CHAPTER I 



THE MOOSE AND HIS HISTORY 



In a plea for the preservation of the moose 

 Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the 

 New York Zoological Society, has said, "Nature 

 has been a million years in developing that wonder- 

 ful animal, and man should not ruthlessly destroy 

 it!" 



A million years ! The imagination is helpless in 

 attempting to grasp the idea of such a period of 

 time, and the events which have taken place in 

 it. 



The ancestral home of the moose {Cervus alces) 

 in prehistoric times was probably in Asia. Pro- 

 fessor Osborn quotes Sir Victor Brooke as main- 

 taining that the Cervidce originated in Asia, and 

 thence spread east and west.' But at just what 

 stage in this little matter of a million years the 

 first moose wandered into America over the land 



* The Age of Mammals in Europe, Asia, and North America (New 

 York, 1910), p. 418. 



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