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RECREA TIOX 



come. The law must, of course, be a 3- 

 mile limit one on the water. But is Mr. 

 Hardy right in saying these islands are 

 outside this limit? Any law you make 

 must give the power to pursue these boat- 

 men, or it amounts to nothing. I find we 

 can raise the money to hire keepers. 



The milliners say they can and do make 

 beautiful decorations with the feathers of 

 barnyard fowls. The gull they are now de- 

 stroying is the big herring gull, mainly, 

 and too big to be as suitable as domestic 

 pigeons or any of the daintier poultry. 



Another argument that should have 

 weight is that no industry could have a 

 right to extinguish from the world any 

 form or type in nature, so that posterity 

 shall be denied the sight of it. The few, at 

 least, in Congress who have an inkling of 

 the vitality in the life of students will see 

 this point. No industry, least of all so 

 ephemeral a one as the speedy rooting out 

 of all the sea birds, could seem to have a 

 right to damage the most vital interests of 

 future nature students. Surely many of our 

 Congressmen realize that the arts and 

 sciences are to the nation's more material- 

 istic life, like the body's lungs, wholly 

 necessary to purify the blood, which in 

 turn makes the muscles. 



PRELIMINARY DESCRIPTION* OF A NEW 

 CARIBOU. 



ERNEST SE T ON-THOMPSON. 



It has long been known among sports- 

 men that the caribou of the Western 

 mountains differed strikingly from those 

 found in the Barren Grounds, the North- 

 ern woodlands, or Newfoundland. The 

 fine specimen brought from British Co- 

 lumbia by Dr. George M. Dawson, of the 

 Canadian Geological Survey, has given me 

 an opportunity of satisfying myself regard- 

 ing the alleged differences. These are ob- 

 vious, and are moreover coupled with the 

 fact that this animal is geographically iso- 

 lated from its near ally, the Rangifer cari- 

 bou; so that I feel justified in giving it full 

 specific rank. It is, therefore, designated 

 Rangifer montanus, sp. nov., the Mountain 

 Caribou. 



Chief characters: Its very dark color 

 and its great size. In the latter particular 

 it is said to equal, or even exceed, the 

 R. terra nova. The specimen brought by 

 Dr. Dawson is now mounted in the mu- 

 seum of the Canadian Geological Survey 

 at Ottawa, and I have to thank him for 

 the privilege of describing it. 



This specimen, which I make the type 

 of the new species, is a male, and was 

 taken on the Illecillewaet watershed, near 

 Revelstoke, Selkirk Range, B. C, in 1889.* 



It stands 46J/2 inches high at the withers; 

 is 95 inches from tip of nose to root of 

 tail; the tail is 5 inches long; the head, 



frcm nose to occiput, uj'y^: the hind foot, 

 26 inches; the ear, 7^ inches. 



The general color is a deep umber 

 brown, very glossy, and darkening nearly 

 to black on the lower parts of the legs. 



The neck is dull greyish white; also the 

 underside of the tail, the buttocks, lips 

 and belly. Along the ribs on each side is 

 a greyish patch a little lighter than the 

 surrounding brown. 



The white fringe above .-each hoof is 

 shining white and very narrow. 



The antlers of this specimen are not no- 

 ticeably different from those of the wood- 

 land species, but in general those of the 

 mountain caribou are distinguished by their 

 *great number of points, a specimen with 

 72 points having been recorded. They are, 

 I believe, less massive than those of the 

 Newfoundland species. 



The new species ranges or did range 

 through the interior mountains of British 

 Columbia, extending Northward into 

 Southeastern Alaska, Eastward into the 

 Rockies of Alberta, and Southward" along 

 the higher ranges of Idaho, half the length 

 of that State. According to Lord, it for- 

 merly was found along the summits of the 

 Cascade range as far as Oregon. It does 

 not seem to occur at all in the coast ranges 

 of British Columbia. 



As far as I can learn, it is separated geo- 

 graphically from the woodland species by 

 a vast caribou-less basin, running up East 

 of the mountains as far as latitude 54 . 



BIRD CARNAGE FOR EASTER BONNETS. 



Wilmington, Del., Saturday. — To gratify 

 the pride of the Eastern bonnet, a merciless 

 slaughter of Delaware birds is in progress. 

 To-day the steady boom of the hunter's gun 

 resounded about Milford. Twenty thou- 

 sand birds is the quota needed to supply 

 the demands of fashion, and bluebirds, 

 blackbirds, common crows, owls and 

 meadow larks are the innocent sacrifices 

 for the Easter parade. 



Their skins are to be shipped to a New 

 York firm of commission merchants, and 

 will be sold to fashionable milliners. 



The firm has arranged with a resident of 

 Milford to meet the demands for feathers. 

 Eight cents is the price to be paid for each 

 bird that falls before the gun or is ensnared 

 within the meshes of the night hunter's net. 



Three days ago an agent of the New 

 York firm consulted with the Milford man 

 about the possibility of procuring within 

 two months 20,000 birds of the varieties 

 specified. A "sportsman" of local renown 



* Mr. A.J. Stone, one of Recreation's staff writers, 

 killed 6 of these new caribou in the Dease lake region, 

 B.C., in 1898 and shipped them out, but they did not 

 reach New York until i8qq. His report was forwarded 

 to Recreation and to the New York Museum of 

 Natural history at the time he collected the skins but 

 was delayed in transit.— Editor. 



