Chapter IX: Part 9

Mr. D.C. Nowlin, of Jackson, Wyo., was good enough to write me in 1898, concerning the sheep in the general neighborhood of Jackson's Hole; that is to say, in the ranges immediately south of the National Park, a section not far from that just described. He says: "In certain ranges near here sheep are comparatively plentiful, and are killed every hunting season.

"Occasionally a scabby ram is killed. I killed one here which showed very plainly the ravages of scab, especially around the ears, and on the neck and shoulders. Evidently the disease is identical with that so common among domestic sheep, and I have heard more than one creditable account of mountain sheep mingling temporarily with domestic flocks and thus contracting the scab. I am confident that the same parasite which is found upon scabby domestic sheep is responsible for the disease which affects the bighorn. It is not difficult to account for the transmission of the disease, as western sheep-men roam with their flocks at will, from the peach belt to timber line, regardless alike of the legal or inherent rights of man or beast. Partly through isolation, and partly through moral suasion by our people, no domestic sheep have invaded Jackson's Hole."

Mr. Ira Dodge, of Cora, Wyo., in response to inquiries as to the sheep in his section of the country, says: "Mountain sheep are, like most other game, where you find them; but their feeding grounds are mainly high table-lands, at the foot of, or near, high rocky peaks or ranges. These table-lands occur at or near timber line, varying one or two thousand feet either way. In this latitude timber line occurs at about 11,500 feet. In all the ranges in this locality, namely, the Wind River, Gros Ventre, and Uintah, water is found in abundance, and, as a rule, there is plenty of timber. I think I have more often found sheep in the timber, or below timber line, than at higher altitudes, although sometimes I have located the finest rams far above the last scrubby pine.

"The largest bunch of sheep that I have seen was in the fall of 1893. I estimated the band at 75 to 100. In that bunch there were no rams, and they remained in sight for quite a long time; so that I had a good opportunity to estimate them.

"I do not profess to know where the majority of these sheep winter, but, undoubtedly, a great number winter on the table-lands before mentioned, where a rich growth of grass furnishes an abundance of feed. At this altitude the wind blows so hard and continuously, and the snow is so light and dry, that there would be no time during the whole winter when the snow would lie on the ground long enough to starve sheep to death. Several small bunches of sheep winter on the Big Gros Ventre River. These, I think, are the same sheep that are found in summer time on the Gros Ventre range. I have occasionally killed sheep that were scabby, but I have no positive knowledge that this disease has killed any number of sheep. In the fall of 1894 I discovered eleven large ram skulls in one place, and since that time found four more near by. My first impression was that the eleven were killed by a snowslide, as they were at the foot of one of those places where snowslides occur, but finding the other four within a mile, and in a place where a snowslide could not have killed them, it rather dispelled my first theory. As mountain sheep can travel over snow drifts nearly as well as a caribou, I do not believe that they were stranded in a snowstorm and perished, and no hunter would have killed so great a number and left such magnificent heads. The scab theory is about the only solution left. The sheep are not hunted very much here, and I believe their greatest enemy is the mountain lion.

"There is one isolated bunch of mountain sheep on the Colorado Desert, situated in Fremont and Sweetwater counties, Wyo., which seems to be holding its own against many range riders, meat and specimen hunters, as well as coyotes. They are very light in color, much more so than their cousins found higher up in the mountains, and locally they are called ibex, or white goats. The country they live in is very similar to the bad lands of Dakota, and I dare say that their long life on the plains has created in them a distinct sub-species of the bighorn."

The Colorado Desert is situated in Wyoming, between the Green River on the west, and the Red Desert on the east. The sheep are seen mostly on the breaks on Green River. They are sometimes chased by cowboys, but I have never known of one being caught in that way.

I am told that in some bad lands in the Red Desert, locally known as Dobe Town, there is a herd of wild sheep, which are occasionally pursued by range riders. Rarely one is roped.

Mr. Fred E. White, of Jackson, Wyo., advised me in 1898 of the existence of sheep in the mountains which drain into Gros Ventre Fork, the heads of Green River and Buffalo Fork of Snake River. Mr. White was with the Webb party, some years ago, when they secured a number of sheep. The same correspondent calls attention to the very large number of sheep which in 1888, and for a few years thereafter, ranged in the high mountains between the waters of the Yellowstone and the Stinking Water. This is one of the countries from which sheep have been pretty nearly exterminated by hunters and prospectors.

Within the past twenty or thirty years mountain sheep have become very scarce in all of their old haunts in Wyoming and northern Colorado. This does not seem to be particularly due to hunting, but the sheep seem to be either moving away or dying out. Mr. W.H. Reed, in 1898, wrote me from Laramie, Wyo., saying: "At present there are perhaps thirty head on Sheep Mountain, twenty-two miles west of Laramie, Wyo.; on the west side of Laramie Peak there are perhaps twenty head; on the east side of the Peak twelve to fifteen head, and near the Platte Canon, at the head of Medicine Bow River, there are fifteen. In 1894 I saw at the head of the Green River, Hobacks River, and Gros Ventre River, between two and three hundred mountain sheep. There are sheep scattered all through the Wind River, and a very few in the Big Horn Mountains; but all are in small bunches, and these widely separated. Some of the old localities where they were very abundant in the early '70's, but now are never seen, are Whalen Canon, Raw Hide Buttes, Hartville Mountains, thirty miles northwest of Ft. Laramie, Elk Mountains, and the adjacent hills fifteen miles east of Fort Steele, near old Fort Halleck. They seem to have disappeared also from the bad lands along Green River, south of the Union Pacific Railroad, from the Freezeout Hills, Platte Canyon, at the mouth of Sweetwater River, from Brown's Canyon, forty miles northwest of Rawlins, from the Seminole and Ferris Mountains, and from many other places in the middle and northeastern part of Wyoming."

