Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers
John Stuart Mill · en
"The first part of your letter awoke afresh all my sympathy for
you and poor Mrs. Millais in your sorrow for the loss of your
dearly beloved child. I suppose you can never hope to forget
what you once possessed and can never have again, nor would you
wish to do so; but time is merciful, and whilst never forgetting
the sweetness of disposition of your dear child, the sorrow for
her loss will gradually hurt you less and less. At least I trust
it will be so. I am so glad to hear that you have got such a
splendid lot of caribou heads this year. You well deserve them,
for you have taken a lot of trouble to get them. You must now
have quite a unique collection of Newfoundland caribou heads. I
got one good moose this year 631/2 inches spread (measured by Mr.
Burlace the other day) and another pretty head of 52 inches
spread. Besides these two I only saw one other bull moose--a
fair-sized head. I saw a good many caribou, but no large heads.
Every big bull I saw seemed to have a well-grown head. On August
29th I saw a single old bull and shot him. The next day I saw
another bull with ten cows and shot him. These heads were both
in velvet, but fully grown out and the velvet just ready to peel
off. On September 1st I saw another single bull and shot him;
and on the following day got another close to camp. Both these
bulls had their horns quite clean of velvet, not a shred left on
any part. I then went away to another range of mountains to look
for sheep and moose, returning again to the caribou-ground about
the middle of September. On my first day I came across four
splendid old bulls all together. They all had big heads, and I
got close to them and could have shot them all, but I let two of
them go after killing the other two, which seemed to me to have
the finest horns. Whilst I was skinning the animals I had shot
(with my half-breed Indian) three more big bulls _and a hornless
cow_ came and lay down on a knoll about 400 yards away. One of
these seemed to have very large horns; but I thought that six
was enough, so I let them alone. I think three or four of the
heads I have got are pretty good, but much better no doubt could
be got if one waited till they got into large herds after the
rutting season. Burlace makes my longest head 571/4 inches,
another is 55 inches, and two others just over 51 and 50. Two of
them have an inside spread of 48 inches. One head is of quite a
different type to the other five. It is only about 40 inches
long and very like a Newfoundland head with beautiful tops.
Besides the caribou and moose I only got two wolves--very fine
ones, and one of them black. I saw no bears at all, and only
female sheep. I am going away on Saturday, December 1st,
lecturing (with a two days' interlude at Beville Stanier's), and