Audubon's Mammals/MAMMALS1_3.BIN/dp/0023/00231.txt

Text File | 1992-08-25 | 38KB | 561 lines

$Unique_ID{QAD00231}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Caribou; American Reindeer     (Caribou)}
$Subject{Caribou; American Reindeer     (Caribou); Rangifer; Caribou}
$Journal{Quadrupeds of North America:  Volume III}
$Volume{Vol. 3:111-124}
$Genus{Rangifer}
$Species{Caribou}
$Common_Name{Caribou; American Reindeer}
$Log{
Plate CXXVI*00231P1.scf,43240031.aud
Audio*43240031.aud
Genus*00230.txt}

               (C) (P) Library of Natural Sounds 1990-91, 1992,
                              All rights reserved.
       Portions copyright (c) Creative Multimedia Corp., 1990-91, 1992

                       A U D U B O N ' S   M A M M A L S

                    By John James Audubon, F. R. S., &c. &c.

                                      AND

                     The Rev. John Bachman, D. D., &c. &c.

                  -------------------------------------------
                                   VOL.  III.
                        --------------------------------


                               RANGIFER CARIBOU.
                              [Rangifer tarandus]

                         CARIBOU OR AMERICAN REINDEER.
                                   [Caribou]

         PLATE CXXVI.--MALES.  Fig. 1.--Summer Pelage.  Fig. 2.--Winter


     R. Magnitudine fere Elaphi Canadensis; in aestate saturate fuscus, in hyeme
cinereus; vitta alba supra ungulas.


                                  CHARACTERS.

     Nearly the size of the American Elk (Elaphus Canadensis); colour, deep
brown in summer, grayish-ash in winter, a white fringe above the hoofs.


                                   SYNONYMES.

     GENUS CERVUS.  Linn., sectio Rangiferini.
     CARIBOU, OU ASNE SAUVAGE.  Sagard Theodat. Canada, p. 751, Ann. 1636.
     CARIBOU.  La Hontan, t. i. p. 77, Ann. 1703.
     CARIBOU.  Charlevoix, Nouv. France, tom. v. p. 190.
     REINDEER, or RAINDEER, Drage, Voy., vol. i. p. 25.
     REINDEER.  Dobbs' Hudson's Bay, pp. 19, 22.
     REINDEER.  Pennant's Arctic Zoology, vol. i. p. 22.
     REINDEER.  Cartwright's Labrador, pp. 91, 112, 133.
     REINDEER.  Franklin's First Voyage, pp. 240, 245.
     CERVUS TARANDUS.  Harlan, Fauna, p. 232.
     CERVUS TARANDUS.  Godman, Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 283.
     CERVUS TARANDUS--REINDEER or CARIBOU, Rich., F. B. A., p. 238.
     RANGIFER TARANDUS--REINDEER.  DeKay, Nat. Hist. State of New York, p. 121.
     ATTEHK.  Cree Indians.
     ETTHIN.  Chippewyan Indians.
     TOOKTOO.  Esquimaux.
     TUKTA.  Greenlanders.
     CARRE-BOEUF, or CARIBOU.  French Canadians.


                                  DESCRIPTION.

     Young, about two years and a half old.
     Larger and less graceful than the common American deer; body, stout and
heavy; neck, short; hoofs, thin, flattened, broad and spreading, excavated or
concave beneath; accessory hoofs, large but thin; legs, stout; no glandular
opening and scarcely a perceptible inner tuft on the hind legs; nose, somewhat
like that of a cow, but fully covered with soft hairs of moderate length; no
beard, but on the under side of the neck a line of hairs about four inches in
length which hang down in a longitudinal direction.  Ears, small, short, and
ovate, thickly clothed with hair on both surfaces; horns, one foot three and a
half inches in height, slender (one with two, and the other with one, prong);
prongs, about five inches long.
     Hair, soft and woolly underneath, the longer hairs like those of the
antelope, crimped or waved, and about one to one and a half inches long.


                                    COLOUR.

     At the roots the hairs are whitish, then become brownish-gray, and at the
tips are light dun gray, whiter on the neck than elsewhere; nose, ears, outer
surface of legs, and shoulder, brownish; a slight shade of the same tint behind
the fore legs.
     Hoofs, black; neck and throat, dull white; a faint whitish patch on the
sides of the shoulders; forehead, brownish-white; belly, white; tail, white,
with a slight shade of brown at the root and on the whole upper surface; outside
of legs, brown; a band of white around all the legs adjoining the hoofs, and
extending to the small secondary hoofs; horns, yellowish-brown, worn whiter in
places.
     There is a small patch of brown, faintly defined, around and behind the
ears.

     Description of the horns of another specimen.

     The two main antlers are furnished with irregular and sharp points, and
their extremity is pointed; some of these points are from six to eight inches
long, but most of them are quite short; width between the horns on the skull,
eight inches; width of horns at the root, two inches and three quarters; depth,
one inch and three quarters; length of main horn, following the curve, three
feet; there is a palmated brow antler with four points, on one side, inclining
downwards and inwards; on the opposite horn there are two points, but the antler
is not palmated; immediately above the brow antlers there is a branch or prong
on each horn about fourteen inches in length, terminating in three points; these
prongs incline forward and inward.  About half the length of the horn from the
skull there is another prong on each about two inches long; beyond these prongs
each horn continues about the same thickness, spreading outwards slightly to
within a few inches of its extremity, where one diverges into five points and
the other into six.  The horns are but slightly channelled; they are dark
yellow.  Between the tips, where they approach each other, the horns are two
feet apart, and at their greatest width two feet eight inches.
     The female Caribou has horns as well as the male, but they are smaller.


                                  DIMENSIONS.

     Young--about two and a half years old.             Feet.      Inches.

       Length from nose to root of tail,.  .  .  .  .  .  6          0
       Length of tail (vertebrae),.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  0          4
       Length of tail (including hair), .  .  .  .  .  .  0          6 1/2
       Height of shoulder,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  3          6
       Width between the eyes, .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  0          5 1/2
       From point of nose to lower canthus of eye,  .  .  0          9
       From point of nose to ear, .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  1          2
       Height of ear posteriorly, .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  0          5


                                    HABITS.

     The Caribou, or American Reindeer, is one of the most important animals of
the northern parts of America, and is almost as graceful in form as the elk
(Elaphus Canadensis), to which it is nearly equal in size; but it has never, we
believe, been domesticated or trained to draw sledges in the 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 America