488 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXIV, 



the Greenland side of Baffin Bay, opposite Ellesmere Land. These skins 

 greatly resemble in coloration the ordinary Woodland Caribou, being dark 

 brown with the neck much lighter and the ventral area white. They thus 

 give no suggestion of the whiteness of pelage shown by their relatives on 

 the opposite side of Baffin Bay. 



The series of R. arcticus (Cervus tarandus, var. a. arctica Richardson) 

 is from near Wager River, north of Hudson Bay, and was collected in 

 October by Captain George Comer. This locality is only a short distance 

 from Melville Peninsula, which Richardson especially mentions as within 

 the range of his variety arctica, although not strictly its type locality. This 

 is a much lighter colored animal than R. grosnlandicus, from which it also 

 differs in the character of the antlers. There is a blackish band across the 

 chin, and a broad dark brown band across the nose, extending posteriorly 

 in a V-shaped patch to nearly opposite the eyes ; the cheeks, forehead and 

 top of the head are lighter or yellowish brown; the throat, sides of the head 

 up to the base of the ears, and the whole neck all around back to the 

 shoulders, the whole ventral surface, inside of thighs, the buttocks, and the 

 greater part of the tail are uniform cream- white. The limbs are dark brown 

 nearly to the hoofs, adjoining which is a band of yellowish white, which 

 extends upward for a short distance as a narrow median line on the poste- 

 rior face of the carpal and tarsal segments. The whole body, except the 

 ventral surface, is dark brown, passing into a lighter color on the flanks, 

 where the hairs are tipped more or less with yellowish or pale fulvous, below 

 which is a broad lateral band of dark brown. 



In average specimens of R. pearyi the whole head and the limbs are 

 uniform white, 1 like the neck and underparts, with a more or less strong 

 grayish cast over the mid-dorsal area. From this they vary on the one hand 

 to nearly pure white all over, and on the other to white with a grayish brown 

 mantle, varying in different individuals, independently of sex and age, 

 from drab-gray to drab-brown. In these darker specimens the dark chin 

 and nose bands seen in other species of caribou are outlined by a faint 

 plumbeous hue, the ears are similarly shaded, as is the median front surface 

 of the fore legs, while the anterior face of the hind legs is distinctly pale 

 drab-gray divided medially by a narrow white line, making the dark band 

 double. Where these darker shades appear the pelage is brown basally, 

 and the drab tint in places reaches the surface. Elsewhere the pelage is 

 white to the base. Another striking feature of the pelage in R. pearyi is 

 its extreme softness and fineness, in comparison with that of any other 



i The whiteness of the head is well shown in the half-tone plate facing p. 80 of Peary's 

 Nearest the Pole,' where two sledge loads of Caribou give a front view of two fine heads. 

 Ihe plate facing p. 346 gives also side and front views of a fine head. 



