260 The Ottawa Naturalist. [March 



CARIBOU ON THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 



News comes from Massett, Queen Charlotte Islands, that 

 some Indians have just arrived there from the interior of 

 Graham Island, bringing with them the heads and hides of 

 three caribou. They stated that they had also seen a calf, which, 

 however, escaped. A letter just received from the Rev. W. E. 

 Collison confirms this report, and encloses a photograph he had 

 himself taken of the animals. 



The British Columbian Government had already despatched 

 the curator of the Victoria Museum to look for deer on the 

 Queen Charlotte Island, but the specimens just referred to 

 reached Massett before his arrival there. He will, however, 

 doubtless secure them, and before long we shall have a specialist's 

 report on them. They presumably belong to the species de- 

 scribed by Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton, in the Ottawa 

 Naturalist for February, 1900, as Rangijer daivsoni. 



At last, then, the long debated question as to the existence 

 of caribou on the Queen Charlotte Islands has been settled in 

 the affirmative. The present writer, whose intimate acquaintance 

 with the Islands extends nearly over twenty years — eight of 

 which he resided at Massett — has been amongst those who dis- 

 believed in the existence of caribou there. It seemed so im- 

 probable that such large and active animals could have existed 

 so long in so comparatively small an area, and yet remain unseen; 

 for, if we except the fragment on which Mr. Thompson Seton 

 founded his species, which seemed to have a doubtful history, 

 it is a well-known fact that no caribou have been killed during 

 the period just named, nor are there any animals on the Islands 

 likely to prey on caribou. Even if only moderately prolific, 

 they must in this period have increased to such an extent that 

 they could hardly escape notice. However, they are there, and 

 they must be another example of the truth of Darwin's state- 

 ment in his Origin of Species: "Where any species becomes very 

 rare, close interbreeding will help to exterminate it. Authors 

 have thought that this comes into play in accounting for the 

 deterioration of the aurochs in Lithuania, of red deer in Scot- 

 land, and of bears in Norway." 



It is comforting to see that the provincial government have 

 passed an Order in Council prohibiting the hunting, killing, or 

 taking of caribou on the Queen Charlotte Islands. One only 

 hopes that the order will reach Massett in time to prevent the 

 Haidas making an indiscriminate slaughter of what remains 

 of these interesting animals. 



J. H. Keen. 



