242 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 :6— Sept., 1912 



Book Reviews 



The Arctic Prairies. By Ernest Thompson Seton. 415 pages. 

 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1911, $3.00. 



The large number of readers of books by Ernest Thompson 

 Seton will be interested in this latest book from his pen which 

 is the outcome of a two thousand mile canoe journey in the ex- 

 treme northernmost portion of North America. Mr. Thompson 

 made this trip in order to determine the present numbers and dis- 

 tribution of the buffalo and caribou in the northern country. The 

 trip was made through regions that are still largely uninhabitated 

 except by employes of the Hudson Bay Company and various 

 tribes of Indians and scattered settlers that are more or less re- 

 lated to the industries in which the Hudson Bay Company is in- 

 terested. Naturally the journey had to be made by waterways 

 with numerous portages in the headlands. With Indian and half- 

 breed guides who were thoroughly familiar with the waterways 

 the party spent many months in their investigations. The book 

 contains many references to natural history features which are 

 presented attractively through Mr. Thompson's unique method 

 of description and through his sketches. 



It seems that the number of buffalo still ranging as wild 

 animals on the northern prairies is relatively small, the author 

 estimating that there were perhaps 300 in the region through 

 which his journey took him. But the number of caribou is sur- 

 prisingly large. He describes times when in camps the caribou 

 in large columns would pass his camp continuously for days and 

 nights. He estimates that there must be still running wild in the 

 northern praries at least thirty million caribou, "and maybe double 

 of that." From data that he collected he also estim^i.tes that the 

 Indians kill about 40,000 of this number per year and that many 

 are killed by other hunters. Notwithstanding this fact the 

 natural reproduction must be several millions per year, enough 

 to "far overbalance the hunter's toll so that the latter cannot make 

 any permanent difference. From the data collected it seems 

 evident that the numbers of buffalo and caribou fluctuate in accor- 

 dance with the increase and decrease of the number of wolves. 

 Wolves and rabbits in the northern country increase with con- 

 siderable rapidity, the latter becoming so numerous as to be liter- 

 ally everywhere in some years. \\'hen the number of these ani- 

 mals become so very large disease s])reads among them and they 

 are suddenly reduced to such an extent that it is rare tiiat one 



