32 Captain Brooke on the Economy of the Rein- deer. 



2. Food of the Rein-deer. 



The summer food of the reni-deer is not merely moss. The 

 animal in this season strips, with great pleasure, the leaves from 

 the birch, sallow, and aspen, particularly the former, and browses 

 also upon the young herbage, and the tender shoots of the 

 mountain shrubs, which it crops hastily as it passes along. 

 It is affirmed, that where the rein-deer has been feeding, no 

 cattle will graze for a considerable time afterwards. 



The food, and almost entire subsistence of the animal, during 

 winter, as is well known, are different lichens, but chiefly the 

 Lichen rangiferiiius^ or rein-deer moss. The properties of this 

 plant, which is thus so providentially strewed over a country 

 destitute almost of other vegetation are very nourishing, and 

 capable of supporting even man himself; though it is not, I be- 

 lieve, ever used for this purpose by the Laplanders. It seems 

 probable, that this, as well as the Lichen islandicus (Iceland 

 moss), might be applied with great advantage to the purpose 

 of making a more nutritious and palatable kind of bread, than 

 what is used occasionally in the north of Sweden and Norway 

 by the peasants, in years of extreme scarcity, the chief ingre- 

 dient of which is the bark of the fir. Cows are said to be very 

 fond of this lichen, when fed upon it ; and the quantity of milk 

 then afforded is greater than is produced by any other diet. In 

 those parts of Lapland, where rein-deer are kept by the Swedish 

 or Finland colonists, hay is sometimes given them as food du- 

 ring the winter, should there be a deficiency of their usual sub- 

 sistence. 



As to the question once raised, whether the rein-deer ever 

 ruminate, which was denied by some, it is unnecessary to say 

 more, than that experience no longer permits the fact of their 

 ruminating to be a matter of uncertainty. 



3. Rein-deer MilJc, and preparations made from it. 



The Laplander is a wanderer both from nature and necessity. 

 His subsistence depending entirely upon his deer, which are left 

 free and unconstrained, his own movements may be said to be 

 guided by theirs, and by them also his habits of life are in a great 

 measure formed. The number of deer belonging to a herd is 



