THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
windfalls and steep slopes on the remote chance of getting a shot once 
or twice in a season, it offers great attractions, for its beauty is undeniable. 
As the traveller goes north along the Pacific Slope the rainfall increases, 
and in consequence the vegetation becomes denser and the trees larger, 
until the hunter finds himself a mere struggling atom amidst a wilder- 
ness of giant ferns, salal, vine -maple and salmon -berry, whilst over all 
Douglas firs tower to the sky and exclude all sunlight, even on the brightest 
day. Hunting the wapiti in such places is both a toil and an education, 
and most men find the education too severe. Nature is there built on so 
gigantic a scale that man and his horse are mere atoms, struggling to see 
giant game which may be gazing at the hunter within twenty yards and 
yet remain invisible. But such hunting has its charm and he who has 
once picked out a good pair of wapiti horns from such a jungle has indeed 
achieved something. 
Formerly the wapiti was a day feeder but now he finds it more safe to 
lie hidden in some dense retreat where man never comes, and to feed at 
night or at dawn and sunset. Clever animals now learn to adapt them- 
selves to local conditions, for it is only by so doing that they can in most 
cases exist at all in the neighbourhood of civilization. The wapiti has learnt 
that it is now unsafe to lie in the sun and has become a shade lover, but he 
has not yet learnt the danger of sound. 
It is true that in some places the male only calls at night, but in the 
height of the rut the results of desire generally make him lift up his voice 
all day long to challenge his rivals, and this is often the cause of his 
destruction. 
The call of the wapiti bull is generally designated a whistle, but it is 
hardly that. It is really a high-pitched roar followed by several grunts, 
and can be heard at a distance of two to three miles, about the same 
distance as the roar of the red stag, and not so far as that of the lion, 
which can easily be distinguished in mountains at a distance of six miles. 
A wandering bull keeps on challenging as it advances and could without 
doubt be “called” by man as the Carpathian stalkers do the great red 
deer. In fact, Mr Buxton claims to have shot the best head by the aid of a 
penny whistle. The Santaeus Indians call wapiti to-day by means of a horn 
and are very successful in its use. 
Where wapiti are little disturbed they will call all day, and many hunters 
have enjoyed the view and the chorus of two large herds meeting. In 
former times the wapiti were often in full rut during the autumnal 
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