CANADIAN STAG. 297 



Game was unusually abundant, particularly deer, 

 so much so that on occasions the demesnes of many 

 of our English noblemen were recalled to mind. A 

 buck (Cervus Canadensis) which I saw was as large 

 and heavy as an ordinary two-year-old steer, while 

 its imperfectly-developed horns promised that at some 

 not remote day this lord of the manor would carry 

 a splendid head. 



The stag of Canada, more familiarly known as 

 the wapiti, is as noble and graceful an animal as the 

 eye can rest on. Larger than the red deer of Scot- 

 land, and in the season possessed of ponderous but 

 handsome-shaped horns, the lover of nature gazes 

 with delight on his massive proportions. The species 

 is fast disappearing however, and the day is not far 

 distant when it will become exceedingly rare pos- 

 sibly extinct. 



In our progress down the river we passed an 

 island, which the old man proclaimed as marking, 

 the vicinity of the canoes, a surmise which was 

 perfectly correct, for we soon afterwards discovered 

 them. After much carpentering and caulking the 

 smaller of the two was considered seaworthy. Al- 

 though a birch-bark canoe is a fragile conveyance, 

 and far from easy to handle, yet with time and 

 practice a white man can succeed in becoming 

 tolerably skilled in its management. Among the 

 Canadian voyageurs, and even lumbermen, I have 

 met with persons who could almost rival their red- 

 skin neighbours in the pilotage of these vessels ; but 



