NOTES ON THE EEINDEEE OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 275 



met with*. The Stags are now fearless of the approach of the hunter ; and the 

 Indians, imitating their peculiar grunting noise, easily " tole " them within gun- 

 shot. On the approach of winter, as indicated by the first fall of snow, the small 

 herds collect together into " companies," and, passing in a southerly direction, 

 arrive in the neighbourhood of the dividing line already described, where they 

 remain, on the marshes, until the second fall of snow compels them to continue 

 their journey. The Micmac hunters, like the Beothuc Indians of former days, 

 station themselves at different points along the waterside to intercept the Deer 

 while crossing the water. When, from the " look-out " places near their wig- 

 warns, they see a company of Deer, which has been guided towards their stations 

 by means of the Deer-fences t, swimming across the lake or river, they push out 

 in their canoes, and massacre the defenceless animals with spears $. Those Deer 

 of the northern district which have escaped slaughter pursue their course towards 

 the part of the island between White-Bear Bay and St. George's Bay, where they 

 pass the winter, returning- northwards in the spring. 



The southern company leaves the district, between the dividing line and the 

 Exploits Waters, about the month of October; and as many of them as have 

 managed to pass the "Rubicon," between Exploits Bay and Red-Indian Pond, 

 where the Indians lie in wait for them, travel down south towards Fortune Bay, 

 where they remain till about Christmas time, when a portion of them retreat to 

 the flat burnt district between Exploits Bay and Gander Bay, the rest remaining 

 in the Fortune-Bay country, where they assemble in great numbers in the month 

 of February. It is said that five or six Indians killed eight hundred head of Deer 

 near Fortune Bay in the spring of 1866. About April the separated companies 

 return northwards to the barrens, hills, woods, and valleys between Grand Pond 

 and Red-Indian Pond, where they bring forth their young in June. It is said a 

 good many Deer remain in the same district all the year round. The general 

 description of the migrations of the Deer at different seasons was gathered from 

 the Micmac hunters, whose occupation it is to watch their movements; but 

 possibly it may not be accurate in all its details. 



Besides the number of Deer destroyed by spearing, great quantities are annually 



* I saw two pairs of antlers in St. John's so firmly interlocked that they could not have been separated 

 without breakage : they had belonged to an old and a young Stag. One of the points of a brow-snag of 

 the latter had pierced the orbit of the former, and had probably caused immediate death, entailing a fatal 

 legacy for the survivor. 



t See paper, by the Author, " On the Beothucs " (' Journal of Anthropological Institute,' vol. iv. p. 19). 



J See Von WrangeFs ' Polar Sea,' p. 190, for a very interesting description of the spearing of Eeindeer 

 on the Aniuj River. 



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