278 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 







Phitf tj Mr. V. Rau] 



AMERICAN WAPITI 



The dark liead^jorc-quarters, and unde r-parts, so distinctive of the wapiti, are here 'well displayed 



into position when the first 

 few hinds moved past a 

 hundred yards below us. 

 They were very uneasy and 

 highly suspicious, but fortu- 

 nately did not stop ; and in 

 another moment, to my joy, 

 the big stag came slowly 

 behind them, and offered a 

 fair broadside in the very spot 

 where I should have wished 

 him to stand. The bullet 

 took him through the ribs, 

 certainly a trifle too far back, 

 but he gave in at once, and 

 rolled 150 yards down the 

 hill, fortunately without hurt- 

 ing his horns. A really fine 

 Highland stag in his prime ; 

 weight, 16 stone 2 Ibs., with 

 a good wild head of ten points, 

 and good cups on the top." 

 " Thursday, October $t/i. 

 We negotiated the stiff 

 climb, and McLeish, leaving 

 me behind a rock on the 

 summit, returned some 

 distance to signal directions 

 to the pony-man. He came 

 back just as the stag returned 

 roaring down the pass he had 

 ascended ; and as the mist 

 was blotting out the land- 

 scape,! feared he would come 

 right on to us without being 

 seen, but, as luck would have 

 it, he stopped and recom- 



menced bellowing within 



seventy yards. I never heard a stag make such a row, but nothing of him could we see. It 

 was most exciting, lying flat on a slab of rock, hoping devoutly that the mist would rise, if 

 only for a few seconds. The tension had grown extreme, when there was a momentary lift in 

 the gloom, and I made out the dim forms of the deer just as a big hind, which I had not 

 noticed, ' bruached ' loudly within twenty yards of us. The outline of the stag was barely 

 visible when, after carefully aiming, I pressed the trigger, knowing that a moment later there 

 would be no second chance. At the shot the deer at once disappeared, but I felt sure I had 

 hit him, and, on following the tracks for some fifty yards, there he lay as dead as a door-nail. 

 Weight, 13 stone 6 Ibs.; a wild head of ten points; thin, and evidently that of a deer on 

 the decline." 



In England the wild red deer are hunted with stag-hounds on Exmoor, and first-rate sport 

 is obtained on the great moorlands of Somerset and Devon. During the last fifty years the 

 deer have much increased in numbers, and no less than three packs the Devon and 

 Somerset, Sir John Heathcoat-Amory's, and Mr. Peter Ormrod's are now engaged in hunting 



