316 Deer and Antelope of North America 



triplets. I left the Liard River the 2ist of May 

 for the Nahanna Mountains, following up a small 

 stream. On my way into the mountains I saw a 

 great many tracks of moose, which my Indians 

 assured me were those of females, but I did not 

 see the track of a single calf. I was not hunting 

 for moose, but was travelling through a splendid 

 moose country, and was given the opportunity of 

 making some important observations. On May 

 26 I killed a cow and a calf; the calf could 

 scarcely have been a week old. 



I returned to the Liard by the same route I 

 had gone on May 30, and young calf tracks 

 were numerous in the sands along the stream, 

 and from numerous observations I have made I 

 believe the majority of the calves are dropped 

 between May 20 and June 20. I have, how- 

 ever, discovered frequent irregularities in the 

 breeding of many varieties of wild animals, and 

 such irregularities, though not common, are 

 found among the moose. While on the Kenai 

 Peninsula in November, 1900, I ran across a 

 young cow with a calf not more than eight weeks 

 old. I spent ten days in trying to secure the pair, 

 but failed, owing to the difficulty of travel in the 

 deep snow, but we ran across their tracks every 

 day during this time, and I saw them on several 

 occasions. A calf always remains with the mother 

 during its first winter, and sometimes longer. It 



