136 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— HOOFED ANIMALS 
Barren Ground Caribou from the woodland 
groups have already been pointed out, — smaller 
size, antlers that are longer in the main beam, 
less palmated and with fewer points. The fol- 
lowing forms have been described as independent 
species of this group; but whether all of them 
are entitled to specific rank remains to be seen. 
Barren Ground Caribou Species. 
Greenland Caribou, Rangifer groen-land'i-cus, 
Greenland Coast. 
Barren Ground Caribou, Rangifer arc'ti-cus, 
Canadian Barren Grounds. 
Grant’s Caribou, Rangifer granti, Alaska Pen- 
insula. 
Peary’s Caribou, Rangifer pearyi, Ellesmere 
Land. 
In view of the tens of thousands of Barren 
Ground Caribou that have been seen by white 
men, and the thousands that have been killed 
by and for them, the scarcity of definite obser- 
vations upon this group, and of preserved speci- 
mens is, as a whole, very unsatisfactory. At 
present, therefore, the many undetermined 
questions regarding the component parts of the 
group render it impossible to do much more than 
to define the assemblage as a whole. 
In general terms it may b'e said that the aver- 
age Barren Ground Caribou is a close under-study 
of the average reindeer of Siberia and Lapland, 
and also a smaller animal. That all our caribou 
have descended from the reindeer of Asia, and 
came to us by crossing Bering Strait on the ice, 
seems more than probable. 
In surveyor’s parlance, the head of Cook Inlet 
is the “point of departure” of the woodland 
caribou from the reindeer — Barren Ground type. 
It would be difficult to find on land a clearer or 
sharper line of cleavage between two groups of 
animals than that between Rangifer granti of 
the Alaska Peninsula, and Rangifer stonei of 
the Kenai Peninsula. One moment’s examina- 
tion of the types is sufficient to place those species 
in their respective groups. The antlers of the 
Kenai caribou are massive, with many long tines 
on the terminal half of the main beam. They 
have 36 points, and a tree-top effect when seen 
from the front. Grant’s caribou, however, has 
a long apd naked main beam running up to a 
terminal bunch of short tines, a wide-open, arm- 
chair appearance, and only twenty-seven points, 
all strongly characteristic of the Barren Ground 
type. The superior size of the Kenai caribou 
is confirmatory of the testimony of the antlers 
of both. 
Geographic Range. — The centre of abun- 
dance of the Barren Ground Caribou group is 
midway between the eastern end of Great Slave 
Lake and the southeastern extremity of Great 
Bear Lake. This, however, is not the geographic 
centre of its distribution. The great semi-annual 
migration is about on a line that might be drawn 
between Cape Bathurst and the eastern extremity 
of Great Slave Lake, and undoubtedly the great 
mass of caribou on the mainland east of the 
Mackenzie assemble along that route. 
Another line of migration, also from north- 
west to southeast, passes eastward of Dawson 
City, and sufficiently near it that great numbers 
of caribou carcasses have been sledded in to the 
meat markets of that city. In 1901 a search of 
those markets revealed 5,225 pounds of moose 
and caribou meat on hand at one time. Along 
the arctic coast between Point Barrow and the 
mouth of the Mackenzie, tens of thousands of 
caribou have been killed by natives, and sold 
to whaling ships wintering along that coast. As 
a natural consequence, the herds have nearly 
disappeared from that locality. 
Up to the time that Alaska was purchased by 
the United States, the natives had few firearms, 
or none at all, and caribou were abundant. 
Along the west coast, caribou once were so nu- 
merous that a cannon from the fort at St. Michael 
was fired at a herd that passed within half a 
mile of the settlement. As usual, we immediately 
supplied the natives with firearms and ammu- 
nition; and as a first result, the only caribou 
now remaining in western Alaska are the few 
stragglers that the hunters have not yet over- 
taken. A few herds of Grant’s caribou still 
inhabit the treeless wastes of the Alaskan Pen- 
insula, but on the Kenai Peninsula, the cari- 
bou is now believed to be almost extinct. In 
1903 it was estimated that only thirty individuals 
remained alive. 
The great herd seen by Mr. Tyrrell at Carey 
Lake, west of Hudson Bay, will be mentioned 
in detail later on. On the Labrador Peninsula, 
there are said to be three distinct herds, on Hud- 
son Straits, Ungava Bay, and the Atlantic coast 
