44 Reindeer 



fewer points on the upper surface of the extremity of the beam than usual ; 

 those shown in Fig. 6 are more elongated, and have more points. 



Distribution. — Upper North America as far north as the limits of forests, 

 hut the boundary varying somewhat owing to seasonal migrations ; and 

 apparently North-Eastern Asia as far as Siberia. In America the range 

 includes Labrador and Northern Canada, and thence south to Nova Scotia, 

 New Brunswick, Northern Maine, and Lower Canada on both sides of the 

 river St. Lawrence, whence it passes westwards through the districts north 

 of Quebec to the neighbourhood of Lake Superior, to the south of which 

 reindeer are unknown. It is curious that Mr. Caton identified this form 

 with the typical Scandinavian reindeer, although the latter appears to be 

 more nearly related to the American barren-ground race. 



Habits. — Although its habits are doubtless essentially the same as those 

 of the Scandinavian reindeer, yet the woodland race has certain distinctive 

 ways of its own, which serve to differentiate it from the barren-ground 

 reindeer. In the first place, it is essentially a forest-dwelling animal, and 

 to this may be due the comparative shortness and thickness of its antlers. 

 In the second place, while the woodland race generally associates in small 

 parties of not more than a dozen head, the barren-ground form collects in 

 herds numbering thousands of individuals. The Newfoundland race is, 

 however, somewhat intermediate between the other two in this respect, as 

 it collects in considerably larger droves than its woodland relative of the 

 continent. More important are the differences in the migratory habits of 

 the two, the woodland race travelling northwards and the barren-ground 

 southwards in the autumn. On this subject Sir John Richardson wrote as 

 follows: — "Contrary to the practice of the barren-ground caribou, the 

 woodland variety travels to the southward in the spring. They cross the 

 Nelson and Severn rivers in numerous herds in the month of May, and 

 pass the summer on the low marshy shores of James Bay, and return to the 

 northward, and at the same time retire more inland in the month of 

 September." Commenting on this passage, Mr. Caton has the following 

 observations : — " Here, then, we find the woodland caribou migrating to 

 the northward, on the west coast of Hudson Bay, and west of it as high as 

 55 to 57 °f nor th latitude, or within one degree of Churchill, which is 

 near the southern limit of the range of the barren-ground caribou in that 

 longitude as given by Richardson, though I have authentic evidence that 



