NORTH AMERICA 
THE MOOSE OR FLAT-HORNED ELK 
T HE eastern moose of North America, A Ices ntachlis atnericanus 
(Jardine), has all the characteristics of the deer family although 
it seems to be some survival of a vanished age. Its antlers, 
however, are unlike other species, being broadly palmated and 
divided into two sections consisting of front shovel and lateral 
palm. On each of these it bears a large number of points. It has 
a very heavy and pendulous muzzle with a small naked and triangular 
space between the large nostrils, a thick but comparatively short neck, 
short tail and small tarsal and no metatarsal glands. The female has no 
horns, but both sexes carry on the throat a “bell.” The dewlap is covered 
with long black hair which varies greatly in different individuals. A big 
moose is the largest of living deer and exceeds the horse in stature. Two 
fine bulls which I killed in Ottawa measured 6 feet 6 inches and 6 feet 
8 inches at the withers. Both were black on the upper part of the forelegs, 
neck, withers, breast, shoulders, flanks and rump, pale brown on the 
muzzle and sides of the face, and black on the chin. The underparts, great 
part of the hind legs, from the knees to the fetlocks, grey. The colouring 
of the sexes is much alike. The length of these bulls was 9 feet 6 inches and 
9 feet 8 inches respectively, tail 3 inches. There are many records of 
eastern moose of over 6 feet 8 inches at the shoulder, and one shot in 
New Brunswick by Carl Rungius, the well-known artist, measured 7 feet 
at the withers. Mr Thompson Seton (“Life Histories of Northern Animals,” 
Vol. I, p. 145) states that the largest he knows of was a bull shot at 
Mattawa, Quebec, in 1895, by Dr Hamilton Vreeland and his brother. It 
stood 7 feet 4 inches at the withers. 
The dentition of moose is as follows : 
| ^ i Can, q q 5 prem. ^ ^ ; Mol. ^ ^ » 32. 
Very few hunters have taken scales into the woods for the purpose of 
weighing wild animals, but the best estimates give dead weight of bulls 
as between 1,300 and 1,400 lb. Mr Crosby, of Bangor, Maine, says (“ Re- 
creation Magazine,” January, 1896, p. 89), “ I have weighed several moose; 
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