270 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



ready to test to the fullest his powers and endurance. 

 Many of them are shot during the running season by red 

 and white hunters; as their melodious whistles, when call- 

 ing for the females, readily indicate their presence, and 

 lead the hunters to their quarters, when the slaughter is 

 commenced. Their whistle is most peculiar, and differs 

 widely from that of all other deer; indeed, so strongly 

 marked is it that a person having heard it once would 

 recognize it among the voices of a thousand animals. I 

 never knew a person who could imitate it well, and this 

 has prevented hunters from calling them as they do the 

 moose and other deer. The difficulty in imitating the call 

 is due to its varied character, it being composed of several 

 parts. The first part consists of a shrill and prolonged 

 whistle, which sometimes sounds afar off, although the ani- 

 mal uttering it may be very near a person, and this is fol- 

 lowed by four or five deep brays or grunts, which end in 

 a low, soft, and musical bellow, not displeasing to the ear, 

 no matter how acutely it may have been attuned to har- 

 mony and melody. I have noticed, as a fact that struck 

 me as being peculiar, that the bravest and largest wild ani- 

 mals always had deep voices, and that they were generally 

 melodious full of music, as it were while the small fry, 

 which would run from a common cur, had high, sharp 

 voices. I have hunted with some of the bravest men, the 

 best scouts, and the most famous hunters in the West, and 

 I found that they also had deep, heavy tones, as a rule; 

 and I deduced from this that the highest order of animals, 

 those that were brave and daring, were always deep in 

 voice, and that their intonations never jarred on the ear. 

 When I saw that the heroes in an opera were the tenors, 

 it struck me as an odd idea that thin-voiced animals were 

 seldom so courageous in actual life as their deeper-voiced 

 congeners, and this has caused me to express it here to see 

 if it is in any way founded on fact, or whether it is a mere 

 artificial system of display. 



If the males meet during these whistling tournaments, 

 long and severe is the battle they wage, and the weaker 



