190 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



HOME As noted in the introduction (p. 26), no wild animal 



RANGE • . . 



literally wanders; all have a limit of individual range, a home 

 locality. But I have failed entirely to get any light on the 

 extent of the individual Caribou's range. More than any 

 other animal I know, it roams with little regard to anything 

 but food and wind. 



During the winter it is not under the necessity of "yard- 

 ing," as do Moose and many other kinds of Deer, for it can 

 travel over the drifts when the snow is too deep to travel 

 through^ and travel it does the whole year round. I have yet to 

 learn of this animal settling down contentedly in any given 

 small locality. Its food is everywhere, it follows its food, and 

 famine seems to be unknown in its world. 



HISTORY Although the habitat of the Caribou lay nearer Europe 



than that of any other of the American big game, and the 

 animal was a common and characteristic inhabitant of those 

 northern parts of the continent visited by Cabot (1497), 

 Roberval (1534), and Carrier (1535), this species was not dis- 

 covered by white-men until after the Wapiti, the Whitetailed 

 Deer, and the Moose. So far, I have found no earlier mention 

 than that by Les Carbot (or de Monts) in 1609.^ 



He lists as the principal beasts of the chase: 

 NAMES " Elian, Caribou, Cerf, etc." *' Caribou " (in this spelling) 



is the word he uses throughout. 



But G. Sagard-Theodat,^ in 1636, wrote of these animals 

 as Caribou or Wild Asses {Caribous ou Asms Sauvages). 



Josselin, writing in 1672,^ says of this: 



"The Maccarib, Caribo, or Pohano, a kind of Deer, as big 

 as a Stag, round-hooved, smooth hair'd, and soft as silk, their 

 horns grown backward along their backs to their rumps and 

 turn again a handful beyond their Nose, having another Horn 

 in the middle of their Forehead about half a yard long, very 

 streight but wreathed like an Unicorn's Horn, of a brown 



^ Les Carbot, Nouvelle France, pub. 1618, p. 896. 



* Hist. Canada, 1636, p. 750. 



® New England Rareties, 1672, pp. 20-21. 



