Part 4

That elk and other large species of wild deer require a very extensive area in order not to deteriorate seems to be undoubted. The owner of Pilawin considers, indeed, that the number of head of these animals should be limited to one to every ten acres; while he is also of opinion that the maximum number of true deer in the preserve should not exceed three hundred head, and that the elk herd should be limited to one hundred.

In summer the main food-supply of the Pilawin elk apparently consists of the leaves of deciduous trees, especially aspen; but in winter this is replaced by the young shoots and twigs of birch, to obtain which the elk are constantly breaking down young saplings. The natural food-supply of the preserve is, however, largely augmented by patches of oats, buckwheat, lupin, potatoes, and Jerusalem artichokes, which are sown or planted in the clearings of the forest wherever the soil is suitable. The buckwheat and oats form summer fodder, while the lupin, potatoes, artichokes, acorns, and horse-chestnuts serve as a winter supply, the deer soon learning to scrape out the tubers from the ground with their hoofs.

Before leaving the subject of elk, reference may be made to a point in connection with the conformation of their antlers which struck me as the result of an examination of a large series of immature specimens in the Pilawin shooting-lodge.

It has long been recognised that the antlers of elk belong to what is known as the forked type, which occurs typically in such species as the roebuck, Père David’s deer, and the American white-tailed and mule deer. In this type, it may be well to remind the reader, there is no brow or bez tine, and the main beam of the antler divides at a longer or shorter distance above the burr into a single fork, of which the back-prong nearly always divides again, while in many cases both prongs are more or less divided, the greatest complexity occurring, however, very frequently in the hind one.

Hitherto elk-antlers have been regarded as altogether sui generis--mainly on account of the fact that they rise at right angles to the middle line of the skull. But a comparison of immature specimens in which the front prong of the main fork is double with adult antlers of the mule-deer will show that the two are practically identical in type. In both forms the front prong of the main fork is two-tined, while the hind prong carries three tines. The distinction between the two is, in fact, chiefly restricted to the difference in their orientation. In the case of those adult elk in which the antlers assume the characteristic shovel-like form, the resemblance becomes, of course, more or less completely lost.

If this view be correct, it will be advisable to modify the classification of the Cervidae adopted in Deer of All Lands, and to place the elk in the neighbourhood of the roebuck and the mule-deer, with which it agrees in the structure of the foot-skeleton. Moreover, it seems not improbable that the antlers of reindeer are really of the forked (in contradistinction to the brow-tined) type, and if this be so, that genus must also be placed near the roebuck--an arrangement which would accord with the one proposed many years ago by the late Sir Victor Brooke on the evidence afforded by the structure of the skeleton of the forelimb.

The present opportunity may likewise be taken of referring to two very fine pairs of elk-antlers obtained by Mr. Sokalski in Siberia. Despite the fact of their being palmated, these antlers (which I hope to have the opportunity of describing on a future occasion) may serve to confirm the distinctness of the East Siberian elk (Alces machlis bedfordiae), as they appear to differ in certain details of form from those of European elk.

Returning to the Pilawin deer, the next to be noticed are the American wapiti, which are flourishing fully as well as the elk; the number of fawns born during the year being nine.

Another feature indicating the satisfactory condition of the herd is the large size of the antlers grown by the big stags, of which there are now three; all being imported animals. Of the antlers shed by the two best stags of their year in 1907, the length along the outer curve is in one case forty-four and in the other forty-one inches; while in both instances the antlers are very symmetrically formed, carrying the usual six points a side.

In addition to the herd of American wapiti, Count Potocki owns a certain number of the Asiatic representatives of that group, generally known on the estate as “maral,” an extremely misleading designation, which ought to be restricted to the Persian or Eastern race of the red deer. Some of these Asiatic wapiti, which were obtained by purchase, belong apparently, as mentioned above, to the race commonly known as the Altai wapiti (Cervus canadensis asiaticus), but for which the name Sayansk wapiti is better. As regards these, beyond the fact that they are in the same excellent condition as the Pilawin deer generally, there is nothing calling for special mention.

