118 HOOFED ANIMALS 
York appropriated $5,000 to be expended in restoring wild 
Moose to the Adirondack wilderness, from which the species 
was exterminated by man forty years ago. Up to September 
1903, fifteen head of young Moose had been purchased, 
chiefly in Canada, taken to the Adirondacks and liberated. 
Unfortunately, this well-meant experiment ended in total 
failure, and even as early as 1908 not one Moose remained 
alive in the North Woods. 
Tue AtaskANn Moose has obtained a place in the annals 
of natural history to which its title is, at the least, very ques- 
tionable. It has been described as a new species (Alce gigas), 
and a giant besides; and because of this, and its really immense 
antlers, it has dwarfed prevailing ideas regarding the more 
southern species (A. americanus). 
For the exaggerated ideas of this animal that now quite 
generally prevail, its antlers are perhaps chiefly responsible. 
Occasionally they are of great size and weight, exhibiting 
enormous spread (from 70 to 78 inches), wide palmations, 
and also great thickness (from 114 to 2 inches). Their maxi- 
mum dimensions considerably surpass those of antlers from 
more southern individuals. In addition to all this they oc- 
casionally show freaky development in the shape and set 
of the brow antlers; and occasionally the main shovel throws 
out a palmated spur of striking form and size. Seen from the 
front, it often happens that the antlers of an Alaskan Moose 
present a chaotic jumble of tines and palmations. Occasion- 
ally these odd forms are also found among the moose of Ot- 
tawa and New Brunswick. 
But in Alaskan Moose antlers freaky development is ex- 
