CHAPTER VIII. 



A SEPTEMBER TRIP UP THE GANDER, NEWFOUNDLAND. 



HAVING already made two October, or second season, 

 hunting-trips to Newfoundland, I determined in 1906 

 to spend the early or September season in that country, for 

 caribou-hunting in September is carried out under entirely 

 different conditions from those which obtain later in the 

 year. In October all the hunter's efforts are directed 

 towards intersecting the line of migration of the herds, 

 which are then moving south ; whereas during the earlier 

 month migration has hardly begun, and the chance of 

 sport lies in finding and hunting " summering " stags, 

 that is, stags that have spent the summer in defined dis- 

 tricts, generally in the near neighbourhood of some river 

 or lake. A stag, while growing his horns, seems to remain 

 within the limits of a comparatively small area, from which 

 he does not move until he goes out to meet the does 

 late in September, or more generally in October. Stags 

 invariably rub in their favourite summer haunts. The horns 

 of the best stags are generally free of velvet by the yth of 

 September, or even earlier. Trees torn and broken by rub- 

 bing are to be seen occasionally during the last days of 

 August, but in an ordinary year the bulk of the stags seem 

 to rub between the 5th and I2th of the following month. 

 This applies to the country lying south of the railway. 



The shooting of good stags in September is, in many 

 ways, a much more difficult matter than it becomes later on. 



