A MOOSE YARD. 37 



as they sink nearly up to their backs in the snow at 

 every jump. 



Endowed, like most animals, with an instinct that 

 approaches marvelously near to reason, they have 

 another mode of " yarding," which furnishes greater 

 security than the one just described. You know that 

 mountain chains are ordinarily covered with heavy 

 timber, while the hills and swelling knolls at their 

 bases are crowned with a younger growth, furnishing 

 buds and tender sprouts in abundance. If you don't, 

 the moose do ; and so, during a thaw in January or 

 early spring, when the snow is from three to five feet 

 deep, a big fellow will begin to travel over and 

 around one of these hills. He knows that " after a 

 thaw comes a freeze ;" and hence, makes the best 

 use of his time. He will not stop to eat, but keeps 

 moving until the entire hill is fo'-sected and inter- 

 sected from crown to base with paths he himself has 

 made. Therefore, when the weather changes, his 

 field of operations is still left open. The crust 

 freezes almost to the consistency of ice, and yet not 

 sufficiently strong to bear his enormous bulk ; little, 

 however, does he care for that : the hill is at his 

 disposal, and he quietly loiters along the paths he 



