THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
heavier shou of southwestern Tibet, sometimes five feet in height and 
carrying antlers of 55 inches. All these are much larger than the European 
red deer, yet all are exceeded by the great stags of the Thian-Shan range 
and eastward, which are said to stand six feet in height; they vary only 
in minor particulars from our wapiti. The color, habits, etc., of all the 
foregoing are essentially the same, and it is fair to suppose that the whole 
group — including our wapiti — is descended from a common ancestor, 
and is practically one species, perhaps originally of south-central Asia. 
None of all these stags is more stately than the American 
wapiti, — the “elk” of all western men, — which once abounded 
from the Adirondacks and southern Alleghanies to 
California and the borders of Alaska. Everywhere 
of old it was in plenty and easy to kill, and the pioneers swiftly 
destroyed it as civilization was pushed westward, until its 
mighty herds have vanished almost as completely as those of 
the bison. It seemed to make no particular choice of country, 
but thrived anywhere and everywhere, climbing the wooded 
heights of the Appalachians (where the very last one was killed 
near Ridgway, Pennsylvania, in 1869), loafing in the warm, well- 
watered valleys of the Mississippi basin, herding on the sun-baked 
plains, or scrambling up and down the roughest of western 
sierras. Equally broad in its appetite, those that browsed or 
ate mast and fruits in the eastern woods did no better than those 
which grazed on the bunch-grass plateaus from the Rio Grande 
to Peace River; and, undaunted by winter, would keep fat 
where other deer or cattle might starve. 
Wapiti. 
“Their principal food,’ says Perry,!” speaking of the West, ‘consists 
of grasses, mosses, and lichens. In times of continued storms they browse 
and keep fat for weeks on the boughs and bark of maple, alder, willow, and 
cottonwood trees; but, if the snow is not too deep, they paw the ground 
bare, in order to procure grass, lichens, and mosses. In the spring they 
follow the receding snows until they reach the higher mountain valleys. 
Here the grass, nipped weekly by frosts, is sweet and just to their taste. 
No sight could be more interesting to the hunter naturalist than to watch 
a herd of elk feeding in one of these secluded mountain valleys. If there 
be a stream running through the valley, bordered by a sand bar, the entire 
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