In Colorado, the mountains surrounding North Park and west to the Utah line, had many mountain sheep twenty-five years ago, but to-day old hunters tell me that there are only two places where one is sure to find sheep. These are Hahn's Peak and the Rabbit Ears, two peaks at the south end of North Park.

There were sheep in and about the Black Hills of Dakota as late as 1890, for Mr. W.S. Phillips has kindly informed me that about June of that year he saw three sheep on Mt. Inyan Kara. These were the only ones actually seen during the summer, but they were frequently heard of from cattle-men, and Mr. Phillips considers it beyond dispute that at that time they ranged from Sundance, Inyan Kara and Bear Lodge Mountains--all on the western and southwestern slope of the Black Hills, on and near the Wyoming-Dakota line--on the east, westerly at least to Pumpkin Buttes and Big Powder River, and in the edge of the bad lands of Wyoming as far north as the Little Missouri Buttes, and south to the south fork of the Cheyenne River, and the big bend of the north fork of the Platte, and the head of Green River. This range is based on reports of reliable range riders, who saw them in passing through the country. It is an ideal sheep country--rough, varying from sage brush desert, out of which rises an occasional pine ridge butte, to bad lands, and the mountains of the Black Hills. There are patches of grassy, fairly good pasture land. The country is well watered, and there are many springs hidden under the hills which run but a short distance after they come out of the ground and then sink. Timber occurs in patches and more or less open groves on the pine ridges that run sometimes for several miles in a continuous hill, at a height of from one to three or four hundred feet above the plain. The region is a cattle country.

In 1893 and '97 fresh heads and hides were seen at Pocotello, Idaho, and at one or two other points west of there in the lava country along Snake River and the Oregon short line. The sheep were probably killed in the spurs and broken ranges that run out on the west flank of the main chain of the Rockies toward the Blue Mountains of Oregon.

Mr. William Wells, of Wells, Wyo., has very kindly given me the following notes as to Colorado, where he formerly resided. He says: "During 1890, '91, '92, there were a good many mountain sheep on the headwaters of Roan Creek, a tributary of Grand River, in Colorado. Roan Creek heads on the south side of the Roan or Book Plateau, and flows south into Grand River. The elevation of Grand River at this point is about 5,000 feet, and the elevation of the Book Plateau is about 8,500 feet. The side of the plateau toward Grand River consists of cliffs from 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, and as the branches of Roan Creek head on top of the plateau they form very deep box canyons as they cut their way to the river. It is on these cliffs and in these canyons that the sheep were found. I understand that there are some there yet, but I have not been in that section since 1892. On all the cliffs are benches or terraces--a cliff of 300 to 1,000 feet at the top, then a bench, then another cliff, and so on to the bottom. The benches are well grassed, and there is more or less timber, quaking asp, spruce and juniper in the side canyons. There are plenty of springs along the cliffs, and as they face the south, the winter range is good. The top of the plateau is an open park country, and at that time was, and is yet, for that matter, full of deer and bear, but I never saw any sheep on top, though they sometimes come out on the upper edge of the cliffs.

"There were, and I suppose are still, small bands of sheep on Dome and Shingle Peaks, on the headwaters of White River, in northwestern Colorado.

"There was also a band of sheep on the Williams River Mountains which lie between Bear River and the Williams Fork of Bear River, in northwestern Colorado, but these sheep were killed off about 1894 or '95. The Williams River Mountains are a low range of grass-covered hills, well watered, with broken country and cliffs on the south side, toward the Williams Fork.

"It is also reported that there is a band of sheep in Grand River Canyon, just above Glenwood Springs, Colo., and sheep are reported to be on the increase in the Gunnison country, and other parts of southwestern Colorado, as that State protects sheep."

Mr. W.J. Dixon, of Cimarron, Kan., wrote me in May, 1898, as follows: "In 1874 or '75 I killed sheep at the head of the north fork of the Purgatoire, or Rio de las Animas, on the divide between the Spanish Peaks and main range of the Rocky Mountains, southwest by west from the South Peak. I was there also in November, 1892, and saw three or four head at a distance, but did not go after them. They must be on the increase there."

In 1899 there was a bunch of sheep in east central Utah, about thirty miles north of the station of Green River, on the Rio Grande Western Railroad, and on the west side of the Green River. These were on the ranch of ex-member of Congress, Hon. Clarence E. Allen, and were carefully protected by the owners of the property. The ranch hands are instructed not to kill or molest them in any manner, and to do nothing that will alarm them. They come down occasionally to the lower ground, attracted by the lucerne, as are also the deer, which sometimes prove quite a nuisance by getting into the growing crops. The sheep spend most of their time in the cliffs not far away. When first seen, about 1894, there were but five sheep in the bunch, while in 1899 twenty were counted. This information was very kindly sent to me by Mr. C.H. Blanchard, at one time of Silver City, but more recently of Salt Lake City, in Utah.

