OF SELBORNE 65 



LETTER XXVIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, 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 quadruped : I 

 found it in an old green-house, 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 supportable. The grand distinction between this deer, 

 and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the 

 strange length of it's legs ; on which it was tilted up much in the 

 manner of the birds of the gralla order. I measured it, as they 

 do an 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, it's neck was remarkably short, no more than 

 twelve inches ; so that, by straddling with one foot forward and 

 the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the 

 greatest difficulty, between it's 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 this creature supports itself chiefly 

 by browsing of trees, and by wading after water plants ; towards 

 which way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must 

 contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in 

 eating the nymphaza, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the belly 

 behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches : the 

 length of the legs before and behind consisted a great deal in the 

 tibia, which was strangely long ; but, in my haste to get out of 

 the stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly. It's scut 

 seemed to be about an inch long ; the colour was a grizzly black ; 

 the mane about four inches long ; the fore-hoofs were upright 

 and shapely, the hind flat and splayed. The spring before it was 

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