CHAPTEE IV. 



MOOSE HUNTING. 



Successful in tlie chase, or on tlie contrary, it must be 

 premised that many a sportsman who essays the sport of 

 moose-hunting in the North- American woods finds but 

 little excitement therein. The toil and monotony of the 

 long daily rambles through a wilderness country, strewed 

 with rocks and fallen trees, and covered with tangled 

 vegetation, with the uncertainty of obtaining even a 

 distant sight of (much less a shot at) these cautious 

 animals, whose tracks one is apparently constantly fol- 

 lowing to no purpose, drive not a few would-be hunters 

 from the woods in a state of supreme disgust. 



There is no country in the world where wild sports are 

 pursued, in which the goddess of hunting exacts so much 

 perseverance and labour from her votaries as the fir- 

 covered districts of North America, or bestows so scanty 

 a reward. The true and persistent moose-hunter (never 

 a poacher or a pot-hunter) is generally animated by other 

 sentiments, and achieves success through an earnest 

 appreciation of the external circumstances which attend 

 the sport. He loves the solitude of the forest, and 

 admires its scenery ; is charmed with the ready resources 

 and wild freedom of camp life, and, instead of listlessly 

 following in the tracks of his Indian guides in a state of 



