PRAIRIE SPORTS. 
255 
is one of the most valuable and delightful hooks in the English 
language, states distinctly, either of a Hind—the female of the 
Red Deer—or of a cow Moose, which he had an opportunity 
of examining, but I think of the former,—I have not his book 
beside me for reference,—that, on an orange being offered to it, 
it smelt and snuffed at it alternately with the nostrils and the 
subocular sinus; and further, that he saw the same animal 
breathe through these sinuses for a considerable length of time, 
while drinking very greedily, with both nostrils completely 
submerged in the water. 
An observation of the habits, in the live animal, in such cases, 
is far more satisfactory than any examination by means of dis¬ 
section, as small ducts may easily be overlooked, or their nature 
mistaken. 
I understand that a large herd of these noble Deer are kept 
in a state of semi-domestication, by a gentleman who possesses 
a fine park and demesne in the neighborhood of Lexington, 
Kentucky; by his aid, this disputed matter might readily be 
investigated to demonstration. 
Neither the Elk, nor the Bison, are ordinarily hunted with 
hounds,—the latter, I believe, never. The former has been run 
to bay, with great success, by my friend, Mr. Sibley, of Men- 
dota, near St. Peters, on the Upper Mississippi; by aid of his 
celebrated Scottish Deer-hounds, Lion and Boston, on which fact 
I, in no small degree, found my opinion of the great sport that 
might be had, and the great addition that might be made to the 
spirit and excitement of Western hunting, by the introduction 
of this fine and gallant breed of dogs. 
The only other instance I know of the use of dogs with the 
Elk, was in the case of the great monster killed in Louisiana, as 
described above. 
There can be no doubt, however, that the use of dogs is per¬ 
fectly applicable, either to the Elk or the Bison. The latter 
animal is, we are assured, constantly assailed by Wolves, and 
no person who is at all acquainted with the wonderful instinct 
frequently displayed by the particular breed of dogs I have de- 
