LETTER X. 113 



deep, without a sound. Next to that prince of 

 deer, the ' wapiti,' the mule-deer is the biggest 

 of his family in America as big, I should say, 

 almost as an ordinary Scotch red-deer. He is a 

 handsome beast, with a face boldly blazed with 

 patches of black and white upon russet-brown or 

 gray. His ears are the most noticeable things 

 about him. I have just measured the ears on 

 the head of a buck shot by me, and I find that 

 from the root to the tip they measure ten inches. 

 This is almost as long as the animal's face, from 

 a point between the horns to the tip of his 

 muzzle. 



The biggest buck which I have had the good 

 fortune to secure has a span of nearly two feet 

 from antler to antler, ten large well-developed 

 points, and a heavy beam five and a half inches 

 in circumference. This is, of course, not an ex- 

 ceptionally good head ; but I think it is above 

 the average of the mule-deer on the Similkameen. 

 We had known this stag for a week before we 

 got him, his favourite haunt being just below our 

 camp, amongst some fallen timber, in which it 

 was almost an impossibility to approach him un- 

 heard. Three or four times, when creeping over 

 the logs, we saw a pair of great ears listening on 

 another bank, then half a dozen hinds would trot 

 quickly through the timber, followed by this 



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