44 MAMMALIA. 



Up to her belly in water, cropping the tender lily-shoots. I shall 

 never forget the confusing impression the sight made upon me. In 

 my mind the Moose was always associated with imposing antlers, 

 such as I had seen in the pictured and stuffed specimens which had 

 all been of males ; but this uncouth creature had only immense ears, 

 which, though its head was below the humped shoulders, still 

 towered above them. I felt that it must be game because of the 

 complete wildness of the surroundings ; and yet it seemed so sug- 

 gestive of an exaggerated caricature of a jackass, that the idea 

 passed across m)- mind that there might be some clearing in the 

 neighborhood to which it belonged. I do not think my guide's 

 impressions were any more coherent than mine, for, although he 

 was a year or two past his majority and had been born and bred 

 in the woods, he had never seen a Moose. Meanwhile, profiting 

 by our confusion of ideas, Madame Moose had ' slewed around ' 

 in the water, with a view to making for the friendly shelter of the 

 woods, when your boat came within view of the creature and your 

 guide shouted ' Moose ! Moose !' which had the effect of clearing 

 up my ideas instantaneously. In the twinkling of an eye I had 

 lodged in front of her shoulder the contents of my gun — not 

 'bird shot,' as you suggest, but 'buck-cartridge' consisting of 

 over a dozen buck-shot enclosed in a wire frame, making a load 

 that ' carried ' very closely, and made a hole in her at that short 

 range of not over fifty yards, that would doubtless, after one of 

 those long runs for which these animals are famous when fatally 

 wounded, have ended her career. My shot lent impetus to her 

 progress toward shore. Then Burgin fired some shot (I think 

 No. 6) into her and she emerged from the water. The two guides, 

 first ours and then yours,[*] each put a rifle ball into her, and she 

 fell heavily to rise no more. She doubtless had a spouse some- 

 where in the neighborhood, for a party who had been after her for 



* Mr. Smith writes me: " The shot that brought her to the ground was fired by our guide, one 

 Palmer of Long Lake, son of old Palmer, the original settler on Long Lake." 



