Introductory 7 



Canadian line. This splendid deer affords a good 

 instance of the difficulty of deciding what name 

 to use in treating of our American game. On 

 the one hand, it is entirely undesirable to be pe- 

 dantic ; and on the other hand, it seems a pity, 

 at a time when speech is written almost as much 

 as spoken, to use terms which perpetually require 

 explanation in order to avoid confusion. The 

 wapiti is not properly an elk at all ; the term 

 wapiti is unexceptionable, and it is greatly to be 

 desired that it should be generally adopted. But 

 unfortunately it has not been generally adopted. 

 From the time when our backwoodsmen first 

 began to hunt the animal among the foot-hills of 

 the Appalachian chains to the present day, it has 

 been universally known as elk wherever it has 

 been found. In ordinary speech it is never 

 known as anything else, and only an occasional 

 settler or hunter would understand what the word 

 wapiti referred to. The book name is a great 

 deal better than the common name ; but after all, 

 it is only a book name. The case is almost ex- 

 actly parallel to that of the buffalo, which was 

 really a bison, but which lived as the buffalo, died 

 as the buffalo, and left its name imprinted on our 

 landscape as the buffalo. There is little use in 

 trying to upset a name which is imprinted in our 

 geography in hundreds of such titles as Elk 

 Ridge, Elk Mountain, Elkhorn River. Yet in 



