NA 1 URAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXVIII. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SKI.BORNE, March, 1770. 



ON Michaelmas-day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of 

 the female moose belonging to the duke of Richmond, 

 at Goodwood; but was greatly disappointed, when I 

 arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having 

 appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the 

 morning before. However, understanding that it was 

 not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadru- 

 ped. I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under the 

 belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; 

 but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it was 

 in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly sup- 

 portable. The grand distinction between this deer, 

 and any other species that I have ever met with, con- 

 sisted in the strange length of its legs; on which it 

 was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the 

 Grallce order. I measured it, as they do a horse, and 

 found that, from the ground to the wither, it was just 

 five feet four inches; which height answers exactly to 

 sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive at: but 

 then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably 

 short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by strad- 

 dling with one foot forward, and the other backward, it 

 grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, 

 between its legs : the ears were vast and lopping, and 

 as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty inches 

 long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of 

 upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. 

 This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in 

 North America. It is very reasonable to suppose that 



