THE CARIBOO. . 19 



among the race. Mr. "Wallop speaks of their " dark- 

 brown hides," and some Canadian sportsmen have ob- 

 jected to my description ; still I prefer letting what I 

 have written stand, since I wrote from actual inspection 

 of Newfoundland Cariboo skins ; and until I have seen 

 others of darker hue, must hold in absence of other proof 

 what I have seen to be true. 



If the Cariboo of the other British provinces, and the 

 North-eastern States of America, differ in color from 

 those of Newfoundland, my too general statement may 

 perhaps tend to elicit further information, by which the 

 numbers and distinctions of the several varieties may be 

 definitively attained. 



It is not a little extraordinary, that this magnificent 

 and noble species, which exists in considerable numbers 

 within two hundred miles of the spot where I sit writing, 

 in the Adirondack Highlands I mean of New York 

 which abounds in the north-eastern part of Maine, 

 swarms in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, and in- 

 deed everywhere North of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa, 

 to the extremest Arctic Kegions yet penetrated by the 

 foot of man, should be yet less known to American 

 writers even on the topic of Natural History than 

 most animals of Central Asia, or the inhospitable wilds of 

 Southern Africa. It is not even determined so little care 

 has been taken in examining or identifying specimens 

 whether it is one and the same, or a different species- 

 from the Keindeer of the Europe- Asiatic continent ^ nor 



