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64 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



female elk, or — as miglit l)c more acceptably inferred — a 

 male wliicli had lost one liorn, and consequently late in 

 the autumn, as it is well known that the liorns are not 

 shed simultaneously. Pausanias speaks of the elk as 

 intermediate between the stag and the camel, as a most 

 sagacious animal, and capable of distinguishing the odour 

 of a human being at a great distance, taken by hunters 

 in the same manner as is now pursued in the " shall" of 

 north Europe, and as being indigenous to the country of 

 the Cclta3 ; whilst Phny declares it to be a native of 

 Scandinavia, and states that at his time it had not been 

 exhibited at the Roman games. At a later period the 

 animal became better known, for Julius Capitolinus 

 speaks of elks being shown by Gordian, and Vopiscus 

 '} ' ;ji mentions that Aurelian exhibited the rare spectacle of the 



1 1 elk, the tiger, and the giraffe, when he triumphed over 



Zenobia. 



In these few notices is summed up all that has been 

 preserved of what may be termed the ancient history of 

 the European elk. An interesting reflection is suggested 

 as to what w^ere the physical features of central Europe in 

 those days. It seems evident that ancient France, then 

 called Gaul, was a region of alternate forests and 

 morasses in which besides the red and the roe, the rein- 

 deer abounded, if not tlie elk ; that in crossing the Alps, 

 a vast, continuous forest, commencing on the confines of 

 modern Switzerland, occupied the valleys and slopes of 

 the Alps, from the sources of the Rhine to an eastern 

 boundary indicated by the Carpathia'i mountains, and 

 embraced, as far as its northern extension was known, 

 the plateau of Bohemia. Strange and fierce animals, 

 hitherto unknown to the Romans — accustomed as they 



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