84 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



horns of the larger species are comparatively shorter, 

 heavier, thicker, and more palmated. Sir John Richard- 

 son and Judge Caton are both of opinion that the two 

 kinds of American Reindeer are distinct in species— an 

 opinion superinduced not only- from the difference in size, 

 separate peculiarities in the antlers, and marked dissimi- 

 larity in habits, but also on account of the absolute 

 non-intercourse between the two varieties, although the 

 southern migratory limit of the one overlaps the northern, 

 migratory limit of the other. ■ 



Beyond even this, naturalists generally agree that the 

 food best suited for the Barren-ground Caribou, of the 

 most nutritious quality, is abundant in its northern habitat; 

 notably the Reindeer moss and lichens which constitute its 

 staple diet. The migrations of the northern variety are 

 doubtless regulated, as are the migrations of birds, by the 

 climate, and not specially by the scarcity of food. The 

 same cause induces the periodical migrations of the Wood- 

 land Caribou northward. On this disputed point, I shall 

 close with a quotation from Judge Caton' s history of the 

 Barren-ground Caribou: 



The statement of Doctor King, as quoted by Baird, for the purpose of 

 showing a specific difference between the Barren-ground and the Woodland 

 Caribou, is this: "That the Barren-ground species is peculiar, not only in the 

 form of its liver, but in not possessing a receptacle for bile." This implies, 

 certainly, that Doctor King had found, on examination, that the Woodland 

 Caribou has the gall-bladder attached to the liver. This certainly is not so; 

 for the gall-bladder is wanting in the Woodland Caribou, as well as in all other 

 members of the Deer family, a fact long since observed and attested by several 

 naturalists, and often confirmed by critical examination. Notwithstanding 

 there are many strong similitudes between our two kinds of Caribou, there 

 are numerous well-authenticated differences, which, when well considered, not 

 only justify, but compel us to class them as distinct species. 



In a paper read some years ago before the Field Natu- 

 ralists' Club of the City of Ottawa, on "The Deer of the 

 Ottawa Valley," I strongly urged my belief that there is a 

 difference, not yet rationally accounted for, between the 

 branching and spike-horned Deer of the Cervus Virginia- 

 nus species. Be this as it may, the distinctness and dis- 

 similarity, in many particulars, between the Barren-ground 



