NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 311 



barren-ground species, with the head in front of the ears, the 

 body from shoulders to tail, and the legs to just above the 

 hoofs a dark brown; the lips and neck with its fringe of long 

 hair below, and the legs just above the hoofs white or hoary. 

 There is a narrow white area bordering the buttocks, but the 

 upper surface of the short tail is dark. The antlers of the male 

 are shorter than in the barren-ground type, less sweeping, and 

 extend outward and forward, with a short tine at the bend, 

 palmate brow tine on one or both sides and a varying number 

 of tines on the terminal part of the main beam. Large antlers 

 may measure in length of beam 42 inches on the outside curve. 

 The range of this eastern race originally extended from Nova 

 Scotia westward across New Brunswick, northern Maine, ex- 

 treme northern New Hampshire, and Vermont to southern 

 Ontario, and on the north side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 

 the wooded parts of southern Labrador west to James Bay. 

 Westward of the latter region it grades into the race sylvestris. 

 Its southward limit was the north shore of Lake Superior. It 

 apparently did at one time reach the Adirondack region of 

 New York. Over this range the woodland caribou is now 

 largely gone, chiefly as a resulfe of hunting and partly perhaps 

 as a result of lack of reproduction on account of reduced living 

 area and the harrying of civilization. The caribou south of 

 the St. Lawrence have probably long been cut off from their 

 western and northern neighbors since the settlement of southern 

 Canada and may be thought of as a separate herd having a 

 tendency to wander irregularly over the area. Thus during 

 the nineteenth century at intervals of about 15 years, the 

 records show a great influx of their numbers into northern 

 Maine, so that they came down as far as tidewater in the 

 eastern part of the State and to the large bogs near Bangor in 

 the interior. For a few years there would be caribou in some 

 numbers in the Maine woods, then they would drift away again 

 eastward into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and might be 

 nearly if not quite absent from Maine for another period. 

 New Brunswick with its greater extent of barrens and southern 

 Quebec south of the St. Lawrence were probably more attrac- 

 tive feeding grounds. Caribou are easily killed on account of 

 their gregarious habits and a curious inquisitiveness that leads 

 them to stop their flight and approach an unfamiliar object. 

 In former times a hunter on being discovered might lie on his 



