WOODLAND CARIBOU. 89 
seen eighty carcasses of this kind of deer, brought into York Fac- 
tory in one day and many others were refused, for the want of 
salt to preserve them. ‘These were killed when in the act of 
crossing Hayes River, and the natives continued to destroy them, 
for the sake of the skins, long after they had stored up more meat 
than they required.” The half century which has intervened 
since Richardson’s observations, has greatly diminished the num- 
ber of these Reindeer, in nearly all the countries where they were 
formerly quite abundant. We have no evidence that they were 
ever abundant in the neighborhood of Montreal and Quebec, 
though a few wanderers found their way to those parts of the . 
Canadas after they had been settled by the whites; but many | 
years have now elapsed since any have been heard of there. They | 
still maintain their ground in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, + 
where they show more persistence in remaining in the vicinity of 
the settlements of the white man than in any other portion of 
their original habitat. 
The Reindeer branch of the deer family present extraordinary 
peculiarities in their cornute appendages. The most striking is 
the fact that the females have antlers, though of less size than 
those of the males. Then, again, we are struck with the extraor- 
dinary variety, or want of uniformity in the forms of the ant- 
lers, no two, even from the same animal, being alike, usually 
differing as much from each other as those taken from different 
animals. Still there are certain peculiarities about them which 
enable the most careless observer to recognize them ata glance, 
with as much confidence as he can the antler of the wapiti. The 
beam of the antler is usually very long in proportion to its thick- 
ness, and is always more or less angular instead of round. On the 
adult male, the antler is always more or less branching, and some 
of these branches are usually palmated. The upper branches have 
usually posterior projection, while the lower, that is, the brow 
and the bez tines, are anterior. These latter are usually much 
longer either on one or both antlers in proportion, than the upper 
posterior projections, though frequently one or the other of these 
is but rudimentary, or even entirely wanting. With very rare, 
if any exceptions, the brow tines on one of the antlers is broadly 
palmated, descending between the eyes, the compression being 
lateral, Like the elk, the brow tine usually projects from the 
antler immediately above the burr, which is very small. 
The old males shed their antlers usually before Christmas, but 
the young males carry them later; the yearlings till spring, and 
