458 WILD ANIMALS. 



These tandsome antlers are often seen between four and five 

 feet in height. They are round, brownish-coloured, and have a 

 roughened surface except at the points, which are generally worn 

 quite smooth and white. They are usually shed in March or April. 



Unfortunately, the fashionable people of the United States 

 having discovered these horns are splendid adjuncts in the orna- 

 mentation of their halls and dining-rooms, a demand has been 

 created for them which is materially hastening the total dis- 

 appearance of the wapiti from many of the States where even 

 lately they used to be abundant. 



In summer the prevailing colour of the wapiti is a light 

 chestnut-red, which is darker under the throat and centre of the 

 belly, and there is a large whitish patch upon the hind-quarters. 

 The colour becomes greyish in the autumn, and continues so 

 through the winter. The ears are long and sharply pointed. 



The sexes differ considerably in size, the females being much the 

 smaller, and they do not possess any horns. The males, even 

 when encumbered with their huge appendages, make their way 

 through dense woods with ease and without slackening their usual 

 pace when alarmed, which is a long-measured trot, that carries them 

 over the ground at a rapid rate, for they throw their cumbrous 

 antlers back over the neck, till they nearly rest on the body, and 

 with their noses well up in the air, the branches are easily parted 

 asunder and the opening widened sufficiently for the passage of 

 the horns. 



The true habitat of the wapiti at the present day is west of 

 the Rocky Mountains. There its range extends from California 

 in the south to British America in the north, but it is stated to be 

 most numerous between the parallels of thirty-eight and fifty-two, 

 where formerly it was seen in herds that varied from fifty to five 

 thousand. It used to be abundant in the wooded portions of 

 Northern California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Dakotah, 

 British Columbia, and in the beautiful and extensive natural 

 parks of Colorado. Murphy states that being exceedingly grega- 

 rious in habit, where one is found there are sure to be others ; and 

 in many places they spread over the country like small herds of 

 domestic cattle. 



