300 THE REINDEER. 



the horse was either unknown, or at least extremely rare. 

 Gradually it seems to have become again abundant, both in 

 a domesticated and a wild condition ; until at length, as 

 population increased, the wild horse finally disappeared in 

 Europe, as he seems destined ere long to do in America.* 



The Reindeer still exists in Northern Europe, in Siberia 

 and in North America, where it has been found as far north 

 as man has yet penetrated. Even so recently as the time of 

 Pallas it might still be met with on the wooded summits of 

 the Oural Mountains, as far south as the Caucasus. In 

 Western Europe it is now an extinct species, though it was 

 at one time abundant in England and France, whence, how- 

 ever, it is unnecessary to say, it has long disappeared. M. 

 Lartet found no traces of it in any of the Spanish caves 

 examined by him ; Ponzi mentions it, though apparently with 

 some little doubt, as occurring among the animal remains 

 collected by M. Ptegnoli, at Cantalupo, near Ptome ; but its 

 existence south of the Alps seems still doubtful.^ 



At the present day the reindeer, like the Laplander, is 

 gradually retiring northwards, unable to resist the pressure 

 of advancing civilization. Even within the last ten years 

 a few families of Lapps might still be found in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Nystuen, on the summit of the Fillefjeld, and 

 some other places in the south of Norway, but none are now 

 to be found on this side of the Namsen river. The reindeer, 

 in a wild state, indeed, even at the present day, is generally 

 distributed, though in small numbers, over the highest and 

 wildest of the Norwegian fjelds, protected, however, by 

 stringent game laws, but for which it would probably have 

 ere now ceased to exist. 



* See, for further particulars, t Kapporto sugli Stucli e sulle 

 Brandt, Zoographische und False- Scoperte Paleoetnologiche nel Baci- 

 ontologische Beitriige, p. 176. nodeUaCampagnaBomana. Roma, 



1867. 



