196 HUNTING CAMPS. 



off, so that when one knows and understands a dog's 

 ways dulness is finally driven away. Then there is no 

 pushing on through interminable forests in a com- 

 paratively blind fashion, but every step is taken with a 

 view to the next, and for the hunter who goes alone and 

 works his own dog the sport is a splendid one indeed. 



The difference in horn-growth between the American 

 moose and the European elk is strikingly great, certainly 

 greater than the difference in size and weight of the 

 animals. Anything spreading over forty inches may in 

 Norway be termed a good head, as is anything over fifty 

 inches in Canada ; but the number of fifty-inch heads 

 shot in Canada is far greater in proportion to the total 

 killed than is that of forty-inch heads to the total killed 

 in Norway. Yet as far as my own observation goes to 

 which I may add the experience of two of my friends 

 the hoofs of an elk are, curiously enough, very noticeably 

 larger than those of the moose. 



One point of difference may, 1 think, be fairly 

 noticed. The American moose seems when wounded 

 to be far more apt, if not to charge, at least to defend 

 itself, than is the elk. This, of course, is probably due 

 to the fact that in the summer months, when the 

 farmers have their cattle upon the mountains in Nor- 

 way, the elk must often receive a taint upon the 

 wind, whereas in Canada only the lumbermen and 

 an occasional prospector invade, out of season, the 

 solitude of Alces aniericanus. 



As to the charging propensities of the moose in 

 daylight my guide, Edward Atkins, has definite views, 

 and as he has been in at the death of probably as many 

 moose as any man of his age, and is, moreover, a very 

 accurate observer, his evidence is entitled to respect. 



