THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 57 



The accounts given by the earlier American voyagers 

 of Cervus Alces — there found under the titles of moose 

 (Indian) or Voriginal (French) — were also highly exag- 

 gerated ; though, considering that they received their 

 descriptions from the Indians, who to this day believe in 

 many romantic traditions concerning the animal, they 

 are excusable enough. From the writings of Josselyn,''' 

 Denys, Charlevoix, Le Hontan, and others, little can be 

 learnt of the natural history of the moose. Suffice it to 

 say, that they represented it as being ten or twelve feet 

 in height, with monstrous antlers, stalking through the 

 forest and browsing on the foliage at an astonishing 

 elevation. It Av^as consequently long believed that the 

 American animal was much larger than his European 

 congener ; and when the gigantic horns of the Megaceros 

 were first ascribed to an elk, it was to the former that 

 they were referred by Dr. Molyneux. 



RECENT NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SPECIES. 



Commencing its modern history, let us now briefly 

 trace the limits within which the elk is found in EurojDC, 

 Asia, and — regarding the moose as at least congeneric — 

 America. It is to the sportsmen and naturalists who 



* " The moose or elke is a creature, or ratlier, if you will, a monster of 

 superfluity ; a full grown moose is many times bigger than an English 

 oxe ; their horns, as I have said elsewhere, very big and 1)rancht out into 

 palms, the tops whereof are sometimes found to he two fathoms asunder 

 (a fathom is six feet from the tip of one finger to the tip of the other, that 

 is four cubits), and in height from the toe of the fore feet to the pitch of 

 the shoulder twelve foot, both of which hath been taken by some of my 

 sceptique readers to be monstrous lies." — Josselyn's Voyages to New England, 

 pub. 1674. 



