378 R. BELL—HUDSON BAY MAMMOTH AND MASTODON REMAINS. 
part of the summer and the autumn roving about the shore of the Arctic 
sea, enjoying the cool weather and finding abundant sustenance on the 
small trees and the alder, willow, and birch brushwood. Then, with the 
beginning of the severe weather, he would turn his footsteps toward his 
winter quarters and move south as the season advanced. ‘he periods of 
their annual migrations having become settled, it would be difficult or 
impossible to overcome the inertia of long-fixed habit, and they would be 
obliged to endure the increasing severity of the climate on the borders of 
the Arctic sea. In the meantime their numbers would be greatly dimin- 
ished from causes to be mentioped further on. At length, those which 
journeyed as far as the sea coast might be reduced to the single herd 
which migrated to the mouth of the Lena, where the climate of autumn 
would be the best on the coast, owing to the large quantity of warm water 
from the south which accumulates off the mouth of this great river. 
At this stage, if an unusually early and severe season were to set in, 
accompanied by great snow-storms, before the herd had started for the 
south, the result might be disastrous to the remaining mammoths. The 
now stunted brush would be covered by the deep snow, on which per- 
haps a strong crust had formed, thus preventing the animals from ob- 
taining any food, while the almost continuous darkness of the early 
winter would also operate against them. The same conditions would 
make it difficult or impossible for them to travel. Other individuals or 
herds which did not migrate so far north may have perished from a sim- 
ilar cause in various parts of the region. We know how completely 
helpless the deer of any species become in our northern woods when 
caught in deep snow with a crust upon it. 
Under circumstances like these the last of the mammoths would soon 
perish, since creatures of their organization, living upon such slightly 
nutritious food, must have it continuously and in large quantities. That 
such a process of starvation is not imaginary, | may mention the fact 
that the reindeer sometimes perish over large areas in our northern barren- 
lands from this cause. Their lives depend upon a continuous supply of 
the reindeer-lichen, which they obtain by removing the snow or by find- 
ing the plant where the ground has been left bare by drifting. A strik- 
ing instance of this occurred many years ago on Akpatok island, in Un- 
gava bay. This large island had always swarmed with reindeer, but one 
winter, when the snow was deeper than usual, rain fell upon it (an al- 
most unprecedented occurrence) and formed a heavy and permanent 
crust over both the bare ground and the snow, thus preventing the deer 
from obtaining their food. The consequence was that the whole number 
perished, and the island has never been restocked. If this former great 
