THE WAPITI AND THE LUHDORF'S DEBE. 461 



one day while enjoying their exercise by the baying of a pack of 

 mongrels, and no sooner did they hear the cry than they jumped 

 over a high bank— carriage, driver, and all— and landed in a deep 

 pool in a river. Making for the land with all possible haste, they 

 goon battered the vehicle into small pieces, while the unfortunate 

 owner had some difficulty in reaching shore. By oflFering a large 

 reward he recovered his runaways the next day, and being a man 

 of determination as well as resources, he concluded to get rid of 

 their penchant for bolting at once. With this purpose in view, 

 he put them into a field having very high fences, and kept hounds 

 yelling about it all day long. The elks were at first thoroughly 

 scared, but after running themselves nearly to death, and finding 

 no means of escape nor any result from their great alarm, they 

 gradually became indifferent, and settled down to feeding. This 

 experiment being repeated a few times, their idle fears were 

 allayed, and the owner suffered no more mishaps from their 

 impetuosity." 



The LuHDOEf's Deee (Gervus Luehdorfi). The accompanying 

 illustration is a photograph of this rare animal, and it will be seen 

 that it bears a close resemblance to the wapiti in appearance. In 

 fact, except from the character of the horns it would be almost 

 impossible to distinguish them. In the formation of the antlers, 

 however, it more nearly resembles the red deer (Gervus elaphus). 



The existence of a large stag in North-eastern Asia had been 

 known for some time, but the species to which it belonged had not 

 been very clearly established, for the horns were the only parts of 

 the animal which had ever reached Europe. The animal itself 

 had never even been seen in his native country by any naturahst 

 — or at least the fact had never been mentioned — consequently 

 nothing in any way was known respecting it. In the autumn of 

 1876, Herr Liihdorf, the German consul at Nikolaevsk, the seaport 

 town, on the Pacific coast of Siberia, having obtained two pairs of 

 these fine animals which had been brought down the river Amour 

 from the interior, where they had been obtained from some of the 

 nomads on the steppes, he shipped them to the Hamburg Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens. The director, Dr. Bolau, took special charge of 

 them, christened them with Liihdorf's name, and when his small 



