Good Hunting: In Pursuit of Big Game in the West
9781465670007
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
This book offers to younger readers a series of pictures of out-door life and big-game hunting in the West. More than this, the author makes us feel not only the zest of sport and adventure, but also the interest attaching to the habits and peculiarities of the remarkable animals which he describes. It is a field-book, since it is written by a true sportsman out of his own experiences, and its general spirit tends to a better appreciation of the value of close observation of animal life. The elk, bear, goats, deer, and other animals which are described, represent the most remarkable large fauna of our country. These descriptions, by one whose acquaintance with them has been so intimate, have an added value in view of the diminution in their number. It is interesting, also, to remember that the influence of the author has been constantly exerted in favor of the preservation of big game and the maintenance of national parks and forest reserves, which, in addition to other advantages, include the protection of these noble forms of animal life. This series of articles upon big-game hunting was written for Harper’s Round Table, and published therein in 1897. The picture of ranch life which forms the closing chapter appeared in Harper’s Round Table in 1896. These articles are now presented together in book form for the first time after consultation with the author. For the title of the book and the proof-reading the publishers are responsible. No country of the temperate zone can begin to compare with South Asia, and, above all, tropical and subtropical Africa, in the number and size of those great beasts of the chase which are known to hunters as big game; but after the Indian and African hunting-grounds, the best are still those of North America. Until a few years before 1897 there were large regions, even in the United States, where the teeming myriads of wild game, though of far fewer and less varied species, almost equalled the multitudes found in South Africa, and much surpassed those found anywhere else in point of numbers, though inferior in variety to those of India. This, however, is now a thing of the past. The bison, which was the most characteristic animal of the American fauna, has been practically exterminated. There remained in 1897, however, a fair abundance of all other kinds of game. Perhaps, on the whole, the one affording most sport from the stand-point of the hardy and skilful hunter is the big-horn, though in size and in magnificence of horn it is surpassed by some of the wild sheep of Asia. There is a spice of danger in the pursuit of the grizzly-bear—the largest of all the land bears—especially in Alaska, where it is even larger than its Kamtchatkan brother. The moose and the wapiti—ordinarily called the elk—are closely related to the Old-World representatives of their kind; but the moose is a little larger and the wapiti very much larger than any of their European or Asiatic kinsfolk. In particular, the elk, or wapiti, is the stateliest of all deer, and the most beautiful of American game beasts.
