98 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



ponderous, and covered with numerous points, and not un- 

 frequently, in the case of very old males, semi-palmated. 

 In height the stag frequently stands fourteen hands and a 

 half ; and so powerful are their proportions, that the car- 

 cass is as broad and strongly put together as that of a 

 draft -cob. Possibly it may be the knowledge of their 

 strength, but, unlike the majority of their family, they pre- 

 fer open prairie or sparsely .treed river-edges to the dense- 

 ly covered wet lands. From this circumstance it is easy 

 to find abundant opportunities to course them with grey- 

 hounds ; but, from the strength of the adversary, your 

 dogs must be of great size and courage ; even then, if the 

 game be driven to bay, woe betide the aggressor who 

 should come within reach of his powerful fore-feet, for he 

 can deal a blow, or, rather, make a thrust with his sharp- 

 pointed hoofs, that literally would go through the panel of 

 an ordinary door. Well the wolf knows this ; and it is of 

 rare occurrence that the blood-thirsty robber dares to ap- 

 proach a member of this species, unless he be disabled by 

 wounds or effete from age. I do not think, from the in- 

 formation I have been able to obtain, from searching old 

 authorities who have written on the fauna of North Amer- 

 ica, that the range of the Wapitti ever extended eastward 

 to the Atlantic sea-board, but that their habitat commenced 

 with the prairie country, say Illinois or Indiana. However, 

 these States have long ceased to know them ; for, like oth- 

 er large game, they have rapidly retired before the tide of 

 emigration. The upper waters of the Missouri, the plains 

 around the fork of the North and South Saskatchewan are 

 where, at the present day, this mammoth stag will be found 

 most abundant. The adventurer who would follow them 

 to these fastnesses must be a brave, determined person, for 

 it is the centre of the hunting-grounds of some of the most 

 warlike and treacherous of all the Indian tribes ; and of late 



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