CHAPTER VI 



ELK-HUNTING IN NORWAY 



IT is probably unnecessary to inform the intelligent 

 reader that moose and elk are synonymous terms for 

 the largest deer of the northern latitudes of Europe 

 and North America. The wapiti, or giant red-deer 

 of North America, is colloquially called elk out west, 

 but is an entirely different and more graceful animal, 

 with long tined, not palmated, horns. The moose, or 

 elk proper, ranges, I am told, all through Northern 

 Russia (though I have not been there to see), as well 

 as in Sweden and parts of Norway ; also, as is well 

 known, through Canada, British Columbia, and parts 

 of the United States, the finest known specimens 

 of moose having been killed in Alaska. From a 

 sportsman's point of view a good bull elk is worth 

 some trouble to obtain. He stands 19 hands or so 

 at the shoulder, weighs about 1,500 pounds say 

 from 90 to 100 stone clean carries a massive pal- 

 mated head, is dark gray to black in colour, knows 

 well how to look after himself, and, with the excep- 

 tion of the large pachyderms of India and South 

 Africa, is the nearest living approach to the big-game 

 of prehistoric times. His peculiar characteristics are 

 an enlarged, almost prehensile upper lip and nostril, 



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