CHAPTER V. 



CARIBOO. 



ALTHOUGH occasionally the cariboo is killed within 

 the limits of the United States, they have ever there 

 been deemed scarce, doubtless from it being the ex^ 

 treme southern limit of their habitat, nor can they be 

 found in such numbers as to justify the sportsman 

 going in their pursuit till the northern shores of the 

 great St. Lawrence are gained; from whence, as the 

 traveller advances into higher latitudes, daily indica- 

 tions of their presence will become more abundant. 

 How far to the north they may be found is doubtful, 

 although it is beyond a question that their range 

 extends to the Arctic circle. The almost unknown 

 interior of the vast island of Newfoundland abounds 

 with them, also the interior of Labrador ; while in the 

 uninhabited waste between Hudson's Bay and Alaska, 

 late Russian America, their numbers are so great as 

 to form the staple article of food of the inhabitants of 

 these dismal lands. 



Capable of resisting with comparative impunity the 

 greatest severity of cold, they suffer severely from 

 heat, to avoid which they make two migrations an- 

 nually, to the north in summer grazing back to the 

 south in winter. During these journeys the greatest 

 destruction of the species takes place, for they almost 



