58 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



have recently written on tlie field sports of the Scandina- 

 vian Peninsula that we are indebted for nearly all our 

 information on the natural history of this animal, and its 

 geographical distribution in northern Europe. The works 

 of Messrs. Lloyd and Barnard contain ample notices. 

 " At the present day/^ says the latter author, '^ it is found 

 in Sweden, south of the province of East Gothland. 

 Angermannland is its northernmost boundary." The late 

 Mr. Wheelwright, in " Ten Years in Sweden," which con- 

 tains an admirable synopsis of the fauna and flora of that 

 country, places the limits of the elk in Scandinavia 

 between 58° North lat. and 64°. Mr. Barnard states that 

 *' it likewise inhabits Finland, Lithuania, and Kussia, 

 from the White Sea to the Caucasus. It is also found in 

 the forests of Siberia to the Eiver Lena, and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Altai mountains." Von Wrangel met 

 with the elk — though becoming scarce, through excessive 

 hunting and the desolation of the forest by fire — in the 

 Kolymsk district, in the almost extreme north-east of 

 Siberia. Erman, another eminent scientific traveller in 

 Siberia, describes it as abundant in the splendid pine 

 forests which skirt the Obi, and mentions it on several 

 occasions in the narrative of his journey eastward through 

 the heart of the country to Okhotsk. It has been recently 

 noticed amongst the mammalia of Amoorland, and as 

 principally inhabiting the country round the lower. 

 Amoor. It is thus seen that the domains of the elk 

 in the Eastern Hemisphere are immensely extensive, 

 lying between the Arctic Circle — indeed, approaching the 

 Arctic Ocean, where the great rivers induce a northern 

 extension of the wooded region — and the fiftieth parallel 

 of north latitude, from which, however, as it meets 



