312 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



back and kick his legs in the air or wave a red cloth, when 

 presently the whole herd would turn and approach to investi- 

 gate. The hunter, waiting his chance, would leap up and get 

 in several shots before the caribou could dash off. This south- 

 ern herd must have become gradually reduced by hunting and 

 the effects of settlement without much cognizance being taken 

 of it. The last great infiltration in Maine was in the early 

 nineties, when they were reported for a time more numerous 

 than deer. In 1895 and again in 1896 the Bangor and Aroostook 

 Railroad alone shipped out about 130 caribou each year that 

 had been killed by visiting sportsmen, but after that the num- 

 ber in the State began to decline, owing in part probably to the 

 eastward movement of the animals once more and in part to 

 summer and winter killing in both Maine and the adjacent 

 parts of Canada. There were a few caribou in the bogs of 

 northern New Hampshire until at least 1885. In 1899 a closed 

 time on caribou in Maine for six years was established and on 

 its expiration was renewed for another six years. Meanwhile, 

 however, the animals had practically gone from the State. 

 The last caribou in the Mount Katahdin region, formerly their 

 favorite haunt, was seen in 1905 and a small herd remained on 

 the northwestern border of the State near the St. Johns River 

 until 1916, but since then there seem to be no certain records. 

 The history of this herd is much the same in New Brunswick 

 and Nova Scotia a gradual diminution and retreat. Dr. 

 R. M. Anderson (1939b) writes that in Nova Scotia caribou 

 were so numerous in the sixties that a certain English sportsman 

 killed 120 in a single day in Lunenberg County. "The last 

 caribou on the mainland of Nova Scotia was killed in Guys- 

 borough County about 1912," and they were "almost certainly 

 gone" from the once famous caribou grounds of Victoria and 

 Inverness Counties in northern Cape Breton Island by 1925, 

 although in only the previous year he found recent "traces" 

 of them. "In New Brunswick a closed season was estab- 

 lished for caribou in 1919," but it was too late to help them, 

 for in a few years they seem to have altogether gone. "Fairly 

 authenticated records in the upper Tobique River in 1924" 

 are mentioned by Dr. Anderson, and the New Brunswick 

 Game Department is quoted as saying that "reports from 

 wardens and woodsmen show that caribou probably remained 

 in the Province in small quantities until about 1926, and one 



