A BAD YEAR FOR HEADS. 291 



of the water, or rather ice, for during the two 

 previous nights we had had sharp frosts, and 

 the small upland lakes were now all covered 

 with a sheet of ice. 



Some two hundred yards in advance of the 

 herd three fine old stags came walking rapidly 

 along, one behind the other. They were all 

 large full-grown animals, with great white 

 shaggy necks, but only one had a well-developed 

 pair of horns ; those of the other two, although 

 they were broadly palmated on the lower tines, 

 being badly gro^vn on the tops. 



I may here say that 1905 was a bad year for 

 caribou heads in Newfoundland, and I believe 

 that no really fine antlers were obtained in any 

 part of the island during that season. This 

 defective horn growth I attribute to the severity 

 of the previous winter and the deep snow which 

 covered the country in the spring, a state of 

 things which kept the stags half-starved and 

 therefore weak at the time their horns were 

 growing. 



When the largest of these three stags was 

 exactly opposite to me, and close to the edge of 



