There is fairly general agreement on the Caribou’s keen sense of smell,
good hearing, and less well-developed vision. But perhaps the
last-mentioned attribute does not so much constitute poor eyesight as
lack of _perception_ or _recognition_. In other words, is it not
possible that the animal is merely deficient in interpreting what it may
see clearly enough?
_References._--R. M. Anderson, 1913a: 8, and 1913b: 504;
Stefánsson, 1913b: 164, 1914: 58, and 1921: 307; Blanchet,
1925: 34, and 1926b: 48; Birket-Smith, 1929 (1): 106; Seton,
1929, +3+: 104; Murie, 1939: 245; Banfield, 1951a: 22.
_Gaits_
The three principal gaits of the Caribou are walking, trotting, and
loping. The animal seems to be in such a constant hurry that trotting is
fairly habitual. The speed of this gait varies with the urgency of the
occasion; also, according to Stefánsson (1921: 248), with sex and age.
When frightened by an enemy, a Caribou may start off with a loping gait,
but it soon settles down to its space-consuming trot, which keeps it
safely ahead of a Wolf in any brief chase. The initial leap takes all
four feet off the ground at once (_cf._ Buchanan, 1920: 126). According
to Charles Schweder, it is usually a single animal that reacts in this
way; but he has seen as many as six together leaping into the air. Fred
Schweder, Jr., has seen both bucks and does in this performance. My own
observations covered two lone adults (at least one a buck) and a lone
fawn. One of the former turned and took a step or so before making the
leap. The fawn (at Simons’ Lake in October), after allowing a canoe to
approach within 100 feet, started off twice in succession, and each time
with an initial leap into the air before settling down to a trot.
Even a summer fawn is reputed to be able to outdistance a Wolf. Lyon
(1824: 67) found a Caribou too fleet for a greyhound.
In trotting rapidly, a Caribou points its snout pretty straight to the
front, thus tilting the antlers backward a little. This gait, with front
legs stretching well out in front and hind legs thrust backward
correspondingly, gives a very characteristic and distinctive stamp to
the appearance of a fast-trotting Caribou. (Compare the sketches of
trotting Norway Reindeer by Seton, 1929, +3+: pls. 15, 18.) It is
apparently quite different from any normal gait of the White-tailed
Deer. A buck’s well-grown antlers are of such weight as apparently to
force it to hold its head rather rigidly while going at speed. If its
head swayed appreciably, the top-heavy antlers might tend to throw the
animal off balance. In a trotting gait, the hind foot may be planted
just beyond the spot where the front foot had rested. In walking, the
print of the hind foot may be superimposed on that of the other (fig.
20). The white “spats” just above the hoofs show to fine advantage when
the Caribou trots; they fairly twinkle. In a retreating animal the white
rump-patch appears in marked contrast to the dark brown adjacent fur.
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