The wild range of the Woodland Caribou extends from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, with many wide gaps, to the head waters of the Yukon River, in southern Alaska. The following localities are worthy of special mention: northern Quebec and Ontario; James Bay; the northern end of Lake Winnipeg (occasionally); Lake of Woods, Minnesota; Oregon near Mount Hood; northern Idaho; northwestern Montana, and the mountains of British Columbia.
Quite recently, three new species of caribou have been added to our fauna, one from the Alaskan Peninsula (Rangifer granti), one from the Kenai Peninsula (Rangifer stonei), and one from the Cassiar Mountains (Rangifer osborni).
The Woodland Caribou attains nearly twice the bodily bulk of its more northern congener, the Barren-Ground caribou. In a state of nature it lives on browse, reindeer moss, tree moss, and lichens, and it loves ice-covered lakes and ponds as much as any boy. Its loose-jointed and wide spreading hoofs and enormously developed “dew-claws” have been specially designed by Nature to enable this animal to run freely, as if on snow-shoes, over snow or bogs, which to any small-hoofed deer would be quite impassable.
The female Woodland Caribou is provided with small antlers, which, like those of the male, are shed and renewed annually.
In the absence of caribou in the Park, visitors are advised to look for specimens of the Lapland Reindeer, (Rangifer tarandus), for we shall endeavor to keep this genus represented.
THE ZEBRA HOUSES, No. 14.
Although the main building of this installation has not yet been erected, the plan for the various buildings and corrals has been approved, and the main building was begun in 1911 and completed in 1912. The three buildings, and the extensive corrals connecting with them, as a whole, do justice to the important and picturesque Family Equidae, which includes all the zebras, wild asses and wild horses of the world.
GRANT ZEBRA.
The Prjevalsky Horses, (Equus prjevalskii).—Of all the wild equines which either now or hereafter may be seen in the Zoological Park, the strange little wild horses from western Mongolia are, and probably will remain, the most interesting, from a zoological point of view. Broadly speaking, they are the connecting link between the many-striped zebras, the little-striped quaggas and the wild asses on one side, and the domestic, unstriped horse on the other. These wild horses possess a narrow, dark dorsal stripe, which, in the winter pelage is scarcely visible, but in summer is plainly evident. A perfect specimen has an erect mane, no long forelock and no “chestnuts” on its legs. On the upper half of its tail the hair is short, and mule-like, but on the lower, or terminal half, it is long and horse-like. The winter coat of this animal is very long and shaggy.