150 CARIBOU

timber, other than odd patches of small stunted balsams, —
is to be found growing on such a range, but willows and
“buck brush”? grow in profusion on the lower parts. At
a higher altitude than this rough swampy country there
is a bare, bleak, and ‘generally dry stretch of rolling hills,
where, apart from moss in places, no vegetation grows.
Here and there are wide areas of such inhospitable land
that you can travel for twenty or thirty miles without
finding sufficient sticks to build a small fire. This sort of
ground is terribly wind-swept, and so often affords a
supply of moss for food when other places are covered
deep in snow. That caribou should be able to withstand
the rigours of a winter blizzard up on such barrens is
astonishing considering the shortness of their hair, but if
you examine it closely you will find that, while it may
not be more than a quarter as long as that of a moose,
it is so dense that you cannot part it sufficiently to see
the skin; in addition, the fact that each hair is hollow
gives it a further advantage, as not only does it make it
more impenetrable to cold, but it is so extremely buoyant
that if you fall into water when wearing a coat made of
caribou hide with the hair on, you cannot sink.

It seems, however, that all the Osborn caribou do not
live on a range such as has just been described, but that
some of them roam about on high, dry, and usually rolling
hilltops far above timber level, and that such ranges, Or
rather the edges of them, are often inhabited by sheep,
and occasionally goats also. I know of one mountain
where there are always one or two sheep to be found,
and on it I have seen numbers of goats and several times
caribou.

Caribou will not live long if they cannot get their
favourite moss at regular intervals, and yet in spite of
this it is by no means their principal food. Perhaps my
experience may be different from that of others, but
though caribou may be noticed upon the higher hills
picking moss at times, I find that they are far oftener to
be seen browsing on willows and ‘‘ buck brush” or out on
a swamp cropping grass,