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.
[Illustration: "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 assume
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 Cassiar 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 relationship, 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.
[Illustration: 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 passing 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 sportsmanship 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 title 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 accumulating 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 Washington, 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, assisted
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 Pass 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 Pass 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 knob-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 bastard cedar), madroños, 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 cumulative--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 Washington 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 altitude, 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 harassed
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 ships, 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 pronounces
their full-sounding titles, one feels that each is a noble 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
chámisal ("chamìz" 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 noble 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 altitude of seven thousand or eight thousand feet, one passed
through acres of buckthorn, honey-fragrant, this also a favorite of the
deer, now visited by every bee and butterfly of the mountain side. It is
to be noted that as one ascends the mountains the butterflies 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 chinkapin 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 circumvent 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 noble 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 altitude 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.