THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
very short, is unworthy to be classed with a long symmetrical head formed 
on naturally beautiful lines and with a full complement of well -developed 
tines. To take an example from Scottish heads, with which stalkers at home 
will be more familiar than with New Zealand trophies, the much -vaunted 
Glenquoich twenty-pointer, or the seventeen-pointer killed at Killilan a few 
years ago, do not compare very favourably with the beautiful fourteen- 
pointer belonging to the Hon. Mrs Gordon Cumming, or that killed at 
Barrisdale in 1898. 
All good heads would measure well and the standard measurements are 
as follows : 
Length of horn , taken from the lower edge of the brow or coronet at the 
base of the horn, over its edge and along the outside curve of the horn to the 
highest tip. 
The beam or circumference in the red deer and wapiti groups is taken be- 
tween the bay and tray— that is, between the second and third points. 
Between the brow and tray where the bay is absent. 
The span is the greatest width between the main beams taken in a 
straight line. 
Other measurements are of value when taken in conjunction with these, 
but of little use alone. The outside span depends entirely on the angle at 
which the points diverge from the main beam. Measurements are fre- 
quently given “ round the coronet ” and “ below the brow point,” and 
though these may be of interest in exceptional cases, they are of no real 
value in estimating the quality of a head. It is quite possible to add an extra 
two or three inches to the length of horn by a careful manipulation of the 
tape and a little haste during the more delicate moments of the operation! 
It is also an easy matter to increase the span if the tape is carried from the 
inside of the top points to a spot somewhere about the inside of the tray! 
Such slips, however, are easily corrected and cannot be regarded as genuine 
measurements. It is, of course, useless to send measurements of a head to 
be recorded as “ length in straight line ” or “ from coronet to below 
tops.” Such figures are of no value in estimating the size of a head. A steel 
tape should always be used, as those made of other materials are unreliable. 
A steel tape is more difficult to manipulate, but it neither shrinks nor 
stretches. 
Many fine heads have been killed during the last seven years in Otago. 
Most of them come from the head of the Hunter Valley, which is hemmed 
in by high ranges, involving a climb of four or five thousand feet for the 
416 
