or SELBORNE. 137 



the same species, which died the Spring be- 

 fore. In the same garden was a young stag, 

 or red deer, between whom and this moose 

 it was hoped that there might have been a 

 breed ; but their inequality of height must 

 have always been a bar to any commerce 

 of the amorous kind. I should have been 

 glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, 

 lips, hoofs, &c. minutely ; but the putrefac- 

 tion precluded all farther curiosity. This 

 animal, the keeper told me, seemed to en- 

 joy itself best in the extreme frost of the 

 former Winter. In the house they showed 

 me the horn of a male moose, which had 

 no front-antlers, but only a broad palm 

 with some snags on the edge. The noble 

 owner of the dead moose proposed to make 

 a skeleton of her bones. 



Please to let me hear if my female moose 

 corresponds with that you saw ; and whe- 

 ther you think still that the American 

 moose and European elk are the same 

 creature. 



I am, . 



With the greatest esteem, &c. 



