92 MOOSE-DEER. 



the moose- deer ; but in general foreign animals 

 seldom fall in my way ; my little intelligence is 

 confined to the narrow sphere of my own observa- 

 tions at home. 



XXVIII. 



ON Michaelmas day, 1768, I managed to get a 

 sight of the female moose belonging to the Duke 

 of Richmond, at Goodwood ; but was greatly dis- 

 appointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that 

 it died, after having appeared in a languishing way 

 for some time, on the morning before. How- 

 ever, understanding that it was not stripped, I 

 proceeded to examine this rare quadruped; I 

 found it in an old greenhouse, slung under the 

 belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing pos- 

 ture ; but, though it had been dead for so short 

 a time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench 

 was hardly supportable. The grand distinction 

 between this deer, and any other species that I 

 have ever met with, consisted in the strange 

 length of its legs ; on which it was tilted up much 

 in the manner of the birds of the gratia order. I 

 measured it, as they do a horse, and found that, 

 from the ground to the wither, it was just five 

 feet four inches ; which height answers exactly 

 to sixteen hands, the growth that few horses 

 arrive at : but then, with this length of legs, 

 its neck was remarkably short, no more than 

 twelve inches ; so that by straddling with one 

 foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on 

 the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, 

 between its legs : the ears were vast and lopping, 

 and as long as the neck; the head was about 

 twenty inches long, and ass -like ; and had such 



