2 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 403 
and yet, if this head were inverted, no four-foot man could walk 
_ without stooping under thearch so made. During several years 
_ spent in wandering about Canada and the States, I have heard. 
_ again and again of gigantic wapiti heads ; I have even met men 
who own such trophies, and have actually bought them for | 
$500, the money to be paid when the ‘head’ was delivered. 
Unfortunately, my cash was never claimed, and I confess that 
I never expected that it would be, yet some of the trophy- 
owners wanted money ‘ in the worst way.’ 
~ But though the ‘ bull elk’ of to-day is neither as large as 
the Irish elk nor as the ‘elk’ of pioneer legends, he is still a 
magnificent beast, not quite as big as the moose and not 
carrying a very much larger head on the average than the 
Caucasian stag ; but still, take him all in all, he is the grandest 
stag left on earth. To an unscientific eye, the wapiti differs 
from the Scotch red deer in three points only : he is larger 
of course, his antlers as a rule lack the cup peculiar to the Scotch 
royal, and his call in the rutting season is a whistle, whilst the 
ted deer’s is aroar. His range in America is still a wide one, 
although the encroachments of civilization are driving him 
ever further and further back into that dense timber of which 
he is always too fond. It is this love of the timber which 
has enabled the wapiti to outlive his old comrade the bison, 
and will probably enable him to survive the antelope, which 
_ seems likely to be one of the next animals wiped off the face 
_ of the great American continent. In the mountain forests of 
_Wyoming and Montana, of Idaho and Colorado, wapiti are 
_ still fairly plentiful ; in California, I have heard that there are 
_ a good many in the red-wood districts, though of this I have 
no certain knowledge ; but there is no doubt that the home, 
_ par excellence, of the wapiti to-day is in the dense timber of 
the Olympian range, in Washington Territory, in Oregon, and 
| to a certain extent in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 
; __ In the early part of this century there were wapiti on the main- 
| landof British Columbia, and their bones may still be found 
|) ey frequently in the Chilcotin country ; but the animals 
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