In many regions a fall of snow is followed by days of fair weather.
During these days most of the snow melts; often the earth is almost
free of one snow before another fall comes. In places of this kind the
game have periods of ease. But in vast territories the snow comes,
deepens, and lies deep over the earth for weeks. To endure long-lying
deep snows requires special habits or methods. The yarding habit, more
or less intensely developed, is common with sheep, elk, deer, and
moose of all snowy lands.
The careful yarding habit of the moose is an excellent method of
triumphing over deep snow. In early winter, or with the deepening
snow, a moose family proceed to a locality where food is abundant;
here they restrict themselves to a small stamping-ground,--one of a
stone's throw or a few hundred feet radius. Constant tramping and
feeding in this limited area compacts the snow in spaces and in all
the trails so that the animals walk on top of it. Each additional
snow is in turn trampled to sustaining compactness.
At first the low-growing herbage is eaten; but when this is buried,
and the animals are raised up by added snow, they feed upon shrubs;
then on the willow or the birch tops, and sometimes on limbs well up
in the trees, which the platform of deeply accumulated snow enables
them to reach. Commonly moose stay all winter in one yard. Sometimes
the giving-out of the food-supply may drive them forth. Then they try
to reach another yard. But deep snow or wolves may overcome one or all
on the way.
During one snowshoe trip through western Colorado I visited seven
deer-yards. One of these had been attacked by wolves but probably
without result. Apparently five of the others had not as yet been
visited by deadly enemies. The seventh and most interesting yard was
situated in a deep gorge amid rugged mountains. It was long and
narrow, and in it the deer had fed upon withered grass, plant stalks,
and willow twigs. All around the undrifted snow lay deep. The limbless
bases of the spruces were set deep in snow, and their lower limbs
were pulled down and tangled in it. These trees had the appearance of
having been pushed part way up through the snow. In places the cliffs
showed their bare brown sides. Entire spruce groves had been tilted to
sharp angles by the slipping and dragging snow weight on steep places;
among them were tall spruces that appeared like great feathered arrows
that had been shot into snowy steeps. The leafless aspens attractively
displayed their white and greenish-white skin on limbs that were held
just above the snow.