Barren Ground Caribou 



Barren Ground Caribou 



Rangifer arcticns (Richardson) 



Si;e. Smaller than the preceding. Antlers longer, 50 inches. 

 Description. Smaller than the woodland caribou and allied species, 



colours light, almost entirely white in winter. Antlers slender 



with comparatively few points. 

 Range. Barren Grounds of Arctic America. 



Recent explorations in the Northwest have discovered a much 

 greater variety of caribou than were formerly supposed to exist, 

 in fact, no less than seven different kinds are now known to 

 inhabit North America. It is impossible at present to de- 

 termine the exact relationship between these animals until their 

 range has been more carefully ascertained. It is quite likely that 

 all may prove to be perfectly distinct species or some of them 

 may be mere geographic races, shading imperceptibly one into 

 the other. However this may be, the Barren Ground caribou, 

 the smallest of the group, seems to be the most widely sepa- 

 rated both in appearance and habits from woodland caribou of 

 which we have just been treating. "Its range," writes Warbur- 

 ton Pike, "appears to be from the islands in the Arctic Sea to 

 the southern part of Hudson's Bay, while the Mackenzie River 

 is the limit of their western wandering. In the summer time 

 they keep to the true Barren Grounds, but in the autumn, when 

 their feeding-grounds are covered with snow, they seek the 

 hanging moss in the woods. From what I could gather from 

 the Indians, and from my own personal experience, it was late 

 in October, immediately after the rutting season, that the great 

 bands of caribou, commonly known as La Fon/e, mass up on 

 the edge of the woods, and start for food and shelter afforded 

 by the stronger growth of pines farther southward. A month 

 afterward the males and females separate, the latter beginning to 

 work their way north again as early as the end of February; 

 they reach the edge of the woods in April, and drop their young 

 far out toward the sea-coast in June, by which time the snow 

 is melting rapidly and the ground showing in patches. The 

 males stay in the woods till May and never reach the coast, 

 but meet the females on their way inland at the end of July; 



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