08 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



Instances have been known still, I have no doubt that 

 such were great exceptions of young males bearing the 

 former year's horns as late as the calving season, which is 

 in the end of April, and in Labrador and far northern local- 

 ities, May. 



In September the rutting season commences. Then is 

 the period to see this great animal in all the magnificence 

 of his strength. Reckless and furious, he rushes about, 

 bellowing forth defiance to his own sex, and what is ac- 

 cepted as notes of love by the other. Woe betide the trav- 

 eler, the unarmed or inexperienced man who should then 

 meet him, if no place of safety is at hand, for naught but 

 their total destruction would be the result! I knew an in- 

 stance where a French Canadian nearly lost his life by one 

 of these furious beasts. He had gone with his pony and 

 sledge to bring a boat across a portage, and on his return, 

 while threading the intricacies of the bush-path, a moose, 

 excited with rage and lust, rushed past him. Indiscreetly 

 he fired a charge of small shot after the retreating terma- 

 gant, which brought him to the rightabout, and caused 

 him to charge. Into the boat jumped the Canadian; but 

 the thin ribs and planks afforded no protection from such 

 an assailant. The frail craft was soon knocked to pieces, 

 and our friend took to a tree, when, from his perch, he wit- 

 nessed his pony gored and trampled to death. Moral: 

 Don't fire small shot at moose if you have any regard for 

 your life. 



During the rutting season many bull-moose are annually 

 killed ; for the hunters, taking advantage of their then com- 

 bative disposition, secrete themselves, and imitate, by means 

 of a roll of birch-bark, the challenge note of an excited male. 

 Some gallant lord of the wilderness hears the false, decep- 

 tive call ; and believing that his demesne has been invaded 

 by a rival, towering with rage, he rushes in the direction 