Mr. W.H. Holabird, formerly of Eddy, New Mexico, but more recently of Los Angeles, Cal., tells me that during the fall of 1896 a number of splendid heads were brought into Eddy, N.M. He is told that mountain sheep are quite numerous in the rugged ridge of the Guadeloupe Mountains, bands of from five to twelve being frequently seen. As to California, he reports: "We have a good many mountain sheep on the isolated mountain spurs putting out from the main ranges into the desert. I frequently hear of bands of two to ten, but our laws protect them at all seasons."

My friend, Mr. Herbert Brown, of Yuma, Ariz., so well known as an enthusiastic and painstaking observer of natural history matters, has kindly written me something as to the mountain sheep in that Territory. He says: "Under the game law of Arizona the killing of mountain sheep is absolutely prohibited, but that does not prevent their being killed. It does, however, prevent their being killed for the market, and it was killing for the market that threatened their extermination. So far as I have ever been able to learn, these sheep range, or did range, on all the mountains to the north, west, and south of Tucson, within a hundred miles or so. I know of them in the Superstition Mountains, about a hundred miles to the north; in the Quijotoas Mountains, a like distance to the southwest, and in the mountains intermediate; I have no positive proof of their existence in the Santa Ritas, but about twenty-three years ago I saw a pair of old and weather-beaten horns that had been picked up in that range near Agua Caliente, that is about ten or twelve miles southwest of Mt. Wrightson. I never saw any sheep in the range, nor do I know of any one more fortunate than myself in that respect. In days gone by the Santa Catalinas, the Rincon, and the Tucson Mountains were the most prolific hunting grounds for the market men. So far as I can remember, the first brought to the market here were subsequent to the coming of the railroad in 1880. They were killed in the Tucson Mountains by the 'Logan boys,' well known hunters at that time. Later the Logans made a strike in the mines and disappeared. For several years no sheep were seen, but finally Mexicans began killing them in the Santa Catalinas, and occasionally six or eight would be hung up in the market at the same time. Later the Papago Indians in the southwest began killing them for the market. These people, as did also the Mexicans, killed big and little, and the animals, never abundant, were threatened with extermination. Those killed by the Logans came from the Tucson Mountains; those killed by the Mexicans from the Santa Catalinas, and those killed by the Indians probably from the Baboquivari or Comobabi ranges. I questioned the hunters repeatedly, but they never gave me a satisfactory answer.

"Although I never saw the sheep, I have repeatedly seen evidence of them in both the ranges named. Inasmuch as I have not seen one in several years past, I feel very confident that there are not many to see. Last year I learned of a large ram being killed in the Superstition Mountains which was alone when killed. About three years ago the head of a big ram was brought to this city. It is said to have weighed seventy pounds. I did not see it, nor did I learn where it came from.

"The Superstition and the Santa Catalinas are the very essence of ruggedness, but notwithstanding this I am constrained to believe that the days of big game are nearly numbered in Arizona. The reasons for this are readily apparent. The mountain ranges are more or less mineralized. To this there is hardly an exception. There is no place so wild and forbidding that the prospector will not enter it. If 'pay rock' or 'pay dirt' is struck, then good-by solitude and big game. A second cause is to be found in the cattle industry, which, as a rule, is very profitable. One of the most successful cattle growers in the country once told me that cattle in Arizona would breed up to 95 per cent. These breeders during the dry season leave the mesas and climb to the top of the very highest mountains, and, of course, the more cattle the less game. A year ago I was in the Harshaw Mountains, and was told by a young man named Sorrell that a bunch of wild cattle occupied a certain peak, and that on a certain occasion he had seen a big mountain sheep with the cattle.

"So far as I know, I never saw or heard of a case of scab among wild sheep."

Later, but still in 1898, Mr. Brown wrote me that, according to Mr. J. D. Thompson, mountain sheep are common in all the mountains bordering the Gulf Coast in Sonora, and also in Lower California. Mr. Thompson is operating mines in the Sierra Pinto, Sonora, 180 miles southeast of Yuma. This range is about six miles long and 800 feet high. The mule deer and sheep are killed according to necessity. Indians do the killing. A mule deer is worth two dollars, Mexican money, and a sheep but little more, although the former are much more abundant than the latter. The last sheep taken to camp was traded off for a pair of overalls.

"It is reasonably certain that with sheep in southern Arizona and southern Sonora, every mountain range between the two must be tenanted by this species.

"During the August feast days the Papago Indians living about Quitovac generally have a Montezuma celebration, in which live deer are employed. For this purpose several are caught. Subsequently they are killed and eaten. They are taken by relays of men or horses, sometimes both."

In northern Arizona sheep are still common. Dr. C. Hart Merriam in his report on the San Francisco Mountain--"North American Fauna" III.--recorded the San Francisco herd, of which he saw eight or nine together. He also recorded their presence at the Grand Canyon, where they are still fairly common, though very wary.

