296 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



mountains now form the principal range of the species in New 

 Mexico, but as the country fills up with settlers the deer will 

 entirely disappear unless given better protection than they 

 have received in the past . . . The many game refuges 

 in these mountains will now doubtless insure the perpetuity of 

 this interesting little deer." In the Chiricahua Mountains of 

 southeastern Arizona, Cahalane (1939a) has lately reported 

 them as numerous "from the tops of the highest peaks to the 

 lower limit of the upper Sonoran Zone." Owing to their 

 aversion to leaving the shelter of forest cover, they are prac- 

 tically "marooned" on these isolated ranges and in 1933 were 

 found to be increasing so rapidly that already they "were too 

 abundant for the carrying capacity of the range . . . The 

 depletion of food was becoming a serious problem at this 

 time" and reduction of their numbers by hunting was insuffi- 

 cient on account of the rugged nature of the country they 

 inhabit. "A check on this undesirable increase would be 

 effected by dropping control of mountain lions," the reduction 

 of which during the previous decade by the "predatory -animal 

 control" "has been followed by a too rapid growth of the deer 

 population. " 



THE CARIBOU 



Two types of caribou are found in the northern parts of the 

 New World, the barren-ground and the woodland. Both are 

 divided into several geographic races, not very sharply defined. 

 The barren-ground caribou, as its name implies, inhabits the 

 Arctic tundra. It is shorter of limb but often longer in its 

 antlers than the woodland caribou, which is found slightly to 

 the southward of the barrens, in regions where open bogs 

 alternate with evergreen forest. The term "caribou," almost 

 universally applied to these animals in America, is from a 

 Micmac word meaning "a shoveler," in allusion to the way in 

 which these animals paw away the snow in winter to get at the 

 reindeer moss on which they feed. In contrast to other mem- 

 bers of the deer family, the females as well as the males may 

 have antlers, although less often in the woodland than in the 

 barren-ground species ; when present, however, they are smaller 

 in the females and in the woodland species are generally spike- 

 like. The hoofs are broad and spreading as an adaptation to 

 living on boggy or snow-covered ground, and the body is stocky 



