8 Deer and Antelope of North America 



the books it is often necessary to call it the wap- 

 iti in order to distinguish it both from its differ- 

 ently named close kinsfolk of the Old World, and 

 from its more distant relatives with which it 

 shares the name of elk. It is the largest of the 

 true deer, and the noblest and stateliest of the deer 

 kind throughout the world. It is closely akin to 

 the much smaller European stag or red deer, and 

 still more closely to certain Asiatic deer, one of 

 which so closely approaches it in size, appearance, 

 and stately presence as to be almost indistin- 

 guishable. Its huge and yet delicately moulded 

 proportions, and its massive, rounded antlers, the 

 beam of which bends backward from the head, 

 while the tines are thrust forward, render it im- 

 possible to confound it with any other species of 

 American deer. Owing to its habitat it has 

 suffered from the persecution of hunters and set- 

 tlers more than any other of its fellows in Amer- 

 ica, and the boundaries of its range have shrunk 

 in far greater proportion. The moose and caribou 

 have in most places greatly diminished in num- 

 bers, and have here and there been exterminated 

 altogether from outlying portions of their range; 

 but the wapiti has completely vanished from 

 nine-tenths of the territory over which it roamed 

 a century and a quarter ago. Although it was 

 never found in any one place in such enormous 

 numbers as the bison and the caribou, it never- 



