78 FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ZOOLOGY, VOL. XI. 



method of the Indian and white hunters of the North is known as 

 "Moose calling", and consists of imitating the call of the cow Moose 

 during the rutting season. This may be crudely described as a pro- 

 longed Eeooo-yah, lasting four or five seconds. A cone, usually made 

 of birch bark, is used, resembling a small megaphone. The answer 

 of the male is a short, loud grunt, sometimes several in quick suc- 

 cession. While the bull will come from a considerable distance to the 

 call of what he considers to be a female of .his species, his sense of hear- 

 ing and of smell is so acute that the slightest indiscretion on the part 

 of the hunter will send him crashing away through the bushes, and 

 the hope of killing that particular bull may be abandoned. In lo- 

 calities where these animals are much hunted they are exceedingly 

 wary and difficult to approach. 



Captain Butler, writing of the Moose in the Peace River region, 

 says, "To hunt the moose requires years of study. Here is the little 

 game which his instinct teaches him. When the early morning has 

 come, he begins to think of lying down for the day. He has been 

 feeding on the gray and golden willow tops as he walked leisurely 

 along. His track is marked in the snow or soft clay; he carefully 

 retraces his footsteps, and breaking off suddenly to the leeward side, 

 lies down a gun shot from his feeding track. He knows he must get 

 the wind of any one following his trail. 



"In the morning Twa-poos, or the Three Thumbs, sets forth to 

 look for a moose. He hits the trail and follows it; every now and 

 again he examines the broken willow tops or the hoof marks. When 

 experience tells him that the moose has been feeding here during the 

 early night, Twa-poos quits the trail, bending away in a deep circle 

 to leeward; stealthily he returns to the trail, and as stealthily bends 

 away again from it. He makes as it were the semicircles of the letter 

 B, supposing the perpendicular line to indicate the trail of the moose. 

 At each return to it he examines attentively the willows, and judges 

 his proximity to the game. At last he is so near that he knows to an 

 absolute certainty that the moose is lying in a thicket a little distance 

 ahead. Now comes the moment of caution. He divests himself of 

 every article of clothing that might cause the slightest noise in the 

 forest, even his moccasins are laid aside, and then, on a pointed toe 

 which a ballet-girl might envy, he goes forward for the last stalk. 

 Every bush is now scrutinized; every thicket examined. See he stops 

 all at once! You who follow him look, and look in vain; you can see 

 nothing. He laughs to himself, and points to yon willow covert. 

 No, there is nothing there. He noiselessly cocks his gun. You look 

 again and again, but you see nothing. Then Twa-poos stretches out 



