THE ALCINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 83 if? 



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often purposeless destruction of woods by the axe, and i'f 



the constant devastation of large areas of forest by fires, '||i ii jl'i 



too frequently the result of carelessness, are reducing the |-f:| 



moisture of the American wilderness, rcmovinii; the !■ 



sponge-like carpet of mosses by which the water was 

 retained, and rendering the latter a less fitting abode for 

 the moose. Kestriction of his domains and constant dis- 

 turbance arc undoul)tedly slowly dwarfing the species. i '■ ; 

 We no longer hear of examples of the monster moose of "':'•% 

 the old times of which Indian tradition still speaks, and •! 

 when the well-authenticated dimiimtion in the size of ' '' ■ 

 the red deer of the Scottish hills is remembered, an ap- > ; .' %, 

 pearance of less exaggeration than is usually attributed 

 to them marks the tales of the early American voyageurs 

 concerning the moose. 



When the Russian aurochs and the musk-sheep of 

 Arctic America shall have disappeared, it is to be feared 

 that Cervus Alces of the Old and New Worlds, his fir 

 forests levelled, his favourite swamps di-ained, find unable 

 to exist continuously in the broad glare and radiation of 

 a barren country, will follow, to be regretted as one of 

 the noblest and most important mammals of a past 

 age ; his l)ones will be dug from peat-bogs by a future 

 generation of naturalists, and prized as are now those of 

 the Great Auk of the islands of the North Atlantic, or of . 



the Struthiones of New Zealand, which have perished %■ 



within tbe ken of the scientific record of modern natural 

 history. 





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