The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 



then I had to admit that this was no coincidence, 

 but part of an organized action of the south- 

 ward migration from their breeding grounds in 

 the far north. 



I could just manage to hobble about a little 

 on the third day, and was preparing to go out 

 for a short turn, thinking that the exercise 

 might take the stiffness from my knee-joint, 

 when Hunter saw a bull moose approaching 

 camp from the valley where I had killed the 

 sheep. This beast had not a big head, but he 

 was the first I had ever seen in Alaska. If he 

 continued on the same course as he now held, he 

 would pass within sixty yards of my tent. We 

 therefore awaited developments. In a very few 

 minutes those long legs had brought him oppo- 

 site the camp. He then seemed to see us, but 

 instead of turning tail on his tracks he slightly 

 diverged to the left. I fired at his shoulder, 

 and with the one '303 bullet killed him dead on 

 the spot. On examining him I found that his 

 horns were not clean from their velvet. When 

 the horns are growing, and until they are hard, 

 the moose in this locality pass a great part of 

 their time in the mountains above timber line, 

 to avoid injury to the very sensitive horns whilst 

 they are growing, and possibly also to avoid the 

 attacks of insects, such as mosquitoes, only 

 resorting to the woods and valleys so soon as the 



horn is hard and the time of rutting at hand. 



260 



