FOREST SPORTS. 
207 
in the aim, or whose rifle misses fire at that crisis. A bull 
Moose, seventeen or eighteen hands in height, with antlers of 
six feet spread, and hoofs as big as an Ox’s, the edges of which 
cut like a sabre, and which he can handle as deftly as a prize¬ 
fighter, is anything but a pleasant customer at close quarters. 
Sometimes two or three bulls will come together, and fight 
out a forest toumay in the presence of the hunters; and the 
grandeur of such a scene, witnessed by the pale moonlight, in 
the depth of the untrodden forest, must be exciting and majes- 
tical in the extreme. 
A tilt of this sort has been so graphically and characteristically 
described by the gentleman to whom I have referred before, 
Mr. Barton Wallop, in the eleventh volume of the Turf Regis¬ 
ter, that I cannot resist the temptation of extracting it for the 
entertainment and instruction of those of my readers, who do 
not possess that once excellent, but now, alas ! defunct, peri¬ 
odical. 
“ We reached Adella’s wigwam,” says he, “just as the sun 
was taking his last peep at us over the western mountains, and 
though we had walked some eighteen miles through a thickly 
wooded country, we agreed after supper to take a shy at the 
Moose. 
‘“No time like the present,’ said Tom,—‘ we have a lovely 
night, the harvest moon is at her full, and I am too anxious to 
sleep. My soul’s in arms !—shoulder blunderbuss !—each man 
to his blanket! his share of lush and grub!—are you ready, 
gentlemen 1—march !’—and off we went. 
“ The sharp October air came chilling upon us as we strode 
forth, and made the exercise agreeable. Howard had pleased 
to this moment to keep me in blessed ignorance, and I began to 
think we were on rather a wild expedition. 
“ ‘ In the name of our great Nimrod !’ said I, ‘ do, like a good 
fellow, give me some little idea what we are to do, and how we 
are to shoot Moose at this hour of the night.’ 
“ ‘ There you rather puzzle me,’ replied Howard: ‘ I am 
quite as much in the dark as yourself, never having before tiied 
