840 UNGULATA. 



than the male ; the nose is more pointed, and the eyes 

 are large, fine, and plaintive. The male makes a 

 whistling noise. When the horns are growing, the 

 stags eat a large quantity of food ; in the rutting season, 

 on the contrary, they eat very little. 



The Wapiti sheds its horns in March or April ; the 

 new pair begins to grow shortly afterwards. Like the 

 Red Deer, the size and number of the tines increase by 

 good feeding. 



The splendid animal in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens has a remarkable head ; the brow and bay 

 antlers have grown to an abnormal length of 2 or 3 feet ; 

 some tines are, however, imperfect, growing knotty and 

 misshapen, probably on account of confinement. 



No two pairs of horns of the Wapiti are exactly alike : 

 some heads are beautifully symmetrical and regular, 

 each point almost exactly matching its fellow on the 

 opposite antler. The brow and bay tines are usually 

 thrown forward and slightly curved upwards ; we have 

 seen them perfectly straight and almost perpendicular ; 

 others, again, are hooked. 



The top tines in a full-grown animal are thrown out 

 boldly forwards and backwards in graceful curves ; in 

 only one example have we seen a tine which has grown 

 out laterally ; the top tines are sometimes very long and 

 beautiful ; rarely are they small and numerous at top, 

 like Red Deer, but this is sometimes the case. 



Once we saw a head with no brow nor bay points, but 

 it is not uncommon to find only one wanting. The 

 usual number of points is twelve, but thirteen and four- 

 teen are not uncommon. 



In a remarkably fine head the length between the top 

 tines was 4 feet 9 inches, between the third tine from the 

 top 4 feet 2 inches ; the third left tine was nearly 2 feet 



