Great Herd of Elk Driven by Snows from the Mountains of Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Publication

Great Herd of Elk Driven by Snows from the Mountains of Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Description

AMERICAN ELK. The elk lives in the high mountains of the West. He is a big cousin of the reindeer. How strong he looks. His antlers are like the branches of a tree. The elk loses his antlers at the end of every winter. It takes a few months for them to grow again. While his antlers are growing he hides away, high up in the mountains. The mother elk has no antlers. She stays down in the valley with the baby. Sometimes she has twin babies. When the father's antlers have become hard and strong at the end of the summer he comes back to his family. He is ready to protect them and to fight for them. When winter comes the elk live together in a band. The strongest of them becomes the leader. He fights any of the smaller or weaker ones who may want to take his place from him. When he gets angry the elk makes a noise that sounds like a trumpet. Have you ever heard a boy scout blow his bugle? The elk is called a bugler because his noise sounds like that. Before the white men came to live in this country the elk could be found almost anywhere. But the hunters frightened these animals away from their old homes. Now they can only be found living in the forests of the Rocky Mountains.