212 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



BOOK REVIEWS 



Edited By Marion Randall Parsons 



'The Romance of In these days of diminishing wild life, it is 

 THE Newfoundland encouraging to find the study of living animals 

 Caribou "* to some extent replacing the destructive zeal of 



the collector of specimens. However necessary the latter may be for 

 scientific study, he deplorably helps to thin the ranks of our already 

 scarce wild creatures. And the scarcer the creature the more his skin 

 is coveted. That the study of living wild animals by means of photo- 

 graphs taken in their natural surroundings may be as absorbing a pursuit 

 as killing them is well shown in Mr. Dugmore's stirring story of the 

 life history of the Newfoundland caribou. Mr. Dugmore traveled into 

 the wilderness alone and secured with his camera more trophies than 

 the most ambitous collector could ever hope for. Literally hundreds 

 of the noble animals are pictured in every phase of their natural daily 

 life. 



A brief sketch of the topography of Newfoundland gives an excellent 

 idea of the physical conditions of the caribou's habitat. The caribou's 

 year Mr. Dugmore divides into four periods, which correspond with 

 the seasons. The summer season, beginning in June, when the caribou 

 bring forth their young, is chosen as the starting-point. Mr. Dugmore 

 tells how the doe dwells alone in the forests of fir and spruce at this 

 period, "avoiding her own kind even as she avoids man. . . . During 

 the warmer months the caribou are more or less solitary in habit, 

 going about singly or in pairs and only rarely in small herds." 



During the second period, which includes the mating season and the 

 southerly migration, the animals reach their finest development. The 

 horns of the stag are fully grown, the does are fat and the fawns well 

 grown and strong. Some remarkable photographs were secured at this 

 time, notably one of two fighting stags. The account of the long day 

 spent in stalking a herd before this picture was secured is a well- 

 sustained bit of narrative quite as exciting to the reader as if the 

 stags were to be shot with bullets instead of with the camera. The 

 southerly migration usually begins the latter part of October. Mr. 

 Dugmore has obtained some splendid pictures of herds on the march, 

 nearly all of them led by the more watchful does. 



The third period is the time of "desolation and suffering, when Nature, 

 in her stern way, thins out the weakHngs. . . . The gates close behind 



* The Romance of the Newfoundland Caribou. By A. A. Radclyffe Dugmore, 

 F. R. G. S. J. B. Lippincott Co., London and Philadelphia, 1913. Illustrated with 

 paintings, drawings and photographs from life by the author. 191 pages, Price, 

 $3.75 net. 



