40 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMEKA 



during the summer. The cause of the migration 

 is presumably the search for food, but there is so 

 little data on the subject that one is scarcely justi- 

 fied in making any definite statements. We know 

 that by no means all the northern Caribou come 

 south, many remaining in the extreme north of 

 the peninsula ; while quite as many stay in the 

 southern part of the island during the summer. 

 There is no apparent reason why those animals 

 which spend the winter in the middle of the island 

 on the high plains and rolling hiUs should not stay 

 there during the summer. Evidently there is some 

 condition of which we know nothing, something 

 which causes the vast herds to endure the hard- 

 ships of the long trips of the autumn and spring, 

 when they often have to fight their way through 

 the thick ice of the frozen rivers and lakes. They 

 travel easily and rapidly under almost all conditions, 

 gliding over the soft, quaking bogs as readily as 

 over the hard, rocky hills. Through the dense fir 

 forests they break their way almost without noise. 

 They take to the water like ducks, their heavy 

 coats of air- containing hair making them so buoyant 

 that they swim with several inches of the entire 

 length of their body showing ; but though they 

 swim with ease and rapidity, they do not rehsh enter- 

 ing the very cold water. I have often watched them 

 hesitate for quite a long time before plunging in. 

 The leads or roads which they follow have been in 

 use year after year, perhaps for hundreds or thou-^ 

 sands of years, for in many places deep furrows are 

 worn in the rocks by the hoofs of countless thou- 

 sands of Caribou. Travelling, at least in the autumn 



