MOOSE CALLING

Evening Star, Issue 19757, 6 January 1928, Page 2

MOOSE CALLING

“ MADDER. THAN A WOUNDED WILDCAT.” Many animals are curious, and birds, too, for that matter. One _who can imitate their natural calls with oven a fair degree of accuracy is pretty sure to get a response. Veteran guides themselves do not understand why a bull moose will so frequently answer the fraudulent call of the birch bark horn in the hands of a man. “ I’ve listened to perhaps :t hundred moose calling,” said a Maine guide recently to a ‘ New York Times ’ representative, “and it scorned to mo that no two were exactly alike. Some were short cries, others prolonged wailings. Others would start with a high whine and descend down the scale. 1 was up in the Allegash region late, last fall before the rivers and lakes had frozen up. An old Indian had showed mo how to fashion one of the most ingenious birch hark horns for moose calling i had ever seen, and one evening J, tried it out.

“ JV3y cabin was near Five Finger Brook, on the shore oi Teal Pond,_ asmall body oi' water about a ball-mile across and lour or live miles long. I was delighted when 1 got an answer from a long way off, over by the Allcgash Mountains. "Well, we sussed each oilier back and forth lor several minutes, until I got tired and turned in. “ Two hours later 1 was awakened by a crashing and .splashing outside. It was a clear moonlight night. Opening the cabin door, 1 peered out. There, standing on the shore, shaking himself and pawning the beach, was a big bull moose. Tie must have come miles to answer the call I had lorgotien all about. And when he readied the pond he didn’t go round—just took the shortest route and swam it! Tic was madder than a wounded wildcat when he found that he bad been fooled, and he snorted and hollowed around there for some time before bo began to calm down. .1 shut and barred the cabin door, and didn’t do any more moose calling that night,”