66 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 23, 1904 
IFORTSHAN TOURIST 
A Summer in Newfoundland. — V. 
(Continued from page 48 ) 
The caribou is the hardiest and most widely distributed 
of the deer family throughout northern North America. 
Extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, his range is 
as wide as the continent itself, and stretches from eastern 
Newfoundland westward to the extremity of the Alaskan 
Peninsula. Bounded on the south by the United States, 
and on the north by the ice-bound Arctic Sea, his home 
is the grandest and wildest wilderness in the world. 
Whether on the great treeless desert of barren ground 
west of Hudson Bay, or among the dense forests of Que- 
bec, or high up in the mountainous plateaus of British 
Columbia, or on the low bogs and marshes of New- 
foundland, he is always a restless roving wanderer, always 
changing his home. Few of us have ever witnessed '"la 
foule," the great fall migration of barren ground caribou, 
when tens of thousands of the animals travel from the 
vast tundras of Arctic America southward across the 
barren lands to the protection of the forests. The other 
well defined group, comprising the woodland caribou, 
has been divided by scientists into a number of species 
closely correlating with their geographical distribution. 
The theory that an infinite number of variations in nature 
should be followed by an infinite number of names is 
proving very useful in this case, for -we now have at 
least five separate species with a possibility of a few- 
more. The Newfoundland variety, Rangifcr terra-nova 
Bangs, differs but slightly from that found in eastern 
Canada known as R. caribou Gmelin. The former is un- 
questionably a lighter colored- animal, and is usually ac- 
credited with larger size, both in body and antlers; but 
specimens of R. caribou have been recorded fully as 
heavy as any from Newfoundland, while very fine sets 
of antlers have been seeured from New Brunswick and 
Quebec. However, the antlers of R. terra-novce average 
much larger and heavier than those of R. caribou, and 
to-day the proportion of really good heads to inferior 
ones is very small in New Brunswick. Whether this 
greater massiveness and wider spread of the Newfound- 
land antlers are due to the fact that the colony is only 
partially wooded and contains many thousand square 
miles devoid of forest growth, or whether the better 
pasturage and warmer winters in the island are responsi- 
ble for it, are merely questions for speculation. But it 
is a fact, none the less, that in Newfoundland the heads 
average superior to the thin, narrow-spread antlers of 
eastern Canada. 
To be able to hunt any animal successfully, is merely 
to thoroughly understand its habits and mode of living. 
We know that all antlered game will act similarly under 
certain conditions, for there is no deer in America that 
will not seek safety in flight when the wind brings to his 
nostrils the scent of a human being. But we also know 
that each species has its own individual characteristics, 
and its own well marked peculiarities. Each has' its 
preferences for particular localities, either wooded, bar- 
ren or mountainous ; each prefers certain kinds of grass, 
browse or moss, and each chooses different times_ for 
resting, traveling, sleeping or feeding; while all indi- 
viduals conform pretty generally to the habits of the 
species. The man who has studied and knows well the 
habits of one particular moose or caribou, has a pretty 
general knowledge of all the moose or caribou m that 
particular locality, and such a man should t rove the suc- 
cessful hunter. Of course, all animals have their own 
separate peculiarities or individualities, and especially is 
this noticeable when under domestication or in captivity; 
but in the woods, nature's laws are strict, and centuries 
of inherited habit have developed instincts which are 
strong and binding, and which must be obeyed m a suc- 
cessful struggle for existence. The caribou is perhaps 
the most individual member of the deer family in North 
America, and the least understood. He has none of the 
suspicious shyness of the white-tail ; no sneaking quietly 
along back trails, or skulking under windfalls ; no peer- 
ing furtively from under the shadow of the alders, or 
"friezino-" in his bed as you unconsciously pass by. He 
is an unsuspicious animal, and his stolid indifference is 
frequently mistaken for boldness. Often a band will 
stand stupidly gazing at the intruder while the latter 
shoots them down. But once fully aroused to the danger 
—once the telltale scent has reached their nostrils— no 
deer ever traveled half as far or rushed as madly onward. 
Once fairly started, no time is spent on doubling trails 
or backward glances ; it is one blind, headlong dash for 
miles across the- barrens. In the forests of New Bruns- 
wick moose come down every night to feed around the 
pond where lumbermen have worked and smoked all day. 
In the south deer may be jumped from your very door- 
step, and only trot off a few rods before they forget all 
about it But the wanderer of the northland loves to be 
alone, and shuns the habitations of men 
How marked is the contrast m the habits of the deer 
moose and caribou. During summertime, in Maine and 
New Brunswick, the former two may be seen in great 
numbers. Living around the edges of ponds and rivers, 
among the spruces and balsams and alder tangles, they 
com" out at intervals to stand neck-deep in the water, 
while at night they crop the lily-pads and succulent 
-rasses growing on the bottom. It is no unusual sight m 
Tulv to see two or three bull moose standing shoulder- 
deep in the muck, with heads completely submerged be- 
neath the surface, as they pluck young tender shoots 
from below. In fly-time deer and moose are semi-aquatic, 
but go to the same spot in October or November with 
your rifle, and where is the game? Tracks are there, it 
is true, for the sign is like that in a cattle-yard, but where 
are the bucks and bulls ? Not around the water, but high 
up among the maples and birches of the hardwood ridges. 
