14 ARKIV FÖR ZOOLOGI. BAND 6. NIO J:. 



way. There has thus originally been two different races of 

 Wild Reindeer even on the Scandinavian Peninsula one large 

 of Woodland type (Rang i jer tarandiis fennicus) and the other 

 of Tundra type (Rangifer tarandus Lin.) — the naked moun- 

 tains or fells offering from a biological point of view analo- 

 gies to the tundra or barren ground. It has already been 

 mentioned above that the tame Reindeer of the Laps belong 

 to the latter race, but there exists still in some parts of 

 Northern Sweden a smaller number of tame Reindeer, that 

 all the time live in the woodland and on the moors, never 

 ascending the mountains. The aberrant habits of these Rein- 

 deer which are larger than the others has for a very long 

 time been a puzzle, but it appears now that it may be ex- 

 plained by assuming that these domesticated Reindeer of 

 the woodland have descended from the formerly existing 

 wild Woodland Reindeer, or more probable still have origi- 

 nated as products from crossing the tame Reindeer (the typi- 

 cal R. tarandus) with wild stags of the Woodland race. The 

 offspring has then inherited its liking for the forest from its 

 Woodland-ancestors. Not only the habits but also the greater 

 size of the tame »woodland» Reindeer (»skogsrenar») is thus 

 easily accounted for. 



Rang-jfer tarandus sibiricus Murray. 



In his renowned work »The geographical Distribution of 

 Mammals»! Murray introduces the name »Rangifer tarandus 

 var. Sibiricus» for a Reindeer found in »Siberia, Kamtsch[atka]». 

 From another passage it is understood that »Siberia» really 

 means Siberia eastward of Lena. Åt another place in the 

 w^ork quoted the following w^ords are to be read: »The Si- 

 berian differs from the Lapland in a greater breadth of horn, 

 a greater number of snags, and a general disposition to palma- 

 tion, not shown, as in the American and Greenland types, 

 by a flat ploughshare, but by curved and flattened snags» 

 (1. c. p. 155). This description is of course as well vague 

 as insufficient. Middendorfp stated that the Reindeer be- 

 longing to the Tschuktsch were very small and together with 

 the Spitzbergen Reindeer smallest of all. Exact measure- 



^ London 1866. 



