THE CAUCASUS 



37 



velvet still clinging to it in shreds, and the dimensions I see 

 are not eiven. 



Compare these measurements with those of the biggest wapiti 

 exhibited at the American Exhibition of 1887, belonging to 

 Mr. Frank Cooper, of which the length along the curve was 

 62^ ins., the girth of the beam 8 ins., and the number of 

 points 16, and it will be seen that, given as large a number of 

 picked Caucasian heads to choose from as there were picked 

 American heads in England in 1887, the probabiUty is that the 

 ollen would not be very much surpassed by the wapiti. 



Like the latter, the ollen is daily growing scarcer. In Min- 

 grelia, before the Russian conquest of that province, this grand 

 red deer abounded, and for some time after that date the 

 Russian peddlers did quite a lively trade in antlers, which they 

 obtained by the cartload for a mere song from the natives. 

 But ill-blood arose between the Russian officers and the native 

 princes, which led to a wholesale slaughter of the ollen, so that 

 to-day it is comparatively scarce in its old haunts, although 

 on the head-waters of the Kuban and its tributaries, and in 

 Daghestan (where the natives call it ' maral '), the ollen still 

 exists in sufficient numbers to satisfy any honest hunter. The 

 worst characteristic of the beast is that, as a general rule, 

 he is as fond of timber as a wapiti in Oregon. 



The Caucasian ollen has his antlers clean from about the 

 middle of August, and his rutting season is (in the mountain 

 regions near Naltchik) about the middle of September. 



The only other deer in the Caucasus is the roe {Cervus 

 capreolus\ a. pretty graceful little beast, which is plentiful on 

 the Black Sea coast, amongst the foot-hills, and forms the 



