Note 46 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 4)

November the 11th. In several writings we read of a large animal, which is to be met with in New England and other parts of North America. They sometimes dig very long and branched horns out of the ground in Ireland, and no body in that country or any where else in the world, knows an animal that has such horns. This has induced many people to believe that it is the Moose-deer so famous in North America, and that the horns found, were of animals of this kind, which had formerly lived in that island, but were gradually destroyed. It has even been concluded, that Ireland, in distant ages either was connected with North America, or that a number of little islands, which are lost at present, made a chain between them. This led me to enquire, whether an animal with such excessive great horns, as are ascribed to the Moose-deer, had ever been seen in any part of this country. Mr. Bartram told me, that notwithstanding he had carefully enquired to that purpose, yet there was no person who could give him any information, which could be relied upon, and therefore he was entirely of opinion, that there was no such an animal in North America. Mr. Franklin related that he had, when a boy, seen two of the animals which they call Moose-deer, but he well remembered that they were not near of such a size as they must have been, if the horns found in Ireland were to fit them: the two animals which he saw, were brought to Boston in order to be sent to England to Queen Ann. The height of the animal up to the back was that of a pretty tall horse; but the head and its horns were still higher: Mr. Dudley has given a description of the Moose-deer which is found in North America. On my travels in Canada, I often enquired of the Frenchmen, whether there had ever been seen so large an animal in this country, as some people say there is in North America; and with such great horns as are sometimes dug out in Ireland. But I was always told, that they had never heard of it, and much less seen it: some added, that if there was such an animal, they certainly must have met with it, in some of their excursions in the woods. There are elks here, which are either of the same sort with the Swedish ones, or a variety of them: of these they often catch some which are larger than common, whence perhaps the report of the very large animal with excessive horns in North America first had its rise. These elks are called Original’s by the French in Canada, which name they have borrowed from the Indians: perhaps Dudley, in describing the Moose-deer, meant no other animals, than these large elks.46