The Moose, Caribou, and Small Deer. 125 



wilds, a fate which could not well have befallen them had game 

 of any sort been plentiful. 



The Indians kill the moose, of course, in the easiest manner, 

 i.e., running them down on snow, but as this is not a method that 

 will appeal to non-professional sportsmen, I am tempted to reprint, 

 with the author's kind permission, a paper published three or four 

 years ago in the Field (Dec. 14, 1895), by General Richard 

 Dashwood, in which he describes moose-calling by a white caller 

 in Eastern Canada. This is very fine sport, for it not only tests 

 one's skill in the perfect imitation of a weirdly unfamiliar sound, 

 but also in the stealthy approach of a highly suspicious and shy 

 beast. Both require great experience in woodcraft, as those who 

 have ever tried to call a moose or even a red deer stag know full 

 well They will also realise how unjustified are the sneers of those 

 who declare that calling moose is nothing but potting at the shortest 

 range an animal blinded with passion, and whose venison, they 

 never fail to add, with more vehemence than regard for truth, is 

 totally unfit for human food. These cavillers generally point to the 

 Norwegian fashion of elk hunting as the acme of sport. To follow 

 a hound turned loose on the tracks of an elk till the latter turns at 

 bay, may require as great or even greater endurance, but it certainly 

 calls for no woodcraft, and has about it, I should have thought, none 

 of those supremely exciting moments that rejoice the heart of the 

 moose caller. 



But let the already mentioned master moose-caller relate his 

 experience which, though garnered in the Eastern districts of 

 Canada, will apply, I see no reason to doubt, in the main also to 

 the magnificent Pacific Slope representatives of the largest existing 

 specimens of the largest deer species in the world. 



General Dashwood writes : 



Some years had elapsed since I had heard the welcome grunt of a 

 bull moose in response to my call on a birch bark caller; I therefore 

 decided to have another turn in the Canadian forests in the rutting season, 

 hoping that by good luck I might possibly kill a moose whose antlers 

 should measure sft. across. Hitherto the largest moose I had shot 



