NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 301 



ward its range is limited by the forest country of the base of 

 the peninsula, where the woodland caribou is found. 



STONE'S CARIBOU 

 RANGIFER ARCTICUS STONEI J. A. Allen 



Rangifer stonei J. A. Allen, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 14, p. 143, May 28, 1901 

 ("Kenai Peninsula, Alaska"). 



SYNONYMS: Rangifer excelsifrons Hollister, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 56, no. 35, p. 

 5, Feb. 7, 1912 ("Meade River, near Point Barrow, Alaska"); Tarandus rangifer 

 ogilvyensis Millais, The Gun at Home and Abroad, vol. 4, p. 263, 1915 (Ogilvie 

 Mountains, north of Dawson, Yukon, Canada); Rangifer mcguirei Figgins, 

 Proc. Colorado Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 3, no. 1, p. 1, Dec. 28, 1919 (Kletson Creek, 

 a tributary of White River, Yukon, Canada). 



FIGS.: Allen, J. A. 1901, figs. 1-4 (head, skull, antlers). 



In his recent review of the Alaska- Yukon barren-ground 

 caribou, Murie (1935) has shown that only one race is recog- 

 nizable over most of central and northern Alaska (exclusive 

 of the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island), ranging to the 

 western part of Yukon, Canada. This is recognizable by its 

 large size, with an upper maxillary tooth row averaging 94 mm. 

 The large cheek teeth, large size, maximum for the arcticus 

 type, dark color, with well-developed white fringe on the 

 throat, and large, heavy, and "rangy" antlers are given as 

 diagnostic characters. 



Murie states that this caribou has now disappeared from the 

 Kenai Peninsula, whence it was first described, but the form 

 of the interior of Alaska is the same, and it is probable that the 

 Kenai animals simply represented those remaining from a 

 periodic overflow of the herds of the interior. 



Stone's caribou, named in honor of Andrew J. Stone, who 

 collected the type, is at present represented by four herds, 

 which Murie (1935) briefly characterizes as follows: 



(1) The Bering seacoast group, consisting of scattered bands 

 distributed over a wide area of lowland bordering Bering Sea 

 from Bristol Bay to Bering Strait, but which even by the 

 early eighties had begun to decline. Residents agree that at 

 the beginning of this century caribou were much commoner 

 in the country north of the lower Yukon and inland from 

 Norton Sound and may still be found in the hills of that region 

 particularly at the head of Unalakleet, but at the present time 

 are "entirely absent or occur only as stragglers on the Bering 



