EXTERMINATED AND EXTINCT UNGULATES. 4 1 
In the fall of 1853 Thoreau met an Indian, named Tahmunt Swa- 
sen, in the forests near Moosehead Lake, Maine, who told him that 
he had hunted Moose in the Adirondacks in New York, but that 
they were more plentiful in the Maine woods.* 
Concerning the abundance of the Moose in the Adirondacks 
subsequent to 1850, and its final disappearance from the region, I 
have taken great pains to solicit information, both through private 
inquiry and correspondence, and publicly through the medium of 
Forest and Stream. The result of this investigation, in which I 
have been greatly aided by Dr. Frederick H. Hoadley, is a deluge 
of individual opinion and conflicting statement, together with 
a meagre amount of positive information of a strictly reliable 
character. 
Early in March, 1851, Mr. John Constable and his brother 
Stevenson killed two Moose near the head of Independence Creek, 
in Herkimer County. They killed their last Moose in March, 
1856, west of Charley’s Pond, in Hamilton County. Mr. Constable 
writes me : “ I never recur to those hunts with any satisfaction, 
for much as I enjoyed at the time the tramp of more than a hun- 
dred miles on snow-shoes, the camping in the snow, the intense 
excitement of the search and pursuit, I must ever regret the part 
I have taken unwittingly in exterminating this noble animal from 
our forests. Were I younger, I would assist in reinstating them, 
as the plan is perfectly feasible. In the early years of my still- 
hunting, moose were quite numerous, and I rarely, if ever, failed to 
see signs of their peelings or their tracks.” 
In the year 1852 or 1853 the well-known guides, Alonzo Wood 
and Ed. Arnold, killed two Moose and found a third dead, back of 
Seventh Lake Mountain, in Hamilton County. 
Dr. J. H. Guild writes me from Rupert, Vermont, that a Moose 
was killed at or near Mud Lake, in the Lower Saranac region, in 
1856. 
* The Maine Woods. By Henry D. Thoreau, Boston, 1864, p. 141. 
4 
