THE UABITS OF MOOSE. 3o9 



and menageries. What a consolation, therefore, to find in the 

 temperate zone a region where large wild animals are not only 

 numerous but increasing ! Such was my own good fortune in 

 the forested lakeland tributaiy to Rainy Lake, Ontario, where 

 I spent five months in 1909 and the month of June 1910, 

 canoeing with a Red Indian. Besides numerous lesser animals, 

 we saw of that largest Deer — the Moose — nearly 500; 275 of 

 them in a single fortnight during the fly-season of 1910. 



The Indians of this region all agree in saying that thirty years 

 ago the Moose was a rare, if not almost unknown, inhabitant. 

 Yet there are reasons to believe that at some remote time his 

 dominion was not unlike the present. On many of the rocks, for 

 instance, there are half-obliterated paintings attributed by the 

 Indians to a medicine man named Amo, who lived vaguely 

 "t'ousand years 'go" ; and nearly all these paintings include the 

 figure of a moose. The horns and the hump on the back ai'e 

 unmistakable. 



The increase of the moose in the last thirty years has coincided 

 with the decline of the Indians ; the natives still surviving are 

 generally a feeble lot, whose hunting-grounds are no longer far 

 afield. From his worst enemy, therefore, the moose has had 

 little to fear. Moreover, he has been almost without rival, for 

 the woodland Caribou that once roamed all over the region has 

 gradually withdrawn until to-day in a whole winter only an ' 

 isolated band or so may be seen. 



Another significant change in the region is the disappearance 

 of W'ild rice {Zizania a-qioaiica), called by the Indians " manomin." 

 Formerly it was one of the Indians' chief foods ; they gathered it in 

 great quantities every autumn and it attracted hosts of ducks. 

 To-day it is very rai-e ; in three thousand miles of canoeing I saw 

 it above water only two or three times and then always in small 

 patches. The explanation, I think, is connected with the moose. 

 Though writers never mention wild rice as one of his foods, there 

 can be no doubt that in these parts at least it is a favourite. 

 I remember one day we saw three moose feeding in a shallow 

 bend of the river. When we had frightened them away, I said 

 to my Indian : " Billy, there are no lily -pads here. What were 

 they eating ? " For reply, Billy thrust his arm under water and 

 pulled up a bunch of light green grass — the same that I had seen 

 hanging from the mooses' mouths. It was wild rice. 



Wherever in the Rainy Lake District moose are seen in la,r"-e 

 numbers, careful investigation, I think, will reveal more or less 

 of this same wild rice, half-developed under water. The moose 

 though they occur in all parts of the region, tend to congregate 

 in these special feeding-grounds. I have seen ten together, 

 seven of them bulls, in one bend of the Big Turtle River ; and 

 every one was feeding on wild rice. 



Browsing in the river, the moose usually walks out to the 

 height of his belly. If he feels no fear, he dips his head regularly 

 for a period of from ten to thirty seconds and lifts it dui'ing one 



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