The male wapiti at maturity is some 7 or 8 feet high at the shoulders, and lifts its wide-spreading antlers fully 11 feet from the ground. Its weight is from 800 to possibly 1,100 pounds. The colour is, in general, dark brown, with lighter shades on the thighs, and changing to black beneath the body; there are stripes of light brown on either side of the tail which join an area of similar colour beneath the hind legs; the colour varies, however, at different seasons and in different individuals. The head is small, well formed, and beautiful. The carriage of the animal and its bold, undaunted mien, when roaming its native mountains and glens, is all and more than poets ascribe to the stag of the Old World. Stringent laws are now on the statute-books for the protection of the wapiti, both in the United States and Canada, but the difficulties in the way of enforcing them in regions remote from civilization are great. The wapiti does not extend into the most forbidding wilds of the far north, where its safety as a species, as in the case of the moose, would be insured, and besides, congregates in bands, which facilitates its slaughter. Its range has been steadily decreasing since the coming of the white man, and particularly since the introduction of firearms among the Indians, and its extinction, outside of reservations and parks, is to be expected in the near future. _The Smaller Deer._--Besides the caribou, moose, and wapiti, there are half a dozen or more members of the deer family (_Cervidae_) represented in the fauna of North America. Of these the Virginia deer is best known, as its range embraces the most thickly settled portion of the continent between Maine and the Gulf States, and from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains. In spite of indiscriminate slaughter and poorly enforced game laws, this species has not only held its own, but in recent years has greatly increased in number in certain localities. To the west of the range of the Virginia deer and merging with it in part, in the Pacific mountain region occur the white-tailed, black-tailed mule, and sonora deer, and perhaps other species. The combined ranges of these several species embrace the larger part of the continent and extend from eastern Canada to the Pacific coast, and from southern Alaska to Panama.