140 



ORDERS OF MAMMALS— HOOFED ANIMALS 



by swimming, when they are easily overtaken, and 

 either killed, captured, or photographed. 



In the autumn months, the northeastern Moose 

 hunter sometimes makes a horn of birch bark, 

 at nightfall conceals himself beside a pond, and 

 imitates the call of the cow Moose until a bull 

 is actually attracted within shooting distance. 

 The cry of this animal is a prolonged, resonant 

 bawl, ending in three or four hoarse grunts. 



The accompanying map shows that the Moose 

 is yet found in northern Maine, New Brunswick, 

 Canada, Manitoba, northern Minnesota, north- 

 western Wyoming, Idaho, British Columbia, 

 Alberta, Athabasca, Yukon and Alaska. It 

 shows only localities known to have been in- 

 habited in 1902. In none of these, however, 

 are Moose so abundant as in Alaska, around Cook 

 Inlet. The southern limit of the Moose in North 

 America is the head of Green River, Wyoming, 

 Latitude 43°, Longitude 110° W., corresponding 

 to the latitude of Albany, New York. 



Below Alaska, the favorite hunting-grounds 

 for Moose are Maine, New Brunswick, the upper 

 Ottawa River country of Canada, and north- 

 western Manitoba. In view of the great number 

 of hunters — estimated at ten thousand — who 

 annually hunt and fish in Maine, of whom a large 

 proportion hold licenses that permit the killing 

 of one bull, the persistence of the Moose in Maine 

 is really wonderful. During the past nine years 

 the number of Moose transported by the rail- 

 ways of Maine have been as follows: 



1894 4.5 



1895 112 



1S96 133 



1897 139 



1898 202 



1899 166 



1900 210 



1901 259 



1902 244 



Total 1,510 



In all probability, fifteen hundred more were 

 killed and consumed within the state, and not 

 accounted for in any permanent records. 



The young of the Moose — always spoken of as 

 a "calf," its mother being called a "cow"— is 

 born in May, and at first is a very grotesque- 

 looking creature. Its enormously long, loose- 

 jointed legs are attached to an abnormally short 

 and diminutive body. The neck is so short the 



creature cannot put its nose to the ground with- 

 out kneeling. Its hair is woolly and brick red, 

 or "sandy," like that of a buffalo calf. 



A Moose calf which I once owned, and meas- 

 ured when seven weeks old, had the following 

 dimensions : 



Height at shoulders 37 inches. 



" hips 31 " 



Length of head and body 42 " 



Depth of chest 11 " 



Length of foreleg to elbow 26 " 



Weight 79 pounds. 



At one year of age, if not stunted in growth, 

 a Moose stands from 4 feet 9 inches to 5 feet in 

 height at the shoulders, where it has developed a 

 lofty hump. On August 14, 1901, the largest 

 of six Moose in the New York Zoological Park, 

 each one about fifteen months old, measured as 

 follows : 



Height, 5 feet 3 inches; length, head and body, 

 5 feet 9 inches. Length of tail, 3 J inches; depth 

 of chest, 2 feet 2 inches. Horns, 4 inches long; 

 weight, 330 pounds. 



Any Moose which stands 6 feet 6 inches in 

 height at the shoulders may be considered a very 

 large one, a prize, in fact. The largest Moose of 

 which I have a reliable record, was killed in New 

 Brunswick, in 1901, by Carl Rungius, the justly- 

 celebrated animal painter, and carefully meas- 

 ured by him with the following result : 



Height of shoulders, 7 feet, exactly. 



Length of head and body, 9 feet 7 inches. 



Girth, 8 feet. 



Length of head alone, 2 feet 9 inches. 



Antlers small for so large an animal. 



The largest antlers recorded up to this date 

 (1903) came from the Kenai Peninsula, are now 

 in the Field Columbian Museum, and have the 

 following dimensions : 



Spread at widest point, 78^ inches. 



Greatest width of palmation, 16 inches. 



Circumference of burr, 15 inches. 



Greatest thickness of palmation, 2J inches. 



Length of skull, 28f inches. 



Total number of points, 34. 



Weight of antlers and dry skull, 93^ pounds. 



From the above figures, one can imagine the 

 strength necessary to enable an animal to carry 

 such an unwieldy load upon its head, and run at 

 great speed for long distances over the roughest 

 kind of timbered country. 



