IMMATURE SCANDINAVIAN ELK.
The largest of all the Deer Tribe, and has antlers of an altogether abnormal type.
In addition to the common or Scandinavian reindeer, there are closely allied races, showing, however, slightly varying characteristics, found in Spitzbergen and Greenland. In North America, where only wild reindeer are found, these animals are known as Caribou. Here several sub-species are known: among them, the Newfoundland Caribou; the Woodland Caribou of the mainland; and the Barren-ground Caribou, found in the arctic wastes of the Far North-west, towards the Polar Ocean.
The Elk, or Moose.
By permission of the New York Zoological Society.
FEMALE AMERICAN ELK, OR MOOSE.
The elk of the two hemispheres are so alike that they cannot be regarded as anything more than races of a single species.
This gigantic creature, the largest of all the numerous tribe of deer, is found, in the Old World, in Northern Europe, Siberia, and Northern China. Its range extends—for there is no real distinction between the elk of the Old and the New Worlds—to Northern America, where it is always known as the Moose. Its transatlantic habitat runs from the mouth of the Mackenzie River to the St. Lawrence. Wherever its abiding-place may be, it will be found that the elk is essentially a forest-loving creature, partial to the loneliest stretches of the woods and dreary marshes. Its fleshy, bulbous, prehensile muzzle shows plainly that the elk is a browsing beast, and not a grazing animal, like most other deer. The male carries vast palmated horns, measuring sometimes as much as 6 feet 1¼ inch in span from tip to tip; this measurement is from an American specimen in the possession of the Duke of Westminster. A fine Scandinavian bull will measure 18 hands at the withers and weigh as much as 90 stone, while the North American elk is said to attain as much as 1,400 lbs. In colour the elk is a dark brownish grey; the neck, body, and tail are short; while the animal stands very high upon the legs. Under the throat of the male hangs a singular appendage, a sort of tassel of hair and skin, known to American hunters as the "bell." The build of the elk is clumsy, and the mighty beast entirely lacks the grace characteristic of so many others of the deer kind. It has in truth a strangely primeval, old-world aspect, and seems rather to belong to prehistoric ages than to modern times.
In Scandinavia elk are hunted usually in two ways—by driving, or with a trained dog held in leash. In the royal forests of Sweden great bags are made at these drives; and in the year 1885, when a great hunt was got up for the present King of England, forty-nine elk were slain. Except during the rutting-season these titanic deer are extremely shy and suspicious creatures, and the greatest precautions have to be taken in hunting them.