MOOSE. 231 



In the Ottawa district moose calling, while practiced, is not apt to be successful, 

 and in the western mountains it is practically unknown, although a substitute is 

 found by making any unusual noise, such as produced by rapping a tree twice with 

 an axe in imitation of the double cough or short call of the ball, or by beating 

 alders with a stick to imitate the antlers threshing in the bushes. These contriv- 

 ances sometimes attract the attention of a bull who is close at hand, and bring him 

 out into the open. Calling in Maine, however, will always be a popular but 

 unsportsmanlike means of hunting the moose ; unsportsmanlike, because everything 

 depends upon the guide and nothing on the hunter, the only skill required of the 

 hunter being the ability to sit still on a very wet log or on very cold ground. 

 Whatever shooting is done is at close range and in the dusk. 



It is too much, however, to ask of the average sportsman, who escapes from his 

 desk for a couple of weeks in the woods, to show the skill and endurance necessary 

 to even follow the guide while the latter trails hour after hour through wet leaves 

 or soft snow, to say nothing of camping on the tracks. In fact, few men do it, and 

 it not infrequently happens that the actual killing is done by the guide. No true 

 sportsman, of course, allows his guide to carry a rifle ; but even then many moose 

 have been killed by the sportsman's rifle in the guide's hands. 



There is much dispute at present as to how far a moose is actually deceived by 

 the birch horn, and the treatment of the subject appears to depend a good deal 

 upon the locality in which the writer has hunted. Those who have hunted moose 

 in Canada and the west very properly attach little or no importance to calling, and 

 sometimes almost deny its possibility. Those, however, who have hunted in the 

 extreme east know little of any other method. 



All the members of the deer family, especially the moose, do very foolish things 

 during the rutting season, when the bulls frequently become quite reckless. This 

 may explain many of the stories of the peculiarities of this animal, and these stories, 

 while true, would relate to exceptional cases rather than the normal habits of the 

 animal. 



I have already referred to the relative size of the antlers of the moose from 

 different localities, and called attention to the inferiority of the heads from the 

 extreme east. Large heads have, however, come from this section, antl even now 

 one hears of several heads being taken annually in New Brunswick running to five 

 feet and a little over in spread. The test of the value of a moose head is the width 

 of its antlers between the extreme points. The antlers of a young individual show 

 but few points, but these are long and the webbing on the main blade is narrow. 

 The brow antlers usually show two points. As the moose grows larger the palma- 



