EXTERMINATED AND EXTINCT L'XCri.ATES. 139 



In the fall of 1853 Thoreau met an Indian, named Tahmunt Swa- 

 sen, in the forests near Moosehead Lake, Maine, who told him that 

 he had hunted Moose in the Adironclacks in New York, but that 

 they were more plentiful in the Maine woods.* 



Concerning the abundance of the Moose in the Adirondacks 

 subsequent to 1850, and its final disappearance from the region, I 

 have taken great pains to solicit information, both through private 

 inquiry and correspondence, and publicly through the medium of 

 Forest and Stream. The result of this investigation, in which I 

 have been greatly aided by Dr. Frederick H. Hoadley, is a deluge 

 of individual opinion and conflicting statement, together with 

 a meagre amount of positive information of a strictly reliable 

 character. 



Early in March, 1851, Mr. John Constable and his brother 

 Stevenson killed two Moose near the head of Independence Creek, 

 in Herkimer County. They killed their last Moose in March, 

 1856, west of Charley's Pond, in Hamilton County. Mr. Constable 

 writes me : " I never recur to those hunts with any satisfaction, 

 for much as I enjoyed at the time the tramp of more than a hun- 

 dred miles on snow-shoes, the camping in the snow, the intense 

 excitement of the search and pursuit, I must ever regret the part 

 I have taken unwittingly in exterminating this noble animal from 

 our forests. Were I younger, I would assist in reinstating them, 

 as the plan is perfectly feasible. In the early years of my still- 

 hunting, moose were quite numerous, and I rarely, if ever, failed to 

 see signs of their peelings or their tracks." 



In the year 1852 or 1853 the well-known guides, Alonzo Wood 

 and Ed. Arnold, killed two Moose and found a third dead, back of 

 Seventh Lake Mountain, in Hamilton County. 



Dr. J. H. Guild writes me from Rupert, Vermont, that a Moose 

 was killed at or near Mud Lake, in the Lower Saranac region, in 

 1856. 



* The Maine Woods. By Henry D. Thoreau, Boston, 1864, p. 141. 

 IO 



