MAMMALS OF NOETHEEN CANADA 167 



May and June the females calved in the ravines and valleys 

 bordering on the coast, where the sandy soil mixed with the 

 alluvium forms a rich loam which highly favors vegetation 

 and affords good pasturage for the hungry denizens of its 

 wilds." As reindeer are present all winter on Melville, Bar- 

 ing, and other large islands of the polar regions, I think it 

 may be confidently assumed that there is no migration from 

 them to the continent. On the latt-er, however, from Port Ken- 

 nedy (latitude 72° K and longitude 94" W.), Bellot Strait, 

 its northeastern extremity, there is apparently a regularly 

 recurring season of migration soiith and north. There may 

 be a similar annual movement of reindeer between the north- 

 ern coast and Wollaston Land by way of the Union and 

 Dolphin Strait, and also from Victoria Land to Kent Penin- 

 sula by way of Dease Strait. Lieutenant Schwatka and 

 Colonel Gilder observed considerable numbers of them 

 jiassing over the ice on Simpson Strait, late in the spring 

 and early in the winter of 1879 between Adelaide Peninsula 

 and King William Land (Island). General Greely gives 

 latitude 82° 45' north as the probable highest polar range of 

 the reindeer. An antler and old traces M'ere found on Grin- 

 nell Land. Sir J. C. Ross writes that the does arrived at 

 Boothia in April and the bucks a month later, while herds 

 of several hundred were seen in May. He also mentions 

 that " the paunch of the deer is esteemed a great delicacy, 

 and its contents is the only vegetable food which the Eskimos 

 of that country ever taste." While stationed at Mercy Bay, 

 Doctor Armstrong made " various sectional preparations of 

 the antlers of the reindeer in different stages of growth, as 

 illustrative of its rapidity, in the hope of elucidating ond 

 of the most surprising processes of animal growth which 

 bounteous nature enables us to contemplate as evidencing 

 her wonderful reproductive powers." Unfortunately for 

 science, however, these specimens, together with a fine col- 

 lection of birds, mammals, and other objects of natural 

 history, were left behind along with the abandoned ship 



