152 THE DEER FAMILY 



since this deer, like the others, unless hit hard, may run 

 a long distance and escape, and nothing is more dis- 

 tressing to a true sportsman than to lose a wounded 

 animal, 



Mr. Ward says "a competent authority " doubts the 

 existence of the caribou west of the Red River of the 

 North, Its distribution is much better known now. 



Roosevelt killed a caribou in the Selkirk Mountains 

 near an Alpine lake, and says the stomach was filled 

 with blueberries and their leaves, and with a few small 

 mushrooms also, and some mouthfuls of moss. He re- 

 gards the caribou as better able to take care of itself 

 than the moose, but rather easier to still-hunt. Here, 

 as elsewhere, the question is dependent upon the com- 

 parative tameness of the animals. The caribou of the 

 Selkirks were, no doubt, not very wild at the time when 

 Roosevelt saw them. He intimates as much, saying that 

 when not pursued they are fairly tame. Colonel Dodge, 

 it will be remembered, regarded the Virginia deer as 

 easy to stalk, even easier than the black-tail, as he 

 called the mule-deer. It, no doubt, was not at all diffi- 

 cult to shoot the white-tails when Colonel Dodge lived 

 at Western posts, far beyond the railways, I have seen 

 the white-tail more recently in places far beyond a rail- 

 way, where the shots were at close range and where 

 the quarry often was inclined to pause and gaze at an 

 intruder. But there is no more difficult animal to stalk 

 than the white-tail of to-day on most parts of its range, 

 and I doubt not the caribou is almost, if not quite, as 

 difficult in places where he has been educated, and 

 where only a few crafty and experienced animals have 

 survived. 



