ELK OR MOOSE 9 



The tail is very short. From birth to old age elk are uniformly 

 coloured ; the general tint of the hair, which is long, coarse, and some- 

 what brittle, varying from yellowish gray to deep blackish brown, and 

 being usually darker in American than in European examples. The 

 height varies from 5 feet 9 inches at the shoulder in Scandinavian 

 examples to as much as 6 feet 6 inches or, it is said, even 8 feet in 

 American specimens; the weight from 900 to 1400 Ibs., that of the 

 antlers being about 60 Ibs. 



The elk inhabits the forests and marshy districts of Scandinavia, 



Antlers of Common Elk. 



Eastern and Northern Russia, and the Altai, and in America (where 

 it is invariably known as moose) at the present time is found in 

 Alaska, Montana, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The Euro- 

 pean and American elk are so similar that they do not seem 

 worthy of being regarded as more than local races ; a third race 

 inhabits Alaska. Scandinavian elk not unfrequently show little or no 

 palmation of the antlers, and thus approximate to the East Siberian 

 form. 



An elk killed at Meswiez, Lithuania, by Count Scheibler, had the 

 following dimensions : 



