CARIBOU OR AMERICAN REINDEER. 
123 
necessary movements. In this way the hunters attain the very centre of 
the herd without exciting suspicion, and have leisure to single out the 
fattest. The hindmost man then pushes forward his comrade’s gun, the 
head is dropt, and they both fire nearly at the same instant. The Deer 
scamper off, the hunters trot after them ; in a short time the poor animals 
halt to ascertain the cause of their terror, their foes stop at the same 
moment, and having loaded as they ran, greet the gazers with a second 
fatal discharge. The consternation of the Deer increases ; they run to 
and fro in the utmost confusion, and sometimes a great part of the herd is 
destroyed within the space of a few hundred yards.” 
We do not exactly comprehend how the acute sense of smell peculiar to 
the Reindeer should be useless in such cases, and should think the Deer 
could only be approached by keeping to the leeward of them, and that it 
would be a very difficult matter, even with the ingenious disguise adopted 
by the “ Dog-Ribs,” to get into the centre of a herd and leisurely single 
out the fattest. 
Dr. Richardson considers the variety he calls the woodland Caribou 
as much larger than the other, and says it has smaller horns, and is even 
when in good condition vastly inferior as an article of food. “ The proper 
country of this Deer,” he continues, “ is a stripe of low primitive rocks, 
well clothed with wood, about one hundred miles wide, and extending at 
the distance of eighty or a hundred miles from the shores of Hudson’s Bay, 
from Athapescow Lake to Lake Superior. Contrary to the practice of the 
barren-ground Caribou, the woodland variety travels to the southward in 
the spring. They cross the Nelson and Severn rivers in immense herds in 
the month of May, pass the summer on the low marshy shores of James’ 
Bay, and return to the northward, and at the same time retire more inland 
in the month of September.” 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
This species exists in Newfoundland and Labrador, extends westward 
across the American continent, and is mentioned both by Pennant and 
Langsdorff as inhabiting the Fox or Aleutian Islands. 
It is not found so far to the southward on the Pacific as on the Atlantic 
coast, and is not found on the Rocky Mountains, within the limits of the 
United States. According to Pennant there are no Reindeer on the 
islands that lie between Asia and America. It is somewhat difficult to 
assign limits to the range of the Caribou : it is found, however, in some 
one or other of its supposed varieties, in every part of Arctic America, 
including the region from Hudson’s Bay to far within the Arctic circle. 
