Nautilus
[See CANOE.] Paddle. A short kind of oar, held in the hand, and not resting in a rowlock, provided with one or two blades or palms. The usual length is about 8 ft., and the width of the blade about 6 in.; they are usually made of pine or spruce, and consist of blade, round or shaft, and ferrule. Palm.-[See PADDLE.] Portage.-(1) The carrying of a canoe round overland past an impassable bit of river or sea. (2) The place of such carrying.
Rob Roy.-[See CANOE.] Round. The shaft of the paddle.
Stretcher. The board against which the feet are pressed to steady and enforce the stroke.
Well. The opening in a decked canoe to admit the putting in of cargo and to accommodate the crew.
Bibliography.- Description of the New Rob- Roy Canoe, J. MacGregor (Sampson Low), 1866; A Thousand Miles in the Rob-Roy Canoe, J.
MacGregor (Sampson Low), 1866; Canoe Travelling, W. Baden-Powell (Smith and Elder), 1871; Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition, article, "Canoe,” J. MacGregor, 1876; Canoe and the Flying Proa, W. L. Alden (N.Y.), 1878; Voyage of the Paper Canoe, J. R. Bishop (Douglas, Edinburgh), 1878; Practical Canoeing, "Tiphys" (Norie and Wilson), 1883; Canvas Canoes, P. B.
Field (Forest and Stream Publishing Co.), 1887; Canoe Handling, C. Vaux (Forest and Stream), 1888; Canoeing and Camping Out, J. D. Hayward (E. Bell), 1893; Across the Everglades, Hugh L.
Willoughby (Dent), 1898; See also Yachting.
CAPERCAILZIE [Cock o' the Woods; Tetrao urogallus; Coq du bois, Fr.; Tiur, Nor.; Tjäder, Sw.; Auerhahn, Ger.; Gluhar, Russ.]. This magnificent bird, the (2) The Rob Roy, called after the pseudonym largest of the grouse tribe, among English of Mr. John MacGregor, the father of modern canoeing. This is a decked canoe, generally built of oak or cedar, for one or two persons, and able to carry a small sail, but chief reliance is placed upon the paddle. The average length of this type is 14 ft. by 26 in. wide. It is always clincher-built. (3) The Nautilus type and the developments from it. A larger Rob Roy, designed by Mr.
Baden-Powell, with a view to improve the sailing powers and quality of the craft. Like the Rob Roy, it is generally clincher-built, but the larger sailing canoes are now built with smooth skins, and approach very closely in general character to the ordinary sailing boat.
Paper boats are extensively used in America, sportsmen termed shortly "the Caillie," is described over nearly the whole of Northern Europe wherever large forests of pine or fir exist, and over portions of Central Europe, where the same trees abound at a considerable elevation. Woodlands consisting solely of deciduous trees, however extensive, it never inhabits. But although common in parts of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and elsewhere, the vast tracts of North-west Russia and the Scandinavian Peninsula may be regarded as its peculiar home.
After Archibald Thorburn.
CAPERCAILZIE.
THE TATE CENTRAL LIBRARY BRIXTON, S.W.
CARIBOU] In Scotland.- Said to be indigenous in Scotland, it there became extinct, until early in the present century the then Marquis of Breadalbane re-established the Scandinavian breed in the woods of Taymouth Castle, whence it has spread over various parts of the country similarly suited to its habits.
Favourite Haunts. Its favourite haunts are ranges of pine forest broken by rocky ravines and low cliffs, with open tracks of mossy swamp, coarse herbage, and frugiferous shrubs, whither it can resort for food at early morn and before dusk. It is also partial to wandering on the borders of forest clearings, and makes such habitual use of cattle-paths and other rough woodland tracks as to be easily trapped. Great numbers of frozen Capercailzie are exported during the winter from Russia and Scandinavia. At that season, when the snow lies deep, it feeds on the shoots of the pine until its flesh becomes unpleasantly impregnated with turpentine, but in Northern countries affording abundance of wild forest fruit, bilberries, cow- and bearberries, cranberries, and the like, the young birds are, in the autumn, delicious eating, and the old ones at least well-flavoured and free from taint. The richly sombre plumage of the cock Capercailzie, its defiant head and eye, strong beak and marked beard, all suggestive of its notorious pugnacity, render it one of the most strikingly handsome and game-like of birds, and its great size and weight make it one of the noblest feathered prizes that the sportsman can secure. It is the stag royal of the winged race.
