"In summer the hair of the moose is short and glossy; in winter long and very coarse, attached to the skin by a very fine pellicle, and rendered warm by a thick coat of short fine wool. The hair on the face grows upwards from the nose, gradually turning, and ending in a thick bushy tuft under the jaws. The young males have generally a long pendulous gland growing from the centre of this tuft, and covered with long hair, sometimes a foot long. Their flesh is very coarse, though some people prefer it to any other; it is apt to produce dysentery with persons unaccustomed to use it. The nose, or moufle, as it is generally called, if properly cooked, is a very delicious morsel. The tongue is also considered a delicacy. The last entrail (called by hunters the bum-gut) is covered with round lumps of suety fat, which they strip off and devour as it comes warm from the animal, without any cooking; also, the marrow, warm from the shanks, is spread upon bread and eaten as butter. I must confess that the disgusting luxury was rather too rich to tempt me to partake of it. I have seen some officers of the Guards. enjoying it well enough.

"The seasons for hunting the moose are March and September. In March, when the sun melts the snow on the surface, and the nights are frosty, a crust is formed which greatly impedes the animal's progress, as it has to lift its feet perpendicularly out of the snow or cut the skin from its shanks by coming in contact with the icy surface.

"It would be useless to follow them when the snow is soft, as their great strength enables them to wade through it without any difficulty.. If you wish to see them previous to shooting them from their yard, it is necessary to make your approach to leeward, as their sense of smelling and hearing is very acute; the crack of a breaking twig will start: them, and they are seldom seen any more until fatigue compels them to knock up; and thus ends the chase. Their pace is a long trot. It is necessary to have two or three small curs, (the smaller the better,) as they can run upon the snow without breaking through the crust; their principal use is to annoy the moose by barking and snapping at their heels, without taking hold. A large dog that would take hold would be instantly trampled to death. The males generally stop, if pressed, and fight with the dogs. This enables the hunter to come up unobserved and despatch them. Sometimes they are killed after a run of an hour; at other times you may run them all day, and have to camp at night without a morsel of provisions or a cloak, as every thing is let go the moment the moose starts, and you are too much fatigued to retrace your steps to procure them. Your only resource is to make a huge fire, and comfort. yourself upon the prospect of plenty of moose-meat next day. soon as the animal finds he is no longer pursued, he lies down; and the next morning he will be too stiff to travel far. Generally, a male, female, and two fawns, are found in a 'yard.'

As

"When obliged to run, the male goes first, breaking the way, the others treading exactly in his tracks; so that you would think cnly one had passed. Often they run through other yards,' when all join together, still going in Indian file. Sometimes, when meeting with an obstacle they cannot overcome, they are obliged to branch off for some distance and again unite. By connecting the different tracks at the place of separation, you may judge pretty correctly of their number. I have seen. twelve together, and killed seven of them."

A method of hunting this animal is as follows: In September, two persons, in a bark canoe, paddle by moonlight along the shore of the lake, imitating the call of the male, which, jealous of the approach of a stranger, answers to the call and rushes down to the combat. The canoe is paddled by the man in the stern with the most death-like silence, gliding along, under the shade of the forest, until within short shooting distance, as it is difficult taking a sure aim by moonlight. The man in the bow generally fires, when, if the animal is only wounded, he makes immediately for the shore, dashing the water about him into foam. He is tracked by his blood the next day to where he has lain down, and where he is generally found unable to proceed any further. Many are killed in this manner in the neighborhood of Moose river every season.

