132 Sport and Life. 



Norwegian reindeer, and 118 Laplanders to tend the herd were 

 added on that February day to the fauna and to the population of 

 the great Republic, and the two special trains that forthwith 

 hurried this strange crowd at express speed across the Continent 

 to Puget Sound, and from thence by ship to Alaska, offered a sight 

 worthy of the curiosity it excited. 



To the imported reindeer that reached Alaska from the west 

 less public interest was attached, for that part of the experiment 

 was carried on far from centres of population, and the trans- 

 shipment of the Siberian deer across the Behring Straits, under 

 the able direction of Dr. Sheldon Jackson, though fraught with great 

 trouble, was naturally one that does not appeal to the same extent 

 to one's imagination.* 



Having said this much about this interesting addition to the 

 indigenous caribou of the Pacific coast, a brief account must be 

 given of the latter. The woodland caribou of British Columbia 

 are, we are told, the same that inhabits Newfoundland. They are 

 quite a third larger than the Barren-ground caribou, and their antlers 

 show the same difference. 



They are shy, exasperatingly uncertain and restless denizens of 

 the upland plateaux of British Columbia. 



I confess I never could get up the slightest enthusiasm to slay 

 this beast by stalking, or to expend time and trouble to secure 

 their unattractive, dishevelled-looking antlers. Fifteen years ago 

 they were plentiful on the steep slopes round Kootenay Lake; at 

 least, to judge by the well-beaten trails they had made up and 

 down the mountains surrounding that sheet of water. But the 

 great forest fires that occurred as the inevitable result of mining 

 prospectors invading this region, soon drove them from their haunts 

 to regions further north. The few I shot were killed for the pot, 



* In January, 1897, there were noo Siberian reindeer in the five establish- 

 ments where these experiments are being carried on, In the preceding year 416 

 fawns had been born, of which 357 were reared. The Central Government 

 reindeer station is known as the Teller station. The Field of March 5, 1898, 

 contains some further details. 



