I should have been glad to have examined the teeth,
tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely; but the putrefaction precluded
all further curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed to
enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In the
house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had no
front-antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edge.
The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton
of her bones.
Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that
you saw; and whether you think still that the American moose and
European elk are the same creature.
I am,
With the greatest esteem. etc.
Letter XXIX
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, May 12, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Last month we had such a series of cold turbulent weather, such a
constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that
the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds was much
interrupted. Some did not show themselves (at least were not
heard) till weeks after their usual time; as the black-cap and white-
throat; and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark
and largest willow-wren.
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