174 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



The Palmated Antelope inhabits the bleak regions near 

 the Frozen Ocean, the fragments above described being 

 brought from Baffin's Bay, from whence the species seems 

 to extend to the Stony Mountains and the river Jaime. 

 Excepting the characters of the horns, no dissimilitude 

 sufficiently marked is observable in this notice to fix a 

 positive difference of species ; but we think them never- 

 theless sufficient, especially as the present is a mountain, 

 and the former a champaign animal, to leave the descrip- 

 tions under two separate heads until the question can be 

 cleared up in a satisfactory manner. Considering the 

 high latitude which the palmated species inhabits, we are 

 tempted to view the flattened processes on the horns as a 

 provision of nature, perhaps to shovel the snow off the 

 mosses and lichens upon which they must principally feed, 

 in a country where other vegetation, and even the birch is 

 very rare, if, indeed, the assertions of the Indians with re- 

 gard to the similar practice in the Moose and the Caribou 

 can be sufficiently relied on. From the circumstance of the 

 Palmated Antelope residing in the mountains, it is probable 

 that the Kluche Indians consider this as the Kistuhe, or 

 Little Elk. Though small reliance should be had on names, 

 which often have no specific meaning, even among more 

 polished nations, the American Indians, living solely by the 

 chase, are, nevertheless, usually deemed remarkably correct 

 in their ideas of animals, and the Kluche from whom we 

 obtained our information shewed that in his person the 

 observation was correct*. In the west of North America, 



aware that in the zoological part of Captain Parry's voyage the 

 two species are considered as one ; but the distinction in the 

 horns not being referred to, and the above materials having been 

 examined by us, our former opinion is strengthened instead of 

 weakened. 



* We asked if he knew the white-feathered bird of prey, whose 

 pinions adorn the hair and the spears of the Indians? He answered 

 immediately, that the bird was among our drawings, and turning 



