MOOSE. 2 2g 



antlers, as compared with the Ontario moose. Western moose have adapted them- 

 selves to mountain living in striking contrast to their brethren in the East, and are 

 considered by the western hunters to be typical rock animals, in places nearly as 

 much so as the big horn. 



North of the Canadian boundary we may start with the curious fact that the 

 great peninsula of Labrador, which seems to be in every way a suitable locality for 

 moose, has always been devoid of them. There is no record of their ever appearing 

 east of the Saguenay River, and this fact accounts for their absence from Newfound- 

 land, which received its fauna from the nortli by way of Labrador, and not from the 

 west by way of Cape Breton. Newfoundland is well adapted as a moose range, and 

 a number of individuals have been turned loose there, without as yet any apparent 

 results. Systematic and persistent effort, however, in this direction should be 

 successful. 



South of the St. Lawrence River, the peninsula of Gaspe was once a favorite 

 range, but they were nearly killed off in the early '60s by hide hunters. Further 

 west they are found in small numbers on both banks of the St. Lawrence well back 

 from the settlements, until on the north shore we reach Trois Rivieres, west of 

 which they become more numerous. 



The upper Ottawa and Lake Kippewa region has been a grand moose country in 

 recent years, so far as the size of the antlers is concerned, but the moose are now 

 rapidly pushing further north. Twenty-five years ago they first appeared, coming 

 from the south, probably from the Muskoka Lake country, into which they may 

 have migrated in turn from the Adirondacks. This northern movement has been 

 going on steadily within the personal knowledge of the writer. Ten years ago the 

 moose were practically all south and east of Lake Kippewa, now they are nearly all 

 north of that lake, and extend nearly, if not quite, to the shores of James Bay. 

 How far to the west of that they have spread we do not know ; but it is probable 

 that they are reoccupying the range lying between the shores of Lake Superior and 

 James Bay, which was long abandoned. Northwest of Lake Superior, throughout 

 Manitoba and far to the north, is a region heavily wooded and studded with lakes 

 constituting a practically untouched moose country. 



No moose, of course, are found in the plains country of Assiniboia, Saskatche- 

 wan, and Alberta; but east in Keewatin, and to the north in Athabaska, Northern 

 British Columbia, and northwest into Alaska we have an unbroken range, in which 

 moose are scattered everywhere. They are increasing wherever their ancient foe, 

 the Indian, is dying off, and where white hunters do not pursue too persistently. 

 In this entire region, from the Ottawa in the east to the Kcnai peninsula in the far 



