THE MOOSE 6y 



up."* Anyone familiar with the moose's lip will not 

 blame Pliny much. Again: "It is not unlike the elk, 

 but has no joints in the hind legs. Hence it never lies 

 down, but reclines against a tree while it sleeps; it can 

 only be taken by previously cutting into the tree, and 

 thus laying a trap for it, as, otherwise, it would escape 

 through its swiftness."t 



Mr. Grant says the strange stiffness of joint and gen- 

 eral ungainliness of the elk, how^ever, were matters 

 of such general observation as to apparently have 

 become embodied in the German name eland, sufferer. 

 Curiously enough, this name eland was taken by 

 the Dutch to South Africa, and there applied to 

 the largest and handsomest of the bovine antelopes, 

 Oreas carma.X It is lucky that the Africans coming to 

 America have not applied the names oreas or eland to 

 our moose. 



Mr. Grant tells us, in the same report, that the name 

 moose is an Algonquin name, meaning a wood-eater, or 

 browser, and is most appropriate, since the animal is 

 pre-eminently a creature of the thick woods. The old- 

 world term, elk, was applied by the English settlers, 

 probably in Virginia, to the wapiti-deer, an animal 

 very closely related to the red deer of Europe. In 

 Canada one sometimes hears the moose spoken of as 

 the elk, and even in tlie I'locky Mountain region one 

 sometimes hears of the "flat-horned elk." We are for- 

 tunate in possessing a native name for this animal, and 



* Pliny's Natural History, Book VIII, Chapter XIV. 

 t Ilnd. 15ook \' 1 1 1 . ( haplcr XVI. 



} The Moose, in the Seventh Report of the New York State Forest, Fish, 

 and (jame Commission. 