Hunters sometimes find out the beaten tracks of the moose, (generally leading to the water,) and bend down a sapling and attach to it a strong, hempen noose, hanging across the path; while the tree is confined by another cord and a sort of trigger. Should the animal's head pass through the dangling snare, he generally makes a struggle, which disengages the trigger; and the tree, springing upwards, lifts the beast off its legs and strangles it. The palmated horns of the moose are so ponderous, that sixty pounds is a very common weight. To bear this stupendous head-dress, nature has endowed the moose with a short and strong neck, which takes from it much of that elegance and symmetry of proportion so generally predominant in deer. It is, nevertheless, a very energetic and imposing animal. It is said neither to gallop nor leap-acquirements rendered unnecessary from the disproportionate height of its legs, by which it is enabled, as it trots along, to step with the greatest ease over a fallen tree, a gate, or a split fence. During its progress, it holds the nose up, so as to lay the horns horizontally back, which attitude exposes it to trip by treading on its fore-heels. Its speed is very great, and it will frequently lead an Indian over a tract of country exceeding three hundred miles before it is secured. This animal is said to possess, in an eminent degree, the qualities of the horse and the ox, combining the fleetness of the former with the strength. of the latter. None of the deer are more easily domesticated, the reindeer not even excepted. In Canada they have frequently been trained to draw sleds or carts, although, during the rutting season, they could not be so employed. A gentleman near Houlton, Maine, some years since trained a pair to draw a sleigh, which they did with great steadiness and swiftness; subject, however, to the inconvenience that, when they once took it into their heads to cool themselves in a neighboring river or lake, no efforts could prevent them. The European species or variety, whichever it be, has also been converted to the uses of man. In former times, when it was found in Scandinavia in great abundance, it was used for the purpose of conveying couriers, and has been known to accomplish a distance of two hundred and thirty-four miles in a day, attached to a sleigh. Its speed is even greater than that of the reindeer, which can rarely exceed two hundred miles in a day, although a case is related where, in consequence of a sudden invasion of the Swedish territory by the Norwegians, an officer was despatched from the frontiers of Norway, with a reindeer and sleigh, to Stockholm with the news. This was conveyed with such speed that the distance of eight hundred miles was accomplished in forty-eight hours, the animal falling dead at the expiration of the time. To this anecdote we have already alluded under the

head of the reindeer. A Swedish writer recommends the employment of the moose (or elk of Europe) in time of war, asserting that a single squadron, with its riders, could put to immediate flight a whole regiment of cavalry; or, employed as flying artillery, would, from the extraordinary rapidity of their movements, insure the victory. Indeed, at the time when attention was especially directed towards the domestication of this animal, their use was forbidden, under the heaviest penalties, on account of their having been employed, from their extraordinary speed, to effect the escape of criminals. The European elk, at one time numerous throughout Norway and Sweden, is now confined to particular districts; at the present time it is not found farther north than 64° in Scandinavia. Owing to the danger of total extinction, a law has recently been passed forbidding its destruction in Sweden for ten years from 1857, under severe penalties. The elk is reported to attain not unfrequently a height of seven or eight feet. One individual, only two years old, measured nearly nineteen hands, or more than six feet, in height. Another elk, not fully grown, weighed nearly one thousand pounds. The period of gestation is about nine months, the female producing from one to three young in May. The horns are shed about February.

The skin of this animal has been put to various uses. In Sweden a regiment was clothed with waistcoats made of this material, which was so thick as to resist a musket-ball. When made into breeches, a pair of them, among the peasantry of former days, went as a legacy through several generations.

In respect to the domestication of the moose, the remarks already made in reference to the effect of castration in increasing the size and docility, as well as regulating the horns, of the animal will not be forgotten.

ELAPHUS CANADENSIS, Ray. American Elk.

The elk of the United States ranks as the second in size of the numerous species belonging to the North American continent. Strikingly similar, in general appearance, to the stag of Europe, (Elaphus Europaus,) by the early settlers it was supposed to be the same species; its superior size being a necessary consequence of the more extended range furnished by the boundless forests and prairies of the New World. Hence, the term "stag" occurs with great frequency in the writings of the earliest authors; and, indeed, it is within but a comparatively recent period that the diagnoses of the two species have been accurately settled. For our present purpose it will be sufficient merely to state that the American elk, or wapiti, is at least a foot higher at the shoulders than the common stag, and has all the upper parts and jaw yellowish-brown; the latter being of a uniform blackish-brown, with a black mark on the angle of the mouth, wanting in the elk. The white circle around the eye of the European species is replaced in the American by brown. The proportions of the antlers, also, are different, as well as other features.

An instance of the inconvenience of applying the same name to dif fferent objects is well seen in the case of the subject of our present article. The term elk has been given to a European species very closely allied, if not identical, with the moose of the United States, (Alces

Americanus.) Hence, it becomes necessary, in meeting with the word elk, to know whether the writer or the animal be American or European. The American elk, sometimes called wapiti, was once extensively distributed throughout the present limits of the United States. At the present time, in the eastern parts, it is only found in a few counties of Pennsylvania-as Elk and Clearfield-where, indeed, their numbers are decreasing day by day. Occasionally one has been seen in the mooserange of the Adirondacks, in Lewis, Hamilton, and some other counties of northern New York. This has not been the case, however, for more than twenty years. A few are known to exist in the Alleghanies of western Virginia. We next find them in the southern part of Michigan; but it is only as we proceed further west that they present themselves in numbers. In Minnesota they are found in large herds, and in still larger on the Upper Missouri, Yellowstone, and other streams. Of the vast numbers in these regions, some idea may be formed from the piles of shed horns which the Indians are in the habit of heaping up in the prairies. One of these, in Elk Horn prairie, about eighty miles above Fort Union, has for many years been a conspicuous land-mark to the traveller, showing like a white monument many miles off. This, which was torn down in the summer of 1850, was about fifteen feet high, and twenty five in circumference; others still larger are found on the Upper Yellowstone.

