I
have read somewhere that it delights in eating the nymphaea, or
water-lily. From the fore-feet to the belly behind the shoulder it
measured three feet and eight inches: the length of the legs before
and behind consisted a great deal in the tibia, which was strangely
long; but in my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to measure
that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an inch long; the
colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four inches long; the
fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat and splayed. The
spring before it was only two years old, so that most probably it
was not then come to its growth. What a vast tall beast must a full-
grown stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet and an half!
This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same
species, which died the spring before. In the same garden was a
young stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was
hoped that there might have been a breed; but their inequality of
height must have always been a bar to any commerce of the
amorous kind.
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