92 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 



browsing of trees, and by wading after water plants ; towards 

 which way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must 

 contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in 

 eating the nymphcza, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the 

 belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches : 

 the length of the legs before and behind consisted a great deal in 

 the tibia^ which was strangely long ; but, in my haste to get out 

 of the stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut 

 seemed to be about an inch long ; the colour was a grizzly black ; 

 the mane about four inches long ; the fore-hoofs were upright and 

 shapely, the hind flat and splayed. The spring before it was 

 only two years old, so that most probably it was not then come 

 to its growth. What a vast tall beast must a full grown stag be ! 

 I have been told some arrive at ten feet and a half! This poor 

 creature had at first a female companion of the same species, 

 which died the spring before. In the same garden was a young 

 stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped 

 that there might have been a breed ; but their inequality of height 

 must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous 

 kind. I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, 

 tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely ; but the putrefaction precluded 

 all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed to 

 enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In 

 the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had 

 no front antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the 

 edge. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make 

 a skeleton of her bones. 



Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with 

 that you saw ; and whether you think still that the American 

 moose and European elk are the same creature. 



I am, with the greatest esteem, etc. 