Mr. A.W. Anthony, of California, wrote me in 1898 concerning sheep in southern California, and I am glad to quote his letter almost in full. He says: "In San Diego county, Cal., there are a few sheep along the western edge of the Colorado Desert. So far as I know, these are all in the first ranges above the desert, and do not extend above the piñon belt. These barren hills are dry, broken and steep, with very little water, and except for the stock men, who have herds grazing on the western edge of the desert, they are very seldom disturbed. Along the line of the old Carriso Creek stage road from Yuma to Los Angeles, between Warner Pass and the mouth of Carriso Creek--where it reaches the desert--are several water holes where sheep have, up to 1897, at least, regularly watered during the dry season.

"I have known of several being killed by stock men there during the past few years, by watching for them about the water. As a rule, the country is too dry, open and rough to make still-hunting successful. At the same time I think they would have been killed off long since except for reinforcements received from across the line in Lower California.

"Up to 1894 a few sheep were found as far up the range as Mt. Baldy, Los Angeles county, and they may still occur there, but I cannot be sure. One or two of the larger ranges west of the Colorado River, in the desert, were, two years ago, and probably are still, blessed with a few sheep. I have known of two or three parties that went after them, but they would not tell where they went; not far north of the Southern Pacific Railroad, I think.

"In Lower California sheep are still common in many places, but are largely confined to the east side of the peninsula, mostly being found in the low hills between the gulf and the main divide. A few reach the top of San Pedro Martir--12,000 feet--but I learn from the Indians they never were common in the higher ranges. The piñon belt and below seem to be their habitat, and in very dry, barren ranges. I have known a few to reach the Pacific, between 28 deg. n. lat. and 30 deg. n. lat.; but they never seem at home on the western side of the peninsula.

"Owing to their habitat, few whites care to bother them--it costs too much in cash, and more in bodily discomfort; but the natives kill them at all seasons; not enough, however, to threaten extermination unless they receive help from the north.

"I have no knowledge of any scab, or other disease, affecting the sheep, either in southern or Lower California."

For northern California, records of sheep are few. Dr. Merriam, Chief of the Biological Survey, tells me that sheep formerly occurred on the Siskiyou range, on the boundary between California and Oregon, and that some years ago he saw an old ram that had been killed on these mountains. On Mt. Shasta they were very common until recently. In the High Sierra, south of the latitude of Mono Lake, a few still occur, but there are extremely rare.

In Oregon records are few. Dr. Merriam informs me that he has seen them on Steen Mountain, in the southeastern part of the State, where they were common a few years ago. Mr. Vernon Bailey, of the Biological Survey, has seen them also in the Wallowa Mountains. The Biological Survey also has records of their occurrence in the Blue Mountains, where they used to be found both on Strawberry Butte and on what are called the Greenhorn Mountains. The last positive record from that region is in 1895. In 1897 Mr. Vernon Bailey reported sheep from Silver and Abert Lakes in the desert region east of the Cascade. They were formerly numerous in the rocky regions about Silver Lake, and a few still inhabited the ridges northeast of Abert Lake.

In Nevada Mr. Bailey found sheep in the Toyabe range.

Mr. Bailey found sheep in the Seven Devils Mountains, and he and Dr. Merriam found them in the Salmon River, Pahsimeroi and Sawtooth Mountains, all in Idaho. Mr. Bailey also found them in Texas in the Guadaloupe Mountains and in most of the ranges thence south to the boundary line in western Texas.

* * * * *

From what has already been said it will be seen that in inaccessible places all over the western country, from the Arctic Ocean south to Mexico, and at one or two points in the great plains, there still remain stocks of mountain sheep. Once the most unsuspicious and gentle of all our large game animals, they have become very shy, wary, and well able to take care of themselves. In the Yellowstone Park, on the other hand, they have reverted to their old time tameness, and no longer regard man with fear. There, as is told on other pages of this volume, they are more tame than the equally protected antelope, mule deer or elk.

Should the Grand Canyon of the Colorado be set aside as a national park, as it may be hoped it will be, the sheep found there will no doubt increase, and become, as they now are in the Yellowstone Park, a most interesting natural feature of the landscape. And in like manner, when game refuges shall be established in the various forest reservations all over the western country, this superb species will increase and do well. Alert, quick-witted, strong, fleet and active, it is one of the most beautiful and most imposing of North American animals. Equally at home on the frozen snowbanks of the mountain top, or in the parched deserts of the south, dwelling alike among the rocks, in the timber, or on the prairie, the mountain sheep shows himself adaptable to all conditions, and should surely have the best protection that we can give him.

I shall never forget a scene witnessed many years ago, long before railroads penetrated the Northwest. I was floating down the Missouri River in a mackinaw boat, the sun just topping the high bad land bluffs to the east, when a splendid ram stepped out, upon a point far above the water, and stood there outlined against the sky. Motionless, with head thrown back, and in an attitude of attention, he calmly inspected the vessel floating along below him; so beautiful an object amid his wild surroundings, and with his background of brilliant sky, that no hand was stretched out for the rifle, but the boat floated quietly on past him, and out of sight.

_George Bird Grinnell_.

Preservation of the Wild Animals of North America[8]

[Footnote 8: Address before the Boone and Crockett Club, Washington, January 23, 1904.]

