News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-02-27
GAME DIFFERENTIATION.
RAILROADS AND THE OMAN WITH
A GUM DOING THE WORK.
The Bisou, Moose, Elk and Other Ami
mails Getting Lamentably Scarce,

Railroads and the oman with the
gun" are proving too much for game,
large and small; the first making
easily accessible what, not long ago,
was remote, almost trackless, wilder
ness and mountain fastness, and the
breech-loading gun, especially the
magazine type, enabling the veriest
tyro to find his mark. The last link in
that great chain Of rails tn has been
uncoyering the haunts of hoofed game
is the new transcontinental line, the
st. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba
Railway, invading, as it does, the last
stronghold of the Rocky Mountain
goat, mountain sheep, elk, and wood
land caribou. The wild country about
st. Mary's Lake, the kootenay lands,
too, is now thrown open to the sports
man, cattle raiser, miner, lunberman,
and granger. Happily in the Yellow
stone Park are collected some herds OF
the noble game once roaming the
broad continent in countless thous-
ands. What remains is i'll sad need of
protection from the petit hunter and
the wanton slayer.
Practically speaking, the American
bison in his wild state was long since
extinct. Eighteen years ago there
were millions of them. The elk, so
the author thinks, will be the next t.
go; being easy to kill, and his magniti-
cent head and massive antlers in great
demand. Once they were spread over
the United States, but are now found
only in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado,
Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.
The prong-horned antelope, thai
picturesque creature, is scarcely good
for ten years more outside the Yellow
stone Park. He lives i'll the praires,
open plains, or park-like meadows, and
can be outwitted by the yeriest bungler
with good run.
Moose, since they range up to the
artic regions, cannot be wiped out, but
in the United States vii. scarcely last
us twe..ty years, there remaining now
probably less than $50 head, most #
them in Northern Maine, Nor hern
MINES ia, and in the main ranges OF
the rockets. The heal of a large bull
moose readily fetches $75.
The caribou ranges the same lati-
tudes "a the moose, but happily loves
the thick woods, the leafy tangies,
and evergreen forests. and Will be
hard to exterminate. The black tail,
or mule deer, our author thinks, will
go long before his congener, the Viz
ginia white tail. This latter does his
own thinking, being keen-eyed and
alert, and skulking in the thickest tim
Der, will not, in all likelihood, ever be
driven even from the Eastern States.
The Rocky Mountain goat is as good
as gone with us; all his haunts are
known, and he is being slaughtered at
wholesale, the author having recently
bought seventv-tive skins, tanned and
dressed, from a Brooklyn tanner for
81 so the pelt, Happily he ranges to
Glacier Bay, Alaska. The mountain
sheep, or big horn, is sharing the same
fate.
The ancient Hudson Bay Fur COM
pany is winding up its affairs, there
being no more furs to be had, and an
old fur buyer, recently returned from
the Northwest, says the business of
furs is tead. The be-ver
has become scm ce, trapperS now seek
ing the once despiscd muskrat and
even the little gray rabbit to make up !
for the lack of beaver, otter, mink,
marten and sable. Lynx and bear
skins are in great demand. The South
ern fur seal is gone, and Pacific coast |
Doachers are Staying indiscriminatciy; |
h California elephant seal is extinct;
lac w ala ,,s 10 -raro, tire great arctic sea |
COW is gone, its congener, the manatee,
L curiosity. Bears, particularly the |
grizzly, wolves and foxes are fast 60
ing, and milliners' taxidermists are |
now slaughtering the singing birds i'll
vast quantities.