“ One must have lived for a time in the California mountains to realize how great is the service to the men of his own and to succeeding generations of him who more than any one else has illuminated the study of the Sierras and of all our forest-clad mountains, our glacier-formed hills, valleys and glades. Not by any means do all lovers of nature, however faithful their purpose, come to its study with the endowment of John Muir. ”

“ This whole episode of bear life in the Yellowstone is so extraordinary that it will be well worth while for any man who has the right powers and enough time, to make a complete study of the life and history of the Yellowstone bears. Indeed, nothing better could be done by some one of our outdoor fauna naturalists than to spend at least a year in the Yellowstone, and to study the life habits of all the wild creatures therein. A man able to do this, and to write down accurately and interestingly what he had seen, would make a contribution of permanent value to our nature literature. ”

“ The sun was not over the mountains for another hour, and there was that great charm which comes in the early dawn of a summer's day. Blake in his baidarka, and I in mine, paddled along, side by side, and pushed up to the extreme head of the bay, where we came upon an old deserted Indian camp of the year before. Numerous stretchers told of their success with bear; but the remains of an old fire in the very heart of our shooting grounds warned us that in this section the bears might have been disturbed; for the Alaskan bear is very wary, and is quick to take alarm at any unusual scent. ”

“ To-day, if one can climb above timber line in summer to the beautiful green alpine meadows just below the frowning snow-clad peaks in regions where sheep may still be found, his eye may yet be gladdened by the sight of a little group resting on the soft grass far from any cover that might shelter an enemy. ”

“ What particularly appealed to me was a wild apple, no larger than the eye of a hawk, but quite able to survive in a fierce contest for life, and with a pleasant, clean, sharp taste, very tonic to the palate, and with diminutive rosy cheeks as tempting as a stout Baldwin—a fine, courageous little product of the wild life, symbol of the energetic quality of the Olympic air. ”

“ A snow storm came on toward evening, but we kept warm and comfortable in a grove of the splendid silver firs—rightly named magnificent, near the brink of the wonderful Yosemite Valley. Next day we clambered down into it and at nightfall camped in its bottom, facing the giant cliffs over which the waterfalls thundered.
Surely our people do not understand even yet the rich heritage that is theirs. There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, its groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the three Tetons ”

“ Every lad is a born naturalist, and the true wisdom, as all sensible people know, is to carry unfatigued through life the boy's power of enjoyment, his freshness of perception, his alertness and zest. Where the child's capacity for close observation survives into manhood, supplemented by man's power of sustained attention, we have the typical temperament of the lover of the woods, the mountains, and the wild—of the naturalist in the sense that Thoreau was a naturalist, and many another whose memory is cherished. ”

“ The beauty and the majesty of the forest to him confer the same exaltation of mind, the same intellectual transport, which the trained musician feels when listening to the celestial harmonies of a great orchestra. In proportion as one conceives, or can imagine, the fineness of the musical endowment of a Bach or Beethoven, and in proportion as he can realize in his own mind the infinity of training and preparation which has contributed to the development of such a master musician—in such proportion may he comprehend and appreciate the unusual qualities and achievements of a man like Muir. ”

“ We put spurs to our horses and cantered rapidly toward the appointed place, and on the way we passed within forty yards of a score of black-tails, which merely moved to one side and looked at us, and within a hundred yards of half a dozen antelope. To any lover of nature it could not help being a delightful thing to see the wild and timid creatures of the wilderness rendered so tame; and their tameness in the immediate neighborhood of Gardiner, on the very edge of the Park, spoke volumes for the patriotic good sense of the citizens of Montana. ”

“ The question that the hunter is always asking himself is where are the big rams? Now and then, to be sure, more by accident than by any wisdom of his own, he stumbles on some monster of the rocks, but of the sheep that he sees in his wanderings, not one in a hundred has a head so large as to make him consider it a trophy worth possessing. It is commonly declared that in summer the big rams are "back along the range," by which it is meant that they are close to the summits of the tallest peaks. ”

“ And in like manner, when game refuges shall be established in the various forest reservations all over the western country, this superb species will increase and do well. Alert, quick-witted, strong, fleet and active, it is one of the most beautiful and most imposing of North American animals. Equally at home on the frozen snowbanks of the mountain top, or in the parched deserts of the south, dwelling alike among the rocks, in the timber, or on the prairie, the mountain sheep shows himself adaptable to all conditions, and should surely have the best protection that we can give him. ”

“ On every ground it is well for our nation to preserve, not only for the sake of this generation, but above all for the sake of those who come after us, representatives of the stately and beautiful haunters of the wilds which were once found throughout our great forests, over the vast lonely plains, and on the high mountain ranges, but which are now on the point of vanishing save where they are protected in natural breeding grounds and nurseries. ”

“ Call it perpetual youth, or joyousness, or what you like, the fact remains that the power of sustained enthusiasm, lightness of heart and gaiety, with the faculty of communicating to others that state of mind, is not one of the commonest endowments of the human brain. It is one that confers great happiness to others, and one to whose possessor we are under great obligation. Compare the career of Thoreau, lonely, sad, and wedded to death—on the one hand, with that of Muir, on the other—a lover of his kind, healthful, inspiring to gaiety, superabounding in vitality. ”

