THE RECLUSE. 



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 loftiest 

 ridges, ever mounting higher and higher, treading 

 with sure-footed fearlessness the narrow shelves, 

 with precipices above and below, leaping lightly 

 across yawning chasms a thousand yards in 

 depth, and climbing up the slippery and perilous 

 peaks, to stand as sentry in the glittering sky. 

 Excessively wary and suspicious, all its senses 

 seem endowed with a wonderful acuteness, so that 

 it becomes aware of the approach of the daring 

 hunter when half-a-league distant. When alarmed, 

 it bounds from ledge to ledge, seeking to gain a 

 sight of every quarter, uttering all the while its 

 peculiar hiss of impatience. At length it catches 



* Hoffmann's " Forest and Prairie," i. p. 92. 

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