CHAPTER XVII 



THE NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU 



First of all I must warn my readers that this chapter is 

 intended solely for the hunter and the naturalist, and that 

 the general reader will peruse it at his own peril. 



The name "caribou" is a native Indian word derived 

 from the words " maccarib " or "maccaribo," and not from 

 the French Canadian quarr^ bceuf (that is, a square ox), an 

 origin assigned to it by Sir John Richardson, who wrote the 

 first clear account of the American races of this deer. 

 Lescarbot, in his Nouvelle France (1609), first mentions the 

 caribou, whilst its existence seems to have been unknown to 

 the earlier travellers, such as Cabot, Cartier, and Roberval. 



Space will not permit me to enter into a discussion of the 

 various local races of the reindeer or caribou found in 

 Europe, Asia, and America, nor to argue on the vexed 

 question whether the whole race should be regarded as one 

 species, or a number of sub-species, of which the Norwegian 

 reindeer is the parent form. Without doubt both views of 

 the case are correct in their own way, whether zoologists 

 belong to the camp of the "splitters" or the "lumpers"; 

 but what I do consider a very great mistake is the separation 

 by American and English naturalists of the two great races 

 known respectively as the "Woodland" and "the Barren- 

 land," and the assignation to each of different habits, a state 

 of things which has led to the formation of sub-species such 

 as T. R. Stonei and T. R. Osborni, local races assigned to 



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