The Moose, Caribou, and Small Deer. 129 



show how erroneous is the statement made by the writer on moose in the 

 " Badminton Library," in a hypothetical account of moose calling, viz., 

 " that no Indian, however good a caller he might be, would dare to call 

 when a moose was near." I have seen Joe call a moose up when he was 

 not distant over 100 yards, and I have on two occasions done the same 

 myself. 



Last year I took the greatest exception to the assertion made in the 

 same work by Mr. Wooley, that moose eat grass and moss, which I denied 

 in toto, while in their wild state. This year I have spent sixty days in a 

 moose country, and, to make assurance doubly sure, took most careful 

 observations as regards the food of these animals, with the result that my 

 contention (which was backed by all the old moose hunters of Nova Scotia) 

 that moose, when wild, never eat grass or moss of any kind was confirmed. 

 At the same time, I can see how this mistake may have been made by 

 people of little knowledge of the woods, or the beasts therein. Moose and 

 musk rats frequent the same places in the summer, and the chief food of 

 the rat is the long coarse grass that grows often on the margin of lakes 

 and " dead waters," and also certain grassy weeds which they pull up to 

 get at the roots, of which they are fond. But moose never touch either of 

 the above, but they feed on a short aquatic plant, a few inches high, with a 

 spear shaped leaf, which grows in the same localities, and also on the water 

 lilies that have a red flower. 



I saw plenty of all these plants, and there was no evidence whatever of 

 moose ever having eaten the food which is confined to the musk rat. Any 

 old Indian will tell you they never eat grass or moss of any kind, which 

 entirely agrees with my observations made this autumn. Therefore any 

 statement to the contrary, by whomsoever made, whether past or in the 

 future, may be put down as unworthy of credence. 



So far General Dashwood. I have but to add that I have never 

 hunted moose in Eastern Canada, my experience being confined 

 to the Teton Basin, Jackson Hole, Northern Idaho, and Western 

 Montana, in none of which regions I found them as plentiful as I 

 expected. 



On the only occasion that I have tried to call moose 

 myself, the success of my call, though not of my rifle, was so 

 sudden that I ignominiously failed to bring to book the finest old 

 bull I have ever seen. I had, not without failures, at last succeeded 

 in manufacturing a call from some birch bark. This instrument I 



K 



