Going westward in the United States we find no moose until we reach the northern peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin, where moose were once numerous.  They are still abundant in northern Minnesota, where the country is extremely well suited to their habits.  Then there is a break, caused by the great plains, until we reach the Rocky Mountains.  They are found along the mountains of western Montana and Idaho as far south as the northwest corner of Wyoming in the neighborhood of the Yellowstone Park, the Tetons and the Wind River Mountains being their southern limit in this section.[10] The moose of the west are relatively small animals with simple antlers, and have adapted themselves to mountain living in striking contrast to their kin in the east.

[Footnote 10:  William Roland, an old-time mountaineer, states that he once killed a moose about ten miles north of old Ft.  Tetterman, in what is now Wyoming.—­EDITOR.]

[Illustration:  MOOSE KILLED 1892, WITH UNUSUAL DEVELOPMENT OF BROW ANTLERS.  UPPER OTTAWA RIVER.  CANADA]

North of the Canadian boundary we may start with the curious fact that the great peninsula of Labrador, which seems in every way a suitable locality for moose, has always been devoid of them.  There is no record of their ever appearing east of the Saguenay River, and this fact accounts for their absence from Newfoundland, which received its fauna from the north by way of Labrador, and not from the west by way of Cape Breton.  Newfoundland is well suited to the moose, and a number of individuals have been turned loose there, without, as yet, any apparent results.  Systematic and persistent effort, however, in this direction should be successful.

South of the St. Lawrence River, the peninsula of Gaspe was once a favorite range, but the moose were nearly killed off in the early ’60’s by hide-hunters.  Further west they are found in small numbers on both banks of the St. Lawrence well back from the settlements, until on the north shore we reach Trois Rivieres, west of which they become more numerous.

The region of the upper Ottawa and Lake Kippewa has been in recent years the best moose country in the east.  The moose from this district average much heavier and handsomer antlers than those of Maine and the Maritime Provinces.  However, the moose are now rapidly leaving this country and pushing further north.  Twenty-five years ago they first appeared, coming from the south, probably from the Muskoka Lake country, into which they may have migrated in turn from the Adirondacks.  This northern movement has been going on steadily within the personal knowledge of the writer.  Ten years ago the moose were practically all south and east of Lake Kippewa, now they are nearly all north of that lake, and extend nearly, if not quite, to the shores of James Bay.  How far to the west of that they have spread we do not know; but it is probable that they are reoccupying the range lying between the shores of Lake Superior and James Bay, which was long abandoned.  Northwest of Lake Superior, throughout Manitoba and far to the north, is a region heavily wooded and studded with lakes, constituting a practically untouched moose country.