OR, THE LAKE LANDS OF CANADA. 173 



treacherously turns the poor brute's very pleasure into a 

 lure to certain death, is to simulate the cry of the cow 

 moose, which is easily done by immersing the lower end of 

 a common cow-horn partially in the water of some pool or 

 river, and blowing through it in a note very easily acquired, 

 which perfectly resembles the lowing of the female, and 

 which rarely or never fails to bring down the finest of the 

 bulls from their haunts in the mountain glens, to the am- 

 bush of the lurking hunter, in search of their amorous 

 mates. The Indians use for this purpose the bark of the 

 beech or alder, or a postman's tin horn, and with this rude 

 implement are perfect adepts in producing the sound re- 

 quisite to call the bull to his love. The afternoon and the 

 silence of the moonlight niaht are the best times for this 

 mode of hunting, and cowardly and treacherous as it may 

 appear, it is perhaps the most perilous and not the least 

 excitins: method of attacking these o-iant deer. For, in the 

 first place, the bull moose may generally be heard roaring 

 in the upland glens, responsive to the simulated call, long 

 ere they reach the hunter's station, and the interval be- 

 tween each successive bellow, nearer and louder, and more 

 full of passionate fury, is necessarily a moment of the keen- 

 est excitement. Then comes the tramp of his approaching 

 gallop, the crash of branches torn asunder by his impet- 

 uous charge, and at last the presence, in the full heat and 

 heyday of his amorous rage, of the forest champion. 

 Again when he discovers that it is a cheat, and that ho cow 

 moose is on the spot expectant of his caresses, his fury is 

 tremendous and appalling ; for, shy and timid as is this 

 monstrous animal at every other season, during the rutting 



