GILPIN — ON THE MAMMALIA OE NOVA SCOTIA. 57 



those I saw myself I took no notes of. In Captain Hardy's (an 

 accurate observer) sketch, the whole neck is represented white and 

 long haired, but not reaching behind the shoulders ; whilst in Sir 

 Wm. Jardlne's coloured drawing of the Reindeer, the white extends 

 far backward to the quarters. Audubon also mentions a ftiint white 

 streak behind the shoulder. The legs of a doe killed in September 

 were beautiful mouse colour, with a wash of dun. James Luxy, 

 (Alexis,) an Indian hunter, says that when the does have fawns, 

 that is July or June, they have a black ring about their eyes, 

 (Hardy's black patch on the cheek,) and also the v/hite of the neck 

 extends farther upon the side. (Sir Wm. Jardlne's coloured sketch 

 of Reindeers show^s this.) Of two legs with hoofs before me, killed 

 vf inter 1871, the colour is deep brown, I should use sepia in draw- 

 ing it, with a white fringe around the coronet, running back to be- 

 yond the dew claw. Thus in summing colour up : In v/inter, soiled 

 yellowish white ; neck, rump, tail and under parts, pure white ; legs 

 white inside, outside brown, with white fringes. In summer, neck 

 extending into fore-shoulder, rump and tail, under parts and inside 

 of legs pure white, all other parts clove brown ; sometimes reddish 

 and yellowish, with black patch on cheek and eye, and white fringe 

 on hoofs. In colour then our own Cariboo assimilate closely to the 

 Lapland Reindeer. 



In studying the hoof before me, nothing can exceed its beauty 

 of finish. The inside a perfect cavity, the frog all absorbed or 

 dried away, the outside rim with a beautiful cutting edge. The 

 animal must stand almost like a woman upon pattens, on four rings, 

 upon any hard surface, in descending slopes, the dew-claw behind 

 Vv^ould bear slightly on the surface. The whole too is enveloped in 

 a beautiful fringe of coarse hair, curling down over the black hoof 

 till It nearly covers it, and passing betvreen the toes to form a thick 

 mop of coarse hair, wrapping the sole and dew-claws in a warm 

 cushion. On glittering ice or slippery slopes how secure this ice 

 foot, with its keen circular cutting edge ; in soft snows, spreading 

 the toes it forms a broad cushion to hold up the deer upon its trea- 

 cherous surface, as well as to shield it from the cold. We are im- 

 mediately struck with an analogy most unexpected between the 

 hairy foot of the deer and the feathered leg and claw of the winter 



