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Show 144 MR. H. J. ELWES ON [Feb. 3, 111 the forest, that March is a more usual time, and this seems more probable having regard to the time at which the horns of othei deer are shed. The new ones begin to grow in April 01 May, and are fully developed about the middle of August. In September the velvet is rubbed off against a young fir-tree, which is usually destroyed in the process, and from the middle to the end of September the rutting-season commences. At this season the bulls have a very strong, rank, musky smell, and scrape shallow round holes in the ground like stags' wallows, which retain the scent of their urine for some days. Occasionally the bulls fight desperately, and I have seen places where the ground was torn up over many yards and sprinkled with hair and blood, but few hunters have had the good fortune to witness such an encounter. The development of the horns of the Elk in the Namsos district of Norway is apparently greater than in South Norway and Sweden, or in the districts which it still inhabits in East Prussia and Kurland, though I cannot speak with the same certainty as to Russia. On my return from Siberia, four years ago, I saw semifossil horns of the Elk from the district of Perm, which were larger than any I have seen in Europe; but on visiting the best collections I could hear of in St. Petersburg, I saw none which appeared to me better than the best Norwegian heads, or so good as the one figured (text-fig. 23, p. 143), which is that of a Lithuanian Elk in the Branicki Museum at Warsaw. The bull calf has no horns the first year. The second year he has a small spike on each side, sometimes, but rarely, two spikes, and I have seen one on one side and two on the other. As he grows older it is supposed that the number of points increase annually, one on each side ; but I think this is not at all invariably the case, and that the size and strength of the individual has much more influence than the age, and probably, as in the case of other deer which shed their horns annually, food and climate have a good deal to do with it. As a rule the horns increase in size and number of points up to 10 or 12 years old and possibly more, and in old animals have a tendency to diminish in size and in the length and strength of the points. From 18 to 22 points are perhaps the average of adult males in Northern Norway, and 10 to 14 points in Southern Norway. The widest span which I have ever seen is 54 inches (text-fig. 18, p. 134), and the greatest number of points 16 on one side, as on the shed horn of which I show a tracing (text-fig. 22, p. 142). The breadth of the palm in this instance and the number of points are quite exceptional, and I very much doubt whether there are any such Elk now alive in Norway, as Herr Bruun of Trondlijem, who has the opportunity of seeing all the finest specimens which are procured, says that he has seen nothing equal to them. Moose heads of as great or greater size are, however, often killed, and though the largest which I have ever seen is 65 inches |
