They all come from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and were
received by me yesterday. I give you their popular names, as it rests
with yourself to decide their real names. The skin of the moose was
dressed with the hair on, but a great deal of it has come off, and the
rest is ready to drop off. The horns of the elk are remarkably small. I
have certainly seen some of them, which would have weighed five or six
times as much. This is the animal which we call elk in the southern
parts of America, and of which I have given some description in the
Notes on Virginia, of which I had the honor of presenting you a copy. I
really doubt, whether the flat-horned elk exists in America: and I think
this may be properly classed with the elk, the principal difference
being in the horns. I have seen the _daim_, the _cerf_, the _chevreuil_,
of Europe. But the animal we call elk, and which may be distinguished as
the round-horned elk, is very different from them. I have never seen the
_brand-hirtz_ or _cerf d'Ardennes_, nor the European elk. Could I get
a sight of them, I think I should be able to say which of them the
American elk resembles most, as I am tolerably well acquainted with
that animal.
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