120 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIK 



of Hudson's Buy, above tlic northern limit of forest 

 growtli ; it ii)liiil)its Melville and other Islands of the 

 Aretic arehipelago, and is found in Greenland. 



The earil)(jo of the forests of Lower Canada, New- 

 foundland and Nova Scotia, which we now proceed to 

 describe, seems to attain in this portion of America, the 

 finest development of which the species is susceptible. 

 It is a strongly-built, thick-set animal, (that is by com- 

 parison with the more graceful of the Cervidic), yet far 

 from ])eing as ungainly and slouching as the Norwegian 

 reindeer is conmionly depi(3ted in drawings, though 

 these are })i"obably generally taken from donn^sticated 

 specimens, whicli they resemlile nnich more closely than 

 they do the wild deer of the mountains. A very large 

 buck in Newfoundland will exceed four hundred pounds 

 in weight, and measure over four feet in height at the 

 shouhhn". 1 have seen a cariboo in Nova Scotia that 

 must have considerably exceeded four feet six inches in 

 height, and was thought by the Indian at a distance off 

 to have been a moose. 



Reindeer of a similar development, and in colour 

 (dosely resembling the cariboo of Eastern America, were 

 met with Ijy Erman in Eastern Asia, where tliey are used 

 for the saddle (placed on the shoulder — the only part of 

 the l)a(tk where the deer can support a load) l)y the 

 Tunguzes. He states that the Lapland reindeer of 

 menageries and museums appeared to him but dwarfs in 

 com})arison with those of Northern Asia, and with th{>ir 

 size and strength seemed also to have lost much of their 

 beauty of form.* Certainly the cariboo of Nova 



* Sjicakinfi; of the Tuiii^'uzcs, Erman f^ays :— " Tim diiirm of their hxtk 

 liita in llieir .slim and aclive figure, an also in tlieir c.onrilant connection with 



