I04 NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU 



result that I now find shooting to be almost child's play. 

 However, others whose inclinations run along different 

 lines will continue to derive great pleasure from the more 

 primitive sport, and to these I offer the following 

 suggestions and information. 



In dealing with the subject, I shall endeavour to show in 

 what way the best sport may be had, not how the animals 

 may be most easily killed. The Caribou is not like the 

 antelope of Africa, which is so keenly alert that practically 

 only one way of hunting is possible for the sportsman. The 

 constant fear of the larger carnivora has made them so 

 cautious after the countless generations of alert ancestors, 

 that they take no chances, but live a life of nervous anxiety 

 which alone can save them from annihilation. The Caribou 

 of Newfoundland, on the contrary, has but few enemies, and 

 consequently is not a really difficult animal to stalk to within 

 shooting distance. In the past, wolves may have been fairly 

 numerous, although there is nothing to prove such to have 

 been the case. A few there certainly v/ere, but even those, 

 however long they may have inhabited the island, have 

 almost, if not quite, disappeared. But when Newfoundland 

 was part of the mainland, the ancestors of the present-day 

 Caribou learned to fear these persistent hunters, and the fear 

 has passed down through numberless generations, and an 

 inherited tendency to watchfulness still exists, though to a 

 rather less extent than is noticeable with the other large deer. 

 Man from his earliest days has hunted them, with the 

 inevitable result that the scent of the human being is held 

 in dread. Nevertheless, the man who has hunted other 

 big game will find that, though the Caribou stag offers a 

 splendid trophy, this trophy can be obtained with less 

 difficulty than any other of similar size and beauty. In 

 fact, I might venture to say that difficulties have to be 



