The Elk, the largest of the family of the _Cervidæ_, is found in North America, Northern Europe, and the coldest parts of Asia, thinly scattered in all but the first-named locality. At the shoulder it may attain so great a height as eight feet when adult. The female is antler-less. In the male these appendages possess quite a peculiar shape, the two together forming a kind of basin, on account of their being developed into huge palmated concave sheets of bony tissue, which diverge laterally from the skull. [Illustration: ELK HUNT.] [Illustration: YOUNG ELK.] At nine months old the antlers first appear, not being more than straight and rounded dags in the first year. They reach their full length in the fifth year, from which period for many more years they increase in breadth and weight, and add, it is said, a fresh point to their palmated margins until the fourteenth, when the creature is considered quite adult. The colour of the animal is a deep blackish-brown; the neck is short and thick, with a peculiar bob-shaped, pendulous, and hair-covered lap of skin hanging down from its middle, just behind the angles of the jaw. The limbs, especially the front ones, are long; the tail is rudimentary. The coat is formed of close-set harsh angular hair, which breaks when bent, produced into a mane upon the neck and shoulders. Sir John Richardson gives the following account of the habits and food of the Elk, with the mode of hunting it:--“In the more northern parts the Moose Deer is quite a solitary animal, more than one being very seldom seen at a time, unless during the rutting season or when the female is accompanied by her fawns. It has the sense of hearing in very great perfection, and is the most shy and wary of all the Deer species, and on this account the art of Moose-hunting is looked upon as the greatest of an Indian’s acquirements, particularly by the Crees, who take to themselves the credit of being able to instruct the hunters of every other tribe. The skill of a Moose hunter is most tried in the early part of the winter; for during the summer the Moose, as well as other animals, are so much tormented by Mosquitoes that they become regardless of the approach of man. In the winter the hunter tracks the Moose by its footmarks in the snow, and it is necessary that he should keep constantly to leeward of the chase, and make his advance with the utmost caution, for the rustling of a withered leaf or the cracking of a rotten twig is sufficient to alarm the watchful beast. The difficulty of approach is increased by a habit which the Moose Deer has of making daily a sharp turn in its route, and choosing a place of repose so near some part of its path that it can hear the least noise made by one that attempts to track it. To avoid this, the judicious hunter, instead of walking in the animal’s footsteps, forms his judgment from the appearance of the country of the direction it is likely to have taken,