A HEAD OF FORTY POINTS. 123 



for it made a short rush forwards and fell over 

 dead. On going up to it I found that my first 

 bullet had entered the body too low behind the 

 shoulder. 



This stag carried a truly magnificent head of 

 forty points. The number of points, though 

 high, was, however, not its strongest claim to 

 excellence, as the horns were palmated from 

 base to tops, and the secondary " shovels '* 

 above the brow antlers were extraordinarily 

 broad and strong, as were all the points on the 

 upper portion of the horns. Had both the 

 lower " shovels " — the palmated brow antlers, 

 which are sometimes interlocked above the 

 face of a caribou stag — been of equal size, it 

 would indeed have been a head of extraordinary 

 strength and beauty. One of the brow antlers, 

 however, though palmated, was inferior to the 

 other in size. 



Still, taken altogether, it was a wonderful head, 

 and it was an extraordinary piece of luck that 

 I, who had only seen such a limited number of 

 caribou stags, should have happened to come 

 across such a splendid old veteran. 



