mouth of the Mackenzie River--which happens to be a wooded country, and
there the moose also is met with.

Nature seems to have gifted the Barren Ground caribou with such tastes
and habits, that a fertile country and a genial clime would not be a
pleasant home for it. It seems adapted to the bleak, sterile countries
in which it dwells, and where its favourite food--the mosses and
lichens--is found. In the short summer of the Arctic regions, it ranges
still farther north; and its traces have been found wherever the
Northern navigators have gone. It must remain among the icy islands of
the Arctic Sea until winter be considerably advanced, or until the sea
is so frozen as to allow it to get back to the shores of the continent.

The "Woodland caribou" is a larger variety--a Woodland doe being about
as big as a Barren Ground buck--although the horns of the latter species
are larger and more branching than those of the former. The Woodland
kind are found around the shores of Hudson's Bay, and in other wooded
tracts that lie in the southern parts of the fur countries--into which
the Barren Ground caribou never penetrates. They also migrate annually,
but, strange to say, their spring migrations are southward, while, at
the same season, their cousins of the Barren Grounds are making their
way northward to the shores of the Arctic Sea. This is a very singular
difference in their habits, and along with their difference in bulk,
form, &c., entitles them to be ranked as separate species of deer.

The flesh of the Woodland caribou is not esteemed so good an article of
food as that of the other; and, as it inhabits a district where many
large animals are found, it is not considered of so much importance in
the economy of human life. The "Barren Ground caribou," on the other
hand, is an indispensable animal to various tribes of Indians, as well
as to the Esquimaux. Without it, these people would be unable to dwell
where they do; and although they have not domesticated it, and trained
it to draught, like the Laplanders, it forms their main source of
subsistence, and there is no part of its body which they do not turn to
some useful purpose.

Of its horns they form their fish-spears and hooks, and, previous to the
introduction of iron by the Europeans, their ice-chisels and various
other utensils. Their scraping or currying knives are made from the
split shin-bones. The skins make their clothing, tent-covers, beds, and
blankets. The