I was not fortunate enough to detect any flashing of the white throat,
as described by Preble (1902: 42).
Another silent signal is a most peculiar sprawling posture of the hind
legs, attained by thrusting one of them well out to one side and setting
the foot down. The legs are not then symmetrically placed; the one not
moved obviously bears most of the weight of the hind quarters. I managed
to film this stance in a buck standing on a sky-line on August 24
(cover). On September 9 another buck assumed the posture while looking
over our camp from a ridge on the opposite side of Windy River.
According to Charles Schweder, this is an expression of suspicion or
alarm, designed to communicate the same feeling to other Caribou. When
the others notice it, they stop and assume the same pose; it may be
observed in does and even fawns. Charles added that the tail is erected
at the same time--a very natural accompaniment, though I failed to
notice it.
In all the literature on the Barren Ground Caribou, I have found just
one reference to this posture, and that a distinctly fragmentary one:
“While [the Caribou are] thus circling around I have often been amused
at the manner in which they carry one hind leg. A novice in the hunting
field, after having fired a shot in their direction, would think that he
had broken one hind leg of each member of the herd.” (A. J. Stone, 1900:
53.)
The author makes this observation just after mentioning a herd sighted
near the shore of Franklin Bay. A virtually identical posture in the
Norway Reindeer has been sketched by Seton (1929, +3+: 112, pl. 18), who
labels it “surprize.” An analogy to the posture of the Caribou might be
found in a hand thrust out, with fingers spread, by a military scout as
a signal of warning or caution to his fellow scouts. A sprawling leg is
perhaps the nearest approximation to the human signal that a Caribou can
attain.
As noted in the section on _Gaits_, an alarmed Caribou may set off by
taking an initial leap into the air. According to Dugmore, such an act
on the part of the Newfoundland Caribou plays an important role in its
system of communications, not by means of sight or sound, but through
the olfactory sense. He observes (1913: 89-90):
“For hours afterwards _every_ Caribou, on arriving at the place where
the frightened ones had jumped, has started violently, and has on nearly
every occasion turned and run in a manner that showed every indication
of fear, even though my presence was entirely unknown to them. My idea
is that when the animal is suddenly frightened it expels a certain fluid
from the glands in the foot, and that this fluid is a signal of alarm,
a silent and invisible warning, but none the less so positive that none
dare ignore it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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