ORIGIN AND DIFFERENCES 99 
BaRrREN GROUND CARIBOU SPECIES 
Greenland Caribou, Rangifer groen-land’i-cus, Greenland 
Coast. 
Barren Ground Caribou, Rangifer arc’ti-cus, Canadian 
Barren Grounds. 
Grant’s Caribou, Rangifer granti, Alaska Peninsula. 
Peary’s Caribou, Rangifer pearyi, Ellesmere Land. 
In view of the tens of thousands of Barren Ground Caribou 
that have been seen by white men and the thousands that 
have been killed by and for them, the scarcity of definite 
observations upon this group and of preserved specimens 
is, as a whole, very unsatisfactory. At present, therefore, 
the many undetermined questions-regarding the component 
parts of the group render it impossible to do much more than 
to define the assemblage as a whole. 
In general terms it may be said that the average Barren 
Ground Caribou is a close under-study of the average rein- 
deer of Siberia and Lapland, and is also a smaller animal. 
That all our Caribou have descended from the reindeer of 
Asia and came to us by crossing Bering Strait on the ice, 
seems more than probable. 
In surveyor’s parlance, the head of Cook Inlet is the 
“point of departure” of the Woodland Caribou from the rein- 
deer—Barren Ground type. It would be difficult to find on 
land a clearer or sharper line of cleavage between two groups 
of animals than that between Rangifer granti, of the Alaska 
Peninsula, and Rangifer stonet of the Kenai Peninsula. One 
