208 THE RECLUSE, 



time. No wolf, however, dares enter a moose-yard. He 

 will troop round and round upon the snow-bank which 

 walls it, and his howling will, perhaps, bring two or three of 

 his brethren to the spot, who will try to terrify the moose 

 from his vantage ground, but dare not descend into it. 



The Indians occasionally find a moose-yard, and take 

 an easy advantage of the discovery, as he can no more 

 defend himself or escape than a cow in a village pound. 

 But, when at liberty, and under no special disadvantage, 

 the moose is one of the noblest objects of a sportsman's 

 ambition, at least among the herbivorous races. His 

 habits are essentially solitary. He moves about not like 

 the elk, in roving gangs, but stalks in lonely majesty 

 through his leafy domains ; and, when disturbed by the 

 hunter, instead of bounding away like his congeners, he 

 trots off at a gait which, though faster than that of the 

 fleetest horse, is so easy and careless in its motion that it 

 seems to cost him no exertion. But, though retreating 

 thus when pursued, he is one of the most terrible beasts 

 of the forest when wounded and at bay ; and the Indians 

 of the north-west, among some tribes, celebrate the death 

 of a bull-moose, when they are so fortunate as to kill one, 

 with all the songs of triumph that they would raise over 

 a conquered warrior.* 



Who has not read of the chamois of the Alps and the 



Tyrol ? and who does not know with what an unrelaxing 



vigilance it maintains its inaccessible strongholds? As 



long as summer warms the mountain air, it seeks the 



* Hoflfmann's Forest and Prairie, i., p. 92. 



