126 THE BARREN-GROUND CARIBOU 



when erected, as it most often is (it is, however, 

 brown on the^ upper side) ; breast and belly are 

 brown like upper parts, but turning to white 

 toward rear, between hind legs. A grey strip 

 (a mingling of the white and the brown hairs) 

 runs horizontally along the middle sides from the 

 white of the shoulders to within eight inches of 

 the hind-quarters ; ears and upper forehead, 

 grey. The adult female is, generally, much 

 lighter in colour than the male ; rear of back, 

 legs, and nose were in this specimen the only 

 parts brown ; middle sides, hind-quarters, lower 

 limbs, forehead, and ears, greyish ; remainder, 

 white. The fawn was very similar in colour to 

 the female. Both male and female have antlers, 

 the males having a great backward, outward- 

 curving length ; the females short and symmetrical 

 like those of a young buck. In early winter some 

 of the bucks still carry antlers, but the greater 

 number of animals have cast them at that time. 



They are graceful animals, particularly grace- 

 ful when they are in alert motion, and carry 

 fine suggestion of indomitable pride. They 

 trot with easy, swinging, far-reaching strides, 

 with movement lithe and muscular. The fore- 

 feet are flung high with sharp -angled knee action 

 (like a well- broken hackney), while the hindlegs 

 stretch well back before they thrust the body 

 forward. Caribou sometimes start off, if fright- 

 ened suddenly, by rearing in the air with a power- 

 ful spring of the hindlegs. 



The track of Caribou on snow is a line of 

 single hoof-prints running out one point directly in 

 front of the other not any two hoofs together 