Considerable interest attaches, however, to half-a-dozen wapiti (including two fine stags) obtained by one of the Count’s keepers from Krasnoyarsk, on the upper Yenisei, in about long. 93° E. and lat. 56° N.

Compared with the American and the other Asiatic wapiti in Pilawin, these Yenisei deer are darker-coloured in summer; this darkness being specially noticeable in immature hinds, which look almost slate-coloured in summer. The director of the park tells me that another difference is to be found in the more upward extension of the black borders of the light rump-patch, which, in fact, unite anteriorly to form a dorsal stripe. The fawns, too, retain their spots to a comparatively late age, whereas in the Thian Shan wapiti (C. c. songaricus), and possibly also in the Sayansk race, the spotting disappears early.

The antlers of the Yenisei wapiti, as represented by a pair in the Pilawin shooting-lodge and two other pairs in Mr. Sokalski’s house at Pisczow (Pischef), four miles away, are also distinctive. In all three pairs the fourth tine is comparatively small, and bends inward to a certain extent, so as not to lie exactly in the same plane as the two above. In one specimen, at least, the trez tine is absent.

While at Pilawin I was in great doubt to what race these Yenisei wapiti should be referred. Recently, however, Dr. P. Matschie, of the Berlin Museum, has published a paper on the wapiti of Central Asia, in which important information is given with regard to the characteristics of the antlers of the different races, and the localities where the type specimens were obtained. The race here termed C. c. asiaticus, which Dr. Matschie calls Cervus sibiricus, is stated to be typically from the Sayansk and Baikal Mountains. With this race is provisionally associated the wapiti from Krasnoyarsk, although it is added that the latter may be distinct. Now as the Sayansk C. c. asiaticus was stated by its describer Severtzow to be lighter in winter than the Thian Shan C. c. songaricus, it is highly improbable that it should be very much darker in summer. I therefore think that Dr. Matschie’s suggestion as to the distinctness of the Yenisei wapiti may very probably be well founded; and if this should prove to be the case when specimens are available for comparison, the race might well be named in honour of Count Potocki.

Sitzungsberichte Ges. naturfor. Freunde, Berlin, 1907, p. 222; see also an article by myself in the Field of 11th January 1908.

As I was the first to attempt to put right the confused nomenclature of Severtzow, I consider that the names I have adopted should stand.

As already mentioned, the red deer group is represented in the Pilawin preserve by the true Persian maral (Cervus elaphus maral) and by the maral of the Caucasus. From wapiti the hinds of these deer are distinguishable at a glance by their red coats and the larger amount of white and black on the sides of the rump-patch as well as by the longer tail. Unfortunately, I had no opportunity of seeing the Persian and Caucasian red deer side by side, but I am informed by Mr. Sokalski that they are practically indistinguishable, as, indeed, might be expected from geographical considerations.

In the large amount of black on the thighs they differ, according to the same informant, from Carpathian deer, which are more uniformly coloured, with the general tint decidedly darker.

Although this information is valuable so far as it goes, it unfortunately does not afford a definite clue as to which form of Carpathian deer is referred to (see letters in the Field for 1905, vol. cv., pp. 326 and 355). Mr. Sokalski has, however, a fine pair of Carpathian antlers characterised by their great massiveness, the absence of a bez tine, and the position of the trez tine midway between the brow tine and the curiously compressed and expanded crown. A pair of much younger antlers from the same locality likewise lacks the bez tine. An old antler of the same type from Galicia is figured on page 220 of my Great and Small Game Animals of Europe, N. and W. Asia, and N. America, and two antlers, one from Asia Minor and the other from the Crimea, described and figured by myself in the Zoological Society’s Proceedings for 1890 (p. 363, pl. xxx.), likewise present the same general characteristics, although the reduction of the tines is still greater. Mr. Sokalski also possesses a pair of antlers (one entire and the other imperfect) dug up a few years ago some fifty miles distant from Pilawin which can scarcely be referred to any other deer than the one under consideration, showing the same absence of the bez tine and a similar conformation of the crown.

