93 



THE WAPITI, OR CANADIAN STAG. 



and their speed being of no avail among the precipices, 

 many are shot. During most of the 

 year the flesh of the animal is dry 

 and tasteless ; but it possesses a 

 layer of fat, two or more inches thick, 

 which is greatly esteemed. Tins, 

 with the marrow, is pounded together 

 with the dried flesh, and makes 

 the best kind of pemmican — a food 

 of the greatest value to the hunter. 

 The cariboo lives in herds, sometimes 

 only of ten or twenty, but at others 

 consisting of thirty or more indi- 

 viduals. They range across the 

 whole width of the continent, being 

 found in great numbers to the west 

 of the Rocky Mountains, especially 

 at the northern end of British 

 Columbia. Although specifically 

 identical with the reindeer of Euro] >e, 

 it has never yet been trained, by 

 Indians or Esquimaux to carry their 

 goods or draw their sleighs, as in 

 Lapland and along the Arctic shores 



SllOOTISO THE CAKIHOu. 



of Asia. 



THE WAPITI, OH CANADIAN STAG. 



In the wilder parts of the Southern States of the Union, 



herds of the magnificent Canadian stag or wapiti — popularly 



called the elk — range amid the woods and over the prairies. 



Sometimes three or four hundred are found in one herd, always 



