THE CARIBOU. 75 



I saw a pair of Caribou -horns some years ago which 

 were much larger, more massive and wide-spreading, and 

 had many more and longer prongs, than either of these. 

 Like every other variety of the genus CermdcE, the horns 

 of the Caribou are deciduous. Caribou drop their horns 

 between the first of January and the end of February. 

 The new horns then commence growing slowly until 

 the advent of warm spring weather, when they shoot up 

 with amazing rapidity, and reach their full size by the 

 first of September. They are then covered with velvet, 

 which the animal gets rid of by rubbing them against 

 small trees. Both male and female of this species have 

 horns. Those of the female are much finer and lighter 

 than the horns of the male. I saw, recently, a beauti- 

 ful female Caribou-head, which was killed in January, 

 and I have, also, the head of a fine doe, killed within 

 the month of January, 1890, from which the horns had 

 disappeared, leaving the usual indications in the skull that 

 the antlers had dropped naturally. I shall refer, further 

 on, to the largest Woodland Caribou ever killed in this 

 country, which carried the grandest set of antlers I have 

 ever seen. 



The height of a full-grown Woodland Caribou is about 

 four and a half feet, and the weight of its carcass about 

 three hundred and fifty pounds. Large bucks are occasion- 

 ally met with that weigh nearly four hundred pounds. The 

 food of the Caribou consists of mosses, lichens, and creep- 

 ing plants found in the swamps in summer, and in search 

 of which, and certain grasses, it paws up the snow with its 

 broad hoofs in winter. The flesh when fat is most deli- 

 cious venison; when lean, it is dry and insipid. The Cari- 

 bou is the fleetest of American Deer. In galloping it makes 

 most extraordinary bounds. As a trotter, the slow-going 

 two-fifteen horse that might attempt to compete with him 

 would be simply nowhere. 



Like his useful congener some authorities believe them 

 to be of the same species the Reindeer of Northern 

 Europe, the Caribou is possessed of great powers of endur- 