With the caribou of Newfoundland, the reverse holds 
true. During the warmer months they are difficult to 
find during the daytime, and seek the seclusion of the 
thickest forest growth. Coming out at sundown they 
rarely roam far from the woods, and I have never seen 
one feeding in a pond. One will frequently walk around 
the edge of a lake or bog hole as if for exercise, and 
should the beach be broad and sandy, it will be found a 
favorite lounging place for large stags during the twi- 
light and early morning hours. Such a spot, if regularly 
used by the animals, will prove the very finest watching 
place for early fall hunting during August, for at that 
time the caribou have not assembled on the highlands. 
The does and young stags, it is true, make excursions 
to the barrens every evening, returning to the woods 
usually by eight or nine o'clock in the morning, but the 
heavy old stags, with their short, thick legs and ponder- 
ous bodies, are lazy, and heartily dislike all such ar- 
duous work. In September, however, when moose and 
deer are difficult to locate, then the caribou stags are 
preparing to leave the forests and travel out into the 
open country. Little spruces are torn up bodily; the 
alders hang "in tatters where big fellows rub their antlers, 
and before the middle of the month, hard and polished, 
they are brandished before the eyes of admiring does. 
The latter, with fawns and yearlings, have been waiting 
on the open country for a week or two ; but now autumn 
has come and the barrens are dotted here and there 
with little herds and companies grazing about, the heavy 
old stags lazily bringing up the rear. This is the time 
for the man with a gun, and neither earlier nor later; 
antlers are peeled, and the fat venison, still untainted by 
the rut, is in prime condition. It is the merest. murder 
to kill a stag during the rutting season in October, after 
which, in November, they are poor, thin creatures at best, 
while in December no trophies are carried on their heads. 
The following paragraph contains the gist of an arti- 
cle written for Forest and Stream last winter, which 
was intended to explain the game situation and hunting 
methods employed at present in the colony. 
Nine-tenths of the people who go to Newfoundland 
are successful; the other tenth usually miss. For the 
large majority, however, real success exists only as far 
as the procuring of heads is concerned. Of course, if 
the ambition and desire of the sportsman is merely to get 
antlers the easiest possible way, the present method of 
taking game will strongly appeal to him— a method in- 
volving much killing but very little hunting. For a 
description of such sport, let the reader try the last few 
chapters of S. T. Davis' book entitled, "Caribou Shoot- 
ing in Newfoundland." There are many men who go 
regularly every fall to the eastern end of Grand Lake 
or the vicinity of Howley and the Topsails, and return 
laden with spoils, well satisfied that they are real big- 
game hunters. The genuine sportsman, however, the 
man who places the killing after the hunting, who en- 
joys the stalking more than the shooting, whose success 
is only appreciated after a week or fortnight of hard 
tramping over a rough country, will hardly care for cari- 
bou 'hunting in Newfoundland as it is practiced at 
present. For, to use a phrase which I have often heard 
returning sportsmen apply to it, it is "not unlike shooting 
cows in a barnyard." I do not wish, however, to_ con- 
demn the game of Newfoundland merely because it is too 
plentiful to afford good sport; such a situation would 
create a strange anomaly, indeed ; but I deplore the pres- 
ent method of migration shooting compared with any 
other possible one. 
If the reader will glance at a map of the colony, he 
will see on its western coast a long, narrow peninsula 
stretching one hundred and fifty miles northward to the 
Straits of Belle Isle and the southern extremity of Labra- 
dor In this great tract thousands of caribou spend the 
summer months, and when the first autumn frosts com- 
mence to nip the vegetation they begin to move slowly 
southward. A very few undoubtedly spend the entire 
winter in the north, as shed antlers have often been 
found well up toward the Straits; but the great majority 
being migratory are compelled to cross the railroad track 
at the narrow base of of this peninsula on their southern 
journey. During late September, October, and well into 
November, an almost continuous stream of the animals 
traverse the comparatively small area around bandy 
Pond and Howley, and it is to such places as these that 
the majority of sportsmen repair. A camp is put up a 
few miles from the railroad track or on the shore ot a 
neighboring pond, where the "deer," as the Newfound- 
lander terms them, are known to cross m numbers. 
