76 Sport and Life. 



year before that twenty-four points I* To what must these quite 

 unusual instances of extreme bifurcation be ascribed ? If to the 

 artificial feeding during the major part of winter and early spring 

 for those seasons are extremely trying ones in the elevated and 

 inhospitable regions where this experiment was carried out it 

 would be an unanswerable argument in favour of the writer's 

 theory that artificial food influences the growth of antlers more 

 than anything else, a hypothesis which a certain school of Scotch 

 theorists combat as not in accordance with their theory that heads 

 are inherited. t 



" Setting back " that is, putting on a less number of points on 

 the new antlers than the animal carried the preceding year, 

 and which often occurs with the red deer of Europe seems to 

 occur also with wapiti, though the circumstance that by far the 

 largest number of old wapiti bulls carry only twelve points is 

 apparently a strong confirmation of the theory that nature in 

 the wapiti's case limits the growth to that number, a limitation 

 known also in the case of other deer. Western hunters frequently 

 assert that the reason one so rarely finds more than twelve-tined 

 heads is caused by the fact that all the older wapiti bulls, who 

 would have more points, get killed by the young ones, or rather by 

 the twelve-pointers, who at that period are in their prime. My 

 own experience, and that of others who have been among wapiti 

 during and after " whistling time," does not confirm this theory, 

 though, in view of the characteristic of wounded deer always 

 seeking the densest covert, one must not jump at too hasty 

 conclusions in this respect. 



* In counting the points the German fashion, which obtained also in England 

 in old days, of doubling the number of tines on the antler having the most 

 points, was followed. The antlers are preserved in the Arco Palace in Munich. 



f I am glad to be able to say that a friendly peace has now been established 

 between my most formidable opponent, Mr. Allan Gordon Cameron, and 

 myself, for, as he was good enough to write to me, when asking me for some 

 special information anent a work he is preparing on the distribution and 

 affinity of the stag group, he has seen reason to modify his views upon the 

 points concerning which we were most at variance. 



