L 



THE CHASE. 371 



smell which is possessed by the other deer, or else when follow- 

 ing up the track of the hunters their presence would have been 

 detected. Add to these infirmities their stupidity, and the fact 

 that they are easily distracted so that they are incapable of es- 

 cape even in the open plain, and we have the picture of an ani- 

 mal which is very useful to the natives who have to depend on 

 the rudest and most imperfect weapons to procure subsistence, 

 but it should hardly be called game more than a flock of sheep. 

 Another remarkable fact is mentioned in this extract, and that is 

 that the deer floated after being killed. This I am very sure is 

 quite exceptional. From my own experience, and from all the 

 information I have been able to obtain from others, the other 

 species of deer sink so soon as they are killed if in the water, 

 and this is the case of tliose without antlers as well as those that 

 have antlers. The fact stated is the more remarkable, because 

 of the immense antlers which the males have, Avhich as we have 

 seen are much larger in proportion to their size than those of any 

 other deer. " The carcasses float." No exception is made in the 

 case of the bucks. The winter coats on the bodies of all deer 

 consists of hollow cylinders which are, to be sure, very buoyant, 

 but this coat must be enormous to sustain so great a weight in 

 the water, but then undoubtedly they require a very warm coat 

 to protect them in that arctic region. 



From all the accounts we have of the mode of taking this lit- 

 tle arctic Reindeer and its capabilities for self-protection, its pur- 

 suit could never become an object of interest to the sportsman. 

 Indeed, it is too stupid an animal for its capture to create an in- 

 terest in any but a hungry man or a butcher. The pleasure of 

 the sportsman in the chase is measured by the intelligence of 

 the game and its capacity to elude pursuit, and in the labor and 

 even the danger involved in the capture. 



The sportsman is better rewarded by the capture of a single 

 woodland caribou, which has required all his skill with infinite 

 pains and labor and exposure and privation, than to participate 

 in the slaughter of a thousand of his stupid cousins of the north, 

 which he would look upon with indifference rather than with 

 pleasurable excitement. Among the former it is a contest with 

 sharp wits where satisfaction is mingled with admiration for the 

 object overcome. With the latter it must be — nothing I The 

 difference in the endowments for self preservation of these two 

 species of deer, if not the most marked of those which declare 

 them of different species, is still very remarkable and interesting. 



