THE WAPITI 
Tulloch, already referred to, whilst Mr J. N. Leek, of Jackson’s Hole, 
has a grand specimen, very massive throughout, of eighteen tines. The 
record number for points is one of twenty -eight which belongs to Mr 
W. W. Hart. It is very short and massive. 
Innumerable instances of malformed heads are known amongst wapiti 
and need scarcely be referred to, and it is somewhat strange that 
“ hummels,” or hornless stags seem to be unknown amongst wapiti, 
as they are common in red deer and not very rare in reindeer. A female 
wapiti in the Jar din des Plantes grew one horn on the left side of her head 
for several years. 
It is a truism that the trash of one age is the treasure of the next. Thirty 
years ago no one could have thought of picking up a 60 -inch wapiti head, 
yet recently a good, but by no means perfect, example was sold for £250, 
and I saw one exposed for sale at Banff in 1908 for £150 and another in 
Salt Lake City for the same figure. When we consider that a King of 
Saxony once gave £1 ,000 for a fine red deer head, and that if exposed for sale 
to-day several of the Moritzburg red deer heads would probably command 
an equal price, it is not surprising that the finest of all horns should rise 
greatly in value and especially so as the race of giant wapiti is practically 
extinct. In the whole world there are probably only twenty -five first-class 
wapiti heads, and these, even if considered solely as specimens of natural 
history, are sure in the future to command exceptional prices. A small 
Charles II crystal or a Persian lustre plate, with childish designs upon it, 
now fetch anything from £2,000 to £4,000 so that it is not a dream to think 
that the day may not be far distant when we shall see a big Alaskan moose 
or old Wyoming wapiti head fetching a half or a quarter of these figures.* 
Besides the above first-class wapiti heads there are a few others in 
English collections that are almost of equal merit. The late Sir H. Seton- 
Karr possessed a grand twelve pointer of 59 J inches. The late Mr Frank 
Cooper had a very long head of sixteen points, 62 J inches long, but it has 
been sold and I do not know its present ownership. I have a very massive 
and long seventeen pointer of 62 inches, and the late Mr Otho Shaw 
possessed a beautiful specimen which, although only 55f inches long, was 
a head of high quality. Mr Ernest Farqhuar also had a fine 62 -inch head 
of fourteen points and in Windsor there is, at the entrance, a noble specimen 
of 59 1 inches owned by His Majesty the King. 
*1 saw a buffalo bull’s head in Banff that had recently been sold for £350, and a firm of London taxidermists told 
me that they had recently sold a very fine black>maned lion skin for £300. 
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