WAPITI— BIGHORN SHEEP 319 



tively recently that its Asiatic representatives have been recognised, and the 

 American animal is the type of the species. Next to the elk, the various races 

 of the wapiti are the largest representatives of the deer tribe now living. The 

 antlers are of the same general type as those of the red deer, from which they 

 are distinguished by their greater flatness and smoothness, and, above all, by the 

 great relative size of the fourth tine, and the circumstance that this tine and the 

 ones above it are placed in the plane of the face. Wapiti have a large straw- 

 coloured patch on the rump, which embraces the whole of the very short tail, and 

 are dark brown on the under-parts and much lighter coloured on the back. Indeed, 

 after the storms of winter the coat on the back of a wapiti becomes bleached 

 nearly white. Wapiti were formerly distributed over British America south of 

 the 60th degree of N. latitude, and almost all the United States as far as Mexico ; 

 they have, however, been exterminated from many districts by the advance of 

 civilisation, and are now found only in the forests of Canada and some of the 

 mountain districts west of the Missouri. The habits of wapiti much resemble those 

 of red deer, although these animals differ from the majority of deer in that they 

 never feed by night. At the end of December or beginning of January, the old 

 stags cast their antlers, and in March or April the new ones begin to grow. In 

 May the wapiti living in the mountain regions withdraw to the higher districts, 

 without leaving the forest-zone, but approaching as nearly as possible to the snow- 

 limits. At this time the hinds leave the herd to give birth to their young in the 

 most secluded thickets, the mothers defending their fawns — usually one, but occa- 

 sionally two — with great courage from the attacks of pumas, bears, and wolves. 

 Very often at such times a hind may be heard calling for help, when all the 

 members of the herd in the neighbourhood will at once hasten to her assistance 

 and unite in driving off the enemy. In the middle of August, when the new antlers 

 are completely developed, the old stags — which during the greater part of the year 

 live by themselves, and during the pairing-season collect around them a herd of 

 hinds — commence to utter their call, which is a long-drawn whistle, quite unlike 

 the cry of the red deer. Combats between rival stags take place almost daily 

 during the pairing-season, but as a rule do not prove fatal, although they result 

 in the loss of portions of the antlers and very often in serious wounds. 



A fourth circumpolar type of ruminant — this time belonging to 

 Bighorn Sheep. , „ l J £, ., . i ■ . ,_ it ,1 



the hollow-horned group or Bovidce — is typically represented by the 



Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), an animal somewhat inferior 



in size to the Asiatic argali, with horns of a smoother and more sharply angulated 



type. The typical bighorn is a fawn-coloured sheep, with a white rump-patch, 



fair-sized ears, and somewhat stout horns, of which the tips are nearly always 



broken. The coat in winter is thick and close, with a woolly under-fur at the 



base. On the Stickine River the typical form is represented by a much darker race 



— the north-western bighorn, or so-called black sheep (0. canadensis stonei), in which 



the ears are smaller and the horns are more slender, with their tips usually 



unbroken. Still farther north, in Alaska, this race is replaced by a third form, 



the beautiful white Alaskan bighorn (0. canadensis dalli), whose structural 



characters are very similar to those of the north-western race ; these two being 



connected by an intermediate grey race of the species (0. canadensis fannini). 



