MOOSE-DEER. Ill 



However, understanding that it was not stripped, I pro- 

 ceeded to examine this rare quadruped : I found it in an old 

 greenhouse, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in 

 a standing posture ; but, though it had been dead for so 

 short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench was 

 hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this 

 deer, and any other species that I have ever met with, con- 

 sisted in the strange length of its legs ; on which it was 

 tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the gralloe 

 order. I measured it as they do a horse, and found that, 

 from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four 

 inches; which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a 

 growth that few horses arrive at : but then, with this length 

 of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no more than twelve 

 inches ; so that, by straddling with one foot forward and the 

 other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the 

 greatest difficulty, between its legs : the ears were vast and 

 lopping, and as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty 

 inches long, and ass-like ; and had such a redundancy of 

 upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This 

 lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North 

 America.* It is very reasonable to suppose, that this crea- 

 ture supports itself chiefly by browsing off trees, and by 

 wading after water plants ; towards which way of livelihood 

 the length of legs and great lips must contribute much. I 

 have read somewhere, that it delights in eating the nymphcea, 

 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 



* The legs of the moose are so long, and the neck so short, that they are 

 unable to graze on level ground, like other animals, but are obliged to browse 

 on the tops of large plants, and the leaves of trees in the summer ; and in 

 winter they feed on the tops of willows, and the small branches of the birch- 

 tree. ED. 



