ANIMALS REALLY AT HOME

ERY different, indeed, from the beasts of the after-dinner story and the literature of adventure are the wild animals of the Yellowstone. Never shot at, never pursued, they are comparatively as fearless as song-birds nestling in the homestead trees.

Wilderness bears cross the road without haste a few yards ahead of the solitary passer-by, and his accustomed horses jog on undisturbed. Deer by scores lift their antlered heads above near thickets to watch his passing. Elk scarcely slow their cropping of forest grasses. Even the occasional moose, straying far from his southern wilderness, scarcely quickens his long lope. Herds of antelope on near-by hills watch but hold their own.

Only the grizzly and the mountain sheep, besides the predatory beasts, still hide in the fastnesses. But the mountain sheep loses fear and joins the others in winters, of heavy snow when park rangers scatter hay by the roadside.

THERE ARE TWO PROSPEROUS HERDS OF BISON, OR BUFFALO, BOTH INCREASING RAPIDLY. THE WILD HERD HAS DEVELOPED FROM A FEW ANIMALS WHICH BROKE THROUGH THE TAME HERD CORRAL SOME YEARS AGO AND SOUGHT REFUGE IN THE EASTERN WILDERNESS Photograph by Edward S. Curtis

UNLIKE THE GRIZZLY, THE BROWN BEAR CLIMBS TREES QUICKLY AND EASILY Photograph by Edgar S. Curtis