NO. 1405. MAMMALS OF NORTHWEST TERIUTOIUES—MACFARLANE. 683 



killed the previous winter ))v an Indian near Fort ('hipewyan, r^ake 

 Athabasca, l)ut, althoui>li I heard of a tew instanees ('lsewh(M-(>, 1 think 

 thisAvas the only one 1 ever saw in the interior. The company gener- 

 ally exports a number of reindeer in a parchmentary and Indian-dressed 

 state, w^hich seldom realize more than their actual cost. In the years 

 1902 and 1903, respectively, they sold in London 821 and 267 reindeer 

 skins. 



Doctor Armstrong, of the hicestujator^ writes that besides s(>veral 

 white iK'ars, musk oxen, and other polar animals herein referred to, 

 the hunters of that ship, while wintering- in Prince of A\'ales Strait, 

 saw" a uum])er of reindeer, though they failed to secure even one. In 

 Mercy Ba}-, latitude 76" G' north and longitude 117 55' west, how- 

 ever, where it was finally almndoued on June 3, 1853, the total num- 

 ber of reindeer killed between October, 1851, and April, 1853, was 112. 

 After reaching Melville Island, about latitude 75- north and longitude 

 109^ west, the doctor, with several officers and men of Her Majesty's 

 arctic ships Resolute (Captain Kellett) and Intiuphl (Captain McClin- 

 tock), shot a large nund:)er of reindeer and several musk ox(mi, the meat 

 of which weighed over 10,0()0 pounds. After four seasons' experience. 

 Doctor Armstrong came to the conclusion that the reindeer inhabiting 

 Baring Island do not migrate to the southward thereof. In Mercy 

 Bay and Prince of Wales Strait, many individuals and small herds were 

 seen and a number shot during the severest months of the winter. 

 '*In May and June the females calved in the ravines and valleys bor 

 dering on the coast where the sandy soil mixed with the alluvium 

 forms a rich loam which highly favors vegetation and ali'ords good pas- 

 turage for the hungry denizens of its wilds.''' As reindeer are present 

 all winter on ^Melville, Baring, and other large islands of the polar 

 regions, I think it may be confidently assumed that there is no migra- 

 tion from them to the continent. On the latter, however, fron] Port 

 Kennedy (latitude 72" north and longitude 91'-^ west), Bellot Strait, 

 its northeastern extremit}", there is apparently a regularly recurring 

 season of migration south and north. There may l)e a similar aniuial 

 movement of reindeer between tiie northern coast and Wollastou Land 

 by way of the Union and Dolphin Strait, and also from Victoria Land 

 to Kent Peninsula ])v way of Dease Strait. Lieutenant Schwatka 

 and Colonel Gilder o])served considerable numbers of them i)assing 

 over the ice on Simpson Strait late in the s])ring and early in the 

 winter of 1879 between Adelaide Peninsula and King William Land 

 (Island). General Greely gives latitude 82'^ 15' north as the probable 

 highest polar range of the reindeer. An antler and old traces were 

 found on Grinnell Land. Sir el. C. Ross writes that the does arrived 

 at Boothia in April and the bucks a montli later, while herds of several 

 hundred were seen in Ma}'. He also mentions that ""the paunch of 

 the deer is esteemed a great delicac}', and its contents is the only 



