70 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 an 

 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 

 further 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. 



