NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 69 



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 prob- 

 ably 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 a half ! This poor creature had at first a female com- 

 panion 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 farther curiosity. This ani- 

 mal, the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the ex- 

 treme 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. 



LETTER XXIX 



SELBORNE, May i2th, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, Last month we had such a series of cold tur- 

 bulent weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, 

 and hail, and tempest, that the regular migration or appear- 

 ance of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some did 

 not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after 

 their usual time ; as the black-cap and whitethroat ; and some 

 have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and largest 

 willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I have not seen it ; it is 

 indeed one of the latest, but should appear about this time : 

 and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife and war of the ele- 



