FAUNA AMERICANA. 235 



rutting season, the males diffuse a very disagree- 

 able odour ; they copulate only by night ; gestation 

 lasts thirty-three weeks, at the end of which time 

 they bring forth two young in the month of May ; 

 the duration of their life is about sixteen years ; 

 they feed on herbs in summer, and moss (lichen 

 rangiferinus) in winter, during which season they 

 scratch the snow with their feet in order to obtain 

 this substance; a dipterous insect of the genus CEs- 

 trus deposits its eggs in the skin of the Rein-deer. 

 Country and Usages. The Laplanders collect 

 large troops of Rein-deer, and travel with them, 

 according to the seasons, in order to procure these 

 animals their favourite nourishment; they castrate 

 the greater part of the males, and harness them 

 to sledges ; the females furnish them with milk, 

 the flesh and blood furnish them with food, their 

 skins with clothing, their tendons with sewing 

 threads, &c. In America, these animals abound 

 in the most northern regions, as Spitzbergen, 

 Greenland, Canada, &c. and do not pass the State 

 of Maine towards the United States; nevertheless, 

 they descend to lower latitudes in America than 

 in Europe ; they do not occur in Europe lower 

 than the sixtieth degree, though, according to an- 

 cient authors, they formerly inhabited the Pyre- 

 nees ; all the north-east coast of Siberia is inhabited 

 by them ; they are found savage in the Uralian 

 mountains alonsjthe river Kema. 



