202 Moose -Hunting in Canada. 



days or so old, you make up your mind to hunt that particular 

 moose. 



The utmost caution and skill are necessary. The moose invari- 

 ably travels down-wind some little distance before beginning to feed, 

 and then works his way up, browsing about at will in various direc- 

 tions. He also makes a circle down-wind before lying down, so that, 

 if you hit on a fresh track and then follow it, you are perfectly certain 

 to start the animal without seeing him. You may follow a moose 

 track a whole day, as I have done before now, and finally come across 

 the place where you started him, and then discover that you had 

 passed within fifty yards of that spot early in the morning, the 

 animal having made a large circuit and lain down close to his tracks. 

 The principle, therefore, that the hunter has to go upon is to keep 

 making small semicircles down-wind, so as to constantly cut the 

 tracks and yet keep the animal always to windward of him. Hav- 

 ing come across a track and made up your mind whether it is pretty 

 fresh, whether the beast is a large one worth following, and whether 

 it is settled down and feeding quietly, you will not follow the track, 

 but go down-wind and then gradually work up-wind again till you 

 cut the tracks a second time. Then you must make out whether 

 the tracks are fresher or older than the former, whether they are 

 tracks of the same moose or those of another, and leave them again 

 and work up, and cut them a third time ; and so you go on gradually, 

 always trimming down-wind and edging up-wind again, until, finally, 

 you have quartered the whole ground. 



Perhaps the moose is feeding upon a hard-wood ridge of beech 

 and maples of, say, two or three miles in length and a quarter of a 

 mile in width. Every square yard you must make good, in the way 

 I have endeavored to describe, before you proceed to go up to the 

 moose. At length, by dint of great perseverance and caution, you 

 will have so far covered the ground that you will know the animal 

 must be in some particular spot. Then comes the difficult moment. 

 I may say at once that it is mere waste of time trying to creep except 

 on a windy day, even with moccasins on ; and it is of no use at any time 

 trying to creep a moose unless you are provided with soft leather moc- 

 casins. No human being can get within shot of a moose on a still day; 

 the best time is when windy weather succeeds a heavy fall of rain. 

 Then the ground is soft, the little twigs strewed about bend instead 



