FOREST SPORTS. 821 



could show us Moose hunting of quite a novel character. We 

 remained part of one day with Adella and his pretty squaw, and 

 then started for Anapo'is, which we reached in good health and 

 spirits, highly gratified with our excursion." 



Having disposed, in the foregoing pages, of Moose and Cari- 

 boo huntiijg, during the summer and autumnal months, we come 

 to their pursuit, at the period of the year when it affords the 

 greatest sport and the keenest excitement to the true woodman, 

 I mean the long winter of the northern regions. 



So soon as tlie deep snows have fallen, and the whole sur- 

 face of the country is overspread, throughout countless leagues 

 of extent, by a covering often many feet in depth, obliterating 

 all signs of cultivation, overtopping the loftiest fences, and ren- 

 dering it toilsome in the highest degree for animals of the 

 weight and bulk of the Moose and Cariboo, to travel over the 

 yielding and unstable surface, and utterly impossible for them 

 to obtain subsistence from the soil, these great Deer are wont 

 to distribute themselves into parties, varying in number from 

 three or four, to twenty and upwards, and to form what are 

 called " yards" for their winter habitation. 



This is done by trampling down the snow regularly, and in 

 due form, over a tract of greater or less extent, according to the 

 number of the troop which it is destined to house, until the 

 whole area within is hardened into a consistency as solid as a 

 threshing floor, while the circumference is defined by the sheer 

 walls of the upstanding snow-drift, which often accumulate to 

 the height of several feet, by successive falls of snow. 



These " yards" are generally formed in situations sheltered 

 from the pi-evailing winds by large pines, hemlocks, or white 

 cedars ; and where there is a plentiful growth both artmnd the 

 circumference, and within the area of young evergreens, upon 

 the juicy and succulent shoots of which they are accustomed to 

 feed. Within the limits of these yards they regulacly lie up at 

 night, and feed during the prevalence of heavy snow-falls ; nor, 

 after they have once established them, do they absent them- 



