82 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



In conclusion, it is witH regret that tlie conviction 

 must be expressed tliat this noble quadruped, at no very- 

 distant period, is destined to pass away from the list of 

 the existing mammalia. The animal has fulfilled its 

 mission ; it has afforded food and clothing to the primi- 

 tive races who hunted the all-pervading fir forests of 

 Central Europe and Asia to subarctic latitudes, whilst, 

 until very recently, its flesh, with that of the cariboo, 

 formed the sole subsistence of the Micmacs and other 

 tribes living in the eastern woodlands of North America. 

 To these the beef of civilisation — wenju-teeamwee, or 

 French moose-meat, as the Indian calls it — but ill and 

 scantily supplies the place of their once abundant veni- 

 son. It has enabled the early and adventurous settler to 

 push back from the coast and open up new clearings in 

 the depths of the forest. With a barrel of flour and a 

 little tea, rafted up the lakes or drawn on sleds over the 

 snow to his rude log hut, he was satisfied to leave the 

 rest to the providence of nature ; and the moose, the 

 salmon, and the trout, with the annual prolific harvest of 

 wild berries, contributed amply to the few wants of the 

 fathers of many a rising settlement. With but few and 

 exceptional instances, the moose or the elk has not be- 

 come subservient to man as a beast of burden as has the 

 reindeer ; neither is it, like the latter, still called upon 

 to afford subsistence to nomad e tribes of savages who 

 live entirely apart from civilisation. Being an inhabitant 

 of more temperate regions, it is brought more constantly 

 within the influences of the permanent neighbourhood of 

 man, and thus, whilst its extinction is threatened by 

 slaughter, a sure but certain alteration is being effected 

 in the physical features of its native forest regions. The 



