76 NEWFOUNDLAND 



Accordingly Bob Saunders and I retired to my lodgings, 

 and flattened our noses on the map of Newfoundland. 



Experienced hunters always say, " The first trip you go 

 to a new country is for experience, the second you get what 

 you want." This is very true, especially if the hunter him- 

 self is able to make deductions, if he does not mind travelling, 

 and has, like the headmaster, the power of picking capable 

 assistants. In the previous year I had learned something 

 about the general habits of the woodland caribou, and became 

 more and more convinced that during the month of September 

 the big stags keep to themselves in various " putting up " 

 spots situated near the unvisited lakes and rivers of central 

 Newfoundland. When the railway was first made and opened, 

 numbers of splendid stags came out of the north every 

 September, and crossed the line between Bay of Islands and 

 Howley on their autumnal migration. Nowadays, although 

 almost as many deer come, they are chiefly does, so that 

 men, who during these years of plenty were accustomed to 

 go about and shoot these old stags like sheep in a pen, 

 now grumble and say that the patriarchs are shot out. But 

 this is not the case. The animals are not such fools as 

 themselves. They have learnt by hard experience, and have 

 protected themselves by hiding in peace and security in the 

 untrodden forests of the interior, and only migrating in the 

 late fall to the south coast barrens. There I believe they 

 will continue to flourish for centuries to come unless another 

 railway is made, which is not likely to occur. 



The natural conditions, too, of the great sanctuary will in 

 themselves keep this extent of country inviolate, for, in the 

 first place, after the lower reaches of the rivers are passed, 

 there is no timber worth cutting and likely to tempt the 

 cupidity of man. Nor is it possible to reach the interior 



