HEADS AND HORNS 



175 



Edward R. Alston writes: "Mr. Dresser informs 

 me that in New Brunswick he once examined in the 

 flesh a female moose with well-developed bifur- 

 cated antlers.""^ In most cases where females 

 of the deer family have been found with antlers 

 they have been barren. The presence of antlers 

 in the case of fertile female caribou, however, is 

 very frequent. 



Moose antlers are much less frequently found 

 interlocked than those of the common deer. The 

 best known example of interlocked horns is pre- 

 served in the National Collection of Heads and 

 Horns in New York. The spread of one pair is 

 69^ inches, while the other measures 62 inches. 

 An Indian hunter on the Kenai Peninsula was 

 attracted to the battlefield of the big animals by 

 the noise of the combat. When he arrived on the 

 scene one moose had a broken neck, and the 

 other was vainly struggling to free himself from 

 the unwelcome incumbrance. The Indian killed 

 the survivor, but was unable to separate the 

 antlers.^ 



Dr. Josselyn, who told of moose horns the tips 



4 Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1879, p. 298. Lewis 

 Lloyd {Scandinavian Adventures y vol. ii., p. 95) says that at the castle of 

 Aschaffenburg, in Germany, there is the horn-cranium of a female elk 

 having eight points. 



^Harper's Weekly, Jan. 15, 1910. 



