The moose inhabits our northern forests, where it wanders among thickets of spruce, tamarack, birch, aspen, and alder, from the mouth of the Yukon and the lower Mackenzie southward to Maine, northern Minnesota, and down the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming. It varies in size in different parts of its range. The bulls of the Kenai Peninsula and adjacent region in Alaska are the largest of their kind in the world, sometimes weighing more than 1,400 pounds. The enormous antlers of these great northern beasts attain a spread of more than six feet and make the most impressive trophy the big-game hunter can secure in America. Although taller than an ordinary horse, weighing more than half a ton, and adorned with wide-spreading antlers, the bull moose stalks with ghostly silence through thickset forests, where man can scarcely move without being betrayed by the loud crackling of dry twigs. In summer it loves low-lying, swampy forests interspersed with shallow lakes and sluggish streams. In such places it often wades up to its neck in a lake to feed on succulent water plants, and when reaching to the bottom becomes entirely submerged. These visits to the water are sometimes by day, but usually by night, especially during the season when the calves are young and the horns of the bulls are but partly grown. Late in the fall, with full-grown antlers, the bulls wander through the forest looking for their mates, at times uttering far-reaching calls of defiance to all rivals, and occasionally clashing their horns against the saplings in exuberance of masterful vigor. Other bulls at times accept the challenge and hasten to meet the rival for a battle royal. At this season the call of the cow moose also brings the nearest bulls quickly to her side. Hunters take advantage of this, and by imitating the call through a birch-bark trumpet bring the most aggressive bulls to their doom. Ordinarily moose are extremely shy, but during the mating season the males become so bold that when encountered at close range they have been known furiously to charge a hunter. They strike vicious blows with their front feet, as well as with their heavy antlers, and make dangerous foes for man or beast. Moose have disappeared from the Adirondacks and have become scarce in many districts where once plentiful. Through wise protection they are still numerous about the head of Yellowstone Lake, and are still among the available game animals of Maine and the eastern provinces of Canada. Indeed, during the last few years they have steadily extended their range in northern Ontario and British Columbia. They occupy great areas of little-visited wilderness, which are becoming more and more accessible; as a result the future existence of these superb animals depends upon their receiving proper protection. =AMERICAN BISON= (=Bison bison= and its subspecies)