100 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty 
disli in N"orth America. It is veiy reasonable to suppose that 
this creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by 
wading after water plants ; towards which way of livelihood tlie 
length of legs and great lip must contribute much. I have read 
somewhere that it delights in eating the nymplima, or water- 
lily. From the fore-feet to the belly behind the shoulder it 
measured three feet and eight inches : the length of the legs 
before and behind consisted a great deal in the tibia, which was 
strangely long ; but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I 
forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be 
about an inch long ; the colour was a grizzly black ; the mane 
about four inches long ; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, 
the hind flat and splayed. The spring before, it was only two 
years old, so that most probably it was not then come to its 
growth. What a vast tall beast must a full-grown stag be ! 
I have been told that some arrive at ten feet and a half ! This 
poor creature had at first a female companion of the same 
species, which died the spring before. 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 always be a bar. I should have been glad to 
have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c., minutely ; but 
the putrefaction precluded all further curiosity This animal, 
the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy 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 whether you think still that the American 
moose and European elk are the same creature. 
Selborne, March ^ 1770. 
