66 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 



only two years old, so that most probably it was not then come to 

 it's growth. What a vast tall beast must a full grown stag be ! 

 I have been told some arrive at ten feet and an half ! This poor 

 creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which 

 died the spring before. In the same garden was a young stag, 

 or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that 

 there might have been a breed ; but their inequality of height 

 must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous 

 kind. I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, 

 tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely ; but the putrefaction precluded 

 all further curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed 

 to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In 

 the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had 

 no front-antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the 

 edge. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a 

 skeleton of her bones. 



Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that 

 you saw ; and whether you think still that the American moose 

 and European elk are the same creature. 1 I am, 



With the greatest esteem, etc. 



LETTER XXIX. 2 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, May 12, 1770. 

 DEAR SIR, 



LAST month we had such a series of cold turbulent weather, such 

 a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, 

 that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds 



1 [The American moose is probably identical with the European elk, though 

 some naturalists have attempted to distinguish the species by slight differences in 

 the horns. 



2 [In the original letter sent to Pennant, but not retained in the copy sent to 

 the press, is the following paragraph, which appeared to me to be quite worth 

 preserving. 



" Though you are embarked in a more extensive plan of natural history, yet I 

 am glad to find that you do by no means give up the Brit. Zoology. That, I think, 

 should be your principal object ; and I hope you will continue to revise it at your 

 leisure, and to retouch it until you have made it as perfect as the nature of the 

 work will admit of. If people who live in the country would take a little pains, 

 daily observations might be made with respect to animals, and particularly regarding 

 their life and conversation, their actions and economy, which are the life and soul 

 of natural history," - 



