MORROW — NOTES ON THE CARIBOU. 293 



perfectly developed in the hind, and it is a question which is yet to 

 be decided whether the tubes ever entirely fade out of the feet of 

 the doe. In the old doe, the age of which cannot be less than six 

 years, although small, the tubes are still plainly to be seen, 



A young moose, in possession of Mr. J. W. Stairs, has these 

 tubes in all its feet. Those in the hind feet are fully developed, 

 and pass in the same way as those of the Caribou, — between the 

 phalanges ; in the fore feet they are as in the Caribou of the same 

 age, not passing upward and backward between the bones, but 

 lying between and nearly parallel with them, and being, as in the 

 Caribou, only rudimentary; but at what time of life they disappear 

 in this animal, or whether in male or female, or both, cannot, owing 

 to our prohibitory law, at present be decided. 



The bones of the fore feet of the Caribou have the same general 

 appearance as those of the moose. The "splint" bone is, how- 

 ever, very much shorter in proportion. In the hind feet the bones 

 are the same; in the Caribou they are, however, rounder than in 

 the moose. 



Permit m3 to tax your patience a little longer, it has been 

 shown that the Caribou and Moose have the tubes fully developed 

 in the hind feet, and rudimentary in the fore. An examination of a 

 Wapiti or Elk (Cervus Canadensis) skin with feet attached, in Mr. 

 Egan's collection, presented the fact, confirmed by Judge Caton, 

 that this animal has no tube in any foot, and that its feet are of a 

 different shape from those of the Caribou, Moose, and Virginia 

 Deer, being * broader and shorter, and that the length of the pha- 

 langes is very much less in proportion to the size of the animal in 



* Professor Baird, U. S. P. R. R. Exp. and Surveys, page 638, Sp- ch. : 

 " Hoofs short, broad and rounded;" 639: " The hoofs of the elk, fi?. 10, are very 

 different from those of the smaller deer ; instead of being narrow and pointed, they 

 are short, broad, and with the outer edge of the under surface much rounded; in 

 fact, they bear a very close resemblance beneath, to those of a buff ilo. ... In 

 the hind foot of the elk, the hoof is rather longer. . . . The length but little 

 greater than the Width of both hoofs together. The anterior hoofs are rather the 

 largest. 



" There is a patch of whitish hairs on the outer edsje of the hind leg, about one- 

 third the length of the metatarsus, from its upper edge. This is narrow and about 

 two inches long. There is no naked space between these hairs, as in the Virginia 

 deer. I have not observed the bushy bunch or patch of long hairs seen on the inside 

 of the tarsal region in the Virginia deer, though it may possibly exist." (Judge- 

 Caton says it does not.) 