The National and Congressional movement for the preservation of the Sequoia in California represents a growth of intelligent sentiment. It is the same kind of sentiment which must he aroused, and aroused in time, to bring about Government legislation if we are to preserve our native animals. That which principally appeals to us in the Sequoia is its antiquity as a race, and the fact that California is its last refuge.

As a special and perhaps somewhat novel argument for preservation, I wish to remind you of the great antiquity of our game animals, and the enormous period of time which it has taken nature to produce them. We must have legislation, and we must have it in time. I recall the story of the judge and jury who arrived in town and inquired about the security of the prisoner, who was known to be a desperate character; they were assured by the crowd that the prisoner was perfectly secure because he was safely hanging to a neighboring tree. If our preservative measures are not prompt, there will be no animals to legislate for.

SENTIMENT AND SCIENCE.

The sentiment which promises to save the Sequoia is due to the spread of knowledge regarding this wonderful tree, largely through the efforts of the Division of Forestry. In the official chronology of the United States Geological Survey--which is no more nor less reliable than that of other geological surveys, because all are alike mere approximations to the truth--the Sequoia was a well developed race 10,000,000 of years ago. It became one of a large family, including fourteen genera. The master genus--the _Sequoia_--alone includes thirty extinct species. It was distributed in past times through Canada, Alaska, Greenland, British Columbia, across Siberia, and down into southern Europe. The Ice Age, and perhaps competition with other trees more successful in seeding down, are responsible for the fact that there are now only two living species--the "red wood," or _Sequoia sempervirens_, and the giant, or _Sequoia gigantea_. The last refuge of the _gigantea_ is in ten isolated groves, in some of which the tree is reproducing itself, while in others it has ceased to reproduce.

In the year 1900 forty mills and logging companies were engaged in destroying these trees.

All of us regard the destruction of the Parthenon by the Turks as a great calamity; yet it would be possible, thanks to the laborious studies which have chiefly emanated from Germany, for modern architects to completely restore the Parthenon in its former grandeur; but it is far beyond the power of all the naturalists of the world to restore one of these Sequoias, which were large trees, over 100 feet in height, spreading their leaves to the sun, before the Parthenon was even conceived by the architects and sculptors of Greece.

LIFE OF THE SEQUOIA AND HISTORY OF THOUGHT.

In 1900 five hundred of the very large trees still remained, the highest reaching from 320 to 325 feet. Their height, however, appeals to us less than their extraordinary age, estimated by Hutchins at 3,600, or by John Muir, who probably loves them more than any man living, at from 4,000 to 5,000 years. According to the actual count of Muir of 4,000 rings, by a method which he has described to me, one of these trees was 1,000 years old when Homer wrote the Iliad; 1,500 years of age when Aristotle was foreshadowing his evolution theory and writing his history of animals; 2,000 years of age when Christ walked upon the earth; nearly 4,000 years of age when the "Origin of Species" was written. Thus the life of one of these trees spanned the whole period before the birth of Aristotle (384 B.C.) and after the death of Darwin (A.D. 1882), the two greatest natural philosophers who have lived.

These trees are the noblest living things upon earth. I can imagine that the American people are approaching a stage of general intelligence and enlightened love of nature in which they will look back upon the destruction of the Sequoia as a blot on the national escutcheon.

VENERATION OF AGE.

The veneration of age sentiment which should, and I believe actually does, appeal to the American people when clearly presented to them even more strongly than the commercial sentiment, is roused in equal strength by an intelligent appreciation of the race longevity of the larger animals which our ancestors found here in profusion, and of which but a comparatively small number still survive. To the unthinking man a bison, a wapiti, a deer, a pronghorn antelope, is a matter of hide and meat; to the real nature lover, the true sportsman, the scientific student, each of these types is a subject of intense admiration. From the mechanical standpoint they represent an architecture more elaborate than that of Westminster Abbey, and a history beside which human history is as of yesterday.

SLOW EVOLUTION OF MODERN MAMMALS.

These animals were not made in a day, nor in a thousand years, nor in a million years. As said the first Greek philosopher, Empedocles, who 560 B.C. adumbrated the "survival of the fittest" theory of Darwin, they are the result of ceaseless trials of nature. While the Sequoia was first emerging from the Carboniferous, or Coal Period, the reptile-like ancestors of these mammals, covered with scales and of egg-laying habits, were crawling about and giving not the most remote prophecy of their potential transformation through 10,000,000 of years into the superb fauna of the northern hemisphere.

The descendants of these reptiles were transformed into mammals. If we had had the opportunity of studying the early mammals of the Rocky Mountain region with a full appreciation of the possibilities of evolution, we should have perceived that they were essentially of the same stock and ancestral to our modern types. There were little camels scarcely more than twelve inches high, little taller than cotton-tail rabbits and smaller than the jackass rabbits; horses 15 inches high, scarcely larger than, and very similar in build to, the little English coursing hound known as the whippet; it is not improbable that we shall find the miniature deer; there certainly existed ancestral wolves and foxes of similarly small proportions. You have all read your Darwin carefully enough to know that neither camels, horses, nor deer would have evolved as they did except for the stimulus given to their limb and speed development by the contemporaneous evolution of their enemies in the dog family.

THE MIDDLE STAGE OF EVOLUTION.

