MOOSE-DEER. 115 



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 ine- 

 quality 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, 

 &c., 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 corre- 

 sponds with that you saw ; and whether you think 

 still that the American moose and European elk are 

 the same creature. 



i 2 



