204 Moose- Hunting in Canada. 



local term for natural meadows, which are frequently found along 

 the margins of streams. Beavers have done great and useful work 

 in all these countries. The evidences of their labors have far out- 

 lived the work of aboriginal man. They dam up little streams and 

 form shallow lakes and ponds. Trees fall in and decay ; the ponds 

 get choked with vegetation, fill up, and are turned into natural 

 meadows of great value to the settler. Beavers have played an 

 important part in rendering these savage countries fit for the habita- 

 tion of civilized man. 



The moose may also be run down in winter-time on snow-shoes. 

 This may be called partly a legitimate, and partly an illegitimate, 

 mode of killing the animal. If the snow is not very deep, the moose 

 can travel, and to come up with him requires immense endurance on 

 the part of a man, but no skill except that involved in the art of run- 

 ning on snow-shoes. You simply start the animal and follow after 

 him for a day, or sometimes two or three days, when you come up 

 with him and walk as close as you like and shoot him. 



If the snow lies very deep in early spring, moose may be slaugh- 

 tered with ease. The sun thaws the surface, which freezes up again 

 at night and forms an icy crust strong enough to support a man on 

 snow-shoes, or a dog, but not nearly strong enough to support a 

 moose. Then they can be run down without trouble. You find 

 your moose and start a dog after him. The unfortunate moose 

 flounders helplessly in the snow, cutting his legs to pieces, and in a 

 very short time becomes exhausted, and you can walk up to him, 

 knock him on the head with an ax, or stick him with a knife, as you 

 think best. Hundreds and hundreds of moose have been slaughtered 

 in this scandalous manner for their hides alone. The settlers also 

 dig pits for them and snare them, both of which practices, I need 

 hardly say, are most nefarious. There is nothing sportsmanlike 

 about them, and they involve waste of good meat, because, unless 

 a man looks to the snare every day (which these men never do), he 

 runs the chance of catching a moose and finding the carcass unfit 

 for food when he revisits the place. I shall not describe the method 

 of snaring a moose, for fear some reader who has followed me thus 

 far might be tempted to practice it, or lest it might be supposed for a 

 moment that I had ever done such a wicked thing myself. 



