24 Deer Breeding for Fine Heads 



Care must be taken, even more than in the case of red deer, 

 that wapiti are not in a place where they may be dangerous to 

 passers-by, as even the hinds, or "cows," as female wapiti are 

 called, are very dangerous, rearing up on their hind-legs and 

 striking out in front, when by their weight and strength they can 

 easily kill a man. The cows are very apt to attack people coming 

 near their calves. 



On one occasion a curious accident happened in one of my 

 wapiti-paddocks. 



A two-year-old bull had been shut off from the larger paddock 

 which a big sixteen-pointer wapiti bull occupied with his cows. 

 Although the fence was a seven-foot wire one, the two-year-old 

 bull jumped over into the big paddock, and repeated the perform- 

 ance when he was put back. It was a difficult jump, as he could 

 get no run at it, and the take-off was in sticky deep mud. He 

 had been separated from the big bull because the latter had injured 

 him in trying to drive him from the hinds, and I do not under- 

 stand why he wanted to get in, as he was afraid of the big bulL 

 The big bull also tried to get at the Altai stag, who was in another 

 paddock with a narrow footpath between. As the wapiti and the 

 Altai kept threatening one another each side of this footpath, I had 

 wire-netting put along each of their fences in order to prevent 

 their getting the points of their horns through and frightening 

 people passing along the footpath. The wapiti managed, however, 

 to loosen the wire-netting, and tore off some ten or twelve yards 

 of it, so that one end got fixed on his horns. Just then the two- 

 year-old wapiti made his third and final jump into the big paddock, 

 when he met the big wapiti bull, and somehow, either by accident 



