A HEAD OF FORTY POINTS. 123 



for it made a short rush forwards and fell over 

 dead. On going up to it I found that my first 

 bullet had entered the body too low behind the 

 shoulder. 



This stag carried a truly magnificent head of 

 forty points. The number of points, though 

 high, was, however, not its strongest claim to 

 excellence, as the horns were palmate d from 

 base to tops, and the secondary " shovels " 

 above the brow antlers were extraordinarily 

 broad and strong, as were all the points on the 

 upper portion of the horns. Had both the 

 lower " shovels " — the palmate d brow antlers, 

 which are sometimes interlocked above the 

 face of a caribou stag — been of equal size, it 

 would indeed have been a head of extraordinary 

 strength and beauty. One of the brow antlers, 

 however, though palmated, was inferior to the 

 other in size. 



Still, taken altogether, it was a wonderful head, 

 and it was an extraordinary piece of luck that 

 I, who had only seen such a limited number of 

 caribou stags, should have happened to come 

 across such a splendid old veteran. 



