DAYS IN THE WOODS 255 



blanket, your coat, a little tea, sugar, and bread, a 

 kettle, and two tin pannikins. The hunter has 

 enough to do to carry himself, his rifle, ammunition, 

 a small axe, hunting-knife, and a pair of field- 

 glasses. Thus accoutred, clad in a flannel shirt and 

 home-spun continuations, moose-hide moccasins 

 on your feet, your trousers tucked into woollen 

 socks, your arms unencumbered with that useless 

 article, a coat, you plunge into the woods, the sun 

 your guide in clear weather, your pocket-compass 

 if it is cloudy, the beasts and birds and fishes your 

 companions ; and wander through the woods at 

 will, sleeping where the fancy seizes you, " calling " 

 if the nights are calm, or still hunting on a windy 

 day. Calling is the most fascinating, disappointing, 

 exciting of all sports. You may be lucky at once 

 and kill your moose the first night you go out, 

 perhaps at the very first call you make. You may 

 be weeks and weeks, perhaps the whole calling 

 season, without getting a shot. Moose- calling is 

 simple enough in theory ; in practice it is im- 

 mensely difficult of application. It consists, as I 

 explained the other night, in imitating the cry of 

 the animal with a hollow cone made of birch bark, 

 and endeavouring by this means to call up a moose 

 near enough to get a shot at him by moonlight or 



