American Elk 



beast, preferring to escape by flight rather than turn upon its pur- 

 suers, though its sharp teeth and well-developed tusks would make 

 it a rather formidable enemy. 



Family Cewidce 



To this family belong the majority of our American hoofed 

 animals. As has already been explained, their most distinctive 

 characteristic lies in their solid horns or antlers, which are shed 

 once a year. The new horn grows rapidly and is for a time soft, 

 full of blood vessels and provided with a downy covering known 

 as the "velvet." When the full growth is attained the horn 

 becomes hard and the velvet wears off. The first antlers are 

 very simple, but each succeeding pair is, as a rule, more and 

 more branched, so that a large number of "points" indicates to 

 the hunter an old individual. 



American Elk 



Cervus canadensis (Erxleben) 

 Also called Wapiti. 



Length. 8 feet. Height at shoulder, 5 feet 4 inches. Length of 

 antler, 50-65 inches. 



Description. Body above yellowish brown, beneath nearly black, 

 head, chest and neck dark brown, legs clove brown, a yel- 

 lowish white area on the rump about the base of the tail. 

 Female rather lighter coloured. The antlers borne only by the 

 male curve outward and backward with curved branches or 

 tines projecting forward at nearly uniform distances, the lowest 

 pair directly over the forehead. 



Range. Formerly throughout the Northern states and Canada, ex- 

 tending southward in the mountains. Now nearly extinct in the 

 East. In the Northwest its place is taken by the closely related 

 Roosevelt's elk and in the Arizona Mountains by Merria'm's elk. 



This splendid game animal is now all but extinct east of the 

 Mississippi river; a victim to the advance of civilization and the 



31 



