252 The Wilderness Hunter 



select some patch of very dense cover, in a swamp 

 or by a lake, for this purpose. Their ways of life 

 of course vary with the nature of the country they 

 frequent. In the towering chains of the Rockies, 

 clad in sombre and unbroken evergreen forests, their 

 habits, in regard to winter and summer homes, and 

 choice of places of seclusion for cows with young 

 calves and bulls growing their antlers, differ from 

 those of their kind which haunt the comparatively 

 low, hilly, lake-studded country of Maine and Nova 

 Scotia, where the forests are of birch, beech, and 

 maple, mixed with pine, spruce, and hemlock. 



The moose being usually monogamous is never 

 found in great herds like the wapiti and "caribou. 

 Occasionally, a troop of fifteen or twenty individuals 

 may be seen, but this is rare ; more often it is found 

 singly, in pairs, or in family parties, composed of a 

 bull, a cow, and two or more calves and yearlings. 

 In yarding, two or more such families may unite to 

 spend the winter together in an unusually attractive 

 locality ; and during the rut many bulls are some- 

 times found together, perhaps following the trail of 

 a cow in single file. 



In the fall, winter, and early spring, and in cer- 

 tain places during summer, the moose feeds princi- 

 pally by browsing, though always willing to vary its 

 diet by mosses, lichens, fungi, and ferns. In the 

 Eastern forests, with their abundance of hardwood, 

 the birch, maple, and moose-wood form its favorite 



