MIGRATIONS. 97 



in their progress by numbers of wolves, foxes, 

 and other predaceous quadrupeds, which attack 

 and devour the stragglers. 



The Pronged-horned Antelope? as well as the 

 Rein -deer, appears to go northward in the sum- 

 mer, and return to the south in the winter. 



Dr. Richardson remarks to me in a letter, 

 " The Musk-ox and Rein -deer feed chiefly on 

 lichens, and therefore frequent the Barren Lands 

 and primitive rocks, which are clothed with these 

 plants. They resort in winter, when the snow is 

 deep, to the skirts of the woods, and feed on the 

 lichens which hang from the trees, but on every 

 favourable change of weather they return to the 

 Barren Grounds. In summer they migrate to the 

 moist pastures on the sea-coast, and eat grass, 

 because the lichens on the Barren Lands are then 

 parched by the drought, and too hard to be 

 eaten. The young grass is, I suppose, better 

 fitted for the fawns, which are dropped about the 

 time the deer reach the coast." In all this we 

 see the hand of Providence directing them to 

 those places where the necessary sustenance may 

 be had. 



The same gentleman has remarked a singular 

 circumstance with regard to the American Black 

 Bear. 2 In general, this species hybernates in 

 the northern parts of the fur countries ; but it 



1 Antilope furcata. 2 Ursus Americanus. 



VOL* I. H 



