62 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



able observations on the habits of these animals, the latter 

 begin to travel northward as early as the end of February. 

 They reach the edge of the woods in April. Tyrrell, who 

 also added much to our knowledge of the barren-ground 

 caribou, states that the young, to the number of one to 

 three, are born before the winter quarters are vacated. 

 Pike informs us that the young are born in June, after the 

 northward migration has taken place. The males remain 

 in the woods till May, but meet the females on their way 

 inland from the coast at the end of July, from which time 

 they stay together till the rutting season is over, and the 

 southern journey is again begun. 



Unlike other deer, both sexes bear antlers, but the antlers 

 of the female are rather smaller and more slender than those 

 of the male, which may bear, according to Tyrrell's obser- 

 vations, as many as twenty-two prongs on one beam. 



One of the best descriptions of the migration of the cari- 

 bou is given by Warburton Pike, who witnessed the south- 

 ward migration at Camsell Lake, near the east end of Great 

 Slave Lake, in 1889. After describing the excitement 

 caused by the approach of "la foule," as the mass of mi- 

 grating animals are conmionly called in the north, he 

 says :* 



From the ridge we had a splendid view of the migration. All the 

 south side of Mackay Lake was alive with moving beasts, while the ice 

 seemed to be dotted all over with black islands, and still away on the 

 north shore, with the aid of glasses, we could see them coming like regi- 

 ments on the march. In every direction we could hear the grunting 

 noise that the caribou always makes when travelling. 



The snow was broken into broad roads and I found it useless to try to 

 estimate the number that passed within a few miles of the encampment. 

 We were just on the western edge of their passage and afterwards we 

 heard that a band of Dog-Ribs hunting some forty miles to the west 

 were at this time in the last straits of starvation, only saving their lives 

 by a hasty retreat to the woods. 



* "The Barren Ground of Northern Canada," by Warburton Pike, p. 89. 