The northern range of the elk is given by Sir John Richardson, as the 56th or 57th parallel, and in high latitudes its eastern limit is found in a line drawn from the south end of Lake Winipeg to the Saskatchewan, (lon. 103°,) and thence to Elk river, in the 111th degree. West of this line it extends to the Pacific, and south to Texas, New Mexico, and California. This range is very extensive-much greater than that possessed by any other species; and it is not at all improbable that a careful comparison of specimens will indicate more than one species. Specimens of skulls and horns in the Smithsonian Institution, from several extreme points, vary considerably. One in particular, from the region in British America north of Fort Union, is confidently asserted by the hunters to belong to a different species, known as the little elk, considerably smaller than the more common one.

It may well be expected that in the western plains the elk should attain to its maximum size. Individuals nearly the size of a horse are not unfrequent. In California and New Mexico antlers, it is said, have been found so large as, when resting on their tips, to permit a tall man to walk erect between them.

The elk is an animal easily kept in parks, where we have frequently seen them. They are to be found on many estates in Virginia-among others, on that of Colonel Tuley, in Clarke county. Their size and strength render them dangerous in the rutting season, at which period they are quite unmanageable.

This species is easily domesticated, and can readily be trained to draw in single or double harness. It is, therefore, next to the caribou and moose, the one to which we are most entitled to look for an increase of our stock of domestic animals. The great size of the horns of the male, and his fierceness and uncontrollability during the rutting season, are certainly obstacles in the way of reducing the elk to the rank of a servant to man; nevertheless they are not insurmountable, after all. No

quadruped is more to be dreaded than a wild or irritated buck; yet, by the simple operation of castrating, his temper is subdued, his size greatly increased, and his whole nature entirely changed. The flesh, too, from being unpalatable, and, indeed, almost uneatable, is converted into the crowning dish of the epicure. There is no reason to doubt that the same results will follow in the case of the elk. The inconvenience of the large horns can also be overcome by the same operation; since we have already stated that, if performed when the horns are shed, these will never be reproduced. If the social instinct be a condition to the complete domestication of an animal, no deer possesses it in a higher degree than the elk, which is sometimes found in herds of thousands.

The antlers of the buck elk drop in February or March, and are reproduced in the course of four or five months. It is difficult to believe that the noble antlers of a full-grown individual actually fall off every year, and are reproduced in a short four months; but such is the fact. The males of all the deer, whatever their size, lose their horns annually. The females bring forth in May or June.

CERVUS MACROTIS, Say. Mule Deer.

The black-tail deer is the largest of the true deer, of the restricted genus Cervus found in North America. It derives its scientific name, macrotis, from the great length of the ears, resembling those of the mule, whence it is sometimes called the mule deer. Its more common appellation, black tail, is owing to the black tip to the tail. In size it is considerably larger than the common Virginia deer.

This species is limited in its range by the Missouri river, east of which it is seldom seen. In ascending this stream it is found on Vermillion river, increasing in number northwards to the Saskatchawan. In the Black hills it is very abundant, as well as in most of the Rocky mountain ranges, even as far south as Texas. It is, however, confined to the eastern side of the mountains, being replaced towards the Pacific by the closely allied Cervus Richardsonii.

CERVUS LEWISII, Peale. Black-Tail Deer.

As already remarked, this species, on the western slopes of the Rocky mountains, replaces the one last named on the eastern. Larger than Cervus Virginianus, it is smaller than C. macrotis. The hair is finer than in C. macrotis, which species has it coarse and spongy, like that of the elk. It has no glandular opening on the outer surface of the hindleg below the knee-joint; while in C. macrotis this opening is as much as six inches in length. The horns are stouter and more covered with sharp points, and the brow antler is wanting. The tail is of the same length as in the Virginia deer, but is jet black above and on the sides, and white beneath. It never runs at full speed, but, like the mule deer, bounds with every foot from the ground at the same time. The flesh is said to be inferior in flavor to that of any other species.

The Pacific black-tail deer is found all along the coast, being exceedingly abundant in California and Oregon.