22 



MAMMALS OF AMERICA 



feet nine inches ; height at shoulder, exactly 

 seven feet ; girth, eight feet. The antlers were 

 somewhat small for so large an animal. Inci- 

 dentally it may be stated here that the largest 

 moose antlers known are in the Field Columbian 

 Museum, Chicago, which gives their dimensions 

 as : Widest spread, seventy-eight and one-half 

 inches ; palmation, greatest width, sixteen inches ; 

 burr, circumference fifteen inches; total number 

 of points, thirty-four. They were those of an 

 Alaska Moose from the Kenai Peninsula. An 



From the neck depends a pouchlike piece of hair- 

 covered skin, called the " bell." 



The Common Moose is an ungainly creature. 

 Its front legs are considerably longer than the 

 hind ones, rendering its gait extremely awk- 

 ward ; but their length, quite four feet, enable 

 it to stride with facility over fallen trees in the 

 forest which prove annoying obstacles to its pur- 

 suers. Its overhanging, square-ended nose, large 

 ears, and a hump on the shoulders, all add to its 

 ungainliness. Its ordinary gait is a long, springy 



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By permission uf the New Yi.>rk Z'M..logical Society 



cow MOOSE 



Neither sex of the Moose family can be called handsome, but of the two the female is the more gaunt and 



ungainly 



average specimen of the adult Common Moose 

 stands about five feet, nine inches at the 

 shoulders, and one over six feet would be a very 

 fine animal. The weight of the male often 

 exceeds looo pounds. The females are smaller 

 than the males. In both, the nostrils are large, 

 and the muzzle hairy and long. 



In color the Common Moose is lighter in 

 Maine and lower Canada than it is farther west. 

 The head, neck, and body are blackish-brown ; 

 the legs and under parts yellowish-gray, and in 

 some cases almost white. The hair is very coarse, 

 and is six inches long on the neck and shoulders. 



trot, but it will walk for long distances with 

 great strides in a straight line across the marsh, 

 splashing among the wet water plants, and 

 ploughing through boggy spaces with the indif- 

 ference begotten of vast strength and legs longer 

 than those of any other animal on this continent. 

 The Moose is a browsing animal, its legs being 

 too long and its neck too short to allow it to 

 graze ; yet in the early spring, when greedy for 

 the tender blades of young, green marsh grass, 

 the Moose will often shuffle down on its knees 

 to get at them, and it will occasionally perform 

 the same feat to get a mouthful of snow in 



