SINO-MONGOLIAN FRONTIER 



The two beaters carried the carcase back to 

 camp, while we made the circuit of one of the high 

 peaks in search of more game. Nothing more 

 was seen, however, except a few roe- deer, one 

 of which I shot. 



Schroder and Brodie, after witnessing the finishing 

 of our wapiti, continued up over the top of the 

 peak, and descended the other side into some 

 favourable looking country. Here they caught 

 sight of five wapiti feeding away down in a valley, 

 and by dint of careful stalking managed to bag 

 two. These were larger and older than the one 

 we had already secured, but in no way remarkable. 

 Unfortunately it was the wrong season for horns, 

 in spite of the fact that the Chinese had told us 

 that we might expect to find good heads. This 

 being the case v/e decided to hunt no more wapiti, 

 hoping some day to revisit the same country at a 

 more propitious season.^ 



^ In November, 1913, the author, accompanied by Captain 

 T. Holcomb of the U.S. Marines, visited some mountains in 

 the Kuei-hua-Ch'eng district, said to contain wapiti. This 

 information turned out to be correct, and they had splendid 

 sport, securing five wapiti bucks, and several gorals. 



One of the wapiti, shot by the Captain, had a really magnifi- 

 cent pair of horns, with twelve points, six and six, and measur- 

 ing : — length along curve, right 41 inches, left 39 1 inches ; 

 length, tip to base, right 34 inches, left 31 1 inches; widest 

 spread 29| inches ; basal circumference, right 9| inches, 

 left 9 inches. 



As is usually the case the deer were confined to a com- 

 paratively small area and frequented certain ravines and 

 valleys almost exclusively. To exactly what species this 



127 



