Outdoor pastimes of an American hunter

by Theodore Roosevelt

RANCH WAGON RETURNING FROM HUNT

While sitting close around the fire finishing breakfast, and just as the first level sunbeams struck the top of the plateau, we saw on this cliff crest something moving, and at first supposed it to be one of the horses which had broken loose from its picket pin. Soon the thing, whatever it was, raised its head, and we were all on our feet in a moment, exclaiming that it was a deer or a sheep. It was feeding in plain sight of us only about a third of a mile distant, and the horses, as I afterward found, were but a few rods beyond it on the plateau. The instant I realized that it was game of some kind I seized my rifle, buckled on my cartridge-belt, and slunk off toward the river bed. As soon as I was under the protection of the line of cottonwoods, I trotted briskly toward the cliff, and when I got up to where it impinged on the river I ran a little to the left, and, selecting what I deemed to be a favorable place, began to make the ascent. The animal was on a grassy bench, some eight or ten feet below the crest, when I last saw it; but it was evidently moving hither and thither, sometimes on this bench and sometimes on the crest itself, cropping the short grass and browsing on the young shrubs. The cliff was divided by several shoulders or ridges, there being hollows like vertical gullies between them, and up one of these I scrambled, using the utmost caution not to dislodge earth or stones. Finally I reached the bench just below the sky-line, and then, turning to the left, wriggled cautiously along it, hat in hand. The cliff was so steep and bulged so in the middle, and, moreover, the shoulders or projecting ridges in the surface spoken of above were so pronounced, that I knew it was out of the question for the animal to have seen me, but I was afraid it might have heard me. The air was absolutely still, and so I had no fear of its sharp nose. Twice in succession I peered with the utmost caution around shoulders of the cliff, merely to see nothing beyond save another shoulder some forty or fifty yards distant. Then I crept up to the edge and looked over the level plateau. Nothing was in sight excepting the horses, and these were close up to me, and, of course, they all raised their heads to look. I nervously turned half round, sure that if the animal, whatever it was, was in sight, it would promptly take the alarm. However, by good luck, it appeared that at this time it was below the crest on the terrace or bench already mentioned, and, on creeping to the next shoulder, I at last saw it—a yearling mountain sheep—walking slowly away from me, and evidently utterly unsuspicious of any danger. I straightened up, bringing my rifle to my shoulder, and as it wheeled I fired, and the sheep made two or three blind jumps in my direction. So close was I to the camp, and so still was the cold morning, that I distinctly heard one of the three men, who had remained clustered about the fire eagerly watching my movements, call, “By George, he’s missed! I saw the bullet strike the cliff.” I had fired behind the shoulders, and the bullet, going through, had buried itself in the bluff beyond. The wound was almost instantaneously fatal, and the sheep, after striving in vain to keep its balance, fell heels over head down a crevice, where it jammed. I descended, released the carcass, and pitched it on ahead of me, only to have it jam again near the foot of the cliff. Before I got it loose I was joined by my three companions, who had been running headlong toward me through the brush ever since the time they had seen the animal fall.

I never obtained another sheep under circumstances which seemed to me quite so remarkable as these; for sheep are, on the whole, the wariest of game. Nevertheless, with all game there is an immense amount of chance in the chase, and it is perhaps not wholly uncharacteristic of a hunter’s luck that, after having hunted faithfully in vain and with much hard labor for several days through a good sheep country, we should at last have obtained one within sight and earshot of camp. Incidentally I may mention that I have never tasted better mutton, or meat of any kind, than that furnished by this tender yearling.

