Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1902-04-24
GAME OF EARLY DAYS.
Remains of Bison md Other Animate
That Once ROamed Michigan FOr-
ests Found in Many Places.

In many parts of the Great Lake
region are evidences Of the former
existence of now extinct animals, and
there are few counties in Michigan
which do not give evidence of such
existence. In many parts of the state
even as far south as the forty-third
parallel, are to be found the remains
of beaver dams. In the southwest
part of the state there have been
unearthed the remains of the bison
says the Detroit Free Press. The
bones were found about so years ago
just within our borders, showing that
the migratory animals sometimes
came into this state from their In
diana haunts. It has not been learned
that bison remains have ever beer
found in Michigan north of the forty.
second, parallel. The bison was once
abundant in Kentucky and was also
occasionally found in Ohio and In.
diana, while it. was not rare in Illinois
rs late as 1907, according to some au
thorities. Strangely enough, al.
though deer horns are much more dur
able than bisons' horns, still the deer
antlers quickly disappear. while the
horns of the bison are not infrequent-
ly found well preserved after half
century of exposure. The disappear
ance of deer and elk's antlers is due
to the fact that small rodents devour
them, while the so-called soft horn
seems to offer little attraction for the
rodent. Thousands of ''buffalo".horns
are annually picked up in the west,
while il is extremely rare for the
antlers of deer and elk to be found in
section where these animals have be-
come extinct.
But notwithstanding that the ant
lers of the solid-horned. creatures are
so rapidly destroyed, in dry sections
IF the country, the horns which are
shed in moist places and in the water
remain preserved indefinitely. The
truth of this is we'll illustrated
throughout Michigan, as illustrating
the former range of the American elk
or wapiti. There are no well-settled
counties in the state where the re-
mains of the elk have not been dis
covered in Doggy tracts of low land
or in the water. These antlers of elk,
md sometimes moose, are brought to
the surface when bitches are dug.
low land cleared and marshes and
swamps drained, and there are very
few sections in the state where there
is soil of muck (called peat, in the
DID country, in formation, but pro-
luces collection of antler fragments.
Perhaps there is no quarter of the
state where there have been more elk
antlers secured than in and about
Kalamazoo. In working over the thou
sands of acres of soft, low, mucky,
land in the vicinity of that city, the
celery growers have unearthed a great
many fragments of elk antlers, rang
ing from few inches to over four
feet in length. No perfect horns have
been discovered, but many have been
lisinterred which have only 4 tip or
Two missing. One fragment that l
examined was slightly over ten inches
in circumference at the base and
must have been part of a noble pair
of antlers. All these fragments give
evidence of great age, for, in truth,
there have not been any elks in the
vicinity of Kalamazoo within the
knowledge of the Oldest pioneer, for
at least 20 years.
The largest series Of antlers, have
been discovered in the waters of the
small interior lakes and several col