AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 183 



"have tried to describe, yet I doubt if anyone who 

 may have read all the descriptions of it ever written 

 would recognize it on a first hearing. It is a most 

 strange, weird, peculiar sound, baffling all efforts of 

 the most skillful word-painter. It is only uttered by 

 the male, and there is the same variety in the sound 

 made by different stags as in different human voices. 

 Usually the cry begins and ends with a sort of grunt, 

 somewhat like the bellow of a domestic cow cut short, 

 but the interlude is a long-drawn, melodious, flute- 

 like sound that rises and falls with a rhythmical 

 cadence, floating on the still evening air, by which 

 it is often wafted with singular distinctness to great 

 distances. By other individuals, or even by the 

 same individual at various times, either the first or 

 last of these abrupt sounds is omitted, and only the 

 other, in connection with the long-drawn, silver- 

 toned strain, is given. 



The stag utters this call only in the love-making 

 season, and for the purpose of ascertaining the 

 whereabouts of his dusky mate, who responds by a 

 short and utterly unmusical sound, similar to that 

 with which the male begins or ends his call. 



Once, when exploring in Idaho, I had an interest- 

 ing and exciting experience with a band of elk. 

 I had camped for the night on a high divide, between 

 two branches of the Clearwater river. The weather 

 had been intensely dry and hot for several days, and 

 the tall rye grass that grew in the old burn where I 

 had pitched my camp was dry as powder. There 

 was a gentle breeze from the south. Fearing that a 

 spark might be carried into the grass, I extinguished 

 my camp-fire as soon as I had cooked and eaten my 