Driving. In Scotland and most Caillieproducing countries it is often customary to drive the birds over the guns, and the ease with which driven Caillie may be killed is by no means proportionate to their conspicuousness as a mark. To a novice, at least, their flight is most deceptive, inasmuch as they appear, from their bulk, to be moving but slowly, whereas they are, in fact, travelling at a great pace. Many sportsmen, however, will derive greater satisfaction from bagging the giant grouse under conditions less artificial and demanding more individual patience and woodcraft. There are, indeed, few wild creatures more wary than a truly patriarchal cock Capercailzie; he can on occasion run like a hare, and even when taking wing within distance, either from the ground or the branch of a tree, has an instinctive knack of interposing obstacles between himself and the gun. His pursuer, whether searching the pine-clad ravine, the depth of the forest, or the borders of the morass, cannot be too cautious or noiseless. Elk-dogs of the smaller breed are in Scandinavia occasionally trained to work up to Capercailzie in a leash, a deadly method of approach.
The Hen [Röc, Nor.; Tjäder-höne, Sw.]. -The hen Caillie, also of noble size, but often wholly out of proportion to her gigantic and polygamous mate, is a careful mother, keeping the young brood together at the commencement of the shooting season, and exhibiting, like the grayhen, much noisy, self-exposing anxiety when danger threatens.
In favourable localities, as when the brood has run down into a willow-swamp to feed, the young cocks will lie well, and may be killed over a steady dog. A hardhit Caillie will, after a considerable flight, possibly out of sight, almost invariably fling himself under the first, even inconspicuous, bank or ledge on either side of his course, and there die or lie still; he may, therefore, by observation of the flight and the ground, often be gathered without difficulty.
In the spring courting-season the cock Capercailzie's wariness is intermittently dominated by amorous ardour. Posting himself at daybreak on the branch of a selected tree, he thence utters his love-call to the hens, and during each brief repetition thereof becomes absolutely deaf and blind from passion. The watchful gunner has therefore as many correspondingly brief opportunities of approach, but must, when the call ceases, remain instantaneously rigid in his then position, for his intended victim suddenly regains his acute senses, and the slightest sound or motion proves fatal to the stalk. Devotees of this sport describe it as intensely exciting and fascinating, which is naturally a matter of taste. Tetrao urogalloides (Rakkelhane, Nor.) is the hybrid between the Blackcock and hen Capercailzie.
HENRY POTTINGER.
CARIBOJ. - Owing to the inaccessible nature of its haunts, the life-history of the Caribou is involved in some obscurity, and it is not quite certain whether there are two species, the Woodland and the Barren Ground (C. tarandus and C. tarandus arcticus), or whether they are not both merely varieties of the European and Asiatic Reindeer. The forms certainly seem to intergrade, so as to make it difficult to draw any specific line; but the extreme varieties have very different habits.
