COMPARISONS. 
HAVING given a description of each of the species of our deer 
with their characteristics more or less minute, we may find it 
profitable to enter into more detail under different headings, by 
which we may the more completely understand each, and by 
comparison perceive their similitudes and their differences. If 
in doing this we find it necessary or convenient to repeat some- 
thing which has already been said, we may find a recompense 
for it by having the same facts presented in different lights and 
in different connections, and thus the better appreciate their im- 
portance and fix them the more permanently in the memory. 
Indeed much of the value of our investigations must consist in 
comparing the observed facts relating to each species, with those 
of all the others, and to do this we must classify them and bring 
them into as close juxtaposition as practicable. 
FORM AND SIZE. 
It may be proper that we commence the comparison of the 
different species of deer of which I treat by examining their 
respective physical configurations and sizes. In pursuing the 
plan hitherto adopted I will commence with the largest, — the 
Moose. 
Our Moose is not only the largest of the American deer, but it 
is the largest living representative of the family as yet discovered 
in any part of the world. In comparatively recent times a much 
larger species existed in Ireland, whose fossil remains have been 
found complete and are now exhibited as interesting relics of 
former times, but our Moose considerably exceeds in size the 
same species in Europe, the Scandinavian elk; whether he 
has there degenerated in size, may be an open question, but I 
think the weight of evidence shows that he was formerly of a 
larger size than he is now, although individual specimens still 
are sometimes met with as large as the average of our Moose. 
This animal is the most ungainly in form of all the deer tribe. 
Its long head and short neck, its long legs and short body, its 
lack of symmetry in almost every line, leave no room for admira- 
