198 BULLETIN OF THE 



Old Continent, is, that their horns are always shorter, less concave, more 

 robust, the palm narrower, and with fewer processes than those of the 

 former," — a view that has been adopted by other writers. Respecting 

 this assumption Dr. Richardson thus observes : " 1 can with confidence say, 

 after having teen many thousands of the Barren Ground kind, that the 

 horns of the old males are as much, if not more, palmated than any antlers 

 of the European reindeer to be found in the British Museum." If atten- 

 tion is given to the parts of the above quotation from Dr. Richardson that I 

 have italicized, it will be seen how unreliable must be any distinctions 

 based on the horns, unless the comparisons are more extended than they r 

 thus far seem to have been. That the h< rns of the Barren Ground form 

 may differ from those of the wooded districts in other points than size is 

 quite possible, but in the several pairs of horns of the latter in the Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoology there is a very close resemblance to those of 

 the Barren Ground and Greenland caribous figured by Baird and Richard- 

 son, the Northern Maine specimens much more nearly agreeing with these 

 than with Professor Baird's figures of the Lake Superior one (No. 900), which 

 is evidently an extreme form. The horns of the northern or Barren Ground 

 race of the American reindeer, according to the best authorities, do not 

 differ essentially from those of the reindeer of the corresponding districts 

 of the Old World. Mr. Murray quotes Mr. Alfred Newton as saying, in 

 reference to the reindeer he saw in Spitsbergen : " The average type of a 

 good Spitzbergen head is very well represented by the first figure in the 

 Fauna-Boreali Americana (Vol. I, p. 240) of the so-called Barren Ground 

 caribou (Cerous tarandus, var. arcticus Richardson) "; which testimony 

 of Mr. Newton, he states, is supported by that of Mr. Lamont* Mr. New- 

 ton, however, says the Spitzbergen reindeer are " certainly smaller than 

 the Lapland reindeer." 



Professor Baird observes, respecting the American woodland race, that 

 its relationship to the European reindeer is not well ascertained. "The. 

 opinion." he says, " is gaining ground that the Barren Ground reindeer is 



distinct, and as this species cuts it off from the Arctic Circle, it would seem 

 most probable that it cannot be the same with the animal inhabiting the 

 circumpolar region of the Old World." But the recorded observations 

 seem fully to prove, as is now. indeed, currently admitted, the existence 

 of two similar races on the Old Continent, — a northern and a southern, 

 differing from each other nearly as do the Barren Ground and woodland 

 varieties in North America. Hence if we allow two species of reindeer for 

 America, why not two for the Old World? But there, where the species 

 has been longer and is belter known, competent authorities seem not to 

 doubt their identity, and from which some even regard the American as 



' i ; iog. Distr. of Mam., \>. 155. 



