58 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



In September the rutting season commences. Then is 

 the period to see this great animal in all the magnificence 

 of his strength. Reckless and furious he rushes about, 

 bellowing forth defiance to his own sex, and what is 

 accepted as notes of love by the other. Woe betide the 

 traveller, the unarmed or inexperienced man who shall then 

 meet him, if no place of safety is at hand, for nought but 

 their total destruction would be the result. I knew an 

 instance where a French Canadian nearly lost his life by 

 one of these furious beasts. He had gone with his pony 

 and sledge to bring a boat across a portage, and on his 

 return, while threading the intricacies of the bush-path, a 

 moose, excited with rage and lust, rushed past him. 

 Indiscreetly he fired a charge of small shot after the 

 retreating termagant, which brought him to the right- 

 about, and caused him to charge. Into the boat jumped 

 the Canadian, but the thin ribs and planks afforded no 

 protection from such an assailant. The frail craft was 

 soon knocked to pieces, and our. friend took to a tree, 

 when, from his perch, he witnessed his pony gored ;md 

 trampled to death. Moral : Don't fire small shot at moose 

 if you have any regard for your life. 



During the rutting season many bull moose are annually 

 killed, for UK; hunters, taking advantage of their then 

 combative disposition, secrete themselves, and imitate, by 

 means of a roll of birch-bark, the challenge note of an 

 excited male. Some gallant lord of the wilderness hears 

 the false, deceptive call, and believing that his demesne 

 has been invaded by a rival, towering with rage, he rushes 

 in the direction whence the sound proceeds, intent on 



