THE WAPITI OF KANSU 199 



purpose save as haunts of wild game, should follow 

 them is an indehble disgrace to all real American 

 sportsmen. 



In the words of Mr. H. A. Bryden, " a more 

 shameful and wanton waste of animal life was 

 never perpetrated in any age or country." 



There remains Asia. In India, particularly in 

 Kashmir, thanks to stringent game-laws capably 

 supervised, game is, if anything, on the increase. 

 On the private preserves of the great rajahs 

 enormous bags of tigers, bison, buffalo and deer 

 are made. 



In the high mountainous regions of Central Asia, 

 sheep, ibex, wapiti and roe are still plentiful. Until 

 comparatively recent years wapiti were supposed to 

 exist in a wild state only in America. In addition 

 to being found in Central Asia they, or a very 

 closely allied species, are also to be met with in 

 certain districts of China. The huge forests which 

 originally existed on the borders of North- Western 

 Thibet, have, during the course of centuries, been 

 fearfully depleted. The natural home of the v/apiti, 

 providing cover and secure shelter during the hard 

 winters, deforestation alone, even to the enormous 

 extent to which it has been carried, would have had 

 but small effect upon their numbers. They have, 

 however, been reduced to an even greater extent 

 than have the firs and pines which form their home. 

 Nor is the reason far to seek. Whatever the true 

 medicinal value of hartshorn, its efficacy has been 

 magnified a thousandfold by the Chinese. The 

 wretched wapiti have but practically two months' 

 immunity from slaughter in the year, namely May 

 and June. They shed their horns in April and 