Near-by the hunter takes his stand on the top of some 
neighboring hill or knoll, and waits for caribou to come 
along scanning the barrens with field glasses, and choos- 
ing the head he desires. In the height of the season, 
forty or fifty are often in sight at once; the stags are 
thoroughly examined, the size of their antlers noted and 
the one possessing the finest is accordingly singled out 
and shot No particular skill is required to approach 
within one hundred or even fifty yards of his game, pro- 
vided the hunter observes that cardinal rule, "keep well to 
leeward." Should the animal be approaching along a 
lead or runway, the sportsman's fire is reserved until he 
is absolutely certain to hit the mark. Even concealment 
is often unnecessary, for a caribou cannot, or at any rate 
does not, discriminate between a bush and a man at 
two hundred yards,, provided the latter remains motion- 
less. But even should he be detected, a good standing 
shot^ may generally be obtained while the animal stares 
stupidly at the intruder. During the rutting season the 
Government wisely prohibits all shooting whatever, as 
any would be the merest slaughter. At that time stags 
become very bold. With swollen necks and protruding 
tongues, they travel day and night; eating little or noth- 
ing, they soon, become thin and poor, with hindquarters 
shrunken to half their natural size. Some years ago, 
when there was no close season, many an old stag met his 
death by means of a very simple deception practiced by 
the guide. The latter merely walked in a stooping pos- 
ture, through bushes high enough to conceal his legs, 
with a pair of antlers held aloft. A dry branch of the 
proper shape was easier to obtain, and often answered 
the purpose just as well. 
This method of having the game walk up almost within 
sight of his tent, will neither appeal to nor satisfy the 
man who wants real hunting. Dr. Paul Van Dyke tried - 
it three years ago, and found it rather unsatisfactory. He 
tells me that the next time he goes to Newfoundland it 
will not be for migration shooting. Percy Selous, the 
famous African hunter, writes in The Wide World maga- 
zine of about a year ago that he was disgusted with the 
hunting methods employed at Howley, and for real sport 
took a trip to John's Pond, forty miles up the Terra 
Nova River. 
Hitherto the prevalent notion among sportsmen has 
been that all the caribou migrate southward every autumn, 
returning the following spring; and they are right, to a 
certain extent. The deer do move south in the fall, but 
by no means do they all travel northward at the close of 
winter. The whole central and southern exterior, com- 
prising one-half the area of the island, contains the year 
around vast numbers of non-migratory animals, or those 
which have lost the instinct to migrate. This great wil- 
derness, almost unknown to sportsmen, is the permanent 
home of thousands of caribou which, never having seen 
the railroad, have consequently escaped the murderous 
fusillade at Grand Lake. And it is in the interior that 
the very finest heads are to be procured at the present 
time. The reason for this is obvious; herds which are 
accustomed to regularly cross the railroad track, have 
been examined with the glasses, and sorted over so often 
during the last ten years that many of the real old stags 
have long since fallen. It is true, small deer are still 
very abundant at Grand Lake, but the migration hunter 
after seeing tweny, thirty, or perhaps a hundred caribou 
every day of his trip, is surprised at the very small pro- 
portion of good heads. 
One gentleman who recently returned from the island, 
counted 160 in ten days, only four of which proved 
worthy of a shot. Another saw eighty stags alone, to say 
nothing of does and fawns, yet he secured but one large 
head; he is a good shot, too. A third, Mr. Edward W. 
Scudder, of Newark, N. J., saw a large quantity of deer 
between Grand and Red Indian lakes, and he reports the 
proportion of old stags to be about one to forty or fifty. 
These sportsmen, with many others whom I could 
name, hunted in September before the migration was well 
under way. Later in the "second season," during the 
latter part cf October and early November, big stags are 
more in evidence, and easier to secure. But during any 
season there is no doubt that the grand old patriarchs — 
the forty and fifty-pointers — are not nearly as abundant 
as some years ago. 
On the other hand, men who have penetrated into the 
interior report the proportion of good heads to be much 
greater than along the line of the railroad. Professor 
Thompson, of Princeton, secured three very fine sets of 
antlers with little difficulty ; Percy Selous, hunting in the 
Terra Nova country, secured four; and in 1902, accom- 
panied by Frank and Nevin Sayre, of South Bethlehem, 
Pa., I made a trip into the Middle Ridge region south 
of the Sou'west Gander. In eighteen days we saw only 
about eighty caribou, as it was during late August and 
early September, before they had collected on the open 
country, but sixteen were well antlered stags, and we re- 
turned with our full quota. On our way in we met Wil- 
liam M. Prest, of Boston, who had been hunting at 
Island Pond. He carried three first-rate sets, and saw 
several big fellows that escaped. 
It is then to this vast central region — over twenty 
thousand square miles in extent, a country of unknown 
lakes and streams, of broad open barrens and rolling 
hills — that the sportsman is asked to direct his attention. 
At the falls I was already well within its boundaries, and 
in the heart of a first-rate caribou region, but the smoke 
and noise of a week had driven them from the immediate 
vicinity of the camp, so we decided to push on further 
into the interior, toward a range of hills that loomed 
up on the eastern horizon. 
On the morning before the storm Jim had packed 
out a load of smoked salmon to the settlements, and as 
it was at least a five days' journey there and back, could 
hardly be expected to return before the morrow. Be- 
sides, the moss and "tucks" were saturated, and neither 
