386 NORTHERN EUROPE 



unknown, but in France it was last heard of in the third century. In 764 two 

 courtiers of King Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, killed an elk in the forest of 

 Viergrund, near Nordlingen, in Bavaria, the antlers of which, still preserved in the 

 castle of Ambrose, are i-epresented in a painting in the castle of Moritzburg, near 

 Dresden. In the tenth century we hear of the elk as an inhabitant of Flanders; 

 in the fourteenth century there were still elk in Bohemia ; in the sixteenth 

 century they were extinct in Mecklenburg, the specimen killed in Saxony, in 1746, 

 probably having been one of a herd imported into Saxony, Brandenburg, and 

 Dessau between 1720 and 1730. In Poland most of the elk were destroyed in 

 1828, and in Galicia the last was shot in 1760. In the seventeenth century 

 Hungary still harboured a few elk, but they had all disappeared by the end of 

 the next century ; and in West Prussia the elk disappeared about the beginning 

 of the nineteenth century. At the present time Scandinavia forms the western 

 limits of area of the elk in Europe, although in many parts of that peninsula it 

 has long been extinct. The only place in Germany where it still has a home is in 

 the Ibenhorst Forest in East Prussia, which has long been celebrated for its elk. 

 In Lithuania and the Baltic provinces of Russia, as far as the Ural Mountains, 

 and northward and southward of those districts, elk are still here and there 

 met with. Strange to say, the species has spread farther south since about 1850. 

 In Asia the elk lingers in remote places, and ranges from the Urals to the Sea of 

 Okhotsk, and from the Altai Mountains and Manchuria up to the Arctic Circle. 

 From north-eastern Asia, by way of the land which once stretched across Bering 

 Strait, it seems to have found its way into North America, where two races are 

 now recognised. 



Apart from the antlers and the so-called "bell" that hangs from the throat, 

 the male elk is distinguished from the hind by being of clumsier and stronger 

 build, and also considerably larger. A well-grown European elk has a total 

 length of about 9 feet; the shoulder-height being about 6 feet, although the tail 

 measures only 4 inches. In colour the hair is reddish brown, becoming blackish 

 brown on the mane and sides of the head, while it is whitish on the legs. In 

 winter the coat is lighter, being rather grey. Young elk are never spotted, and 

 both sexes are of the same colour. The foot of the male is shorter and wider than 

 that of the female, the hoofs being less pointed, and their slot deeper, so that 

 good trackers easily recognise a stag's footprint. The form of its hoofs enables 

 an elk to run lightly and easily on soft and marshy ground. The feet are large, 

 deeply cleft, and provided with triangular, brownish black hoofs; the lateral 

 hoofs being smaller and shorter and less projecting than those of the red deer. 

 In running, the hoofs produce a clapping noise. An elk in running shoots its 

 fore-legs well forward, and impels its body onward by the hind-legs; moving as 

 fast as a red deer although it only trots. Elk are, moreover, excellent swimmers, 

 and generally take up their abode in the wildest, most isolated, marshy country 

 where water is at hand in which they can bathe. 



From April to September elk frequent these mai-shy stretches of forest, 

 but after rutting, that is, from September to the following April, seek more 

 elevated ground not exposed to floods, and therefore having no ice in winter. 

 When the weather is quiet and fine, elk sojourn in thickets of young deciduous 



