CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 221 



man was fined ^40 for killing a cow and 

 a calf. Yet the moose is holding 1 its own in 

 some districts, and even increasing in a few, 

 in spite of the fact that the number shot law- 

 fully by licence-holders in 1910 amounted in 

 New Brunswick alone to no fewer than 2052. 



The usual way of shooting moose is by call- 

 ing the bull within range of the rifle. This 

 can be done only in early autumn, and the 

 services of a professional caller, who uses a 

 birchbark trumpet for the purpose, must be 

 engaged. It is not, in any case, a very high- 

 class amusement, and indeed, Colonel S. J. 

 Lea, C.B., to whom I am indebted for the follow-" 

 ing reminiscence of moose-calling, regards it 

 frankly as " about the most poaching form of 

 sport" he ever took part in. He describes it 

 thus : 



"It was at the first full moon after Septem- 

 ber 15, some years ago, that I found myself 

 with two Micmac Indians in a birchbark wig- 

 wam near a lake in the backwoods, not far 

 from Windsor (N.S.). There were duck on 

 the lake, snipe in the marshes, and ruffed 

 grouse in the woods, yet not a shot was fired 

 at any of these, as one of my guides had come 

 across signs of moose. Our camp was pitched 

 in the timber on the lake shore, and after 

 dinner the guide, whose name was Andrew, 

 shaped a conical horn out of birchbark, which 



