110 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
months after it has passed with most of them, with the species in 
my grounds, and it is no doubt so with all the species. Much of 
the southern or winter range of the Barren-ground Caribou is 
south of the barren grounds, or intersects their southern parts, so 
that there the woodland caribou finds. the forest which is indis- 
pensable to his contentment, and to those forests the Barren- 
ground Caribou resort during the winter season. Richardson 
says: “‘ Except in the rutting season, the bulk of the males and 
females live separately ; the former retire deeper into the woods 
in the winter, whilst herds of the pregnant class stay on the skirts 
of the barren grounds and proceed to the coast very early in the 
spring.” 
Now, from all this it is impossible to avoid the conclusion 
that the two species occasionally, yes, frequently, meet on this 
common ground, at times when the sexes are drawn to each other, 
and yet there is no evidence that there has been any intermin- 
gling of the species. Each maintains its individualities as dis- 
tinctly as when first discovered, and no doubt as they have 
existed for ages. This could only have occurred from sexual 
aversion, which does not exist between varieties of the same 
species, but only where there are specific differences. Take a 
white or albino deer of any species, and there is no sexual or so- 
cial aversion between it and the other members of the species, and 
the same is true of all other animals. By some means all seem to 
look beyond the exceptional appearance of the individual and 
recognize their fellow at a glance. This aversion is not absolute 
and universal, no doubt, for we sometimes see individuals of dif- 
ferent species, and even of different genera, contract a fondness 
for each other, even to the extent of sexual intercourse ; but when 
this is entirely voluntary, it is very exceptional. This more fre- 
quently occurs among animals in domestication or in semi-domesti- 
cation than in the wild state, but even there it may sometimes 
occur when a mate of the sume species cannot be found. Such 
union between individuals of different species, when it does take 
place, may most likely be fertile, and the hybrids may possess 
the powers of reproduction, and may transmit that capacity to 
their posterity, as we shall see, when we come to treat of hybrid- 
ity, but this is not conclusive of the specific identity of the orig- 
inal parents. 
But for this general sexual aversion between individuals of 
different species, no mere imaginary line could have kept these 
two kinds of reindeer separate, to say nothing of how they origi- 
