36 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



the New World. To the ordinary hunter he is the same beast, 

 only that in size he more nearly resembles the great stag of 

 America than our Scotch red deer. 



Mr. St. George Littledale puts the ollen midway in size 

 between the bara singh of Cashmere and the wapiti, whilst 

 Dr. Radde, curator of the Tiflis Museum, maintains that the 

 quality of their food makes the only difference (a difference 

 merely of size) between the wapiti, bara singh, ollen and red 

 deer. When I hunted the ollen I had no notion that I should 

 ever be called upon to carefully discriminate between them 

 and their kin in other countries, so that I am obliged to rely 

 upon my memory for any points of difference, and memory 

 only suggests that whereas the wapiti rarely (if ever) has ' cups ' 

 on his antlers, the ollen royal has the peculiar cup formation 

 as often as the red deer. Again, the call of the Caucasian stag 

 in the rutting season (September) is similar to that of the 

 Scotch stag, and does not resemble the weird whistle of the 

 wapiti. In size both of body and antler the ollen comes very 

 near to the great American stag. The dimensions of four heads, 

 obtained by Mr. Littledale at one stalk, will give a very fair 

 idea of the average size of ollen heads, and a glance at the 

 illustration taken from a photograph of this gentleman's bag 

 for 1887 will convey an idea of the general character of ollen 

 heads as well as of the sporting capabilities of the Caucasus. 

 In this photograph, to make it a complete record of his year, 

 Mr. Littledale should have included trophies of boar and bear 

 which also fell to his rifle. 



On the day upon which Littledale's four heads were 

 obtained, this fortunate sportsman, lying on a ridge near the 

 summit of the divide, looked down at one coup d'ceil upon a 

 dozen old male X^x in an unstalkable position, two bears whose 

 skins (it being in August) were not worth having, a chamois 

 scorned as small game, and the stags which he ultimately 

 bagged. 



The following are the dimensions of three of the four heads 

 referred to; the fourth^ a 12-point head, had some of the 



