112 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
found to exist, which will remove every doubt which may be still 
entertained as to their specific differences. For myself, I do not 
believe it possible for simple varieties of the same species with 
migratory habits to occupy contiguous territories, and still main- 
tain differences so pronounced and so constant as we find between 
these two kinds of reindeer. When the comparative anatomist 
shall have taken the subject in hand and carefully studied both, 
he will probably find many similitudes not yet noted; so too he 
will probably find differences not yet imagined. 
We have many facts stated which will subsequently appear in 
the different divisions of this work, and especially «The Chase,” 
which tend strongly to show that the eye of the Barren-ground 
Caribou is duller than that of any of the other deer, and that this 
defect is not compensated by so sensitive a smell as is possessed 
by the others. They moreover show that it is a most witless an- 
imal, easily dazed and confused by danger or fright, without strat- 
agem or the capacity to evade its enemies. It seems more likely 
to run into danger than to avoid it, although the way of escape 
may be plainly open before it. In all this it is the very reverse 
of the woodland caribou, except that the latter has an unreliable 
vision, although not to the extent of the former. Even the moose 
is hardly more fertile in resources to elude pursuit, or escape 
from danger than the woodland caribou, and it is a proud tri- 
umph for the sportsman who takes one. 
Of the endurance of the smaller species, I am not sufficiently 
advised to speak understandingly, but from the accounts given of 
their capture I am led to the conclusion that they are prostrated 
by a wound which most other deer would survive for a consider- 
able time. 
They have a foolish curiosity fully equal to that of our ante- 
lope, of which hunters know how to take advantage, and by 
which the animal is often beguiled to destruction. 
The young have been often caught and tamed, and like the 
other deer they soon lose all fear of man and become interesting 
pets, but when they have been removed from their native boreal 
regions they have soon perished. 
