Unless the preferences of western sportsmen and gunners change very considerably, the coast mountains of the great northwestern wilderness will remain stocked with wild mountain goats until long after the last big-horn has been shot to death. Fortunately, the skin of the mountain goat has no commercial value. I think it was in 1887 that I purchased, in Denver, 150 nicely tanned skins of our wild white goat _at fifty cents each_! They were wanted for the first exhibit ever made to illustrate the extermination of American large mammals, and they were shown at the Louisville Exposition. It must have cost the price of those skins to tan them; and I was pleased to know that some one lost money on the venture. [Illustration MAP OF THE FORMER AND EXISTING RANGES OF THE AMERICAN ELK From "Life History of Northern Animals," Copyright 1909 by E.T. Seton] At present the mountain goat extends from north-western Montana to the head of Cook Inlet, but it is not found in the interior or in the Yukon valley. Whenever man decides that the species has lived long enough, he can quickly and easily exterminate it. It is one of the most picturesque and interesting wild animals on this continent, and there is not the slightest excuse for shooting it, save as a specimen of natural history. Like the antelope, it is so unique as a natural curiosity that it deserves to be taken out of the ranks of animals that are regularly pursued as game. THE ELK.--The story of the progressive extermination of the American elk, or wapiti, covers practically the same territory as the tragedy of the American bison--one-third of the mainland of North America. The former range of the elk covered absolutely the garden ground of our continent, omitting the arid region. Its boundary extended from central Massachusetts to northern Georgia, southern Illinois, northern Texas and central New Mexico, central Arizona, the whole Rocky Mountain region up to the Peace River, and Manitoba. It skipped the arid country west of the Rockies, but it embraced practically the whole Pacific slope from central California to the north end of Vancouver Island. Mr. Seton roughly calculated the former range of _canadensis_ at two and a half million square miles, and adds: "We are safe, therefore, in believing that in those days there may have been ten million head."