136 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[NO. 27. 



sparsely wooded country north of the eastern part of Great Slave 

 Lake in December, 1771. AA^ile crossing the lake on the ice he 

 found the wooded islands " well stocked " with the same species.^ 

 Deer (i. e., caribou) are enumerated by Richardson among the ani- 

 mals said to inhabit Birch Mountain, west of the lower Athabaska 

 River. ^ ^Vliile exploring in the region between Athabaska Lake 

 and Churchill River in the summer of 1892, J. B. Tyrrell ascertained 

 that the woodland caribou was reported " to occur in the more south- 

 ern portion of the district, near Churchill River, but none were seen." ^ 

 In January, 1891, Russell frequently came across their trails in the 

 small prairies south of Fort Resolution. The animals were said not 

 to occur to the eastward of the Northern Arm of Great Slave Lake, 

 but he crossed several of their trails on the traverse between Fort 

 Rae and Fort Providence. He states that they also " occur in the 

 wooded portions of this region south of the Great Bear Lake." ^ 



R. MacFarlane, in a letter to the Biological Survey, written in 

 January, 1902, states that the woodland caribou inhabits the country 

 between Lake Winnipeg and Athabaska Lake, and though nowhere 

 in large numbers is more abundant on the southern than on the north- 

 ern shores of this lake. Between Athabaska and Great Slave lakes 

 he states that the animal is met with chiefly on the west side of Slave 

 River, and through all the country lying between Peace River and 

 Great Slave Lake. 



It also inhabits certain sections on both sides of the Mackenzie River and 

 its principal tributaries almost if not quite up to (abandoned) Fort Anderson, 

 Anderson River, in about latitude 68° north. It is not, I believe, numerous 

 anywhere, except perhaps fairly so in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountain 

 range, and of its spur mountains, the ' Caribou ' on the Peace, the ' Nahanni' 

 on the Liard, and the 'Horn,' 'Clark,' and other spurs of the Rockies in the 

 valley of the Mackenzie. 



He met with tracks of this species on the lower Onion River, near 

 its junction with the Lockhart, in the summer of 1860. In his recent 

 paper on northern mammals he states that herds of this species sel- 

 dom exceed 30 or 40 individuals, except in autumn, when larger num- 

 bers sometimes congregate. The species occurred in the well-forested 

 country a short distance south of Fort Anderson. During his resi- 

 dence at Forts Good Hope and Simpson the skins and meat of wood 

 caribou were often brought in by the natives.^ 



Rangifer caribou montanus Seton-Thompson. Mountain Caribou. 



The following notes on woodland caribou in the mountains of 

 western Alberta I refer to this form. 



o Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 223, 1795. 



^Arctic Searching Expedition, I, p. 127, 1851. 



cAnn. Report Can. Geol. Surv., VIII (new ser.), p. 13D, 1896. 



^Expl. in Far North, pp. 224, 225, 1898. 



eProc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XXVIII, p. 680, 1905. 



