extremely hardy, and will set at defiance even a Canadian
winter.--Talbot, vol. i., p. 301, Gould, p. 67.]

[Footnote 185: "In the western parts of Lower Canada, and throughout
Upper Canada, where it is customary for travelers to carry their own
bedding with them, these skins are very generally made use of for the
purpose of sleeping upon. For upward of two months we scarcely ever had
any other bed than one of the skins spread on the floor and a blanket to
each person. The skins are dressed by the Indians with the hair on, and
they are rendered by a peculiar process as pliable as cloth. When the
buffalo is killed in the beginning of the winter, at which time he is
fenced against the cold, the hair resembles very much that of a black
bear; it is then long, straight, and of a blackish color; but when the
animal is killed in the summer, the hair is short and curly, and of a
light brown color, owing to its being scorched by the rays of the
sun."--Weld, p. 313.]

[Footnote 186: Charlevoix says, "que la peau, quoique tres forte,
devient souple et moelleuse comme le meilleur chamois. Les sauvages en
font des boucliers, qui sont tres legers, et que les bals de fusil ne
percent pas aisement."--Tom. v., p. 193.]

[Footnote 187: The height of the domesticated reindeer is about three
feet; of the wild ones, four. It lives to the age of sixteen years. The
reindeer is a native of the northern regions only. In America it does
not extend further south than Canada. The Indians often kill numbers for
the sake of their tongue only; at other times they separate the flesh
from the bones, and preserve it by drying it in the smoke. The fat they
sell to the English, who use it for frying instead of butter. The skins,
also, are an article of extensive commerce with the English.--Rees's
_Cyclopaedia_, art. Cervus Tarandus.

Charlevoix says that the Canadian _caribou_ differs in nothing from the
_Renne_ of Buffon except in the color of its skin, which is brown or
reddish.--Tom. v., p. 191. La Hontan calls the _caribou_ a species of
wild ass; and Charlevoix says that its form resembles that of the ass,
but that it at least equals the stag in agility.]

[Footnote 188: Pennant is persuaded that the stag is not a native of
America, and considers the deer known in that country by the name of
stag as a distinct species. The American stag is the Cervus Canadensis
of Erxleben. The Americans hunt and shoot those animals not so much for
the sake of t