A million and a half years later these same animals had attained a very considerable size; the western country had become transformed by the elevation of the plateaux into dry, grass-bearing uplands, where both horses and deer of peculiarly American types were grazing. We have recently secured some fresh light on the evolution of the American deer. Besides the _Palaeryx_, which may be related to the true American deer _Odocoileus_, we have found the complete skeleton of a small animal named _Merycodus_, nineteen inches high, possessed of a complete set of delicate antlers with the characteristic burr at the base indicating the annual shedding of the horn, and a general structure of skeleton which suggests our so-called pronghorn antelope, _Antilocapra_, rather than our true American deer, _Odocoileus_. This was in all probability a distinctively American type. Its remains have been found in eastern Colorado in the geological age known as Middle Miocene, which is estimated (_sub rosa_, like all our other geological estimates), at about a million and a half years of age. Our first thought as we study this small, strikingly graceful animal, is wonder that such a high degree of specialization and perfection was reached at so early a period; our second thought is the reverence for age sentiment.

THE AFRICAN PERIOD IN AMERICA.

The conditions of environment were different from what they were before or what they are now. These animals flourished during the period in which western America must have closely resembled the eastern and central portions of Africa at the present time.

This inference is drawn from the fact that the predominant fauna of America in the Middle and Upper Miocene Age and in the Pliocene was closely analogous to the still extant fauna of Africa. It is true we had no real antelopes in this country, in fact none of the bovines, and no giraffes; but there was a camel which my colleague Matthew has surnamed the "giraffe camel," extraordinarily similar to the giraffe. There were no hippopotami, no hyraces. All these peculiarly African animals, of African origin, I believe, found their way into Europe at least as far as the Sivalik Hills of India, but never across the Bering Sea Isthmus. The only truly African animal which reached America, and which flourished here in an extraordinary manner, was the elephant, or rather the mastodon, if we speak of the elephant in its Miocene stage of evolution. However, the resemblance between America and Africa is abundantly demonstrated by the presence of great herds of horses, of rhinoceroses, both long and short limbed, of camels in great variety, including the giraffe-like type which was capable of browsing on the higher branches of trees, of small elephants, and of deer, which in adaptation to somewhat arid conditions imitated the antelopes in general structure.

ELIMINATION BY THE GLACIAL PERIOD.

The Glacial Period eliminated half of this fauna, whereas the equatorial latitude of the fauna in Africa saved that fauna from the attack of the Glacial Period, which was so fatally destructive to the animals in the more northerly latitudes of America. The glaciers or at least the very low temperature of the period eliminated especially all the African aspects of our fauna. This destructive agency was almost as baneful and effective as the mythical Noah's flood. When it passed off, there survived comparatively few indigenous North American animals, but the country was repopulated from the entire northern hemisphere, so that the magnificent wild animals which our ancestors found here were partly North American and partly Eurasiatic in origin.

ELIMINATION BY MAN.

Our animal fortune seemed to us so enormous that it never could be spent. Like a young rake coming into a very large inheritance, we attacked this noble fauna with characteristic American improvidence, and with a rapidity compared with which the Glacial advance was eternally slow; the East went first, and in fifty years we have brought about an elimination in the West which promises to be even more radical than that effected by the ice. We are now beginning to see the end of the North American fauna; and if we do not move promptly, it will become a matter of history and of museums. The bison is on the danger line; if it survives the fatal effects of its natural sluggishness when abundantly fed, it still runs the more insidious but equally great danger of inbreeding, like the wild ox of Europe. The chances for the wapiti and elk and the western mule and black-tail deer are brighter, provided that we move promptly for their protection. The pronghorn is a wonderfully clever and adaptive animal, crawling under barb-wire fences, and thus avoiding one of the greatest enemies of Western life. Last summer I was surprised beyond measure to see the large herds of twenty to forty pronghorn antelopes still surviving on the Laramie plains, fenced in on all sides by the wires of the great Four-Bar Ranch, part of which I believe are stretched illegally.

RECENT DISAPPEARANCE.

I need not dwell on the astonishingly rapid diminution of our larger animals in the last few years; it would be like "carrying coals to Newcastle" to detail personal observations before this Club, which is full of men of far greater experience and knowledge than myself. On the White River Plateau Forest Reserve, which is destined to be the Adirondacks of Colorado, with which many of you are familiar, the deer disappeared in a period of four years. Comparatively few are left.

The most thoroughly devastated country I know of is the Uintah Mountain Forest Reserve, which borders between southwestern Wyoming and northern Utah. I first went through this country in 1877. It was then a wild natural region; even a comparatively few years ago it was bright with game, and a perfect flower garden. It has felt the full force of the sheep curse. I think any one of you who may visit this country now will agree that this is not too strong a term, and I want to speak of the sheep question from three standpoints: First, as of a great and legitimate industry in itself; second, from the economic standpoint; third, from the standpoint of wild animals.

GENERAL RESULTS OF GRAZING.

