48 NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU 



in the one point, that at this season I should lind them 

 extremely tame — perhaps even aggressively so — instead of 

 which I had the utmost difhculty in getting even within fair 

 camera range of any, except on one occasion when a small 

 herd with one three-year-old stag took several steps towards 

 me after I had stalked to within twenty-five yards of him. 

 But generally speaking I found all, stags, does and fawns, 

 remarkably wild, and even though I took every advantage 

 of the wind and whatever cover there was, the herds would 

 bolt at the slightest suspicion of what they believed to be 

 danger. Never have I tried to stalk with greater care, and 

 seldom have I met with less success. When I hear people 

 tell me how they have had to throw stones at Caribou to 

 make them get out of the way I have to content myself with 

 the thought that on those occasions they never happened to 

 have a camera handy. Maybe it was the camera that 

 frightened the animals I saw ! 



It is not my intention to pretend that I know all about 

 the breeding habits of Caribou. I don't. And for that 

 matter no one knows very much about the subject. I can 

 simply tell what I saw, letting the reader use his own 

 judgment and form his own conclusions. It always seems 

 entirely wrong to indulge too freely in the gentle art of 

 generalising. Because one happens to see an individual 

 animal do something which seems peculiar, it is not the 

 part of wisdom to state that this particular something is the 

 regular habit of the species. There is just as much 

 individuality in animals and birds as there is in people — 

 perhaps even more. We, as well as animals and even 

 plants, act on certain definite lines, but under peculiar 

 conditions we are all likely at any time to depart from 

 these lines and allow the individuality to come forward. 

 In this way do the habits of men and animals gradually change 



