Part 34

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. 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.

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 Gaspé 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 shore we reach Trois Rivières, 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 pushing 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 shores 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 shores 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, constituting a practically untouched moose country.

No moose, of course, are found in the plains country of Assiniboia, 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.

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 passed 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.

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.

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.