CARIBOU IN MIGRATION 129 



(December 20), and say that this is about their 

 usual time for doing so. However, the migration 

 I witnessed was going south-east, as I have said, 

 though I cannot deny that if the wind veered 

 to the north they would almost certainly swing 

 in that direction. I have come to the conclusion 

 that they always travel up- wind, and that they 

 only gain distance in whatever determined direc- 

 tion they are travelling by going forward more 

 rapidly in a favourable head-wind, and returned 

 more slowly on an adverse head- wind. It appears 

 to me something like incoming tide on the sea- 

 shore ; waves washing forward and drawing back, 

 but ever reaching further and further up the 

 beach to the distance they are set to gain. I 

 believe the strongest motive the animals have in 

 travelling up-wind is a very simple one, that of 

 comfort and warmth (as a seabird riding the waves), 

 since the wind then blows the way the hair lies 

 on the animals. A further motive is that in 

 thus travelling they are assured that their keen 

 scent will warn them if they are approaching 

 danger. 



Caribou I also conclude are rather an elusive 

 quantity. They may be here to-day and gone 

 to-morrow, and not an animal may be seen in a 

 certain locality for a week or two weeks . Then one 

 day you may find they have returned or is it a 

 fresh lot arrived ? In December there were no 

 tracks or signs of Caribou north of latitude 59. 

 Southwards, between latitudes 58 and 59, the 

 great herds above mentioned were encountered. 

 Yet when I got into Du Brochet Post again (a little 

 south of latitude 58) the Indians complained 



