AMERICAN MOOSE DEER. 143 



and we have since heard_, that^ by prosecuting his 

 researches at the French Museum, he has favoured 

 the scientific world with the result of his observations. 

 How long are our public sources of zoological study 

 thus to excite the surprise, if not the contempt, of 

 foreigners ? When the officers of the British Museum 

 are labouring to impress this truth upon the higher 

 powers, and when they possess every requisite in zeal 

 and devotion to their duties, it is really a national 

 reproach that their representations are not sufficiently 

 attended to. 



Living specimens of this noble animal have been oc- 

 casionally brought to England, and one was sent to 

 George the Third from Hudson's Bay. Its manners 

 present many peculiarities, differing from those of the 

 other American deer. In general, it is a solitary ani- 

 mal, and hence is endowed with a most exquisite sense 

 of hearing ; it is, in short, the most shy and wary of 

 all its congeners, so that moose hunting is the greatest 

 accomplishment of an Indian. From the length of its 

 legs, and the shortness of its neck, the moose cannot 

 graze, like other animals, upon level ground ; it there- 

 fore browses on the tops of plants and the leaves of trees 

 in summer, and on those of willows and birch in winter: 

 these the animal often crops as if they had been cut 

 by a gardener's shears. 



The moose, when not provoked, is an inoffensive 

 animal. "^ The young ones, in particular," says Hearne, 

 '^ are so simple, that I have seen an Indian paddle his 

 canoe to one in the water, and take it by the poll, with- 

 out any opposition ; the poor harmless animal seeming 

 as contented as if swimming by the side of its dam, 

 looking up in our faces with the same fearless innocence 

 as a house lamb would, making use of its fore feet every 

 instant to clear its eyes of mosquitoes." The moose is 

 the largest of the deer kind, being higher at the shoulders 

 than the horse ; and it is, of all others, the most easy to 

 tame and domesticate. 



