One Season's Game-Bag with Camera 407 



jacklight in the bow and the flashlight 

 apparatus in easy reach, we paddled 

 along the dark and silent waters, while 

 the canoe with its single blazing eye, was 

 seeking out some nocturnal denizen along 

 v'..- . uore or out in the deeper waters of 

 the many bays. 



Until the first night under the jack- 

 light, Adam Moore simply thought cam- 

 era hunting an interesting but not un- 

 usual pastime, for he had studied these 

 animals for many years in the waters and 

 in the forests of his native place. But 

 when, on the first night out, his keen ears 

 detected the wallowing of a moose at the 

 edge of a small bog and later saw its 

 bright, translucent eyes and its massive 

 body, illuminated by the funnel of light 

 from the jack, he grew intensely inter- 

 ested ; and when the flash was fired and 

 the great beast struggled about, blinded 

 but not really alarmed, by what was 

 taken to be a flash of lightning, Moore 

 laughed long and loud. Every night 

 thereafter he was the first in the canoe 

 and impatient for the start. Here again 

 the pictures must largely tell their story, 

 for space forbids a detailed account of 

 the many exciting scenes during the day- 

 light and night bombardment of the New 

 Brunswick moose. 



When I parted from Moore on the 

 Lower Tobique, the following week, he 

 said : "In my varied experience and with 

 many scenes before me, I can only say in 

 all sincerity that the hunt of the past 

 week has proved more interesting, more 

 exciting, and of more real value in the 

 study of animal life than all that has 

 gone before." And this from a man who 

 has looked over a rifle barrel for more 

 than forty years ! 



the reputed belligerency oe the bull 



MOOSE 



A prevailing impression shared in, 

 alike by expert and novice, is the be- 

 lief that the moose — especially the bull — 

 will deliberately charge the jacklight of 

 the night hunter, and in many portions of 

 Canada and the United States I have 

 been urgently advised against trying to 

 take flashlight pictures of this animal 



from a canoe at night. I recall with 

 marked distinctness an incident of many 

 years ago when a hunting chum of mine 

 came back from northern Minnesota, 

 where with one of our oldest guides in 

 charge of the canoe he had fired at a big 

 bull moose from under the jacklight, and 

 how, with the jack overboard, and a big 

 hole in the bottom of a canoe, they spent 

 the rest of the night on the banks of the 

 muddy marsh, vowing never to fool with 

 a moose again under such circumstances. 



But long before going to New Bruns- 

 wick I had discovered that much was 

 fallacious in this theory, though some- 

 what mystified by some of my exper- 

 iences. It so happened when the first 

 moose was flashed (a disreputable look- 

 ing old cow) it left the bank, bore down 

 on the canoe, knocking both cameras 

 overboard by striking the projecting 

 table, and passed out in the darkness of 

 the lake to be seen no more. And then 

 the guide, who for many years had skill- 

 fully wielded the stern paddle in many of 

 my flashlight expeditions, and who had 

 absorbed the many tales of the noctur- 

 nal savagery of the moose, remarked, as 

 he looked over his shoulder nervously, 

 "If an old cow like that can act so, then 

 there will be something doing when we 

 meet a bull," or words to that effect. 

 And I speculated too, as the cameras 

 were picked up, sustained in the water by 

 the air-tight bellows ; and then the damp- 

 ened negatives were hurried back to 

 camp for immediate development. 



What would happen we learned the 

 following year in the Wahnapitae Lake 

 district of Canada, when one night as 

 we searched for moose in a long, narrow 

 slough, a big animal was heard feeding in 

 the water at the edge of the marsh where 

 pond lilies grew in profusion. As the 

 light slowly disclosed the half submerged 

 body, we saw a big bull moose facing us, 

 his jaws working energetically as he 

 crushed the roots of a lily, dragged from 

 the bottom of the pond. He looked 

 rather fierce and the convulsive move- 

 ment of the jaws heightened the effect. 

 It was only after repeated signals from 

 me that the canoe came cautiously within 



