12 Wilderness Ways. 



There is another curious habit of Megaleep ; and 

 this one I am utterly at a loss to account for. When 

 he is old and feeble, and the tireless muscles will no 

 longer carry him with the herd over the wind-swept 

 barrens, and he falls sick at last, he goes to a spot far 

 away in the woods, where generations of his ancestors 

 have preceded him, and there lays him down to die. 

 It is the caribou burying ground ; and all the animals 

 of a certain district, or a certain herd (I am unable to 

 tell which), will go there when sick or sore wounded, 

 if they have strength enough to reach the spot. For 

 it is far away from the scene of their summer homes 

 and their winter wanderings. 



I know one such place, and visited it twice from 

 my summer camp. It is in a dark tamarack swamp 

 by a lonely lake at the head of the Little-South-West 

 Miramichi River, in New Brunswick. I found it one 

 summer when trying to force my way from the big 

 lake to a smaller one, where trout were plenty. In 

 the midst of the swamp I stumbled upon a pair 

 of caribou skeletons, which surprised me ; for there 

 were no hunters within a- hundred miles, and at that 

 time the lake had lain for many years unvisited. I 

 thought of fights between bucks, and bull moose, 

 how two bulls will sometimes lock horns in a rush, 

 and are too weakened to break the lock, and so die 



