HORyS, PRONGS, AND ANTLERS 303 



sluiped (or as the Wise INIen say j^ahnate') ends, while 

 the Moose wears his wholly palmate, standing out wide 

 behind his ears like sounding boards, and sometimes 

 spreading six feet from tip to tip and having forty 

 points. The foot of the INIoose, too, is more loose and 

 shufHing, like tlie Caribou, though it does not form a 

 complete snow-shoe. The greatest point of difference 

 in these two is in their ears, the Caribou having very 

 small and the Moose very large ones. 



" Look again at these four Deer : two, the Elk and 

 American Deer, are always beautiful when at rest and 

 graceful in motion: while the other two, the ]\Ioose 

 and Caribou, are interesting and curious, but })onderous 

 and awkward. Your first thought regarding a ]\Ioose 

 must always be of wonder as to why his ears are so 

 long, how he came by his swollen, overhanging nose, 

 called the muffle, and the hairy 'bell' hanging from 

 his throat, for which no one has discovered the use ; 

 while the Caribou's legs seem uneven and you wonder 

 if liis antlers grew on his head, or whether they were 

 made of pieces picked up and glued together at random. 

 Again the four may be divided into pairs according to 

 the haunts they seek. The American Deer and the Elk 

 or Wapiti, love park land and woods with running 

 water and high shade ; the INIoose and Caribou seek 

 low ground, marshy thickets, and the neighborhood of 

 lakes and ponds, enduring cold better than their grace- 

 ful l)rothers. 



The iVIoose is the largest Deer in the world, and 

 quite as homely as he is large ; he stands six feet at 

 the shoulders, his head is long like a donkey's, and his 

 large ears are far down, back of the small eyes. His 



