THE PLANT-EATERS OE NORTH AMERICA. 679 



The deer, the antelopes, the sheep and goats, and the oxen, are 

 indeed very intimately connected with our comforts, and even with 

 our luxuries. And the North American representatives of these 

 useful animals deserve our careful attention and consideration ; for 

 they are more intimately connected with our welfare as a nation 

 than Ave yet fully appreciate or even understand. As all of our 

 domestic sheep and cattle have come from wild species, so in the 

 future we are to draw from the same sources some of the most 

 valuable grazing animals that are to stock the pastures and farm- 

 yards of the great farming-regions of this vast country. And we 

 have several kinds of these animals now wild on the plains and in the 

 forests that ought to be added to our domestic flocks and herds ; and 

 intelligent legislation should at once be inaugurated to secure this 

 result, which is intimately connected with the welfare of every person 

 -on this continent. 



Of deer there are in North America perhaps eight species : the 

 black-tailed deer of the Pacific coast ; the mule-deer, and the white- 

 tailed deer, of the Upper Missouri region and westward; the common 

 deer of the United States east of the Missouri ; the wapiti of the 

 northern and northwestern portions of the United States; one or two 

 species of reindeer ; and the moose of the northern portion of the con- 

 tinent. 



The moose [Alee Americamis, Fig. 1) is the largest member of 

 the deer family, equaling a good-sized horse in bulk, and having very 

 long legs ; and the male has very long and broad antlers, which in 

 some instances weigh as much as seventy pounds or more. Its muzzle 

 is exceedingly large and long, its ears long and hairy, its neck short 

 and thick, and the latter and the shoulders covered by a mane, and the 

 throat with long hair. The general color is a grayish brown, and the 

 hair is very coarse and brittle. In its movements the moose appears 

 quite awkward, but it is able to make very great speed, striding along 

 without apparent effort over fallen trees, fences, and other obstruc- 

 tions, which would be serious obstacles in the way of most, if not all, 

 of our domestic animals. The moose is still common in the unset- 

 tled parts of Maine and Northern New York, and thence northward 

 toward the frozen regions. In the winter it keeps mainly on the 

 wooded hill-sides ; and at this time many of them stay in what the 

 hunters term " yards." These are large tracts of ground over which 

 the snow has been trodden hard by the moose, the lighter and un- 

 trodden snow forming a wall around the yard. There are generally 

 in each of these yards one male and one female, and one or two 

 fawns. They feed upon the bushes and the saplings that may be 

 growing in the yard, and even peel off and eat all the bark from 

 the hard-wood trees up as high as they can reach. They are espe- 

 cially fond of the birch, the moose-wood, and the poplar. 



In the summer the moose frequents lakes and rivers. Here, by 



