56 Game of Europe, W. & N. Asia & America 



fewer. " Not many years ago," writes Mr. Selous,' " the American wapiti 

 was indisputably the finest deer in the world both in size and weight of 

 antlers, as well as in size and weight of body. He is undoubtedly still the 

 heaviest deer in the world on the average, though the finest Hungarian 

 and Caucasian red deer are possibly heavier than some full-grown wapiti 

 of to-day ; but I think it is doubtful whether the finest wapiti horns now 

 obtainable in the Rocky Mountains are equal in weight to those of the 

 finest red deer now living in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, or to the 

 finest specimens of those of their nearer allies the great deer of Central and 

 Eastern Asia.' 



Originally the wapiti was an inhabitant of the open prairie, and it was 

 only as the result of persecution that it took to a forest life in the 

 mountains. Dr. Grinnell, in the passage cited, states that in the early 

 days of American sport it was quite a common thing to see wapiti, after 

 having grazed on the prairie, lying out on the open hillside like bison or 

 domesticated cattle. At other times, however, they would seek shelter in 

 the willows bordering the streams. The disappearance of the wapiti from 

 the plains and its retirement to the uplands and mountains dates from about 

 the year 1880. 



The reason of the disappearance of this splendid deer trom the eastern 

 portion of its range, where it was formerly even more abundant than the 

 white-tailed deer, which still flourishes there, is not easy to find. 



THE WEST AMERICAN WAPITI 



{Cervus canadensis occidentalism 



When the western representative of the wapiti was described in 1897 

 by Dr. C. H. Merriam as a new species, under the name ot Cervus 

 roosevelti, it was believed to be distinguishable from the- eastern or typical 



> sport and Travel, p. 24.7 (1900). 



