MAilMALS OF Ts'ORTHEEX CAXADA 250 



stricted on lines similar to those pursued by the Company 

 for many years subsequent to 1821. Greater latitude might 

 be accorded to hunting in now unknown and not easily access- 

 ible parts, where it probably abounds; but except for food 

 absolutely required no one should bo permitted to trap or 

 shoot beaver out of season. It is useless making; rules and 

 regulations, howe\'er, unless they be strictly enforced. The 

 woodland buffalo is now receiving some well-deserved atten- 

 tion in this regard, and it is about time that the musk ox 

 should be protected from indiscriminate slaughter solely for 

 the sake of his head or hide ; there should be a seasonable 

 limit imposed upon hunters thereof. Neither should the 

 mountain goat and sheep, the elk, and the valuable food 

 animals — the moose and woodland caribou — be neglected in 

 this connection. And although the Barren Ground reindeer 

 is still abundant, yet the northern Indians should not be 

 permitted to continue or resume their ancient vicious course 

 of reckless and indiscriminate slaughter of them whenever 

 the opportunity appeared. 



From Fort Anderson and nearly every other post, includ- 

 ing Fort Yukon, skulls and other parts of the beaver were 

 obtained for transmission to the Smithsonian Institution at 

 Washington. While stationed at Fort St. James, British 

 Columbia, in 1887 and 1889, I sent to the same institution 

 two embryo skins taken from the uterus of a female killed 

 in the vicinity early in May (there were five in all), to- 

 gether with that of a two-weeks-old example captured in the 

 latter end of the same month. As to albinos, they are very 

 rare, but I have seen perhaps as many as ten skins in course 

 of my long residence in the ISTorth-West Territories. I have 

 also observed quite a number of fine dark skins of the beaver 

 in various parts of the country. I think those taken by the 

 natives of Quebec who resort to Bersimis post, in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, are among the very finest. Labrador, East 

 Main, and other Hudson Bay posts, also furnish a small 

 number of similar pelts. As a rule, those which frequent 



