A Sportsman 45 



No legal restrictions aflfecting moose or deer ex- 

 isted in Maine at that time, or if there were any, 

 no attention was given, but game laws of late years 

 have been rigidly guarded by wardens, under extreme 

 penalties. Despite wardens and penalties, however, 

 quite a sprinkling of killing has annually occurred 

 in remote districts; but the general protection af- 

 forded, and the prohibition of market game selling, 

 has had a very salutary result in increasing big game, 

 especially deer. 



Moose still are found about the lakes, in a forest 

 yet unbroken which extends far into the wilder- 

 ness. Though still scarce, they have of late increased, 

 owing to the rigid enforcement of laws restricting 

 their killing to a very short period during the year. 

 A penalty of S500 is exacted for this killing out of 

 season. The killing of caribou is entirely prohibited 

 at any time. Moose killing, when permitted, is con- 

 fined wholly to biills beyond two years of age. It 

 has always seemed to me as if the moose were a 

 modem survival of the ancient period, to be linked 

 with the Irish elk and mastodon, and other prehistoric 

 animals, and most likely with the musk ox, elephant, 

 giraffe, and other unwieldy, cumbrous creations doomed 

 to disappear before the progress of man, as we have 

 seen the buffalo in our day. 



I note quite recently the approaching extinction 

 of the great Kadiak bear of Alaska — the largest in the 

 world, exceeding even the mammoth grizzly of the 

 Sierras, — which, inhabiting a limited district about 

 the estuaries of the Karluk River, where within 

 a few years as many as fifteen were sighted by an 

 observer in one day, are now difficult to sight at all, 



