310 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



extinct. Wharton Huber informed Dr. Francis Harper that 

 in 1930 two prospectors again found tracks on Graham Island 

 but saw no animals. This was on grass-covered mountains 

 about 2,000 feet high in the northwestern part of the island. 

 I. M. Cowan further informed Dr. Harper that in November, 

 1935, "Ed White reported fresh caribou tracks on Massett 

 Island." It seems likely, then, that a few still exist in the 

 interior mountainous parts of these islands. Since 1910 the 

 British Columbia authorities have prohibited the killing of 

 these animals, and because the local Haidas are more a fishing 

 than a hunting race and do not care for caribou meat, it seems 

 probable that the law will be observed. 



There has been much speculation as to the origin of this 

 caribou group and how it should have survived in such seem- 

 ingly small numbers with no known natural enemies. The 

 nearest point of land is about 30 miles away to the coastal 

 archipelago, and the nearest relatives of the caribou live 150 

 miles distant at the present time. Dawson has suggested that 

 the ancestral stock reached the archipelago during the Ice Age, 

 when the islands were more easily accessible. If the race 

 proves to be one of the barren-ground group, as seems likely, 

 the fact will be all the more interesting. 



EASTERN WOODLAND CARIBOU 

 RANGIFER CARIBOU CARIBOU (Gmelin) 



[Cervus tarandus] caribou Gmelin, Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, ed. 13, vol. 1, pt. 1, 



p. 177, 1788 (eastern Canada). 

 FIGS.: Grant, 1902, 2 pis. opposite p. 18 (photographs); Nelson, 1916, p. 459 (colored 



fig-)- 



The woodland caribou, as its name implies, is a more south- 

 ern animal than the barren-ground species, inhabiting the 

 boreal evergreen forests and their bogs quite across North 

 America from Newfoundland to British Columbia. It is larger 

 of body but with less elongate antlers than the latter type; the 

 antlers usually tend to have a more flattened beam, and the 

 lower incisor teeth are more uniformly graded in size from the 

 middle to the outer ones. The females occasionally have small 

 antlers, but these are ordinarily much less developed than in 

 females of the barren-ground caribou. About five closely allied 

 forms are at present recognized. 



The eastern woodland caribou is usually darker than the 



