MOOSE HUNTING AND CALLING. 201 



in every way, and would almost certainly do more for 

 the preservation of big game than the appointment and 

 up-keep of any number of new forest wardens. Nor do 

 1 suppose that there is any hunter of note or skill who 

 would not support such a measure by all means in his 

 power. 



Take, for instance, the case of the moose for it is 

 the moose which suffers most at the hands of the 

 trophy buyers surely he deserves better treatment in 

 this respect than he receives. As far as extinction is 

 concerned he has nothing to fear from the bond fide 

 hunter, but he has all to fear from the wandering and 

 masterless men who invade the woods. Such would 

 turn everything that lives into dollars. You will even 

 hear such a man say " I lost $50 to-day through them 

 bad cartridges," which means that he wounded, but 

 did not get, a four-year-old moose. 



If a law were brought in and passed forbidding under 

 heavy penalties the sale or exposure for sale of all horns 

 of moose or caribou, the promoters of such legislation 

 would be called blessed, not only by all true sportsmen 

 of to-day, but very much more by the coining genera- 

 tion. Such a law would, as a matter of fact, be a far 

 more effective measure than the extension of the close 

 time to mid-October, which obtains in some States and 

 provinces in order to prevent calling. But calling will 

 not do much harm to the moose for two sound reasons 

 one of which is the lack of good callers and the other 

 is that after the first w r eek the master bull of a district 

 rarely answers the call. It is generally one of the less 

 successful candidates for that honour, and the killing of 

 such to a moderate extent is not an unmixed evil. Of 

 eight bulls called in 1906 upon the ground I hunted 



