362 THROUGH CANADA 



years old in the form of two snags, a few inches long. 

 These are cast the following spring, and the prongs 

 grow year by year, passing into fuller development. 

 In the seventh or eighth year they are complete. The 

 antlers are too squat to look graceful, and give the 

 animal a grotesque rather than a dignified appear- 

 ance, but they subserve their object, as the principal 

 weapon of the powerful beast. A singular appendage 

 which hangs like a purse between the juncture of the 

 neck and head is called the bell. It seems to have 

 no economic purpose, and can only be a rudimentary 

 relic of an earlier stage in development. 



On the approach of the rutting season the bulls, 

 which are said to be monogamous, fall an easy prey 

 to the call of a crude horn made of birch-bark. 

 Some hunters profess great skill in the use of this 

 instrument, which is supposed to mimic the bellow- 

 ing of the cow. It rather discounts the value of the 

 accomplishment to learn that the trick of blowing 

 into the folded hands, known to every schoolboy, is 

 equally effective. It does not speak well for the 

 bull's keenness of discernment that it mistakes the 

 braying of a mule for a moose call, an error of which 

 it is said to be guilty. The monarch's bravery in 

 the mating season is of the finest mettle. He will 

 fight to the death any assailant of his domestic 

 felicity. Two peculiar horn protuberances on the 

 forefeet aid him in combat, and so formidable is the 

 weapon, that the stroke of a bear's paw is scarcely 



