Pike writes (1917 [1892]: 50) that “within the last three years [_i.e._, about 1888] the [Barren Ground?] caribou have appeared in their thousands at York Factory . . . where they have not been seen for over thirty years.” Preble (1902: 41) quotes Dr. Alexander Milne as thinking, after 14 years’ residence at York Factory, that the small bands of “Woodland Caribou,” found between Churchill and Cape Churchill, form the “northern fringe of the bands which migrate to the coast in spring, the great majority of which in their journey cross to the south of Nelson River.” At that time, however, Preble (1902: 42), like Richardson before him, seems to have regarded the Churchill River as the southern limit of the Barren Ground species, and thus he may not have considered the possibility of the animals of Cape Churchill and the Nelson and Hayes rivers belonging to the same species. It is difficult to draw any sure conclusions from the confusing records just quoted. Possibly chief reliance should be placed upon the testimony of such high authorities as Hearne, Richardson, and Preble when they refer to the animals as Woodland Caribou. Furthermore, none of the early writers identify them unequivocally as the Barren Ground species. It remains fairly evident that long ago some species of Caribou in great numbers did actually cross these rivers in a southerly direction in the spring, pass the summer on the coastal tundra east of York Factory, and return northward or northwestward in late summer or autumn. Whichever species it was, it represented a segment of the population that must have become reduced to utterly insignificant numbers, if not entirely extirpated, some decades ago. In any event, it does not seem very likely that we shall ever be able to reconstruct the actual movements of the “incredible multitudes” in the York Factory region of more than a century ago. Since the beginning of the present century, until very recent years, there seem to have been few or no Manitoba records of _R. a. arcticus_ from any locality so far to the southeast as York Factory. In 1947, however, Mr. G. W. Malaher, director of the Game and Fisheries Branch in Manitoba, informed me that during the previous couple of winters the animals had ranged southward on a broad front to the latitude of Oxford House, where they had not been known for 40 or 45 years. It was surmised that the recent burning of large areas north of The Pas, resulting in the destruction of the Caribou’s normal winter food of lichens, had deflected the animals toward the southeast and had caused them to extend their migration beyond its normal limit. The Split Lake band of Indians (on the Nelson River) were said to have killed 4,000 Caribou during the winter of 1946-47, and to have used half of them for dog feed.