Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1909 — The Three Species of Moose. [ARTICLE]

The Three Species of Moose.

There ? re ciesof Moose: Tbo European moose j or elk, found in northern Europe and adjoining part of Asia; t?.e co.vm n moose of eastern Amct'tcs. dirrtn-’ garshed chiefly congener by the skull being narrowed across the maxillarics, Silso by its greater size and d” r ker color, and the Alaskan moose, sei arated by its giant stature, its narrow occiput, broad palate and heavy mandibles. Expressed in external features as illustrated in the a’alt made (always best for differentiating species): The Scandinavia. eilk is a small gray animal with .little palm ana many spikes on its antlers. The Canadian is a large black animal with much pdlmation and always a separate brow bench of spikes. 1 have seen hundred of Canadian moose antlers, but never a pair that did not show a well-developed separate group of prongs in front of each brow. I have sees a score or more of Swedish elk, but never saw’ one that did have a separated brow’ group of prongs, though I confess I have seen figures of such. The Alaskan Is a richly colored, black, gray and brown giant, not only the largest deer ailve today, but believed to be the largest that ever did exist, no fossil has been found to equal it in bulk. Its antlers differ chiefly in size from those of the Canadian nmose, but Mir. Madison Grant claims that they are also more complex and have in the brow antlers a second rolmatlon which is set at right angles to that of the main palmation. In the-,e ,peculiarities, he finds, " a startling-roremblance is shown to th” ex inct C rvalces, a moose-lfke deer of Pleistocene ttmea; probably ancestral to the genus Al CCS. t “lf this resemblance indicates any close relationship, we have in the Alaskan moose a rurvlvor of the archaic type from wh-ch the true moose, and Scandinavian elk have somewhat degeaerated,"—-Ermiat- Tiiompsc®. S». ton, In'Sefribner's. The woman who buys a pair of shoes thinks that anything will do Id a pinch.