MOOSE CALLING. 149 



toss-up which would come first. At last one fellow came 

 out into the open, and stood defiantly awaiting the 

 approach of his rival, whom he could plainly hear ram- 

 paging through the neighbouring thicket. Had I been 

 able to control my impatience for a minute or two, I 

 should no doubt have seen a set-to between these gigantic 

 beasts ; but it is a hard matter for the sportsman to keep 

 his finger off the trigger of his rifle when a beast some seven- 

 teen or eighteen hands high, and with a pair of antlers 

 five feet in the stretch, lying back on his withers, stands 

 broadside on within fifty yards. The temptation was too 

 much for me, and as I fired I heard the horns of his 

 would-be antagonist crashing through the alder bushes 

 not fifty yards off. After getting his death wound he 

 never moved whilst one might count thirty, and then, 

 lurching heavily once or twice like a boat in a sea, he 

 came down with a crash, stone dead. On another occasion 

 a wounded bull charged me repeatedly, in a most de- 

 termined but rather blundering way. Fortunately I was 

 in the woods, and had no difficulty in avoiding his attacks 

 by dodging round the trees. Had it been in the open, I 

 might not have fared so well. 



The call of a cow, which the hunter imitates through a 

 horn or trumpet made of birch bark, is a series of grunts 

 or groans, winding up with a prolonged, dismal, and 

 rather unearthly roar, which in calm weather can be 

 heard distinctly at a distance of two or three miles. One 

 peculiarity of the moose is that for a great distance he 

 can go straight to the point from whence the call pro- 

 ceeds, even after a considerable time has elapsed, and 

 without a repetition of the sound to guide him. Thus 



