ORDER ARTIODACTYLA: EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 455 



Severtzoff writes (1876, pp. 383-385) as follows: 



In Russian Siberia it has been met with on the Semiretchje and Zailisky 

 Alatau, in the mountains near Issik-kul and Narin, everywhere in fir-woods, 

 and only in the greenwood districts. . . . 



During the months of June and July the newly-grown horns are soft; and 

 this is the time when these animals are mostly pursued by the Cossacks 

 for the sake of their horns, which are readily bought by the Chinese people. 



According to the statements of the Kirgies it is to be met with on all the 

 mountain-chains of the western Thian-Shan, on the tributaries of the Susa- 

 mir, Talas, and Chirchik, as well as in the Karatau mountains. 



According to Carruthers (1913, p. 630), the animals "range over 

 the northern forested slopes of the Tian Shan, Ala-tau, and Barlik 

 ranges, and extend eastwards as far as does the forest. The large 

 wapiti probably stop at the Karlik.Tagh." 



J. H. Miller (in Carruthers, 1913, pp. 576, 582, 601) contributes 

 the following items. Tracks were noted in the Urta Saryk Valley, 

 south of the Ala-tau. In Dzungaria in general "the dark forests of 

 spruce and scrub conceal wapiti of all beasts in this land the most 

 persecuted by man." In the Tian Shan south of Ta-shih-tu the 

 program of two Chanto hunters was to go into these mountains in 

 June for a month's stag-hunting. "The Chinese merchants will 

 readily give as much as from a hundred to two hundred rubles for 

 a good pair of wapiti horns in the velvet." 



Roosevelt and Roosevelt (1926, pp. 171-192) describe their ex- 

 periences in hunting Wapiti in the Tian Shan in the region of the 

 Kooksu River and the Akyas Valley. "All the native hunters, 

 Kalmuks, Kazaks and Kirghiz, hunt them continually during the 

 late spring and early summer. . . . Church in his book written 

 in 1899 considered them to be on the verge of extinction. ... All 

 told we had seen ten wapiti during the week we had been hunt- 

 ing them." 



Morden writes (1927, pp. 185-186, 196) concerning the Kok-su 

 district: 



Native hunters . . . come to shoot stags when the horns are in the velvet 

 and immature. The antlers of the Thian Shan stag . . . are used when in 

 the velvet by the Chinese for medicinal ingredients, and numbers of them 

 are annually brought into the bazaars of the cities of Sin Kiang. . 



Owing to the number of stags annually killed while the horns are in the 

 velvet, they are much less numerous now than they were a few years ago. This 

 will become increasingly true with the advent of modern firearms, which are 

 slowly creeping into all sections of Central Asia. 



Nazaroff writes (1932, p. 236) that there are plenty of Wapiti in 

 the mountains between the Chu and the Naryn Rivers. 



According to W. G. Heptner (in litt., December, 1936) , this ani- 

 mal is evidently found in the mountainous region in the east and the 