The Barren Ground Caribou wanders far beyond the Arctic Circle, into those desolate regions which it shares with the Musk Ox, and it indulges in very curious and extensive migrations in the spring and fall, these migrations being in some respects different for the two sexes. When migrating, the herds assemble in enormous numbers, as the Bison used of old on the great great plains of the West, and the Spring Buck in South Africa. In fact, this is the only American mammal which can still, at certain times and places, be found in the same incredible numbers as of old; for it is protected, as Bison, Elk, Deer, and Antelope are not, by the remoteness and frozen desolation of the wastes where it dwells. a The Woodland Caribou, on the other hand, is beast of the dense Northern forests; in most localities it does not possess any very marked habit of annual migration, though at all times a restless, wandering beast; and it is usually found in small parties, and never in immense herds. The Woodland Caribou is found here and there in the forests of Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and in two or three places penetrates across the border of the United States. Like all other large game, it retreats before man, but nevertheless it holds its own against him better than most of its congeners. Caribou are more plentiful in Maine at present than they were thirty years ago. They have one very great advantage in the struggle for life over their giant cousin, the Moose, who SO often dwells in the same forest with them. The Moose's long legs and vast power enable him in winter to go through snows where an ordinary deer flounders helplessly; but, when the snows are very deep and a crust forms, he can be run down and killed, with no difficulty beyond the severe toil involved, by any hardy man who is an expert snowshoer. In many localities, in consequence, the settlers have completely killed out the Moose by this villainous habit of "crusting." The Caribou, however, is not, like the Moose, forced to plunge his legs through the snow to hard ground; he possesses huge splay hoofs and very limber joints, so that he himself has snow-shoes, as it were, and only under very peculiar conditions of crust is it possible for any man to get near him. When plunging at a gallop through the snow, the tracks he makes are not unlike those of a gigantic Rabbit; for the limber hind legs take his weight almost up to the hock. I have seen a Caribou run right away from a party of expert snow-shoers without showing any distress, though in snow where a Moose would have been overtaken in half a mile. [CARIBOU This capacity tells immensely in his favour, and more than offsets the fact that under ordinary circumstances he is less wary and more stupid than the Moose.
The best time for hunting the Caribou is when there has been a light fall of snow, and he can be tracked while the footfall of the still-hunter is muffled. But in good ground he is not a very difficult beast to kill earlier in the season. He is very fond of lurking about the barrens and cranberry CARIBOU. bogs which dot the Northern forests, and, if the hunter can see him here, there is always a good chance to creep up on him.
In thick timber, where the trees are close together and there is much brush, with crisp, dry leaves on the ground, it is exceedingly difficult for anyone but an Indian to get up to the Caribou, or indeed any other kind of game. In open forests of large conifers, however, I have found it easy to track and still-hunt Caribou, whether they were feeding or lying down.
If one is close on the game, they will often be so panic-struck by the first shot that it is an easy matter to kill several if there is need of the meat. I have had a young bull, whose companion I had just shot, stand looking at me fully half a minute in paralysed terror before it made up its mind to run off unmolested, as I did not want to kill it.
The sight of a Caribou seems scarcely as quick as that of the ordinary Deer, nor are its other senses so sharp, though like all game it has a good nose. It is not so wary as the Moose; but I may remark in CARIBOU] passing that my own experience has been that under like conditions the common American or White Tail Deer is the most difficult game on the continent to circumvent; doubtless it is for this reason that it holds its own in the land better than other beasts of the chase.
Caribou are great swimmers, and it is a very common thing to kill them in the water. Of course, however, no man would kill game swimming for sport, although, when exploring and travelling in the wilderness, any man must kill the animals he needs for food, just as he happens to come upon them. It must be remembered that the wilderness hunter, the man who roams through far-off wilds in chase of big game, cannot afford to give law to the beasts of the chase, as can his brother of civilised regions, who does not depend for his dinner, and perhaps for his life, upon the result of a single shot. Where parties of sportsmen merely take a three weeks' trip into the woods for Caribou, they of course kill only the bulls, and these only in legitimate fashion; but a man who travels for three months without seeing a single white face, or who spends his winter alone 500 miles from the nearest human habitation, cannot afford to take chances. If he finds a favourite pass in a lake, across which Caribou swim, he will kill them at this pass; and if, during the time of short rations in midwinter, the conditions of the enable him to run up to a herd on snowshoes, he takes all possible advantage of the opportunity. [See also REINDEER.] snow THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Newfoundland Caribou (Tarandus rangifer terra-nova).
Measurements. - Height, 45 to 50 inches at shoulder; length, 76 inches; weight, 280 to 400 lb.
Horns. The greatest recorded length of horn is 48½ inches; greatest number of points, 49. Antlers are locally judged by number of points. A 30-pointer is considered a warrantable stag, while perhaps a proportion of I in every 80 to 100 stags may carry 40 points or over. Many of the does carry horns, which they do not drop until April or May.
Migratory Habits. Until recent years the belief was generally held that all, or practically all, the caribou of Newfoundland migrated in the spring from the south and central districts of the island to the