56 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



SchefFer, in his history of Lapland, published in 1701, 

 speaks of that country '' as not containing many elks, but 

 that they rather pass thither out of Lithuania." Other 

 writers mention it, but, whenever a scientific description 

 is attempted it is full of credulous errors, such as its 

 liability to epileptic fits — a belief entertained not only 

 by the peasants of northern Europe, but likewise, 

 with regard to the moose, by the North American 

 Indians ; its attempt to relieve itself of the disease by 

 opening a vein behind the ear with the hind foot, whence 

 pieces of the hoof were worn by the peasants as a pre- 

 ventive against falling sickness ; and its being obliged to 

 browse backwards through the upper lip becoming en- 

 tangled with the teeth.* There are also ample notices 

 of the elk in the works of Pontoppidan and Nilsson ; 

 Albertus Magnus and Gesner state that in the twelfth 

 century it was met with in Sclavonia and Hungary. The 

 former writer calls it the equicervus or horse hart. In 

 1658 Edward Topsel published his "History of Four- 

 footed Beasts and Serpents : to be procured at the Bible, 

 on Ludgate-hill, and at the Key, in Paul's Churchyard." 

 At page 165 he treats of the elk : " They are not found 

 but in the colder northern regions, as Eussia, Prussia, 

 Hungaria, and Illyria, in the wood ; Hercynia, and 

 among the Borussian Scythians, but most plentiful in 

 Scandinavia, which Pausanias calleth the Celtes." 



* Mr. Bucldand, referring to the above statement in " Land and Water," 

 says : — " Of course some part of the elk was used medicinally. Our 

 ancestors managed to get a 'pill et haustus' out of all things, from 

 vipers up to the moss in human skulls. The Pharmacopoeia of the day 

 prescribes a portion of the hoof worn in a ring ; * it resisteth and freeth 

 from the falling evil, the cramp, and cureth the fits or pangs.' Fancy an 

 hysterical lady being told to take 'elk's hoof for a week, to be followed 

 by * hart's horn.'" . 