The formerly beautiful Uintah Mountain range presents a terrible example of the effects of prolonged sheep herding. The under foliage is entirely gone. The sheep annually eat off the grass tops and prevent seeding down; they trample out of life what they do not eat; along the principal valley routes even the sage brush is destroyed. Reforesting by the upgrowth of young trees is still going on to a limited extent, but is in danger. The water supply of the entire Bridger farming country, which is dependent upon the Uintah Mountains as a natural reservoir, is rapidly diminishing; the water comes in tremendous floods in the spring, and begins to run short in the summer, when it is most needed. The consequent effects upon both fish and wild animals are well known to you. No other animal will feed after the sheep. It is no exaggeration to say, therefore, that the sheep in this region are the enemies of every living thing.

BALANCE OF NATURE.

Even the owner cannot much longer enjoy his range, because he is operating against _the balance of nature_. The last stage of destruction which these innocent animals bring about has not yet been reached, but it is approaching; it is the stage in which there is _no food left for the sheep themselves_. I do not know how many pounds of food a sheep consumes in course of a year--it cannot be much less than a ton--but say it is only half a ton, how many acres of dry western mountain land are capable of producing half a ton a year when not seeding down? As long as the consumption exceeds the production of the soil, it is only a question of time when even the sheep will no longer find subsistence.

THE LAST STAGE TO BE SEEN IN THE ORIENT.

While going through these mountains last summer and reflecting upon the prodigious changes which the sheep have brought about in a few years, it occurred to me that we must look to Oriental countries in order to see the final results of sheep and goat grazing in semi-arid climates. I have proposed as an historical thesis a subject which at first appears somewhat humorous, namely, "The Influence of Sheep and Goats in History." I am convinced that the country lying between Arabia and Mesopotamia, which was formerly densely populated, full of beautiful cities, and heavily wooded, has been transformed less by the action of political causes than by the unrestricted browsing of sheep and goats. This browsing destroyed first the undergrowth, then the forests, the natural reservoirs of the country, then the grasses which held together the soil, and finally resulted in the removal of the soil itself. The country is now denuded of soil, the rocks are practically bare; it supports only a few lions, hyaes, gazelles, and Bedouins. Even if the trade routes and mines, on which Brooks Adams in his "New Empire" dwells so strongly as factors of all civilization, were completely restored, the population could not be restored nor the civilization, because there is nothing in this country for people to live upon. The same is true of North Africa, which, according to Gibbon, was once the granary of the Roman Empire. In Greece to-day the goats are now destroying the last vestiges of the forests.

I venture the prediction that the sheep industry on naturally semi-arid lands is doomed; that the future feeding of both sheep and cattle will be on irrigated lands, and that the forests will be carefully guarded by State and Nature as natural reservoirs.

COMMERCIALISM AND IDEALISM.

By contrast to the sheep question, which is a purely economic or utilitarian one, and will settle itself, if we do not settle it by legislation based on scientific observation, the preservation of the Sequoia and of our large wild animals is one of pure sentiment, of appreciation of the ideal side of life; we can live and make money without either. We cannot even use the argument which has been so forcibly used in the case of the birds, that the cutting down of these trees or killing of these animals will upset the balance of nature.

I believe in every part of the country--East, West, North, and South--we Americans have reached a stage of civilization where if the matter were at issue the majority vote would unquestionably be, _let us preserve our wild animals._

We are generally considered a commercial people, and so we are; but we are more than this, we are a people of ideas, and we value them. As stated in the preamble of the Sequoia bill introduced on Dec. 8, 1903, we must legislate for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, and I may add for the greatest happiness of the largest number, not only of the present but of future generations.

So far as my observation goes, preservation can only be absolutely insured by national legislation.

GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION BY ENGLAND, BELGIUM, GERMANY.

The English, a naturally law-abiding people, seem to have a special faculty for enforcing laws. By co-operation with the Belgian Government they have taken effective and remarkably successful measures for the protection of African game. As for Germany, in 1896 Mr. Gosselin, of the British Embassy in Berlin, reported as follows for German East Africa:

That the question of preserving big game in German East Africa has been under the consideration of the local authorities for some time past, and a regulation has been notified at Dar-es-Salaam which it is hoped will do something toward checking the wanton destruction of elephants and other indigenous animals. Under this regulation every hunter must take out an animal license, for which the fee varies from 5 to 500 rupees, the former being the ordinary fee for natives, the latter for elephant and rhinoceros hunting, and for the members of sporting expeditions into the interior. Licenses are not needed for the purpose of obtaining food, nor for shooting game damaging cultivated land, nor for shooting apes, beasts of prey, wild boars, reptiles, and all birds except ostriches and cranes. Whatever the circumstances, the shooting is prohibited of all young game--calves, foals, young elephants, either tuskless or having tusks under three kilos, all female game if recognizable--except, of course, those in the above category of unprotected animals. Further, in the Moschi district of Kilima-Njaro, no one, whether possessing a license or not, is allowed without the special permission of the Governor to shoot antelopes, giraffes, buffaloes, ostriches, and cranes. Further, special permission must be obtained to hunt these with nets, by kindling fires, or by big drives. Those who are not natives have also to pay l00 rupees for the first elephant killed, and 250 for each additional one, and 50 rupees for the first rhinoceros and 150 for each succeeding one. Special game preserves are also to be established, and Major von Wissmann, in a circular to the local officers, explains that no shooting whatever will be allowed in these without special permission from the Government. The reserves will be of interest to science as a means of preserving from extirpation the rarer species, and the Governor calls for suggestions as to the best places for them. They are to extend in each direction at least ten hours' journey on foot. He further asks for suggestions as to hippopotamus reserves, where injury would not be done to plantations. Two districts are already notified as game sanctuaries. Major von Wissmann further suggests that the station authorities should endeavor to domesticate zebras (especially when crossed with muscat and other asses and horses), ostriches, and hyaena dogs crossed with European breeds. Mr. Gosselin remarks that the best means of preventing the extermination of elephants would be to fix by international agreement among all the Powers on the East African coast a close time for elephants, and to render illegal the exportation or sale of tusks under a certain age.

