668 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[APRIL 28, 1906. 

The Deer of the Far North. 
(Concluded from page 629.) 
Early in March the female seals begin to bring 
forth their young, and the seal then became the 
chief object of chase by the Eskimos, who, as 
the days lengthened, moved out seaward on the 
ice from their winter residences on the coast to 
engage in the interesting task of hunting seals. 
After reaching the aforesaid caches, the bulk of 
the Eskimos would remain in the neighborhood, 
using the meat, trapping foxes and killing a few 
reindeer and making the usual preparations for 
the summer season, until the disruption of the 
ice, when many of them would ascend the river, 
visit the post, and spend some days in its imme- 
diate vicinity, and in due time proceed to the 
seashore, 
When I first reached the mouth of the Ander- 
son River, early in February, 1859, instead of a 
village, as I was led to expect, there was but one 
large house inhabited by fifteen men, women and 
children, while the nearest group of huts was, as 
they informed us, at too great a distance for us 
to visit in the very cold and stormy weather which 
usually occurs at that season, and ‘which, indeed, 
prevailed during our two days’ stay there. Our 
party comprised one Scotchman, one Swede, one 
French half-breed, and one Loucheux Indian, 
with two trains or teams of three dogs each. We 
found our quarters very warm and comfortable. 
Fort Anderson was established in 1861, after we 
had made several more winter trips to the same 
house, as well as to the spring provision rendez- 
vous on the ice, already mentioned. By the au- 
tumn of 1865, however, several new huts were 
built at intervening distances from there to with- 
in some sixty miles from the post. This was done 
at my request, and their occupants met with some 
success in trapping foxes and minks, with a 
few martens, in the wooded ravines farther 
south. 
On this and subsequent winter trips to the 
coast, we observed fresh traces of reindeer, while 
the Eskimos informed us that some animals were 
occasionally seen, and a few shot, most every 
winter, very close to the ice-covered sea. The 
Fort Indians usually snared a number of reindeer 
in spring and summer, but their big annual hunt 
was made in the fall, when they frequently shot 
and speared them by the hundred. During the 
winter season they always succeeded in killing a 
few individuals now and then, but more, of 
course, when the snow happened to be deeper 
than usual. 
When the fall of snow is light and the weather 
severely cold, the reindeer are almost constantly 
on the move, and are then very difficult of ap- 
proach. At such times, especially when rabbits 
are scarce, the “caribou-eating’ Indians _ fre- 
quently suffer much privation for want of food 
while following them for a living in their winter 
peregrinations. The skin of the reindeer fur- 
nishes the Eskimos with nearly all of their sum- 
mer and winter clothing. The hair or fur is 
never removed in this connection; the made-up 
skin of the fawn forms the inner shirt, with the 
fur side next the body. (The skin of the mus- 
quash is sometimes used in a similar manner.) 
The outer tunic, shirt or capote, with hood at- 
tached is made from selected portions of adult 
late summer or early fall skins, with the hair out- 
side and having the borders trimmed with a thin 
strip of the fur of the wolf or wolverine. A 
sufficient number of similarly scraped but un- 
dressed skins are sewed together and mounted on 
poles to form a summer tent or lodge, and also 
for sleeping robes or blankets for personal and 
family use. These robes are as flexibly prepared 
as the tunics, and are very comfortable on a 
cold, windy night. 
The Indians are also generally indebted to the 
reindeer for winter robes and capotes, and like- 
wise for tents and dressed leather for making 
moccasins, gloves, tunics or shirts, trousers, game 
bags and women’s and children’s clothing. Cer- 
tain inferior and many fly-cut skins are converted 
into “babiché” for lacing snow-shoes, and other 
suitable skins are made into deer snares and 
parchment for windows, while the tendons of all 
are split and twisted into fine and excellent 
thread for general use. 
The remarks made under R. caribou in respect 
to the number and appearance of the young at 
birth, etc., are equally applicable to this species. 
I may here remark that albinos are very rare 
among the northern deer. In 1886 I obtained a 
fine example, which was forwarded to the Smith- 
sonian Institution at Washington. It had been 
killed the previous winter by an Indian near Fort 
Chipewyan, Lake Athabasca, but, although I 
heard of a few instances elsewhere, I think this 
was the only one I ever saw in the interior. The 
Hudson’s Bay Company generally exports a num- 
ber of reindeer in a parchmentary and Indian- 
dressed state, which seldom realize more than 
their actual cost. In the years 1902 and 1903, re- 
spectively, they sold in London 321 and 267 rein- 
deer skins. 
Dr. Armstrong, of the Investigator, writes that 
besides several white bears, musk oxen and other 
polar animals herein referred to, the hunters of 
that ship, while wintering in Prince of Wales 
Strait, saw a number of reindeer, though they 
failed to secure even one. In Mercy Bay, latitude 
76° 6 north and longitude 117° 55’ west, however, 
where it was finally abandoned on June 3, 1853, 
the total number of reindeer killed between Oc- 
tober, 1851, and April, 1853, was 112. After 
reaching Melville Island, about latitude 75° north 
and longitude 109° west, the Doctor, with several 
officers and men of Her Majesty’s arctic ships 
Resolute (Captain Kellett) and Intrepid (Captain 
McClintock) shot a large number of reindeer and 
several musk oxen, the meat of which weighed 
over 30,000 pounds. : 

After four seasons’ experience, Dr. Armstrong 
came to the conclusion that the reindeer inhabit- 
ing Baring Island do not migrate to the south- 
ward thereof. In Mercy Bay and Prince of 
Wales Strait many individuals and small herds 
were seen and a number shot during the severest 
months of the winter. “In May and June the 
females calved in the ravines ana’ valleys border- 
ing on the coast where the sandy soil mixed with 
the alluvium forms a rich loam which highly 
favors vegetation and affords good pasturage for 
the hungry denizens of its wilds.” 
