98 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



thorough acquaintance with the North American Caribou, 

 but also by a prolonged sojourn in Lapland, devoted to the 

 study of the Reindeer of the Old World amid their native 

 ice and snow. With many writers, however, the point of 

 identity between the Reindeer of Europe and the Caribou 

 of America remains still doubtful. It has been contended 

 that, although the Caribou of America is a true Reindeer, 

 it belongs to a distinct species from those of the Old World, 

 although in generic character and habits identical. 



Sir John Richardson, the celebrated explorer of the 

 northern portions of America, in his work on the animals 

 of the country, says: 



In the month of July the Caribou sheds its winter covering, and acquires a 

 short coat of hair of a color composed of clove-brown mingled with deep red- 

 dish and yellowish brown, the under surface of the neck, the belly, and the 

 inner sides of the extremities remaining white at all seasons. The hair at first 

 is fine and flexible, but as it lengthens it increases gradually in diameter at its 

 roots, becoming at the same time white, soft, compressible, and brittle, like 

 the hair of the 31oose. In the course of the winter the thickness of the hair at 

 thtir roo's becomes so great that they are exceedingly close, and no longer lie 

 down smoothly, but stand erect; and they are then so soft and tender below, 

 that the flexible colored tips are easily rubbed off, and the fur appears white, 

 especially on the flanks. This occurs in a smaller degree on the back; and on 

 the under parts the hair, although it acquires length, remains more flexible 

 and slender at its roots, and is consequently not so subject to break. Toward 

 the spring, when the Deer are tormented by the larcce of the gad-fly making 

 their way through the skin, they rub themselves against rocks until all the 

 colored tips of the hair are worn off, and their fur appears of a soiled white 

 color.* 



The closeness of the hair of the Caribou, and the lightness of the skin, 

 when properly dressed, render it the most appropriate article for winter cloth- 

 ing in high latitudes. The skins of the young Deer make the best dresses, and 

 they should be killed for that purpose in August or September, as, after the 

 latter date, the hair becomes too long and brittle. The prime parts of eight or 

 ten Deer-skins make a complete suit of clothing for a grown person, which is 

 so impervious to the cold, that, with the addition of a blanket of the same 

 material, anyone so clothed may bivouac on the snow with safety, and even 

 with comfort, in the most extreme cold of an Arctic winter's night. 



* Mr. Ogilvie, Provincial Land Surveyor, of Ottawa, who recently spent upward of a 

 year surveying and taking observations for the Canadian Government, informed me that 

 while in the Hudson's Bay Territory, when in want of fresh meat for his men, he has shot 

 many of tin- Barren-ground species, the skins of some of which, killed in the early part of 

 autumn, wen- perforated by those destructive insects so as not only to render them com- 

 pletely useless, but also that the animals so affected were miserably thin and totally unfit 

 for food. I have never noticed, in any Deer of the Virginia species, the presence of warbles, 

 as the result of the attack of parasitic l<trcn-. 



