THE NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU 321 



common reindeer moss {Cladonia rangiferma), of which 

 there seems to be a large and a small variety. They also 

 eat two other lichens, Stereocaulon paschale, and Bryopogon 

 jubatum. The long-bearded tree moss, known to the New- 

 foundlander as "maldow," is a favourite food in winter. 

 In the autumn the adults also eat blueberries,* the withered 

 leaves of alder and birch, whilst the females and young are 

 very partial to the small shoots of larch, on which I have 

 seen them feeding exclusively. The females chew the points 

 of every old horn they come across. With such a wonderful 

 feast spread by Nature, the caribou would suffer no hardship 

 at any season were it not for the sudden frosts following on 

 thaws — at such times the winter rain freezes as it falls, and 

 encrusts the ground and trees with a hard mass of ice, 

 through which the deer are unable to break. 



These ice storms are known in Newfoundland as the 

 " Glitter," and are the cause of all the sudden local movements 

 on the part of the deer during winter. The most remarkable 

 instance occurred in the first week in December 1898 — one 

 of the severest winters ever e.xperienced in the island. Tens 

 of thousands of caribou were collected in the neighbourhood 

 of the woods and open country just south of Sylvester, and 

 extending to the Tolt in the east and the Long Harbor 

 River as the western boundary. A glitter came on suddenly, 

 and the whole of these deer moved in a single night to the 

 west at full speed. Several of the Indians saw the trails 

 made by the mass of deer, and described them to me as at 

 least ten miles wide, with few intervals in between. Only 

 one man saw the great trek. His name is Joe Rigg, and 



> The stomach of a stag I killed in 1906 was half-full of blueberries. These 

 it must have swallowed as the berries lay on the ground amongst the C. rangiferina. 

 I do not think that they eat the berries off the bushes. 



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