THE ELK, OK MOOSE. 
127 
l)Ut shuffles or ambles along, its joints cracking at 
every step with a sound heard to some distance. In- 
creasing its speed, the hind feet straddle, to avoid 
treading on its fore heels, tossing the head and 
shoulders like a horse about to break from a trot to 
a gallop. It does not leap, but steps without effort 
over a fallen tree, a gate, or split-fence. During its 
progress, it holds the nape up, so as to lay the horns 
horizontally back. 
The form of the upper lip is perhaps one of the 
most marked characters of the animal, and, as we 
shall presently see, is undoubtedly an organ of pre- 
hension, necessary for its mode of life, in which it 
is assisted by the lengthened tongue, possessing great 
flexibility. The upper lip, like most of the stags, is 
not finisl.ed hy a naked muzzle ; it is entirely co- 
vered with hair, and has only in the centie a small 
space entirely naked, and without glands. Ihe 
edges of the lips, on the contrary, are covered with 
glands, and, towards their commissures, have nume- 
rous fleshy appendages, of four or five lines in depth, 
and almost like tentacula. 
In its winter dress, the Elk is of a brownish-black, 
almost inclining to the latter colour, with the excep- 
tion of the limbs, which are greyish-yellow or fawn 
colour. The mane is of a fawn colour : the sides 
of the head of a clear tlull greyish-brown. In 
this state it is represented in the accompanying 
Plate. In the dress of summer, it is always of a 
browner tint. During the second year, the horns 
