Bestiary

550,500 deer 44,300 bears 52,600 elk

5,000 antelope

5,100 moose 12,400 mountain sheep 17,200 mountain goats

687,100 big game in all Slinking on padded feet through the forests, with never a twig snapping beneath its feet, stalking the water holes where beasts congregate, snooping into their lairs, leaping from crag to crag o'er vertiginous precipices, the Department of Agriculture, warder of the National Forests, made a census of the great beasts which haunt their depths. This, the 1924 census, now published, is probably the most accurate on record, for the season was dry and the parched beasts sought water wherever it could be found--and there the census-takers fell upon them. The grizzly bear was not asked his age. The bull moose had not to answer whether he were a native or a natural- ized citizen. The mountain sheep did not have to report whether they were engaged in a gainful occupation, nor the antelope whether he were the head of a family. The foresters, footing through the forests, raised their hands above their eyes and, peering from afar, estimated and recorded without infringement of privacy.