To hunt the moose requires years of study. Here is the little game which his instinct teaches him. When the early morning has come he begins to think of lying down for the day. He has been feeding on the gray and golden willow tops as he walked leisurely along. His track is marked in the snow or soft clay; he carefully retraces his footsteps, and breaking off suddenly to the leeward side, lies down a gun-shot from his feeding track.

He knows he must catch the wind of any one following his trail.

In the morning, Twa-poos, or the Three Thumbs,

sets forth to look

American Moose.

for a moose. He hits the trail and follows it; every now and then he examines the broken willow tops or the hoof-marks. When experience tells him that the moose has been feeding here during the early night, Twa-poos quits the trail, bending away in a deep circle to leeward. Stealthily he returns to the trail, and as stealthily bends away again from it. At each return to it he examines attentively the willows, and judges how near he is to the game.

At last he is so near that he knows for an

absolute certainty that the moose is lying in a thicket a little ahead. Now comes the trying moment. He removes every article of clothing that might cause the slightest noise in the forest. Even his moccasins are laid aside, and then on the tips of his toes he goes forward for the last trial. Every bush is now closely watched; every thicket is examined. See! he stops all You who follow him look, and look in vain; you can see nothing. He laughs to himself and points to yon willow covert. No, there is nothing there.

at once.

In

He noiselessly cocks his gun. You look again and again, but you can see nothing. Then Twapoos suddenly stretches out his hand and breaks a little twig from an overhanging branch. an instant right in front, thirty or forty yards away, an immense dark-haired animal rises up from the willows. He gives one look in your direction, and that look is his last. Twa-poos has fired, and the moose is either dead in his thicket or within a hundred yards of it.

The Rev. Mr. Gordon, gliding in a boat down a small river in the same country, describes another moose-hunt:

We were being borne pleasantly along by the strong and steady current when, hush! "there's a moose," said Charlie, and no one dared to trust Charlie's keen vision. The splashing oars

are silenced; all eyes are turned away from stream, and hill, and wood, and are centered in one direction. Sure enough, there it is at some distance down the river's bank, close by the river's edge.

Eager hands grasp the rifles, for we have been hoping for a chance like this. The boat drops quietly down the current, each head is bent low, we draw nearer and nearer, and we will soon be within safe and easy range. No! surely, it can not be! Yes it is a great, brown rock! A growl of disappointment, then a general roar, and a proposal to present Charlie with a pair of spectacles, and our solitary moose-hunt is over.

44. WILD REINDEER.

THE reindeer is about the size of the common red deer. His legs are much shorter, and his hoofs spread more widely. His dew-claws are very long and nearly touch the ground. This makes him sure-footed. His gait, like that of the moose, is a swift trot.

The wild reindeer, in his native snows, is seldom visited by civilized man; and it is a thing to be remembered during life to have seen him there. Climb the precipices of that rugged

F. A.-11.

mountain chain that forms the backbone of Norway. Here and there a little reindeer moss fills the crevices of the shattered rocks, and this is all that is green in a wilderness of rocks and

snow.

You must plunge through the soft snow above your knees for many a weary mile. Suddenly,

Reindeer.

turning around a

rocky cliff, the guide makes a quick

movement with his hand, and whispers the single word "reins!" pointing, as he couches down, to those black specks on the white mountain-side fully two miles off. Now all is excitement.

The telescope dis

tinctly makes them

out—an old buck above, as guard and watcher; a doe and her calf a little lower down.

What caution now is necessary in hunting the noble game! There is a broad valley to cross You must creep low and in line, concealing your rifles, lest the flashing of the sun on the gun-barrels betray you; and you

must not speak except in the gentlest whisper. The valley is securely crossed. One more obstacle is to be overcome. There is a brawling torrent to be waded, and then you will be among the rocks.

Has the buck caught scent of you on the wind? He springs to his feet, shakes his spreading antlers, and sniffs the air, then walks leisurely up the hill-side, followed by his family, and all disappear over the rocky ridge.

Now is the time for speed! Up, up the hill! Scramble under, over, through the great, loose fragments, but noiselessly, silently, for the game are probably not far off. Now you are at the rock over which you saw them go. The guide peeps cautiously over and beckons. Then he lies down on the snow, and wriggles from rock to rock to get around where he may drive the game toward you. The deer are still busy munching the moss which they scrape from beneath the snow.

A few minutes of breathless excitement. The hunter shows himself on yonder peak. The noble buck trots majestically towards you, his head thrown up, and his fine horns spreading far on each side of his back. He stops-snuffs-starts; but too late! The rifle-ball has sped, his hoofs are kicking up the blood-stained snow, and he is dead.