FIG. 149. Elk.
Although the Elk ([fig. 149.]) and the Rein-deer ([fig. 150.]) are animals of different species, we shall treat of them together, because it is scarcely possible to write the history of the one without borrowing a great deal from the other. The greatest part of ancient, and even modern authors, have confounded them, or described them by equivocal denominations which might be applied to both. The Greeks had no knowledge either of the elk or the rein-deer, for Aristotle makes no mention of them; and, among the Latins, Julius Cæsar is the first who has made use of the word Alce. Pausanias, who wrote above a hundred years after Julius Cæsar, is also the first Greek author who takes notice of this name of [Greek: Alchê]; and Pliny, who was nearly contemporary with Pausanias, has very obscurely indicated the elk and the rein-deer under the names alce, machlis, and tarandus. We cannot, therefore, say, that the name alce, is properly Greek or Latin; it seems to have been derived from the Celtic tongue, in which the elk is named elch or elk. The Latin name of the rein-deer is still more uncertain; many naturalists have thought that this was the machlis of Pliny, because this author, in speaking of the animals of the north, quotes, at the same time, the alce and the machlis, and says that the last particularly belongs to Scandinavia, and was never seen at Rome, nor even in all the extent of the Roman empire. Nevertheless, we find in Cæsar’s Commentaries a passage that we can scarcely apply to any other animal than the rein-deer, and which seems to prove, that he existed at that time in the forests of Germany; and fifteen centuries after Julius Cæsar, Gaston Phœbus seems to speak of the rein-deer under the name of the rangier, as an animal which existed in his time in our forests of France: he even gives a tolerable description of this animal[Q], and of the method of taking and hunting him. As his description cannot be applied to the elk, and as he gives, at the same time, the manner of hunting the stag, the fallow-deer, the wild goat, the chamois goat, &c. it cannot be supposed, that under the article of the rangier he intended to speak of any of those animals, or that he was deceived in the application of the name.
[Q] The Rangier is very much like the stag, but has considerably larger horns: when he is very much pressed in the chace he puts his hind parts against a tree, and bends his head to the ground, in which situation he is perfectly secure, as his horns completely defend his whole body, and the dogs are afraid to approach him. He is not higher than the fallow-deer, but more bulky; he is hunted with dogs, but he is more commonly shot with arrows, or taken in snares. He feeds in the same manner as the stag and fallow-deer, and lives to a great age. La Venerie de Jacques Dufouilloux.
It appears, then, from these positive testimonies, that the rein-deer formerly existed in France, at least in the mountainous parts, such as the Pyrennees, near which Gaston Phœbus dwelt as lord of the county of Foix, and that since his time they had been destroyed like the stags, who were heretofore common in this country. It is certain that the rein-deer is now to be found only in the most northern countries; but we also know, that the climate of France was formerly much more damp and cold, occasioned by the number of woods and morasses, which have since been cut down and drained. By the letter of the Emperor Julian, we learn what was the rigour of cold at Paris in his time: the description he gives of the ice on the Seine perfectly resembles what the Canadians say of the ice on the rivers of Quebec. Gaul, under the same latitude as Canada, was, two thousand years ago, what Canada is at present; that is to say, a climate cold enough for these animals to live in, which are now only to be met with in the regions of the north.