I40 IN THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT 



running block fixed up in the paths along which they 

 travel. Again, in time of deep snow when, under the 

 influence of the sun and frost, the snow is covered 

 with a hard skin, the Indian hunters, and I am sorry 

 to say others also, pursue them on snow-shoes. The 

 hard surface of the snow bears the hunter well enough, 

 but the moose, sinking deep at every plunge and cut 

 about the legs by the knife-edge of the ice, soon 

 succumbs and is despatched. Indians, I have heard, 

 also kill the moose in the water when he goes in 

 summer to bathe and feed on lily roots. 



But all these are contemptible and most unsportsman- 

 like ways. There are only two plans, so far as I am 

 aware, which can be classed as honest sport — that is, if 

 judged by the only test which a sportsman should 

 admit — viz., difficulty and the fair outwitting the wild 

 creature by skill alone. The first is the call. This 

 is, they say, much practised in Nova Scotia, chiefly 

 in the early half of the rutting season. The bull is 

 attracted to the hunter by a call blown on a trumpet 

 of birch-bark. Everything here depends on an intimate 

 knowledge of the animal's habits and of the perfect 

 imitation of its voice — a most difficult accomplishment. 

 I have never seen it done, but it must in the moonlit 

 night be most exciting work. 



