THE CARIBOU 
BY MADISON GRANT. 
HE name caribou is one of the few names manufactured by 
the American pioneers to describe an animal found here. 
Unlike the name moose, which is of Indian origin, caribou is a 
modern French-Canadian corruption of * carré-beuf ’”—or square 
ox—a word not without a certain descriptive power. The AI- 
gonquin equivalent is an-en-a-dik. 
The term “caribou” is properly applied to all the American 
species of the genus Rangifer, while the word “ reindeer ” is lim- 
ited to the old-world forms. In Europe, however, the latter 
name covers the entire genus. 
The origin of the word reindeer is of considerable interest. 
The first syllable, rein in English, raine in Dutch, renne in 
French, and renn-thier in German, are not only equivalents, but 
are also related to the Latin-French form rangi-fer. The Lapp 
word reino, meaning pasturage, should also be noted. Curiously 
enough, the second syllable of reindeer, rennthier, and rangifer 
are also of a common origin. Beginning with the Greek therion, 
a wild beast, we have Latin ferwm by the metamorphosis of the 
th into f, and both equivalent to thier in German; and this latter 
by a similar transformation of the th into d, becoming deer in 
English. 
CLASSIFICATION. 
Before going into a detailed description of the genus, it may 
be well to briefly summarize the different classifications which 
