254 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
Its gross weight was 7041bs.; its length, from the tip of the 
nose to the hinder hoof, 11 feet; height at the withers, 5 feet 4 
inches —sixteen hands ; length of antlers, 4 feet 2 inches ; width 
of antlers from tip to tip, 2 feet 6 inches. 
It appears to me, however, that the great male Elk, exhibited 
under the name of Wapiti, in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, 
which was trained to draw a gig—the females being broke to 
the saddle—was yet larger than this animal. If I err not, it mea¬ 
sured nearly eighteen hands. 
I had the good fortune, while a boy, at Eton, to enjoy fre¬ 
quent opportunities of observing a small herd of these magnifi¬ 
cent Deer, in the paddocks of Lord Glenlyon, at Datchet. 
There were, if I remember rightly, two great Stags, and ten or 
a dozen Hinds, the latter being so tame as to eat anything, par¬ 
ticularly bread or apples, of which they were very fond, out of 
ihe hand. They were imported, as I understood, for the pur¬ 
pose of being naturalized in his lordship’s highland estates ; 
but whether that project was carried out, I cannot state. They 
were kept within very lofty and very strong enclosures; and I 
was told that, during the rutting season, the males were exceed-, 
ingly dangerous and savage, and that they would attack a man 
during their oestrum , without any provocation. This I by no 
means doubt, as the common Red Deer, and sometimes even 
the Fallow BucA, which are so much smaller and more timid, 
Will, at the same season, occasionally attack intruders on their 
haunts. 
In the description I have quoted above, of this animal, from 
Godman’s American Natural History , there is a long description 
of, and discussion concerning, the subocular sinuses, or longi¬ 
tudinal mucous slits beneath the eye in this animal. I have only 
to observe, in relation to this, that similar sinuses exist in almost 
all animals of this genus, and that it is universally believed that 
they do contain an apparatus to facilitate inspiration and ex¬ 
halation during moments of great exertion. That singularly 
ingenious and observant naturalist, the Rev. Gilbert White, of 
Selbome, whose work on the natural history of his own parish 
