WOODLAND CARIBOU. 89 



seen eighty carcasses of this kind of deer, brought into York Fac- 

 tory in one day and many others were refused, for the want of 

 salt to preserve them. These were killed when in the act of 

 crossing Hayes River, and the natives continued to destroy them, 

 for the sake of the skins, long after they had stored up more meat 

 than they required." The half century which has intervened 

 since Richardson's observations, has greatly diminished the num- 

 ber of these Reindeer, in nearly all the countries where they were 

 formerly quite abundant. We have no evidence that they were 

 ever abundant in the neighborhood of Montreal and Quebec, 

 though a few wanderers found their way to those parts of the 

 Canadas after they had been settled by the whites ; but many 

 years have now elapsed since any have been heard of there. They 

 still maintain their ground in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 

 where they show more persistence in remaining in the vicinity of 

 the settlements of the white man than- in any other portion of 

 their original habitat. 



The Reindeer branch of the deer family present extraordinary 

 peculiarities in their cornute appendages. The most striking is 

 the fact that the females have antlers, though of less size than 

 those of the males. Then, again, we are struck with the extraor- 

 dinary variety, or want of uniformity in the forms of the ant- 

 lers, no two, even from the same animal, being alike, usually 

 differing as much from each other as those taken from different 

 animals. Still there are certain peculiarities about them which 

 enable the most careless observer to recognize them at a glance, 

 with as much confidence as he can the antler of the wapiti. The 

 beam of the antler is usually vei'y long in proportion to its thick- 

 ness, and is alwaj's more or less angular instead of round. On the 

 adult male, the antler is always more or less branching, and some 

 of these branches are usually palmated. The upper branches have 

 usually posterior projection, while the lower, that is, the brow 

 and the bez tines, are anterior. These latter are usually much 

 longer either on one or both antlers in proportion, than the upper 

 posterior projections, though frequently one or the other of these 

 is but rudimentary, or even entirely wanting. With very rare? 

 if any exceptions, the brow tines on one of the antlers is broadly 

 palmated, descending between the eyes, the compression being 

 lateral. Like the elk, the brow tine usually projects from the 

 antler immediately above the burr, which is very small. 



The old males shed their antlers usually before Christmas, but 

 the young males carry them later ; the yearlings till spring, and 



