THE MOOSE DEER. 49 
apparatus, for the bull Moose fights principally with his 
huge, deeply-cloven hoofs, which he handles with great 
dexterity, and with which he can inflict very heavy 
blows. They often weigh from fifty-six to sixty pounds 
the pair, and present a flat palmated surface, intersected 
upwardly by irregular ribs or ridges, each terminating 
in a short snag or rounded point, one of which is added 
every year until they attain their full stature. The 
weight of these is enormous, and accordingly when the 
auimal runs, which he does at a heavy, awkward, 
shambling trot, he thrusts his nose high into the air, 
with his short, sturdy neck pointed upward, so that the 
horns are rested in some degree upon the back, partly it 
may be supposed for the purpose of support, and partly 
to avoid entanglement among the branches and thick-set 
stems of the cedar-swamps which they most frequent. 
These horns they shed annually in the spring of the 
year, and annually renew, the surface being covered 
with a soft velvet-like fungus, while they are young and 
tender, and gaining hardness and consistency till in the 
rutting season, which o¢curs in the latter sammer and early 
autumn, they are perfect in size and formidable as wea- 
pons of offence. At this period the bulls may be heard 
roaring and bellowing throughout the mountain gorges of 
the ranges which they frequent, in the evening espe- 
cially, and in the early gray of dawn, and when they hear 
the lowing of the cows they come crashing through the 
forests with fierce and amorous heat; and if two rival 
3 
