254 



THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



^^SSSsS&x 



Foot of a Barren-Ground Caribou 



The nest was much like the first one; the mother saw 

 him coming, and charged furiously, uttering a sort of 

 coughing. He shot her dead; then captured the 

 young and examined the nest; there were three 

 young this time. They were white like the others. 



Not far from this camp, we found a remarkable 

 midden-yard of Lemmings. It was about 10 feet by 



40 feet, the ground 

 within the limits was 

 thickly strewn with 

 pellets, at the rate of 

 14 to the square inch, 

 but nowhere were 

 they piled up. At 

 this reckoning, there 

 were over 800,000, but there were also many outside, 

 which probably raised the number to 1,000,000. Each 

 pellet was long, brown, dry, and curved, i.e., the winter 

 type. The place, a high, dry, very sheltered hollow, 

 was evidently the winter range of a colony of Lem- 

 mings that in summer went elsewhere, I suppose to 

 lower, damper grounds. 



After sunset, September 5, a bunch of three or 

 four Caribou trotted past the tents between us and the 

 Lake, 200 yards from us; Billy went after them, as, 

 thanks to the Wolverine, we were out of meat, and at 

 one shot secured a fine young buck. 



His last winter's coat was all shed now, his ears 

 were turning white and the white areas were expand- 

 ing on feet and buttocks; his belly was pure white. 

 On his back and rump, chiefly the latter, were the 



