MAMMALIA. 253 
not think it at all improbable that his figure is that of the Cervus macrotis, which 
may hereafter prove to be an inhabitant of Upper Canada *. 
DESCRIPTION, 
Translated from the Hist. Naturelle des Mammiferes. 
The height of the wapiti at the shoulders is 43 feet, whilst that of the European stag is 
more than a foot less. They agree with each other in the form and proportions of their 
heads and limbs, but they differ in their respective tints of colour, that of the common stag 
being an uniform blackish-brown, whilst the wapiti has all its superior parts and the lower 
jaw of a pretty lively yellowish-brown, and a black mark extends from the angle of the mouth 
along the side of the lower jaw. here is a whitish circle round the eye of the European 
animal, but in the American one this circle is brown. 
The common stag has generally the first antlers turned upwards at their points, whilst in 
the wapiti these antlers are depressed in the direction of the facial line, and this character 
appears to be constant. ‘The neck in both species has a deeper tint of colour than the sides 
of the body; it is blackish-brown in the European stag, and mixed red and black in the 
American one, with coarse black hairs depending from it like a dewlap; and this colour, 
which changes to a brown mixed with white from the shoulders to the hips in the former, 
becomes a clear French-gray in the same parts of the latter. In both, the limbs have a 
deeper brown colour anteriorly than posteriorly; and both also have a very pale yellowish 
spot on the buttocks, bounded on the thighs by a black line, and the tail is likewise of this 
yellowish colour, but it is nearly seven inches long in the European stag, whilst it is 
scarcely two and a half in the Canadian one. The colours here mentioned are those which 
exist at the commencement of the autumn. 
The hair of the wapiti is of mean length on the shoulders, the back, the flanks, the thighs, 
and the under part of the head: the sides and the limbs are clothed with shorter hairs ; but 
they are very long on the sides of the head posteriorly and on the neck, particularly beneath, 
where they form, as has been mentioned above, a kind of dewlap; and there is on the 
posterior and outer aspect of the hind-leg a brush of tawny hair which surrounds a narrow, 
long, horny substance. The ears are white interiorly, and clothed with tufted hairs; ex- 
teriorly their colour is the same with that of the neighbouring parts. There is a naked 
triangular space round the lachrymal opening near the inner angle of the orbit. The hoofs of 
the wapiti are small. 
The wapiti, like the common stag, has very large lachrymal or suborbital openings +}, a 
muzzle, upper canine teeth, a soft tongue, coarse brittle hair, with a short wool beneath it, &c. 
* The following passage occurs in the History of Canada by Theodat. ‘‘ Les cerfs qu’ils appellent Sconoton, sont 
plus communs dans le pays des Neutres, qu’en toutes les autres contrées Huronnes, mais ils sont un peu plus petits 
que les nostres de deca, et tres legers de pied.” The stag that he here speaks of as being smaller than the common 
one, cannot be the Wapiti. He mentions the Elk and Rein-deer, under their names of Eslan and Caribou, and he 
refers probably to the Cervus Virginianus, by the appellation of Le Dain, which he says is an animal that he knew 
merely by report as an inhabitant of North America. The country of the Neutres seems to have been on the 
northern shores of Lake Huron near the River Nattawasaga. 
+ The Crees probably on this account term the wapiti ‘‘ stinking head.” 
