MOOSE-DEER. 93 



a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, 

 with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is 

 esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is 

 very reasonable to suppose that this creature 

 supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and 

 by wading after water plants; towards which 

 way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip 

 must contribute much. I have read somewhere 

 that it delights in eating the nymphcea, or water 

 lily. From the fore-feet to the belly behind the 

 shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches ; 

 the length of the legs before and behind consisted 

 a great deal in the tibia, which was strangely 

 long ; but in my haste to get out of the stench, 

 I forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut 

 seemed to be about an inch long ; the colour was 

 a grizzly black ; the mane about four inches long ; 

 the fore -hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind 

 flat and splayed. The spring before, it was only 

 two years old, so that most probably it was not 

 then come to its growth. What a vast tall beast 

 must a full grown stag be ! I have been told 

 some arrive at ten feet and a half ! This poor 

 creature had at first a female companion of the 

 same species, which died the spring before. In 

 the same garden was a young stag, or red deer, 

 between whom and this moose it was hoped that 

 there might have been a breed ; but their inequa- 

 lity of height must have always been a bar to any 

 commerce of the amorous kind. I should have 

 been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, 

 lips, hoofs, &c. minutely; but the putrefaction 

 precluded all farther curiosity. This animal, the 

 keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the 

 extreme frost of the former winter. In the house 

 they showed me the horn of a male moose, which 

 had no front-antlers, but only a broad palm with 



