THE PRESENT CONDITION OF 
ASIATIC WAPITI 
O WING chiefly to the persecution of native hunters, who 
are encouraged by the value put on the immature horns 
| by the Chinese, the fine deer of Central Asia are rapidly 
being exterminated. This is the real reason why good heads 
are so difficult to procure and why the pursuit of large 
deer in districts under Chinese influence is attended by 
so much disappointment. The introduction of modern rifles, the gradually 
increasing nomadic population, swollen not only by the increasing birth- 
rate but by the pressure of the Russian population who migrate to the 
Chinese side of the border, tend to drive the deer into the most remote 
and inaccessible retreats they can find. They are now rarely to be met 
with in the lower parts of the upper foothills. In the roughest of country, 
however, where the forest trees cling to the most precipitous and steep 
hillsides and where even the natives do not penetrate save for the sole 
purpose of hunting, there are still magnificent heads awaiting the patient 
and indefatigable hunter. During the daytime they lurk in the thickest 
and most inaccessible woods, from which they venture only as the shadows 
are gathering, to plunge once more into their recesses with the first gleams 
of the newly awakened day. 
A good deal of the forest country of the Altai and Upper Yenisei region 
is rather different in character to the Tian Shan. The wapiti, being 
scarcer than C. c. songaricus and spread over a vast area of almost 
continuous forest, are much harder to see and get at, though found at a 
lower elevation and on the flats as well as the hillsides. Their pursuit, in 
fact, resembles that of the North American wapiti. 
In many parts of Central Asia herds of tame wapiti are kept, usually by 
the chiefs, who make a very profitable business by selling the horns when 
in velvet. They are sawn off the unfortunate animal’s head before their 
growth is complete. The manner in which the owners perform this opera- 
tion is as follows : A small wooden enclosure is constructed in one corner 
of the paddock with a narrow passage sunk in the ground to a depth cor- 
responding to the animal’s height. The stag is driven into this, when a 
strong bar is fastened behind his neck, and he is firmly fastened down, 
only his head appearing above ground. After the horns have been sawn off 
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