THE MOOSE. 



239 



chains of the Rockies, clad in sombre and 

 unbroken evergreen forests, their habits, in 

 regard to winter and summer-homes, and 

 choice of places of seclusion for cows with 

 young calves and bulls growing their antlers, 

 differ from those of their kind which haunt the 

 comparatively low, hilly, lake-studded country 

 of Maine and Nova Scotia, where the forests 

 are of birch, beech, and maple, mixed with 

 the pine, spruce, and hemlock. 



The moose being usually monogamous is 

 never found in great herds like the wapiti and 

 caribou. Occasionally a troop of fifteen or 

 twenty individuals may be seen, but this is 

 rare ; more often it is found singly, in pairs, 

 or in family parties, composed of a bull, a 

 cow, and two or more calves and yearlings. 

 In yarding, two or more such families may 

 unite to spend the winter together in an un- 

 usually attractive locality; and during the rut 

 many bulls are sometimes found together, per- 

 haps following the trail of a cow in single file. 



In the fall, winter, and early spring, and in 

 certain places during summer, the moose 

 feeds principally by browsing, though always 

 willing to vary its diet by mosses, lichens, 

 fungi, and ferns. In the eastern forests, with 

 their abundance of hardwood, the birch, 

 maple, and moose-wood form its favorite food. 

 In the Rocky Mountains, where the forests 

 are almost purely evergreen, it feeds on such 

 willows, alders, and aspens as it can find, and 

 also, when pressed by necessity, on balsam, 

 fir, spruce, and very young pine. It peels 

 the bark between its hard palate and sharp 

 lower teeth, to a height of seven or eight 



