I02 Deer and Antelope of North America 



the prongbuck, and of the pugnacity of the wapiti, 

 both actual and relative, and a wide difference of 

 opinion will be found in three such standard works 

 as Dodge's " The Hunting-grounds of the Great 

 West," Caton's " Deer and Antelope of America," 

 and the contributions of Mr. Grinnell to the " Cen- 

 tury Book of Sports." Sometimes the difference 

 will be in mere matters of opinion, as, for instance, 

 in the belief as to the relative worth of the sport 

 furnished by the chase of the different creatures ; 

 but sometimes there is a direct conflict of fact. 

 Colonel Dodge, for instance, has put it upon record 

 that the wapiti is an exceedingly gentle animal, 

 less dangerous than a whitetail or blacktail buck 

 in a close encounter, and that the bulls hardly ever 

 fight among themselves. My own experience leads 

 me to traverse in the most emphatic manner every 

 one of these conclusions, and all hunters whom 

 I have met feel exactly as I do ; yet no one would 

 question for a moment Colonel Dodge's general 

 competency as an observer. In the same way Mr. 

 Grinnell has a high opinion of the deer's keenness 

 of sight. Judge Caton absolutely disagrees with 

 him, and my own experience tends to agree with 

 that of the Judge — at least to the extent of plac- 

 ing the deer's vision far below that of the prong- 

 buck and even that of the bighorn, and only on a 

 par with that of the wapiti. Yet Mr. Grinnell is 

 an unusually competent observer, whose opinion 



