78 NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU 



being caught by winter in the flat country where the snow 

 lays so deep that food would be buried and travelling made 

 difficult. It has never been my good fortune to witness 

 any of these stampedes, though I have gone to the island 

 year after year in the hopes of being present at something 

 of the sort ; still it does not require much imagination to 

 picture the scenes. I have several times watched herds 

 breaking through the small ponds, which were coated with 

 ice half or three-quarters of an inch thick. They scarcely 

 notice it as they make their way through, their sharp hoofs 

 cut it without difficulty, and as their legs are well covered 

 with thick hair they are well protected against being cut by 

 the knife-like edges of the ice ; but when the ponds are 

 covered with a heavy coat of smooth ice not quite strong 

 enough to bear the weight of the animals, it must cause 

 great trouble, especially if the water be deep and 

 swimming necessary. Whether or not they go in single 

 file as they do through deep snow I cannot say, but it 

 would be reasonable to suppose that they choose the easiest 

 method unless they are in a hurry, when probably they 

 crash through in a body. I judge this to be the case from 

 the accounts I have received which state that the path 

 through the frozen ponds or rivers is a broad one, and that 

 the ice is broken up to an extraordinary extent. 



The great path of the migration is between Sandy River, 

 where it flows into Grand Lake, and about fifteen or twenty 

 miles to the east. Here it is that the great mass of the 

 animals pass, and here it is that a few years ago, shortly 

 after the opening of the railroad and before the enactment 

 of good game laws, the awful slaughter occurred which 

 gave J. G. Millais the opportunity to make his well-known 

 very humorous sketch showing sport in Newfoundland. It 

 is said that as the train came along, immense herds of 



