WAPITI DEER 
67 
all that the ancestors of the American bison came originally 
from Asia. The exact geological period of this supposed 
Asiatic invasion will be discussed in the next chapter, when' we 
come to deal with Alaska. Some other extinct bisons are 
known from America besides those alluded to. Bison crassi- 
cornis, according to Dr. Lucas, is confined to Alaska. Mr. 
Lydekker, * on the other hand, considers it identical with 
Bison priscus, an extinct bison which ranged throughout 
arctic Siberia and a large part of Europe. 
South of the belt of stunted timber lie the vast forests 
of the Athabaska and Peace River valleys, and a great zone 
of warmer country abounding in animal life, as we proceed 
in the same direction. A noble representative of the deer 
tribe which we meet here reminds us of the European red 
deer. In the States it is commonly known as the elk (Cervus 
canadensis), though it has no connection with the moose, 
which in Europe is known by that name. In Canada it is 
more generally called “ wapiti deer.” While the range of 
the moose seems to he on the increase in the Mackenzie 
Region, it is curious that the wapiti has become almost extinct 
in the northern parts of its former geographical range, and 
now only occurs there in small numbers. 
Mr. Thompson Seton f tells us that originally, that is to 
say about the beginning of the sixteenth century, the wapiti 
was found from the Mackenzie Region as far east as Boston, 
and as far south as Arizona and Alabama (see Fig. 6). Its 
destruction proceeded unchecked until the year 1895, when a 
change in public opinion took place. Henceforth the wapiti 
was protected; and it is now actually on the increase in 
Manitoba and along the Rocky Mountains from Alberta to 
the borders of New Mexico and also along the Pacific States. 
The wapiti has only been observed in a fossil state in 
Pleistocene deposits. We know from these records that its 
range extended in Pleistocene times southward as far as 
Florida and from North Carolina to New Jersey and Kentucky. 
The resemblance between the American wapiti and, at any 
* Lydekker, R., “Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia,” II., p. 24. 
t Seton, Ernest Thompson, “Life Histories of Northern Animals,” I , 
p. 43. 
