deep guttural note." At this time, even 

 when kept in confinement, the male is 

 easily irritated and may attack people. 

 Old males will frequently wage persistent 

 and long battles^for supremacy. The 

 antlers are used as the weapons in these 

 duels, and cases have been recorded 

 where these have become so firmly inter- 

 locked that they could not be separated, 

 resulting in the death of both individuals. 



When food is plentiful and the Wapiti 

 is not constantly disturbed, it will re- 

 main in the same region, only straying 

 away during the mating season. They 

 assemble in herds of a greater or less 

 number of individuals. The females 

 and fawns usually remain together ; the 



older females without fawns form another 

 herd and the old males, as a rule, lead 

 a more or less solitary life, except during 

 the mating season. 



The Wapiti is more common in low 

 grounds in the vicinity of marshes and 

 well wooded tracts, where it feeds on 

 grasses and the young branches and 

 leaves of the willows and allied trees. 



The Wapiti is graceful and proud in 

 its bearing and very light in its move- 

 ments. This is especially true of the 

 male, which may be described as an ani- 

 mal of "noble carriage. " When mov- 

 ing from place to place it walks rapidly 

 and runs with remarkable swiftness. 



A FRIENDLY FIELD MOUSE. 



Many stories have been told in the past, 

 tending to show that wild animals when 

 in trouble will display surprising confi- 

 dence in man, in fact will often seek his 

 assistance when sore beset. The writer, 

 when a boy upon a farm in Minnesota, 

 had an experience with a field mouse 

 which prettily illustrates this trait in wild 

 creatures. It was stacking time and the 

 men were all busy in the fields lifting the 

 shocks of cured grain and stacking them 

 in hive-shaped stacks in the barnyard. 

 The writer, a barefoot boy at that time, 

 had been following the wagons in the 

 field all the morning in a vain endeavor to 

 capture some field mice to take home as 

 pets. He had seen a number of the drab 

 little creatures with their short tails, but 

 had failed to lay his hands upon any of 

 them, owing to the thick stubble and the 

 nimbleness of the mice. At last, as a par- 

 ticularly large shock was lifted, a broken 

 nest was disclosed and the youthful 

 mouser was put upon the qui vive by the 

 slender squeaks of seven or eight hairless 



little beings that were so young as not to 

 have opened their eyes as yet. The moth- 

 er disappeared with a whisk, whereupon 

 the young hunter sat down in a critical 

 attitude beside the nest and began to ex- 

 amine his find. He had already put one 

 of the young mice in his trousers pocket 

 when the mother reappeared out of the 

 stubble beside the nest. The boy held his 

 breath and awaited developments. Much 

 to his surprise, the mouse-mother, after 

 carefully examining the ruined nest, en- 

 tered his pocket, which, as he sat, opened 

 very near to the nest. She seemed to come 

 to the conclusion very quickly that her 

 lost little one had found a very good 

 home, and in about two minutes had 

 transferred the remainder of her offspring 

 from the nest to the pocket, carrying 

 them one at a time in her mouth. 



The writer has had many varied expe- 

 riences with wild animals, but none of 

 them impressed him so strongly as the 

 episode of the mouse-mother in the 

 wheat stubble. J. Clyde Hayden. 



219 



