The Moose 263 



that even the stilt-like legs of the moose can not 

 touch solid earth, it flounders and struggles for- 

 ward for a little time, and then sinks exhausted; 

 for a caribou is the only large animal which can 

 travel under such conditions. If there be a crust, 

 even though the snow is not remarkably deep, the 

 labor of the moose is vastly increased, as it breaks 

 through at every step, cutting its legs and exhaust- 

 ing itself. A caribou, on the other hand, will go 

 across a crust as well as a man on snowshoes, and 

 can never be caught by the latter, save under alto- 

 gether exceptional conditions of snowfall and thaw. 



"Crusting," or following game on snowshoes, is, 

 as the name implies, almost always practiced after 

 the middle of February, when thaws begin, and the 

 snow crusts on top. The conditions for success in 

 crusting moose and deer are very different. A crust 

 through which a moose would break at every stride 

 may carry a running deer without mishap ; while the 

 former animal would trot at ease through drifts in 

 which the latter would be caught as if in a quick- 

 sand. 



Hunting moose on snow, therefore, may be, and 

 very often is, mere butchery; and because of this 

 possibility or probability, and also because of the 

 fact that it is by far the most destructive kind of 

 hunting, and is carried on at a season when the 

 bulls are hornless and the cows heavy with calf, it 

 is rigidly and properly forbidden wherever there are 



