70 Sport and Life. 



It is rather curious that such a close observer as Caton, having 

 at his disposal the material and the best of opportunities to 

 ascertain the live weight of adult wapiti, has failed to give us a 

 single weight excepting in the case of a three-year-old stag after a 

 journey of four days on steamboats and railways. This animal he 

 appears to have actually weighed (65olb.), while of older specimens 

 in his own park he invariably only speaks of " estimated " figures 

 (up to looolb. or iioolb.). It is all the more gratifying, therefore, 

 to be able to state that it was left to an English sportsman- 

 naturalist, Sir Edmund G. Loder, Bart., to ascertain in an accurate 

 manner the clean weight as well as the measurements of a fairly 

 large wapiti stag. 



He furnished me with ihe following particulars concerning the 

 largest wapiti he killed in Western Montana. * Erom root of tail 

 to tip of nose, io8in. ; tail, with hair, y|in. Girth, at brisket, 6ft. 

 Circumference of neck, 54-in. Weight, without entrails or liver, 

 lungs and heart, 752lb., but as he was killed on October 4, the fat 

 was all gone. Weight of liver, lungs, and heart, 4olb. It is 

 therefore certain that the beast as he entered the rut must have 

 scaled over goolb., and most probably close upon looolb., a weight 

 which some of my largest stags must have exceeded by many 

 pounds, for according to my notes several taped as much as 

 yft. 2in. girth at brisket. I should therefore not be the least 

 surprised to hear that a really big stag was found to exceed 

 iioolb. live weight as he entered the rut. Considering that 

 to-day stags exceeding 53st., or 7461b. (avdp.) dead weight are 



* This stag was killed in the Flathead country, where the forests are a good 

 deal denser than in Wyoming and Eastern Montana, so that it was not a typical 

 wapiti country, but, as Sir E. Loder's trip was undertaken with the special 

 object of getting Rocky Mountain "goat," following for this purpose a route I 

 suggested to him, it was impossible to combine in one expedition visits to any 

 of the few remaining really good wapiti countries, where he probably would 

 have killed some larger wapiti. Mr. E. N. Buxton's expedition in 1884 to the 

 Windriver Mountains, in Wyoming, for which I also supplied him with 

 particulars of route, &c., was, so far as wapiti were concerned, more 

 successful. 



