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CARIBOU OR AMERICAN REINDEER. 
manner of the Reindeer of the old world, although so. nearly allied to that 
species that it has been by most authors considered identical with it. 
Whilst separating the Caribou found in Maine and the States bordering 
on the St. Lawrence, and in Canada, Labrador, &c., from the Reindeer of 
Europe, we are inclined to think that the Reindeer found within the polar 
circle may be the European species, domiciled in that part of America, and 
that they sometimes migrate farther south than even Hudson’s Bay. Sir 
John Richardson says the Reindeer or Caribou of North America “have 
indeed so great a general resemblance in appearance and manners to the 
Lapland Deer that they have always been considered to be the same 
species, without the fact having ever been completely established.” — Fauna 
Boreali Americana , p. 238. 
The greater size and weight of the Caribou found in Canada seem to 
have surprised Sir John, but while he says in a note (p. 239), that “Mr. 
Henry, when he mentions Caribou that weigh four hundred pounds, must 
have some other species of Deer in view,” he has not done more than point 
out two varieties of Reindeer beside the one he considered identical with 
Cervus tarandus the European Reindeer, and to neither of these varieties 
can we with certainty refer the Caribou, our present animal. In the 
Fauna Boreali Americana (p. 241) one of these varieties — C. tarandus, var. 
A. Arctica, Barren-ground Caribou — is said to be so small that the bucks 
only weigh from ninety to one hundred and thirty pounds, exclusive of the 
offal, when in good condition ; the other variety — C. tarandus, var. B. 
sylvestris, Woodland Caribou (idem, p. 250) — is much larger than the 
Barren-ground Caribou, has smaller horns, and even when in good con- 
dition is vastly inferior as an article of food.” 
Leaving these supposed varieties where we found them — in doubt — we 
will proceed with an account of the habits of the Caribou detailed to us 
by Mr. John Martyn, Jr., of Quebec : 
This species, that gentleman informed us, is not abundant near Quebec ; 
it is mostly found in the swamps, wherever these are well supplied with 
moss-covered dead trees and bushes ; the moss the animals prefer is a long 
and black species, and forms their chief subsistence during the winter 
months ; but towards spring these animals remove to the sides of the hills 
or mountains, and even ascend to their summits occasionally, feeding on 
the newly swollen buds of different shrubs. Like the moose deer they shed 
their antlers about this period, .and renew them in the summer months. 
The Caribou is famous for its swiftness, and has various gaits, walking 
trotting or galloping alike gracefully and rapidly. By many people these 
animals are in fact thought to be much fleeter animals than the moose, and 
they are said to take most extraordinary leaps. 
