124 Sport and Life. 



Mr. Tolhurst's and Mr. Hart's moose heads, I am surprised at the 

 measurements given, as I owned both of these heads at one time." 



Sheard's great trophy weighs, he tells me, as we see it in the 

 photograph, 8ilb. 1202., while Mr. Hart's specimen is reported to 

 me as weighing only 581b. It is likely that the live weight of the 

 larger of the two animals must have been nearer 3ooolb. than 

 2ooolb. It was killed in 1897 in the Yukon Basin. 



The two moose heads of Sir Peter Walker, which Ward in his 

 third edition states came from British Columbia, were not killed in 

 that country, as Sir Peter informs me in reply to an inquiry on my 

 part. In the same letter he tells me that the measurements of the 

 Norwegian elk head of his are wrong in Ward's book, as it is 

 bigger than the head belonging to Mr. Bate, which stands at the 

 top of the list. 



Leaving the subject of heads to touch briefly upon the chase of 

 the moose, one must premise that between moose hunting as 

 occasionally practised in a haphazard sort of way on the western 

 watershed of the Rockies, and the highly elaborated manner in 

 which that sport is pursued in the Eastern and Central provinces of 

 Canada, Manitoba included, there is a vast difference. It arises not 

 only from the fact that most of the Indians inhabiting the coast 

 districts of the North-west, where the moose is found, are more 

 fishermen than hunters, but also in consequence of the far more 

 impenetrable character of the forest in the latter countries, which 

 makes hunting very much more difficult. 



Of moose hunting in the Yukon District of Alaska as well as 

 in the numerous hunting grounds at the head of the great inlets, 

 such as Cook and Copper River, in which these big heads were 

 obtained, I know nothing by personal experience. I am told that 

 most of the moose are killed by Indians who go out meat hunting 

 to supply mining camps. As much as idol, per Ib. is paid for 

 venison where grub is scarce. This will probably lead, in all the 

 mining regions, to a speedy diminution of their number which 

 was never very great, to judge by the prevalence of scurvy, and 

 the frequency in past days of men starving to death in Alaskan 



