THE AMERICAN REINDEER. 125 



appearance must bring starvation and a corresponding 

 progress towards extinction. 



With regard to the barren ground cariboo (R. 

 Groenlandicus) being distinct from the larger animal of 

 the forests, the separation of the two as species by 

 Professor Baird of the Smithsonian Institution at 

 Washington in the description of North American mam- 

 mals, which accompanies the War Department Reports 

 of the Pacific Route, joined with the opinion expressed 

 by Sir John Richardson in his " Journal of a Boat 

 Voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea,^' and 

 the further testimony of Dr. King, surgeon to Back's 

 expedition, appears to leave no room for doubt. Mr. 

 Baird says '* the animal is much smaller than the wood- 

 land reindeer ; the does not being larger than a good 

 sized sheep." The average weight of ninety -four deer shot 

 in one season by Captain M'Clintock's men, when cleaned 

 for the table, was sixty pounds. " A full-grown, well-fed 

 buck," says Sir J. Richardson, " seldom weighs more than 

 one hundred and fifty pounds after the intestines are 

 removed. The bucks of the larger kind which were men- 

 tioned as frequenting the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, 

 near the Arctic circle, weigh from two hundred pounds to 

 three hundred pounds, also without the intestines." He 

 also states that " this kind does not penetrate far into the 

 forest even in severe seasons, but prefers keeping in the 

 isolated clumps or thin woods that grow on the skirts of 

 the barren grounds, making excursions into the latter in 

 fine weather." Dr. King mentions that the barren- 

 ground species is peculiar not only in the form of its 

 liver, but in not possessing a receptacle for bile. This 

 species ranges along the shores of the Arctic Ocean and 



