by no means as familiar as the deer; and this
particular band of elk, some twenty or thirty in all, watched us with
interest as we approached. When we were still half a mile off they
suddenly started to run toward us, evidently frightened by something.
They ran quartering, and when about four hundred yards away we saw that
an eagle was after them. Soon it swooped, and a yearling in the rear,
weakly, and probably frightened by the swoop, turned a complete
somersault, and when it recovered its feet, stood still. The great bird
followed the rest of the band across a little ridge, beyond which they
disappeared. Then it returned, soaring high in the heavens, and after
two or three wide circles, swooped down at the solitary yearling, its
legs hanging down. We halted at two hundred yards to see the end. But
the eagle could not quite make up its mind to attack. Twice it hovered
within a foot or two of the yearling's head--again flew off and again
returned. Finally the yearling trotted off after the rest of the band,
and the eagle returned to the upper air. Later we found the carcass of a
yearling, with two eagles, not to mention ravens and magpies, feeding on
it; but I could not tell whether they had themselves killed the yearling
or not.
Here and there in the region where the elk were abundant we came upon
horses which for some reason had been left out through the winter. They
were much wilder than the elk. Evidently the Yellowstone Park is a
natural nursery and breeding ground of the elk, which here, as said
above, far outnumber all the other game put together. In the winter, if
they cannot get to open water, they eat snow; but in several places
where there had been springs which kept open all winter, we could see by
the tracks they had been regularly used by bands of elk. The men working
at the new road along the face of the cliffs beside the Yellowstone
River near Tower Falls informed me that in October enormous droves of
elk coming from the interior of the Park and traveling northward to the
lower lands had crossed the Yellowstone just above Tower Falls. Judging
by their description the elk had crossed by thousands in an
uninterrupted stream, the passage taking many hours. In fact nowadays
these Yellowstone elk are, with the exception of the Arctic caribou, the
only American game which at times travel in immense droves like the
buffalo of the old days.
A couple of days after leaving Cottonwood Creek--where we had spent
several days--we camped at the Yellowstone Canon below Tower Falls. Here
we saw a second band of mountain sheep, numbering only eight--none of
them old rams. We were camped on the west side of the canon; the sheep
had their abode on the opposite side, where they had spent the
winter. It has recently been customary among some authorities,
especially the English hunters and naturalists who have written of the
Asiatic sheep, to speak as if sheep were naturally creatures of the
plains rather than mountain climbers. I know nothing of old world sheep,
but the Rocky Mountain bighorn is to the full as characteristic a
mountain animal, in every sense of the word, as the chamois, and, I
think, as the ibex. These sheep were well known to the road builders,
who had spent the winter in the locality. They told me they never went
back on the plains, but throughout the winter had spent their days and
nights on the top of the cliff and along its face. This cliff was an
alternation of sheer precipices and very steep inclines. When coated
with ice it would be difficult to imagine an uglier bit of climbing; but
throughout the winter, and even in the wildest storms, the sheep had
habitually gone down it to drink at the water below. When we first saw
them they were lying sunning themselves on the edge of the canyon, where
the rolling grassy country behind it broke off into the sheer
descent. It was mid-afternoon and they were under some pines. After a
while they got up and began to graze, and soon hopped unconcernedly down
the side of the cliff until they were half way to the bottom. They then
grazed along the sides, and spent some time licking at a place where
there was evidently a mineral deposit. Before dark they all lay down
again on a steeply inclined jutting spur midway between the top and
bottom of the canyon.
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN SHEEP AT CLOSE QUARTERS.]
Next morning I thought I would like to see them close up, so I walked
down three or four miles below where the canyon ended, crossed the
stream, and came up the other side until I got on what was literally the
stamping ground of the sheep. Their tracks showed that they had spent
their time for many weeks, and probably for all the winter, within a
very narrow radius. For perhaps a mile and a half, or two miles at the
very outside, they had wandered to and fro on the summit of the canyon,
making what was almost a well-beaten path; always very near and usually
on the edge of the cliff, and hardly ever going more than a few yards
back into the grassy plain-and-hill country. Their tracks and dung
covered the ground. They had also evidently descended into the depths of
the canon wherever there was the slightest break or even lowering in the
upper line of basalt cliffs. Although mountain sheep often browse in
winter, I saw but few traces of browsing here; probably on the sheer
cliff side they always got some grazing. When I spied the band they
were lying not far from the spot in which they had lain the day before,
and in the same position on the brink of the canon. They saw me and
watched me with interest when I was two hundred yards off, but they let
me get up within forty yards and sit down on a large stone to look at
them, without running off. Most of them were lying down, but a couple
were feeding steadily throughout the time I watched them. Suddenly one
took the alarm and dashed straight over the cliff, the others all
following at once. I ran after them to the edge in time to see the last
yearling drop off the edge of the basalt cliff and stop short on the
sheer slope below, while the stones dislodged by his hoofs rattled down
the canon. They all looked up at me with great interest and then
strolled off to the edge of a jutting spur and lay down almost directly
underneath me and some fifty yards off. That evening on my return to
camp we watched the band make its way right down to the river bed, going
over places where it did not seem possible a four-footed creature could
pass. They halted to graze here and there, and down the worst places
they went very fast with great bounds. It was a marvelous exhibition of
climbing.
