74 QUADRUPEDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



1. Cervus Alces. Lin. The Moose. 



Cervus Alces, Harlan, Fauna Am., p. 229. Richardson, Fauna Bor. Am., 



p. 232. 

 The Moose, Godman, Nat. Hist., ii. p. 274. 



Figure ; Ibid., p. 274. Griffith's Cuvier, iv. p. 72. 



Specific characters. Color black, or blackish-brown, intermixed 

 with gray ; neck surmounted with a short mane ; head large, 

 elongated, and terminating in a large, thick, curved nose, with a 

 small triangular muzzle, and adorned in the male with large pal- 

 mated horns ; nostrils long, slouched, and narrow ; neck short, and 

 furnished with a hairy appendage beneath. 



Description. The head is long, with a thick upper lip ; the 

 neck extremely short, and the body rather thick, and supported 

 on long and rather slender legs ; ears long ; horns palmated and 

 situated between the eyes and the crest of the skull ; female des- 

 titute of horns ; the color in the winter is almost black on the 

 superior parts ; lighter below, and yellowish, or dirty white, on the 

 belly ; legs long, and toes capable of being widely separated ; 

 tail very short ; in the skull the horn is inserted nearer to the orbit 

 of the eye than to the crucial ridge ; between the insertion of the 

 horns and the orbits, there exists a deep and wide depression, and 

 above, a heavy ridge or projection, on which the horns are sup- 

 ported, and which is on the line of the coronal suture, or the suture 

 may be said to traverse this projection on the posterior part ; in- 

 ward and beneath the orbit, there is a large, triangular, vacant 

 space, which does not communicate directly with the orbit, but 

 extends far up beneath the os frontis. 



Dimensions. 



Length of the body, 



Tail, 



Head, 



Neck, 



Ears, 



Height, 



ft. 



in. 



t'ths. 



6 



10 











1 



5 



1 



6 







1 



6 











10 







5 



4 