In December, 1900, Viscount Cranborne in the House of Commons reported as follows:

* * * That regulations for the preservation of wild animals have been in force for some time in the several African Protectorates administered by the Foreign Office as well as in the Sudan. The obligations imposed by the recent London Convention upon the signatory Powers will not become operative until after the exchange of ratifications, which has not yet taken place. In anticipation, however, steps have been taken to revise the existing regulations in the British Protectorates so as to bring them into strict harmony with the terms of the convention. The game reserves now existing in the several Protectorates are: In (a) British Central Africa, the elephant marsh reserve and the Shirwa reserve; in (b) the East Africa Protectorate, the Kenia District; in (c) Uganda, the Sugota game reserve in the northeast of the Protectorate; in (d) Somaliland, a large district defined by an elaborate boundary line described in the regulations. The regulations have the force of law in the Protectorates, and offenders are dealt with in the Protectorate Courts. It is in contemplation to charge special officers of the Administrations with the duty of watching over the proper observance of the regulations. Under the East African game regulations only the officers permanently stationed at or near the Kenia reserve may be specially authorized to kill game in the reserve.

Other effective measures have been taken in the Soudan district. Capt. Stanley Flower, Director of the Gizeh Zoological Gardens, made a very full report, which is quoted in _Nature_ for July 25, 1901, p. 318.

STATE LAWS.

The preservation of even a few of our wild animals is a very large proposition; it is an undertaking the difficulty of which grows in magnitude as one comes to study it in detail and gets on the ground. The rapidly increasing legislation in the Western States is an indication of rapidly growing sentiment. A still more encouraging sign is the strong sympathy with the enforcement of the laws which we find around the National Park in Wyoming and Montana especially. State laws should be encouraged, but I am convinced that while effective in the East, they will not be effective in the West _in time_, because of the scattered population, the greater areas of country involved, the greater difficulty of watching and controlling the killing, and the actual need of game for food by settlers.

When we study the operation of our State laws on the ground we find that for various reasons they are not fully effective. A steady and in some cases rapid diminution of animals is going on so far as I have observed in Colorado and Wyoming; either the wardens strictly enforce the laws with strangers and wink at the breaking of them by residents, or they draw their salaries and do not enforce the laws at all.[9]

[Footnote 9: Addendum.--There is no question as to the good intention of State legislation. The chief difficulty in the enforcement of the law is that officers appointed locally, and partly from political reasons, shrink from applying the penalties of the law to their own friends and neighbors, especially where the animals are apparently abundant and are sought for food. The honest enforcement of the law renders the officer unpopular, even if it does not expose him to personal danger. He is regarded as interfering with long established rights and customs. The above applies to conscientious officers. Many local game wardens, as in the Colorado White River Plateau, for example, give absolutely no attention to their duties, and are not even on the ground at the opening of the season. In the Plateau in August, 1901, the laws were being openly and flagrantly violated, not only by visitors, but by residents. At the same time the National forest laws were being most strictly and intelligently enforced. There is no question whatever that the people of various States can be brought to understand that National aid or co-operation in the protection of certain wild areas is as advantageous to a locality as National irrigation and National forest protection. It is to be sought as a boon and not as an infringement.]

THE VARIOUS CAUSES OF ELIMINATION.

The enemies of our wild animals are numerous and constantly increasing. (1) There is first the general advance of what we call civilization, the fencing up of country which principally cuts off the winter feeding grounds. This was especially seen in the country south of the National Park last winter. (2) The destruction of natural browsing areas by cattle and sheep, and by fire. (3) The destruction of game by sportsmen plays a comparatively small part in the total process of elimination, yet in some cases it is very reckless, and especially bad in its example. When I first rode into the best shooting country of Colorado in 1901, there was a veritable cannonading going on, which reminded me of the accounts of the battle of El Caney. The destruction effected by one party in three days was tremendous. In riding over the ground--for I was not myself shooting--I was constantly coming across the carcasses of deer. (4) The summer and winter killing for food; this is the principal and in a sense the most natural and legitimate cause, although it is largely illegal. In this same area, which was more or less characteristic and typical of the other areas, even of the conditions surrounding the national reserve in the Big Horn region, the destruction was, and is, going on principally during the winter when the deer are seeking the winter ranges and when they are actually shot and carted away in large numbers for food both for the ranchmen and for neighboring towns. Making all allowances for exaggeration, I believe it to be absolutely true that these deer were being killed by the wagonload! The same is true of the pronghorn antelope in the Laramie Plains district. The most forceful argument against this form of destruction is that it is extremely short-lived and benefits comparatively few people. This argument is now enforced by law and by public sentiment in Maine and New York, where the wild animals, both deer and moose, are actually increasing in number.