DUELS OF WAPITI BULLS 
succession of grunts. The grunts can only be heard when close up. There 
can be no grander or more attractive chorus than the challenging of a num- 
ber of wapiti bulls when two great herds happen to approach one another 
under the moonlight or in the early dawn. The pealing notes echo through 
the dark valleys as if from silver bugles, and the air is filled with the wild 
music. Where little molested the wapiti challenge all day long. 
“They can be easiest hunted during the rut, the hunter placing them, 
and working up to them, by the sound alone. The bulls are excessively 
truculent and pugnacious. Each big one gathers a herd of cows about 
him and drives all possible rivals away from his immediate neighborhood, 
although sometimes spike bulls are allowed to remain with the herd. 
Where wapiti are very abundant, however, many of these herds may join 
together and become partially welded into a mass that may contain thou- 
sands of animals. 
“The bulls fight desperately with one another. The two combatants 
come together with a resounding clash of antlers, and then push and strain 
with their mouths open. The skin on their neck and shoulders is so thick 
and tough that the great prongs cannot get through or do more than inflict 
bruises. The only danger comes when the beaten party turns to flee. The 
victor pursues at full speed. Usually the beaten one gets off; but if by any 
accident he is caught where he cannot escape, he is very apt to be gored 
in the flank and killed. Mr. Baillie-Grohman ”? has given a very inter- 
esting description of one such fatal duel of which he was an eyewitness on 
a moonlight night in the mountains.” 
The accepted order of classification by structural likeness 
requires us to turn next to the moose, — our representative of 
the Old World elk, whose name should have followed it here 
instead of being misapplied to the wapiti; but unfortunately 
pioneers are rarely men of learning or discrimination in natural 
history, and the first suggestion that comes into their heads is 
likely to fasten itself on the local speech. By good luck, how- 
ever, the Indian name for our elk in New England, musu (in 
western Cree, mooswa), said to signify ‘wood eater,” was 
easily remembered, and so we have the excellent term “moose” 
for this greatest of the deer tribe. 
In the prehistoric period the elk or moose ranged as far south in Europe 
as the great mountain barrier, and in America to southern New York and 
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