HABITS OF THE CARIBOU 101 
Up to the time that Alaska was purchased by the United 
States the natives had few firearms, or none at all, and Cari- 
bou were abundant. Along the west coast Caribou once were 
so numerous that a cannon from the fort at St. Michael was 
fired at a herd that passed within half a mile of the settlement. 
As usual, we immediately supplied the natives with firearms 
and ammunition; and as a first result, the only Caribou now 
remaining in western Alaska are the few stragglers that the 
hunters have not yet overtaken. A few herds of Grant’s 
Caribou still inhabit the treeless wastes of the Alaskan Pen- 
insula. 
The great herd seen by Mr. Tyrrell at Carey Lake, west 
of Hudson Bay, will be mentioned in detail later on. On the 
Labrador Peninsula there are said to be three distinct herds, 
on Hudson Straits, Ungava Bay and the Atlantic coast down 
to Hamilton Inlet. From Ellesmere Land five skins of a 
white animal with a gray back have been described as PEARY’s 
Caripou,! and from at least four points in Ellesmere Land 
Caribou have been reported. 
Along the northwest coast of Greenland, especially be- 
tween Melville Bay and Kane Basin, Commander Peary 
found a fair abundance of Caribou, and at Liverpool Bay, on 
the east coast, a number were killed by a Danish expedition, 
in 1900. 
Hasits.—One of the habits of the Barren Ground Caribou 
is particularly striking. At stated periods, in spring and 
autumn, they assemble in immense herds, and migrate en 
masse with the compactness and definiteness of purpose of 
1 Rangifer pearyt. 
