The Zoology of North American Big Game 



more lately four more from British Columbia and 

 Alaska. The differences between these are not very 

 profound, but they seem on the whole to represent 

 two types: the barren-ground, small of size, with 

 long, slender antlers but little palmated; and the 

 woodland, larger, with shorter and more massive 

 antlers, usually with broad palms. There is some 

 reason to believe that both these types lived in 

 Europe during the interglacial period, the first- 

 named being probably the earlier and confined to 

 western Europe, while the other extended into 

 Asia. The present reindeer of Greenland and 

 Spitzbergen seem to agree most closely with the 

 barren-ground, while the southern forms are 

 nearest to the woodland, and these are said to also 

 resemble the reindeer of Siberia. It is, therefore, 

 not an improbable conjecture that there were two 

 migrations into America, one of the barren- 

 ground type from western Europe, by way of the 

 Spitzbergen land connection, and the other of the 

 woodland, from Siberia, by way of Alaska. 



Little more can be said, perhaps even less, of 

 the other circumpolar genus, Alces, known in 

 America as "moose," and across the Atlantic as 

 "elk." It also is of mixed character in relation 

 to the two great divisions we have had in mind, but 

 in a different way from reindeer. 



87 



