Letter XXVIII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, March, 1770.

On Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the female
moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was
greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died,
after having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the
morning before. However, understanding that it was not stripped, I
proceeded to examine this rare quadruped: I found it in an old
green-house, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in a
standing posture; but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it
was in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly supportable. The
grand distinction between this deer, and any other species that I
have ever met with, consisted in the strange length of its legs; on
which it was tilted up much in the manner of birds of the grallae
order. I measured it, as they do an horse, and found that, from the
ground to the wither, it was just five feet four inches; which height
answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive
at: but then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably short,
no more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with one foot
forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground,
with the greatest difficulty, between its legs: the ears were vast and
lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches
long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of upper lip as I
never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is
esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is very reasonable to