86 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



As caribou are possessed of great vitality, they require 

 heavy hitting: so a rifle of large calibre ought to be em- 

 ployed by the sportsman. 



Although there are upon the American continent two 

 very distinctly marked varieties of the reindeer, I can not 

 adopt the idea of many travelers that, so conspicuous is 

 their dissimilarity, they are entitled to be considered dis- 

 tinct species. 



We are all aware that difference of climate, local causes, 

 and abundance or paucity of food work wonderful altera- 

 tion on animal life more especially in regulating their stat- 

 ure ; for instance, the moose-deer of Labrador seldom ex- 

 ceeds sixteen and a half hands, while that of Nova Scotia 

 and New Brunswick has been known to attain twenty-one or 

 even twenty-two hands (vide Audubon). Now the grounds 

 that are taken for asserting that there are two species of 

 caribou are exactly the same, and would equally justify the 

 decision that there are two species of elk. The woodland 

 caribou leads a life of comparative idleness among the 

 dense swamps and pine-clad hills, where food is constantly 

 to be found in abundance. The barren caribou, on the oth- 

 er hand, inhabits the immense flats or mountain ridges close 

 to the Arctic Circle, where vegetable growth is sparse, and 

 little shelter afforded from the biting cold winds and snows 

 peculiar to so high a latitude. So great often are the straits 

 the latter variety are submitted to from the inhospitable 

 nature of their habitat, that in some districts they are com- 

 pelled to become migratory to obtain the necessaries of life. 

 Is it, then, to be wondered at that there should be a mark- 

 ed difference in size between the inhabitant of the shelter- 

 ed forest and the wanderer upon the barren upland waste ? 



Another strange circumstance has often struck me 

 viz., that although the reindeer has for ages been domes- 

 ticated in Europe and Asia, employed both to draw and 