“ Those were the days when if a man had a deer, a sheep, an antelope, or the bosse ribs of a buffalo cow on his pack or in his wagon, it did not occur to him to shoot at the game among which he rode. I have seen sheep feeding on the prairies with antelope, and in little groups by themselves in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, and men whose experience extends much further back than mine—men, too, whose life was largely devoted to observing the wild animals among which they lived—unite in telling me that they were commonly found in such situations. ”

“ The next morning a bear was seen by my natives in the big meadow by our camp, but he did not remain long enough for a stalk. At 9:30 he again came out into the open, and Nikolai and I made a quick approach, but the bear, although he was not alarmed, did not wait long enough for us to get within range. We had skirted the marsh, keeping just inside of the thicket, and now when the bear disappeared we settled ourselves for a long wait should he again come into the open. We were well hidden from view, and the wind blew slanting in our faces and across our front. ”

“ The rhododendron thrives, its black glossy leaves a symbol of richly nourished power. The devil's club flaunts aloft its bright berries, and poisonously wounds whomsoever has the misfortune even to touch its great prickly leaves, nearly as big as an elephant's ear ”

“ BALANCE OF NATURE. Even the owner cannot much longer enjoy his range, because he is operating against the balance of nature. The last stage of destruction which these innocent animals bring about has not yet been reached, but it is approaching; it is the stage in which there is no food left for the sheep themselves. I do not know how many pounds of food a sheep consumes in course of a year—it cannot be much less than a ton—but say it is only half a ton, how many acres of dry western mountain land are capable of producing half a ton a year when not seeding down? ”

“ Thus, in this matter before us, it will naturally take a few years for Congress to realize that a genuine demand exists for the creation of these refuges in every State, East as well as West, but the interest in wild creatures, and the desire for their protection, if not a clamorous demand, is one almost universally felt. All men, except a meager few of the dwarfed and strictly city-bred, partake of this, and it is so much a sign of the times that no Sunday edition is complete without its column devoted to wild creatures, their traits, their habits, or their eccentricities. ”

“ So far as danger to man is involved by their presence, the experience in the Yellowstone National Park is that there is no such danger; when allowed to do so, they draw their rations as meekly as a converted Apache; if they err at all, it is on the side of exaggerated and rather pitiful humility.
It is mainly with the deer, however, that we are concerned. It is out of the question for any thinking man who takes the slightest interest in these creatures to stand passively by and permit them to be exterminated. To prevent such a catastrophe proper measures must be taken. ”

“ It would seem that a nation of so vast wealth as ours could afford to indulge in an occasional extravagance, such as keeping alive these few remaining bears; of maintaining them at the public expense simply for the gratification of curiosity, of a quite legitimate curiosity on the part of those who love the wild life, and every last vanishing trait that remains of its old, keen energy. ”

“ A paddle held high in air shows that game has been sighted, and a large circle, perhaps a mile in circumference, is at once formed around the otter, each baidarka trying to get in the first successful shot. To the man who first hits home belongs the skin, but as an otter can stay under water twenty minutes, and when rising for air exposes only his nose, a long and exciting chase follows.
Some natives patrol the small island shores, and during the winter make a good harvest picking up dead otters which have washed ashore. ”

“ Soon a tell-tale eddy in the breeze gave them our scent, and they slowly moved away, not hurriedly nor in great alarm, but reminding me much of tame sheep, or deer in a park. Man was rather an unfamiliar animal to them, and his scent brought but little dread. From this time until darkness hid them, sheep were in plain view the entire day. In a short while I counted over one hundred ewes and lambs. ”

“ Sitting on the point of some tall mountain the observer may look down on the green meadows, interspersed perhaps with little clumps of low willows which grow along the tiny watercourses whose sources are the snow banks far up the mountain side, and if patient in his watch and faithful in his search, he may detect with his glasses at first one or two, and gradually more and more, until at length perhaps ten, fifteen or thirty sheep may be counted, scattered over a considerable area of country. ”

“ Much of the San Gabriel Reserve is rugged and well protected by nature to be the home of the deer. San Bernardino, on the contrary, is the most accessible of the southern reserves, with abundant feed for the horses of those who visit it, well watered, and full of noble trees. So open is the forest that in the hunting season much of it must be abandoned by the deer, who are perfectly cognizant of their danger, and, with somewhat of aid from man, are quite capable of taking care of themselves. ”

“ I, for one, am a firm believer in the axiom that a climate which will give the right "tang" to an apple will also produce determined and energetic men; this whole region, spite of its fogs, has a glorious future before it. Superb firs towered hundreds of feet above our heads, and archaic-looking cedars, a thousand years old, thrust their sturdy shoulders firmly against the storms and the winds. But the valleys, the trees and the glaciers, were only the mise-en-scène of that which constituted primarily the reason of my visiting this peninsula. ”

“ It is fitting that on the statute books the mountain sheep should have better protection than most species of our large game, since there is no other species now existing in any numbers which is more exposed to danger of extinction. Destroyed on its old ranges, it is found now only in the roughest mountains, the bad lands, and the desert, and it is sufficiently desirable as a trophy to be ardently pursued wherever found. ”

“ In addition, however, to the economic use of the wilderness by preserving it for such purposes where it is unsuited for agricultural uses, it is wise here and there to keep selected portions of it—of course only those portions unfit for settlement—in a state of nature, not merely for the sake of preserving the forests and the water, but for the sake of preserving all its beauties and wonders unspoiled by greedy and shortsighted vandalism. ”