As reindeer are present all winter on Melville, 
Baring and other large islands of the polar re- 
gions, I think it may be confidently assumed that 
there is no migration from them to the continent. 
On the latter, however, from Port Kennedy (lati- 
tude 72° north and longitude 94° west), Bellot 
Strait, its northeastern extremity, there is ap- 
parently a regularly recurring season of migration 
south and north. There may be a similar annual 
movement of reindeer between the northern coast 
and Wollaston Land by way of the Union and 
Dolphin Strait, and also from Victoria Land to 
Kent Peninsula by way of Dease Strait. 
Lieutenant Schwatka.and Colonel Gilder ob- 
served considerable numbers of them passing 
over the ice on Simpson Strait late in the spring 
and early in the winter of 1879 between Adelaide 
Peninsula and King William Land (Island). 
General Greely gives latitude 82° 45’ north as the 
probable highest polar range of the reindeer. An 
antler and old traces were found on Grinnell 
Land. 
Sir J. C. Ross writes that the does arrived at 
Boothia in April and the bucks a month later, 
while herds of several hundred were seen in May. 
He also mentions that “the paunch of the deer is 
esteemed a great delicacy, and its contents is the 
only vegetable food’ which the Eskimos of that 
country ever taste.” 
While stationed at Mercy Bay, Dr. Armstrong 
made “various sectional preparations of the ant- 
lers of the reindeer in different stages of growth, 
as illustrative of its rapidity, in the hope of eluci- 
dating one of the most surprising processes of 
animal growth which bounteous nature enables us 
to contemplate as evidencing her wonderful re- 
productive powers.” 
Unfortunately for science, however, these speci- 
mens, together with a fine collection of birds, ” 
mammals and other objects of natural history, 
were left behind along with the abandoned ship 
Investigator. As already mentioned, a number 
of hardy reindeer bucks remain all winter near 
the arctic coast of the lower Anderson in Liver- 
pool Bay. 
The Killer. 
“T am the doubter and the doubt,” and as Mr. 
Whitney was not himself an eye-witness of the 
alleged battle between swordfish and killers off 
the Santa Cruz Islands, described in a recent 
number of Forest AND STREAM, he will pardon 
me for doubting that such an occurrence took 
place. There may have been some family trouble 
‘between members of a school of killers, but that 
any pitched battle took place between swordfish 
and killers is something I do not believe. Fur- 
thermore, although the killer is indisputably 
fierce, powerful and voracious, it seems entirely | 
probable that many of the statements regarding 
him are either entirely false or greatly exagger- 
ated. 
It is commonly stated that killers attack 
whales, seizing them by their lips and worrying 
them until they open their mouths and thrust out 
their tongues, which are then devoured by the 
killers. The lips of a whale are the toughest por- 
tions of its external anatomy, being as tender as 
sole leather, while they are as slippery as rubber 
and the last place that even so savage an animal 
as a killer could get hold of. 
As to sticking out their tongues, the finback, 
humpback and sulphur bottom whales are physi- 
cally incapable of so impolite a performance. The 
tongue of these species lies well back in the 
mouth and consists merely of a raised ridge of 
flesh about one inch in height and quite as in- 
capable of being protruded as is the tongue of a 
codfish. During a six weeks’ visit to a whaling 
station on the south coast of Newfoundland over 
fifty whales were brought in, and none of these 
bore any marks about their heads or flukes of 
having been attacked by killers. Over one-half 
the sulphur bottom whales had, however, lost the 
ends of their side flippers, and these had appar- 
ently been bitten off, although it is impossible to 
definitely state that such was the case. 
It is to be remembered that the accounts of the 
voracity of the killer rest mainly upon two state- 
ments, one by Captain Bryant and the other by 
Eschricht, and that these statements have been 
repeated over and over again, but that he is so 
destructive as is commonly supposed, may be 
doubted. 
In regard to the fur seals, it may be said that 
killers are not fotind in the vicinity of the Pribi- 
lof Islands at the time the seals are most abun- 
dant. In 1896 and 1897 few killers were seen be- 
fore October, and when they did arrive, very few 
pups or other seals were seen to be killed by 
them. If the killers are fond of seal meat, it is 
strange that they do not remain about the Pribi- 
lof Islands all summer, but they apparently go 
farther north and return again in the autumn, 
passing between the islands into the Pacific. That 
the killer is capable of devouring the largest seal 
with ease is undeniable, and Mr. Chichester saw 
St. George. 
The voracity of the killer is shown by the fact 
that one started to feed upon the carcass of a 
whale which was being towed into the factory 
by the steamer Cabot, and remained by the body, 
tearing out pieces from the throat, although 
Captain Bull repeatedly thrust into it the lance 
used in killing whales. 
The killer is also said to attack the whale by 
leaping out of water and falling upon the back 
of its victim. It has always seemed to me that 
the killer would feel such a blow quite as much 
as his larger adversary, and while I have seen 
killers jumping out of water at a distance there 
was apparently no whale present for them to 
jump on. 
Bullen in his “Cruise of the Cachelot” gives 
an account of a combat seen at some little dis- 
tance between two killers and a whale, but Bullen 
states that one of the distinctive features of the 
killer is the presence of a long fin on the under 
side, and any one who can see a fin on the 
ventral side of a cetacean can see almost 
anything. : 
As to the size of the killer, it may be said that 
twenty-four feet is an unusually large specimen, 
and while it may reach a length of thirty-seven 
feet, I should like to measure this specimen my- 
self. F. Asdsueag: 
Brookiyn, N. Y., April 16. : 
