

•> t5«r 



138 IN THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT 



never seen any evidence of their eating grass at all, 

 and probably they seldom do in the natural state, 

 except perhaps in summer when the grasses are long. 

 But Gilbert White's account of the Duke of Rich- 

 mond's female moose (1768) is worth quoting on this 

 point : 



" With this length of legs, its neck was remark- 

 ably short, no more than twelve inches ; so that by 

 straddling with one foot forward and the other back- 

 ward it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest 

 difficulty between its legs." A colt does the same. 



It ordinarily feeds on leaves and twigs. A very 

 favourite food is the red dog-wood, called by the 

 Indian ^^ kinikinik." (It is the dried bark of this 

 shrub that the Indians smoke, instead of or mixed 

 with tobacco.) In winter, you will often come upon 

 a large area in which every tree has been barked by 

 the moose. And you will find many spruce-trees 

 whose young shoots have been bitten off by the 

 creature to an astonishing height from the ground. 

 They must raise themselves on their hind feet in order 

 to accomplish this. But the very fact of their eating 

 spruce at all is curious. Turpentine is, so far as my 

 observation goes, avoided by almost all animals 

 except squirrels. 







