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FRANK FORESTER^ FIELD SPORTS. 
open,—and the pastern of the Cariboo being very long and flexi- 
Dle, comes down the whole length on the snow, and gives the 
animal additional support.” 
Now Mr. Wallop is undoubtedly perfectly well acquainted 
with the general appearance and stature of the Rein-Deer , which, 
if not elsewhere, he must have seen frequently exhibited in 
English menageries—I remember a herd of thirty or forty head, 
shewn at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, not very many years 
since—and could scarcely fail to distinguish between that animal 
and the Cariboo, in point of size ; at all events, he knows what 
an Ox is, and could not compare the track of a beast the size 
of the American Deer, with that of one so infinitely its superior. 
Hence I judge either that there are in America two distinct 
varieties of the Rein-Deer—the Arctic animal and the Cari¬ 
boo—or that Mr. DeKay has taken his description of the Ame¬ 
rican Rein-Deer, or Cariboo, from the European animal, the 
size and habits of which are much the same as he describes 
those of our countryman. It may be, however, that the growth 
of the animal is stunted by the cold of the Arctic regions, and 
that they are both of one original species. 
Again, the gentleness and gregarious habits of which he 
speaks, are indeed strikingly characteristical of the European 
Rein-Deer of Lapland, Spitzbergen, and the like,—perhaps, 
also, of the Rein-Deer of the extreme Arctic regions of Ame¬ 
rica—but are in no wise common to the Cariboo, which is very 
rarely found in parties of above four or five, and never—to my 
knowledge—in herds exceeding twenty. 
It is, moreover, the shyest and wildest by far, as well as the 
fleetest, inhabitant of the northern forests; infinitely more so 
than the Moose, which can invariably be run down, when the 
snow is deep and crusted, by a strong hunter on snow shoes; 
whereas the Cariboo is so difficult of access, and so great is the 
velocity and continuance of his flight, that when he is once 
alarmed, and has betaken himself to his heels, it is considered 
utterly useless to pursue him farther. 
With these few preliminary observations—which I judge ne* 
