WAP1TTI A NTLEKS. 105 



tween the claimants for the favor of the fair ones ; and these 

 battles royal are fought with such vim and determination 

 that they not unfrequently result in the death of one or 

 both of the belligerents. Again, the antlers of the contest- 

 ants occasionally get locked together, so that the owners 

 find it impossible to disengage themselves, when death 

 overtakes them in the appalling form of starvation. I was 

 once shown two grand heads of Wapitti horns at Pembena, 

 which had been picked up on a tributary of the Upper 

 Missouri, that had become so interlaced that no effort could 

 disengage them in their entirety. 



The fawns are produced late in spring, and at two years 

 of age the young bucks exhibit knobs, which in six years 

 become full heads ; however, with further years the horns 

 continue to spread and increase in weight, the very old 

 males exhibiting at the top fork a very obvious palmation. 

 Mr. Hays, a New York animal artist of great repute, 

 showed me a pair of Wapitti antlers which he had picked 

 up in a valley of the Rocky Mountains ; they were larger 

 than any I had previously seen, although I have killed a 

 very great number of specimens. If memory serves me 

 correctly, they possessed fifteen points, and weighed fifty- 

 two pounds. What a splendid stag their owner must have 

 been ! And the trouble and expense of a voyage across the 

 Atlantic, with the additional fatigue of the land journey to 

 the hunting-grounds of the red men, would not be thrown 

 away if the sportsman was certain to be rewarded by the 

 capture of such a quarry. 