The nomenclature and exact specific relationships of American sheep, deer and antelope offer difficulties not only to the hunter but to the naturalist. As regards the nomenclature, we share the trouble encountered by all peoples of European descent who have gone into strange lands. The incomers are almost invariably men who are not accustomed to scientific precision of expression. Like other people, they do not like to invent names if they can by any possibility make use of those already in existence, and so in a large number of cases they call the new birds and animals by names applied to entirely different birds and animals of the Old World to which, in the eyes of the settlers, they bear some resemblance. In South America the Spaniards, for instance, christened “lion” and “tiger” the great cats which are properly known as cougar and jaguar. In South Africa the Dutch settlers, who came from a land where all big game had long been exterminated, gave fairly grotesque names to the great antelopes, calling them after the European elk, stag, and chamois. The French did but little better in Canada. Even in Ceylon the English, although belonging for the most part to the educated classes, did no better than the ordinary pioneer settlers, miscalling the sambur stag an elk, and the leopard a cheetah. Our own pioneers behaved in the same way. Hence it is that we have no distinctive name at all for the group of peculiarly American game birds of which the bobwhite is the typical representative; and that, when we could not use the words quail, partridge, or pheasant, we went for our terminology to the barn-yard, and called our fine grouse, fool-hens, sage-hens, and prairie-chickens. The bear and wolf our people recognized at once. The bison they called a buffalo, which was no worse than the way in which in Europe the Old World bison was called an aurochs. The American true elk and reindeer were rechristened moose and caribou—excellent names, by the way, derived from the Indian. The huge stag was called an elk. The extraordinary antelope of the high Western peaks was christened the white goat; not unnaturally, as it has a most goatlike look. The prongbuck of the plains, an animal standing entirely alone among ruminants, was simply called antelope. Even when we invented names for ourselves, we applied them loosely. The ordinary deer is sometimes known as the red deer, sometimes as the Virginia deer, and sometimes as the whitetail deer—the last being by far the best and most distinctive term.

In the present condition of zoological research it is not possible to state accurately how many “species” of deer and sheep there are in North America, both because mammalogists have not at hand a sufficient amount of material in the way of large series of specimens from different localities, and because they are not agreed among themselves as to the value of “species,” or indeed as to exactly what is denoted by the term. Of course, if we had a complete series of specimens of extinct and fossil deer before us, there would be a perfect intergradation among all the existing forms through their long-vanished ancestral types, as the existing gaps have been created by the extinction and transformation of those former types. Where the gap is very broad and well marked no difficulty exists in using terms which shall express the difference. Thus the gap separating the moose, the caribou, and the wapiti from one another, and from the smaller American deer, is so wide, and there is so complete a lack of transitional forms, that the differences among them are expressed by naturalists by the use of different generic terms. The gap between the whitetail and the different forms of blacktail, though much less, is also clearly marked. But when we come to consider the blacktail among themselves, we find two very distinct types which yet show a certain tendency to intergrade; and with the whitetail very wide differences exist, even in the United States, both individually among the deer of certain localities, and also as between all the deer of one locality when compared with all the deer of another. Our present knowledge of the various forms hardly justifies us in dogmatizing as to their exact relative worth; and even if our knowledge was more complete, naturalists are as yet wholly at variance as to the laws which should govern specific nomenclature. However, the hunter, the mere field naturalist, and the lover of outdoor life, are only secondarily interested in the niceness of these distinctions.

In addition to being a true sportsman and not a game butcher, in addition to being a humane man as well as keen-eyed, strong-limbed, and stout-hearted, the big game hunter should be a field naturalist. If possible, he should be an adept with the camera; and hunting with the camera will tax his skill far more than hunting with the rifle, while the results in the long run give much greater satisfaction. Wherever possible he should keep a note-book, and should carefully study and record the habits of the wild creatures, especially when in some remote regions to which trained scientific observers but rarely have access. If we could only produce a hunter who would do for American big game what John Burroughs has done for the smaller wild life of hedgerow and orchard, farm and garden and grove, we should indeed be fortunate. Yet even though a man does not possess the literary faculty and the powers of trained observation necessary for such a task, he can do his part toward adding to our information by keeping careful notes of all the important facts which he comes across. Such note-books would show the changed habits of game with the changed seasons, their abundance at different times and different places, the melancholy data of their disappearance, the pleasanter facts as to their change of habits which enable them to continue to exist in the land, and, in short, all their traits. A real and lasting service would thereby be rendered not only to naturalists, but to all who care for nature.

