76 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



in a canoe to come up to them and take them by the head, 

 without appearing in the least frightened. 



The dags, prickets, or incipient antlers, are the first year 

 not more than an inch in length; the second they rise to a 

 foot; the third they are forked, and the fourth they first 

 assume six snags, and are somewhat flattened ; the fifth 

 year, the blade is still small, but their expansion from that 

 time forward, is uniform ; though it does not appear that 

 the number of snags ever exceed twenty-eight. In a very 

 large specimen which we saw shot, there were twenty-two, 

 the length from the head to the tip, twenty-seven inches, 

 and from tip to tip across the horns, three feet six : the 

 two lower snags on each side separated by a deep indenture ; 

 the weight about thirty-three pounds. Old elks shed their 

 horns in January and February, and if lean from a severe 

 winter, in March ; the younger later, till the month of 

 May. They are again completely restored in the former by 

 the end of June, and in the latter in August. 



An elk killed in Sweden, is said to have weighed twelve 

 hundred pounds ; but this must have been a very extraor- 

 dinary animal: their height is about six feet. A white 

 specimen from Swedish Lapland, in the Munich Museum, 

 five years old, is six Rhineland feet at the shoulder. A 

 female, figured by Mr. Heriot, was seventeen hands high : 

 the large male above alluded to, was scarce four inches 

 more, or about six feet ; but he was very deep at the 

 shoulders. Another, whose antlers were still more deeply 

 indented at the base, that is with the parts corresponding 

 to the brow and bezantlers of the Stag, separated from the 

 main blade by a deep intersection, was not more than 

 seventeen hands and a half high. His head measured from 

 the nose to between the ears, two feet three inches ; distance 

 between the eyes eight inches ; length of the ears nine inches 

 and a half; the lower branches or snags were bifurcated 

 and thirteen inches long, and their united amount was 



