The Natural History of Selborne 1 1 5 



twelve inches ; so that, by straddling with one foot forward 

 and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with 

 the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the ears were vast and 

 lopping, and as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty 

 inches long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of 

 upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, 

 travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America. 

 It is very reasonable to suppose that this creature supports 

 itself chiefly by browsing of trees and by wading after water 

 plants ; towards which way of livelihood the length of legs 

 and great lip must contribute much. I have read somewhere 

 that it delights in eating the nymphcva, or water-lily. From 

 the fore-feet to the belly behind the shoulder it measured 

 three feet and eight inches : the length of the legs before and 

 behind consisted a great deal in the tibia, which was strangely 

 long ; but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to 

 measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an 

 inch long; the colour 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 probably 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 an half ! This 

 poor creature had at first a female companion 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 com- 

 merce of the amorous kind. I should have been glad to have 

 examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c., minutely ; but the 

 putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity. This animal, the 

 keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme 

 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. 



