MOOSE HUNTING AND CALLING. 187 



been joined by a bull, and at this lesser distance found 

 her calls resolved themselves into a harsh, throaty roar, 

 ending in a prolonged moan. Though not loud, the sound 

 seemed absolutely to vibrate through the air, and on a still 

 night (and no other is of much use for calling) would travel 

 for miles. To reproduce this bellow from a human throat 

 is, as I have said, not a readily-acquired attainment, and in 

 Maine the counterfeit call must be given to perfection, for 

 the moose of that region are cautious. Indeed, the sense of 

 hearing in the moose is extraordinarily developed; the 

 large palmated horns seem to act as sounding-boards, and 

 the least irregularity in the call, instead of beguiling the 

 bull, sets every animal within [hearing on the qui vive with 

 as much certainty as the echoes of a human song. 



It is a strange fact that calling is not attempted in Nor- 

 way, for there also, though they are more silent, the cows 

 do most undoubtedly call during the rutting season. The 

 Norwegians have named the sound lokke-tone, and my 

 friend Mr. A. C. Gathorne-Hardy heard a cow call re- 

 peatedly one evening when he was hunting in the North 

 Trondhjem district. 



There is one further point upon which nothing too strong 

 can, it appears to me, be written or said. All over Eastern 

 Canada, at any rate, the taxidermists and furriers sell 

 moose heads at prices ranging from 20 to 50. For my 

 own fifty-two-inch head a taxidermist who did not know 

 to whom it belonged offered $200 " in the raw." Those who 

 buy heads in this fashion are generally rich parvenus or 

 so-called sportsmen, who, having started for the woods with 

 the same publicity which pervades their lives, do not relish 

 returning to their native towns without a trophy. What 

 manner of man it can be who is thus content to buy and 

 to lie is a difficult question. Certainly on all counts, as 

 one of my hunters said, " He don't deserve no considera- 

 tion, though his dollars is sound money to us/' If such 