Along the Little Missouri there have been several curious changes in the fauna within my own knowledge. Thus magpies have greatly decreased in numbers. This is, I believe, owing to the wolf hunters, for magpies often come around carcasses and pick up poisoned baits. I have seen as many as seven lying dead around a bait. They are much less plentiful than they formerly were. In 1894 I was rather surprised at meeting a porcupine, usually a beast of the timber, at least twenty miles from trees. He was grubbing after sage-brush roots on the edge of a cut bank by a half-dried creek. I was stalking an antelope at the time, and stopped to watch him for about five minutes. He paid no heed to me, though I was within three or four paces of him. Porcupines are easily exterminated; and they have diminished in numbers in this neighborhood. Both the lucivee, or northern lynx, and the wolverene have been found on the Little Missouri, near the Kildeer Mountains, but I do not know of a specimen of either that has been killed there for some years past. Bobcats are still not uncommon. The blackfooted ferret was always rare, and is rare now. But few beaver are left; they were very abundant in 1880, but were speedily trapped out when the Indians vanished and the Northern Pacific Railroad was built. While this railroad was building, the beaver frequently caused much trouble by industriously damming the culverts.

With us the first animal to disappear was the buffalo. In the old days, say from 1870 to 1880, the buffalo were probably the most abundant of all animals along the Little Missouri in the region that I know, ranging, say, from Pretty Buttes to the Kildeer Mountains. They were migratory, and at times almost all of them might leave; but, on the whole, they were the most abundant of the game animals. In 1881 they were still almost as numerous as ever. In 1883 all were killed but a few stragglers, and the last of these stragglers that I heard of as seen in our immediate neighborhood was in 1885. The second game animal in point of abundance was the blacktail. It did not go out on the prairies, but in the broken country adjoining the river it was far more plentiful than any other kind of game. Blacktail were not much slaughtered until the buffalo began to give out, say in 1882; but by 1896 they were not a twentieth—probably not a fiftieth—as plentiful as they had been in 1882. A few are still found in out-of-the-way places, where the ground is very rough. Elk were plentiful in 1880, though never anything like as abundant as the buffalo and the blacktail. Only straggling parties or individuals have been seen since 1883. The last I shot near my ranch was in 1886; but two or three have been shot since, and a cow and calf were seen, chased and almost roped by the riders on the round-up in the fall of 1892. Whitetail were never as numerous as the other game, but they held their own better, and a few can be shot yet. In 1883 probably twenty blacktail were killed for every one whitetail; in 1896 the numbers were about equal. Antelope were plentiful in the old days, though not nearly so much so as the buffalo and blacktail. The hunters did not molest them while the buffalo and elk lasted, and they then turned their attention to the blacktail. For some years after 1883 I think the pronghorn in our neighborhood positively increased in numbers. In 1886 I thought them more plentiful than I had ever known them before. Then they decreased; after 1893 the decrease was rapid. A few still remain. Mountain sheep were never very plentiful, and decreased proportionately with less rapidity than any other game; but they are now almost exterminated. Bears likewise were never plentiful, and cougars were always scarce.

There were two stages of hunting in this country, as in almost all other countries similarly situated. In 1880 the Northern Pacific Railroad was built nearly to the edge of the Bad Lands, and the danger of Indian war was totally eliminated. A great inrush of hunters followed. In 1881, 1882 and 1883 buffalo, elk and blacktail were slaughtered in enormous numbers, and a good many whitetail and prongbuck were killed too. By 1884 the game had been so thinned out that hide-hunting and meat-hunting ceased to pay. A few professional hunters remained, but most of them moved elsewhere, or were obliged to go into other business. From that time the hunting has chiefly been done by ranchers and occasional small grangers. In consequence, for six or eight years the game about held its own—the antelope, as I have said above, at one time increasing; but the gradual growth in the number of actual settlers then began to tell, and the game became scarce. Nowadays settlers along the Little Missouri can kill an occasional deer or antelope; but it can hardly be called a game country.