138 MR. H. J. ELWES ON [ Feb. 3, 
which are said to be the favourite summer food of the Moose in 
America, are also eaten, though the plant is rare in the districts 
where I have hunted. 
The Elk seems to spend the greater part of the day in feeding, 
though it lies down for some hours to chew the cud. Some 
hunters say that it has a regular time for lying down, and 
will not hunt between 11 and 2 o’clock, because of the great 
difficulty of approaching the animal when it is resting. I have, 
however, seen them lying at all hours between 9 a.m. and 3 P.M., 
and have found them up and feeding at midday and later, so that 
there is evidently no rule beyond the appetite of the individual 
animal. 
From its great size and the nature of its food, the Elk requires 
a much larger extent of feeding-ground than any animal I am 
acquainted with, except the elephant; and I should suppose that 
at least three square miles of suitable forest would not support 
more than one Elk continuously, judging from the number I have 
found in places where they were at home and undisturbed. 
It is an animal of extremely solitary habits, and in summer 
more than three will hardly ever be found together, and more 
often only two. <A family-party usually consists of a cow, a calf, 
and a yearling; very often the cow and the calf are alone, and 
two bulls are frequently found together before the rutting-season 
begins. In winter, however, they are said to be somewhat more 
gregarious, but I have never heard of more than nine actually 
being seen in company in the autumn. 
In some Swedish forests, which are strictly preserved for shooting, 
it is said, however, that the Elk associates in larger herds, and has 
become so numerous that much damage is done to the forest by 
their biting off the shoots and tops of the young Scotch pines; but 
in such localities they do not attain the size and vigour that they 
do where they have a wider range and a greater choice of food, as 
in the two provinces where I have observed them. 
The Elk is commonly supposed to be essentially an inhabitant 
of forests, and though this is to some extent the case, and in winter 
it no doubt almost invariably keeps to the shelter of the forest, 
yet I have lately become convinced that it is found on the higher 
fjelds to a much greater extent than is generally known. As 
high as the birch is found, Elk may certainly be seen in summer ; 
and the old solitary bulls in districts where open fjelds exist 
rarely descend into the pine-forest until the rutting-season begins. 
From 1500 to 2500 feet is a very common range in summer, and 
on the high mountains of Upper Tydal I have seen tracks much 
higher than this, far out in the open fjeld on the Swedish frontier. 
And in North Trondhjem, where the timber-line is not so high, the 
open hill-tops in some places are covered with Elk tracks and dung, 
as though the animals had remained there during the whole of 
the hot weather. Capt. Ferrand assures me that he has killed a 
bull on the mountain above Lake Feemen at an elevation of at least 
3700 feet, on regular reindeer-ground, where arctic willows were 
