184 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



In my inexperience I felt rather doubtful about this and inclined 

 to back the moose's nose and my man's leather breeches, which 

 apparently had done yeoman's service, against his smelling 

 powers and the moose, but there seemed now no doubt but that 

 the trail was getting very hot. All fatigue vanished, and shortly 

 afterwards we heard the (to us) most delightful sound the 

 clashing of huge horns against the bushes. The wind was 

 blowing straight from the sound to us. We crept up a little 

 eminence, and on the other side stood a magnificent bull-moose 

 looking in our direction. The first bullet was smashed to frag- 

 ments on his ribs, as we found on removing the skin ; the second 

 killed him dead. There he lay, my first moose, and what a 

 huge creature he was ! His magnificent antlers proved just 

 under 5 feet across, were of a beautiful rich brown colour, and 

 carried thirteen points on one side and eleven on the other. As 

 he lay the bull was 80 inches from top of withers to point of toe, 

 measured along the curvatures of his body. I had now no longer 

 any doubt as to the possibility of smelling a bull- moose at this 

 season even at some distance, and still less during the skinning, 

 which we had for want of knives, &c., to defer to the next day, 

 when we all three returned and carried off the head and skin in 

 triumph. On seeing the enormous development of the nostrils 

 and the very extensive spread of the olfactory nerves, together 

 with the size of the huge ears, one could no longer wonder that 

 the moose is endowed with probably the most acute senses of 

 smell and hearing of any animal, and this fact greatly enhanced 

 the satisfaction of having secured such a trophy by fair 

 tracking. 



It is a marvel how the animal with his huge antlers manages 

 to get through the woods, especially through the thickets of the 

 terrible alder swamps, and at a gallop even as I have seen and 

 know him do, and for a long time together; to get the 5-feet 

 horns over the various portages was no child's play, even when 

 the Indian who carried them used his axe freely to clear the way. 

 On the journey back we passed the recent battle-ground of two 

 large bulls, where brushwood was torn down, young trees broken 

 off and the bark of the larger ones deeply scored. What com- 

 bats such must be when each animal weighs from 1,200 Ibs. to 

 1,400 Ibs and more ! This bull was one of the larger variety 

 with widely spreading antlers, smaller palmation and larger 



