Royal Physical Society. 359 



want of a greater supply of food, preserve theirs till May."* 

 Of the two, I must say I prefer Hearne's reason for the horns 

 dropping in November. The harder frozen the snow, the more 

 need of good implements to get at their food, which is under 

 it ; and if it is necessary for the females getting their food 

 that they should retain their horns through the winter, the 

 additional claim arising from their bearing an embryo or a 

 foetus scarcely seems sufficient to account for their having 

 the means of securing it, while the males have not. Another, 

 and not the least formidable testimony, is that of Sir John 

 Richardson .f He says — " This (the velvety covering of the 

 horns peeling off) takes place in September, previous to the 

 commencement of the rutting season, and by the end of No- 

 vember most of the old bucks have shed their horns. The 

 young males retain theirs much longer, and the females do 

 not lose their horns until they are about to drop their young, 

 in the month of May." Now, Sir John had a good opportunity 

 of ascertaining how the fact stood ; but I do not wholly read 

 the paragraph I have quoted as a statement depending upon 

 his own personal observation, for he goes on — " Hearne ob- 

 serves that the Barren Ground caribou bears horns twice the 

 size of those of the woodland variety, notwithstanding that 

 the latter was a much larger animal;" — thus showing that at 

 the very time he wrote the paragraph he had been consulting 

 Hearne, and it is just possible that it is his (Hearne's) obser- 

 vation that he is repeating, instead of giving the results of his 

 own. His statement of the movements of the rein-deer is 

 more important, and it corresponds more with Hearne's view 

 of the reason why the horns are shed in November. He 

 saysj — " The Barren Ground caribou, which resort to the 

 coast of the Arctic Sea in summer, retire in winter to the 

 woods lying between the sixty-third and sixty-sixth degree of 

 latitude, where they feed on the Usneai, Alectorice, and other 

 lichens which hang from the trees, and on the long grass of 

 the swamps. About the end of April, when the partial melt- 

 ing of the snow has softened the Cetrario3, Corniculario3, and 



* Griffith's Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, vol. iv., p. 70. 

 t Fauna Bor. Am. i., p. 241. 

 % Loc. cit., p. 242. 

 VOL. I. 2 I 



