Thian Shan Wapiti 59 



In the British Museum this race is represented by a very massive 

 pair of antlers presented by Captain H. J. Elwes, which show the abortion 

 of the portion above the fourth tine referred to in Dr. Merriam's descrip- 

 tion of Cervus roosevelti. A pair of antlers from the Olympic Mountains, 

 Washington, belonging to Mr. W. F. Sheard, measure 70 inches in length 

 along the outside curve, with a circumference of 14^^ inches round the 

 base, and are thus the largest American wapiti antlers on record. 



THE THIAN SHAN WAPITI 



[Cervus canadensis sotigaricus) 



It is not a little remarkable that, although this magnificent repre- 

 sentative ot the wapiti has been kept in large numbers from time 

 immemorial in a state of semi-domestication by the farmers of the southern 

 Altai, for the sake of the revenue yielded by its antlers, yet its very 

 existence was unknown in Europe till the year 1873, when it was 

 described by the Russian naturalist Severtzoff as a variety of the so-called 

 " maral," which was itself regarded as a local race of the American wapiti. 

 Subsequently antlers from the Thian Shan were brought home from 

 Kashgar by the Second Yarkand Mission, under the late Sir Douglas 

 Forsyth, which were described in 1875 by Mr. W. T. Blanford under the 

 name of Cervi/s eustephanus, but were regarded by him in 1893 as indicating 

 merely a local race of the wapiti. The subsequent acquisition of living 

 specimens of this deer by the Duke of Bedford served to confirm the 

 correctness of the latter view. Of late years our knowledge of this deer 

 has grown apace. In 1899 Captain H. J. Elwes,' on his return from a 

 journey in the Altai, gave a description of a number of antlers he brought 



' "Journal Lirnirean Society of London, vol. xxvii. p. 29 (1899). 



