108 • BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



large, coarse, ugly ear, while the Caribou has the smallest 

 •and. shortest ear of all the Deer family. To this fact the 

 trappers of the Maine woods attribute that acute sense of 

 hearing that enables the Caribou to detect the slightest 

 sound, even the rustle of a single dry leaf, and which will 

 start him like an arrow from the range of his pursuers. 



It is difficult to assign limits to the range of the Caribou. 

 The habitat of the Rangifer Caribou has been a mooted 

 point that can be settled only by an agreement to differ with 

 any rigid limitation. Migrating occasionally to the polar 

 regions of his Eskimo brother, the Rangifer Oreenland- 

 icus, our Woodland species may be only paying a cere- 

 monious visit, attracted by the feast of Reindeer moss there 

 so liberally spread out for him; or, perhaps, negotiating for 

 reservations for future occupancy, beyond the widening 

 hunting-grounds of the dreaded white man. It is certain 

 that the Woodland is chiefly found about Hudson' s Bay, in 

 Maine, and the States bordering on the St. Lawrence. 



Emmons considers it doubtful if the Caribou ever inhab- 

 ited Massachusetts; but he has occasionally appeared in the 

 northern parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. Richard- 

 son gives as a northern limit the southern extremity of 

 Hudson' s Bay, reaching as far west as Lake Superior, and. 

 southerly to New Brunswick and Maine. 



Caton asserts, contrary to most authorities, that west 

 of the Barren Grounds the range of the Woodland Caribou 

 extends north to the limits of the continent, and that in the 

 northern parts of Montana and Washington, and in British 

 Columbia, they are claimed to be still larger than on the 

 Atlantic Coast. We can not surmise any confusion as to 

 the two families, Rangifer Caribou and Rangifer Cfreen- 

 landicus, in the mind of Caton after the statement we have 

 made as to the relative averages of the weight of both 

 species. Besides, the frank confession of that distinguished 

 naturalist, in his treatise on the Antilo-capra and Cervidce 

 of North America, that he has failed to domesticate the 

 Caribou, while he has held in captivity every other species 

 of American Deer, affords ground for confidence in his state- 



