132 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



The great periodic movements seem to result from an 

 instinctive impulse of the reindeer throughout its whoh 

 circumpolar range. Sir J. Eichardson, in America, Erman 

 and Von Wrangell, in Northern Europe and Asia — the 

 three distinguished savants who have contributed so 

 largely to the natural history of the northern regions — 

 all affirm the regularity of its migrations to the open 

 steppes, barren grounds, and bare mountains, and point 

 to the chief cause — a desire to escape the insupportable 

 torments of the flies which swarm in the forest. In 

 Newfoundland the cariboo acts in a manner precisely 

 similar to that described by Wrangell, in speaking of the 

 reindeer of the Aniui. They leave the lake country and 

 broad savannahs of the interior for the mountain range 

 which covers the long promontory terminating at the 

 Straits of Belleisle, at the commencement of summer, 

 and return when warned by the frosts of September to 

 seek the lowlands. At this time the deer passes, and 

 valleys at the head of the Bay of Exploits may be seen 

 thick with deer moving in long strings ; and here the Eed 

 Indians of a past age, like the hunters of the Aniui, 

 would congregate to kill their winter's supply of venison. 

 With regard to the restlessness of this animal at 

 intervals in the forest country in winter time, I have 

 frequently observed a sudden and contemporary shift of 

 all the cariboo throughout a large area of country. One 

 day quietly feeding through the forest in little bands, the 

 next, perhaps, all tracks would show a general move in 

 a certain direction ; the deer joining their parties after 

 a while, and entirely leaving the district, travelling in 

 large herds towards new feeding-grounds, almost invari- 

 ably down the wind. The little Arctic reindeer of North 



