44 CERVID^E. 



ance of the burr or boss shows it to have been shed, and 

 the number of joints or digitations indicate it to have 

 belonged to an individual six or seven years old, and 

 therefore immature, as the Elk is said not to complete the 

 growth of its horns till the fourteenth year. Though the 

 above-mentioned instance probably belongs to the pre- 

 historic period, the following quotation, if it may be relied 

 on, would lead us to infer that the true Elk existed in 

 this country at a much later date. In Maxwell's " Hill- 

 side and Border Sketches," it is said that a medal of 

 Trajan, a patera, a fibula, and a Moose Deer were 

 discovered near North Berwick. There is no historical 

 account of the former existence of the Elk as a native of 

 Britain by any Roman author, though it is particularly 

 mentioned by Caesar, among other animals, as living in 

 the great Hercynian forest during the Roman period. 

 With the progress of civilization, it has, however, gradu- 

 ally disappeared from the countries formerly occupied by 

 this extensive forest, and occurs now in Europe only 

 in northern Prussia, Lithuania, Finland, Russia, and 

 Scandinavia." 



Unfortunately this process of extinction is going on 

 slowly but surely, among the Moose of Canada, aided by 

 the yearly inroads upon the forest, and till lately by the 

 barbarous destruction to which they have been exposed 

 not alone on the part of the savage Indian or the ignorant 