Assuming all these antlers to belong to the same type--and it is difficult to come to any conclusion--we have evidence of a race of red deer ranging from Volhynia through the Carpathians to Asia Minor and the Crimea. So far as I can determine, this deer seems to agree with Mr. Hamilton Leigh’s “grey Carpathian stag” (Field, 1905, vol. cv., p. 355), a race characterised by the relatively small number of tines to the antlers. That (contrary to Mr. Leigh’s opinion) it is distinct from the maral of Persia and the Caucasus, I have little doubt, and if there were a good specimen in a public collection to take as a type, I should be prepared to suggest for this race the name Cervus elaphus carpathicus.

This, of course, leaves open the question as to the occurrence of other stags in the Carpathians.

Both the Persian and Caucasian red deer (maral) do exceedingly well in the Pilawin preserve, where they will doubtless before long form a big herd. At Antoniny the Count keeps, for hunting purposes, a small number of the so-called Polish deer from the Imperial preserves of Spala, in Poland, which, to my great regret, I had no opportunity of seeing. I trust, however, that he will send a head to the British Museum at no very distant date.

In regard to the other deer at Pilawin, it will suffice to state that two Dybowski fawns were born during the present year.

Continuing the chronicle of our own doings, it remains to mention that a couple of days before our departure Mr. Sokalski, at the Count’s suggestion, very kindly arranged a series of “beats” in order that we might be afforded the best possible opportunity of seeing the denizens of the preserve; and these formed one of the most interesting episodes of our visit.

Roedeer were, of course, put up in large numbers; and among these one buck was noticed with beautifully “pearled” antlers. We were fortunate in getting a splendid view of the best stag of the Yenisei wapiti, when the features referred to above were duly noted. Between two of the “drives” we came accidentally upon the biggest herd of American wapiti, with the finest stag in the park among them. When first seen they were feeding in an open glade, but as the morning was rapidly becoming hot, they almost immediately betook themselves to a shady part of the forest, where it was a charming sight to watch them lie down one after the other, with the master-stag (who had been calling loudly) in the midst. Soon afterwards three full-grown cow elk broke covert; advancing with a long swinging trot to the side where I was standing, and then halting to look around, as if undecided which course to take. There was something almost ghost-like in their appearance as they first loomed into view out of the thick covert, and then vanished.

The great event was, however, reserved for the afternoon, when, after the twin elk calves had been driven out of one piece of forest and some of the wapiti out of another, the six bison, with the four Europeans leading and the Americans in the rear, burst out into the open in a heavy, lumbering gallop, which literally shook the earth, close to where my daughter was standing. It was indeed a magnificent spectacle. The “hustling” which the animals underwent during the drives made them somewhat fierce, with the result that two of the watchers had to spend the night on a shooting-stage.

In regard to the Pilawin preserve as a whole, there seems little doubt that it will ultimately prove a complete success, and form a unique centre of interest to sportsmen and naturalists alike.

In addition to the species and races already represented, the Manchurian or Bedford’s wapiti (Cervus canadensis xanthopygus), the Amurland wapiti (C. c. luedorfi), which I have now good reason to regard as distinct from the former, the hangul or Kashmir stag (C. cashmirianus), Thorold’s deer (C. albirostris), and the shou or Sikhim deer (C. affinis) would probably do well in the preserve, if specimens could be procured. Sikas and wild fallow deer would of course thrive, but the owner has no fancy for either. If smaller deer are desired, the Himalayan musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus) and the Chinese water-deer (Hydrelaphus inermis), as well as the Tibetan and North Chinese tufted deer (Elaphodus cephalophus and E. michianus), might be recommended as interesting species likely to flourish; and, if specimens could be procured, the milou, or Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus), would almost certainly prove a success. Sheep, goats, and saigas would assuredly not do; but, despite the fact of their being mountain species, thar, serow, and takin (at present not procurable) might be worth a trial, as they are chiefly inhabitants of forests.