118 GILPIN ON THE MAMMALIA OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



the front, as every sign portrays his nearness, his dung still smok- 

 ing, branches vibrating vs^iere he passed, and a breast high scent 

 infuriating the dogs. The foremost hunter, (I have seen him bare 

 headed and stripped to his shirt sleeves, with the thermometer at 

 zero,) soon wipes the sweat from his brow, to take sure aim at the 

 huge beast floundering before him, assailed on nose and flank, and 

 ear, and hock by dogs. It is in vain that he makes such enormous 

 bounds, or that he has killed one of his tormentors, cutting his ribs 

 from his spine by a blow of his sharp hoof. Others rush in, aud 

 the snow that ten minutes before lay in its virgin purity is for 

 many a yard tramped down by the great deer in his agony, torn up 

 by the rioting dogs in their fury, reddened with blood, and matted 

 with coarse gray hairs. Your victim lies a motionless heap in the 

 centre, perhaps hU thirtieth mile stone. This is a faithful chron- 

 icle of a successful hunt, and hard enough at that, but when to it 

 are added all the unsuccessful ones, the storms endured, the cold, 

 and especially the heavy rains, it must be confessed the sport is 

 hard. Yet I have known men entirely fascinated with it. William 

 Dargie, now a magistrate, grown old, and cruelly cut up by 

 rheumatism, and Sam Copland, who met a woodman's death, on 

 the snow and alone, were the best captains of the hunt, I knew. 

 This sport is now made illegal by the close season commencing the 

 first of February. It would be entering into a subject foreign to 

 this paper to discuss this matter. 



We will turn, then, to the next subject — tUe identity of our 

 Moose with the Elk of the ancients, and at present habiting Sweden, 

 Norway, and some parts of Northern Russia. Our moose inhabits 

 a belt of forest reaching from Nova Scotia in the east to beyond the 

 Rocky Mountains in tlie west, and from about 44 N. Latitude to 

 70 N. Latitude. Linnasus who described him first evidently con- 

 sidered him a variety of the Elk, leaving his specific difference 

 doubtful. Sir John Richardson inclines to consider him distinct, 

 and mentions the Elk as having a broader forehead. The Royal 

 College of Surgeons determined that there was no anatomical 

 difference between them. But lately Capt. Hardy, R. A., a mem- 

 ber of this Institute, returning from Nova Scotia to England, with 

 all his recollections of the Moose fresh, and also liis measurements 



