244 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN TEE FAR WEST. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE MOOSE. 



The Moose. — Its Range in the West. — Its Form, Haunts, and Habits. — 

 The Rutting Season. — Cries of the Animal. — How Males are lured 

 within Rifle Range. — Calling as an Art. — How to make a Call. — The 

 best Callers. — Young Bulls easily inveigled. — The Best Time for Call- 

 ing. — The Moose as a Browser. — Difficulties in stalking it. — Acuteness 

 of its Nose and Ears. — How Experienced Hunters quarter the Ground. 

 — Its Haunts in Summer. — Hunting it in Winter. — Dogs and Snow- 

 shoes. — The European and American species. — How the Latter can be 

 Domesticated. — Hide-hunters. — A Moose -hunt, and its Result. — A 

 Charge. — Lost in the Forest. — Trying to find Camp. — A Welcome 

 Moose-call. — Rescued. — A Hunt on Snow-shoes. — Episodes. — Number 

 of Moose killed. — Difference in Size and Habits between the Eastern 

 and Western Species. — Large Antlers. — Moose-hunting as an Art. 



The moose {Alee americanus), which is fast disappear- 

 ing from its haunts in the Atlantic States and Canada, is 

 still common beyond the Rocky Mountains, being found 

 from British America to the mountains of Central Idaho, 

 while it is very abundant in Alaska. It does not, in all 

 probability, move farther south than the forty-eighth paral- 

 lel of latitude, as I never heard of it in Oregon, and but 

 very little in Washington Territory. The Lumni Indians, 

 in the north-western portion of this Territory, say that it 

 was formerly quite common in their section of country, 

 but that it has moved farther into the recesses of the for- 

 ests and higher up on the mountains since the advent of 

 the white man. That they do not confound it with the 

 wapiti, or elk, is evident from the fact that they have a dif- 

 ferent name for it, and readily recognize its horns as por- 

 trayed in works of natural history. I have heard that it 

 is found extensively in the Coeur d'Alene and Kootenay 

 Mountains, in Idaho, and is largely hunted by the Koote- 

 nay or Long-knife Indians — a wild tribe who inhabit these 



