FAMILY CERVID^. 115 



period appears to depend much on the latitude, mildness or severity of the season. While 

 growing, the horns are covered with a velvet-like membrane, which peels off as soon as they 

 have attained their growth. It has often been a matter of surprise, that while so many horns 

 are annually cast, so few are ever found. This is to be explained by the fact, that as soon as 

 shed, they are eaten up by the smaller gnawing animals. I have repeatedly found them half 

 gnawed up by the various kinds of field mice so numerous in our forests. 



The Deer is an exceedingly useful animal, not only as furnishing an excellent article of food 

 to the settlers in frontier counties, where it would be impracticable to obtain any other meat, 

 but also as furnishing the buckskin of commerce. It feeds on buds and twigs of trees, shrubs, 

 berries and grasses. It appears to be particularly fond of the buds and flowers of the pond- 

 lily. 



It ranges from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and probably still farther south. I saw two 

 deer alive from Campechy, which were exhibited as Mexican deer, but offered no distinctive 

 characters from those of our common deer. It is found throughout the west to the Rocky 

 mountains. It does not appear to extend into Canada. 



THE MOOSE. 



Certus alces. 

 (plate xxix. fig. 2 ) 



Cerma alcet. LiN. 12 Ed. p. 92. 



Moote Deer. Penn. Arct. Zool. Vol. 1, p. 17, pi. 8. 



C alcet. Haelab, Fauna, p. 229. GoDMAjr, Am. Nat. Hist. Vol. 2, p. 274, figure. 



American Black Elk. Griffith's Cuvier, Vol. 4, p. 72. Plate of Heads. 



The Elk. Hamilton Smith, lb. Vol. 5, p. 303. 



Moote Deer. Richardson, F. B. A. Vol. 1, p. 232. 



Moose. Ehkdns, Mass. Report, 1838, p. 28 ; for 1840, p. 74. 



Characteristics. Blackish grey. Adult male with broad flattened horns. Snout long, pre- 

 hensile. Neck with a mane. Size of a horse, and largest of the genus. 



Description. Stature large. Head long, somewhat narrowed before the eyes, then enlarged 

 into a thick curved nose ; the muzzle small. Nostrils long, narrow, enlarged beneath. Eyes 

 moderately large, and placed near the base of the horns ; lachrymal pit small. Ears long 

 and asinine. Neck very short, and furnished with a short mane. A tuft of long coarse hair 

 like a beard beneath the throat in both sexes ; in the young, this appears like a pendulous 

 gland. Horns in the male only. The first year, it exists in the shape of a short knob, not 

 more than an inch high ; in the following year, it is a round spike, slightly directed outwards, 

 and about a foot long ; in the third year, they begin to branch forward, and to become pal- 

 mated above. In full grown adult males, the palmated portion ends in from five to eight short 

 tips ; and the brow antlers, if present, are round and pointed, directed forwards, and occasion- 

 ally bifid or even trifid. Hair coarse and angular, longer upon the neck and withers. 



