BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 399 
_. Like other deer, the moose seems slow to identify objects 
_ with his eyes, but there is no doubt about the keenness of his 
- other senses. If it pleases him to answer your call, though his 
_ answer may be all but inaudible to you, you need not call again 
unless you like. Through a mile of brush which to you appears 
‘ a pathless tangle he will steer straight to the square yard from 
_ which your call came, unless a bough should scrape against 
4 your overalls or atiny puff of wind carry the faintest suggestion 
: of your presence to him. If either of these things happen, the 
_ moose will make up his mind without stopping to think. In 
__ addition to the keenness of his senses the bull moose is 
__eredited with considerable pugnacity when pursued and 
* cornered,’ and he undoubtedly is a bit of a strategist, choosing 
his couch, for instance, invariably in such a position as to 
command the country allround. The Indians, when following 
a moose’s track, will, oftener than not, keep describing a 
succession of semicircles, so that, instead of walking in the bull’s 
tracks, they cut them from time to time. This is done to out- 
wit the bull, who, they say, when he means to lie down will 
turn aside and walk back parallel to his trail, and lie down with 
his head towards his back tracks, so that either his eyes or his 
nose must give him warning of anyone who attempts to follow 
him. 
a There are three principal methods of hunting the moose 
besides the foul practice of snaring him with a loop in his run 
ways or of butchering him in his yards (i.e. in those camps and 
feeding grounds which moose stamp out for themselves in the 
deepest snows of winter). The favourite method (in Canada, at 
any rate) is ‘calling,’ a birch-bark horn being used night and 
_ morning to imitate either the cry of the bull or of the cow, and 
_ so lure a would-be mate or rival (as the case may be) to his 
- tuin. September is the season of the rut in Lower Canada, 
_ .and during the earlier part of this season the bull seems nearly 
| beside himself with rage and unrequited passion, wandering 
|| constantly in search of a mate or a rival, and filling the woods 
_ with hoarse calls or hoarser challenges. About one man in a 
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