TRAITS AND HABITS OF THE ELK 309 



extreme north. Toward the south, although they 

 are found in large numbers in the great forests, 

 still, on account of a royal edict they are not used, 

 lest traitors employ them, by reason of their speed, 

 which greatly exceeds the speed of horses, to expose 

 the interior of the kingdom to the enemy. This 

 beast endures hunger, thirst, and work most 

 patiently, so that in a day and a night he is able 

 to accomplish by running the great distance of 

 200 Italian miles, without food."" 



Concerning the use of elk as draft animals in 

 Russia we have little information. A seventeenth- 

 century ordinance of the city of Dorpat, in Livonia, 

 forbade such use of the elk within the city limits 

 — presumably to avoid frightening horses.'^ 



According to Blasius repeated efforts to raise 

 elk in captivity in parks in various German cities 

 have yielded unsatisfactory results. They have 

 lived from one to four years at most. But Russian 

 experiments have been more successful. 



A writer in Priroda i Ochota, a periodical de- 

 voted to hunting, published in Moscow, related his 

 experience with two elk which were born wild, 

 but which came into his possession June 8, 1870, as 



" De Gentihus Septentrionalihus (Basel, 1567), p. 484. This history- 

 was originally published in Rome in 1555, while the author was living 

 in Italy, practically in exile because of the Reformation. 



^3 Martenson, uhi supra, p. 70. 



