The Wapiti and his Antlers. 83 



of natural history which should be the most attractive to the 

 British sportsman, with his unrivalled chances to make sport yield 

 useful scientific results. Take it this way : I think I am safe in 

 saying that there are not two men in England to-day who know 

 the correct details of the three best red-deer heads. In Rowland 

 Ward's second edition of his " Records of Big Game," there are 

 no fewer than ten mistakes in the three lines concerning the 

 three largest heads he gives, in addition to which errors two of 

 the three trophies he mentions deserve by no means the rank 

 he gives them ! To these and to other instances of carelessness 

 to which I shall have to refer, "Smoothbore's" committee would 

 speedily put an end, and if for no other reason, its results 

 should be welcomed by all those who prefer simplicity com- 

 bined with scientific accuracy, to loose, haphazard " estimates," 

 inaccurate measurements, and the inclusion of faked-up make- 

 believes. 



It is not uninteresting to drag from the yellow leaves of 

 " Annals of Sporting" of the year 1822 (Vol. II., p. 305) the 

 following account of what was probably the first introduction of 

 the " wapeti " into England. According to this source it occurred 

 about the year 1817 at the instance of Lord James Murray, 

 subsequent Lord Glenlyon, who gave 1000 guineas for four. They 

 were put on a farm near Datchet, where the breeding from the 

 stock was " attended with complete success." Part of the produce 

 were subsequently " sent to his lordship's estate in Scotland, seven 

 remaining on the farm." Two more, male and female, arrived 

 (1821 ?) at Glasgow from South Carolina, and were taken by way 

 .of Liverpool to London by canal. They were natives of the Upper 

 Missouri, where " they are domesticated and supply the inhabitants 

 of that far secluded district. They also draw sledges, bounding 

 along at a swing trot nearly twenty miles an hour." According 

 to the Literary Gazette of Oct. 12, 1822, a herd of wapiti were 

 exhibited at the Egyptian Hall. They were probably the lately 

 imported Upper Missouri animals. 



Since then a number of wapiti have been imported into England, 



G 2 



