310 WINTER. 



at certain times of the year are easily run down and killed 

 by the hunter on snow shoes. Cariboo, on the contrary, 

 from their lesser weight, and the peculiar formation of 

 their hoofs, which they can spread out at will, walk on the 

 top of the snow, and cannot be run down. It requires a 

 good stalker, and favourable conditions of wind and snow, 

 to approach within shot. Unlike the moose, they are 

 sociable though wandering animals, and go about in herds. 

 Their favourite resorts are spruce and juniper woods, and 

 barren grounds. They feed on mosses of a pale green and 

 brown colour, that hang in profusion like tufts of hair 

 from the sterns and branches of the black spruce and 

 juniper ; they also eat the white moss or lichen that 

 grows on the mountainous and barren grounds, digging 

 for it through the snow. They have three paces walk, 

 trot, and gallop. When travelling in either of the former 

 ways they do so in file, so that it is almost impossible to 

 judge from the tracks of the number of the herd. When 

 frightened they gallop, clearing sometimes as much as 

 20 feet in a bound ; but this they cannot do in deep snow. 

 The does have one or two calves in the month of May. 

 The rutting season is about the 1st of October. Although 

 a very shy and wary animal, the cariboo is sometimes a 

 very stupid one, and seems so puzzled at the sight of a 

 man or the sound of a shot, that he gives the sportsman 

 more than one chance. If one of a herd be shot dead, the 

 sportsman being concealed from view, the remainder get 

 quite bewildered, and sometimes the whole herd falls to 

 his rifle. It is far otherwise if they wind a man ; indeed, 

 all the wild animals that I have met with seem to imbibe 

 fear more through their noses than through any other 



