THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 249 



their deductions are correct. I am not in a position to say whether 

 an old bull would by choice bring up the rear so as to expose 

 himself to being first victim of the wolves. But I do say that he 

 has no option, especially at the beginning of the breeding season 

 when he is additionally handicapped by the weight of his huge 

 antlers and his fat. When you see a caribou that has been singled 

 out for pursuit by wolves, it is in the first probability an old bull 

 and in the second an old cow. Skeletons of wolf-killed animals 

 are nearly always found to be the skeletons of these two. In any 

 caribou country the fewness of the old bulls is surprising unless 

 these points are understood. Even the "old" few are never old 

 enough to be tough. 



Since that trip which gave me my first familiarity with the 

 interior of Banks Island, I have crossed it in almost every direction, 

 winter and summer, so that were all those routes plotted on the 

 map it would be as if the island were covered with a spider web. 

 We have thus made conclusive our inference on this journey, that 

 cattle, although once numerous in Banks Island, are now either 

 extinct or at the most represented by a few dozen animals near 

 the north or south end, the parts we have least carefully examined. 



