THE CARIBOU 
think they are so closely connected and so essentially modifications 
of a single type that they ought not to be specifically separated from 
the Scandinavian reindeer. Since this animal, like the elk, constitutes 
a genus by itself, the splitting up of what was long regarded as a 
single species into several is not so mischievous as in the case of a 
large genus. When, for instance, the wapitis of Asia are separated 
specifically from their American representative we are apt to lose 
sight of one important fact connected with the distribution of these 
deer, namely, the circumpolar range of one and the same general 
type. And, in a less degree, the same holds good when elk and rein- 
deer are split up into different species. By all means let us name 
local races of all three forms, but let them be named so as not to 
lose sight of the essential fact (beside which all details as to local 
forms fade into comparative insignificance) that Cervus canadensis, 
Alces machlis, and Rangifer tarandus are circumpolar animals. Rather 
than risk this I would side with Dr Winge and decline to recognize 
even local races.” 
If we are to admit T. r. stonei and T. r. granti as sub-species we must 
also include T. r. ogilvyensis , and possibly the deer of the Porcupine and 
North Yukon as sub-species side by side with T. r. arcticus. Again, if 
T. r. osborni is recognized as distinct from T. r. montanus , so is T. r. 
kewatinensis from T. r. caribou. 
Tarandus rangifer labradorensis is, I think, a good sub-species by itself, and 
is far more diverse in its cranial and horn characters from T. r. arcticus 
than any of the foregoing sub-species. To those who take a broad view of 
the whole question, and with them I am by no means in antagonism, 
there must remain only five sub-species in North America, namely: T. r. 
caribou (Canada, up to the limits of tree growth east of the Rockies); 
T. r. terra-novae (Newfoundland); T. r. labradorensis (Labrador north to 
Davis Inlet, and Lake Mickikamau, west to Ungava, and north to Cape 
Chidley); T. r. arcticus (Northern Canada, west of Hudson’s Bay, south 
to Lake Athabasca, north-west to Point Barrow and Alaska, south to 
North Yukon, the Ogilvy Mountains and the Alaskan Peninsula, west of 
Cook’s Inlet); T. r. montanus (Montana, Idaho, British Columbia, and 
wooded Alaska, as far north as the Kenai Peninsula and tributaries of 
the Yukon). 
To those sportsmen or naturalists who have set their hearts on obtain- 
ing any of the four varieties of caribou inhabiting the North American 
271 
