COAT AND COLOR. 143 



drop their young ; they commence their return to the south in 

 September, and reach the vicinity of the woods towards the end 



of October, where they are joined by the males Captain 



Perry saw deer on the Melville Peninsula, as late as the 2od of 

 September, and the females with their fawns made their first 

 appearance on the 23d of April." Now, although tlie period of 

 yeaning is not necessarily identical with the time of shedding the 

 winter coat, observation shows that it is intimately connected 

 with it where the course of nature is unobstructed. If that is 

 true of this animal, also, then the winter coat should be discarded 

 in the month of May or June at the latest. Then we should 

 have to put back the time when the summer coat is shed and 

 the new winter coat taken till August or September or even Oc- 

 tober, Avhich Dr. Richardson says is the time when the males join 

 the females near the southern borders of the Barren Grounds. 

 If, as Richardson says, this animal takes on his most attractive 

 attire while he is still poor in flesh, while his antlers are in 

 active growth, and three months before the season -of love com- 

 mences, we must indeed consider it very exceptional and very 

 extraordinary. It seems to be a provision of nature, that the 

 male should be made the most attractive to the female at this 

 season. His antlers, which we may presume, according to cari- 

 bou tastes are considered ornamental as well as useful, are per- 

 fected just previous to the commencement of the rutting sea- 

 son, and at the same time all the others wear their handsomest 

 dress, and we pause before we accept the conclusion that this 

 animal alone wears his best attire in deep seclusion, and quite 

 beyond the notice of the other sex and before he is prompted to 

 show himself to these this dress must be despoiled of its beauty 

 and its attractiveness destroyed by two or three months' wear. 

 This may all be so and this exceptional state of things produced 

 by his high northern range and the short summers there, but I 

 could not help making these reflections, which suggest the possi- 

 bility that Richardson may have been mistaken in the date 

 which he gives for the time when the most ornamental coat is 

 taken on. I hope I have not been misled in making these sug- 

 gestions by a desire to maintain a theory which I confess has 

 somehow taken possession of me, that all of our deer must have 

 two pelages in the year. I know that the maintenance of theo- 

 ries is the great bane to impartial investigation, and I try to 

 guard against it, but a great number of harmonious facts all 

 pointing in one direction, necessarily so arrange themselves as to 



