CHAPTER VIII 



THE WAPITI, OR ROUND-HORNED ELK 



THE wapiti is the largest and stateliest deer in the 

 world. A full-grown bull is as big as a steer. The ant- 

 lers are the most magnificent trophies yielded by any 

 game animal of America, save the giant Alaskan moose. 

 When full grown they are normally of twelve tines ; fre- 

 quently the tines are more numerous, but the increase in 

 their number has no necessary accompaniment in increase 

 in the size of the antlers. The length, massiveness, rough- 

 ness, spread, and symmetry of the antlers must all be 

 taken into account in rating the value of a head. Antlers 

 over fifty inches in length are large; if over sixty, they 

 are gigantic. Good heads are getting steadily rarer under 

 the persecution which has thinned out the herds. 



Next to the bison the wapiti is of all the big game 

 animals of North America the one whose range has 

 most decreased. Originally it was found from the Pacific 

 coast east across the Alleghanies, through New York to 

 the Adirondacks, through Pennsylvania into western 

 New Jersey, and far down into the mid-country of Vir- 

 ginia and the Carolinas. It extended northward into 

 Canada, from the Great Lakes to Vancouver; and south- 

 ward into Mexico, along the Rockies. Its range thus 

 corresponded roughly with that of the bison, except that 

 it went farther west and not so far north. In the early 



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