100 UNCOUTH LOOK. 



on his head, hut he was allowed to be killed even on another 

 man's property. The lucky hunter was moreover entitled to 

 the carcase. When the number of elks was great, and the 

 population scanty, they were no doubt inconvenient neigh- 

 bours ; for it cannot be denied that they not only in some 

 degree damage the copse-wood, but occasionally make free 

 with the Ho-hassjor, or little stacks of hay, as also of those of 

 moss, stored up by the peasants as a winter's supply, both of 

 which one so frequently meets with in the northern forests. 

 These animals are besides accused of trampling down, and 

 feeding on grain, more especially in the so-called Svedje-fall, 

 or clearings in the woods, of which mention was made in my 

 former work. But now that their numbers are so greatly 

 thinned down, the injury they commit is comparatively 

 trivial ; and the Government has perhaps done well 

 though the squatters are not exactly of that opinion in 

 transferring the elk from the catalogue of Skade-djur, to that 

 of game, and instead of paying premiums for his destruction, 

 in protecting him in every way. 



The elk is most ungainly in appearance; his height at 

 the shoulders, independently of his head and neck, being 

 greater than his length. Pontoppidan, when speaking of 

 this animal, of which it must be confessed he gives a some- 

 what marvellous account, says : " He is very long-legged, 

 insomuch that a man may stand upright under his belly." 

 It is true, nevertheless, that he attains to an enormous size. 

 Within the memory of man he has been killed in Sweden 

 upwards of seven feet in height, and been known to weigh 

 thirteen to fourteen hundred pounds. His head is of a 

 disproportionate length, and his ears long and pendent. 



