78 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



mistakes of this description have crept into the naming 

 of American quadrupeds, fishes, and birds; thus the 

 buffalo is a bison, the pheasant a grouse, the quail 

 or partridge an ortix dozens of these errors could be 

 enumerated, but the previous examples will suffice. 



The noble horns which the stag wapitti bears give 

 him a most imposing appearance, for they are wide- 

 branching, ponderous, and covered with numerous 

 points, and not unfrequently, in the case of very old 

 males, semi-palmated. In height the stag frequently 

 stands fourteen hands and a half, and so powerful are 

 their proportions, that the carcass is as broad and 

 strongly put together as that of a draft-cob. Possibly 

 it may be the knowledge of their strength, but, unlike 

 the majority of their family, they prefer open prairie or 

 sparsely-treed river-edges to the densely-covered wet 

 lands. From this circumstance it is easy to find 

 abundant opportunities to course them with grey- 

 hounds ; but, from the strength of the adversary, your 

 dogs must be of great size and courage ; even then, if 

 the game be driven to bay, woe betide the aggressor 

 who should come within reach of his powerful fore- 

 feet, for he can deal a blow, or, rather, make a thrust 

 with his sharp-pointed hoofs, that literally would go 

 through the panel of an ordinary door. Well the wolf 

 knows this ; and it is of rare occurrence that the blood- 

 thirsty robber dares to approach a member of this 

 species, unless he be disabled by wounds or effete from 

 age. I do not think, from the information I have 

 been able to obtain, from searching old authorities 

 who have written on the fauna of North America, that 

 the range of the wapitti ever extended eastward to the 

 Atlantic sea-board, but that their habitat commenced 



