THE MOOSE AND HIS HISTORY 



21 



out on the dogs. They possess great strength of 

 hoof, so as to strike a wolf dead at a blow. Their 

 flesh, either fresh or salted, is very nutritious; the 

 hoofs cure the falling sickness." 



Montanus was evidently writing of the moose, 

 which is the elk of Europe, but he was clearly at 

 fault in placing the habitat of the moose so^uth 

 of New Netherland. His plate, showing some of 

 the wild animals of New Netherland, is reproduced 

 herewith. In it are shown the moose, the ujiicorn 

 (which Montanus said was found "on the borders 

 of Canada"), and a great blood-drinking eagle. 

 A beaver, in the foreground of the picture, seems to 

 be amused at the company in which he finds himself. 



John Josselyn, an English physician, the son of 

 a baronet, who made two extended visits to New 

 England the seventeenth century, spending 

 much of his time in what is now Maine, has left us 

 a description of the moose. 



"The Moose or Elke is a Creature, or rather 

 if you will a Monster of superfluity," he writes. 

 "A full grown Moose is many times bigger than an 

 English Oxe, their horns as I have said elsewhere, 

 very big (and brancht out into palms) the tips 

 whereof are sometimes found to be two fathom 

 asunder (a fathom is six feet from the tip of one 

 finger to the tip of the other, that is four cubits). 



