I70 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



Amongst 

 the colonial 

 land-laws 

 sporting 

 and hunt- 

 ing laws 

 are con- 

 spicuoiis, 

 but anti- 

 dog laws 

 protect 

 reindeer 

 and sheep 

 against 

 sporting 

 abuses. 



Farming 

 began seri- 

 ously when 

 Cochrane 

 introduced 

 roads, 



English colonization is also wont to pass through the hunting 

 and travelling stage; but the hunter and traveller have 

 invariably ushered in men of another type who have peopled 

 the land. 



A study of the inland districts helps us to understand not 

 only the Micmacs but the Statute-book, much of which 

 consists of laws instituting close times for Caribou (Feb. i to 

 July 31; Oct. I to 20), beaver (1897 to 1910), foxes, unless 

 caught for domestication (!) or propagation (!) (March 15 to 

 Oct. 15), hares, rabbits, and imported animals like moose 

 (1875-1912),! black-game, and capercailzie (1886, &c.). 

 The country is dedicated to sport and the fur-trade, and fur- 

 animals include black bears, lynxes,^ and martens.^ On the 

 other hand, under Acts passed in and after 1884 seventy or 

 eighty localities have ordered every dog, except collies and 

 mail-dogs, to be treated as wolves and destroyed. The dog 

 ban has become necessary for the sake of other domestic 

 animals, and the carnivore is sacrificed to the ruminant. 

 Ruminants now include imported reindeer. The domestica- 

 tion of caribou was urged by Cormack (1822), Jukes (1840)? 

 Sir S. Hill (1873), and others, and has been practised with 

 success for a year or two on certain occasions,"* and in 1907-8 

 some Lapps were imported with tame reindeer from Lapland 

 into St. Anthony in the north-east corner of Newfoundland, in 

 order to realize these projects. But at present the domestica- 

 tion of the caribou seems almost as remote from the range of 

 practical politics as the domestication of the fox. The 

 peculiar victim of the dogs of Newfoundland has been the 

 sheep. 



At the beginning of this period, woodcutting was almost 

 the only winter pursuit, and dogs were the only beasts of 

 burden which the woodcutters employed. Then Admiral Sir 



^ The American elk. ^ Whitboume's 'leopards' (?). 



^ Whitbourne's ' wild cats ' (?). 



^ Jukes, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 90; Governor Sir S. Hill, Report, 1873 

 (0. 709, I), p. 141 ; Millais, op, cit., p. 334//. 