After we had finished this horseback trip we went on sleds and skis to
the upper Geyser Basin and the Falls of the Yellowstone. Although it was
the third week in April, the snow was still several feet deep, and only
thoroughly trained snow horses could have taken the sleighs along, while
around the Yellowstone Falls it was possible to move only on
snowshoes. There was very little life in those woods. We saw an
occasional squirrel, rabbit or marten; and in the open meadows around
the hot waters there were geese and ducks, and now and then a
coyote. Around camp Clark's crows and Stellar's jays, and occasionally
magpies came to pick at the refuse; and of course they were accompanied
by the whiskey acks with their usual astounding familiarity. At Norris
Geyser Basin there was a perfect chorus of bird music from robins,
purple finches, uncos and mountain bluebirds. In the woods there were
mountain chickadees and nuthatches of various kinds, together with an
occasional woodpecker. In the northern country we had come across a very
few blue grouse and ruffed grouse, both as tame as possible. We had seen
a pigmy owl no larger than a robin sitting on top of a pine in broad
daylight, and uttering at short intervals a queer un-owllike cry.
[Illustration: MAGPIES.]
The birds that interested us most were the solitaires, and especially
the dippers or water-ousels. We were fortunate enough to hear the
solitaires sing not only when perched on trees, but on the wing, soaring
over a great canon. The dippers are to my mind well-nigh the most
attractive of all our birds. They stay through the winter in the
Yellowstone because the waters are in many places open. We heard them
singing cheerfully, their ringing melody having a certain suggestion of
the winter wren's. Usually they sang while perched on some rock on the
edge or in the middle of the stream; but sometimes on the wing. In the
open places the western meadow larks were also uttering their singular
beautiful songs. No bird escaped John Burroughs' eye; no bird note
escaped his ear.
On the last day of my stay it was arranged that I should ride down from
Mammoth Hot Springs to the town of Gardiner, just outside the Park
limits, and there make an address at the laying of the corner stone of
the arch by which the main road is to enter the Park. Some three
thousand people had gathered to attend the ceremonies. A little over a
mile from Gardiner we came down out of the hills to the flat plain; from
the hills we could see the crowd gathered around the arch waiting for me
to come. We put spurs to our horses and cantered rapidly toward the
appointed place, and on the way we passed within forty yards of a score
of black-tails, which merely moved to one side and looked at us, and
within a hundred yards of half a dozen antelope. To any lover of nature
it could not help being a delightful thing to see the wild and timid
creatures of the wilderness rendered so tame; and their tameness in the
immediate neighborhood of Gardiner, on the very edge of the Park, spoke
volumes for the patriotic good sense of the citizens of Montana. Major
Pitcher informed me that both the Montana and Wyoming people were
co-operating with him in zealous fashion to preserve the game and put a
stop to poaching. For their attitude in this regard they deserve the
cordial thanks of all Americans interested in these great popular
playgrounds, where bits of the old wilderness scenery and the old
wilderness life are to be kept unspoiled for the benefit of our
children's children. Eastern people, and especially eastern sportsmen,
need to keep steadily in mind the fact that the westerners who live in
the neighborhood of the forest preserves are the men who in the last
resort will determine whether or not these preserves are to be
permanent. They cannot in the long run be kept as forest and game
reservations unless the settlers roundabout believe in them and heartily
support them; and the rights of these settlers must be carefully
safeguarded, and they must be shown that the movement is really in their
interest. The eastern sportsman who fails to recognize these facts can
do little but harm by advocacy of forest reserves.
[Illustration: A SILHOUETTE OF BLACKTAIL.]
It was in the interior of the Park, at the hotels beside the lake, the
falls, and the various geyser basins, that we would have seen the bears
had the season been late enough; but unfortunately the bears were still
for the most part hibernating. We saw two or three tracks, and found one
place where a bear had been feeding on a dead elk, but the animals
themselves had not yet begun to come about the hotels. Nor were the
hotels open. No visitors had previously entered the Park in the winter
or early spring--the scouts and other employees being the only ones who
occasionally traverse it. I was sorry not to see the bears, for the
effect of protection upon bear life in the Yellowstone has been one of
the phenomena of natural history. Not only have they grown to realize
that they are safe, but, being natural scavengers and foul feeders, they
have come to recognize the garbage heaps of the hotels as their special
sources of food supply. Throughout the summer months they come to all
the hotels in numbers, usually appearing in the late afternoon or
evening, and they have become as indifferent to the presence of men as
the deer themselves--some of them very much more indifferent. They have
now taken their place among the recognized sights of the Park, and the
tourists are nearly as much interested in them as in the geysers.
[Illustration: BLACK BEARS AT HOTEL GARBAGE HEAP.]