THE CARIBOU 
T HE caribou or reindeer is on the whole the most abundant 
species of deer found on the continent of North America and 
adjacent islands. I have made a comprehensive study of this 
animal and have a large collection of the horns and skulls of 
the caribou from nearly all local races, and I have hunted them 
in various districts for some seasons; the conclusion I have 
reached is that there is no basis whatever of reason for dividing the 
so-called woodland and barren-land races. The cause of this naming was 
originally due simply to a misunderstanding of the ranges and habits of 
these animals, which are, in varying degree, quite similar in character. 
All the European, Asiatic and American races migrate periodically both 
from barrens and woodlands to other barrens and woodlands as the con- 
tingencies of climate and food supply dictate. Ninety -five per cent of the 
migrations are due to the necessity of seeking a new feeding ground and 
not to the rigours of winter; for these deer can withstand lower tempera- 
tures than any other species, as witness the existence of Peary’s reindeer 
and those on the islands of the Arctic Ocean north of the Lena, which are 
probably the coldest places in the world with the exception of the Ver- 
skoyansk Mountains and Northern Alaska. Here these animals live in 
perpetual snow and frost and yet are able to support life by digging for 
the moss with their feet. They have, too, the knowledge that migration, 
though possible over the ice, is not a matter of necessity. 
Another point in this argument is that the so-called woodland races 
frequent and cross barrens in their periodical migrations, whilst the 
“ barren ground ” races, according to all the latest and best authorities, 
spend just as much time in the timber as in the open tundras. 
The more we study these interesting animals and learn their ranges 
and erratic migrations the more do we find that all, or nearly all, overlap 
and interbreed. I have found that the Tarandus rangifer caribou of the 
Central Canadian forests merge into their finest type and become almost 
a distinct sub-species in Central Labrador (from Cartwright to Hamilton 
Inlet), where the animal grows as large and develops as fine horns as 
those of Tarandus rangifer osborni of Cassiar and the Yukon; but very few 
heads of these north-eastern deer are in museums or private collections. 
Further north these caribou deteriorate again, and wander to the edge of 
the barrens, where they overlap and interbreed with the (so-called) 
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